Zenora

Brock’s point of view:

“Let’s get back to the fields. We could train your hand-to-hand combat skills, as this will be one of the parts of the competition tomorrow, if you’d like?” I asked her and she nodded.

We both got dressed again and she put a ponytail in her hair.

I gave her a quick kiss on her forehead and we walked outside to the training fields. I told her I wouldn’t go easy on her, and she told me she wouldn’t wanted it any other way. She fought very fierce, with quite a force even, so I had to adjust my expectations at how much I had to brace myself. I was surprised by her strength; she was much stronger than the first time I sparred with her. She sure was testing her limits.

Another blow straight towards my head, I almost wasn’t able to avoid it. I swung my leg around and tried to sweep her off her feet. She stepped on my thigh and somersaulted backwards and smoothly landed on her feet again. Her ability to adjust to the situation was spot on. I charged towards her and hit her in the stomach, well almost... She had pushed my arm down with both her hands, by pushing herself up and back a bit. Again, I charged towards her and fired a volley of quick hits towards her body. She was really fast and avoided most of them. I hit her once or twice though, but she shook it off and just continued.

“My turn.” She said with a clear voice. I took a step backwards and I saw the determination in her eyes, the same determination she has when she was really focused to get what she wanted. She had her feet spread and lowered her body so her knees were bend. Then she leaned forward and before she charged towards me, I saw dust swirling around her feet. Did I also hear the ground rumble?

But before I could think about it, she had hit me in the guts, pushing me backwards. I stood my ground though and didn’t fall over. It slightly hurt, but I’m glad that I’m well trained, because she unleashed quite some power on me just now.

I looked up at her and she stood there, all happy and jumping that she had hit me. Then I saw the other hunters on the fields looking towards us, some with a smile as they found it funny that the general let himself get hit by the Princess. But there were also hunters with a slight fear in their eyes, as they knew they had to compete against her tomorrow. I know that she was getting stronger, much stronger even, but she wasn’t quite aware of what she did, yet. With emphasizing the ‘yet’ part.

So, I growled to get her focus back to the fight again and charged her. I tackled her to the floor and hold her in a headlock. I didn’t have to use much of my strength now though, she wasn’t focused anymore. Finally, she gave in, slapping my arm.

The hunters that were in fear, sighed. Clearly relieved that their Princess wasn’t unbeatable.

“Hmph, I thought I had you there.” She said to me.

“Nope, I’m still stronger than you, but you are a good competition for the other hunters tomorrow.”

I showed her some more techniques but now on a target dummy, so I could show her how to stand better to punch. After that, I also showed her some different ways to make your enemy succumb to you and win without killing or hurting them too much.

Emily’s point of view:

I really like it that Brock isn’t treating me, like some easy to break, porcelain vase. When he sparred with me, he even hit me sometimes. It didn’t hurt me that badly though, I shook it off and continued. I was able to land one big hit, which I was really happy about. But I couldn’t stop wondering if that was because he held in, or if I’m improving.

It was evening now and we sat at the long tables again for dinner, there was roasted beef, mashed potatoes and some fresh vegetables. It smelled all so good and I was really hungry so I dug in. The wine tasted a bit funny though, but didn’t smell weird or anything. So, I just drank two glasses, divided over the evening, and ate a lot of bread and drank plenty of water to not get drunk.

The privates came with questions again and wondered what kind of pets I had. I told them about Miles and Dolly, which they found strange creatures as they never encountered such dogs. They felt sorry for me that I lost Dolly and I loved the sympathy from them. Then I told them about Rhydon and how I’ve helped him with his leg, together with Cirilya and Brocks men.

“How come you know so much about animals?” A sudden question came from one of the female hunters on the other side of the table.

I explained to her, that on Earth there are schools with teachers that will teach you a profession, where I chose to be a veterinarian. I had to explain that term also, so I just went with ‘animal doctor’ which was easier. Then she explained to me how it worked on Zenora in return. There are two ways to learn, one; if you don’t have powers, you learn a profession from your parents or become an apprentice at that certain profession. Two; If you do have powers, you will most likely be sent to one of the places just like the Hunters Lodge. But she told me that there is no profession like being an animal doctor.

“So, you don’t know anything about the insides of your own animals? What do you do if something bad happened to them?” I wondered and asked them all.

“Nothing, we can treat cuts and slices and sometimes some minor diseases, but other than that we don’t have a clue. The animals do heal fast, but once in a while they die because the injury or the sickness is too much for them to heal through.” One of them answered in reply.

Not even the basic knowledge about the animals is taught to them? The animals, love their master, fight for them, protect them with all they got, and when they are badly injured, they are just left to die? This was something that had to be changed soon. I guess this was still something that was left from the old days, just like the fact that the servants aren’t being paid for their services. By remembering the servants house, that was most likely under construction now, I couldn’t ask my dad for more resources to get me a veterinarian office set up here. I’d have to take this slow. I will come back to this place later and help the animals until I can teach the hunters how to do it themselves.

I had talked to the hunters some more after dinner, but I got really tired. It wasn’t even that late but I guess that all the fun and exercise today, took its toll. I said goodnight to them and walked over to Brock. He saw me yawning and stood up from his seat.

“I’m going to sleep, I’m really tired.” I said while yawning.

“Okay love, I’ll join you a bit later.” He said to me, when he gave me a kiss on my head. He turned around and walked back to Archeops.

I felt really dizzy suddenly and everything around me started to blur. What was happening to me? Did I eat or drink something wrong? I couldn’t remember, but these symptoms looked awfully like I was poisoned. I couldn’t tell anyone though, as words wouldn’t leave my throat. My knees felt weak and I tried to take one step after another but my ankle twisted and I felt myself falling. The last thing I heard was Brock yelling my name, catching me right before my head hit the ground, still, my vision turned all black.