So stay away from me / the beast is ugly (scrooge x magica)

[lifesa_witch]

 The carriage ride was so long that by the time the horses stopped, night had already settled in. It was a full moon, allowing the stone pathway to be illuminated. The rider said nothing, simply taking Scrooge's bags and walking on ahead. With any luck, this wouldn't be a return trip - but luck had died long ago in this place.

In the distance, one could hear the caws of several ravens, far away in the dark forests. It was difficult to see the house in the darkness, but it was certainly large and grand. Definitely belonging to someone of high class and lots of money. After all, it was part of the reason Scrooge was here.

Another servant was at the door, waiting for them.

"Either look her in the eyes," he warned, "or have them stay on the floor. Never anywhere else. Just keep your introduction and qualifications short. it is..." He hesitated, glancing backwards. "Often too easy to stoke her anger. And lastly... never ask questions."

Some of these things had probably been told to Scrooge before - he'd been recommended the job, after all. Granted, the recommendation came with the mysterious woman buying up his shop like it was nothing. Still, it seemed at least the servants wanted this to go well.

Whatever "this" was... it was about to begin, if he was ready to enter.

Comments

[richestduck]

It was a struggle to keep his face neutral when what he wanted to do was scowl and curse. He had nearly saved up enough to buy the building containing his bookstore when the strange woman had paid the landlord quadrupled what he'd quoted Scrooge. Scrooge had ultimately been forced to sell his entire stock given he wasn't able to find a storefront anywhere close enough to be able to transport his goods swiftly. (He suspected the same woman had bought up his entire stock.)

"I'll do my best," he said, voice glacially-calm.

Did he want this job? No, but his hand had been forced.

And, oh, did he loathe that.

[lifesa_witch]

It was all the servant could really ask for. With one nod, he led Scrooge inside. "Meals are promptly at 6 a.m., noon, and 6 p.m. No lighting any candles without her permission. No entering doors that are closed. But, whenever you are off duty, you have free range of the grounds... provided you never leave without permission."

He approached a pair of wooden doors that had ravens doing battle carved in. He knocked three times.

"Enter."

Quietly, the servant pushed the door open without entering it, and nodded to Scrooge. Without saying it, his eyes pleaded good luck.

[richestduck]

Scrooge entered, leaning on his cane slightly. However, despite his uneven gait, unfashionable clothing, and pince-nez spectacles, he held his head high. He didn't know much about the position he was being pressured to accept, but this was a seller's market. For whatever reason, she wanted him, and he could use that as a way to gain things he wanted.

He entered the room, giving a little bob of his head as a cursory sign of respect.

"Good afternoon."

[lifesa_witch]

There were only a few lit candles in the room. A feminine shape was waiting in the shadows, rising up from a throne-like chair. As she moved, there were two sounds accompanying her - one was cloth sliding on the floor. The other was an odd, scraping sound that was difficult if not outright impossible to identify. She slowly came into view, each step carefully planned.

Black hair like a haunted night pooled down past her shoulders and onto the floor, as if it had been ages since it'd been cut. Her eyes were deep and alluring, but there were signs of sleepless night and worry underneath. Perhaps she was a fan of the Orient, as was the trend around the richer folk - her sleeves were impossibly long, trailing behind her like the train of a doomed bride, and the same was said for the bottom of her dress, for there was no end at all. She studied him, taking in every inch, her form flickering in the candlelight.

And then it was all ruined with a few words.

"Afternoon? It's clearly night, you idiot. How can I trust you to do anything for me if you can't even tell time?"

[richestduck]

Scrooge glared at her. He'd been trying to be polite and had gone to one of the automatic phrases of greeting customers in his shop without thinking.

Two sentences in, and he already despised this woman.

A wise man would've bit his tongue and asked her what the position entailed...

"I was under the impression I wasn't here to tell you the time, but if you're looking for someone for that position, I'll take my leave. Good night, madam."

...Well, he'd certainly never claimed to be a wise man.

He turned on his heel, preparing to march as swiftly as his crippled leg would allow.

[lifesa_witch]

The woman huffed, annoyed, but between the two of them, she was the one who couldn't afford to lose this.

"You wasted my rider's time coming all this way, you may as well listen to what the job actually is. No one out there will pay you as much as I can."

[richestduck]

He had a lot to lose as well. He needed the income to set himself back up somewhere. A new shop far from this place sounded lovely.

Still, one bridge at a time. He turned back to his prospective employer.

"I'm listening."

[lifesa_witch]

She inhaled sharply. "I don't know how much your predecessor told you... nor how much you'd believe what he'd have to say even if he said the whole story. So I'll stick to the simple details." Although, of course, nothing about this was simple.

"I am a witch." She straightened her back - not once did she move her arms, or she was making an attempt to keep them as still as possible. "And one of my spells has backfired on me. Unfortunately... I don't have an answer in my tomes... nor do I have the means to find them on my own."

