With an almost superhuman, totally unjustified effort, the Warrior Princes finally stood up ,a dark frown accompanying the moan that she soon realized she had no reason uttering in the first place- the moment she instinctively took a hand to her chest, towards the spot where as far as she knew, there had to be a quite impressive gash drilling her flesh.

She was unable to suppress a loud gasp when the fact that there was no pain coming from the wound hit her, and moreover, as she carefully pushed the bandage aside she came to the awareness that not even the fading mark of a scratch had scared her skin.

"But how?" she managed to splutter, the tip of her fingers gently caressing the flawless, velvety surface. "Your powers...Athena..."

For a few short seconds, Ares considered whether breaking the news about her new immortal status was a wise thing to do or not...According to the old saying "The less you know, the better" , and most of all according to his highly manipulative character, he decided to wait, of course...

Instead, he just made his right hand glow a pale, golden light- containing the same godly energy that he had used in healing her battle injuries so many times in the past...

"Daddy's back" he answered on that same old arrogant, pompous tone that always made him feel better about himself.

"Oh goody...Still...I thought you couldn't heal lethal injuries without Athena's blessing..." she responded, a note of uncertainty in her voice.

"Let's just say that it was high time someone changed that crappy rule, and leave it to that? "

The Warrior Princess just gave him a rather intrigued look, a strategically raised eyebrow letting the God know that she was not at all convinced by his overly prompt and concise answer.

His only reaction was to challengengly raise both eyebrows, a puzzled expression painted on his face telling her quite directly that she was not getting more intel on the matter so easily.

"What about Kalamai? What happened?"

"What do you mean?"Ares rushed to ask while sensually unwrapping the long linen cloth from around her torso, a priceless, perverted smile playing on his lips at the sight of her fabulous, sexy breasts which literally paralyzed his any thought for a few seconds. "You won of course..." he added, fighting with himself to snap out of the trance, tracing a fine line down her chest towards her belly, where he stopped abruptly nonetheless, shifting his gaze back towards that deep, infinite blue of her irides ..."Just like you always do...".

The shade of what initially appeared to be an unmistakable smirk made way on Xena 's still incredulous expression, but the sharp tongued War God made sure to wipe it away incredibly quick with his following line. He was in fact one of the few people on the face of the earth who could actually do that...

"...And if it hadn't been for that sneaky, tastelessly coward and unscrupulous Sister of mine, we would have been celebrating properly as we speak..."

" Celebrating..." she stressed, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah...I would have been fucking your brains out this whole time instead of holding my breath to see if you bleed to death or not before my damned powers reached their maximum level so that I can fix you up..."

She just glanced at him with that cold, casual disdain that she used when looking at any common slave, and retorted on a tone that could have cut even through a thick iron shield, beyond any shadow of a doubt disturbed by the God's irking habit of treating her like an object.

"It's a good thing your lungs didn't burst then...That means I still have a chance to kill you myself..."

"Ohhhh! That passion in you! You wouldn't believe how much I've missed it..."

"You talk as if I've been gone for an eternity..." she bit back, pushing away his warm hand which had changed direction, heading for her long, silky tresses instead.

"It surely seemed that way to me...I've almost lost you..."

A blaze of rage ignited inside the raven beauty's soul as she recalled the Goddess of Wisdom's sneaky attack...As for the emotional content of Ares' former comment, she acted as if she hadn't even noticed it.

"I thought the die would turn once I was out of the game...I was almost sure Athena would use my absence in her advantage..."

"I didn't quite give her the time to regroup her troops..."

She gazed at him expectantly, obviously interested in hearing everything on the subject.

" I made sure our army squashed what was left of them."

"They were starting to retreat as I fell...: " she feebly protested, suddenly realizing that when he spoke like that, the insensitive Olympian was generally referring to a bloody slaughter, and not at all to a fair, honorable fight.

"They were running like cowards...So I figured that burning the village to the ground was a heroic enough end for them..."

"You cremated them..." she muttered lowly, being more than aware of his reasons.

"Pretty much..."

"And the women and children...?"

"...Everyone..."

There was a loud, hoarse gasp again escaping Xena's burning throat, but, being the smart lady that she was, she simply gave up debating the subject. She knew the hardheaded War God far too well as to guess that motives such as "One can't have War without Death", or the very popular " If they died it means they more than deserved it" were pretty much part of the speech that he was about to serve her if contradicting him was by any chance still on her mind...Given the fact that she was as tense as a bow string anyway, that was the last thing she needed- that was as clear as daylight- so she just figured that letting it go was the safest way towards a quiet, peaceful, very much needed restful night of sleep...

Everything blew up to smithereens though as a new question popped up unexpectedly in her head like the blinding flash of a lightening bolt:

"So...who commanded the army?"

The answer came out as casual and ordinary as if it had been the most natural thing in the world:

"There was that young boy...what was his name? "

"Lyndors?!" came the high pitched exclamation.

"Yeah...That kid was a brave, fearless soldier..."

"Was...?" she asked menacingly the very next second, on the tone of a mother protecting her young, something in her chest breaking the instant she realized what the merciless God had meant.

"He died a hero...Fighting for the ultimate goal of uniting the Greek territories under one banner..."

"You sick Bastard! " the Warrior Princess exploded, fire shooting from her mouth with every uttered word. "You killed him!"

"Should I feel offended by this harsh and flimsy accusation?"

As a response, Xena just directed a left hook straight towards the God's chin, a move that to her much dismay, the slightly bemused by her reaction Olympian, parried with tremendous easiness.

"...You're still a bit stiff...We should work on that later..."

"Gods I hate you!" she yelled in his face, pushing him brutally aside, while getting off the bed, ready to leave.

"Yeah, good luck with that" he incisively retorted, gripping her waist savagely and throwing her full force back on the bed.

Just like an enraged lioness, completely adamant about ripping her victim's neck from their body, she jumped at him, genuinely wanting nothing more than to tear him to pieces. She was again brutally shoved back by the equally furious War God, who was at his turn boiling mad for a reason that he was more than willing to throw in her face in the sole purpose of cooling his scorching heart already.

"He was that important to you, huh?! Next you'll be wearing mourning for any goofy idealist that crosses your path! Did he at least fuck you well enough? Did you enjoy it?!"

"There was nothing going on between us! He was just a kid for crying out loud! " she spitted out glaring daggers at him. "And plus...even if we had been playing house together, what's it to you? Are we exclusive or anything, cause you banging your own Sister sure doesn't fit the picture!"