In My Life

Where have all the flowers gone?

Long time passing

Where have all the flowers gone?

Long time ago

Where have all the flowers gone?

Girls have picked them every one

When will they ever learn?

When will they ever learn?

--Pete Seeger



"Um, Hercules?" He didn't respond. "Hey, you aren't tripping are you?"



Hercules blinked. The memory of his long lost Yen Chau caused him to zone out a bit. "I only did that once." he protested. "And then only because Paul tricked me!"



"Sure. Whatever you say."



"I mean it, Autolycus. I'm not on anything stronger than caffeine right now."



"You don't drink, you don't use drugs or even smoke. What do you do for fun?"



"Well, I golf."



"/Golf/?" Autolycus rolled his eyes and made a face.



"Yeah. I go golfing. What's wrong with that?"



"Oh, nothing. Just that there are dozens of other more entertaining activities. Watching paint dry, snail racing, root canal surgery...."



"Autolycus, you've never given it a chance. Look, I got a tee time this Saturday. Maybe you could join me?"



"Or maybe I could schedule my laser treatment a few days early."



"Odds are every dermatologist in L.A. will be on the greens Saturday. Come on, Autolycus, don't knock it until you try it. Tell you what, why don't you bring this Annie person with you? I mean, if you decide you like her. I'll get a babysitter for the kids and bring Sam along. Make it a double date."



"I dunno. I want Annie to think I'm a cool guy who does cool things with cool people."



"What, we're not cool?"



"Well, I guess Sam might be." Autolycus smiled. "Let's make a deal, Hercules, I'll try this whole 'golf' thing, if you promise to give my favorite sport a fair try."



"And that would be...?"



"Sky diving."



"That's not a sport."



"And golf is?"



"It requires skill."



"Yeah, the skill to lie your ass off when you fill out the score card."



"If it doesn't have a ball, it's not a sport."



"Oh, yeah, you just love gripping your shaft and whacking those balls."



"Oh, that was original." Hercules rolled his eyes. "I've heard all the golf as sex jokes there are. At any rate, sky diving is a cheap thrill, not a sport."



"Hercules, you can smoke a cigarette while golfing. If you can do it while having a cigarette, it's not really a sport."



"Do you realize you just categorized cheerleading as a sport?"



Autolycus took out a cigarette and pretended to smoke it. "We got spirit, yes we do." he deadpanned between puffs. "We got spirit, how 'bout you? Yay, team."



"OK, a really crappy cheerleader could smoke and cheer at the same time."



"Say, Hercules?" Autolycus asked as he put away the cigarettes. "How come they changed Dorathea's name to 'Gabrielle' on the show?"



Hercules shrugged. "My guess is they didn't want her confused with Dorothy from /The Wizard of Oz/."



"Yeah, but, why give her a Hebrew name? No one in Greece had Hebrew names at the time."



"I had very little creative control over either show, Autolycus. Or else I would've been more insistent that they pronounce Iolaus' name right."



"Guess they couldn't very well call him 'eye-oh-lay-us'." said Autolycus, giving the proper Greek pronunciation. "OK. Here's one you might be able to answer. Whatever happened to the centaurs? Used to be herds of 'em, all over Europe. Now, it's like they never existed. Other than some stories and artwork that some people think were made up, there's no proof that they were ever around."



"Centaurs cremated their dead." said Hercules. "The ashes would be spread to the four winds. That's why there's no fossil record."



"But, the living ones that just disappeared...what happened?"



"Emperor Theodosius happened." Hercules sighed. "I had returned to Greece about that time. Not sure why. Guess I just wanted to look up the descendents of some friends. Met Calla, a descendent of Alexiares. And Vespus, a centaur descended from a centaur family I knew. Did you know Hypatia was a descendent of Dorothea's sister, Lilla?"



"Guess some things run in the family." Autolycus remarked.



"I was actually glad to see Theodosius come into power at first." Hercules sighed with regret. "I supported him and his cause. I never liked the idea of feeding Christians to the lions."



"Neither did I. Gave the poor lions indigestion."



"Autolycus...." Hercules glared at him.



"Heh, just kidding."



"I thought that with Theodosius in power, Greece would see a new era of tolerance and equality. That people would set their differences aside and see that they could love each other as fellow human beings. Boy, was I wrong!



"When Theodosius came to power, everything just flip-flopped. I thought that the Christians had learned from their previous treatment that it was wrong to oppress people. Instead, they wanted vengeance. They began treating pagans as poorly as they had been."



"So, all that 'love your neighbor' and 'turn the other cheek' biz just went out the window?"



"Pretty much. Anything Pagan had to be destroyed. Altars were ruined then rededicated to the Christian God. Many people had to either convert or lose their jobs, homes, even their lives. Children were even forcibly taken away from Pagan homes to be raised by Christians. Theodosius nearly canceled Solstice on top of everything else. The only way people could celebrate Solstice was if they said they were celebrating the birth of Christ. So, they got to keep decorating their trees, kissing under mistletoe and giving presents."



"A tradition that carries on to this day." Autolycus said proudly.



"Yeah. Theodosius grew mad with power. He and a few people who are now called 'saints' orchestrated the burning down of the Library of Alexandria, simply because it represented knowledge collected by Pagan philosophers. Fortunately, Calla was working as a maid in Theodosius' court and was able to act as our spy. She, Vespus and I managed to save a few scrolls before the library burned down. We gave them to Hypatia for safe keeping and she copied them, just in case. That's why to this day people still remember Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, Hippocrates, Thales, Homer and so many others."



"Yeah, but what's that got to do with the missing centaurs?"



"Even I'm not exactly sure what happened, Autolycus. It happened not long after an announcement Theodosius made. Since centaurs were not created in the image of God- according to him- then that meant they were beasts and thus humanity had dominion over them. That meant a human could make use of a centaur the same way he could a horse or a cow. You can imagine what the centaurs thought of that."



"I can imagine."



"Like I said, it's a mystery even to me exactly what happened. All I know is, one day Vespus came up to me and said he wanted to thank me for being a good friend to him, but he had to go. I asked him where he was going. He said he couldn't tell me where he was going, only that he was going for good. He hugged me, said good-bye and galloped away before I could say anything else. I called after him, but he just galloped over the horizon and I never saw him or another centaur ever again."



"So, that's it?" Autolycus asked. "The centaurs just 'poof' vanished one day into thin air? Not even a 'So long and thanks for all the hay'?"



"Centaurs don't eat hay." said Hercules. "I don't know where they went or how they left. But I've got a good idea why they did."



"Hercules, you don't think the centaurs, y'know, did what those Hindu monks did back in the '60's, do you?"



"I prefer to think they didn't. Sometimes, I imagine they all just went away to a far away land where no one would find them. Like the elves in /Lord of the Rings/."



"Yeah, nice to think that, I guess."





A/N: I liked the character of Gabrielle from XWP, but I never liked her name. It’s not that it’s a bad name, it’s just anachronistic. It’s a Hebrew name that means “God’s servant”. A character born in ancient Greece wouldn’t have that name. Dorothea is Greek and means “Gift of the gods” or “God’s gift”, however it pleases you to look at it. In proper Greek, “Iolaus” would be pronounced “eye-oh-LAY-us”. An umlaut is often placed above the A to denote this.



Also, sorry about the lame protest song, but I couldn’t think of a better title for this chapter.