I was woken abruptly by the brilliant light in my room and of course the stupid alarm. This room always plotted against me having my sleep. It was brightly lit like I was standing in the sun. I got up and prepared myself for a long day.

I went towards academic buildings. I got to my class and saw both Chris and Jim. The class was about Morphing. I knew that stuff already. When it was time for the working part, I moved towards the back of the class where some of my classmates were gossiping.

"Hey, Lexie. Already started practicing?" I said eyeing her empty table.She was tall and terrifying sometimes.She had her black hair in a pony tail and her blue eyes were angry.Something had irked her.

"You know me. I love studying."
She cackled wildly. Smiling, I dropped all of my stuff on the next table and started reading our paper.

"Hey. Heard you had your Initiation test. How did it go? How did it go? Did Quiet guy come with you?"

"First-his name is Chris and he is no way, quiet guy. He likes talking less in public and also happens to be my best friend. And he is over there in the front."

"Whatever. Give me the details."

"Sorry. Can't speak about it. No details are allowed to be known. You know the drill."

"Aw, man. I thought you would tell me."

"She would tell if you had not grilled her the moment you found her alone."

I turned towards the speaker. Lucas was here too.He was one of my close friends like Lexie.He was tall,very tall and was dressed good for the first day of our classes.His brown eyes were bright and he had a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.Great. The class would be interesting with his antics and Lexie's animosity with him.

"You would tell us, right?"

"Nope. Can't do."

"Didn't hurt to ask again."
He told Lexie who was angry, apparently at him.

Those two always fought about something and I was always keeping the peace. We started working on changing colors and visualizing the required color in different order. I got it in my third try-turning blue crayon green. Lexie was still working on hers while Lucas was pulling his hair out tossing crayons everywhere. His hair was now messy.Only Chris had managed to do this on his first try and he was sitting, reading other notes.

"You know, you should stop stressing yourself and work calm. It could work," I told Lucas after seeing him failing again.

"Fine." Now Lexie was observing his work as she had completed hers. Lucas seemed to get the hang of it after he had worked on it again after a few times. I then started observing people in the class. There were seniors too-many I did not know. Not much time to know who they were anyway.
The class was done for today, and we had specialization classes now.

I nudged Lexie, "What are you specializing in?" We were walking in the hallway.

"Plants. Herbs and other stuff. Its new and kind of in premature stage." She said pointing towards the garden. It was beautiful. The plants were in a pattern and the flowers were blooming.

"Ah. The new departments. Good luck."

"Guess what's mine."

"You would tell us anyway." Lexie scowled at Lucas.

"Ah. Why so bitter Alexandra? I'm going to be working on Magic stones."

"Says the boy who is troubled while changing colors."

Lucas turned red. "Hey, you should not talk like that?"

"Why? It's the truth anyway."

"Guys. Let's not fight. Come on. Let's eat." I dragged them towards the cafeteria. We took our trays and found a table near the exit. I spotted Chris and waved him over.

"Quiet guy alert." Lexie coughed.

"Stop it." I scowled at her.

"Hey, Chris. How does this fine day find you?" Lucas asked him.

"I am fine Lucas. How about you guys? You created quite a ruckus in the classroom. Professor Hemmy was agitated."

"I find it weird you were keeping a tab on us from the front." Lexie pointed out.

"It was my fault, though," Lucas said eating his sandwich.

"Well look at the time."

We quickly gobbled our food.

"Later losers," Lexie called out leaving the table.

"You guys still fighting?" Chris turned towards Lucas.

"We fight all the time. No biggie. She holds grudges for a long time." Lucas shrugged.

"What happened? She is all fine with me. And then she turns into this sarcastic person when you are around." I asked.

"Well let's say a prank gone wrong and on the wrong person. With a very bad apology. And then a series of revenge pranks. Then cold treatment and snappy remarks."He said counting on his fingers.

"Wow. You guys are really weird. Definitely, this put things on perspective."

We headed out to our specialization classes. Chris and me to one side and Lucas the other side.

"How did you know they fought? You are not in that friend circle. And Lexie says you are a quiet guy which I find hard to believe. You never shut up."
"Hey, I am not same as everyone. It's different with you because you are my best friend and Lucas was in my combat class so I know some things."

"You know, it would not hurt you to go socialize sometimes. You do not have to hang out with me because I am not allowed to go out."

"I am not obliged to do that. I like spending time with you because we grew up together and we are best friends like you said. We are partners in crime and blah blah, you get it."

"I know. It's just that sometimes I think you are running away from something. Like you want to keep to yourself. You can let go sometimes."

"Well, we'll see. Hey look, we are at the class."

We stood outside the classroom arranged for us. I did not know who our instructor was. Well time to see.

I did not expect this. Carl Wallace stood before us. He was Chris's elder brother.I could see how they resembled each other now.Carl had left two years ago and I hadn't seen him since.They both had light brown hair,green eyes and same expression in their faces now.

"Hey. Right on time. So, any questions before we get started? Sit down please."

"What are you doing here? I thought you were working on something top secret."

"Ariana. I am on it. I can teach in the meanwhile too. It is kind of a surprise like at the moment thing. No one knows about this yet."

I turned towards Chris. He looked shocked to see his brother after a long time. As if knowing he zoned out, he came to his senses and hugged his brother.

"You grew tall and you look good, little brother."

"I am still kind of angry that you took off without telling me and did not answer my letters. I am glad you are back, though, Carl."

"It's good to be back. Now let's get started. I'll talk to you later about everything. Okay?"

Chris nodded.

