happilyeverbeginning | And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon... (scrooge and minnie)

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And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon... (scrooge and minnie)

It wasn't as if Minnie had intentionally gone through with this with the idea she'd do it alone, but after the first couple of people she asked for help seemed appalled and aghast at the very notion of what she was doing, she gave up and decided she'd go at it herself.

Although, to be fair, months ago she would have been appalled and aghast herself at the notion. Giving away things from the castle? It was unheard of. But that had definitely been Scrooge McDuck's influence, which not everyone approved of. One of the things Minnie had learned from him was the usefulness, and connected to it the uselessness, of certain material items. If she didn't need them, nor did any of the servants, why not hand it to someone less fortunate? (At least Scrooge had finally convinced her to stop calling them "commoners". Now that had been a struggle.)

It was a lovely day outside, so instead of being cooped up, Minnie brought the - rather heavy - trunk outside to rifle and check through, with paper and ink quill in hand. All employees of the palace were free to come and go in her gardens, so she wouldn't have minded any company.

Currently, she was finishing folding away some very unique, and sparkly, dresses that she could tell would never fit her. "Mm-hmm." She said out loud, jotting something down. "Away that goes."

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"Are those jewels sewn into the fabric?" Scrooge asked.

Her temporary financial minister had been unraveling the tangled web of nonsense her former financial minister (a supporter of Captain Pete) had left behind for a few months now. Fortunately, things were finally getting to a point where Scrooge could focus less on spending his every waking moment juggling France's finances with his company and start focusing on finding someone Minnie could trust to take his place permanently. That meant that he could do things like take a moment to go to the palace gardens to get some fresh air away from the nobility who despised him and the gaudy Hell Versailles Palace was to him.

He honestly hadn't meant to just leap into a conversation without announcing himself (hopefully he hadn't startled her), but the way the fabric literally glittered made it so he couldn't help himself.

Edited 2020-11-10 00:28 (UTC)

He had surprised her, but only lightly, and he wasn't an unwelcome face. She blinked a few times before smiling cheerfully, sliding off the stone bench to do a proper curtsy. "Good day to you, Mister McDuck." One must always have manners.

Ah, he was talking about the dress, was he? She moved to hold it up so he could see it better himself. "And yes, they are. I don't think it'd be really that comfortable to wear, but it was one of mother's favorites."

Oblivious to the rather huge fact she dropped, and the more she'd continue to drop, she merely shrugged and refolded it. "I'm taking your advice to heart and giving away the things I don't need."

"Good day, lass."

Without the nobility around, he didn't particularly feel the need to use her title. If she had an issue with it, she'd bring it up. She'd never hesitated to do so before.

He gave a slight bow over his cane before walking closer.

Given the original struggle it had been to get her to understand that everything had to come from somewhere and had to cost something, seeing her practicing his lessons in fiscal responsibility was heartening.

"Are you sure you want to get rid of it? It is your mother's, after all." He paused, knowing she'd likely ask about what was seemingly conflicting advice. "There's nothing wrong with keeping a momento or two of loved ones that've passed."

Edited 2020-11-10 00:37 (UTC)

She actually found the little "nickname" he'd given her quite cute, and liked it. If there was a problem today, it was that he was indeed being conflicting. Her face pinched up a bit, head tilted, trying to understand.

"Well, she's not around to wear it, and it'll never fit me." This was logic and fact, which might have sounded a little odd coming from the girl who appeared to face absolutely everything with fluffy emotions. "Why would I keep it?"

Scrooge held up a placating hand. "Calm down, lass. I didn't mean anything nasty by it."

He sat down beside her on the bench. "When my father passed and I inherited Castle McDuck, I found he'd saved some of Mummy's favorite dresses including her wedding dress. Now I'm certainly not going to be wearing her clothes, but I kept them along with Daddy's favorite suit because I wanted something tangible to keep their memories close. The rest I donated to others." He gave a soft smile. "Though to be honest, I'm glad I held onto Mummy's wedding dress in particular given Gandra is going to be needing such a dress soon enough. Might work for 'something borrowed'."

