The sky was losing its light, the sun half set and sending itself to bed. It was still bright enough for the little girl elbow deep in potting soil and mud to not notice the time, though. Moira perched on her knees, toes and knees and arms digging into the soft soil of the garden. Mud caked the lower half of her dress, even smooshing up under her apron, and she had large smudges on her face and in her curls from wiping sweat out of her eyes.

She had been sent out to make the garden pretty; weed out the unwanted... Weeds, maybe plant some more pretty little flowers if the garden seemed too empty, lightly water and nurture the plants to life... Instead, it looked as if she had stomped out into the dirt, dumped a bucket of water out on it, weeded out some flowers, and, judging by her appearance, lain out in the mud and attempted to make a mud angel.

She was now concentrating on planting a lone white flower on a pile of mud she had made. She was bent over the mound, scooping more mud up and patting it around the stem of the flower. The girl stood and backed away to admire her work, and nodded happily.

During her short time at Brunnhold, the girl had learned to be less afraid of the mud. She now loved playing in the mud and working in the gardens, until she realized she had gotten herself covered in mud. She would back up and smile, then look down at herself and shriek... Every time. This time, she had yet to see herself--

"Auuugh!" A cry broke out in the fading daylight. Yes, she had done it again. She pouted and whimpered pitifully for a moment; just knowing her mud coated skirt would track a mess in when she went inside. She may have enjoyed gardening, but she still hated sweeping.

"Whyyy meee?" She whined.

The fireplace in Mulch’s office was burning longer and longer as his work kept him at the university late into the night. As such, Ernst needed more coals, which was stored in a shed on the ground- he also needed to make sure that the uppity boy, the one with a penchant for foul language, had taken to his new haircut and hadn’t accidentally died. He was still tied where Ernst had left him and he was still alive, more’s the pity.

He’d yelled a few things that had Ernst on edge and seething, the iron coal pot held in his arms as he gripped into the battered metal. No good scraps, dirty scraps- all Ernst ever wanted to do was pass his days in peace, without poorly done jobs and with silent passives. Sweet, golden silence.

This dream of silence was interrupted to Ernst’s dismay by the whining of a little child. A girl with pretty little ringlets indicative of a newcomer. Soft flesh to beat until it turned to hard leather. Ernst watched her with a curl of his lip, dirty little skirt and hands. Tracking mud into his beautiful clean Brunnhold. Not on Ernst’s watch.

“Why are you whining girl?” he said sharply, “Passives are seen and not heard. And what on vita have you done to yourself?”

Those curls, crying because she had exerted effort and gotten a little bit dirty. Oh foul, vain little thing, so spoilt. She would cry and snivel for her mama, would wipe snot on Brunnhold property. But of course that was silly. She was Brunnhold property, no more loved or important than the tools she held in her little hands.

Ernst stood over her and nudged her body with his foot, not technically a kick, not corporal punishment but enough to create an unpleasant feeling in the little girl’s back. And those curls, they brushed against his leg and Ernst fought the urge to first run soft fingers through them and then yank them hard. Yank them and cut them and shave that pretty head like a lamb in summer. His little lamb to the slaughter.

“Cry in your own time or I’ll really give you something to cry about. What job have you been assigned?”

Moira frowned at her dress and sighed. I'll have to wash it and then let it dry as I wear it. I wouldn’t have to do that if I had more dress--

Suddenly, a voice rudely interrupted the girl’s thoughts.



She was preparing herself to explain (what had she done to herself?), until she felt that foot. She blinked a few times, suddenly very unhappy and just a little scared.



Cry? She spun around and glanced down at the man's now muddy shoe, before fixing him with a glare. She had not been crying, and how dare he think she had. She had been whining... There was a difference. Crying, meant that she was being a baby, and she was almost done with her crying phase. As long as she didn’t think of... Home... She was okay.

"I... I wasn’t crying." She gripped her tattooed shoulder through her sleeve. "And I don’t really have my own time, thanks to this place." She frowned at him, suddenly not liking the way he was looking at her...

