After soaking in the tub for thirty minutes, I got dried off and slipped on one of his shirts and curled up in bed, flicking the lights off with a snap of my fingers. Within the remainder thirty minutes I found myself drifting into my trance. Allowing our dream escape to over take reality once more.

The training area formed in front of my eyes. All the way down to the dust on the floor, the six pillars that are evenly spaced out, and the cracked bricks.

“Was the training room necessary?” I questioned him with a soft smile on my face. I mean he could have picked anywhere for training and he picked the training room.

“Habit.”

I rolled my eyes, “always a creature of habit?”

“Sometimes.” He shrugged, “Now, this is a test to see how magic training is going to go in dreams. Since our shared dream is part of our dragon to rider bond and doesn’t use up much essence, I’m unsure of the overall cause and effect this will have once we wake up.

“Now, with that being the case, I want you to be the prime one casting spells tonight. I will utilize my shield once and wolves once. I however, don’t want to use everything in case we do not regain the spells once we wake up. Got it?”

I nodded, “Are you over-channeling?”

“No, it will be a simple shield. However, you can over-channel as much as you want. We need to keep that ring down for the time being. That way your emotions don’t screw us both.”

I crossed my arms. I knew my emotions were a problem. But it couldn’t have been that bad without the ring.

“You don’t know half of it Maria.” Théoden elaborated, “now, I can give you a few examples if you like.”

I narrowed my eyes, “I think I have a general idea.” I proclaimed. I didn’t need him to tell me the few times I might have acted like a brat or a few times I let my emotions run into overdrive and cry like a river.

“A few?” Théoden grinned. “I mean there was the time when…”

“STOP!” I shouted as I felt my face begin to turn red from embarrassment. That was a story, I did not want to relive.

Théoden chuckled, “I won’t reveal all of your tales. Now, lets focus back on magic training shall we?”

I nodded once more in agreement, “yes please.”

“Alrighty, there are still the training dummies. We can also attempt to destroy a pillar as well since we are in our dream escape and no harm will go to the actual arena.”

He paused for a moment as he studied the pillars. He walked around two of them and placed his hand on the third one. He gave it a good tap to determine how sturdy the pillar was. “Hmm..” He continued to examine the pillar then looked at me. “Target the pillar first. I want to see if you can damage the stone.”

“I mean I can damage you, surely I can damage stone.” I pointed out.

“I know you can, Maria. However, damaging stone is a lot different than damage to flesh. First off, stone is much tougher than flesh. Given that stone is a harder surface, it would be harder to break.”

“Alrighty, professor, what do you recommend that I use against stone?” I smirked as I said professor, he was giving me a lecture after all.

He tried to hide his smile at the notation, “well, I can not give you the answers to everything. Then I’d be a bad professor if I did now wouldn’t I?”

He walked over to me and faced the pillar he wanted me to “attack” and waited for me to smack the pillar. “Fire I don’t think will do much against the pillar. Maybe lightning ... then again perhaps something with thunder damage or force damage…” I began to mutter the different damages and occasionally look up at Théoden in hopes for any clues. Nope. His face was firm.

“Fine. Lightning.” I decided to utilize my ring and choose the navy blue gem. I choose not to over-channel this one as I just wanted a simple lightning bolt.

I utilized everything he had taught me so far. All the way down to using the word “Lyn” which meant lightning. Focusing on the pillar, a singular silver, grayish blue bolt raced across and smacked the pillar. Lightning struck the stone pillar with a deafening crack. The pillar trembled violently under the immense force, its surface erupting in a shower of sparks and fragments. Smoke and a faint, acrid smell filled the air as the stone crackled and glowed briefly before settling back into darkness. The once stoic pillar now bore the jagged scars of nature’s raw power.

“So lightning was the answer?” I looked up at him with a questioning smile.

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“There were a few things you could have done. Lightning was one of them. Thunder damage is another. So is force. Force would have been my first choice.” Théoden walked over to the pillar that I had just destroyed and examined the chunks of stone. “Regardless, you still broke the pillar.” He said as he picked up a few of the broken pieces.

“Now, dodge.” He said as he chucked the two pieces in my direction.

As the stone hurtled toward me, I sprang into action, narrowly evading its trajectory. My muscles tensed and my reflexes kicked in, propelling me to one side in a swift, fluid motion. The stone whizzed past, missing me by mere inches. I landed with a soft thud, heart pounding, and quickly assessed the situation. The stone struck the ground where I had been moments before, sending a spray of dust into the air.

