I parried the blade and ran straight into him pushing his sword to the side as I prepared to go straight for his chest. He nimbly dances into the deflection and follows the path of his sword away from strike flowing right into a strike at the back of my neck. I jump forwards and dodge the blow as I turn around to face him.
We stare at each other as we circle each other looking for a weakness in the other’s defenses. I can’t find one though and so I stand in a defensible position as possible waiting for him to strike.
As we circle each other one more time I accidentally trip. Seeing a slip in my defense he charges me. I parry his first strike as I try to regain my footing but he ruthlessly presses his attack and I am forced to fall back in a stumbling manner as he isn’t even giving me time to catch myself.
Under his wave of blows, I am pressed so far back that I fall over. As I try to sit up I see the cold steel of his blade next to my throat showing that I have lost. He sheaths his blade before offering me a hand up with I gratefully accept.
“You've improved Diana. Usually, I’m able to knock your sword away before you have a chance to fall. It’s not like you’d ever be able to hit me though.”
“Sure you would Laslow, I bet if I wasn’t wearing these heels you would be the one on the floor.”
Flora had made it a rule that until I had gained enough experience wearing them. Saying something about how'd I'd need to fight in them if I was every ambushed at a social gathering or something. I thought the odds were low but she was right. I did need to learn to fight in them. It was just a pain to do so in.
“Your swordsmanship is improving, but it is still not near close enough to my skill at the blade. I am holding back after all.”
“I told you not to hold back!”
“Well I can’t ruin such a pretty face now can I.”
“I bet you wouldn’t even be able to touch me if I used my magic.”
“Your right, but that is not what we are here to train is it. Your magic may be formidable, but you must be able to defend yourself if someone charges you.”
“I can, I held my own against you for a while.”
“And win against them not hold them off. You won’t always have someone to back you up. Now get up and let's go again.”
I stood up straight with both my hands on my blade while Laslow held one of his behind his back while facing me with his side. He was a tricky opponent. He relied more on his nimbleness than his strength and had been dancing circles around me.
I had relied more on my strength and magic which left me at a disadvantage. I was glad for these lessons but they showed how much I lacked in swordplay. We’d been going at this for a week and although I hadn’t beat him yet I could feel my improvement.
I went for his backside sticking at an angle. I had learned not to go for an overhead blow as it is easier to dodge. He nimbly ducks under my blade and retaliates leaving me little time to parry his strike. We then exchange a short series of blows before I jump back and disengage.
In a straight up fight I’m at a disadvantage I need to find out some other way of beating him. I try to keep my distance while circling him to see if I can see some kind of advantage I can use.
Sensing my passivity he charges me and pushes me back to the wall at the edge of the training yard. My back is to the wall and as he strikes at me again I drop to the ground and duck under his blade. He then quickly follows up with a blow to my body leaving me little time to react. Luckily I had a plan, I push off the wall using the momentum to strike at his legs. Seeing my attack he easily jumps over my blade. I end up rolling past him and try to stand up. When I do though I feel something is wrong with one of my feet. I don’t know what is wrong but I can’t stand upright on my right leg.
Laslow quickly responds to my weakness attacking my right side and soon knocks me over after landing a hit to my chest knocking me over. As I fall I see the familiar sight of his blade at my neck.
“It’s important to understand your terrain but you must also understand your limits.”
He offers me a hand as he sheathed his sword and I take it as he lifts me back up. The pain in my foot then intensifies as the adrenaline fades.
Now that I don’t have to worry about Laslow I take the time to see my right heel is ruined and my foot is swelling from what I could guess was a sprain. Laslow looks down at my foot and sighs before picking me up in a princess carry.
“What are you doing Laslow! Put me down!”
I hit him in the chest but he ignores it until he sets me down on a nearby bench.
“I’m sorry your highness but I can’t have you walk on that. Seliph would kill me.”
“At least don’t pick me up like that. You could have just helped me walk over here. I’m not that frail.”
“I’m sorry your highness, I just didn’t want it to get any worse. I’ll be right back.”
He then walks over to a nearby table picking up some bandages and a salve. I had to admit that although the medicine here was primitive the herbs here had a lot more medicinal uses than on Earth.
After having dressed my wound he stands up with a look of concern as he looks at his handiwork.
“I’m sorry if I went too far my lady. I didn’t mean for this unfortunate event to fall someone as fair as yourself on such a fine day.”
“It’s fine Laslow, I did this to myself. Besides I’m fine.”
I try to stand but I wince as I stand on my hurt foot and he urges me to sit back down.