"I-I was assigned the gardens. I just finished." She gestured behind her as she spoke, her hand waving across the ruined patch of soil; trampled flowers sunk in the mud, holes lined the garden, and in the middle of the carnage stood a high mound of mud with a lone flower sticking out.

"Pretty, yes?" She smiled and the drying mud coating her face crinkled and broke, pale freckled shin peeking out between the cracks.

“I don’t want to hear your snivelling,” said Ernst sharply. “Lazy, spoiled, simpering little bitch. You honestly think you deserve time off after this mess?”

Ernst surveyed the garden, disgust on his face. It would take a lot of work to undo the mess that this child had made, the turf for one was disrupted and covered in tiny craters, there was mud everywhere and it was always a nightmare to sweep up. These passives, it hurt him, made his chest tighten when he thought of them like pimples on the face of Brunnhold- and there were those that burst and smattered white pus onto his glorious home.

Ernst lifted his leg to kick Moira again, sharper this time. Perhaps enough to leave a little bruise on the girl’s white skin. There were no witnesses and that kind of bash could happen anywhere.

“Who put you on gardens?” he said, nostrils flaring slightly. “Because I’m sure you were not instructed to lark about with flowers and track mud everywhere. Passives weed what needs to be weeded, water and do a little planting…what you have done,” Ernst was ready to shout, “is an abomination. DIRECT INSUBORDINATION.”

He gripped the cuff of one of his sleeves, reigning himself in. It was so hard. So hard these new rules banning corporal punishment. “So in answer to your question, do I think what you have done is pretty?” Ernst lifted his heel and stamped on Moira’s little white flower, grinding it’s little petals into the mud. “No. I do not.”

The flower was nothing but white mush, but Ernst bent down to pick it up. When he stood, his hand closed around Moira’s and he opened her palm, slapping the folorn, now dead flower into it.

“You will not be having dinner tonight. And you will not be sleeping until the garden is corrected,” he mock pouted at her through his thin lips, “Poor poppet. Your head is too full of pretty curls. I could shave them for you,” Ersnt ran his muddy hand through a ringlet, grasping the end firmly in his hand, yanking her in a casual way to the left, to the right. Just to hurt her. Just because he could. Just to show how much power he had.

“Now, I want you to bring over those sacks of compost and we can get started.” Ernst pointed to a far wall, where a few sacks of compost were propped against it. Each bag was almost as heavy as Moira herself and there was no way she could manage them all by herself. “Chop chop off you pop, it’s going to be hard doing all this in the dark.” Ernst clapped his hands together impatiently.

Moira flinched at the tone of his voice. She wasn’t lazy; she did the work she was told too... Just not very well. No, she did not expect time off; she was never allowed time off. Lately she had done her jobs so badly, she had been told to redo them. It took so long that the matrons had ordered her to try and eat her meals as she ran.

"N-no, I-- OW!" She cried when he kicked her. He... He had kicked her! No one had ever kicked her. She bent over and wrapped her arms around her shin; that had hurt. The girl was pretty sure she had heard that passives weren’t allowed to be beaten anymore, and since she was all the sudden a passive, didn’t that mean she wasn’t allowed to be beaten?



She gaped up at him with wide eyes, her mouth hanging open slightly. An abomination? She didn’t think it was that bad, and that flower had never done anything to him to deserve being squished... She pouted slightly at it when he slapped it into her hand, closing her fingers around it.

“But I like my hair, why would you sha--“

She squealed and gripped her head as he yanked her head around by her curls, it hurt and it surprised her. She had never had her hair pulled, and again she found herself thinking how dare he?! But she could do nothing. This man was the meanest person she had met yet, and she hoped he was the meanest there was.



She gaped at him again, not sure if he was serious, but then she ground her teeth and crushed the flower in her hand. Taking a deep breath; she turned and slowly made her way over to the compost.

The bags certainly were too big for her to move, just looking at them she could tell that. The girl gripped a bag by two of its corners and tried to drag it off the stack. It wasn’t moving an inch, and she was hurting her fingers with how hard she was pulling. How was she going to do this? It would take forever and she would wind up making a huge mess!

