The Baron didn't appreciate my sass very much. I ended up getting kicked out of his office, unable to learn very much except what I could ascertain through the way he and his butler acted, and as the Baron kicked me out of the office, he screamed and called me… “Eleanora”.

“Eleanora von Ryker!”

I suppose there was a reason why my face stayed the same as it was in this dream. The “me” I am now and the “me” I remember really are the same person, just living different lives. But, unlike me, who had siblings for support, Baron Ryker’s daughter had no one. There was a single person on her side. Not her father, not the maids; even the butler turned a blind eye to the abuse and harassment she suffered.

She died in pain, cold and alone, without anyone to hold her hand.

Only sixteen years old, if the memories that rushed through me upon being hit were to be believed. It was probably from these wounds on my hands and feet that killed her, among other things. Fever, infection, malnutrition, starvation- she must have suffered… and never understood why.

Why she was being mistreated, why she was being hurt or blamed. She didn’t deserve any of this. She didn’t do anything wrong.

People are just… cruel.

And as the days began to pass, I realized just how bad things truly were.

The maids snapped at me every chance they got, no matter how friendly or polite I was to them, and they would always bring me rotten food. If they were in a particularly bad mood, they would hit me and pour their dirty mop water over my head. But… they were also a remarkable good source of information.

“His lordship is going to have trouble finding a suitor for that mess.” One of the few maids that worked in this manor spoke, sweeping the floor on the west wing where the Baron lived.

“Did you see what she did to her hair? First thing she did after waking was cut it off! Do you think she’s gone mad?”

“We barely get any pay because her mother’s death left the Baron in debt. Why should we bother looking after her child?”

From everything I’ve heard these past few days, when the wife died the family was left in debt and the territory began to fall apart. But… that wasn’t really the wife’s fault, though. Is it? Her family’s money probably kept the territory afloat, but after her death… they must have stopped supporting Baron Ryker. Still, there’s no way he ran out of funds that quickly, not if he was managing his territory properly.

So either he gambled away the remaining, or… something else happened.

That doesn’t necessarily explain why he neglects his only child, though. He clearly wants to sell me off once I’m of age, hence the rage about the haircut, but he’s letting me starve? How does that make any sense? He’s contradicting himself.

Still…

Letting out a sigh, I leaned my head back against the wall where I was hiding, having been eavesdropping the maids, and stared with tired eyes at the ceiling. Calling myself an only child was such a weird feeling. It made me miss my family back home, and… especially my second eldest sister. She was always there for me, and was such a massive comfort. It… was lonely without her, especially since I only really had myself in this place. Not a single friend- only a negligent “father” who didn’t even seem to care that his “daughter” was dressed in rags and was skin-and-bones more as he cared as to whether or not my “precious hair” was cut short.

But this was fine.

It’s just a dream. I continued to tell myself, listening as to maids giggled and laughed to themselves as they walked away, heading further down the hall. I’ll wake up soon.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been treated like this in my life, but it has been a long while. This nightmare was just the result of bad memories rearing their ugly heads. Because, as it turns out, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Baron Ryker was abused by both her father and the maids, while the butler kept his gaze away from it all. The lord of these lands had no wife, for she died years back, and since then his territory had fallen into disrepair- leaving him struggling for funds. And when it came time for me to resume whatever studies the real daughter of the Baron had been learning before falling sick, I figured out very quickly that it wasn’t an act of self-harm that made her collapse.

No amount of rumors could have prepared me for the absolute terror that was the so-called etiquette teacher. After just one lesson I realized that Madam Morgrem was the reason why “Eleanora von Ryker” ended up so badly injured, rather than having injured herself in search of attention, like the maids tried to gaslight me into believing. She, just like the Baron, had absolutely snapped upon seeing my short hair.

“You bring shame upon his lordship!” The woman had screeched. “How is he supposed to find you a decent husband if you conduct yourself like this!? What noblewoman cuts her hair in such a crude fashion!?

My back ended up a bloody mess.

