Sam and Glossaryck's School for Pacifist Princesses
It had just become morning in Echo Creek, and Sam was shown to still be sleeping in the guest bedroom that once served as Star's bedroom years ago during her time on Earth. He soon let out some groans, meaning he was just starting to wake up. And when he slowly opened his eyes a little, the first thing he didn't expect to see was Aurora looking down at him with an euphoric smile on her face.
"SAM!"
Sam yelped in fright and stumbled out of bed from seeing his friend up in his face. He managed to pick himself up so he could face his friend. The outfit she was wearing today consisted of an orange tank top with a picture of a sun on it, dark blue shorts, and yellow sandals.
"Uh, morning, Aurora." he said still feeling drowsy but also confused as to why she would be in his room at this hour. "Uh, what are you doing here?"
Aurora continued smiling and reached behind her back to show Sam her reason for being here this early. it was a black book with the Butterfly family crest in the center and a variety of different shapes at all the edges. "Glossaryck gave me this book as a gift." she told him. "It's called 'Butterfly, A History.' It's a book about all the past queens and their history!"
Sam bore a depressed look from this as he knew what was coming next. Giving a sigh, Sam listened to Aurora chatter euphorically about the book's contents, knowing she wouldn't stop talking about it anytime soon. He was shown wearing the same bored expression as he listened to Aurora's ramble everywhere they went for the day, such as in the bathroom to brush their teeth, in the dining room to have breakfast, on the bus to school, and in the cafeteria during lunch hour.
It was when they got home that Aurora reached the page of one of her most favorite Queens. "And this page tells of Queen Etheria, the Knight. So named because she was the first queen to pick up a sword and learn the arts of swordsmanship." She started fawning over the famous warrior queen. "She was my greatest idol growing up."
Sam bore a look of surprise hearing that. For as long as he's know her, he's learned that Aurora is a pacifist, and now he learns that she idolizes a warrior queen. Even he can see the irony in this situation. "Um, excuse me. But why would a pacifist princess idolize a warrior queen?"
That question made Aurora see the irony in her hero worship and made her blush with embarrassment. "One thing has nothing to do with the other!" she says turning her head before getting up off the couch. "I'm gonna go take a shower." she says walking up the stairs.
Sam looked at her friend with a smile and rolled eyes, finding his latest discovery about Aurora's interests somewhat amusing. And this left him vulnerable when a certain little blue man made his presence known to him.
"Hello, Sam."
Sam jumped at the sound of Glossaryck's voice and seeing him appear next to him without warning and fell off the couch. This was the second time someone startled him today. "Dude, what is this, Startle Sam Day?!"
"Sorry 'bout that." Glossaryck apologized., though his voice didn't really sound sincere. "But I needed to talk to you about some urgent matters."
"Such as?" Sam asked.
"Well, me and Marco's parents just had a meeting with Star and Marco via the magic mirror." Glossaryck began explaining. "Marco asked how Aurora was settling in. Angie said she was doing fine. Then Star asked me how her training with the wand and learning self-defense from you was going. I hesitated on that and told her it was going along smoothly."
"Uh, doesn't that technically count as a lie?" Sam asked with concern.
Glossaryck just shrugged in response. "Kinda, but it won't be for long. You see, I decided to pick tomorrow to start Aurora's training. I'll be teaching her how to use the wand for combat purposes, and you'll be teaching her self-defense with hand-to-hand combat."
"Seriously?" Sam said unsettled, completely unprepared for this.
"Yes, seriously." Glossaryck narrowed his eyes. "Sam, need I remind you why I requested that you accompany me and Aurora on Earth. Not just to protect her, but also to teach her how to defend herself in situations where she doesn't have the wand or you to do just that."
Sam put some thought into this. Yes, Aurora is his best friend, and yes, he wants her to be safe. But he also knows that she doesn't like fighting for any reason. On the other hand, Glossaryck did have a point. There would eventually come times when he wouldn't be there to do his job. So maybe teaching Aurora hand-to-hand combat could be considered a good idea.
After some time, Sam finally caved in. "Alright." he said to the little blue man.
The sun was shining over Echo Creek the next morning, and Aurora was sound asleep in bed. She was just starting to stir and slowly opened her eyes, only for the first thing to see in the new day was Sam looking down at her with a smile, just like she did with him last morning.
"Hey Aurora."
Aurora cried in surprise at seeing her friend in her room and stumbled out of bed. "Sam, what are you doing here?" she said picking herself up. "I know you didn't like it when I startled you when you were waking up. So why would you do it to me?"
