You Only Live Twice

XXIV

THREE WEEKS LATER and Olivia is only barely starting to feel some sense of normalcy walking around in this monster of a gothic academy.

With the new school year, classes, people, and little to no contact with the only people she can consider friends, Olivia has been more then overwhelmed and overstimulated.

She hadn't have to be forced into taking any magical classes, at least, due to her illness that constantly taunted at her when the day's end rolled around and she was beyond exhausted mentally and physically. But even that comfort hadn't been able to downplay how irritatingly difficult she's found her new classes to be.

Along with the normal classes expected of any middle school student, those she could handle, Olivia was enrolled in what was referred to "heir prep classes" by many students because of course they had those. She was constantly tested in real world situations, expected to have at the very least three chapters memorized out of every textbook thrown her way, made to strike deals and agreements with other classmates, and hand in a full front and back four page report on everything she'd learned at the end of the month. And, maybe she was just complaining but trying to adjust to a new environment while being immediately thrown straight into hard edged classes, was really taking a toll on her. She was trying not to worry herself too much on those classes grades since she'd be kicked out of them anyway when Ophelia was named heir to the Auclair family but some part of her deep down would rather die then get anything less then a B in any class.

It didn't help that Olivia was never one to be the most likable character, thus she never made much of an effort in making friends. They usually just came to her and she adjusted them into her life. It wasn't like that here, especially not with high society. Everyone was either already comfortable in the little cliques they've formed or approached with unsavory intentions she could smell from a mile away.

Olivia never saw much of Amos or Ezekiel either. Being upperclassmen with classes and lives of their own, she never caught much more then a glimpse of them at school and the occasional free time where all their schedules lined up was almost as rare as a blue moon.

This was all why homeroom was welcomed with open arms, even if she'd never admit it. Not even to herself. Homeroom was every other week, Mondays and Fridays. It was mostly a free class for anything the assigned staff member allowed. In homeroom she was sat at a table with the five of seven of the group she'd been paired up with the very first day at this academy. They all fit together like pieces of a puzzle from different boxes, but they've all slowly warmed up to each other and the carefree atmosphere they all managed to pitch into was a nice change from Olivia's normal suffocating loneliness.

Today was one of those biweekly Mondays. Their assigned teacher was one of the magic teaching professors, well known for her wild classes and eccentric personality, and she mostly let them do whatever they wanted as long as it didn't include blowing anything up or leaving campus. A bit irresponsible with a few screws loose where they shouldn't be, is how Olivia would describe her. This classroom in particular had large floor to ceiling windows on the left side overlooking one of the courtyards and the large lake that ran through the school grounds, from this side of the establishment you can see where the lake drops off the edge of the cliff and the beginnings of the second half of the school peeking out from the other side. Skylights let in natural sunlight from the ceiling, all the desks were circular and arranged randomly around the classroom, and greenery decorated the most of the classroom along with odd trinkets.

The classroom was its usual boisterous energy, her table not excluded. Leif and Augustus Driscoll sat next to each other to her left, she'd learned over the past few weeks through both the boys themselves and (mainly) rumors that Leif was the older illegitimate son of Count Driscoll and Augustus the younger by a mere few weeks. With all the annoyance and indifference he put up toward his older brother, Augustus seemed pretty protective of Lief. Cassidy Davies sat in the chair on her right, and the blonde twins whose names she'd learned were Miriam and Monica Summers in the chairs across her. The sisters were mostly quiet and kept to each other but every now and then they'd join in or be dragged into a conversation. Miriam was the softer, kinder sister of the two and Monica the more outspoken and blunt.