AN: As already promised at the end of the chapter I published a little earlier today, here is the second chapter of the story I am also publishing today.

Enjoy!

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For several years Diego and the Escalantes were almost inseparable, spending as much time together as they could, whether at the tavern or at the hacienda.

The fact that Señor Mateo volunteered, a few years after his arrival in Los Angeles, to use his free mornings to begin teaching the other children of the pueblo how to read and write - seeing how the school had stopped functioning after the death of the padre who had first started it - also helped provide them more opportunities to spend time together. That, in turn, gave the Escalantes a reason to visit the hacienda, where the classes were being held, three times a week. After their morning lessons, during which Diego sometimes acted as his tutor's assistant, patiently helping the smaller children, the Escalantes usually remained a few hours longer to play with their friend.

Just a couple of weeks after the De la Vega heir turned 13, however, everything in his life changed as Doña Elena became ill. She was barely 35 at the time and, as her health started to decline, Don Alejandro had various doctors see her after Doctor Hernandez offered him little hope that she might survive to celebrate their son's next birthday. He even wrote to doctors in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Spain, hoping they might be able to help her and be in time to do so.

In his turn, Diego went to the Indians to ask if their remedies might save his mother. The old, white-haired medicine man of the tribe listened to him describing her symptoms and Doctor Hernandez's diagnosis. Then, he taught the young man the secrets to some old traditional cures he believed might help alleviate her suffering, cures he would have normally only taught to his successor, and which Diego had to promise never to share with anyone else. Yet, he also warned the young man that, considering his mother's illness, any knowledge he might pass on to him would do no more than ease her transition to the world of the ancestors.

The teenage caballero understood quite clearly that message, and, from that day on, spent most of his free time with Doña Elena, fully aware that he was only to have her in his life for a short while longer. He, thus, started neglecting his friends which, with Señor Mateo moving the school to the pueblo, would barely see him once or twice a week.

During that time he became more and more introverted, doing his best to keep his fear, anger, despair, and many other feelings deep inside him, as his mother once taught him, not allowing anyone even a glance at what was truly in his heart so that he would not pass on to them his own sadness. When he could stand it no longer, he'd gallop away, as tears fell freely from his eyes, pushing his father's horses to their limits, sprinting over deep ravines, and only stopping at reaching the cliffs by the ocean. After an hour or two spent sitting on the ground and just crying, while his horse of the day rested and munch on the grass there, he'd return at a slower pace and resume the appearance of a carefree young man by supper.

Elena Felicidad de Lara, Doña de la Vega, died peacefully, a year and five months later, having survived over six months longer than Doctor Hernandez had expected she would. It was a hard time for Diego and his father, and they only made it through it by relying on each other, and by remembering that she didn't suffer as the good doctor said she might in the final stages of her disease.

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While he tried to be strong for Don Alejandro, the whole injustice of losing his mother like that stirred young Diego in a direction somewhat unexpected. He didn't blame God for not saving her, nor did he feel the need to harm himself or anyone else. Instead, all he wanted was to stop pain altogether. He, thus, resolved to dedicate himself to the bettering of others' lives and to the stopping of sufferance, be it due to disease or other people's actions.

The first time he allowed that impulse to take charge, however, was not for another person, but for a donkey. His animal's master, a merchant heading north through the De la Vega lands, was beating the poor creature with a riding whip for refusing to descend a ravine, unable to realize or not caring that the donkey was scared of the narrow path he had to take, and tired because of the load he was given to carry. Diego, who was just passing by on his way to the Indian tribe, stopped his horse and caught the man's arm, thus temporarily stopping the beating. He was about to offer to show him another way when the trader, who was enraged and had no idea he was dealing with a don, pushed him to the ground, then whipped Diego some ten times before two lancers, who came across them while on patrol, stopped and arrested him.

The man was, thus, dragged to jail and Diego took the animal to the hacienda, handing him to the stable hand to look after him. The old man agreed with a kind smile but scratched his head wondering what to do with the donkey as the De la Vegas only raised cattle and horses.

His young master then headed for his father's office, from which he returned with a small bag of money, followed by the older don. The two headed for town and Don Alejandro bought the donkey from the man who had whipped his son, then asked the Alcalde for his punishment to be receiving as many lashes as he had given Diego. The youngster, though, took pity on him and lied, halving the number to the astonishment of the condemned man.

After returning to the hacienda, Don Alejandro sent for one of his tenants, a young man he knew to be kind to other creatures. The man called Pancho and his wife were very poor and lived mostly by selling to the people in the pueblo the vegetables and corn they grew on their land. Don Alejandro had helped them with seeds and some tools when they had first arrived, and they rewarded that kindness by helping the don's favorite mare and new foal survive a difficult birth.

