After reading The Conqueror’s Stone by DJWP for the conqueror episode of Cocktail Hour, my co-host suggested that I read Seven Days in Pompeii. Anyone who follows the show knows that I have a weakness for phalluses (phalli?) and there’s a scene in Seven Days that Andy thought I would enjoy. So I grabbed the story from PDAfiction.com and got to reading.
The story opens with Xena mourning the loss of Gabrielle when she fell in the pit at the Temple of Dahak – the finale of season 3, I think. The author says she wrote this during the re-run season while she waited to find out what happens to Gabs. So Xena is missing Gabrielle and decides to read some of her scrolls during her first night alone. She pulls out the story of when they spent a week in Pompeii – the week before the eruption of Mt. Vesuvious – during the lead up to a major harvest festival. DJWP moves pretty smoothly between Gabrielle’s writing and Xena’s memories so the reader gets the complete picture. I won’t give any more away than that.
I will say that I do enjoy DJWP’s work. It seemed, though, that the story was almost divided into three parts: the loss of Gabrielle, the lead up to and the festival, and the eruption/post eruption. The first and the last part were pretty serious but the middle was filled with some good humor and funny situations and characters. It felt like it was almost written by a different person and, even though I laughed out loud and enjoyed it, it just didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the serious story. But I’d read it again so there ya go…
DJWP has several other stories posted on PDAfiction.com and I’ve downloaded them and absolutely plan to read them all.