“Aaaand you’re dead.” Cel stepped back, taking a few deep breaths through her mouth as she allowed her opponent to recover from the strike she’d delivered to his heart. “You’re too slow on the windup, Grace. I saw that coming a mile away.”

“An’ yet somehow,” the defeated man said as he set down his wooden sword. “I jus’ know y’would’ve found some fault wi’that lunge even if it’d’ve been faster.” He made his way over to a nearby bench, taking a seat and, just a moment later, a cup of water offered by a very helpful young man. “I was already dead when y’blocked that low slash. That last hit o’yours was ‘nevitable.”

Cel nodded, set her own weapon aside, and retrieved some water for herself from the table on her side of the field. “Hey, you never know what could have happened if you were just a bit quicker there.” After taking a hefty drink, she chuckled and added, “Maybe we’d have been able to kill each other. You would’ve been awfully close to my neck there if I hadn’t knocked your sword away in time.”

“I’d still be dead though.”

“Yeah, but at least if this were the real thing you wouldn’t have your crown stolen.” Putting a hand to her chin and thinking for a moment, Cel then said, “Actually, how would that work? Say someone does come for the Crown, and you manage to kill each other. Who does it go to then? Your heir? His? Should be his, right?” She shook her head and took another sip of water. “Your laws are weird.”

The High King nodded, swirling his drink in his hand as he spoke. "It’d go to the challenger, yeah. Nuffin’ in th’laws sayin’ you gotta survive the duel. S’long’s the High King doesn’t, Crown passes t’the victor. Or, in this case, his family, I ‘spose.”

“Which means,” Cel said energetically. “Ya gotta practice more. Gotta stop dying, Grace. I worked way too hard getting here to lose everything just because someone came and lobbed your head off.” Downing what remained of her water, she continued, “Someone could come up and force you into one of these duels at any moment. I need to know that when that happens, you’ll be ready. You’ve got a future to think about. You’ve got a bloodline to preserve. I can’t just let you get yourself killed and throw away both of our futures like that.”

“So I need yer permission t’die now, do I?” High King Zacarius raised an eyebrow and spoke with a lightly-mocking tone.

“Yeah, pretty much. You and me, we’re… our lives…” While she searched for the right words, Cel gestured back and forth with her hands. “We’re… Connected, you know? I can’t afford to lose you.”

“Y’won’t,” the High King said as he rose to his feet.

Cel retrieved her weapon, a cruciform staff designed to emulate the unusual spear she normally used. “We’ll see,” she said, waiting for Zacarius to pick up his sword and assume a defensive stance.

Then she surged forwards, and knowing that a lunging attack would be expected from such a charge, instead swung her weapon horizontally to bypass the High King’s guard and hit him in the side.

He responded by grabbing the Queen’s staff before she could pull it away, tugging on it to trip her up and stepping aside to deliver a strike to her back with the pommel of his wooden sword.

Letting out a quiet grunt in response to the blunt force she could feel even through her thick sparring gambeson, she quickly found her footing again and spun around just as Zacarius was preparing another attack, connecting her staff with the side of his head. He moved with the blow before correcting himself, but showed no signs of any pain resulting from the hit – it was is right cheek that had been struck, and that was one of the areas most heavily-protected by his sparring gear due to his total lack of feeling on that side of his head.

“Li’l lower an’ I’d’ve been done for there,” he said calmly as he raised his sword to push Cel’s staff aside before stabbing at her, only to have her respond equally, stepping back and knocking his sword away to return the favor.

He stepped aside to avoid the jab, then kept his sword in a high guard as Cel stepped back and the two carefully moved in a wide circle, with the Queen holding out her staff to keep Zacarius within her reach and herself outside of his.

“You know, I really ought to learn how to use a sword,” she commented. “Maybe then this’d be a fair fight.” Then she began stepping forward, jabbing repeatedly at Zacarius while he continually stepped backwards and parried each strike until she stopped momentarily. When she swung again, he was gone, having disappeared in a cloud of dust, and just as soon as she registered what had happened, she felt a hand on her shoulder, a wooden sword being held up to her neck, and a body pressing against hers from behind.

