Winterfall

When we woke this morning it was around 4 in the morning. As I stretched underneath my own sheets, I could feel my muscles ache.

Forcing myself out of bed after a wondrous evening like that, I felt my legs ache as I struggled to get them out of bed.

I couldn’t help but groan as I stood up from bed. Do you feel that? I heard him chuckle. Damn it.

It’s not that bad for me. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes as he communicated with me.

Of course it is not that bad for you.

What do you expect? When things get a bit rough… Théoden began to explain but I cut him off.

How do you manage not to feel it? I moved slowly towards the wardrobe.

I stretch every morning for work. Perhaps, that helps. I believe you do not stretch as often? Théoden questioned me.

I-I no. I grumbled. Then again perhaps this is a sign that I need to start stretching.

Once that conversation was done, I had managed to make to my wardrobe and pulled out a pair of black pants and a blue top. I slipped a brush through my rats nest of hair and placed my belt around my waist.

I met Théoden a moment later down in the kitchen for breakfast. “Can I see your ring?” I nodded and let him look at the gems. “If my observations are correct each gem will correlate to a damage type. The green one glistened more when you consumed alcohol last night. Green colorations in spells typically correlate to poison damage.”

“Huh, so red and pink would correlate to love and passion right?” I had I noticed that those two gems were the brightest.

“Well red can correlate to fire but fire can correlate to a lot of emotions.”

“What about pink?”

“Pink could be psychic or healing, which can correlate to the emotion of passion. We will have to test it to figure out which.”

“You seem to know a lot about this ring.”

I told him as he grabbed a premade plate out of the cooling box and handed it to me. “We will eat this then come back for the rest.” Théoden told me.

I nodded as he sat down at the table and we ate the plate of sweets, bacon, and eggs. “And if you must know, your father explained some of it to me but not much. He couldn’t spoil things you know.” Théoden informed me. I knew how my fathers powers pretty much worked.

“What else did he tell you?”

I was curious to see if my father had told him anything else about me or the future.

“I can not break oath Maria, he made me swear I wouldn’t say anything that involved topics from the future.”

I glared at him, “you can’t tell me anything?”

“No. Sorry love. I would if I could.”

I sighed heavily. We finished the rest of the plate in silence. “Ready?” I nodded and we headed to the colosseum.

“Look, I am sorry I have to keep things from you. I don’t like it but it was his order.”

Théoden said. I knew it must have been a struggle to keep this from me but one of the codes Théoden's sworn by was to follow the king’s orders. And to this day out of respect for my father, he still follows some of the orders given to him. One of them being keeping the things secret if my father had requested him to. For me, I am not one to force things out of him just because I potentially could.

He knows that I am destined to be formerly Queen one day. And he knows that at some point he will have to follow my orders. To which I know he would do so happily and with little judgment. For now, I am happy not to push him and make things uncomfortable between us and keep things as they are for now.

“I understand. I just can’t help my damn curiosity.”

He smiled at me. “I know Maria and neither is being patient. You will learn what I know soon enough. I think.”

Once inside the colosseum he made sure that no one else was utilizing it before we started training.

"Are you sure this is safe?" I watched a faint shimmery barrier develop around him like a sphere. He activated his basic shield barrier to protect himself against the unknown of my spells.

"Nope." He said with complete damn confidence. "But life is full of trial and error."

I was hesitant. I didn't want to hurt him, but he was right. "I'll be fine," he reassured me. “Remember one of my draconic abilities is this shield. It will provide me protection until it breaks.”

I sighed. “How do I even activate the magic from the gems?"

He thought momentarily, “Your father once told me, to activate it, press it."

I paced myself ten steps away from him and looked up at him with a burst of confidence, “Ready?” He nodded and watched as I randomly picked one of the colors and pressed it lightly with my finger. I held out my palm as I felt the magic surge through my body; a flash of arcane magic soon followed. What followed that was the sound of an ear-piercing roar of a fireball. It soared at its target, hitting Théo's shield hard, its shimmer quickly fading as the remainder of the fireball smacked into Théo, sending him back ten more feet. The spell used here was called Molten Blast, a much more powerful version of Ember Essences.

He grunted at the impact of his body against the floor. "Fuck, I wasn’t expecting that to break the shield already." He said as he was quick to douse any flames to keep them from spreading. He examined his own body quickly, stopping any burning flesh by using Healing Touch and Extinguish, "I'd assume that was the red gem." He brushed himself off and stood back on his two feet.

I looked down at the gem, and sure enough, I chose the red one by chance. "Yup." I said, "Are you sure you want me to continue?" I asked as he looked like he was in pain.

"I'm fine." He assured me, "We need to know what they do." He recreated his shield, "Not over-channeled. If this next one breaks the barrier that quickly, then I will be over-channeling.” Over-channeling his shield allowed him to withstand multiple hits without taking damage for an extended period of time. The shield he was using now had a basic life force and when that life force drained, they faded.

"Only because you want me to," I randomly choose one of the three he wanted me to use. Following the same steps, I pointed my palm at him, a flash of an arcane rune and nothing at first.

"Maybe this one is a…." I began to speak but cut myself off as a roaring storm began to build, and a darkened cloud appeared over his shield.

Théo looked up and watched a yellow-like liquid fall from the darkened clouds, eating away at his shield. A few drops of what appeared to be poison hit him as the shield was quickly depleting. The poisonous rain soon stopped, and what came next shocked us. Not one, not two, but three bolts of lightning struck. The first quickly depleted any remaining barrier around him. The other two, he tried to dodge but still took some of the damage from the strikes. For the spell here it resembled that of Poisonous Storm.

"Fuck." He grunted as the last one that impacted him. "So which one was that?"

I looked down, and to my surprise, it was one of the blue ones. "Navy blue."

"Hmm." He said, "Make sense. It is some storm, but the poison is an interesting touch."

Like before, he quickly stopped further damage to the training area and himself. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel a bit drained, but okay," I had used two higher-level abilities for the first time.

"Good. Another." He recreated his barrier for a third time. "Over-channel should take all the remaining damage you give me." He said I nodded. "Let's get the yellow one over with. If my assumptions are correct, it should have something to do with acid.”

I followed his orders and gently pressed the yellow gem, activating it. The same thing happened as last time, except this time, a vibrant yellow bolt of death rushed towards Théo, smothering the shield in liquid death, utilizing the spell Liquid Death. The shield took a heavy amount of damage, but Théo remained untouched.

"So, a twist on the lightning spell, but make it poison…interesting," Théo said. "One more, and we can be done for today." He felt I was starting to feel more tired with each higher-level ability I used.

"Alright, let's get this over with." I pressed the sky blue gem and followed the same steps. What came was a surprise to us both as a giant wave formed from my hand and smacked into the barrier around Théo, drenching everything in its path. The spell formed here was Tidal-Wave.

"Huh, a tidal wave-like effect. Not as impressive as the first three, but not every spell will have the same impact." He dropped his barrier. "Are you okay?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" I breathed heavily.

"I'm used to this. You aren't." He said, "Let's get some more breakfast, and you can rest for the day."

"You did take a bit of damage."

"I healed. You utilized your abilities and using them like this is draining on your body. And you haven't had much practice with it yet." Théo reminded me. "You are still new to this."

I sighed, giving in. "Let's get going. I am rather starving." Despite just eating a bit of food before we trained, I heard my stomach growl.