“The hell?” Asked Louise

Looking around Louise found herself surrounded by a pitch-black void, a vast emptiness that seemed to stretch on forever, devoid of any light, sound, or sense of direction. Despite this, Louise could make out the faint silhouette of a young girl standing in front of her. Her face however was impossible to discern.

“Who are you?” she asked, but the girl ran away before giving an answer.

“Wait!”

 Louise chased after the mysterious girl, but a mysterious flash of light would blind her.

Upon being able to see again, she found herself standing in the intersection of a hallway. The walls, ceilings and floors all looked distorted and warped, while the colors were shallow and dry. The girl from before was also there sneaking around, trying to catch a glimpse of something from around the corner.

“Hey! Kid!” As Louise tried to grab her shoulder, she would phase through.

<<What the…what is going on…>>

Realizing she couldn’t interact with her, Louise decided to watch silently and peeked along with the girl to see what she was looking at.

It was another kid, a young boy this time who stood waiting outside a set of double doors. When they finally opened, the boy entered eagerly. Meanwhile, the girl crept closer and peered through a tiny crack between the door and the frame.

Doing the same, Louise would see the boy inside energetically shoving a paper into a man’s face. Their lips moved but no sound escaped from them. It was clear from a glance that the boy was happy, and the man he showed the paper to, began to pat his head in approval.

The girl looked at the two of them with curiosity. Suddenly the scene before Louise began to dissipate, as if a cloud of ink had been released.

This time she found herself in a room with the girl. The girl was humming to herself as her pencil flew across in quick, confident strokes with her lips curled into a bright smile. When she added the final layer of color and detail to her creation, she eagerly sprinted out.

As Louise followed and exited the room the scene changed once again. A sharp sound filled the air, like the crack of a whip. Louise's head snapped towards the source, and she saw the red imprint of a hand on the girl's cheek. Tears welled up in the girl's eyes as she trembled with fear while the man scolded the girl.

Louise frowned; it was clear what was happening, but all she could do was watch.

The world faded and once again, she found herself in a new place, now what seemingly looked like a study room with many bookshelves. The girl was at a nearby table, surrounded by books scattered on the ground, while others towered over her. Even with what had happened, she was burning with determination.

Seeing the girl gave Louise a faint smile and she thought to herself << you don’t easily give up do you?>> A part of Louise looked fondly at the girl, while the other felt nostalgic.

The girl began to wave a piece of paper around with a great smile on her face, and immediately sprinted out of the room. Even being as little as she was, she had managed to lose Louise a couple of times in the corners of the hallways. When Louise had finally caught up, the girl was once again peeking from the door, so she would do the same.

Inside was the man once again sitting on a recliner, only now he was seemingly in the middle of a conversation with another person who stood next to him.

Louise’s eyes widened.

“-------------------------------------------”

There was not a single sound, and she couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Louise could recognize, she knew the words coming out of the man’s mouth.

As she looked at the little girl beside her, she could clearly see her now. Her beautiful golden eyes threatened to spill tears and Louise felt a pang of sympathy for her. But the girl would run away while Louise would reach out for her, as if trying to comfort her, however it was in vain as she could not touch her, and her hand remained hovering in the air.

Everything dissipated into nothing, leaving only a single white double door standing in front of Louise.

She twisted the door handle and stepped through, finding herself in a room with a window. The little girl was there, tears running down her cheeks as she looked out the window. When she turned to face Louise, she didn't say anything, but the tears spoke for her.

"Why?" asked Louise, her voice barely above a whisper. "Why are you showing me this?"

The girl stared at Louise for a moment before answering. "...Wasn't it the same for you?”

The world faded to black as if someone had turned off the lights to a stage. As soon as they flickered back on, Louise found herself in a place she had never hoped to see again, from a time when she was still called Y!#% @$&%$. An old decrepit apartment with rotting yellow walls and trash scattered all around.

Her breaths grew heavier and more frequent with each passing second.

*Thump* *Thump*

Suddenly a loud banging coming from the kitchen would startle her.

She cautiously made her way towards the sound. When she arrived at the kitchen, her attention was instantly drawn to a bottom cabinet that had a lock on it. The pounding continued, growing louder and more aggressive by the second.

*Thump* *Thump* *Thump* *Thump*

Louise fell to her knees, clutching her chest tightly. The pounding didn't stop and neither did her breathing, which spiraled out of control. The lights began to flicker, and the world grew darker as she stared at the cabinet.

*Thump* *Thump* *Thump* *Thump* Thump* *Thump* *Thump* *Thump*

<<I’m sorry…please just let me-!>>

Louise's eyes shot open as she frantically sprang up from her bed, gasping for air. She looked around and, once she realized where she was, let out a groan of relief. It had been just a dream.

