In Which Xeta Is Promised a Poem

February 17, 1169

Xeta swooned inwardly as her eyes followed the letters on the page, careful not to miss a word. It was pretty enough on paper, but when she imagined it spoken--for in her head, she heard it in a man's seductive, whispering tenor--the poem somehow evolved from a mere thing of beauty to the very definition of the word itself. It was a little strange that it affected her so, really; she'd always been a practical sort of girl. Poetry, she had determined, was her guilty little weakness.

But what a splendid weakness to have! And really, was it so wrong to indulge oneself in so profound a thing? Poetry was a far more empowering vice than alcohol or illicit wagers; poetry, in Xeta's opinion, had the crucial advantage of enrichment. She'd never felt so cultured or enlightened before discovering it, even if it seemed a pastime more fitting of a more whimsical soul.

Someone knocked on the door. Startled, Xeta snapped the book shut, then moved her hand so that the title was conveniently obscured. "Yes?"

She didn't know who she had been expecting--her mother, perhaps, seeing as Lorn was out and her stepfather's knock was of the stronger, firmer variety--but it certainly hadn't been Jadin. What was he doing here? What reason could he have for such a spontaneous trip to the other side of the kingdom? "Reading again, I see--you and your books."

Her face growing warm, Xeta drew herself to her feet and returned the book to its place on the shelf; with any luck, he wouldn't be keeping an eye on that spot. "Uh... yes." She hadn't seen Jadin in any close proximity since Advent, when she'd blindly wandered under the mistletoe and he in all his drunken mania had endowed her with a firm, wet kiss. He hadn't paid her much notice after that, and she didn't really think much of it--besides, with the amount of wine he'd had that night, it seemed unfair to expect him to remember. In any case, it wasn't as if he was here for her. "Lorn's not here. He's at the castle."

"Oh." Jadin shrugged, then crossed the room and stopped a mere foot away from her; Xeta tried to step backward, but the wall was in her way. "Well, not a total loss, I suppose--I do get to see you. What were you reading? More on history and numerical theorems? Brushing up on your Greek, perhaps?" He glanced toward the shelf and smirked; she followed his gaze, embarrassed to see that she had not quite managed to align the anthology with the other tomes. "Love poems?"

Xeta nearly stumbled forward, stopping herself when she realize that she was about to fall right into him. "I... don't know what you're talking about."

Laughing, Jadin placed his hand on her shoulder and tilted her chin upwards with the other. Xeta had always thought her blue eyes to be her one beauty, but next to Jadin's, they must have appeared a dark, stormy sort of dull gray. "Oh, Xeta, Xeta, Xeta! I might have expected such interests from someone like Jeda or my sister Viridis, but certainly not you! I didn't know you were into all of this girl stuff."

"It's not girl stuff," she insisted, aiming for a disdainful emphasis on his crude phrasing. "It's beautiful. It's spoken song."

"Then how could it be beautiful?" he asked, a look of feigned anguish on his face. "The purpose of a song is to be sung, is it not? Why then would one speak it?"

Xeta rolled her eyes. "You just can't appreciate it because you have no depth."

"I resent that--I'm a bottomless pit."

"Well, seeing as I've seen you eat, I suppose I can't argue with that," she teased with a raised eyebrow. "But I stand by my previous statement."

Exaggeratedly wounded, Jadin clutched his hand to its heart. "How can you not see it? I'm deeper than the deepest valley; what would it take to make you believe that? Write you a poem?"

Xeta snorted; she knew it was unladylike, but upon the presentation of such an absurd notion, she couldn't help it. "You couldn't."

"Is that a challenge?" Jadin inquired, suddenly leaning toward her; surprised, she leaned away as he stroked her forearm.

"No," she replied, brushing herself where he had touched her, "it is a fact."

Shaking his head, he straightened his posture and crossed his arms. "A skeptic, I see. Well, I shall have to convince you, then. Just you wait; I will write you a poem, and you will like it, and then you must acknowledge the incredible depth of my... depth," he finished lamely.

Xeta frowned. "And suppose I don't like it?"

"You will," Jadin tried to assure her. "Just keep your dress on, little lady--I shan't disappoint you."

She pursed her lips and stared at him through narrowed eyes--unbelievable. "I don't think you possibly could."

The boy chuckled. "I'm not sure if that's supposed to be an insult or a compliment--I believe I shall take it as the latter."

"It was meant as the former."

"I stand by my decision." He pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, then turned around and began to make his way out of the study. "Now, I will hurry home and get to work on this poem of yours; your challenge, darling, is to labor over what eloquent phrases you will use to express just how deep I really am."

"I don't think there will be much labor involved," she quipped as he stepped further and further away. What a stupid, silly boy he was; what a waste of a good few minutes of her life.

And yet, God help her, she could not stop smiling.

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