"Xena, if visitors from other planets were watching us right now, what would they see?" Gabrielle looked up at the woman riding Argo.

"There’s no one watching us, Gabrielle, mortal or god. Believe me, I would know it." The warrior did not so much as even look around her.

"But what if they are from a planet in the Orion constellation and they are so advanced," Gabrielle let her imagination go, "they are flying above us in an invisible chariot? There would be no way you could tell they were watching us."

"I thought we agreed you wouldn’t score any more henbane brownies, Gabrielle. Remember? You ate three days’ rations and thought the known world was contained in your fingernail."

"I was speaking metaphorically," the bard sniffed indignantly. "As I recall, you thought I was brilliant. C’mon, Xena, give a guess. What would sky strangers see if they were to watch us over the course of a week?"

"Gabrielle, I could care less what anyone sees."

"On a bad day they would see a warrior sharpen her sword while a bard built a fire. On an average day they would see them travel through a forest or sail on a ship. On a good day they would see them fight and defeat highwaymen or raiders in front of grateful but paralyzed travelers or terrified but feisty villagers."

"So?"

"So, face it, Xena, we’re in a rut!"

"Then again," the warrior joined the mental exercise, "if these space travelers hurry, they will see an irritating blond chased down and gagged on mountain road."

"Xena, we need to go on a real vacation. Just the two of us." Gabrielle was lying on her side under the blanket watching Xena nudge a flame out of last night’s all but dead fire.

"What do you mean, like go some place we’ve never been before? We do that all the time. It's part of our job." Xena was intently adding another twig to the small blaze.

"I mean some place no one knows us, where we can just be ourselves for ourselves." The younger woman propped her head up with her hand. "Some place safe where no one needs us."

"Has it ever occurred to you that when we are some place safe, it’s usually because the people there know me?" The warrior managed a small smile.

Ignoring her, Gabrielle continued in a dreamy voice, "Imagine a little town nestled in the foothills, renown for its beauty. Or a city famous for its markets, theatres, and restaurants. Restaurants with exotic and glorious food."

"In with the food, out with the safety." The smile widened.

"Or a remote mountain village where people live as they have for thousands of years."

"Gabrielle, that's every village we've ever been to."

"I know, a peaceful island with friendly people and simple yet comfortable accommodations."

"Who’s going to pay for those simple yet comfortable accommodations?" Xena grumbled. "Sounds like a grand waste of dinars to me."

"We will need a plan, of course," Gabrielle laid back and gazed absently into the trees overhead, "so our vacation won’t turn into a disastrous road trip."

"A plan like the plan you are executing now, the plan where you lay around and jabber while I do all the morning chores? Or a plan like the plan I am about to execute, the plan where I get this fire going and then snatch back that blanket and …" Xena flashed a menacing grin at Gabrielle.

"I don’t share your vision on that particular plan," Gabrielle made a face, "but I am serious about this vacation idea, Xena. First, we decide where. Is there somewhere you have always meant to go but never had the time?"

"Oh, no way! You pick the place. That way, if I hate it, you can still enjoy it." Satisfied that the fire would stay lit, Xena regarded her friend. "Otherwise, if you hate it, I’ll wind up hating it too."

"Okay, great!" If Gabrielle was insulted, she didn’t show it. She was elated that Xena had all but agreed to her idea. "Tell you what. I’ll make up a list of potential places and you get to decide which one. That’s fair, isn’t it?"

Xena resigned herself to days of listening to Gabrielle decide what destinations would make The List. "Sounds fair to me," and reached for the blanket.

"Xena, here’s the Final List." Gabrielle waved the scroll at her friend. "Now, take your time in deciding where we are going. I’ve spent a lot of time narrowing our choices down to the final four. Well, make that five. I better add Babylon after all." The bard dripped her quill in the ink and made a few strokes on the scroll. She then blew on the new letters and regarded her handiwork.

Xena drained her mug and looked around for the innkeeper. "Is this the final Final List? Or another rough draft Final List so I can keep on practicing weighing out the pros and cons?"

"Sorry about Decelea. The more I thought about it later, the more I regretted making it a candidate."

"That’s okay, Gabrielle, I really didn’t want to go there anyway. Who wants to hike up a mountain just to rest at the top!"

"I nominated it for the ruins it’s built on. But now you don’t want to do mountains?" Frowning, Gabrielle scanned down the parchment. "We would have to cross two mountain ranges to get to Stobi." She scratched out a line. "Let me get back to you."