[richestduck]

His predecessor had told him nothing but he kept that to himself, choosing instead to ask, "And my part in this is what precisely? I'm not a warlock."

[lifesa_witch]

"Obviously." She scoffed.

"I need you to read to me. Somewhere, the answer lies in the texts... but this form of mine doesn't allow me to pick up a book or even turn a page." But as to what "form" she had, it appeared she wasn't going to elaborate.

"Because of the complexity of the spell, I have no way of knowing where to look. Once we find the way to restore my body, you may go... and I'll even give you back that quaint little shop."

[richestduck]

So she was the woman who'd bought up his shop. He'd suspected as much. It had all seemed far too convenient that he'd happened to lose everything just before she'd offered him a position.

A position reading aloud, apparently. Spell work, something he'd only dabbled a little in and had had very little success in making work though whether that was due to lack of talent or his arcane potential lying elsewhere, he couldn't be sure.

But that didn't fully answer his question, so he clarified: "And why was it so important that you hire me to read aloud to you? You have plenty of servants. I presume most if not all of them can read."

If all she wanted was a set of eyes and a voice, she'd had plenty of options to choose from. She could've even hired a celebrity to read to her if she'd fancied. Yet she'd burned all his bridges down so that she could have him specifically which meant he had something she could not do without, something that wasn't easily-obtained from anyone else. Somewhere in his hand was a card she wanted; he just didn't know what it was.

[lifesa_witch]

"What does it matter?" She countered. "You're the one getting paid, you're the one who wants that pathetic little shop." As much as it annoyed her, though, she was understanding that her usual base insults weren't going to get the job done.

"Your predecessor recommended you to me. You're diligent, determined, and supposedly know your way around money." She rolled her head around, trying to gesture without using her hands. "... Which I may need, as my usual method of money-making also requires my lost body."

[richestduck]

"It matters because you've pulled me away from my pleasant and profitable little bookshop," Scrooge said, his tone crisp and professional. "I did more than sell books there as you likely know, and several of my clients are quite put out by me suddenly having to pull up stakes."

Though the name on the sign said "Swanson's", everyone knew that the proprietor was Scrooge McDuck. As a cripple, Scrooge's prospects for work had been slim to none. However, rather than sitting around and bemoaning his existence, Scrooge had learned how to work around his disability, even now walking whenever possible to keep himself fit lest he put more strain on his bad leg. He'd gotten himself apprenticed to Swanson, quickly surpassing even the man's own children who'd had little interest in the bookshop. Swanson had advanced his reading skills; taught him to speak and read fluently in French, Spanish, and Italian; and trained him in how to properly appraise, repair, and restore old books. During that time, Scrooge had picked up another dozen languages and almost twice as many dead ones, expanding the shop into also offering translation services. His head for numbers had turned Swanson's from barely turning a profit to incredibly lucrative. And when Swanson had decided to move to the country for a quiet life in his declining years, his apprentice had "inherited" the shop with the landlord eagerly taking him on as a new tenant immediately rather than having to search for someone.

When he'd taken over the shop, he'd expanded his services to include tutoring after hours at very reasonable rates. That part of Glasgow hadn't been poor but it hadn't been particularly wealthy either, so the staunchly middle class locals had been quite pleased to have someone on hand who was willing to trade an hour of tutoring their children in reading, writing, and arithmetic (and, in a few cases, learning a foreign language) for some meals, laundry work, or even something as basic as information. The local street urchins even had the cheek to call him "Professor" and made sure that any toughs with interest on the shop set their sights elsewhere.

Sadly, he would almost certainly never make Clan McDuck wealthy, but at least he made enough that the McDucks had moved into a much more respectable neighborhood while still making the payments on the castle. The good will he'd garnered had sparked outrage when he'd been forced to close up shop, and if it ever got out that this was the woman who'd removed the "Professor", her people would find it very uncomfortable to do business in that area.

"Not only that, but I lived above the shop," he continued. "When you bought it out, you put me out of house and home. You can understand my hesitation to work for you without good reason, I hope? After all, you've sent me to the street before."

He was definitely on the back foot. He had savings, of course, but those only lasted for so long without new income. However, he wasn't without his pride. If this woman wanted his services, she was going to pay dearly for them.

[lifesa_witch]

If she did know all that, she certainly didn't seem to care. Her expression of dull annoyance didn't change at all - as if he was the one wasting her time. It was perhaps a strain not to roll her eyes.

"I'm going to pay you far more than any of those peasants ever did. But if you need proof of that..."

She walked past him, to the servant waiting behind the door - that she forced open with her shoulder. Not a hand or even her whole arm - a hint of what wasn't there. "Bring him his first payment."

"Yes, madam."

With the order given, she returned to her seat - sleeves and dress following behind her.