While the man needed some help with transporting his goods, sometimes having to go to the pueblo two or three times the same day just to carry everything, he was yet to gather enough money to buy an animal that might help him. Consequently, with Diego's agreement, the don offered him the donkey as a present, under the only condition that he would treat him well and take good care of the animal. Needless to say, the man was more than grateful, and, for years to come, he and his wife showed their gratitude by helping around the hacienda every Friday afternoon, cleaning the stables, or carrying for the orphaned foals or calves. Also, from the day he received the donkey, every morning, as he passed by the de la Vega hacienda on his way to the pueblo, Pancho would wave at Diego and at his father if they were in the courtyard, proudly showing off his four-legged friend.

As for the young caballero, after that day when he had only escaped unscarred thanks to the intervention of the lancers, he decided he needed to learn how to defend himself. Thus, while, before, he had refused to partake in any activity he viewed as violent, he suddenly decided to start training with the Indian tribe's braves.

That was, however, easier said than done. By the time he went to the tribe's chief and asked for permission to start training, the boys his age had already spent years doing that. Furthermore, he was skinny and had little muscle mass, which made it hard for him to even use a bow. The major advantages he did have, however, were that he was already quite tall, had long legs, was fast on his feet, and quite athletic.

It was how, despite being barely able to use a weapon and, considering his kind nature, quite reluctant to do so anyway, just a few weeks after he had started training, he won his first race. He did so by jumping over obstacles, climbing rocks and trees to get arrows previously placed there, and returning with the main prize of the day: a string of beads. From that day forward, assured by the tribe's elders that he was destined to become a great warrior, Diego started training every morning by himself, changing his schedule to make everyone believe he no longer wanted to wake up early so that he'd be left alone before breakfast. That time he'd use by training in the hills, running, climbing, jumping, practicing with a bow and arrows he had made himself, and aiming rocks at various targets to improve his aim.

Thus, just a few months after his training had begun, he was already considered the best archer among the young generation and was proving great promise with all of the traditional Indian weapons. Hand-to-hand combat, however, was what proved cathartic for the young man, even if it was also where most of his wounds and bruises originated.

His father started to worry as soon as he noticed a bruise around his eye one evening, and tried to find out how he had gotten it. His son, however, knew he'd be in trouble if he told the truth, so he lied, and that first lie was followed by many others as the young don disappeared for half a day saying he'd go fishing or just riding, then returned covered in new bruises and, sometimes, even in small cuts. Not even his tutor, Señor Mateo, who had become Diego's closest confident, had any luck finding out the true source of the injuries, and neither he nor Don Alejandro or his men were ever able to track him to the Indian village.

It was about then when his father's initial concern that he was getting into fights, a concern which was never confirmed by any of the people of Los Angeles, turned into a concern about his son's proneness to accidents.

His young heir had a kind nature and always seemed quite mature and poised for his age. Thus, as nobody could confirm he was ever seen throwing or receiving even one punch, and Don Alejandro was certain he would never try to hurt himself, clumsiness was the one explanation he could come up with, and Diego was more than eager to confirm it when he realized what his father was thinking.

It was also about that time when the teenage caballero first discovered the entrance to the secret cave behind the fireplace in the De la Vega library.

The shelf with the viewing hole held original editions of Latin and Greek writings, a trick Don Eduardo had employed to make sure nobody would be interested enough to look too closely there. The young don, however, was more than a little avid for knowledge, fluent in the language of Augustus, had run out of books to read, and decided to give them a chance.

As he did, and accidentally stumbled across the viewing hole, he realized that there was something behind that wall. Thus, after discretely asking his father if there were secret passages in the hacienda and receiving a negative answer from Don Alejandro, as well as a long story about European palaces being known to have such passages, he started searching all by himself, and, eventually, found the lever opening the sliding panel in the fireplace.

Since he was fighting a cold and was alone in the hacienda the morning when he made the discovery, he took his time to go through the sliding panel and explore the room behind it, realizing easily enough that, even if it was a natural cave, someone had worked on making it inhabitable. A small diary by his great-grandfather which he found there helped him understand when the passage to it had been built and the main room reinforced, as well as why his father didn't seem to know about it.

Advancing towards the external exit, Diego passed by a small stream that surfaced there and continued under the rocky walls, making its way outside the cave. He then studied for a few minutes the air vents, which provided the place with enough light during the day to see rather clearly around the main room and the passage leading, as he discovered, to the hills behind the hacienda.