“To have exploited your inquiry in our fight was dishonorable my lady. I am ashamed of my regretful display.”
“What did you do this time Laslow!”
“Felicia! I didn’t do anything I swear.”
I turned to see Felicia come in with a scowl on her face as she walked over to me.
“What did he do this time.”
“Oh, why do you have it out for me my fair Felicia? What have I deserved to garner such hostility from a fair maiden such as yourself?”
“You won’t shut your mouth and I will not let Diana be corrupted by your womanizing ways.”
“It’s okay Felicia, it was just an accident I’ll be fine.”
“What was it?”
She stared me down with eyes of concern as she inspected Laslow's handiwork.
“I sprained my ankle when I tried pushing myself off a wall wearing heels. If it’s anyone’s fault it’s Flora.”
“You know she’s asking you to do this for your own benefit.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Doesn’t make it any easier in practice.”
“I’ll be right back with a new pair of shoes and a cane. Laslow don’t do anything.”
“I haven’t done anything!”
Felicia didn’t look convinced but I ushered her off and she disappeared back into the citadel. Leaving me and Laslow alone in the training yard.
“So why does she hate you so much Laslow? I have a feeling it has to be something personal.”
Laslow looked away as he sat down across from me.
“It was back when I was at the peak of my womanizing days. I went from woman to woman and one of those women was Felicia’s older sister. From what I’ve heard and from her animosity towards me I’m guessing she got into a lot of trouble with her family.”
“Is your swordsmanship a result of those days?”
“Yeah, it was kind of necessary after I got my butt kicked the first time I got caught. So I got better at swordsmanship to defend myself when I got caught. It also had the added benefit of also attracting more ladies to me.”
“Why’d you go after so many committed women?”
“I didn’t, all I did was casually ask women to join me for a meal and offer to pay for it. They would gratefully accept my offer and when their partners came by they would challenge me to a duel to show off their strength to their woman.
When they lost to me the man would lose face and the woman would fall for me. Not wanting to stay around though I would leave town and the woman would usually get in trouble with their partner.”
“So you only had a meal with them and they’d challenge you to a duel?”
“Honored tradition, the women just couldn’t resist my charms and the duel was the price of their most galient company.”
“Wouldn’t that deter you from pursuing ladies in the future? I mean, I wouldn’t put myself through that kind of trouble on purpose.“
“One must hone their skills in both love and the sword.”
“And you need to get off your egomaniacal high horse Laslow.”
Felecia was back with another set of shoes, and the cane I used when I had just changed.
“Thanks Felicia, I’ll try to be more careful in the future.”
Taking the shoes I put them on and stand up on my left foot using the cane to assist me.
“Come now Miss, Flora is expecting us soon.”
“Then I must bid my farewell, your highness. May our swords cross tomorrow in glorious combat as well.”
He then bowed to us in farewell as we made our way inside. It was a bit tough hobbling down the corridor with a sprained ankle, but I made my way to our room now that I was now sharing with Seliph. Once inside Felicia drew me a bath and I proceed to bath all the dust from my training away before getting out and dressing in a clean dress and some heels.
Felicia then did my hair before we made our way to Flora’s private study where I’d been drilled in Demon history, customs, and political structure. I couldn’t remember a time before Flora where I had studied as hard as I do now.
While I was reading she’d randomly interlude my studies to quiz me on what I read reciting with perfect memory what the book held back to me as I did my best to meet her expectations. Though she was harsh I’d never had a teacher that seemed to know exactly what they were doing to this degree and all this week I’d passed two of the stack of twenty-five books she deemed that we needed to go through.
I had to admit, I abhorred these lessons, but at this rate, I’d be done in half a year! I really hope Pent figures out a way back before I’ve memorized all this information. Not like I could do anything with this information if I made it back. Maybe I could write a book about it at the very least.
“Your late Diana, I’ve been expecting you for a while now. A lady must be punctual and never leave their guests waiting. Now shall we begin.”
I then took my seat and watched as the sun seemed to speed up as time flew with each page. My only break being a light lunch at noon. I had checked my ankle and found it seemed to be back to normal and after taking off the dressing I found that it was. This stuff worked way better than the stuff the humans here use. Maybe it has something to do with their potency but it seemed to show how far behind the humans here seemed to be.
When Flora finally decided to end today’s studies I felt like my head was going to explode from an information overload and I couldn’t wait for dinner with Seliph funnily enough. I was just tired of all this info dumping and couldn’t wait for some casual conversation.