[richestduck]

Interesting. So something had certainly happened to her hands, likely her arms as well. What had she been doing?

"If it's gold, don't bother. The value of that is plummeting thanks to a massive ongoing influx of the stuff. Soon a prostitute will be able to bedeck herself in gold bracelets and necklaces and not be able to give a link of it away for a hunk of bread."

He didn't say who or what precisely was responsible. If she had any sense, she'd connect the dots.

"What I want is something much different."

[lifesa_witch]

She glanced away, mumbling something under her breath that couldn't be heard. Connecting the dots was easy - since she was the one who made the damn dots in the first place.

She cleared her throat.

"I'm in no mood for guessing games. Just name your price."

[richestduck]

"Three things in order of value to you. First, I want as my weekly salary..." He gave a number three times the amount he'd made previously. Given what she wanted him to do -- not just reading but acting as her accountant among other things -- it seemed a paltry sum. "Second, my family has an old castle in dire need of repair and restoration."

That would have a three-prong effect: In the modern era, artisans for stone, antiques, and so on were having a hard time finding work. It would give the local craftsmen some much-needed income until they could find something else to do. It would give his family somewhere permanent to live, their share of Scrooge's wages would go to heating and maintaining the place, but there would be no threat of eviction from a landlord at any moment so long as they paid the taxes. Finally, it would give the locals from his part of Glasgow a good laugh given it was Castle McDuck, and they would know whose tune she was dancing to.

The third request was one she was likely to fight.

"Finally, once your regular income is set up and managed to allow you and your servants to live more than comfortably, you never use the Midas Touch again save for an absolute emergency when a vast quantity of money is the only solution to a problem. And something you desperately want is not an emergency."

[lifesa_witch]

The first was reasonable. Honestly, increasing the salary was predictable, and she'd have done the same in his place. So she nodded.

The second was annoying, but doable. That would cost more than the salary, even if this took years, and could wind up being in debt to him. Still, for the cure, she'd go through with it. If the blow to her pride was that severe, she could always move. So she nodded.

But the third - he had an accurate guess.

"How dare you give me orders!" She snapped, eyes aflame with rage. "You have no idea what I went through to make that amulet! If you want a single brick of that damned castle replaced, you had better pray I can touch it again, you worthless-"

She'd gotten so angry she intended to storm over to him and give him a good thrashing - but her legs weren't made for that now. So her sudden rising up and stepping forward made her trip over her own dress, and with an awful "WAK!" she landed right on her face, hitting the floor with her rump in the air.

"... Fine."

[richestduck]

"I want your word as a witch," he said, leaning over her. "I want it binding."

He heard a distant gasp from a maid at his audacity. What he wanted was for her own magic to bind her to that agreement.

"Think of that last bit as enlightened self-interest," he told her. "Because as it stands right now, your gold will become worthless within five years, and that's an optimistic estimate. The gold you were going to give me will make excellent seed money for something much more permanent and lucrative."

Scrooge was incredibly well-informed. He'd given himself better than a university degree during all those many hours reading between customers along with dealing with local finances. He had a strong head for business but not much money for investment.

[lifesa_witch]

She growled like a chained dog - but worse of all, every word coming out of his mouth proved that he was the best man for the job. He was smart, resourceful, and clever. Who else would think that far ahead and deny the amount she was already willing to give him?

There was no choice. It had to be him.

Revenge would be next on her to-do list once she was cured.

"Just promising it won't be magically binding." She grunted, trying to get back up. She clearly couldn't rely on her arms, needing to put all the weight on her legs, whatever they were. "Have the entire damned thing written down... and once I give a drop of my blood... that is how you make a witch's contract."

[richestduck]

He nodded his understanding.

"Very well. If you will excuse me, I need to finish packing my things and finding somewhere else to live. Then I'll write up the contract for you to sign."

[lifesa_witch]

Oh no, he wasn't getting off that easily.

"Somewhere else to live?" She scoffed. "If you want the job, you're staying here. I'm not having you waste time coming back and forth... I want every valuable second from you I can use."

By the time she was back upright, her face was sweating - it'd clearly taken a lot of effort.

[richestduck]

Well, well, well. Room and board, too? How interesting.

"Very well. Then I just need to pack my things to bring them here."

Did he want to live with this woman? No. Absolutely not. But this was an opportunity he wasn't going to squander. He could stomach sleeping in the same house as her and eating the same food.

[lifesa_witch]

She couldn't even wipe the sweat off her face with her sleeves.

"You start tomorrow." Although given how late it was, was tomorrow today or really tomorrow? "Right after breakfast. You'll read the selected tomes, no questions asked, no interruptions save for meals and whatever else your body needs."

[richestduck]

"Very well," he said amiably. "I'll be back within the next two hours."

He didn't have much to pack, after all.