Today made it a month since Victoria began living in the Alcazarian Castle. Being a woman and a participant of the Royal selection made it that there wasn't really much to do in the Castle. Victoria spent her day in a rather routinary manner. In the mornings Victoria would dress up, eat her feast of a breakfast and attend classes with the other girls.
Those classes mostly comprised of various topics such as embroidery, basic etiquette that had to do with in Mallory's words 'fancy rich person behavior' dance classes, flower arrangement and lessons on Alcazarian history.
Now Victoria unlike the other contestants for the Queen title did not have the luxury of these things being drilled into her head since she was born and performed pretty badly in those areas. What Gwen, Freya and Katherine saw as minor boring extra teachings, Victoria saw it as a whole new world that hadn't been explored yet. The only class Victoria performed better in was that of elemental magic training where Freya made it a mission to show the other girls how skilled she was in controlling her water element. Victoria was also skilled, very skilled…in fact she spent a great deal of her childhood fighting and training so that was the only thing she had to vouch for.
Lord Bastille was in middle aged man who had about thirty five years of experience when he came to magic of all sorts, some would even argue that he had taught the King and the prince everything they knew about magic when they were children.
Lord Bastille was their teacher in those elemental classes. For obvious reasons Freya made it her mission to impress their teachers on every subject and sabotage Victoria's little attempts on perfection. But during those elemental classes, Freya, no matter how she tried or how good she was…she just couldn't upstage Victoria and prove that she was better.
Was it was nice watching her try and faill because of how she would scrunch her face and frown when Lord Bastille commended Victoria for her above average talents. Besides Freya's and Victoria's one-sided rivalry, Katherine was also decent at her wind and air manipulation and every other area of study and Gwen struggled with only her elemental training…despite her obvious problems she had helped Victoria with her own struggles in etiquette and making Victoria call her on multiple occasions the light amongst the shadows.
She just couldn't fantom just how much a good person Gwen was most times. And this particular day blood Bastille asked them to do a simple yet tricky task. There were to conjure an element and form or mold such element into a sphere. Freya did so with water by controlling some water out of the water drug and manipulating the water into a ball shape with her glowing fingers.
Although the red- eyed girl succeeded with her task, she couldn't make the water hold its shape for long and after five seconds the water ball dropped to the floor with a splash. Victoria let a huge smile grace her lips when she saw the bottom of Freya's dress get wet.
"You did well, Lady Freya." Lord Bastille said, "This particular assignment is very complex, there is no need to feel bad for not getting it on the first try."
Lord Bastille's words of encouragement did nothing to calm Freya's fury. When it was Victoria's turn, she lasted for longer than 5 minutes with the ball of fire she had conjured floating above her glowing palms. it only quenched when their teacher told her to stop.
"Excellent work, Lady Victoria! You are simply exceptional at control!" Victoria beamed at Lord Bastille's praises, back at the Light Temple, she was never praised for her efforts in mastering an element as dangerous as fire at a child… mainly because she was the vessel of a goddess and they expected her to be perfect. Freya on other hand looked as if she was seconds away from flooding the training Hall with the water from the small pond nearby.
Katherine held her ball of nearly invisible wind magic for thirty seconds while Gwen had found it incredibly hard for her to mold the pile of rocks in the shape of a sphere, making Lord Bastille to harshly ask if she had gotten any amount of training before since she constantly failed at even the easiest of tasks… making Freya go from a fuming toddler to a child who had been gifted a toy, at least she was better than someone.
Throughout that day Gwen had been quiet, even at a Alcazerian history where she seemed to be the best, she didn't contribute to those lessons, no questions, no answers, nothing. During the evenings, Victoria would sit and chat with the Queen who's name she learned to be Adalana, but not every time though… probably once or twice a week because the Queen also had tea with Gwen, Freya and Katherine whenever she didn't she would drink perhaps herself. In the days she didn't have lessons or tea which the Queen she would spend time with Mallory and help her sew fancy dresses for future special occasions with her new sewing skills she learned from embroidery.
In the month Victoria had stayed in the Castle, she felt relaxed and at peace with this environment, almost coming to see the place as a… home. She hated herself for it.
Feeling relaxed in a place filled with enemies? She really was pathetic.
Between her rivalry with Freya and her lessons her friendship with Gwen, she had lost sight of her true goals, becoming accustomed to the comfort of being a Lady.
During her stay she hadn't seen or heard much from King Alvar, whenever she asked of him, Gwen (who she now saw as a very close friend) would tell her that he was a king and therefore he was a busy man. Xander, however had shown no signs of him being aware of her quest and during their short and mostly formally typical conversations, Xander had never poked into her thoughts like he did at the night of the ball. All was well, she was comfortable, well-fed, surrounded by beauty and luxury and people who treated her well. Victoria later found herself unable to deny that maybe she perhaps like it here.
Alcazar, the country situated at the heart of the Shadow Realm, the place she had always envisioned to look like hell was peaceful and calm, she no longer even got rude stairs in the workers in the castle anymore, they must have just accepted the fact that she was here to stay. Victoria was losing sight of her true intentions, she was growing to comfortable… that can't be good.