We've been traveling for at least a couple of hours now, the castle getting bigger by the second. I can smell the royal air surrounding it and by that I mean you can't smell any animal defecation and everything smells much fresher. The cool night air bites at my exposed arms, the small coat I'm wearing is not helping me at all. We cross a wooden bridge that dangles over a moat and enter the castle grounds.
A graceful fountain with lush green grass surrounding it. Right in front of it is two wooden doors and brick laid down in front of it, making it like a town square. Even though, the town is all the way down this little mountain. The coachman, which I learned on the ride's name is Jack, opens the door and gives me a kind smile.
"Come on kid, the headmistress is already chewing at my feet for being late." He says jokingly, clearly he's used to being late. His joke makes me giggle, he smirks and holds his hand out to help me out of the carriage. I take his hand, and climb out, picking up my leather bag, while he carries my rundown instrument case.
The guards open the doors at the sight of the man, I can see Jack wink at the slightly smaller guard. His helmet covered his face but I had the feeling that he was blushing.
Returning my attention back to the castle. I almost stop in my tracks at how large the castle is. It's huge, my jaw drops at how gorgeous the architecture is. I can hear a chuckle at my reaction before grunting (again) at the heavy instrument.
"I apologise that we don't have a greeting for you. Usually we get the orchestra out for new visitors. We were planning one but something came up." He sighs, uncomfortably scratching his scalp.
"Alright, up that staircase is the teachers' rooms." He says pointing to the staircase right in front of me. "Go up one level, there are the student's rooms. There's the dining area." He continues, pointing past the staircase after he put my cello down to explain.
"Take one right in these long hallways is your year's classes." He says gesturing to our right. "To the left is the year nine's classes. The year ten's and eleven's have their own wing, it's the same with the year twelve's and thirteen's. It goes like that all the way through, from preschool to university."
He then goes on to explain where the kitchen, ballroom, and everything else I would need is. After his explanation, we walked to my room. He gives me the keys, tells me not to cause much noise, says he'll put my instrument of choice in my music class, and then says his goodbyes, doing exactly what he said he would.
I open the door to my room, it is a lot bigger than my room at home. I have a double bed and to my left is a walk-in closet. Next to the door was a dark oak desk, with all my necessary items for the school day. I also have around 5 uniforms, but I can wear my own clothes on the weekends. On the right was a bathroom. I set my suitcase down and start unpacking.
It didn't take me long to unpack since I don't have a lot. I then proceed to change into my sleepwear and plop onto the comfy bed. Crawling underneath the blankets, I close my eyes and let the darkness latch on to my exhaustion and my overwhelming amount of emotions. Drifting into a deep sleep.
I wake up to a bell ringing loudly and an old-sounding lady yelling, "Wake up ladies!" I groan at the sudden loud noise, already missing my mother and her ways of waking me, even if it's by tearing the warm blanket off me.
Then there's a bang on my door and then someone opens it, "You must be the new girl." An old, much kinder sounding lady pops her head through the door. I nodded, she smiled and then continued, "This is Edith, she will be helping you get settled in." As she says that an uptight tight seeming girl walks beside her.
The old lady leaves and as soon as she does Edith says, "Breakfast is in ten minutes get ready, we have half of the same classes." She goes to get ready herself but I stop her, "What about the other half?" She turns back to me and says, "I will tell you more at breakfast." She then leaves without hesitation.
I met her outside my room and together we made our way to the dining room where breakfast is being held. The girl slowly started getting less... old fashioned but I could tell that she wasn't letting loose anytime soon.
At the breakfast table, we met Anna. She has the other half of my classes with me. She's so relaxed, she's much better company than Edith but I could tell, these are my friends for the year. I could tell the way these two get across that they have been friends for quite some time now.
While eating breakfast they gave me a list of (in their collective opinion) the most important rules. These rules did give me a lot of questions...
"These are the most important rules," Edit says in her usual, sombre voice and then places a paper in front of me with bullet points listing the rules. I pick it up and start reading. • Clean your room • Respect the teacher • Feed your bat(s) The moment I read that I laughed so hard. "What bats?" I ask after recovering from my laughing fit. I continue eating my scrambled eggs as Edith explains. "Well, when the school first started they had a mango farm to import, to support the costs of the academy." She started but Anna interrupted her by saying, "She's madly obsessed with the history of this place." Edith rolls her eyes at this and says, "I am not
Every day that passed after that was excruciating. The curiosity of these strange rules biting me. Bothering me, to the point where I can't even focus in class. I am getting in trouble several times for not paying attention. For example, while in English class I was doing what I always seem to be doing nowadays. I was daydreaming of the king. A whole array of questions were storming and brewing in my head when the teacher called on me. I confessed and luckily she let me off with a warning. Though, her warning didn't help because thoughts of the king are like a looming figure in my head. Always on my mind. In music class, we practised, well at least for my fellow classmates, all the songs. For me, however, I was struggling to learn all the songs while they just continued playing. Th
...I should turn back but when the door rattles I know, there's no turning back now. The door rattles, like locks being opened. There's a pause at the door, like whoever is at the door is contemplating whether or not to open. Like the universe was giving the person at that door an extra push. Just as irrational as my decision was, the door opens. The squeaking of the door is what brings me to look up at the handsome male who opened the door, who I assumed to be the king. To say he was handsome would be an understatement. He is beyond drop-dead gorgeous, like a god that fell from the sky. With a jawline that could cut glass, he looks amused with my shocked expression. I expected him to be some old, 60-something man. His eyes are piercing blue, like a dark storm cloud, the strike of lightning, or the clear waters of the ocean that my mother would describe to me and just as enchanting. Like they hold years of wisdom in them.
