Disclaimer: Characters aren't mine, never were, and this greatly annoys me. They belong to Rennaisance Pictures, darn it. Title: "Enough" Author: LadyRowan (rowandarkstar@gmail.com) Category: Xena/Ares, angst Timeline: Post-AFIN "Enough" by LadyRowan Copyright (c) 2009 He can't hit anything hard enough. He swings his sword, feels a god's power surging through his limbs once again, tears down forests and villages in his path, resurrects wars of old. But none of it is hard enough. No one fights with enough force to ache. No one...makes his teeth hurt. No one... no one. He listens to the trees. Listens for the gentlest rustle of leaves and remembers the flush on her skin and the vein at her throat as her senses stretched beyond any human's he has known. As she felt him, reached out invisible tendrils and crossed worlds to find him hovering between. He walks the ground of Greece and hears his footsteps echo through the hollowness beneath. He is drawn irrationally East, toward Ch'in; he is tempted to venture out for lands unknown. Something in him almost believes she lingers on those Eastern winds, wrapped in scents of silk and salt water. He tells himself he is a God, he is immortal, and no human holds sway with his soul. He will rampage and incite and conquer and fulfill his destiny in the universe. War is everything to him. War is his lifeforce. And she was nothing. A warrior he mourns only for the need to fill her place in his army. She left his army long ago. He has conquered much without her and will do so until the end of his days. He will strike and thrust and slice. But he can't hit hard enough. Never enough. #