As the second stone was hurled in my direction, I quickly jumped up into the air, avoiding the impact of the second stone.

Landing on my feet, I steadied my breathing, “I thought it was just magic training!” I explained.

“It is. You could have used a spell to stop that.” Théoden pointed out. “Besides attack spells, there are utility spells. Spells that shield, charm, command, curse, and others. The ring is a great source for combat based spells. However, you need to tap into your true essence other than just the ring.”

I looked at him confused. “My true essence? I thought I was.”

He smiled at me, “your true essence is a form of wild magic. The ring helps keep it in balance. Especially when it comes to combat based spells. As a spell caster, you have more than damage. We know you can heal. We know you can dispel. We need to see what other base spells you have and that comes from your true essence of wild magic.”

“Wild magic?”

I scratched my head. I knew we had talked about my wild magic before. But never to a full extinct. If we did, I missed that part of my lesson.

Théoden rolled his eyes, “You don’t listen to me that well do you?”

I blushed, “I mean…”

He sighed, “Maria, you have wild magic. Typically wild magic comes with an effect when spells are cast with it. Like you may cast a charm but get butterflies flying around or a shield but you become invisible. Strange things can happen when you cast magic outside the ring that is on your finger. When you use your base essence. We saw a bit of that with the scissor fight, when you dispelled them.”

“So not only does it store power but blocks the effects of my essence?” I asked him as I looked down at my ring. The block would explain the lack of weird things happening.

“Yes, it’s why you have such an effect on your attack spells.”

“Interesting.”

“I want to practice utility spells but some of those will require another hand. Some of those don’t typically affect me, so we may need Quinn for that.”

“You think it is safe for that?”

“Should be.” He shrugged, “Now, let’s use up some more of that power shall we?” He said as he walked across the arena and cast his shield around him. “Full charge, under charge, you decide.”

His shield lasted for five rounds of spells. Two fully charged, to which I choose the red and the rest of the navy blue gem for that. Then used the acidic spells for the remaining three before the shield was destroyed.

“Good.” Théoden said as he got scratched by the last acidic base spell.

“Are you alright?” I asked him as I walked over to him and examined his arm where the acid had dripped on him.

“Maria, you can not worry about every single mark on me. I am fine.” He said as he moved his sleeve up and showed me that there wasn’t even a mark on him.

I shook my head, “Your power amazes me.” I said as I brushed his arm where I saw the acid hit.

“And the same goes for you.”

He looked down at me with a grin on his face. I felt a rush of lust through the bond as Théoden quickly bent down and met my lips with the firmness of his.

He pulled back before he let it go too far. “Sorry.”

“Never apologizes for kissing me.”

I said, scolding him, as I reached for his shirt and pulled him back to me pulling his head down so I could kiss those damn lips of his.

Maria….Théoden uttered through the bond. Causing me to step back from him.

“Let’s focus on training. I have plans for that, for tomorrow.”

I nodded, “Sorry.”

“I understand. I get caught up too. But we need to practice magic. And now we are limited to dreams when it comes to the majority of it.”

I nodded once more, “What do you want me to do next?”

“Fire, lightning, and acid are taken care of. Let me summon the wolves and you utilize poison, psychic, and thunder.”

“Got it.”

Despite my fear of wolves, I understood his reasoning for using them. Upon summon, they instantly began their advances on me. Getting three hits on me. While it took me three hits on Alpha and three hits on Sephora to destroy both of them.

At that point I was feeling exhausted as I had used a lot of spells in one day. “You know, it’s kind of ironic.”

“What is?” Théoden asked me as we sat down on the floor beside each other, as we rested.

“I am exhausted in a dream.”

Théoden smiled down at me and gave me a kiss on the forehead, “You earned that exhaustion, I am proud of you.”

“Thanks.”

I stared up at him as he looked down at me, part of me wondered what would have happened to me if I never met Théoden. “Nope.” I said and shook off that thought immediately. As that was something I dread to think about.

“What?” He arched his eyebrow in question.

“Thinking of what might have happened if I didn’t have you.”

He looked surprised at the thought, “Well…” He didn’t continue the list. We both knew I’d probably have been dead by now. Or locked away in a ward somewhere.

We both fell silent as we rested. After what seemed like an eternity, “A life without you, we both wouldn’t exist.” Théoden said pointing out the fact that if I didn’t exist, that if I died, he would die as well. All thanks to our magical bond. “We were created to save each other. The deities themselves knew what they were doing when they paired our souls, minds, and bodies together. They knew that the world needed both of us.”