By the end of my first month at the mansion, I felt as if I'd finally got into the swing of things.
Almost every day started the same. We'd wake up at around seven thirty in the morning. We were expected to dress, wash our faces, do our teeth, and head down to the dining room for breakfast before eight. After that, we'd disperse across the mansion for individual lessons with either our minders or a tutor. We had four distinct teaching 'periods' throughout the day; one between eight thirty and ten, one from ten thirty to twelve, one between one and two thirty, and the last one between three and four in the afternoon. That left us with two thirty-minute breaks, and an hour for lunch. After we were done with our lessons for the day, all of the kids were brought together for various social activities. We'd then spend an hour going through various 'fun' activities, with everyone working together on various games or activities that everyone could take part in, despite the language barrier. We'd then have our dinner, an hour long period to do whatever we liked, before being sent to bed half an hour before lights out.
Or, as the small sheet of paper pinned to the bedroom door summed it up:
Wake Up [07:30]
Breakfast [08:00 - 08:30]
First Lesson [08:30 - 10:00]
First Break [10:00 - 10:30]
Second Lesson [10:30 - 12:00]
Lunch [12:00 - 13:00]
Third Lesson [13:00 - 14:30]
Second Break [14:30 - 15:00]
Fourth Lesson [15:00 - 16:30]
Fun and Games [16:30 - 17:30]
Dinner [17:30 - 18:30]
Free time [18:30 - 19:30]
Bed Time [19:30]
Lights Out [20:00]
That timetable applied to the working week, while on the weekends the lesson periods were swapped for more 'Fun and Games' and an extra free time period before dinner. Though on the weekends it was common for some 'Fun' periods to last through the intervening morning and afternoon break periods. It was something that grated on me to no end. I'm sure that it was nice for the other kids, but bear in mind that I was on life number three, and I'd been through this song and dance many times before. By this point, the prospect of playing children's games had devolved into an exquisite form of torture. And unlike my time in the orphanages, I couldn't just slink off to read or nap. Even if I didn't have to deal with Ludmila and the other minders maintaining a constant watch for any kid dumb enough to try and sneak away, the simple fact was that I needed to integrate with the other kids, and playing with them was one of the better options at my disposal.
It wasn't as if it was wasted time either. Every moment I spent with the other children was a moment I could use to assess them, and figure out how best to fit in. Unlike my time at the Imperial Mage Academy in my previous life, I wouldn't gain anything by standing out from my peers. If anything, standing out for whatever reason would probably put me at greater risk. If I overachieved, I'd run the risk of being held to a higher standard. If I underachieved, I might not be worth the effort to keep around. And that opened me up to a change in my living conditions that would almost certainly not be good. Was I being paranoid? Probably. But until I had a better understanding of the situation, there was no sense in sticking my head above the parapets.
Blending in with the crowd is one of the few defenses I had at the moment. The simple fact is that I'm not a mage any more. Having the ability to manifest a shield to stop rifle rounds or summon the power to punch a hole in a wall does a lot to make you feel safe, even if you have to do long calculus in order to properly manage your magic without having a computation orb. Being stripped of that power made me feel vulnerable and exposed. Then add on the fact that I've been trafficked to a remote mansion with nineteen other children, and surrounded by armed guards and people paid to ignore how wrong this whole situation was, and the fact that I was just paranoid was a miracle.
Still, I couldn't help but feel worried today.
Today had started off normal enough. I'd woken up at around seven, and lounged around in bed until the seven-thirty alarm. I'd quickly cleaned up and got ready while Valerie woke up, before helping her get ready before going downstairs for breakfast. We hadn't been the first to arrive, that went to a pair of boys. The two boys, Martin and Daniel, had welcomed us, but went back to their conversation soon after. That suited me just fine, it gave me a bit of time to practice my German by chatting with Valerie. Eventually, everyone else filtered in, and we ate as normal.
And that was when things went off-script. Rather than being released to our lessons, we were instead told that we would be seeing a doctor this morning, and that our lessons would be canceled as a result. After one of the boys volunteered, a thin-set boy with freckles who used to speak in a language that vaguely reminded me of Dachian, the rest of us were taken into the east wing recreation room, and allowed to relax while we waited for our turn.
As soon as we reached the recreation room, the mass of children quickly split down linguistic lines. The various english-speaking kids crowded around the television to watch cartoons and other TV shows, while the various non-English speakers split up across the room to either draw, read, or play some basic games. But for me, it presented an opportunity, one that I quickly explained to my handler. "Ludmila, can we go back to my room? I want to get my books so that I can teach Valerie some Russian."