"Sorry, Aurora, I didn't mean to." Sam apologized. "But I was told to wake you up because Glossaryck decided to finally start your training." he explained. "So get dressed and meet us in the backyard." he advised walking out the door so Aurora could do just that, while Aurora gave a soft groan of irritation, showing she wasn't ready for this day to come.
Sam, Glossaryck and Aurora were now standing in the backyard with a larger teddy bear with them. It had canary yellow fur with a white snout and belly and beige ears and button eyes. Aurora was wearing a new outfit meant just for this occasion. Her hair was tied in a ponytail with a pink ribbon and she wore her pink headband and wore her wristbands. She was dressed in a light blue sleeveless shirt with a boxing glove print, pink sweatpants with white leggings, and blue tennis shoes.
"Okay, we decided to start with simple fencing." Glossaryck began explaining. "Do you remember all the rules of fencing?" he asked the princess.
Aurora only looked at him with a confused expression on her face. "Um... no." she said guilty.
"Okay, let me go over it briefly;" Glossaryck deadpanned. "Fencing is basically a sport version of swordfighting. You battle each other using non-lethal swords and get points for each contact you make on your opponent with said sword."
Sam then came in and tossed a wooden sword to Aurora so they could start the practice part of the lesson. Aurora manages to grab hold, but almost fell backwards due to the weight of it. When Sam tried to redo the toss, she missed it entirely and got hit in the head, leaving her temporarily dazed before falling down unconscious.
Sam decided to put fencing on hold and instead try teaching close combat. He positioned the teddy bear in front of Aurora to get the lesson prepared. "Okay, for this lesson, we're just gonna start with a simple punch." he explained coming over to his friend and pushed her closer. "So just ball your hand into a fist and thrust it at the bear."
Aurora only looked at the teddy with a concerned expression before following Sam's instructions. However, when the time came to land a punch to her target, she only gave it a gentle tap with her knuckles, something that Sam and Glossaryck facepalmed in response to.
"You're gonna have to do it a lot harder than that." Sam specified to his friend.
Aurora however, only continued to look concerned and turned to tell her friend, "I don't wanna do this, guys." she whined, still feeling uneasy about taking these lessons.
"Look, Aurora, I know this doesn't feel right to you," Glossaryck tried to comfort her. "But it's like your friends said, there are going to be times when they're not around to protect you and you have to fight your own battles." He knew this would be hard for Aurora to do, but knew her friends had a point about the situation.
Aurora gave a sigh of defeat, knowing that Glossaryck was right about her friends' views, and went to try again. This time she did manage a hard punch, but her fist sank deep into the teddy before being pushed back and hit her square in the face, making her stumble backwards and fall to her back. She didn't have time to respond when the bear leaned forward and landed right on top of her, pinning her underneath it.
"This may be a little harder than we first thought." Sam said with a deadpan look, Glossaryck slightly nodding in agreement. "Next!"
Glossaryck decided to have a go at teaching Aurora attack spells with her wand. "Okay, just use any kind of spell you can think of as an attack." he instructed.
Aurora took some thought on this and held her wand at the bear, letting a small beam shoot out and strike it, being enveloped in a white light. Sam and Glossaryck looked on with eager faces to see the results while Aurora looked with a concerned expression. When the light cleared, the two mentors' faces changed to looks of disappointment, for the bear was shown now being surrounded by flowers, Aurora lowering her head in shame for her failure.
And so it went; every lesson Sam and Glossaryck gave Aurora usually ended up with the princess getting hurt and sometimes pinned underneath the bear. However, over time Aurora soon showed an improvement in her training. She soon became able to manage the swords and mastered the basics of fencing, she became able to land good punches and kicks on the bear without hurting herself, and was able to think of spells that could make excellent attacks. And when Aurora's training improved, Glossaryck then used his magic powers to make it be a bit more difficult. Sometimes he would make the bear a bit heavier to make it harder to shove or use his telekinetic powers to move the bear so it would be harder to hit. And other times he would make it come to life with a desire to give a tight embrace to the person in front of him... All to improve Aurora's training.
After an unknown amount of time, Aurora's training for today had concluded in the late afternoon. At this time, Aurora had become proud of herself and how far she's come in her training.
"I can't believe how far I've come!" the princess praised her accomplishment before telling Glossaryck, "Come on, Glossaryck, let's see how well I can do at level six."
But Glossaryck didn't believe she was ready for that level yet. "No, I think level five is just about far we should go for now." he denied. "Look, you've gotten better at using the wand in basic combat, so that's all that should matter right now."