He exited through the back and tried to see how far the exit was from the main house but, unfortunately, ran straight into his father, who immediately started chiding him for having left the house in his condition. Being still dressed in his nightclothes, only a robe on top of them didn't work in his favor and he found himself grounded for the following two weeks. That meant that he was not allowed out of the house, either to visit his friends or to go anywhere else.

So, while he had originally considered telling his father about the cave, Diego changed his mind, deciding it would be to his advantage to keep that knowledge all for himself since it provided him with a way out when he needed to make sure he could leave and return to the house without being spotted.

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Diego's friendship with the Escalantes endured, despite him spending much less time with them than before. As already mentioned, he still visited, even while his mother was ill, many times also accompanied by her. However, while he enjoyed spending time with the three siblings, in time, the difference in class, education, and age started asserting itself, pulling them apart.

While the young don was spending most of his time taking care of his mother, studying and, after Dona Elena's death, helping his father around the ranch and escaping to the Indian village whenever he had the chance, the three Escalantes spent most of their time at the tavern, helping their parents, and had little time for anything else.

Their conversations, thus, started to suffer, even if Diego did everything in his power to make sure they felt comfortable around him. Francisco, while respecting him a lot, soon started feeling inferior, thus many times avoiding his company. His attitude disappointed the young caballero, who, at the time, still considered him his best friend.

Ramon, who was five years younger than Diego, although he idolized him, was too young to participate in most of his discussions, thus easily bored by them and preferring Francisco's company or that of other children his own age.

Out of the three, Victoria was the only one trying her best to keep up with the caballero, borrowing his books to study in the evenings, and have him explain everything she didn't understand. She did so because she wanted him to know that she was smart and to respect her for that. Besides that, though, she always made sure to wait for him with a piece of pie she had made or some flan she had salvaged from her brothers' greedy hands.

Thus, Diego's relationship with the three Escalante children entered a new routine. They saw each other much less frequently than before Dona Elena became ill, yet they always knew that they were to visit the De la Vegas every Sunday, after mass, and, as long as the doña was well enough to receive them, they were there. While the adults talked to each other, Diego mostly listened to the Escalantes share their recent adventures, yet spoke little himself. He was doing that, on the one hand, because he was trying to avoid making them feel uncomfortable or boring the younger two, but, on the other hand, because most of his recent adventures involved his visits to the Indian tribe, which, being a secret, left him with only his books as subject of conversation. In turn, books tended to bore the Escalante brothers and make him appear pretentious.

Thus, in time, his lack of communication, rare visits, and several opinions she overheard in the tavern, mainly about what a good catch he would one day become for a young heiress, convinced Victoria that he was never going to see her as a potential love interest, even if every other boy in the pueblo was already taking notice that she was becoming very beautiful. Diego also took notice of that but didn't feel it was proper to say anything since she was still a child.

She was 10, going on 11 at the time she noticed the way most older boys looked at her, and, soon enough, decided that, if the 15-year-old Diego didn't feel the same as her, she had better turn her attention towards other youngsters her own age.

That was how she set her eyes on Gregorio, a young man who reminded her a lot of Diego, was just as handsome as he, a don, just like him, but also less than two years older than her and already under her spell since the moment he first saw her. When, just two weeks after he had started escorting her to the tavern after classes, Gregorio dared give her a kiss before she ran away, red-cheeked and enthusiastic, Victoria was certain she had, at last, found her soulmate. Two days later, she used the money her mother gave her for clothes to buy a ring and gave it to him on his twelfth birthday. The young man was over the moon, and he and Victoria already started planning their wedding and discussing how many children they were going to have, as well as how many servants they'd need.

Only a week after that, however, those dreams were ruined. While on a hunting camp with his father, Gregorio was abducted by Indians, and nobody in Los Angeles ever saw him again, despite the small garrison there spending months searching for him.

Victoria was devastated, but never lost hope he might still return. A few months later, though, as the search for Gregorio was stopped, even his father resigning himself to the idea of never again seeing his son alive, her eyes fell on another boy, a year her elder, called Juan. He, like every other youngster in the school, was more than a little smitten with the beautiful senorita and felt extremely lucky to have gained her favors. Their childish romance lasted for about two years until Juan's parents moved to Monterey.

Three years later, during which they had been in avid correspondence, Juan informed his beloved that he had decided to join the Royal Navy. He was but sixteen at the time, and Victoria tried her best to convince him against it. The young man, however, as the fourth son of a shoemaker, was certain that the Navy was his only way of advancing in the world. His last letter to her, in reply to her own asking him not to go through with his plan, was written in rather harsh terms, pointing out that 'a little girl' could not possibly understand the struggles of men.

