After a few minutes of rest I helped Théoden set up five practice dummies and pulled a wooden chair out for him to sit on. The dummies were simple in design as they were in the shapes of humanoids and had no descriptive nature to them. “Now, simple spells Maria.” Théoden told me. “Small bursts, as I feel you are already draining in energy.”

He wasn’t wrong at all. After three big spells like that my energy was already half of what it used to be. “Alrighty, small bursts.”

I utilized the red gem first. Using my fire spell five or six times to fully drain the gem. Damn I must have been angry as we figured the gem correlated to anger and hate.

I felt my energy drain more with the last burst of flames on the first dummy that was now a pile of ash. “Good. You still have energy left, use the lightning based spells on the second one.”

I huffed as I glanced back at him, “Can I take a break?”

He thought about it for a moment, “Nope. After this you can.”

I glared at him and then turned and faced the second dummy. “I’ll show you lightning…” I mumbled beneath my breath.

“What was that?” He questioned as he sounded a bit amused. He knew damn good and well what I said.

“Nothing.” I groaned. I activated the storm gem and used more energy than I should have and sent three bolts of equal strength towards the second dummy. Destroying it upon the second impact.

“Maria, was that really necessary?” Théoden questioned me, “I thought I told you to keep it simple.”

I turned around and walked over to him. I knelt down to his level. “And I told you I wanted a break.”

He smiled at me, “So you disobeyed me and used more energy than you needed to? Just because you didn’t get your way?” He leaned forward and met my forehead with his.

“Y…Yes.” I said with a bit of hesitation in my voice.

He moved his lips near mine, causing my heart to race but then he pulled away from me and sat back in the chair. “Maria, I told you to use smaller doses to help preserve energy. Now your energy is more depleted and we should not continue practicing any more in case something happens down the line.”

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I couldn’t help it, I slapped him but then I kissed his lips as I had mixed emotions coursing through my veins. I wanted him to kiss me but I was pissed at him.

He didn’t kiss me back at first as he was shocked at my response to him. But he eventually did and pulled away once again. “What was all that for?”

“I love you. And I hate you. All at the same time.” I glared at him with a smile on my face.

“Well, I must be doing something right then.” Théoden said with a grin on his face as he pulled me into him kissing my lips once more.

I broke the kiss this time and stepped back. “We should get going before the kingdom awakens.”

He nodded, “but first we should clean up the arena.”

I groaned but I eventually helped him clean up what messes I left behind. Once the arena was back to it’s normal condition we left the building and walked back to the castle.

It was just an hour until full sunrise and the morning air was already starting to feel warmer. The breeze had died down at this point as it was going to prove to be a humid day. The streets was starting to come to life as citizens was starting to leave their homes to return to work for the day. The morning dew was slowly fading away as daylight approached.

The sky had already began to shift colors from it's deepest hue of blue to it's lightest shade of blue. The colorations of the sun started to dance across the horizon as time was passing by. As we walked, animals in the kingdom started to come to life once again as birds, barking, and horse neighing could be heard.

“Maria, I have to do some rounds. You should take a rest before you do anything else today.” Théoden said. He pulled me in one more time and hugged me tightly. Thankfully, were we stood there was not a single witness to this hug. Otherwise we for sure would have been caught and turned in to Marcel.

“Alrighty.” I said, “Can I watch you some today as I rest?” I didn't want to sit in my room all day bored. So, the best form of entrainment for me, was watching the kingdom's life through his eyes.

He thought about it briefly, responding, “of course.”

He released me moments later and walked me to the castle gate before parting ways. As we walked, the sky was starting to shift to the brilliant blue hues of the day's sky as the moon was setting and the stairs were disappearing one by one.

More and more people were starting to walk along the streets as the sun started to peek above the lands. Which meant we couldn't hug, we couldn't kiss, we overall couldn't hold onto each other anymore. We had to go back to protocol of guard and princess.

“I’ll see you soon.” I said as I watched began his trek towards his office in the fourth ring. The gate had sense opened allowing me passage back into my home.