Disclaimer: Stravaganza is not mine nor will it ever be.

The tale of the purple hat

It was just not fair! Luciano was fuming silently, thinking about the unfairness of the situation. It had been in no way his fault.

Okay, maybe just a little, but it was the only logical thing for anybody to do!
Now he was stuck inside working on some boring assignments, while everybody else was outside enjoying the beautiful weather.

It had al started when on his birthday Leonora had decided to buy him a hat. It was a truly hideous thing; bright purple, large and with a ridiculous feather attached on top of it. Not only he, but also Rodolfo and Dethridge, had looked upon it with looks of horror. Leonora had interpreted them the wrong way and had asked with a bright smile if he liked it.

"Yes, very much. Thank you," was the only possible answer he could give without hurting her feelings. Despite of her bad taste in hats he really liked his foster mother and he didn't want to offend her.

He also knew that Dethridge, who was most of the time peaceful and calm, would raise hell if he in any way hurt Leonora's feelings. So it was better just to take the hat and to feign gratitude. After all he could just "lose" the hat or at least stuff it somewhere in a small corner of his wardrobe so he never had to look at it again.

This initial plan was completely ruined by a suspicious Rodolfo (the man always seemed to know what Luciano was thinking) who threatened to tell Dethridge on him if he ever dared to "lose" the hideous thing. Luciano put on a nice show of looking hurt by Rodolfo's assumption and being innocent of ever thinking about something like that, but his master was in no way fooled. So Luciano just had to accept the fact that he wasn't going to get rid of the hat that easily.

This had led to Luciano taking the Thing, as he had started to call it, with him to Padavia. But maybe that was a good thing. He was sure that Dethridge would have forced him to wear It at least once to show to Leonora that he liked It. Now there was nobody around to see how he was not wearing It. He only had to keep the Thing so that if Rodolfo ever decided to check on him he could show him he still had It.

Piece of cake. Or so he had thought.

But then all of a sudden the perfect opportunity to get rid of It presented itself. Matteo, the new Stravagante, who was still entirely ignorant of Talian ways of dress, was in sore need of a hat and Luciano hadn't been able to resist the temptation. He couldn't stop himself from smiling inwardly when he say the look of horror on Matt's face when he say the Thing for the first time. He kept a straight face with great difficulty and even told the younger boy it was his favourite hat. That being said it was a lot harder for Matt to object to the Thing and so he was forced to take it. Another problem perfectly solved, at least from Luciano's point of view.

Up until a few days ago that was. Matteo had walked through the door, the Thing still on his head. Judging from the look on his master's face he knew exactly what Luciano had done.

Luciano sighed, he was screwed (situations like this always brought back his vocabulary from the 21st-century). Well, he had figured that somebody would find out eventually. Better Rodolfo than Dethridge.

But in order to keep Rodolfo from telling his foster father he would have to do some serious damage control. This meant he had two options; option one: act all sweet and innocent like he didn't know what he did wrong (he knew on beforehand that would never work) and option two: persuade Rodolfo that it wouldn't do any good to tell Dethridge about this (but then Rodolfo would think of a different way to punish him).

Well it couldn't hurt to give option one a chance. Immediately he plastered a unsuspecting smile on his face as if he didn't knew why his master was looking so angry at him. Seeing the face of his master darken even more he decided to abandon option one anyway.

Apparently it could hurt.

He let the smile fade and shrugged as if to say "what did you expect me to do?".

"Isn't that the hat you hated so much, Luciano", Rodolfo had asked in a perfectly clear tone to make sure that Matteo would overhear the words. Matteo's head had immediately shot up and it was clear that he was listening in on the conversation.

"This is not going as planned," Luciano thought.

"No, you must be mistaking. You're probably thinking about another one", Luciano said, his words directed more at Matteo than Rodolfo.

"No, I'm sure that is it", Rodolfo insisted.

"Okay, okay I admit it. That's the hat I hated so much and I still gave it to Matteo and yes, of course I knew he would look ridiculous with it" Luciano grumbled, not in the mood to engage in a discussion. Better to end it quickly. "Happy now?"

A stern look from his master clearly told him to lose the attitude and Matteo was not looking pleased either.

Time to give option two a go.

"The Dottore doesn't need to know, does he?" Luciano pleaded (not the most dignified of all strategies, but hey sometimes it worked).

"Give me one good reason not to tell him." was the answer.

"Uhh, well I don't want to hurt his feelings … or Leonora's."

"I'm sure you don't," Rodolfo replied rather dryly.

Rodolfo knew all too well he was trying to talk his way out of it. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't working.

Rodolfo then apparently decided it would no good to keep talking about it now. It was not the time nor place for this conversation. Luciano received a look that told him they would get back on this later.

Although Rodolfo was mad at Luciano he didn't want Matteo to smash his head in.

At least Luciano hoped he didn't want that. Rodolfo's presence seemed the only thing holding Matteo back and if he left it might have gotten ugly.

The fact that the other boy's shoulders were almost twice the seize of his own was also something he had overlooked. It was certainly not in his best interests to anger someone like that. Why didn't he think of that before? In hindsight it all seemed so obvious.

Luckily his master didn't get the chance to leave, because Constantin entered and broke the tension in the room.

Some time later Luciano managed to sneak out and get away unscathed.

Of course not long after that he had to face Rodolfo and that had ended in him sitting inside right now. Though he had to admit it could have been way worse, he still didn't like it. At all.

Sometimes life just wasn't fair.

The End

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