I woke up
Blink, blink.
A sudden headache appeared as she blinked, trying to focus her blurry eyes.
“Ebba! Are you alright?” A familiar voice urgently asked.
Throb.
“Mom…” She weakly replied.
“Does it hurt?” The woman’s voice asked in a gentle tone.
“Yeah, my head is killing me.” Ebba answered without thinking much in a complaining voice.
“Where did you learn those words?” The woman muttered in reply.
Slowly, the world became dark, and she fell asleep again, but this time she dreamt.
Dreaming of a world beyond what was normal here. Two sets of memories mixed and settled. They fused together and made it hard to differentiate between what’s real and what’s not. Her name is Ebba, Ebba Hedberg, and she is eight years old right now. Born in a Count’s house as a single child.
And another set of memories. Despite all the novels she read in her previous life, this reincarnation had no family drama or dark childhood.
Yes, that’s right.
Previous life. That was the only explanation there was for it. She tried to grasp at straws but did not succeed in remembering anything about herself over there, in her previous life; only “modern-day” knowledge came forth. But from what she could pry out of what was out there, she was a woman in her thirties. Whatever she was before was no more; she was now Ebba, with more knowledge.
After she woke up again, she could finally recognise her surroundings. Lying in a big, fluffy bed made out of oak. She curiously looked around and found herself in her own pink bedroom. Near the bed, both her mother and the doctor were quietly whispering.
Realising that she had woken up, her mother and the doctor turned around and walked towards the bed.
“You hurt your head when falling down a cherry tree. I will examine you now if it’s alright with you.” The doctor said.
“Yes, please.” She replied, still dizzy.
He started to look at the bump on the side of the head, slowly poking it and asking whether it hurts or not and then held his hands a couple of centimetres away, sandwiching her head in between. A faint warmth washed over her as he did, and then he stopped after a while. The warmth stopped at the same time the doctor took his hands back, and the headache stopped throbbing as much as before.
“I’m only able to help a bit with the healing; the rest is for her to rest up. There’s nothing serious, just a bump on the head, and it’ll take around three days for her to recover.” He told Melissa, her mother.
“Thank you, Doctor Conrad. It is a relief that you are here.”
After giving treatment and a plan, Conrad stood up, straightened his robe, walked away and told them to call if anything cropped up. Melissa sat down on the bed and stroked Ebba’s hand.
“You will have to stay in bed to make sure you’ll be alright and healthy again in three days. Then it’s around a week until we’ll be setting off for the capital for you to start attending school.” She kindly said as she dropped a bomb. It was as if the whole world stopped together with time itself.
“School?” She asked incredulously. She already went to school, all of it.
“Yes, you’re eight years old now, and school will be starting in a month, so we’ll need to prepare.”
Right. This body is eight years old. She will have to restart school, not knowing whether it was a blessing or a curse.
During the bed rest, Ebba decided to think more about her surroundings and sort out the differences between the two worlds.
In contrast to what everyone would think, magic existed, but only with what people would think life magic was. Wizards were in short supply, as they were only as powerful as they had spent ages perfecting their skills in their craft. Other ways magic would flow in this world would be more like good luck and sometimes future-telling dreams. There were no monsters and no wars, so the need for strong magicians was nonexistent. The days, hours and months are the same, and the language is standard English. This was a world of swords and magic, similar to the medieval times.
The family consisted of mother Melissa and father Simon, together with a full set of grandparents. Melissa’s family runs a bank, and thanks to the feelings between the couple, backed by the economic factors behind her, she eventually married into a Count’s house, which runs a business which covers a big part of the country. This made their family a heavyweight despite their low status in the nobility circle.
Knowing that planning is important for her future, she took out a piece of parchment and started writing whatever she could come up with, all ranging from things she wanted to learn, what she wanted to achieve in the future and other ideas she could think of.
First of all, she wanted to learn how to fight. This is a vital piece of knowledge in this era, and it would also keep her in good health and let her eat whatever she wanted to eat without getting fat. Secondly, since there is magic in this world, there needs to be a constructive system of how it works. Knowing this would lead to both better magic control and also eventual inventions which could be replicated in this world with the use of magic instead of electricity. This was something she wanted to explore.
It would also be easy to make a big business venture with modern knowledge, both for societal development and for pure profit. This would require the help of an adult who was rich enough to help invest and also work as a showman; no one would buy products from an eight-year-old after all.
The optimal plan would be to achieve all this before she turned twenty-five, though. After that, she would just toss the responsibilities to someone and just collect the profits. Retirement at an early age sounded awesome, and then she would be able to travel the world.
Their family lived mostly out in their small territory, which happens to have the only port town that imports from foreign countries which lay further away. Trade is common, and the country exports and imports a lot of goods via road and sea routes. It’s just that this port town is the only one that faces west, which has another group of countries and cultures. So trade is one of the factors why the Hedberg family, Ebba’s paternal family, is so rich. Other factors lie in competency in the family and upbringing.
This brought her thoughts to whatever knowledge she had before bumping her head, and it was alright. She knew how to calculate, read and write since she had a private tutor before. This seemed like a standard for all the noble children to know. It’s just that she knew a little bit more now.
Luckily, as she thought previously, there was no family drama or dark childhood. Her mother was a loving and doting parent, and that was the only side Ebba had known since birth. Her father was a busy person who ran across the territory and the capital all the time to do his job as both the territorial manager and take as many responsibilities regarding the bank that their family owned to let Melissa spend as much time as a mother as possible. Sure, there were instances when she was also busy, but it was far less than her father.
After she was finally free from her bed rest, her mother reminded her to pack what she wanted. If it had been a week ago, Ebba would have packed all the fancy dresses she had, but after opening the wardrobe, all that met her were pink frilly dresses. She decided to call for a tailor when they got to the capital since there was too little time in between to get her new dresses if she ordered them in the territory.
But what she decided to pack were different books from the Count’s library. All about magic, etiquette, history and geography. These were needed to learn if she wanted a carefree life. No one should be able to step on her toes if she becomes an ideal lady to the outside world.
The rest of the essential packing would be completed by the maids in the house.