---

Time had flown by and the incident of the maid fainting in Louise’s room had become a topic of conversation while Louise’s sudden change in behavior had caused quite an uproar amongst the workers of the mansion, and thus they had all begun to avoid the lady, but not for the reasons one might think.

In a hidden corner of the manor’s garden, a little gossip group has begun to form.

“Is this a new form of torture? Why the hell is she doing this?!” asks one of the servants.

“I don’t know, but this is a whole new type of crazy.”

The servant would groan while pulling on his face down with his hands.

“I don’t know whether I prefer the “her” from before, or the one right now.”

“Isn’t the current her infinitely better?”

“That’s what we all thought at first, she wasn’t being violent anymore, in fact she had turned into quite the cool silent beauty! So, when she offered to help some of us we were pleasantly surprised…but I can’t tell for the life of me if she’s purposely messing with us.”

“Wot, but she offered help, didn’t she?”

“…The other day she suddenly barged into the kitchen saying she wanted to help us and get to know us better, but she ended up spilling some hot water over me!”

“Seriously? are you okay?!”

“Yeah I’m fine, it hadn’t reached a boil yet. Besides, a really nice person left some ointment in my room, so it didn’t leave a scar or anything. But why is she so insistent on making trouble for us??”

They all let out a communal breath of air.

“Hello everyone, are you guys resting?” asked Louise as she abruptly shows up surprising the servants.

“L-Lady L-Louise?!” They all asked in harmony.

“We swear we weren’t resting…we were just…”

“Discussing ways to improve our efficiency!”

“Y-Yes that’s right!”

“I don’t mind if you guys take a break you know, I just came to offer all of you refreshments, it’s quite sunny after all.”

“Refreshments…?”

“Yes! Refreshments” said Louise with a bright smile, while holding a platter with some glass cups. However, she was still very intimidating and unnerving, no one had told her she looked very frightening whenever she smiled, and who would do so anyways?

“N-no its fine thank you but we have things to do, take care lady Louise!” said one of the servants, and the group scattered away in the blink of an eye, leaving Louise with her platter.

“…”

<<Is this what he meant when he said I’d be a villain no matter what or do I just suck at helping.>>

During the last couple of days Louise had continuously tried to help the workers all throughout the manor in an attempt to change their perception of her, but each time, something would go horribly wrong.

When she tried to help organize books in the mansion’s library, one of the bookshelves leg’s suddenly collapsed, creating a domino of knocked shelves. Needless to say, there was going to be a whole lot more organizing.

She then saw some maids cleaning the floor, but when she got closer to ask if they needed help, she almost slipped due to the wet floor. As she tried to grab onto anything to support herself, she ended up ripping a portion of the maid’s uniform.

It was incident after incident, spilling liquids on people, making them trip by accident or just creating a bigger mess to clean up. Not to mention her latest attempt in the kitchen. It would all end in failure.

Louise would take out a little diary where she would cross out a line in a long list of things.

<<Taking a passive approach is probably a better move for now.>>

Trying to improve her image was not the only thing Louise had done in the last couple of days. She had also begun to investigate and write down other methods of survival which could prove useful later on if she needed them.

<<Escaping is out of the question for now, the duke monitors everything I do, even the allowance is accounted for.>>

<<It seems my best bet on a trump card will be that after all.>>

As Louise looked at her hand, a darkish purple fog would slowly emanate from her hand.

“Lady Louise! Lady Louise where are you!” a male servant shouted as he walked in the garden.

<<So the time has finally come>>

Back in the mansion, Louise would once again find herself before the duke in his office. To the side of the room would stand the butler Edmund and her brother who she had met a week prior, Lutz. Upon examining her brother closely, Louise thought they really resembled each other, only him having a darker shade of purple hair.

“Louise, I called you because you are set to depart for the academy soon.” Said the duke.

“All nobles are allowed to take a servant with them to the academy to help them in many different tasks. As you know your brother Lutz is in his final year and he already has one assigned to him, so I brought you here to pick a servant amongst the ones who volunteered to accompany you.”

<<Yeah right, you just want someone to watch me even when I’m not home.>>

“Please come in!” shouted the duke.

After granting them permission to enter, a grand total of two maids would enter.

On the left stood a beautiful maid with short blue hair with a cold & reserved demeanor, the very essence of elegance and discipline. On the right meanwhile was yet again a familiar face. It was the maid of the first day, the one who reminded Louise of a hamster, a rather short girl with orange hair, blue eyes, and puffy red cheeks.

“Why are there only two? Sir Edmund where are the other servants?” inquired the duke.

