Falling petals

A Wild Wolf

While a few more hours of playing around with them, the clock has stricken 4, indicating the time to switch. At exactly 4, Ariel shows up with Gabriel and heads toward them. Ariel arrives before Azrael, he quickly scoops up Sakura and lifts her up high
"Hello! How is our most beautiful princess? Did you have a wonderful morning? Don't worry, uncle Ariel will let you have even more fun ok?".

The man was laughing and looking up at her in his hand, he didn't grab tight, nor was loose so her highness won't fall from his hands.
Sakura looks down in surprise because his actions was so abrupt, that she was a bit dizzy from the sudden lift, but when she looked around she can see even more of her surrounding, the man was as tall as Azrael, so it was easy to see how high she was.
'wow! It's like standing at the edge of a cliff in this child body, it's exhilarating yet frightening too.'

"Ariel, please be a bit more gentle, her highness is just a toddler and a young lady, her dress is puffed up, and you are messing with her hair by allowing the wind to blow it around, and what's mo-" before Gabriel can continue his nagging, Ariel starts running away with her still in the air, her arms spread out as if she was a plane.

"ARIEL!? Wait! Come back here this instant, you will end up frightened her highness!!." The last thing Azrael and Uriel saw was Gabriel running to chase a wild Ariel with their princess laughs filling the area.

"....As always, Ariel just does what he wants. They came like the wind and quickly drifted away as one," Uriel can only sigh and let out a weak smile when he saw this.

"... Would the princess like me to do that the next time I take care of her?" While Azrael thought of ways to make the princess smile and laugh the way she did while leaving in Ariel's arms.

"Ar-huff huff wai-wait a second Ariel, you know I haven't done any type of exercise in a while, huff-huff."
Gabriel seems to have reached his limit and was grabbing his knees, his breath coming and going with huffs and puffs.

Ariel glances back and laughs at his friends who looked as if he will collapse any moment, his face pale in his mocha skin. Ariel stops and brings down Sakura to hold her steady in his arms and turns back to stand before his friend.
"I forgot how much weaker you became after taking the position of head magician, you really need to start exercising more, rather than taking steady and long walks." Ariel glances down at his friend and advises him on muscle training.

"Haha, no thank you" his breathing became steady and he stand straight looking at his friend with a wry smile, " especially if it's any muscle training you advise me with, I still remember how sore my body was with each time you trained me."
They were discussing their days as Adventurers, but if you heard Gabriel's words out of context, another image started to appear in Sakura's mind.

'No! Bad Sakura! You know they didn't mean it that way, don't you dare head in that direction.'
"But thanks to all that experience, you were fit and were at least able to defend yourself if a sneak attack happens." Ariel jokes around with Gabriel, one arm swing around his shoulder, and the other holding Sakura. 'He really seems to have experience with kids, his body subconsciously already knows how to hold her so she is comfortable, but safe.' Sakura lays her head in his shoulder and let's out a small yawn, but both men noticed.
"It seems that her highness needs to rest, I don't think she had her nap yet." Gabriel turns to see her highness eyes drooping and trying to keep awake, Ariel agrees with him and starts walking, still having his arm over Gabriel's shoulder, dragging him with him.

Gabriel can only sigh and follow him. At the beginning when they were running around, Sakura hasn't noticed that they already arrived all the way to the other side of the palace to a separate building altogether.

In her sleepy mind she starts to remember that their the main headquarters of the battle knights, those who are trained for battle in wars or patrols around the border of the empire. Each knight are trained here and sent out to diffrent sections of the border to help protect its borders, as well as watch over the kingdoms inside of the empire, to make sure no king is planning to usurp their emperor.