"That sounds like a great idea. I think she'd enjoy that." Ludmila replied with a smile, before gently ruffling my hair and leading me back into the rest of the mansion. I murmured something approximating an agreement as we went, passing the last few kids as we made our way back towards the main hall and the central set of stairs.
On the way, we passed a few examples of the eccentric artwork that you could find in the mansion. If there was one thing that I could easily criticize in the mansion, it was the fact that the decorator must have had some sort of mental issue. You could argue that it's not my place to judge, as my situation definitely left the bounds of 'crazy' a while ago, I at least had the good sense to not plaster the walls with weird art. Some of it was fine, if dated, classical paintings. Those were paintings depicting knights, others scenic vistas, and a couple focusing on bugs. Others were a bit eccentric, but otherwise fine. Such as the various busts and statues of random men and women. But others were just outright weird, like the series of paintings that depicted a person's life from cradle to grave.
We were just passing one of those weird decorative choices, a painting depicting a large bug being attacked by a swarm of ants, when my curiosity finally got the better of me and I finally asked about them. "Why are there so many weird paintings?"
My question must have caught Ludmila off-guard, or it wasn't something she'd really considered, as it took her a few seconds to think up a response. Eventually, she replied with the verbal equivalent of a shrug. "It's just stuff that Lord Henry likes. Or at the very least, things that the mansion's designer, Mr. Trevor, thought looked nice."
"Will I get to meet him?" I asked. Looking at the morbid paintings, I personally wouldn't mind putting the meeting off for a while. I think there's a general rule that if your interior decorating includes depictions of mortality, then you're probably not good company.
"Lord Henry? I guess you'll meet him eventually, but I don't know when. He doesn't live here anymore, he moved to a castle in the south of France to continue his work. While he sometimes comes around to check up on our progress, the day to day activities are run by the master of the house." Ludmila explained, absently giving me a bit of valuable information. Wherever we were, it wasn't France. Which was important, given how much of Western Europe it took up. It didn't leave a lot of space for this estate to be hidden.
Assuming that we're in Europe. A part of my mind reminded me. And she specifically mentioned the south of France, so we can't exclude France as a whole. We could be in the north, Alsace–Lorraine, Corsica, or one of the outlying territories.
I let the conversation die off after that, content to simply let things rest there, rather than asking why Lord Henry thought those pictures were anywhere close to appropriate for a place where over a dozen children were being raised and educated. I couldn't really call myself an interior decorator, but at the very least I had a decent idea about what did and didn't seem appropriate for children to be repeatedly exposed to. Generally speaking, I'd never heard of a school who championed art that could be boiled down to 'everyone dies eventually' and that was probably for a good reason. Though if hammering home that you were eventually going to die was something that Lord Henry considered child-friendly, then I really wasn't interested in seeing his personal collection. I wouldn't have been too surprised if he had a painting of someone getting beheaded or something.
It didn't take long for us to head back to my room. All of the children's rooms sat with their doors open, as a small cadre of cleaning staff went in and changed the bedding. Usually, it would be a job for the children and their handlers, but with everyone downstairs it was a lot simpler to just have some other members of staff handle it. The staff exchanged a few words with Ludmila as I quickly entered the room and collected my books. Heading back to the recreation room should have been simple after that, but as we descended the grand staircase in the main hall, we were stopped by a woman in a nurse's uniform. She exchanged some quick words with Ludmila in the staff's unknown language, before gesturing for us to follow her. Ludmila frowned, before nodding and guiding me after the nurse. She explained the situation as we went. "The first boy, Daniel, got scared. So they want someone to see the doctor while Daniel is being calmed down."
"And we were the first people they saw, so I'm taking his place?" I suggested as we reached the bottom of the stairs, and followed the nurse towards the infirmary. Ludmila nodded, and I couldn't help but groan. Just my luck, on one of the few occasions where I wanted to stay with the other children, I just so happened to blunder into being the replacement pick.
Ludmila caught my dejected sigh, and gently ruffled my hair as she spoke. "Don't be too sad about it. Once this is out of the way, you don't have to worry about doing anything else today. We can spend some time with Valerie and the other children, we can go for a walk, or maybe we can try baking something. Would you like to try baking something?"
"I guess. I've never baked anything before." I nodded, answering truthfully for once. At least, truthfully for this life. Believe it or not, orphanages that can barely afford flour in the first place really aren't keen on letting snot-nosed kids play around in the kitchen.
