The Crown Prince Thinks I'm a Guy

Assassins

Today's lesson with Regina was magic maintenance and endurance. Well, it was basically just testing how long I could hold up a ball of notes in between my hands.

"Keep it steady," she warned from beside me. "The size is getting smaller, and the color is getting dimmer."

Minute changes were harder than simply conjuring up notes. But with improvement, I felt that I could at least control the strength of the magic ball as I willed... If I could at least last five minutes this time...

The fire sputtered and sparked. "No!"

Regina chuckled, her red eyes squinted in delight of my predicament. "Four minutes and 38 seconds. Not bad, for a child."

"... I was aiming for five," I grumbled, conjuring up another ball but when it started flickering almost at once, I hurled it towards a nearby target in frustration.

The Second Magician of Elrock stretched out her nimble body like a cat under the sun. She looked nothing like the magicians I have imagined, with their dark robes and heavy staffs. Rather, she looked quite the opposite with her fashionable, yet highly revealing dress, hugging her generous curves tightly.

I soon found my glaring face cushioned by her ample pillows. She cooed from above me, "Oh, controlling magic takes time, Princess Elly. If your own mind is struggling with something, then it's not so hard to believe that you'll be having trouble conjuring something as simple as a fire ball."

"... I'll just have to calm down and clear my mind," I said, and breathed in deeply after escaping from her deathly hug. This was a form of meditation Farseer once taught me on our travels. I would simply close my eyes, stand straight, and breathe in through my nose, and release the air through my mouth, while imagining all the stress and negative energy I had accumulated as the very air I dispel from my body. It was maddeningly simple, but quite effective. Soon, my heart had started beating steadily, and a sense of calm had entered my consciousness.

And, as though there was a whisper that signaled me to start, I allowed a certain amount of notes to gather into my palms, and lifting them up, I willed a fire ball to come into existence. Finally opening my eyes, I found myself staring at a blazing hot ball the size of my fist, in the glorious color of white. It was so steadily floating in the air that I would have believed it was a solid, marble ball and not a magic spell.

"Ah! I get it now!" Regina shouted suddenly, a pointed finger up in the air as though she had realized the answer to a question that was especially nagging her. "I know why you're so easily bothered these days!"

Sullenly, I forced myself to concentrate more, ignoring my supposed teacher. The fire ball kept steady.

"Princess Elly, are you perhaps feeling lonely?" she asked me, her voice lilting.

The fire ball shifted slightly, but kept its solid shape.

"I mean, that Charles boy did just hastily say goodbye, did he not?" she muttered. "I wonder why he was in so much of a hurry?"

It now started to chip away at some parts, red fire beginning to spread around the once perfect ball.

"Do you, perhaps, miss the young boy, Princess Elly?" she asked, and I screamed.

I hurled the now weaker fire ball straight at the poor target, causing it to finally explode into magically enhanced wooden pieces. I glared as the pieces lost its magical properties and started to catch on fire.

"Oh, was I right?" she asked normally, like she had done nothing wrong.

I stormed towards her. "Regina! I was concentrating so hard, and I finally did get to conjure a perfectly white fire ball, but you had to keep disturbing me!"