"Let's do some Mind reading stuff. It's a common platform for both of you. Remember, be strong. This will drain you in the beginning. You can read someone when you get their permission -voluntarily. Or you have to wait for their resolve to weaken. This can't obviously happen. You wouldn't enter anyone's thoughts if they built a barrier. Some people are like an open book. You would not need anything to read them. It is harder when someone wants to hide something. Anyway reading anyone's private thoughts is wrong. Use this only in emergencies. Just remember how you would feel if anyone read your minds. You would not like it, right? But you can read about their emotional stability like lies, agitation, tension or feelings without any work. Get all of this?"

"Yeah."

"All right. Focus on the person's energy waves. You will understand the feelings. Let's try, shall we?"

"Yup."

"Do that to me. First Ariana."

I stood up and concentrated on Carl. It was like hitting a brick wall and I was propelled back every time. I kept on going and I was feeling exhausted.

"Try again, Ariana."

Still, the same thing happened.

"Okay. Let me open my mind now."

This time I got in. His feelings were happy, and I could see some colors in my mind. A huge array of colors made me dizzy.

I fell back in my chair,
"You sure have a lot of things in your head, unlike popular belief."

"Funny, Ariana. But good job. It was hard, but you managed to get in. Now tell me my feelings."

"You are happy. Would not need anything else to know that." I shrugged.

"Now you, Chris."

I did not know what I expected, but Chris closed his eyes for a few moments.

"You are happy and a bit anxious about something. You are worried now about what I could read."

"Good. You are improving your skills."

"How come he did it so early and I got all exhausted?"

"It's because he is a Mind reader and your abilities lie in shifting things in mind. Which is second nature to him is a hard job for you. But don't worry, you will get good at this. Keep practicing. And write up your experience and all the theory for this class today."

"You are giving us an essay. I thought we could have fun here."

"I am giving you work. Just because I am your friend does not mean I will not perform my job. You do not see Chris whining."

"Trust me, I am feeling the same on the inside, and I am your brother. I do know you will not excuse us, so I am quiet."

"Just work. When you are done, tell me."

We started writing notes in our books. It took an hour for me to complete. Chris was still writing. After other 15 minutes, it seemed like he finished.

"We are done."

"Leave them here. I'll give them back in tomorrow's class. And you are free to leave."

"I'll see you later then Carl."

"Yes, Chris. We have to talk."

We met Jim outside. He led us to practice room for our training. He taught me defense techniques which I did not get at all and then he had me doing exercises. I was running again when I saw Chris fighting Jim. He was good. It would take me years to learn that.

I was exhausted by the end and was panting. It seemed like we were done and Jim had us sitting on the benches.

"How was your first day, Princess?"

"Exhausting, sir. You did not tell Carl was teaching us. And what about his secret mission?"

"He is not on any secret mission now. He was called today morning by the way. I expect you to go running every day in the morning and you can leave now. Chris, stay. Carl wants to talk to you."

I picked up my bag and left them for their talking. I loitered in the hallway waiting for Chris. How did Carl get in the room?

"You know I was getting tired of examining my nails and then that stone over there?"

"I knew you would stay behind to interrogate me. So fire away."

Chris sat beside on the stone bench. It overlooked the fountain garden and was quite comfortable. The stone bench was kind of carved out of the stone wall. The sun was setting and the sky was pretty.

"Okay. You got me. What did he say?"

"We had a good brotherly talk. And we managed to not skirt over why he left us suddenly."

He was good at hiding how much he was hurt when Carl left. But I could clearly see in his eyes. He felt abandoned.And I could see how much he had changed.

"You should talk to him." I pointed out.

"I don't know what to do. I mean he is back now but what if he chooses to leave again. He would not tell me if he decided. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy he is back. I just don't want to lose what we have right now."

"I think you don't want to get hurt again. It's reasonable. Just talk to him when you can. He will understand you. He's your family. Tell him how you felt then and how you are feeling now. I don't think he's here now to leave again. You guys could get many misunderstandings out of your way by a nice long talk."

He smiled. "For a princess who is supposed to be spoilt, you give good life advice. You can give counseling if this royal thing does not work out."

"Then you can be my assistant."

"Fair enough. Because of your obliviousness, of course, you will need me." He smirked.

I rolled my eyes at his superior sense of feeling.

"What do you mean, I'm oblivious?"

"You are oblivious to many things. For starters, you do not know why Alexandra and Lucas are fighting."

"And you know?" I asked raising my eyebrow to emphasize and my point and also to intimidate. The latter thing did not work anyway.

"I may be antisocial but I know things."

"Sometimes I don't know why I'm friends with you."

"It's because I put up with you and your crazy ideas."

"You win this time. Hey, you can come to dinner today. With Carl?"

"I am sorry Aria. I have some researching to do."

"Fine. I'll see you tomorrow then?"

"You will."

I got to my room and even though my bed was calling me I ignored it and got dressed for dinner. I found my parents working on the current issues which were important. So I decided to make my grand entrance.

"Hey, guys. What are you doing?"

Mother put down her papers and got up.

"You look exhausted. What had you been working on this much?"
"I think it's because of her projection lessons, right Aria?" Father said, flickering his eyes over to me.

"I saw hell on my first day, and the fighting lesson was kind of brutal for me."

"You should not be fighting anyway. It's dangerous. Just work on your projection skills."

"But, father said it was fine as long as Jim thinks it's important."

"That's what terrifies me." Mother said with finality in her voice. No point in arguing.

Dinner was quiet mostly with a small talk as always. I liked this part of my day where we were normal and not royal. We had control, yes, but people had the most power. My parents worked with the council to make better laws and to provide good governance. That did not mean I could slack off. Someday when I became queen, I would have to do same then. I never thought myself to be able to lead all the projectors from whatever chaos arose. Only time would tell.

I hugged them good night and returned to my room.

I figured I could watch some cartoons before I studied and the room changed its settings appropriately. Dimly lit with a tv screen hovering. I got comfortable on the bed. Long night.