"Then it's settled, I'll teach you how to bake some bread after you've seen the doctor." Ludmila gave me a confident smile, as we made our way into the corridor behind the dining room. My minder grinned to herself as she recalled something, and shared it with me as soon as she saw my questioning expression. "When I was little, one of the first things my mother taught me was how to bake bread. It's one of those skills that stays with you for the rest of your life, no matter what other people might say."
"You have a mom? What's she like?" I asked, raising my voice a little to imitate excitement.
"She was a nice person." Ludmila replied, her smile faltering for a bit before reasserting itself as she absently rubbed the small set of armless spectacles that she always carried. I left the conversation there, letting her enjoy her memories as we made our way through the mansion.
It didn't take the nurse long to lead us from the main hall to the infirmary, taking us through the service corridor behind the dining room, past the salon, and deep into the mansion's west wing. It didn't take long to figure out that whoever this doctor was, they were definitely important. Why else would you post two guards with MP5s on the door? One of the guards at the door exchanged some words with the nurse in the unknown language that everyone but the children knew, before gesturing for us to wait while he went inside.
That language... it wasn't something I'd been familiar with from any of my previous lives. It wasn't a major European language, or Japanese, or similar to any of their equivalents from my past life. Which meant that there were around 20 major languages, and well over a hundred minor languages that they could be speaking. Assuming that it was a European language, and it wasn't an artificial language. In short: unless I could guilt Ludmila into telling me, or I found a dictionary, my chances of figuring out the language would be slim to none.
Thankfully, the door to the infirmary opened before I could start playing 'guess the language,' and we were ushered inside.
The infirmary itself was a fairly basic affair. The small and windowless room had probably been designed only as a store room, and had been pressed into the infirmary role as less and less room was available in the mansion itself. It still doubled as a store room, with an entire wall taken up by shelves full of various boxes and bottles, and a large trunk chest. But to add to its role as an infirmary, a single cot had been shoved into one corner of the room, with a desk and a chair at its foot, in the opposite corner of the room. Various bits of medical equipment were strewn around the room, sets of scales, a height measuring bar, and a few posters depicting the human body or basic medical advice.
All that left was the medical staff, that being the nurse and a man in a doctor's lab coat. The man was pretty old, probably around sixty, maybe more if the walking cane in the corner was any indication. In spite of that, the man seemed to have all of his faculties, as he instantly noticed the four people who entered the room, though he only focused on me. He gave me a small smile, before gently bowing his head in greetings, and spoke to me in surprisingly good Russian. "Hello, Tanya. My name is Doctor Wesker. Lord Henry has asked me to make sure that everything is alright."
I simply nodded, before allowing Ludmila to lead me over to the cot at the back of the room. Taking the cue, the guard that let us into the room took the opportunity to leave, and closed the door behind himself. The nurse made her way over to one of the tables and started going through her equipment as the doctor watched me. He jotted something down on a notepad, before speaking again. "I must say, I'm impressed, you're being very mature for your age."
"Crying and hiding won't make this happen any faster." I shrugged as I hopped up onto the cot. And in a sense it was true, simply relaxing and letting the doctors do their work would make things easier. But, that wasn't why I'd said it. I said it to try and distance myself from any expectations he'd made from his last patient.
"That's a very wise way of looking at things." Wesker replied, smiling warmly at my response before saying something to the nurse in that incomprehensible language. She picked up a few items from the desk, before kneeling down in front of me with a stethoscope around her neck and one of those inflatable armbands that are used for measuring blood pressure in her hands. The doctor saw me staring at the medical equipment, and gave me a reassuring smile as the nurse lifted my sleeve, and strapped the armband around my bicep. "Don't worry, this is just a routine check up appointment."
"What's a check up appointment?" I asked as innocently as I could. I already knew what a doctor was, and I understood what a check up was. But acting as if it was a new concept would help sell the 'backwater bumpkin' routine that I'd be relying on for my first year or so here. And from the and the concerned looks from the doctor and the nurse, it worked.
"They're just making sure that everything is alright. So please, just relax and let the doctors do their work." Ludmila answered after a few seconds, giving me a smile and a pat on the shoulder as she sat on the cot next to me. Doctor Wesker shot her a look, but she shot one right back, and the old man got back to his notes as the nurse started poking and prodding at me.
