1 Chapter 1: Starting Over

Elizabella sat in the back corner seat, next to the window. The ones who occupied the front seats were all children of the highest noble families in each particular class. The families with the most influential political power, had many such privileges in the Royal Academy. The Harkins Clan held no real power, just the title of Baron.

Elizabella sighed as she fixed her glasses and looked outside the window. She had started attending the Royal Academy for about six months now. It was difficult for her to make friends at the beginning since her family had no real power and most of the students only made friends that could help in their future. When she first came to school, she instantly became the most talked about unknown, making her very "famous".

Why? She was the first scholarship student to apply and get a full-ride scholarship. Not that no one has never applied in the past before amongst the commoners, just that no one has ever passed their tests. One had to pass not just the hard academic portion, but the arts portion that included both visual and performance arts.

Elizabella will be the first to tell anyone that she is not perfect in drawing or painting; however, her production class powers has always given her an edge on crafting anything out of most materials she can touch. In fact, she was so good at it, she started a successful jewelry business when she was ten years old, just crafting and selling her products.

Unlike the Harkins Clan that only made enough for their family, Elizabella's birth family had always had money to waste. The Blakeloch Clan has always celebrated a rich history of nobles and power within the Royal Court. However, the Blakeloch Clan only holds that prestige in the Kingdom of Edalelia. Elizabella was born and grew up alongside the present Queen and her two favored grandsons who were a little older then Elizabella, in the Kingdom of Edalelia.

One can say that Elizabella has lived a blissful and sheltered life since she practically grew up playing in the palace with the two princes and even taking classes with them. She had anything and everything her little heart could ever dream of; that is until her family was killed. Her whole clan was practically annihilated with her the only known survivor because she was not present at the family event.

After the death of her family, she had stayed in Edalelia for some time before she came to live with her aunt who inherited the Baron(ess) title from her grandfather. Elizabella's grandfather was the one who had acquired the title of Baron after saving the late King's life and later befriending him. Elizabella's aunt, Ludy, married a commoner and kept the title of Baroness.

Elizabella had been living with her aunt and her family for about seven months now. The Harkins had been living away from the capital and moved back to help accommodate Elizabella's school, is what they tell people. The reality was that the Baroness was ashamed to show her niece and personal servants their depleted looking ancestral home.

The late King had gifted a moderate property to the Harkins when they attained the title of Baron located within the capital. After the late King passed away, they moved back to the country side to get away from any political turmoil his death would cause.

Through the late King's orders, the gifted property has always been looked after even though the family had been away. Once they came back to the capital with Elizabella and her servants, they promptly made the property more presentable as to fit the status of a young lady from a Marquess household. A Marquess/Marchioness was just underneath a Duke/Duchess, who was beneath the royals. To be a Duke one had to be related to the royals, mostly though blood relations. Underneath a Marquess was an Earl/Countess what follows is a Viscount/Viscountess and the last of the nobles was a Baron/Baroness.

Elizabella's proper title was a Marchioness, higher above a Baron, making her Aunt Ludy self-conscience of their way of life compared to Elizabella's. To get away from the Palace life and the political turmoil caused by her family's death, Elizabella wanted to have a low profile; which is why she had her Aunt Ludy pose as her mother. Aunt Ludy only agreed if she went to the Royal Academy in the capital,

Elizabella had argued that the tuition would be too much for the family to produce without her interference. She finally agreed to attend only if she passed the entrance exam as well as the full-ride scholarship, which she had heard was notorious to get. She had been surprised that she was accepted with the scholarship.

To further add to her new low profile life, she had her name changed, just in case any visiting foreign dignitary happened to attend any of the school's functions. In school, she went by Aphra "Ginny" Harkins. Ginny to the students and staff.

She yawned as she looked out the window, not paying attention to the teacher's lesson. She sighed again as she looked up at the sky and happened to blow a strand of her silver-lilac hair. Elizabella had to take a politics class, which she was already good in for she was taught in the palace since she was young.

The young girl preferred any of her performance arts classes, especially if she was doing a project, like a play or musical. Although she could perform on stage no problem, she preferred to create something from scratch and watch it come to life with other performers. She even ended up acquiring a nickname and is famous for it in school: Director Ginny.

All of her performance projects had ended up with memorable success. At the end of every month, the school has a week long performance festival after school and even to the weekend. The weekend slots are only reserved for the most popular performances voted by the students and staff. Reason being was the weekends were open to the public. It is safe to say that Elizabella's performances have become a favorite regular. There is just a couple of weeks left for the final performance week before a short holiday break.

During this performance week, exams will also be held. This time of the year, the students are visibly stressed, whereas Elizabella is seen as carefree, making most of her classmates stare, then sigh at her carefreeness.

The bell sounds, making Elizabella look up and grin. Her las class was a free period that she would use as the time to prepare for any of her performances. For her recent skit, she decided to tweak it and have a few dancers help out. She just needed to make the announcement on the students' bulletin board and she could hold auditions as soon as tomorrow.

She grabbed her things and walked out the class after a few polite pleasantries with her classmates.