I opened the doors to the dining hall to find that it was empty. That was strange he usually always beat me or was only a second behind. Where was Seliph?
As I took my usual seat. I wondered where he could be. He hadn’t told me about anything that would explain why he wasn’t here. I waited there for a few minutes in eerie silence.
Where was Flora? She usually brought the food out by now.
“Flora?”
I get up and look around. And as I’m about to open the door Seliph beats me to it and I stand face to face with him in the doorway.
“Sorry about that Diana, something came up that I wasn’t expecting. Flora is taking care of it so Felicia will be serving us tonight.”
This was odd, why did I not hear of this earlier, and why did it feel like something was off about this.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing now, like I said, Flora is taking care of it. Now how about we enjoy some dinner before we retire for the night.”
I followed him to my seat and soon Felicia was coming out with dinner. While this was happening I studied Seliph who looked to be deep in thought. Staring at nothing while having a serious look on his face. Something was wrong, so why wasn’t he telling?
“What are you not telling me Seliph, it doesn’t seem like this is a small problem.”
“I’m not doing a good job of hiding it, am I. Right now it’s a rumor so I’m hesitant to say more till I have more information which Flora is gathering right now.”
“What kind of rumor. It has to be something serious if it has you this concerned.”
“I will tell you later when I have more concrete evidence. Plus current company does not allow me to tell you more.”
I guess Felicia isn’t qualified enough to hear. I wouldn't push further for now, but I was still curious as to what this rumor was.
“So Diana, how your lessons today?”
“They are going well, though I still haven’t recovered my full strength yet."
"From what I’ve heard from Laslow that doesn’t seem to be the case. He says you're improving at a miraculous rate and that you are doing quite well in your swordsmanship.”
“It sure doesn’t feel like it. I bet I’d have beaten him already if I was still…”
“What? A man? I don’t doubt that’d be the case, but that is why he is training you now. Even still your progress is nothing to laugh at and still puts most people to shame.”
I agreed with what he said but I couldn’t help but be angered at my weakness. Even if I was to marry Seliph I couldn’t allow myself to go soft.
“So how were your lessons with Flora? Our history isn’t too boring I hope.”
“It’s never stagnating that’s for sure. The constant competition for power keeps history quite lively.”
“How does your world’s history compare? Is your history as lively.”
“Kinda, we have had a large number of wars in our history, but they are spread out for the most part and these days there aren’t many ‘wars’ being fought anymore. Now it's just terrorism and proxy wars in other countries.”
“So were you not a warrior there?”
“No, I was a student I’d never been in battle till I came here.”
“You could have fooled me. From my reports, you lead the humans like a natural born leader, and you are saying it was all natural?”
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that I did have the help of all the human generals as well. To be honest I believe that just having me around helped to boost the men’s morale more than anything.”
We continued to eat after that and as Felicia cleaned up I followed Seliph to our room.
“I almost forgot to tell you, but Laslow will also be busy tomorrow so you have the day to yourself to do as you wish. Felicia will be at your disposal all day as well So take the time to relax you deserve it after all the work you’ve been doing.”
“Laslow and Flora? Are you sure everything is okay.”
“I promise, everything is fine right now. There is no need to worry.”
We continued on in silence soon approaching our room. Once inside we got ready for bed taking turns changing into our nightclothes.
“Good night Diana.”
“Good night Seliph.”
We then made our ways to our separate beds. As the moon rose overhead pouring a dim light into the room. With the curtains allowing the moon to create a light between us as I lay in silence trying to fall asleep.
Before long I could hear Seliph’s steady breathing telling me that he had fallen asleep. I, on the other hand, had a harder time finding sleep as it continued to evade me. I don’t know what it is but I was having a harder time falling asleep these days.
I couldn’t tell if it was sharing a room with Seliph, something to do with being a woman, or maybe homesickness. As much as I tried to get used to this whole scenario my mind wouldn’t let me. I was sleeping in the same room as the demon lord, AS THE OPPOSITE SEX!
My heart wouldn’t slow most nights. As my imagination ran wild at the thought of him doing anything. I felt embarrassed thinking about it, but I was still unsure how to approach all this. We’d been going slow for the most part but I had an invisible time limit.
I needed to become more intimate with him at some point but I was still hesitant to. Part of it was that used to be a man, part of it was I hoped to be able to leave before it’d become a problem, and I was still a tad bit suspicious of what his plans were.
Especially with this ‘rumor’. What could it have been? Well let’s try and go to bed it’s been a long day.
…
If I can ever fall asleep that is!