The High King soon released her, giving her a little shove forwards and putting on as much of a grin as he could with half of his face covered. “Real fight ain’t fair an’ you know it,” he said.

“Oh, you really wanna use magic? As if I wasn’t already kicking your ass hard enough.” Cel turned to face him again, holding her staff upright with one hand and resting the other on her hip.

“If th’point’s to prepare for a crown duel,” Zacarius said with a shrug. “Gotta use magic. Can’t survive a real battle wi’out it.”

Cel held up her hand and gave a little unsteady nod, speaking with a hint of humor in her voice. “As you wish, Grace. I’ll try to limit myself to fire magic so you can keep up.”

Zacarius simply sighed in response as he got into position, waited for Cel to show that she was ready as well, then sprang into action at the earliest opportunity. He pulled his sword back to near his left shoulder, then ran a hand along its “blade” to give it a flaming aura, and with a quick horizontal slash that aura left the sword as a wave of fire towards Cel, only for her to simply reach out with one hand and absorb it.

She responded by taking hold of the cross near the top of her pretend-spear and thrusting upwards as she took a step forward, creating a pillar of fire that Zacarius was only barely able to jump away from.

His own retaliation came in the form of using his magic to propel himself forwards to take a swing at Cel, steadying himself to try again when she stepped out of the way, and yet again when she blocked the first attempt.

After parrying the second attempt as well, Cel held her staff horizontally with both hands and shoved the High King backwards, then using a hand to throw some fire at his feet to get him to back up further before following up with a lunge that he deflected.

He jumped even further back afterwards, then raised his left hand and snapped his fingers to produce a spark. A quick forward lunge turned the spark into a bolt of lightning with a thunderous noise, and only a moment later Cel had caught the energy in her outstretched hand, throwing it to the ground with a shocked expression on her face, causing another clap of thunder as it left her as well.

With an annoyed tone she called out, “I think lightning’s a little excessive for a sparring match!”

“Was just a li’l shock,” the High King replied. “Nuffin’ really dangerous.”

Cel sighed. “Well, either way, I need a minute to… breathe. Didn’t think you’d start using lightning.” In truth, she was fine – a little singed from the sudden influx of so much energy, perhaps, but still feeling as eager as ever to continue the practice fight. No, she had to pause to control an unforeseen side effect of redirecting that attack.

Evidently she had lost track of time while she and her husband honed their combat skills, and hadn’t been keeping track of her water intake between fights. Up until now she hadn’t felt any of the natural effects of such things, but the shock seemed to overpower her adrenaline, and without that rush of fighting energy suppressing her less-important feelings, it was now very clear to her that she rather urgently needed to urinate, and had for some time.

But the important thing was that she was still in control, and didn’t need to abandon the fight to deal with her bladder just yet – there would never be a chance to do so in a real battle anyways, so pushing on despite her needs now would ensure that she could if she ever found herself in a proper fight again.

So she took a deep breath, nodded at Zacarius to confirm that she was ready to continue, then threw herself right back into the action with a one-handed thrust from her spear to shoot a fireball in the High King’s general direction.

He, of course, dodged it cleanly and apparently effortlessly, responding with a swing of his practice sword to send out a fire wave of his own. So she held her staff up in front of her to deflect the spell, then momentarily crouched to wave her arm and create lines of fire on the ground to try to limit where Zacarius would be able to step. When she stood up again, she vanished and reappeared within the little ring she’d made around the High King.

But he immediately recognized what she was trying to do, and turned around just in time to deflect a strike from the Queen that had materialized behind him, following up with a successful strike to her side and preparing another that she was able to block before disappearing from his reach again.

She was kneeling when she reappeared this time, as far away from the ring around Zacarius as her staff was long, and took a moment to press with one hand against the multi-layered cloth between her legs. Teleporting had taken a bit of a toll on her full bladder, and she needed to be certain that she would remain in control after so casually using such advanced magic.

