Chapter 100 - 99: Gypsy.

Chapter 100: Chapter 99: Gypsy.

As nice as it is when Xena is quiet, Gurdet does so hate it when she sulks.

She’s so transparent when she’s just dying to chew him out for something, so he’d really rather she get to it instead of taking out her frustration on her poor crockery.

Clearly it’s him that’s done something wrong, but her teacup is paying for his crimes and actually chips slightly as she sets it down with unnecessary force for the dozenth time.

He lets her stew. No matter how perfect a princess she’s trying to be, eventually she’ll lose her patience with him.

"Tea, Bongo?" he asks, to fill the silence since no one’s spoken in an awfully long time.

Xena’s hardly said a word to him all morning. The soldier, standing at the door as was his duty, looks unaffected by the whimsical invitation, and dips his head respectfully.

"I must politely decline, Your Majesty," he replies solemnly, but Gurdet starts pouring him one anyways. As he must have known would happen.

"Come now, Bongo, you’d turn down a drink from your king?" he tuts, shaking his head in disappointment.

"Do have some tea."

"If you insist, Your Majesty," Bongo says, a little dryly, and leaves his post by the door to retrieve the proffered drink.

He’d never sit, of course, but instead resumes his vigil, this time with a teacup in hand.

His hands are enormous, and make the teacup look tiny and fragile, but years of catering to the whims of his king have taught him to treat it with care.

"Very nice, isn’t it?" Gurdet remarks breezily, as Bongo takes a delicate sip and nods approvingly.

"It is, Your Majesty," he agrees, "Foreign?"

"Good guess," he nods, pleased that he has a guard refined enough to taste the difference, "A gift, all the way from Feroiho." He takes another sip himself and hums approvingly.

It’s truly delightful, as expected. Feroiho is a kingdom renowned for its exquisite tea, after all, among other things.

The kind of kingdom he wouldn’t mind a proper alliance with. If only their Crown Prince weren’t sneaking about with the captain of his guard under his queen mother’s nose.

A pity. Xena might have been mother to some truly cunning children.

"What do you think, Xena?" he asks conversationally, "Should we start importing it regularly?"

His daughter’s empty teacup clatters into its saucer and her hands form fists before she can bury them into her skirts.

She covers for the slip-up by smoothing her dress down, and when she reaches for the teapot she seems a little calmer.

Gurdet waits expectantly for his scolding.

"Did you hear they got in another fight?" she asks, expression far more pleasant than her tone.

"This is my castle, Xena," he replies simply, as she pours herself a fresh cup, "Of course I heard."

"They broke a door," she says bluntly.

"And?"

"And...they broke a door!" she repeats, more insistently, this time to emphasize the gravity of the situation. Unnecessary, really, when Gurdet sees no reason for concern.

"He’s got too much of his mother in him," he sighs disapprovingly, like it’s to be expected.

"I distinctly remember your aunt and her gypsy boy breaking more than a door. A much beloved statue of your great-grandfather was the usual casualty, I believe."

Xena fixes him with a defiant look. He knows that look.

"They fixed it," she huffs defensively.

"They broke it several times," he reminds her long-sufferingly.

"They fixed it each time, didn’t they?" she says, adding, like it changes anything, "It’s an ugly statue anyway."

She’s not wrong, but, "It’s only ugly because they broke it so many times," he points out.

Even the best stone workers in the kingdom hadn’t been able to return it to its original glory, and after it had been knocked over for the third time or so they’d given up doing anything but putting it back together.

How it had ended up in the crossfire so often was one of the castle’s enduring mysteries.

"...That’s different," Xena insists petulantly.

"Different how?" Gurdet snorts, rolling his eyes, "Xena, your aunt threw the head of the statue at the boy.

Hit him too, if I remember correctly."

"They were in love," is her answer.

And unbelievably, she says it like she’s won. Like somehow destructive tendencies should be overlooked when it’s all in the name of love.

Gurdet can’t resist the overwhelming urge to roll his eyes.

"Eventually," he sighs, sending Bongo a long-suffering eye roll. If he’s looking for sympathy—which he is—Bongo’s the wrong person to go to.

"From the very first moment," Xena corrects, her pink eyes shining with what can only be described as sheer delight. "Aunty just played hard to get.

Because she wanted to see if he would chase her. And how far. And then if he would keep her, once he caught her."

Gurdet is familiar with the story. He was there, after all, something his beloved, blind daughter seemed to conveniently forget.

He was there, eyes set on the hand of the princess who came with crown, while her younger sister, the one with a wild heart and an infectious smile, spent season after season playing a game of cat and mouse with a blue-eyed gypsy boy.

Xena would defend the story to her death. In her eyes, her late aunt—bless her everlasting soul, obviously—had lived the kind of love story that bards immortalised in song, and had been the one to fill her head with all her ridiculous fantasies of love, and romance.

Honestly, that woman had a lot to answer for.

And beautiful story aside, Xena forgets, sometimes, how their story ended, that gypsy boys, no matter how hard they resist or how deeply they love, are like the wind, and blow from place to place with the seasons,destined to roam free, with nothing in this world that can pin them down for long.

Not the woman they love with all their fiery heart. Not her love for him, or the home he could have had.

Not the marriage vows he made, or the warm hearth she kept burning until the wind blew him back to her.

Not even his own son.