The air was crisp this morning, like the sharp sting of a chilly breeze in the late onset of fall. The leaves had turned a thousand shades of fire, raining down bits of flame to scatter across the roadway.

The black horse-drawn carriage took the sweeping and overgrown path without much concern, the driver atop considering the destination and the passenger within with an equal question.

The manor didn't look like much from the outside, a tumbling gathering of wings and rooms with once stunning - now overgrown gardens and a majestic (if non-functional) fountain out front. Built of gray stone with sweeping steps and graceful arched, it looked like every other ancient stately manor.

The carriage pulled along the drive and Grace looked back once more to the home that was no longer hers. 

​Grace Sheraton, daughter of the late and famous mathematician Richard Sheraton settled into the firm seat of the carriage, looking out the window for the last time.

The very last time.

The University had demanded all the money they had aid to her father while she had toiled under his name - despite the fact they had lauded the work as some of his best at the time. She's sold everything of value (except her father's notebooks) and in the end, they took the house and every memory she'd ever loved with it.

She'd gone to them, pleaded. Solved the equations that had puzzled the greatest minds of the time.

​It didn't matter.

​She was a woman, and it didn't matter that her father hadn't seen her as such and had instead mentored her to be one of the greatest mathematical minds of the era. She couldn't sew. Couldn't cook. Couldn't teach or care for children.

She lived and breathed the math, but that world had no place for her.

Tall and slender, tawny golden hair pulled back into a tight bun and honey golden eyes sweeping over the flowing landscape, Grace was attractive in a quiet way. There was something simple and honest about her features, but with a spark of cunning behind her gaze.

She had one tattered bag holding her few belongings. A tattered working dress, another finer gown, and a second pair of shoes lay tucked beside her battered violin case. A few remnants of a nearly forgotten life.

No second guessing.

This was her new life, she had to embrace it.