Today, my heart is heavy with frustration. I have spent the entire afternoon fuming over a most unjust matter, and it is far from leaving my mind.

  How could the city council fall so low to bend the rules for those lowly power hungry deviants?

  How can they claim to uphold merit when someone like Lord Hanson's son has received the Silvaner scholarship?

  This is the most infuriating of ironies. Edmund Hanson is lazy, dumb, and lacks any true ambition or drive, yet he walks away with such a desirable price that should have been given to someone far more deserving.

  My dear Beatrice, had her hopes dashed today. She worked tirelessly, day and night, excelling in every academic pursuit. She deserves this scholarship and the honor it grants more than anyone, yet because of his Lordship, her efforts have been cast aside. To think that her chance was stolen by the selfish whims of a tantrum-throwing pig and his noble father is unbearable.

  If I'm here fuming about it, Beatrice must feel terrible, and honestly, I don’t blame her. If I were in her shoes, I would be devastated and burn with indignation at the sheer unfairness of it all. To have someone like Edmund take the opportunity away from her, it’s all so very wrong.

  The system is now completely broken. It’s like hard work doesn’t even matter anymore. You don’t get a fair chance unless you’re born into the right family. Why must the world be so unjust? It seems that no matter how hard one works, without the right connections, nothing is ever truly attainable.

  I cannot imagine the disappointment my dear Beatrice must feel, nor the sense of entitlement that Lord Edmund must now carry.

  I only pray that Beatrice's time will come sooner, that she will rise above this insult and shine with the veil of success, I'm certain she will crush him on the first exam we get at the academy, but it is just so difficult to watch the truly deserving be overlooked in favor of the undeserving. The chance to have your name etched at the entrance gates of the academy only happens once after all.

  This whole thing makes me so angry, and I just can’t stop thinking about how unfair it is. Maybe if I complain to my darling daddy he'll help me vent some steam, nobody is better than him to trample on the lowly Lords.

  -Diary entry from Princess Natasha Hoffman -3 of September 250 AW

  POV: Zenner

  Zenner had long known that his time at the orphanage was nearing its end. Some children had been sent away as soon as they were of age or at least got some sort of deal for an apprenticeship, and though he had tried to push the thought from his mind, he could do so no longer, the lack of his name at the academy gates made all his dreams vanish like morning dew on the glaring sun.

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  Tears welled up in his eyes, but Zenner stubbornly refused to let them fall. He had learned long ago that showing his feelings would not earn him any sympathy here and would only make him look weak, and the weak are always prey. The streets were starting to get crowded yet no one paid him any mind, one more pitiable and sad youngling, the day will have thousands.

  His mind was already elsewhere on his journey back to the orphanage; there was no time for fear, no time for hesitation. He would need to find work, any work, or he would starve. The thought of becoming just another beggar on the streets was unbearable, yet it was all too real a possibility.

  No one took an apprentice without payment, there were too much people and too few good works in the city, the usual way for the unfortunate where three ways: pioneer job, a great paying death sentence since even getting to the frontiers was an ordeal; the military, a longer death sentence, with tons of luck and an good starting official for training, one could actually live and get to form a family on a decent wage, at least until a new war breaks up and then you are completely and totally done for, a peasant orphan? Sacrificial pawn at best. Then there's the “easy” way: farming, bad pay, substandard living conditions when the land isn't yours, backbreaking, heavy work that may keep you from starving to death

  His heart felt heavy all the way back and he couldn’t help but feel the bitter sting of abandonment. His parents had died when he was too young to remember them, and the orphanage had always been his home, his refuge from the bitter world, but soon he would be left with only his wits and the promise of hardship ahead, twelve was the age for leaving, they all knew it, a month after the academy enrollment everyone of age had to leave, it was the law, years ago it was on the children's twelve birthday, but since the scholarship existed a grace period was granted and founded by the country so everyone could focus on the tests, to unearth the jewels hidden deep or something along the matter.

  The orphanage was an ancient stone building, its walls thick with the weight of centuries. It was warm and dark inside, with a hearth that never quite chased the chill from the air. As soon as Zenner got back inside the walls seemed to close in on him. The kindly matrons who had cared for him were no longer smiling at him the way they once did. Their eyes were filled with pity, and perhaps something else, something colder, they knew, of course they did, he wasn't the first to leave full of hope come back so soon, sad and broken

  Karina, the youngest caregiver, gave him a sympathetic glance, but there was no warmth in it. "You must find somewhere, someone to learn from, Zenner. You will have to find a place, a master, or you’ll have to beg for your bread on the streets. You are no longer a child” Usually she would be all smiles, warm hugs and radiating with kindness, but the facade broke as soon as he couldn't deliver, it was an open secret, they would treat you well, just in case you’ll become their golden goose, 100 Zeny was too much for a little orphan whose meals and logins would been already cared for at the academy, some, if not all, of the money always ends “home”.

  Life is hard in this magic less world and youngs like Zenner were tossed into the quagmire of survival far too soon, his only choice to endure and grasp the means for making a living as no one had any obligation to offer him handouts, but for today enduring is hard; just for today, here and now he would let himself be a child, as if grasping for a life line he shot out running up the stairs, as a whirlwind sprinting to the dean's office and throwing himself into the arms of the one closest to a mother, there, finally, the stubbornness is no longer needed, tears flowed freely while a soothing hand patted his back while keeping him in a warm embrace.