Rest.

After two weeks of hard travel the duo noticed tall rugged mountians in the distance. Even before they got to those though they were met by the loosely knitted trees of the forest marked on the map they had been given. The trees were mixed of deciduous and pines and through them narrow streams bubbled and trickled. The days were cooler here and the going slower as they meandered their way through the trunks.

Towards the end of the fourth day they came across a small shallow lake, fed from the streams they had passed along the way. The surface was dotted with huge lily pads and a wide variety of large dragonflies buzzed over head. The few stops Xena had made before seemed distant memories and Gabrielle longed for a decent nights sleep.

"Xena, let's rest here." she suggested, "I'll cook us some food and we can bathe in that lake." The waters did look cool and soothing and after a moments thought the Warrior Princess agreed.

"Yippee!" cried the little Bard and before xena knew what was happening she had leapt off of Argo, shucked her clothes off and was diving naked into the water. Her young friends exuberance made Xena smile and after dismounting and tethering Argo nearby she began a small fire. Soon a merry blaze crackled amongst some carefully arranged rocks, but it did nothing to drown out the splashing noises. Xena looked over at her friend and realised she too was longing for a good soak. It didn't take long for her to remove her leather armor, then she joined Gabrielle in the water.

The clearing around the lake rang, for a while, with the sounds of splashing, washing, play and chat. When the grime and sweat of the journey so far had been washed from her body Gabrielle emerged from the lake.

"I'll get some food going." she called to the statuesque brunette still wallowing in the cool water. Gabrielle trotted naked through the trees to where Argo was nibbling on a clump of grass and retrieved an iron pan from the saddlebags, along with some food. Nimbly she made her way back to the camp site and was just laying out the gear when she heard a low droning that seemed to be coming nearer. Thinking it was a dragonfly hovering near hear head she went to shoo it away with one hand. Suddenly six smooth glistening multijointed legs enclosed around waist and with little more than a startled yelp she was whisked upwards into the air!

"XENA!" cried Gabrielle as she was carried higher and higher.