Daughter what is it? What has you so upset?" Cyrene inquired as Xena crouched down in front of her chair, she stretched out her hand to sweep a strand of hair off her daughter's face and tuck it back behind her ear. "Please tell me.," she pleaded as she clutched her daughter's hand, drawing it from her mouth where she was biting her nails and placed it with hers in her lap.

Xena restlessly swapped one leg to the other as her eyes trailed their joined hands, down to her mother's knees, their position making her realize for the first time in those past few years just how strong was the love that they shared for one another. Her mother would understand she convinced herself as she hastily babbled out.

"It's about the occurrences that have been happening in my life, since the last time I saw you." she stumbled over the words that fell out of her mouth.

She closed her eyes and took a short breath to calm the nausea settling in her stomach, biting her lower lip on the verge to say more, when an unexpected sound from behind her made her jump suddenly to her feet, tripping over her mother's boots. She managed to catch herself on the arm of the chair her mother sat in. Stilling herself, she realized it was some of her troops; a little embarrassed by her antics she leaned in close to her mother and whispered.

"We'll have to continue this later ok?"

She squeezed her hand with the one she still held and gave her a wink, before turning from her and towards the others behind her.

"If everyone will take their places my soldiers will transport the prisoner to his chair."

Afterwards, she shadowed her mother over to the table where she would be sitting and sat on the edge of the table in front of them casting a glance behind her at the others that sat with her mother.

The soldiers noisily crossed the room, clattering the chains they were carrying in their hands across the floor behind them. Following closely behind them was none other than the infamous prisoner, with the chains around his ankles, hooked to the ones around his wrists. They came to a halt close to a chair that sat in middle of the room in front of the tables.

Canis sat back into the chair and gave off a heavy sigh of relief from the heavy chains, afterwards noticing Xena; a wide smile adorned his face, his intentions made clear by the blunt stare at her when the soldiers fastened the chains from his wrist and legs to the rings on the chair.

Particularly insulted by the warlords' overtly examination of her, she commenced her interrogation.

"Ok Canis."

She only gave him two options.

"Are we going to do this the easy way…. before we try it my way? It's your choice."

Hearing just how limited his options were, the warlord burst out into an unprompted roar of laughter.

"Why don't we overlook all this nastiness and you run away with me?" he said, his tongue sliding across his bottom lip, as he wiggled his brows suggestively.

That very moment, Ares materialized in the corner of the cramped tavern in Amphipolis just in time to catch Xena backhanding the warlord that sat bound to a chair in front of her, across the face.

"Whoa I bet that smarted." Ares cackled through his bond with Xena.

The soldiers standing along the wall all shouted their approval, while her mother turned her head away and cried into her hanky, and Toris held his wife.

Canis raised his chin, a smirk bunching up the red handprint on his face from her backhanding him.

"You know, when the War God warned me about you, he forgot to mention how beautiful you are."

The Warrior Princess placed her hands behind her back and doing her best to disguise the smile that lightened up her features after hearing Ares cursing through their bond, she made a full circle around the chair where Canis was sitting..

She waited for the roar of the soldiers to die down before she inquired about him and the War God.

When it final did, she sat back down on the wooden bar stool that had been placed in front of the warlord.

Turning around to look at the table of witnesses behind her, she gave her mother a wink and an easy smile of encouragement.

"So you know the God of War personally?" she asked, turning her attention back to Canis, prepared to get down to the bottom of finding out who the ringleader that was leading this group really was.

"He has spoken to you?" she probed, doubtful that he was being truthful.

"Yes of course, I am his chosen!" he exclaimed gleefully hoping this bit of information would impress her and everyone else in the room.

She gave Canis a seductive smile, to encourage him to continue, and the fake grin worked when he unrelentingly told her more.

"The dinars we made off the ships at the docks were given to the War God as he requested." Canis replied, sitting back in his chair, convinced that she had to be impressed with that piece of information he supplied that she would not be able to resist him now.

"Tell me, Canis what would a God want with some measly dinars? " she further inquired, while getting up and walking to the table of her audience, stopping in front of Gabrielle anticipating the warlord's next answer.

Canis sat up, placed his elbows on his knees, and folded his hands together.

"Well, I don't know… I guess you will have to ask the War God that question." He said, reasoning that actually asking Ares this would be virtually impossible, and that she was playing right into his hands.

"Gabrielle you're an accomplished writer, and have dabbled in the many stories of the Gods and their Chosen, right?"

Gabrielle sat up straight in her chair, and cleared her throat, eager to respond to the Warrior Princess' question.

"Yes it is true I have read and told many stories on this subject."

"Tell us then, what is in part of the oath that is pledged between the pair?"

Xena turned back to face the warlord to see his face when Gabrielle revealed what she asked.

"That they would protect one another and are obligated to come when called upon by each." Gabrielle finished with her answer and sat back in her chair at the table waiting to see what was going to happen next.

"So what? "He replied, eying Cyrene sitting at the table. "Surely Madame you don't want the War God himself here in your establishment?"

Xena moved over to block Canis' view of her mother- who was also sitting back at one of the tables- and crossed her arms.

"I'll give you three chances to call your God before I break your neck for having lied to Me." she announced a determined look across her face.

Ares crossed the room and took a seat next to her on the edge of the table, guffawing and folding his arms across his chest.

"What a moron." he commented through their bond.

"Well you better be ready to play your part to a tee." she replied in the same way.

"But of course my dear." he responded as she lifted herself off the table at hearing the warlord call out Ares' name for the third time.

"So where is your God?" she replied, waving her arms around indicating the Olympian's absence.

"If you want him to show up so badly then call him yourself?" he mockingly countered her back, challenging her to try it and ultimately embarrassing herself too.

"Ok!" she merely retorted back to Canis, going back to the stool sitting in from of him and settling on it, she closed her eyes more than ready to show this idiot who was whose Chosen.

"If he doesn't come for his Chose, what makes you think he's going to listen to a mere woman?" Canis jeered through his hearty laugh.

Xena peered through the slits of her eyelids at the warlord lounging in the chair in front of her as a breeze rustled her hair around her face, in an apparently still room, his fragrance filling her perceptions like his deep smooth voice erotically occupied her mind, repeating.

"Just whisper my name my love."

Thank you Anca