Madness in a bottle
Timeline: Season 2, Intimate Stranger
Topic: What makes you feel vulnerable and what makes you feel invulnerable, and why?
A single memory of fire and screaming replays itself over and over like a bad nightmare that there's no waking from. Each emotion battles the other for supremacy in a thunderstorm of rage and sorrow, but both play second fiddle to a solid core of cold hate.
This is Callisto's mind.
This pain is all she knows, and she has wielded it. Sharpened it, if you will, like a mental weapon. She has enhanced every scream and sob, and can summon them at will. They fuel her hands and legs, forcing strength where her frail feminine body would normally not have allowed. They part her lips into sneers and laughs, though they like it best when she screams her battle-cry.
This is a child's mind.
Black and white. White and black. Callisto's family was innocent, so Xena is guilty. Xena caused pain, so she must pay it back with pain. When Xena pays, her family and friends will all stop screaming in her head, and they will be at peace. There is right, and there is wrong. Since Callisto is fighting for her family, she must be right. Hence, Xena is wrong.
This conviction makes her invulnerable.
Everything else is collateral damage. Callisto is a servant to her purpose, and her single-mindedness is to be admired. Callisto cannot die, because she is the last hope of her people. She is justice incarnate, and for justice to be done, Xena must pay. This is right. So Callisto is right. And Xena is wrong.
But then she falls into Tartarus. This time, she is not alone.
There are souls, reaching for her. Souls, shaped as people with wide desperate eyes, and their skinny little fingers are clawing for her. She has no idea who they are, until they tell her that they are those who have died by her sword. No, Callisto says, Xena is responsible. Xena started this chain of death, and I am but a pawn like all of you.
Callisto is a child who didn't grow up.
It wasn't me, she says. Oh yes it was you, they reply. They say nasty things about Callisto, about how she is blood-thirsty and evil, and that Xena is the good one. But Callisto can't believe their filthy lies, because they are stupid people and what do they know. They don't know about what happened to Callisto's family, but then someone says, yes I do. It is Callisto's mother, and the tears of shame in her eyes make Callisto want to die all over again.
She finally sees that all this while she's been a bad, bad girl.
There is no greater purpose or noble justice for our young Callisto. The hungry souls with their clammy hands seem intent on making her pay for sins she hadn't even been conscious she'd been doing. Even her mother, whom she has fought so much for, turns away from her as if she's just a stranger.
It hardly seems fair. But apparently the world doesn't do fair.
Topic: What makes you feel vulnerable and what makes you feel invulnerable, and why?
A single memory of fire and screaming replays itself over and over like a bad nightmare that there's no waking from. Each emotion battles the other for supremacy in a thunderstorm of rage and sorrow, but both play second fiddle to a solid core of cold hate.
This is Callisto's mind.
This pain is all she knows, and she has wielded it. Sharpened it, if you will, like a mental weapon. She has enhanced every scream and sob, and can summon them at will. They fuel her hands and legs, forcing strength where her frail feminine body would normally not have allowed. They part her lips into sneers and laughs, though they like it best when she screams her battle-cry.
This is a child's mind.
Black and white. White and black. Callisto's family was innocent, so Xena is guilty. Xena caused pain, so she must pay it back with pain. When Xena pays, her family and friends will all stop screaming in her head, and they will be at peace. There is right, and there is wrong. Since Callisto is fighting for her family, she must be right. Hence, Xena is wrong.
This conviction makes her invulnerable.
Everything else is collateral damage. Callisto is a servant to her purpose, and her single-mindedness is to be admired. Callisto cannot die, because she is the last hope of her people. She is justice incarnate, and for justice to be done, Xena must pay. This is right. So Callisto is right. And Xena is wrong.
But then she falls into Tartarus. This time, she is not alone.
There are souls, reaching for her. Souls, shaped as people with wide desperate eyes, and their skinny little fingers are clawing for her. She has no idea who they are, until they tell her that they are those who have died by her sword. No, Callisto says, Xena is responsible. Xena started this chain of death, and I am but a pawn like all of you.
Callisto is a child who didn't grow up.
It wasn't me, she says. Oh yes it was you, they reply. They say nasty things about Callisto, about how she is blood-thirsty and evil, and that Xena is the good one. But Callisto can't believe their filthy lies, because they are stupid people and what do they know. They don't know about what happened to Callisto's family, but then someone says, yes I do. It is Callisto's mother, and the tears of shame in her eyes make Callisto want to die all over again.
She finally sees that all this while she's been a bad, bad girl.
There is no greater purpose or noble justice for our young Callisto. The hungry souls with their clammy hands seem intent on making her pay for sins she hadn't even been conscious she'd been doing. Even her mother, whom she has fought so much for, turns away from her as if she's just a stranger.
It hardly seems fair. But apparently the world doesn't do fair.