With each strike, a new memory would suddenly surface… like a trigger, informing me I had truly become the Baron’s beloathed daughter. The pain told me this wasn’t a dream. Agony with every footstep reminded me that this was a harsh, strange reality.

But still I convinced myself it was a nightmare.

And every day I would suffer more wounds.

Madam Mogrem was a violent and hateful woman, who smacked her riding crop against my hands whenever I did something “wrong”. Learning noble etiquette was an absolute nightmare, and when I tried to fight back, attempting to snatch her riding crop before she could hit me and snapping at her when she got real rude, she used her strength against me- taking advantage of my smaller, weaker form- and tied up my wrists, hitting my legs and the bottoms of my feet instead. If I made her especially angry, she would tear open the back of my gown and force me to stand in my chemise, reopening the cuts on my back and adding new ones.

It’s just a nightmare.

I’ll wake up soon.

This is fine.

I can get through this.

Everything hurts.

I don’t want to die.

I had the same face and first name as the Baron’s daughter, but that was where the similarities ended. I retained most of her memories, so it’s safe to say we were probably the same person- whether from alternate universes… or different timelines- though there was no doubt that the real Baron’s daughter died shortly before I woke up. Eleanora von Ryker- a sixteen year old girl who was neither looked after nor fed properly- died, and her empty husk of a body was given the mind and soul of Eleanora Quince, a young woman who was never really able to live a proper life because of her poor health.

If I wanted to survive in this hell, I was going to have to take matters into my own hands.

Firstly, I was going to need to clean up the room I was staying in. My asthma didn’t seem to follow me into this world, for some reason or another, but it didn’t really matter considering how much dust had me coughing on a daily basis. On a day when the maids weren’t anywhere to be seen on this side of the manor, I avoided the tutor’s classes and stole some supplies from some abandoned storerooms, struggling to carry everything and having to make multiple trips.

I wiped everything down and shoved everything with mold on it that I could move into another room, taking care to not touch it with my bare hands as I did so and keeping my face covered with a towel I had found. Ignoring the blood seeping through my bandages, I mopped the floor and then spent several days bundling up sheets and gathering salvageable clothes, tossing away old dresses and corsets I didn’t plan to wear.

Despite my wounds and weak body, I put myself to work, sheer determination being the only thing keeping me going.

Oddly enough, I did feel a bit more… energized when I was washing everything, having to hand-scrub all the fabric, despite the sheer agony the bleach caused when it and the soap got into the cuts on my hands. It burned so bad I actually started crying a little, sniffling and whimpering as the injuries stung. “Come on~!” I whined. “I’m not even halfway done! Work with me here!”

This is so… ugh,

“Stupid freaking… “ I stared down pitifully at the wash bucket. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

I had read plenty of books and stories, and did a ridiculous amount of research back home for writing purposes, but I never imagined I would have to put that knowledge to actually practice. It’s so stuffy in this manor, and everything smells bad, and walking hurts, and I’m always coughing, everyone here is mean, and I don’t know what to do. Even if I get everything cleaned up, what then?

What do I do after?

I have to steal scraps from the kitchen just to eat, since nothing the maids bring are actually edible. Heck, they haven’t even been bringing anything the past few days. I’ll need to find some way to actually provide for myself, but I don’t even know where I’m at.

“I wanna go home…” I could really use a sister hug right about now. “I miss Clair and Maia...”

After a few weeks of doing my own thing, giving up on playing nice and making friends, the maids chose to abandon me completely. I actually woke up one day just to see the blonde from before drop a piece of moldy bread on the floor, telling me I was on my own from that moment on. I hadn't thought much about it, given the circumstances, but... it was so quiet. Quiet and lonely, I had no one to talk to except myself. 

It was... difficult, and everything I had to do was so painful, but to survive I needed to be healthy, and I can’t get healthy if I’m living like a rat. There's no time to mope about and cry. I'd just end up getting sick anyways, and what then? The best option was to just shut everything down and get to work. 

So that's what I did. 

Until, one day, my bedroom door was forcibly slammed open.