"Xena, you look younger and thinner without your bangs. I like it!" Gabrielle circled the warrior, appraising the new cut. "Although the stylist would have done a better job if you had not been playing with your breast dagger the whole time."

"He had scissors near my throat. Trust is what you do, not me."

"Then trust me, this vacation is just what we need," Gabrielle answered happily.

"I thought the whole purpose of this vacation was ‘to be ourselves for ourselves’." Xena buckled up her other brand new sandal. "If I can’t wear my everyday clothes, how can I be myself?"

"Everybody knows what Xena Warrior Princess wears. We’re going to be incognito, remember?" Gabrielle dug around in a huge burlap bag. "Besides, wearing a sword on your back can hardly be considered play clothes."

"Depends on the game. That stable man better exercise Argo. If anything happens to my horse while we’re gone…"

"You board Argo all the time when we are off on some mission. What’s the difference now?" Gabrielle draped a yellow two-piece outfit in front of her. "Are you sure you like the swimsuit I bought? I do think it will accent my good qualities and hide my faults."

"Are you kidding? What can be faulty about pubic hair? That little get-up couldn’t hide much else." Xena eyed the meager bits of cloth. "What are you going to do if that string breaks?"

"It won’t," Gabrielle assured her, "the shopkeeper promised me that it’s made out of this non-shrinkable, non-breakable leather with a hook guaranteed to stay fastened."

"Let me see that." She took the bikini top while Gabrielle buzzed over her pile of new possessions. Xena fingered the hook with interest. It was fashioned out of Talgamite, a substance that looked and felt like metal but melted if it got wet.

"This will be so fun, Xena." The younger woman practically pranced with excitement. "So much to do, so much to see! What should we do first?"

Xena tossed back the top. "I vote we hit the beach."

"Xena, if you don’t let go of that man’s throat, people will guess who you are!" Gabrielle whispered furiously into the irate warrior’s ear. Smiling sweetly as Xena reluctantly dropped him, she slipped between them and regarded the man choking and coughing on his knees before her.

"Please, sir, forgive my friend’s temper, but that saddlebag you lost on the ferry ride over here was given to her by her father on his deathbed. You see, she is very, very sentimental!"

The man regarded Xena skeptically while hacking out a reply, "I will see to it personally that it is found and I will bring it to you myself." Xena continued to glare at him while he appealed to Gabrielle. "Where are you staying?"

"At the luxurious Poseidon's Trident Bed and Breakfast, right on the beach! Surely you’ve heard of it." Gabrielle spoke with a lofty air of sophistication. She failed to note the changing look of surprise, then panic, on the man’s face.

He threw himself on Xena’s feet. "No need to cut off the flow of blood to my brain, I’ll tell you everything. Poseidon's Trident belongs to my family."

Gabrielle whirled on Xena. "See,I told you not to arm wrestle with the deck hands. Now the whole island will figure out who you are!"

Xena yanked the man to his feet and waited.

"That B & B is more like a P & U. It’s nowhere near the sea, it’s next to the town dump." The frightened man couldn’t talk fast enough. "There’s no bed and no breakfast, just a sob story about losing everything in the last big storm! We’ve been in business 35 years and never returned a deposit." Xena jerked him up off the ground. "Until now."

"Xena, where have you been all day?" Gabrielle slowly, carefully, raised her head as Xena opened the flap to their makeshift tent nestled in the cool of a palm tree grove.

"I'm here to check in on you," Xena knelt down besides her. "How's my favorite sun goddess?"

"My sunburn is killing me, I can barely move without screaming, and I ran out of aloe salve hours ago. I need you to rub some lotion on my back and hand me my –Hello!" Gabrielle noticed a pair of legs behind Xena. "Xena, who have we here?" The flash of fire from Gabrielle's eyes matched the color of her skin. "Out and about making new friends?"

"Gabrielle, are these the last of the shopping bags?" Xena deposited her load next to the rest of their belongings on the ferry dock and registered a now familiar chill. "Gabrielle? C’mon, at least nod your head 'yes' or 'no'."

"Xena, what if a space chariot would appear right here, right now, right in front of us?" Gabrielle posed the question the first night after they retrieved Argo. "What would they see?"

Xena stirred the campfire to reheat the water. "A burned out bard and a wasted warrior happy to be home."

You are the -th xenite to have vacationed with Our Grrls since May 21, 1998.