It started off as a fairly standard battery of tests, not too different to what I'd gone through during my entrance exam for the mage corps in my second life. First up were the blood pressure and heart rate checks, the nurse rattling off the readings so that the doctor could note them down. Next, they took my basic characteristics; height, weight, diameter of chest and torso, and other things like that. Then they checked my eyes and ears, shining a light in the former to check the response, and using a scope to see if my inner ears were healthy. After that, they moved on to an oral check, where they checked my dental health and the back of my throat. And then a basic reflex check where they tapped my elbows and knees with a small rubber hammer to make sure that the reflex responses worked. But after that, they started on with stuff that was definitely not standard. Such as measuring parts of my face and head, including things like my eye level, the diameter of my skull, and the size of my nose. I didn't really get why they were doing it, but the deviation from what I remembered from my time in the Empire set off alarm bells. And that was before they brought out the needles.
My first cue that something was changing was when Doctor Wesker stood up, and allowed the nurse to pull his chair in front of where I was sitting, which he promptly relocated to. In the meantime, the nurse retrieved a large hard case from underneath the desk, before opening it and retrieving a small vial, and one of those needle-and-tube assemblies that were used for either drawing blood samples, or administering drugs. Doctor Wesker followed my gaze to the vial, and drew my attention back to him by patting me on the knee. "Don't worry, we just need to take a bit of your blood to make sure that there isn't anything nasty in it. Can you be a brave girl and handle it?"
I looked over at Ludmila, checking her expression to see if this was a surprise to her. Unfortunately, even if it was a shock, she was already wearing a reassuring smile by the time I looked at her. She nodded at me, non-verbally telling me that everything was alright, and I had to accept that she was being sincere. I'd missed my window to gauge her reaction, and now all that was left to do was accept what was about to happen. So I looked back at Doctor Wesker, and nodded at him.
"Very good. Can you please hold out your arm? Like this, please." Wesker asked, presenting his right arm with his palm facing up and his hand closed. I mimicked the act, allowing the nurse to dab something onto my upper arm. Meanwhile Ludmila held my other hand, and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
"Tanya, I'd like you to listen closely. Can you do that?" Wesker asked, and I nodded at him as the nurse prepared the syringe. The old man gave me a small smile, before continuing. "I'd like you to keep your eyes on me. Ignore what the nurse is doing, just focus on me. You'll feel a bit of a scratch on your arm, but I want you to ignore it, and keep your eyes on me."
I did as I was told, making sure to avoid looking at the nurse as she stepped into my line of sight. And to her credit, the woman did her job very well. She gently but firmly took hold of my arm, and kept the syringe out of my field of vision until the last second, giving me almost no time to react before the needle was in and secured with a strip of medical tape. The jab felt a bit more painful than I was used to, but that was probably down to this body simply not being used to the pain. Though all things considered, it wasn't too bad.
I still remembered overloading my first computation orb, blowing up myself and three Legadian mages in the process, and the hard landing that followed. Compared to that, this was a cake walk.
"You're being very brave, Tanya. I think you deserve a reward for that." Ludmila congratulated me, before glancing over at Wesker. He got the hint fairly quickly, and nodded to the nurse. She quickly walked over to one of the shelves, retrieved a small jar, pulled out a cookie, and handed it to me with a smile.
"It'll take a bit of time to get the blood. So you mind if I ask you a few questions while we wait?" Wesker asked as I took the cookie, I simply nodded, and took a small bite out of the treat as the doctor flipped over to a new sheet of paper on his clipboard. He scribbled something down, before returning his attention to me, and asking his first question. "How are you doing? Is everything alright?"
"I guess…" I trailed off again, idly nibbling on the cookie before speaking again. "It's nice here, much better than back home."
"You mean your old home? The orphanage?" Wesker asked, and I nodded. He gave me a small smile, but also shook his head at my answer. "I suppose that's fair, it's the only home you've ever known. But would you want to go back?"
That gave me something to think about. On the one hand, returning back to the orphanage would have been an easy shot at a safe, if boring, life. But living there would have been hell compared to this. And besides, what opportunities would be available to some country orphan compared to whatever was after this? Still, I gave a noncommittal, and child-like answer. "I don't know. It's nice here. Ludmila is nice to me. But there's nobody from back home, so sometimes I feel lonely."
Once again, Ludmila squeezed my hand. "You're being very brave to tell us that you feel alone. A lot of children try to hide it, and it hurts them. Talking about it lets us help you."
Wesker simply nodded, jotting down some notes, before asking another question. "Do you like being with Ludmila? She's been looking after you since you got here, right?"