“How do you expect me to do that?” She looked over her shoulder at him and placed her hands on her hips.

“With difficulty,” said Ernst raising his hand to smack her about the face, but stopping short of one little cheek. Crossing his arms and leaning against one of the walls, blood red seeping into the brick, Ernst regarded her with narrowed eyes.

“When you do your work badly, you take the easy way out. But now you have to work harder than ever. Maybe you’ll learn to do your job with care in the future. Keeping Brunnhold free of dust helps keep Brunnhold quite august,” said Ernst reciting a proverb. One of his favorites.

The girls little hands on her hips annoyed him, it was a sure sign of defiance so he decided not to fetch the wheelbarrow he had been considering getting.

“Come on,” he said disdainfully. “Put your back into it. Push, pull. Do what you have to. Be a good little scrap.”

It was going to be a long night.

Why was she still so surprised and shocked when he hit her? Alioe knew he had done it enough times already tonight, you’d think shed have become used to it by now. Still, her pretty little mouth dropped open as her head spun sideways with the force of the blow. She was, perhaps, over exaggerating how hard he was hitting her, a little, but who cared? Certainly not her attacker. Certainly not the galdori.

Her hand found its way to her cheek, as she slowly turned her blank gaze back on the man. Inside, she was like a pot left too long on the stove and boiling over with rage. But on the outside, she was a calm scared little girl, like a passive who couldn’t even defend herself from this awful man, from her life, from anything. She couldn’t even reveal Ernst's cruelty without running the risk of being called a liar; who would believe the little spoiled girl who just wanted to get someone in trouble? Besides, there was a ban on beating passives; surely no one would disobey that.



The girl felt that Brunnhold would never be free of dust; too much pain filled the halls, these halls that trapped broken people and kept them and even the dust from ever escaping. The dust was trapped just as Moira was trapped, just as every passive was trapped. Passives were no more than scraps of people in the eyes of the galdori. Scraps of dust, or scraps of people, they would never be free.

Moira felt this with her very soul, but her young vocabulary couldn’t form it into thoughts that she could understand. For now all she could do was feel, feel and be terribly confused and alone. She wouldn’t listen even if she could understand, because she would never admit to herself that she was a passive. That she was broken. That she was worthless.



Her lip quivered when he said this. “But I’m- I…” I’m not a scrap. She finished in her mind. It was useless to say it; he would always think she was a scrap. She would do the impossible and move these bags, but she would never be a good little scrap. Never, never.

She glanced back at the stack, how was she supposed to do this? How could she just put her back into it? That couldn’t possibly help. Pulling wouldn’t work, so what made her think pushing would do any better? But she would have to do what she had to do, to do it.

She glared at the stack and decided to do just that; put her back into it. She climbed the stack of bags; it wobbled under her weight, and placed her feet on the bag edge of the first bag, while pressing her back into the bricks behind her. Taking a deep breath, she forced her legs straight, feet pushing the back, and back pushing into the wall. The girl was in danger of knocking the stack over and falling, or pushing the bag off the stack and slipping behind the stack and the bricks, but she was too mad to care. She fixed Ernst with a glare and grunted as she worked, not even noticing if she was succeeding in moving the bag.

If she got hurt, she decided, she would tell on him. She would tell everyone she saw of his cruelty, even if they didn’t listen.

Surely, someone had to believe her, right? Right?

(Omg I am soo, soo sorry I forgot about this)

Ernst smiled as he watched her struggling, enjoying that little glare as much as hit did the sight of her working hard, pushing herself, pushing herself further along that road to breaking point. He stopped to wonder what must be going through her mind, what had gone through his but failed to remember- didn’t want to remember himself at this age, the crying little black haired boy. He was far happier now he was fully subservient.

Toying with the keys in his hand, he started to hum. And then under his breath came a few words until it was obvious he was watching this little girl almost crying with effort and having a nice sing along.