Considering she was still in the middle of a fight, though, Cel didn’t have more than a second to confirm that everything was alright before she had to stand and brace herself for further retaliation. She groaned as a mass of energy hit her, Zacarius having taken the lines of fire on the ground for himself, collecting them into a single fireball to throw at Cel.

She held her staff out defensively as the High King followed up with a charge, moving her staff aside with his sword and nearly crashing into her to elbow her in the gut, at which point he stepped back and she doubled over.

The strike itself hadn’t hurt very much, but considering where she had been hit… She had a hand once again between her legs as she used the other hand to swipe at Zacarius’s feet with her staff, hooking the cross around one ankle and pulling as he tried to move.

When he hit the ground, Cel straightened up and corrected her stance, keeping her legs apart and both hands on her weapon despite her desire to try to physically suppress her need to relieve herself. As Zacarius tried to rise, Cel forced him back down with her foot, but just as she was getting her staff into position to decisively win the sparring round, she too fell to the ground. The Queen landed on her back, grunting in response to not only the pain of suddenly hitting the dirt, but also the wild movements of her urine within her bladder as the High King pulled on her foot to remove it from beneath her.

With Cel stunned for a moment to keep herself in control, Zacarius had time to get back on his feet and approach the fallen Queen. She only fully recovered from the confusion of suddenly becoming horizontal – and the stress that put on her bladder – once Zacarius was looming over her, ready to end the duel in his favor. Thinking quickly, she brought her knees up to her chest and knocked the High King away with a hefty kick, then carried on to jump up to stand again.

As she retrieved her dropped staff and returned to a defensive stance, she hoped that the fight wouldn’t last too much longer – balling herself up like that and moving as she had done had fiercely jostled her bladder, and it was starting to feel like she didn’t have very much time left. Sure, she could have just let herself be defeated while lying on the ground, and been on her way to a bathroom by now, but allowing her husband such an easy victory wouldn’t be fair to him – for as much as she wanted to be done soon so she could relieve herself, her desire to see the fight through properly took priority.

When she looked over at Zacarius to consider what gaps in his defenses she might have been most able to exploit to finish the sparring session as quickly as possible, she saw him with a hand over his ribs and a grimace on his face for just a moment before giving his body a little shake and emitting embers in the process. It seemed she had done some serious damage, but fortunately it appeared to not be anything that a little magical healing couldn’t fix.

Indeed, the High King looked as vigorous as ever as he moved towards Cel, getting close enough to touch the wooden blade of his sword to the end of Cel’s pretend spear. For a moment they both just looked at each other, considering their options, and they both seemed to make a decision simultaneously. Cel stepped forward to deliver a thrusting attack, but at the very same instant Zacarius leapt aside and threw out a handful of fireballs, causing Cel to stumble backwards. Once she realized what he was doing, she held up a flaming hand, but by then it was too late.

Before she could properly cast anything, High King Zacarius took hold of the Queen’s hand to extinguish it, and a moment later she fell to her knees after getting struck in the back. When she felt the wood of his training sword resting against the back of her neck, she looked up at him to see a cocky smile and a gleam in his eye.

“How’s’at for not dyin’?” He brought his sword away from Cel and cast it aside, immediately afterwards removing his padded headgear and exposing the damaged side of his face. Then he held out a hand. “Need some help there?”

With a sigh Cel took hold of his hand and allowed herself to be dragged to her feet, letting out a quiet discomforted noise as the rough handling yet again shook up her bladder. Now that the fight was over, she stood with her legs pressed together as she looked for a way to excuse herself without making the situation awkward. “Uh, that was… That was kind of impressive, I have to say.” She removed her own helmet and simply dropped it to the ground at her feet.

“Is it?” Zacarius brought a hand up to his good cheek. “I just beat th’mos’ powerful mage t’ever have lived. Tha’s a bit more’n’ impressive, innit?”

“Well, I don’t know if I would word it like that… But-“

“Ah, jus’ teasin’,” the High King said, unaware that he had cut Cel off. “Anyway, wha’ now? ‘bout time for a good meal, y’think?”