"Yes. Back home, the other adults were always too busy to look after me unless I got sick. But she's always here, and I like that." If there was one thing as constant across those two lives as being stuck in an orphanage, it was that the staff of said orphanages had been too overworked to really look after an individual child. That had been fine by me, and I'd made full use of that in both cases to slip away and sneak around whenever I liked. I couldn't do the same thing here, but I could use the experience as one hell of a sob-story. I didn't go whole-hog and say that I felt less alone when she was around. Both because it would probably spoil the act, and because it hit a little too close to home for me to admit. But given how Ludmila's grip only got tighter, I figured that I'd probably hit the mark.
Well, that and the satisfied smile from Doctor Wesker. Maybe it was because he was happy that I was settling in, or maybe because he thought the manipulation was taking hold. Either way, I wasn't about to disprove his assumptions, especially given how it could work out well in my favor. He jotted down a couple of notes, before asking another question. "And the other children? I'm sure a girl like you has made a few friends already, right?"
"It's been difficult, because nobody else knows Russian. But I've made a couple of friends. And my roommate Valerie is my best friend!" I hammed it up again. In reality, it's difficult to tell if someone's your friend if you can't communicate with them. But children always tend to have a fairly loose definition for a friend, so I played on that.
"Is she? Well, that's a surprise. From what we'd been told, we thought she'd have clammed up like some of the other kids." Wesker replied in a tone that told me he wasn't surprised. And in turn, that didn't surprise me. Either he'd already been briefed on the basic friendships among the children, or he simply didn't care. Either way, it didn't matter to me.
Unfortunately, Ludmila wasn't content to just leave the topic there. "Valerie is doing her best to teach Tanya to speak German, and according to Ms Spiegler, she's a natural."
That caught the doctor's attention. He looked up from his clipboard, and looked at me with a level of interest that he hadn't shown before in the last few minutes. "Really? Can you speak some German for me, Tanya?"
"Hallo. Ich ben. Tanya?" I began slowly, separating my words to try and imitate a novice learner. I paused for a few seconds to think what to say next, before gesturing to one of the shelves. "Das ist ein… regal."
The doctor was silent for a few seconds as he assessed my poor imitation of German, before slowly nodding. A polite smile spreading across his face as he spoke. "That's… surprisingly good, given that you haven't had formal lessons."
Doctor Wesker quickly started jotting down notes, and the nurse took the opportunity to retrieve my blood sample. She calmly knelt down in front of me, and set a small bag of IV fluid on the cot next to me. She then took a small clip, and pinned the tube closed. As soon as it was shut, she removed the small vial of my blood, replaced it with a Y-shaped connector, with one section connecting to the IV bag. She made sure all air bubbles were out of the line before saying something to Ludmila in the staff's language. At that cue, my handler stood up, and went to my other side, taking the IV bag off the nurse and holding it above me as the nurse removed the clamp on the tube. Almost instantly, the fluid in the bag flowed back down the tube, flushing the blood back into me, and clearing the line. At the same time, the nurse stood up, took my blood sample to the armored case, and put it away.
"Tanya?" Doctor Wesker called my attention back to him, continuing as soon as I made eye contact with him. "Would you like to learn German? It would help you speak with your roommate."
I nodded, putting the thought about why they wanted a sample of my blood out of my head, and focusing on answering his question. "I would like that. Valerie is a good person, but it's not the same as having proper lessons."
"She's not a good teacher?" Wesker asked, and I slowly nodded after a few seconds. While I couldn't really fault Valerie for her effort, she didn't have the best material to work with. The doctor spotted my hesitation, and gave me some encouraging words. "That's fine. There are a lot of things we're not good at. Take me for example, I can't swim. I'm sure that putting the two of you in the same lessons will help the both of you develop your language skills. But that will be on the condition that you keep up with your other lessons. Would that be good?"
"I'll do my best." I nodded again, smiling briefly at the very simple, and easy to accomplish terms.
"Good girl." The doctor smiled, before saying something to the nurse. I looked over, and saw her loading a syringe with… something. I stared at the bottle, even as the doctor looked back at me and noticed my concern. "We just need to give you a couple of shots. It's some medicine that will stop you from getting sick."
"Uh, what is it?" I asked, eying the bottles with a very real sense of suspicion. I couldn't really make out the words on the bottles, but they were marked with the same red-and-white symbol that had been on the bottle of water that I'd had when I was being trafficked. That bottle had been drugged with something that'd knocked me out for the better part of a day, so to say that I was suspicious about what could be in those bottles would be an understatement.
"Like I said, medicine. It's nothing you need to worry about. Ok?" Doctor Wesker smiled, trying to reassure me that the 'medicine' I was about to receive was safe and nothing to be concerned about.
It didn't work. But I'd come too far to back out now.