When the morning came, well, I called your name
Only to hear echoes in reply.
Darling, I remain, in solitude and pain
And all Vienda now can hear me cry.

It was that popular song, You loved me in Vienda, Ernst’ mother had taught him to play it on pianos and singing was one luxury that the passive allowed himself. His voice, which must have been a surprise to Moira was strikingly lovely, it’s timbre rich and smooth as butter, deep and filled was an emotion he must have been faking because well, it was Ernst.

Black eyes still so dead, he stopped mid verse and snarled at Moria. “You really are a useless scrap aren’t you? For all those little airs and graces…utterly useless. Push harder,” he said again, his song having put him in good spirits, given him more confidence, enough to hit the girl again without fear of being caught. It was getting darker anyhow.
“Harder,” he said again slapping that pink little cheek.

Bending over and whispering in her cheek he said in a sinister voice, "You don't want me on your bad side, little one. You'll learn that after a while...go ahead, ask someone, ask someone what Ernst Quilp does to uppitdy little bitcheds. Or see for yourself and ask after Christine."

He laughed cruelly, "And you must be thinking...'he cant get away with this' but who will you run to? Your mummy? Whoever's in charge? Well guess what princess...I'm in charge."

And with that he began to sing again

If you ever loved me, you loved me in Vienda!
You spoke those words so quiet, and I fell
'Neath the willows, whispered like a spell;
We swore that we would never say farewell!

The voice had surprised her; enough to make her gasp in shock. She quickly clamped her mouth shut hoping that he wouldn’t notice her admiration of his singing, which also helped her to not start singing along. Her newest enemy couldn’t go on thinking he had a tiny little fan, now could he?

She gritted her teeth and forced herself to turn away and stop staring, just in time to receive another cold mean slap. Her eyes filled with tears that she struggled to hide, but wasn’t doing so very successfully; she couldn’t move her hands to wipe the tears away or she would fall.

Useless. The word hit her like the way being told she was a passive had hit her. Useless dug its slimy little claws up under her skin, grabbed at her heart and squeezed and twisted as if it only lived to hear her cry. Useless made her want to cringe and run, the same way Ernst being close enough to whisper to her made her want to cringe and run away.

In fact, she did just that; When his face got so close to her ear; she couldn’t help but imagine him and the words he spoke were some evil monster worm, trying to get into her head and slowly and painfully eat her brain away. She didn’t like the idea of slow gnawing pain in her head; so she whimpered and leaned away, forgetting her high perch, and her likeliness to fall.

Her hands left the wall behind her, and her foot slipped sideways off the bag. The shed slid out from under her back and her sense of where the ground was disappeared; she felt like she was tumbling into a black empty void. As the world flipped over and she felt the air underneath her; she reached out to grab something, anything that would save her.... And instead she grabbed Ernst.

Her fingers curled around his sleeve and she held tight, squeezing her eyes shut and letting out a squeal as she fell down between the compost and the shed; dragging Ernst's sleeve with her.

Ernst felt the girl’s hands tighten around his sleeve and yanked it from out of her grip, as though frightened of the dirt she would smear on it. Not just the earth which cleaved underneath her fingernails but the inherent dirt of passives, the inner filthiness that had caused the mona to reject them so.

Sniffing sharply he wondered if he ought to grab a bag of compost himself, he wanted to work- roll up his sleeves and prove his worth, but he reminded himself sternly that this was part of the lesson, and teaching passives proved his worth just as well as a neatly planted garden. Little thing was probably used to everybody else doing everything for her.
“Pull yourself together,” he snapped, bitter acerbic words spitting from his mouth like droplets of acid rain. “I don’t have time for this. Nor do you. This needs to be done, and we’ll take all night if that’s what has to happen. But I must warn you, if we do have to stay up then I will be deprived some well needed sleep.”

Ernst grinned that wide twisting grin, “I need my sleep, child, it makes me the pleasant individual you see here in front of you, and if I don’t get my sleep I get,” he once again threaded a finger through one of the little girl’s red curls, admiring the soft tresses, “somewhat angry.” Ernst hissed, pulling at Moira’s curls, follicles ripping at her head until he had a small lock of hair directly from her head.

