The little footsteps grew closer, and were soon enough joined by breaths, short and quick. Fearful. No, not fearful, excited. Some child, approaching on a dare, perhaps? Trying to prove to a group of friends, or maybe to earn a kiss from one of the kitchen lasses. Cideth had been the butt of such jokes before, but mostly just ignored them unless they did something to get in his way. The few times a child had tried to steal one of his knives, though, his response had been quick and brutal, although not to the point of being debilitating. The kids only needed a few such examples before deciding to generally keep out of his way.
It was only as the footsteps got towards the ring of trees that Cideth caught a glimpse of a fine silk nightgown, and a head of wavy, black hair. Not some stableboy or maid-in-training, then, but a princess. He would have thought that she would have had all the more reason to stay away from him, as carefully as her mother and nannies had worked to shelter her from his existence, when they didn't need him for guard duty. He'd certainly been a figure to terrify her dreams at one point, when someone had told her horror stories about him in an attempt to mitigate her natural, childish curiosity. Apparently such stories had faded from her adolescent memory.
He didn't have any particular desire to have a royal onlooker, but he didn't do anything to chase her away, either. If word got back to Malcom or Brennan that he'd done anything to upset the only princess in the royal family his punishment would be delivered swiftly, and it would not be merciful. Instead, he continued working on his forms, picking out ten or twenty at random from the hundreds he knew and stringing them together in artful, fluid patterns.
Twisting to the side, arm moving like a viper, to divert an imaginary punch coming in towards his chest. Using the momentum of the twist he rolled forward, sending his hand flicking out. A whip across the eyes with stiff fingers, followed by a blow to the temple with the back of the very same hand. Bringing the other hand forward, fingers twisted, to hook into imaginary eye sockets. Twisting backwards, the heel of the other hand flashing forward to strike against the forehead, jerking the imaginary head back even as his other hand, still hooked, pulled away. The person would have been long since dead, but Cideth continued onward anyways, transitioning forward to catch the arms and loop around the shoulder, wrenching the arm out of its socket.
Every move was slow and precise and perfect, but performed with the same strength and intensity he would have used if aiming to kill. Once this kind of work had exhausted him, back when he had been younger even than the princess onlooker. Now, however, his muscles might as well have been made of solid steel, so little did they react to the draining exercise. He never skipped a day, as long as he had even a few moments to himself. These forms had not been the only thing hammered into him until it happened seemingly by instinct.
Once he had gone through about twenty minutes to a half hour of the tensioned versions, he would start speeding up, moving at normal speed for most of the guards, before blurring beyond that to the kind of intensity only masters of the art could mirror. He somehow doubted his silent observer would stay silent that long. Hopefully she would be found, or leave.