"What?" Aurora slightly whined. Normally Aurora wouldn't protest due to not liking violence and instead respect Glossaryck's decision. But at this time, she's become so confident in her skills she feels she can take on more. "Come on, Glossaryck. It's just a teddy bear, what could go wrong?"
"Now Aurora, you should know to respect your mentor's decision." Glossaryck said sternly, narrowing his eyes at his student. And Aurora, looking a bit timid from seeing his serious expression, calmly backed down.
"Yes sir." she sighed.
It had just become nighttime, and everyone everyone had gathered inside to have dinner. Angie had made everyone taco soup, which everyone found delicious. After dinner, everyone went to the bathroom to brush their teeth, wash their faces, and finally curled up in bed, concluding the day.
Suddenly, Aurora opens one of her eyes and surveys her room. She silently gets up and turns to the spellbook, snoring being heard from it telling her that Glossaryck was sound asleep. She got up out of bed and crept down the hall and down the stairs and finally out the back door to the yard. There she saw the bear exactly where Glossaryck left it. Aurora gives a confident smile as she raises her wand towards the bear.
"I'll show Glossaryck I can handle it."
"Aurora." a voice silently called out, something that completely startled the princess just as she fired a magic blast from her wand. She turned swiftly to see that it was Sam. Apparently her silent sneak down the hall wasn't silent enough for Sam to not hear her, and made him investigate what was going on only to find his friend outside at this hour. "What are you doing?"
Aurora never got the chance to answer before a sharp growl was heard. The two turned in its direction to see the bear glowing a green aura, and soon started becoming less plush and more frightening. Soon the bear got up and showed it's now-monstrous appearance, giving an authentic grizzly roar at the two teens.
"What did you do?!" Sam asked with fear in his voice from seeing the killer teddy bear.
"I don't know!" Aurora replied with the same fear in her voice. "I think when you startled me, I lost focus with my spell and must've accidentally raised the difficulty level higher than what I intended." she theorized as she dodged the swipes the bear gave with its paws. "I think this is the kind of training for level eleven!"
"Well, we better fix this quick before it wakes up and destroys the neighborhood!" Sam recommended, with Aurora agreeing on the matter. "Right, and we better keep it away from the house so my grandparents will be safe." With that, the two finally regrouped and got into battle stances, ready to engage in this war with the killer teddy bear.
Aurora's worries however, were not really all that much, as her grandparents Angie and Rafael were shown to be fast asleep, looking like they can't even hear the noise coming from outside. It's been theorized that due to Star and Marco once fighting monsters often in the backyard back in their teen years, Marco's parents grew accustomed to the sound of fighting and managed to sleep peacefully through it.
The bear swung its paw at Sam, but he managed to jump away from it and got under its face and deliver a swift kick to the chin, sending the monster ursine stumbling backwards and falling on its back against the fence and breaking it.
"Sam, give me a boost!" Aurora ordered. Sam did as he was told and put his hands together. Aurora put a foot on them and he lifted he up and shot her into the air. The princess spun around before pointing her want at the bear with courage in her eyes.
"BURNING PHOENIX BLAST!"
A magical blast shot out of the wand in the form of a burning phoenix. The firebird gave a sharp screech before striking the killer teddy bear and causing it to burst into flames, the burning pieces of fabric scattered all over the yard.
Aurora could only look at the devastation her actions had caused with a guilty look and her wand behind her back. "Glossaryck was right, I was not ready for more than I could handle." She then turns to face Sam. "I'm sorry I caused this. I guess I got a taste of what my dad calls hubris."
Sam however, didn't look at all angry with Aurora. In fact, he actually looked pretty calm about the event. "It's cool, Aurora. I'm just glad this incident helped you evolve in both your training, and knowing when you've reached your limits."
Aurora could only smile at her friend's comment before turning the focus on the damage done to the yard. "We should probably get this cleaned up before my grandparents wake up and demand an explanation." she advised, Sam nodding in agreement. The two started working together to put out the fires all over the yard and quietly rebuild the fence.
The scene pans over to the house, where Aurora's bedroom light is somehow on. A small silhouette was shown at the window, and a zoom-in revealed it to be Glossaryck, who apparently had been faking being fast asleep and was watching the whole scene unfold the whole time. Surprisingly, like Sam, he didn't look mad that Aurora disobeyed him, but instead bore a calm smile at the princess for learning her lesson from this experience.
"She's Star's daughter after all." he said to himself, and the scene panned over to show a picture hanging on the wall next to Aurora's desk, a picture of a young Aurora hugging her mother, Queen Star.