Clasping the hair in his hands, he brought it to his nose and sniffed it quickly, taking in laundry soap and warmth before letting the strand fall to the floor.

“I don’t think you would like an angry Ernst, little one. Things happen to people who make me angry, big bad things to naughty little passive girls. Have you ever slept in a coal shed?” he whispered, stroking her hair again, “been left alone in the dark for hours with nothing but the rats for company? Have you ever gone a week without food? Felt your stomach start to feed on itself and the bile levels rising in your throat? Have you ever felt the shame of having your pretty little curls chopped off, seen the hair your mama used to stroke fall on the floor?”

I have, was what Ernst didn’t say, instead he hissed, “Make me angry and you soon will know of all these things. You aren’t trying at all are you? Lazy useless scrap.”

His eyes narrowed as another lesson struck him, another smile and a soft laugh,“You think by pretending to be weak you can get out of this? You will be eating nothing but one meal a day, the content of which will be chosen by me, for the next month and you will work extra shifts for me. Then you will learn of what it means to truly feel weak.”

Ernst felt the girl’s hands tighten around his sleeve and yanked it from out of her grip, as though frightened of the dirt she would smear on it. Not just the earth which cleaved underneath her fingernails but the inherent dirt of passives, the inner filthiness that had caused the mona to reject them so.

Sniffing sharply he wondered if he ought to grab a bag of compost himself, he wanted to work- roll up his sleeves and prove his worth, but he reminded himself sternly that this was part of the lesson, and teaching passives proved his worth just as well as a neatly planted garden. Little thing was probably used to everybody else doing everything for her.

“Pull yourself together,” he snapped, bitter acerbic words spitting from his mouth like droplets of acid rain. “I don’t have time for this. Nor do you. This needs to be done, and we’ll take all night if that’s what has to happen. But I must warn you, if we do have to stay up then I will be deprived some well needed sleep.”

Ernst grinned that wide twisting grin, “I need my sleep, child, it makes me the pleasant individual you see here in front of you, and if I don’t get my sleep I get,” he once again threaded a finger through one of the little girl’s red curls, admiring the soft tresses, “somewhat angry.” Ernst hissed, pulling at Moira’s curls, follicles ripping at her head until he had a small lock of hair directly from her head.

Clasping the hair in his hands, he brought it to his nose and sniffed it quickly, taking in laundry soap and warmth before letting the strand fall to the floor.

“I don’t think you would like an angry Ernst, little one. Things happen to people who make me angry, big bad things to naughty little passive girls. Have you ever slept in a coal shed?” he whispered, stroking her hair again, “been left alone in the dark for hours with nothing but the rats for company? Have you ever gone a week without food? Felt your stomach start to feed on itself and the bile levels rising in your throat? Have you ever felt the shame of having your pretty little curls chopped off, seen the hair your mama used to stroke fall on the floor?”

I have, was what Ernst didn’t say, instead he hissed, “Make me angry and you soon will know of all these things. You aren’t trying at all are you? Lazy useless scrap.”

His eyes narrowed as another lesson struck him, another smile and a soft laugh,“You think by pretending to be weak you can get out of this? You will be eating nothing but one meal a day, the content of which will be chosen by me, for the next month and you will work extra shifts for me. Then you will learn of what it means to truly feel weak.”

Her back and the back of her head had been scraped as she fell, and she was now locked in a painful and odd position. She whimpered and tried not to cry as she started to wriggle her way out, but stopped and cringed as Ernst yelled, trying to make herself very small in an attempt to hide from him.



She had tried to get out from under his hand, not wanting him to be anywhere near her hair, but had failed miserably. She screamed when he pulled her hair, and wanted to cry when she saw that he had actually yanked it from her head.



She was shaking her head miserably, not believing him.... And yet there was a small part of her that knew he was right. She was useless, she was lazy, and she was a scrap. No matter how many times she told herself she wasn’t, she was. She clutched her shoulder, feeling the burn of her tattoo through her dress. That tattoo was what made it hurt, what forced her to realize that she was indeed a passive. That she was indeed useless.