When I opened the old creaky door all I see are mops, brooms, cloths, soap, and other cleaning supplies. I'm in a fake maid's closet, made for these secret tunnels the King has. Very peculiar, opening the door in front of me and I'm greeted by stares from young girls in their nightclothes.From another point of view, I'm a girl who just walked out of a maid's closet, I can just hear the rumors spreading already. To add to my list of problems Mr. Anderson storms up to me and grabs me by the wrist. He angrily fumes me into his office, for such a short man he walks swiftly.He sits down in his carved spruce wood chair. "Care to explain why your I.B went off?" He raises his brow at me, playing with his pen. I didn't say anything, I didn't know what to say. "And then you somehow deactivate it?" I must be looking like a cherry tomato."If I wasn't busy so with-" He stops himself before he goes on. "With?" I ask slyly, trying to lighten the mood. His chee
The days went by excruciatingly slow, with nothing memorable happening but eventually, Thursday turned into Friday and in the blink of an eye, it was already Monday again. The weekend consisted of nothing but working and relaxing.Every now and then Anna and I would go out into the town square. Talk to some people who live in the castle and many other activities. Nothing out of the ordinary, not until Monday came again.The day Alexander told me to met him and my nerves are running up and down the walls. What if Levi told Alexander about what I did? He could expel me, where would I go to school then?The whole day my mind has been coming up with what-ifs and scenarios of what would happen. Not to mention, what am I going to tell my friends? My mind constantly being consumed by fake realities between me, Alexander, and my friends made the time fly by.I could tell them the truth, explain to them that I'll be meeting someone on the field but then they
It just past midnight, the grandfather clock chiming in the hallway. It rings once; twice; twelve times to signal midnight, which means it's Tuesday. The day that I finally get to see Levi again, my mind should be at ease but no.My brain races all over thinking of what he might be doing. If Alexander spoke to Levi, maybe he'll ban me from ever seeing him again.I'm tossing and turning, trying to find the right position to sleep in. Trying to get my body to succumb to exhaustion and just sleep.My whole body is tired, my eyelids droopy; my legs tired; my arms heavy, the only thing not tired is my mind. It moves at the speed of a racing horse, jumping from one thought to the next, making me crave the peacefulness sleep would provide even more.Hopefully, soon my mind will wear itself out, join my body in its hazy, sleepy state. Let the dark blanket of the night, hug me and comfort me into a deep sleep.That is what happened, at least I think s
1 September 1272 Tuesday:I open the door that I yearn to open each day but like last Tuesday, the room lacks a tall handsome figure. I walk forward, looking around trying to find Levi. Right as I was about to go to the far end door I found Levi the last time, the man I'm trying to find jumps in front of me and scares me. "Boo!" He yells, scaring me right out of my shoes."Levi! You scared me!" I yell, slapping his arm playfully, slightly gripping it for support as I calm down my speeding heart and catch my breath. He just continues laughing, gripping his stomach from the pain of so much snickering, I assume. Annoyed I scoff and make my way over to the coach. With a huff, I sit-down, and cross my arms, showing Levi my annoyance.He walks over to me, a troubled look on his face, and starts panicking. "I-I, I'm sorry, I didn't k-know you w-w-would get so scared." He says, his face showing
8 September 1272 TuesdayI tap nervously on my table, excited to see Levi. As soon as the bell rings and the teacher tells us goodbye, I make my way out of the room as quickly as I can. I then make my way to my room in just a few minutes.When I open my door I see the one and only King of the north, standing in a cloak holding an odd, brown, rectangular box. "M'lady," he says, bowing down to me. I giggle, closing the door behind me and saying to him in a fake powerful voice. "Sneaking into my room, I should have your head for that!" He fake gasped at my statement.We tried not to laugh as we looked at each other, seriously but we just can't help ourselves and burst out in laughter.Once we finished laughing Levi proceeds to say, "Anyway, I brought one of my f-favorite board games." He said but I stooped him by saying, "Ah ah, we gotta go through the techniques." Swaying my finger left and right.He sighs but then to my surpri