She was sad and disappointed, spending days crying in her mother's arms, then, decided that romance was not for her, and vowed to give up on love altogether since boys were not worth crying over. That did not last, though, as her mother, hearing her words, promised Victoria that she would, one day, meet a man worthy of her love, so her daughter decided to keep her eyes and heart open.

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Meanwhile, the 17-year-old Diego, at his father's insistence, started attending every soiree the caballeros organized. At first, he felt rather awkward. He was growing up at double the speed of anyone else in his generation - mostly due to his training with the Indian braves - and was already taller than his father, making him one of the three tallest people in the pueblo and the tallest of his peers. Furthermore, his interests did not align with those of the other youngsters of his class.

The other young men spent most of their time trying to win the favor of the senoritas, for which reason they all started learning how to fence at a rather early age, and put on demonstrations in a bid to impress the ladies. Diego, on the other hand, had never been too good with the sword. That was because his father, while once a great swordsman himself, both lacked training by the time his son asked to be taught, and had very little patience to teach him, becoming easily frustrated with every mistake he made and too soon declaring him hopeless.

In truth, part of him didn't want his son to become a swordsman, both out of fear he'd then decide to pursue a career in the military, as he had, which might rob him of his only child, and because he didn't want him getting into duels as other youngsters already did. In turn, his heir was also relieved to be believed hopeless, if only because he had neither the intention to impale anyone nor any desire to get himself traversed by the weapon.

For a while he was, thus, somewhat of an outsider at the parties and the soirees, never taking part in any fencing competitions and completely uninterested in the senoritas of his class - which he found rather conceited, uninteresting, and far less beautiful than Victoria. That lasted until Diego discovered matchmaking.

Inspired by his books, he started offering the other young men advice on how to win the hearts of the women they liked. He did so, on the one hand, in order to be useful to the other dons. On the other hand, it served as a means for him to escape the attentions of the young women who, both inspired by his good looks and statuesque figure, and encouraged by their parents, seemed to gravitate towards him.

Thus, while pretending to do all in his power to comply with Don Alejandro's wish for him to dance with every marriageable young woman whose father considered Diego a good match for his daughter, he knew exactly next to which young caballero he should pretend a sudden cramp or extreme tiredness so that his new friend would chivalrously - and gratefully - take over dancing with the senorita. By the next soiree, the young lady in question was usually already considered to have made a match, and at least three weddings celebrated the year Diego had turned 18 were mainly a consequence of his actions and advice.

The same advice, however, when he tried giving his cousin, backfired terribly. Rafael had grown stubborn, as most De la Vegas, and somewhat entitled, even if smart enough to listen to his older cousin. His true problem, however, was his indecisiveness when it came to women, about whom he changed his mind as soon as he spotted someone worthier of his attentions. That was how, at age 16, the visiting Rafael was challenged to a duel by the brother of a young senorita he had dared to kiss, then completely ignore her during the following party to which he was invited.

As the younger man was in his care during the time he spent in Los Angeles, Diego felt responsible for his actions. Unable to stop the duel by himself, he, thus, did the next best thing. He informed the Alcalde who sent a few of his men to arrest the duelers, also at the young don's request. After a night spent in jail, neither one was in the mood for another fight, so Rafael politely apologized for his actions and, a few days later, returned to Santa Barbara, a little wiser than he had been a month earlier when he came on his annual visit to see his uncle and cousin.

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AN: Below are some info/explanations about this chapter.

Doña Elena's death – it is not mentioned in the show when and how she died. Some ff authors decided it had been in childbirth (an idea I don't know who came up with but admit to having also used myself in HiS :P); others put her death on some disease. Since in the show a second child (even one born dead or which simply hasn't survived) is never mentioned, I opted for the second possibility and (not sure you caught that) have, in fact, made Ynez Risendo the prime responsibile for her death (after all, who knows what she actually gave her to drink when she gave birth to Gilberto and Diego? Some substances act slowly…)

The cave – That little spy hole always bothered me. In the show it seems to be casting light over the books in the library so that it should be easy to spot, yet nobody ever does, not even the servants dusting the place. So I had to come up with a reason why nobody before or after Diego found it, a way for him to, and a time to do so when he'd not be inclined to tell his father about his discovery. Teenage years seemed perfect

The donkey – Donkeys appears in a few scenes in the show. In the second episode of the first season, right at the beginning, there is this man walking by the hacienda with his donkey and enthusiastically waving at Don Alejandro when seeing him in the doorway. Then, there is the scene with Palomarez being punched by Zorro and draped over a donkey. So… yah… I came up with a donkey story. Let's say I love picking on small details.