She gritted her teeth and rolled out of her very uncomfortable position, and stood to fix him with another glare. How dare he say she was pretending to be weak? How dare he take away her food? Why would he do that? Who was he to do that? She had been just fine, planting her little garden and then preparing to go back inside, before he had come out of nowhere and starting butting in where he didn’t belong.

"I- I am not weak!" She yelled.

She yelled without thinking, not even knowing she had yelled until she heard her voice. She was so mad and so hurt, here she was thinking that Brunnhold was almost a nice place, and then one man had to come out and prove her wrong. The world was spinning in circles and things were getting worse and worse, and she didn’t know how to stop it. She wasn’t in control of anything that was happening to her; Brunnhold was. Matrons and patrons and scary jerks that pulled her hair were. She would never be in charge of herself again, which scared her.

“And I’m not useless, either!” She tried to believe it.

Ernst blinked as the little girl yelled at him, a frustrated angry but frightened little yelp. He knew it too well. "I'm not usless" little Ernst had cried over and over again, hands working over the floor, trying to prove desperately through the shine of the floors that he did have a use, more, that he deserved to live, Brunnhold so dark he could barely see the floor he was mopping, some figure standing over him. It had helped him, those nice, turned him into the worker he was today.

He never hated them, the older lads with the whips. He was always thankful.

“Prove it,” Ernst said, pointing to the compost bag. “Prove you aren’t useless. They think you are you know. Too stupid, too useless to even look the galdori students in the eye. A passive who isn’t productive might as well be a dead passive, they all say it. And the only way we can show we’re worth something is to become invaluable to Brunnhold. To be industrious, show that we matter.”

He snarled, thin mouth quivering as he gritted his teeth, “I…I’m trying to help you,” he said as though there were something painful in his mouth, “this is how it is for you now, how it’s going to be forever. Get used to it.”

And his eyes were dead again, “PASSIVES SHOULD BE SEEN AND NOT HEARD,” he barked, “No more of this talking. Grab a fucking bag before I do something I regret!”

Ernst seized one himself, lifting it from the bottom and looking pointedly at Moira, that this was the way to lift a bag and started towards the flowerbed. “If you want to eat this month, you’d better bloody follow me with a bag.”

She had stood her ground, feet apart and fists balled, for the few moments that had felt like an eternity until he finally spoke. The words he said shook her bones, made her think in a different way. "Prove it," he had said, as if it were simple, easy. Really it was; all she had to do was accept that she was no longer galdori, that she was a servant, a slave really. Accept it and live by it, cleaning and taking beatings that were apparently still legal....In a way she already had accepted it; she knew what she was and was disgusted by it, she knew she really was worthless, and felt bad that her life up until her birthday had been a lie. But there was always that small part of her that yelled no. Why should she be worthless? Why should her life have been a lie? Why should she listen? To survive.



The one part of her agreed, but the other... Why should we have to show that we matter?

She didn’t believe that he was trying to help her; not until he picked up a bag. He certainly seemed to be helping her then, but she couldn’t help thinking that if he wanted to help so badly he wouldn’t have even walked up to her.

"But I don’t want to- Why should i have to--"



She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what he would regret, and decided not to find out.

The girl watched him pick up a bag and tried to copy him (which was somewhat easier now that the stack was shorter, and this bag seemed to be slightly less full than the one Ernst was now carrying.), but only managed to drag the bag into a heap on the ground. She fought back a sudden rush of frustrated tears brought on by such a long day and tugged at the bag again. She managed to pick it up for long enough to move it a few inches, then had to drop it again. She did this many times, walking backward and pulling the bag, which was as big as she was, after her, all the while fighting the growing burn in her eyes and throat.

Eventually, through much grunting, and yanking, and hard work, she felt her foot slide into the soft mud of the garden. She smiled gratefully and collapsed, hoping to relax for a moment before Ernst yelled at her again.