She'd been snappy with him when he wrote it in his letter, but internally Zelda had to admit: things had been easier when they weren't courting. And she had decided this for them, had come up with the whole scheme to trick her family into allowing them to court, continued to refuse to elope because she could not lose her siblings, either. (Could not, despite their problems, do that to Xena with her sister's wedding coming up.)

"I wish things were easier," she said, because if acting almost exactly the way she was supposed to wasn't helping her, then - well, what would? Her entire life Zelda was convinced that her family didn't understand her, and nothing over the past several months had convinced her otherwise. They were never going to think that Zelda was anything other than their baby sister, that she was impulsive and a flight risk, and maybe she was.

(Did Alfred understand her? She liked to think so, even though the last week had been so difficult - usually he was good at meeting her exactly where she was, even if he sometimes showed up in her garden when she wasn't ready to see him.)

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