"Well of Sighs"
by
Ella Quince
What can I tell you about Ella that you don’t already know? Whe-he-heeell, pull up a chair, kiddie, do I’s got some stories, or what? I could tell you about that time when our regular Saturday-night cow-tipping session went terribly awry and it turned out the cow was not a cow but a bull and a frisky one at that too? Or I could tell you about our trip to Marrakech and the strange green meat-on-a-stick Ella insisted on eating ("My stomach can take that, you pansy-ass, ach!"), and the consequences thereafter.
Or I could just shut up before I got my ass kicked and tell you (cause I’m sure you haven’t heard this before) what a great story "Well of Sighs" is.
The one thing that truly sets most of the stories you’ll find on this web site apart from all the others that I’ve read, is not only a wonderful writing style, but also the author’s imagination. And I’m talking about the "what kind of mushrooms did you get on your pizza" imagination here. And yet, either through the way the author weaves her words or weaves her plot, the story comes off in such a way that you really have a difficult time doubting the plausibility of even the most fantastic plot-twists. This is one of those stories.
Xena and Gabrielle, passing through one of the myriad of valleys in Greece (have you ever been to Greece? They don’t really have valleys there, you know – but see, reading this story you’d never even doubt that!), come across a boarded-up well. After taking a sip of water from it, before Gabrielle can stop her, Xena loses a portion of her memory. Why, you ask? Well, of course, because she just drank of the waters of River Lethe, the river of, er, forgetfulness.
Gabrielle, being the smart bard that she is, realizes what has happened, but – alas – she is now faced with a Xena who has no memories of the past 3-4 years of her life, years which included both her redemption and her life with Gabrielle.
How is our bard going to win the trust of a power-thirsty and suspicious, and none-too-friendly warlord and return Xena her memory? Well, of course, she’s going to sleep with her. Heh. I’d be willing to go through that treatment any day, let me tell you that… But, back to the story.
I am not doing justice here to Ella’s writing skills nor to her wonderful sense of suspense. If I were to tell you any more, I’d ruin it. If I were to tell you all about it, I could never come close to describing how wonderful this story is. And, yes, there is a vague, but very poignant sex scene in there. (Just in case you were wondering. Not because I care.)
My only regret about reading this story is that Ella doesn’t seem to be writing Xena fan fic anymore so it stands as a bitter-sweet testament of her great skill.