Shards From Other Stars

6. With the flow

Wylie glared at the Princess as she stopped her sword with her wooden lookalike, just in time before it pierced her right eye—it was about one and a half inches from her eye—luckily for her she stopped it in time and wouldn't need an eye patch.

Aldith glared right back at her, with all her strength she pushed her sword further into the wooden one Wylie help up to block hers—the more she pressed on, the deeper the dent from earlier clash deepened—almost slicing through it and with a little more persistent she would.

Wylie knew she had to watch her mouth around here but it seemed the only one that didn't get the memo, had been her mouth—she opened it quite a lot and in the most inappropriate times.

She was joking mostly but it seemed the spite these people had for her—removed every sense humour—if at all they knew what that was.

They all seemed stuck up.

Who would seriously challenge someone to a duel and give them a wooden weapon, all because she might have blabbed how the princess was not all that impressive with her swordsmanship.

Nah.

That's not right—Wylie wasn't that good with words when she spoke before thinking—so her exact words were:

"You look cute princess! Like cute, cute and not deadly cute!"

Wylie shouted as Ain stood beside her regretting bringing her here, he was glaring and was every other person present in the training arena. Most of which would behead in a second without a doubt if the princess gave them the permission to.

Exactly why she had to learn to watch her big, big, mouth.

Ain had done the pleasure of smacking her behind the head for all of them and maybe that was enough to smack some sense into her. But that didn't seem important, even if the sense did show up, it was too late.

It wasn't important to the princess as she got off the man she had in a chokehold earlier on—before Wylie spoke.

Unlike most times when the princess was in a gown or pants with a shirt that looked as fancy as her gown. It wasn't the case now—this time she was in pants, they just weren't leather pants but black cotton pants with a shirt that matched its texture.

And her hair

It wasn't in her flowing freely down her back with a few strands brushing over tickling her face, she has it in a tight hair bun—not a single strand would escape.

Wylie found herself in a rather tight position as the princess moved from choking the man, to choking her—with her own shirt, given how tightly she grabbed it and pulled.

That should have been the moment she began apologising but yet, that was when she noticed how close they were.

How close she was to her face and how easily she got distracted by her features, than listening whatever threats she was going on and on about—how she couldn't help herself but stare.

Her hazel eyes, such beauty, held immense emotions of rage. Her faint pink lips moved eloquently, almost mesmerising—not regrading that the words that probably left her lips were vulgar, if only her ears chose to listen. Then Wylie stared intently at her freckled skin, all across her face and neck—the most noticeable ones when standing far would be on her cheeks.

Princess Aldith was beautiful and looking at her this closer, would definitely render a person crippled.

Not Wylie though.

She was strong—their strongest soldier that definitely did have her eyes fixed on the princess' face—mesmerized and possibly not drooling. And certainly didn't glance down at her exposed skin under her shirt—the exact place with a missing button—that gave her nothing but a great view of her skin.

And Wylie would say, her freckles didn't stop on her neck—and now she was curious, her eyebrows furrowed. How far did her freckles go—

"Are you even listening!"

Wylie snapped out it—definitely their strongest soldier. Lips pursed she stared into Aldith's eyes—she seemed a bit more angry than when she walked up here.

"You and me duel now." With that Aldith released her shirt, with Ain's sword in her hand she walked away. A shove from Ain, Wylie began following behind the princess— puzzled when she agreed to this and where her weapon was but she wasn't backing down.

In front of the princess Wylie glared at her, as one of her men—the one she had in a chokehold—tossed her a wooden lookalike sword.

"Wait—you got a real sword."

"Are you fighting or not?" Aldith countered swinging Ain's sword. She wasn't planning on making it fair for Wylie, she was upset—she had been upset since the day her mother kept her alive—and she was going to take it out on the source.

Because it seemed no amount of guards she fought, helped.

"I'm fighting, even though you're not playing fair Princess!"

And that's how Wylie found herself dodging the deadly strikes with nothing but a wooden sword to counter the attacks. Wylie did say she wasn't backing down, which meant she took every opportunity she got to smack the Princess with her wooden sword—that was the only way she could get back at the Princess for nearly impaling a sword through her.

Also

Her mouth seemed to not learn as she striked and dodged Aldith to keep quiet, it was what got her in this position after all. But she kept throwing around snobbish remarks. One of the two—her words and her successful strikes—pushed Aldith to the edge.

It was probably her, just her existence—she pushed her to the edge.

Hence why she was hellbound on poking out Wylie's eye—eyes, both of them—or whatever she could in order to shut her up for a second and maybe forever once and for all.

Wylie lost her secure footing. She stumbled back as Aldith persisted on pushing the sword through the wooden one—lucky, she didn't stumble too much to fall to the ground.

That wouldn't end well.

Wylie briefly glanced at the wooden sword, and damn was Aldith making progress.

"I'm very sorry." Wylie mumbled meeting the eyes of Aldith. She didn't flutter—her glare remained the same and it seemed her ears lost their ability to listen—she was too determined on ending Wylie, her apology meant nothing.

And so Wylie let the wooden sword go by stepping aside.

Aldith fell forward as a result to Wylie's sudden departure. Just in time she found footing, her gaze fell on the two swords—Ain's sword almost slicing through the wooden one.

Wylie breathed out in relief as Aldith tossed their swords to the ground, thinking it was over—she was tired and the sweat dropping from her forehead was sure as hell proof enough.

She knew the Princess was tired as well, she had been at this longer and the sun above was doing a good job—tiring them out as well as drenching them in sweat.

Wylie did relaxed too soon. As soon as her guard was down, the air was knocked out her lungs.

Wylie groaned as she hit the ground, Aldith's weight and the sudden movement didn't feel great.

Yeah, Aldith resorted in hand to hand combat—she wasn't giving up—on the fight at least but the sword, those were useless.

"You cheat a lot!" Wylie held onto the Princess' right fist as she was about to punch her in the face. Aldith hissed pulling her hand away from Wylie's grip as it burnt her. "And you don't?"

She literally just burnt her, not serverly just enough for the Princess to retreat her hand—like touching a hot pot so suddenly without safety—she wasn't planning on giving third degree burns to a Princess.

"You started this!"

Wylie rolled them over taking advantage of the princess attending to her hand. Aldith glared trying her best to wiggle herself out, Wylie had both her hands above her—and she was smirking which annoyed her.

"Why don't you calm down. Then take this to the bedroom." Wylie wiggled her eyebrows at the princess, with her free hand she cutely poked her cheek. "Or—"

"Qien!"

Wylie quickly glanced over her shoulder looking for the person the Princess just called, she wasn't going to die for pinning this pretty Princess down.

She was ready to run.

Wylie should have known better, she realised there wasn't any Qien to begin with as she fell back on her back this time hitting her head on the ground as well—as if the ache in her head wasn't enough her cheek felt really hot and stung.

Holding onto her cheek she watched as the Princess furiously walked away. "So no touchy, meant the princess too." Wylie mumbled as she felt the warmth of her cheek as she rubbed her palm against it— Aldith slapped her for next Tuesday as well because it was heating up like crazy.

Wylie rolled her eyes as the ash blonde hair guard stood over her, a smirk on his face—of course he enjoyed this.

"f**k you."