“I’m afraid these two are all the servants who willingly volunteered, the others refused due to …recent events” said the butler while Louise looked to the side to avoid eye contact.

“I see…Louise go ahead and choose the one you deem most suitable”

Louise looked at the two of them, the maid with the blue hair had remained composed the entire time. While the hamster-like girl… she seemed to struggle to imitate the perfect straight posture of the other maid. Her back was arched so much it seemed as if she were trying to touch the back of her head to her heels. Her movements were stiff and unnatural, but her eyes on the other hand, were wide open and screaming at Louise “Pick me! Pick me!”.

“I’m afraid I must refuse your offer.” Announced Louise to which the little hamster girl would look crushed and disillusioned.

“And may I inquire why?” said the duke with an eyebrow raised.

“I would like to be by myself, I believe it’s time I acted independently for once.”

The duke and her brother erupted into laughter, their voices filling the room. Louise gritted her teeth, trying to ignore their mocking, while the blue-haired maid and the butler remained stoic, as if they had seen this all before. But the orange-haired girl fidgeted uncomfortably, her attempts to stand up straight now abandoned as she stared at Louise with a mixture of pity and regret.

“You of all people have the nerve to say that?” mocked her brother as he gasped for air.

“Louise” said the duke after managing to calm himself.

“I wasn’t asking if you wanted a maid, I’m ordering you to pick one.”

“…I understand.”

Once again Louise observed the duo, and the orange-haired girl was radiating an aura that screamed and begged for her to pick her. Louise looked at that girl for quite some time.  Was this the start of a loyal relationship that Louise had seen in many other stories? A noble and loyal maid who would help, serve, and support her master no matter the situation. Would Louise finally be able to open up to someone?

“Then I pick her on the left.” She said as she pointed at the blue-haired maid. The hamster girl now a deflated balloon was crushed and her eyes on the verge of tears.

<<Sorry kid, I’d rather have someone not so bothersome.>>

“Then she will be your-“ before the duke could finish his sentence he was interrupted.

“I’m afraid she is the servant who I will bring this time around, I apologize father I forgot to inform you. This year is going to be particularly arduous, and I need another maid to assist me, I hope it isn’t much trouble” said Lutz as he bowed and sneakily sneered at Louise.

<<Prick>>

“Don’t worry Lutz, I understand. Then Louise, it seems this girl right here will be your maid.”

“…the one with orange hair…?” said Louise as she turned her view to the girl. She had instantly recovered, standing straight and proud, glowing, and shining.

“It is my pleasure to personally serve you my lady, my name is Lei. Please let me know if you ever need anything and I will get it to you right away!”

“…I’ll be in your care Lei…” Louise was not particularly looking forward to this new companion she had just gained.

“Then that will be all, you guys are to depart immediately for the academy. And Louise?”

“Yes father?”

“Don’t make any more trouble.”

“I understand.”

Both Louise and Lutz left. As they headed for the carriages waiting for them outside, Louise gazed into the sky, thinking of what the future may have in store for her. What difficulties would she have to face from now on. But it didn’t matter, she was willing to do anything for her survival, just as she had always done.

It was departure day and Louise headed out to the starting line.

 

 

Extra: A maid’s daily life

Hello! My name is Lei I’m a maid working for the duchy of Forst! It hasn’t been quite long since I arrived actually, I’ve only been here for about a month. But recently there was quite a big commotion on the day of the lady’s 18^th birthday, I hadn’t met my lady until she had an accident that day and they assigned me to keep her company during the night. Until then I had only heard many scary rumors about her. But it turns out they were just rumors after all.

 There so many mean people out there you know, they all called her mean names and other horrible stuff. But the lady is actually a really nice person! How do I know you ask? Well of course that’s because I’ve been watching her. Stalking?! Rude! I call it a maids sincere observing diligence. Anyways, the lady after waking up apparently has been acting even crazier according to the others, which I don’t get how trying to help out is considered crazy. I do admit, for some reason whenever she does so, something always goes horribly wrong…I wonder why that is? Maybe my lady just has terrible luck.

But it’s the intention that counts! Want me to let you in on a little secret? Hehe. Whenever someone would get slightly hurt, the lady would always sneak some ointment into the room of that person. Our lady is such a kind person. So, when the duke asked for volunteers to accompany her to the academy, I of course had to raise my hand! I can’t believe nobody else wanted to do so, seriously the audacity of these people. But they will see! One day they shall realize how great and kind our lady is and regret ever behaving that way.

 *sigh* If only our lady wasn’t so shy, people wouldn’t misunderstand her. Speaking of shy, I saw her writing a diary in secret the other day, even stranger it was in a weird language I had never seen before! I wonder what that’s about.