To Be a Princess

→chapter six

Before she knew it, a month had passed since the incident regarding the archery club. Since then, Ophelia had stopped going to the club but instead started focusing on her studies, since she didn't want to fall behind before school had even started properly.

Although May didn't share the same feelings as her about schoolwork, she was happy to help cheer her up in whatever way possible ever since what had happened in the first week of school. Even though May made it subtle, Ophelia began to pick up on the signs that she was trying to keep her away from Cassie, and she didn't blame her. If they were too close to her at lunchtime, May would say that she preferred to eat outside. If Cassie was in her dorm on the weekends, May would drag her to do some sort of activity.

And Cassie wasn't any better. She no longer gave her awful stares, but instead she entirely began to ignore Ophelia's existence. If they were seated close together in class, Cassie wouldn't look at her and instead pretend to be distracted by something she saw through the window. It was as though she was being made nonexistent to her.

Still, she didn't let this bring her mood down. With the crisp autumn days arriving quickly, Autumn Town was almost open to the students of Royale High, and May had been eagerly waiting for the weekend to arrive all week so that they could go see one of the most famous landmarked towns in Divinia.

So when Friday arrived, most of the students were so eager that they couldn't focus in lessons. For many, it would be their first time visiting the town as it was only open to tourists in the autumn. Unfortunately for Ophelia, her final lesson that Friday was history. And worst of all, she would be presenting her family tree project today.

A week prior, their history professor had set them a project to find out more about the history of their family and present it. Ophelia knew nothing about her family, so after a brief call with her mother asking for any information and photos of her family tree to be sent to her by letter, she'd managed to compile a small project. She knew it would be much smaller than the rest of her classmates' since she had no noble blood or wealthy family.

May was finishing presenting her project to the history class, so that meant that her presentation was next.

"So after my grandmother died after serving the Princess of Fantasia as her governess until she was of age, my father went on to become part of the Fantasian Royal Court for the now Queen of Fantasia. And now I'm here and that's about it," May shrugged, half smiling.

A few claps went around the room. "Yes, yes, well done, that was an excellent presentation, although I must say you lacked much enthusiasm in speaking about how honorable your family was. Regardless, does anyone have any questions for May?" their professor asked.

No one raised their hand.

"Alright then, next on the list, Ophelia? Please come up here and begin."

Nervously, Ophelia stood up and walked to the front of the room. She could feel everyone's stares at the back of her neck before she even turned around to face them.

"So, um, the furthest most significant person I could find in my family tree was Robert Greggerson. He was a soldier for Divinia in the Great War in 1758. My mum found this sketch of him in our attic but she doesn't really remember where we got it from."

She shakily held up a frame that held a faded piece of paper in her hand. Although it was old, you could see the broad, proud smile on the young man's face as he posed for his sketch.

"And then, there aren't any records of our family until about a hundred years ago, where there's a letter from my great, great grandmother who was writing a letter to her husband who was away at sea, and it talked about how she was working for the Dormer family. The letter was too fragile to bring in so I can't have it right now. For the last few generations, my family worked in service of the Dormer family in the country of Fantasia as servants until my mother was alive, but she left them after she had me and moved to Divinia to start a new life. And that's about it."

May was the only one to clap, whilst the rest of the class looked bored. She didn't blame them.

"A great presentation. Robert Greggerson sounds like a brave man for fighting in the Great War, which in fact we will be covering later on in the school year so if you'd like to do research in your own time, you are free to do so. Now any questions for Ophelia?" he asked.

To her surprise, Cassie raised her hand and looked her square in the eyes, but her expression was blank.

"If you have no noble blood or wealthy family, how did you get into a school like Royale High?" she asked.

"I- I got into the school through the scholarship programme. I had to take an exam and was lucky enough to do well enough in it." By the end of the sentence she was mumbling, but Cassie was no longer looking at her.

"Err, let's move on then class. Next on the list... Cassandra."

Cassie's eyes widened before raising her hand suddenly.

"Professor, the headmistress should have notified you that I can't do the presentation. It's uh, for personal reasons," she said, her voice wavering slightly with concern.

"She did? Oh! My mistake, yes, sorry. I forgot to take you off the list. That means it's Eleanor's turn, come on up."

The remainder of the class continued smoothly, but Ophelia couldn't stop the nervous feeling in her chest that had been weighing on her since her presentation. It only got worse when Cassandra caught her eye during the final presentation of the day.

"Alright, class dismissed. Have a lovely weekend everyone, I'll see you on Tuesday," the teacher said, as everyone began rushing out of the class.

May found Ophelia outside of the class looking very deflated.

"Hey, Opi, are you okay?" she asked, concerned.

"I'm fine, just thinking about how insignificant my family is compared to everyone else's."

"Don't say that. If anything, you're worth a thousand of everyone in that class combined. You don't need to be rich or royal to be important and make a difference. Besides, you're like the smartest person in our year when it comes to lessons," she grinned, and May's smiles were infectious so she couldn't help but join in.

"Thanks," she smiled, feeling a lot better.

"Anyway, don't be so gloomy, we need to pack our bags if we want to make it on time to the Autumn Town train."

"What do you mean pack our bags? We're only going for the afternoon May," she said, puzzled.

"Did no one tell you? First years get to spend the entire weekend there! The school reserved places for us in one of the hotels so we could enjoy our first time there. It's going to be so fun!"

"You're joking."

"Am not! C'mon, we need to get going, we have so much stuff to do once we get there. First on my list is the famous fountain there!"

"The what?" she asked in confusion.

"I'll tell you when we get there, let's go, Opi!"

And with that, rushed to get ready for a weekend of bliss. No one ever missed a chance to see Autumn Town, especially when you were offered the chance to spend an entire weekend there.