Twisted Fate

Chapter Two - Of Spars and Admiration

 The next day, the palace was in a slight buzz. Ophelia had woken late, Ra was already climbing the sky, and Atem was cursing any god he could think of as he held hands with Anzu, the Princess leading him to the garden to see the flowers. In her mind, she viewed it as their soon-to-be romantic spot of romantic memories as Atem viewed it as his personal hell.

Ophelia was slightly surprised she had slept in, but then again she had really pushed her physical body the day before. Standing up stretching, she headed out to find something to eat. On her walk, she had ran into the magician's apprentice, Mana. Although she was excitable and talked a mile a minute, the Scott took a liking to her. After getting breakfast from the kitchens, she and Mana meandered the palace.

Wandering through the hallways as the two chatted, was a rather tall, young man. He looked to be around twenty with blonde hair with honey brown eyes. His clothing deemed him as the head guard with a long sword strapped to his waist belt. He was humming quietly, observing the halls. As soon as Mana spotted him, she took off like a bullet. Ophelia watched in amusement as the apprentice tackled the head guard to the ground.

"Gah!!! Mana!!" He yelped, stumbling back as he instinctively caught her in his arms. He shifted his feet, regaining his footing before picking Mana up. "What the hel' you doin', crazy little magicia'?" He chuckled, setting her back down. Ophelia laughed softly, shaking her head and the guard looked over at her.

"You mus' be the prince's savior, eh? Gave meh guards a good scoldin'. They should've see' the rock. Lucky you were there or Atem woulda' died." The redhead shrugged with a lazy smile.

"All part of the adventure, sweetheart. Besides, I hadn't had a rush like that in a while."

"Maybe we should hav' all guards like you." He joked, ruffling Mana's hair. Ophelia smirked.

"Oh trust me, you would not want that," she laughed.

"Why no'?" Her smirk grew as she arched an eyebrow.

"Because then all your guards would be at the ends of the earth having one adventure after the other instead of here. I never stay in one place for too long." The blonde chuckled.

"I see. Too bad, then. Coul' use the instinct and reflexes tho'." She placed a playful hand on her hip.

"Perhaps they just need better training," she teased.

"Oi! I trai' them well! I jus' don't get good enough men." He pouted childishly at her, his expression joking but his words serious. Her smirk grew.

"Yeah, I figured." He huffed at her, moving his head slightly.

"You 'figure'?!? Nyeh! Let's see how good you truly are! Let us spar!" He declared, pointing at her. Ophelia grinned mischievously.

"Hun, you have no idea what you're in for. Mana, would you be a doll and hold my bag?" The apprentice smiled.

"Sure!"

"Thank you." The Scott then turned to the head guard and motioned to him. "Let's go." He growled at her as the two then walked to the training field. A few guards had stopped to watch as Jonou took a wooden sword to use for their sparr, not wanting to really harm Ophelia. She, on the other hand, merely chuckled and got in a defensive stance. She was better at hand to hand combat and knew how to disarm an opponent.

"Come at me." Jonou got into a stance as well. They stared each other down for a few, tense moments, and onlookers wondered if they would move at all until the head guard lunged at her. She defended and quickly disarmed him of his sword. Now down to hand-to-hand, the two began wrestling on the ground. It was quite impressive how she held her own against the strongest guard in the palace, but at one point he had her pinned.