“Maybe,” Cel said as she subtly rocked back and forth on her heels. “But, uh, there’s something I need to do first, so you just go on ahead and I’ll catch up.”

Zacarius raised an eyebrow at her. “Uh, okay? Sure.” He shrugged, and Cel disappeared from his sight.

When she rematerialized, she was inside the castle, within the bedchambers reserved for herself and her husband, kneeling with a hand pressed between her legs. She groaned as she tried to ease the pressure through such thick fabric, staying in her position for a little while trying to recover from the strain of a mid-range jump when she was already so full.

She shut her eyes, clenched her teeth, and groaned as she felt a warm patch appear within her clothing, clutching harder but ineffectually with the hand grabbing at her pants. At least she was totally private – this wasn’t exactly her first choice for an emergency teleportation destination, but nobody would ever be in the royal bedchambers if the royalty themselves were not, so it was the one place she knew for sure would be devoid of human life.

Forcing herself to stand, Cel felt the warmth between her legs spread for a moment and she started hurriedly fiddling with the various ties keeping her sparring clothes in place. And while she tugged at what seemed like a million different knots, she lamented the fact that she needed to wear pants to a weapons-based sparring match. Had it been a fistfight or an exclusively-magical duel, she would have been able to wear her preferred set of activewear: a sleeveless tunic and skirt, and no more. Then all she would have to do to relieve herself would be to get her skirt and underwear out of the way, instead of having to bother with unwieldy things like pants. And this protective gear was even worse than her Council uniform trousers…

But everything was untied just in time for another leak to break through her hold, and she rushed to remove the multi-layered cloth covering her legs, ending up pulling down both the regular pants she was wearing underneath and her panties alongside, leaving all of her bottomwear on the floor as she took a step back and pressed her thighs together. She was sure she looked ridiculous – a grown woman biting her lip and holding her crotch, wearing nothing but a gambeson and rubbing her legs against each other – but with nobody around to see she only had to worry about relieving herself.

At first she tightened the grip she had between her legs as she crouched down to reach under the massive bed with the hand that wasn’t getting little droplets on it, then lowered her head to the carpeted floor to look around for what she hadn’t been able to find, only to discover that it wasn’t even there at all. For a moment she panicked, but when she got back up to her feet and looked around the room she calmed down again. She had simply forgotten that her opulent bedroom lacked a chamberpot because it had a proper toilet already available, through a door that she had at first dismissed as merely a closet.

So Cel rushed for that door, threw it open, and silently rejoiced as she discovered that it was indeed not a closet, quickly turning around and backing up to seat herself on the toilet, not even bothering to close the door as she released her bladder with a deep, heavy sigh. With her legs open as they were, she could clearly hear the hissing of her urine leaving her body in a thick stream, but not any sounds of it striking anything, not even dirt.

And, oddly enough, she found that a little comforting. She was sitting on a simple wooden bench, urinating through a hole leading directly to the open air, her waters flowing down to nourish the plants at the foot of the castle. Cel had used much more advanced toilets before, experimental ones used at the Academy and fed with pipes so they would always have a little water in them, but there was something about the simpler, more traditional amenities of her castle home that just felt right. She was the Commonwealth Queen, wife of the ruler of all the Fifteen Kingdoms, and despite the incomprehensible luxuries that typically surrounded her, she still answered the call of nature exactly how she had done it in her humble monastic days.

She sighed again as she continued to relieve herself, not just of urine but of all the stress and confusion that came with waking up every day to a life she didn’t understand. But at least she understood her bladder – the one thing that never changed for her, the one need that would never have an elegant solution, and the thing that kept her coming back to the wooden seats and iron pots that she knew so well and would always be around no matter how decorated the rest of her surroundings were.

When her stream tapered off at last, Cel remained seated for a while, her hands on her legs as she took a few moments to simply shut her eyes and breathe, and only once she was finally ready to leave the familiarity of the toilet behind did she get up to remove the remainder of her clothes and change into something more comfortable.