Minnie had probably caught on to the fact that the lady dove and his head accountant were seeing one another. What she likely didn't know was that the pair were planning to get married while in Paris even if it meant a working honeymoon.

Perhaps it was a testament to how little her memories of her parents meant to her, or how much she enjoyed any talk of romance - or perhaps both - but it really should have come as no surprise what she chose to focus on.

"She is?!" Minnie squealed, hands clasped, the entire current task forgotten. "Oh, that's wonderful! Has Fenton proposed yet? Has he gotten a ring? I bet the wedding will be magical, just magical! I hope I can see it for myself, and maybe even catch the bouquet, and then Sir Mickey will see it, and he'll get inspired, and then he'll say something terribly witty and romantic and..."

Yep, she was about to go on yet another Mickey tangent, if not stopped soon.

Scrooge chuckled, waving her down. "Yes, he got her a ring. You should ask her to show it to you sometime. She wears it on a chain around her neck after she had to beg Gyro's father Ratchet to retrieve it from the piping back at the Scotland office when it fell down a sink drain."

He hadn't realized it at the time, of course. When he was in the office, he tended to focus on work. Honestly, he hadn't even realized Fenton and Gandra were seeing one another until Fenton brought up the impending marriage during Scrooge's briefing of the upcoming business trip to France. Ratchet had absolutely reveled in sharing the story as Gandra had squealed her objections.

Minnie let out a long, wistful sigh as her overactive imagination filled in the blanks. "A necklace and a ring together... how sweet."

It did make her pause again after a moment, and then she jotted another thing down on the paper. "That reminds me... I can give away mother's jewelry too. We really didn't have the same tastes."

Well, this was potentially disturbing.

"If you want my input, you could re-set the jewels into settings more to your liking. Reuse what she left you rather than just tossing them. What you don't decide to keep can be sold to pay for the re-setting."

He paused, keeping in mind what she'd told him about her mother.

"I take it you're not planning on keeping anything from her though."

Another curious head-tilt. "I just don't see why I would? I don't need things to remember her by."

She had meant it as in "I'll remember her whether I have her things or not", but at least this time she heard how it actually sounded. She sighed quietly through her nose, looking up at a few passing clouds.

"... I guess that's another thing that separates me from... everyone else." Another case where she had assumed everyone had gone through similar things, and needed to be reminded otherwise. "I didn't hate my parents, Mister McDuck. I just... didn't know them."

He nodded his head in solemn understanding. "Aye. I can understand that. You can't miss what you never really knew."

It was sad though. He'd learned during his travels building a fortune and laying the groundwork for McDuck Enterprises that not everyone had as strong a bond with their parents as he and his sisters had had with theirs. Gandra was another example of someone he currently knew with that issue, but unlike the princess, the woman despised her father to the point where she'd asked Scrooge, her employer, to take the odious man's place walking her down the aisle. (An honor he'd accepted, but it was still a sad state of affairs.)

Knowing she was safe around Scrooge, Minnie placed her pen and paper aside to hug her knees - such a "boyish" position would have earned her a finger-wag from her lady-in-waiting. "They weren't bad people... I mean, they weren't bad on purpose."

Learning how the decisions of her parents truly affected her people had been a sufficient blow to her heart - especially since she'd nearly made the same ones. "They never meant to hurt anyone... they just... didn't think about anyone but themselves. And maybe that's how they were raised too. It's really hard to know good from bad when no one tells you which is which." Granted, there were some things you just had to feel from the heart, but when it was one person versus an entire court of people saying otherwise... the wrong lessons were learned easily enough.

Scrooge reached out to pat her shoulder, not even commenting on the unladylike position she was sitting in. "And even when you do know the difference, good people can still make bad decisions from time to time. Still, I don't imagine your parents were malicious. Ignorant to long-term consequences and more focused on immediate pleasures, most likely, but that doesn't necessarily make them bad people." He gave her a wry smile. "I'm a greedy old cuss but I like to think I'm not all bad."

Minnie was quick to do a little gasp as she faced him. "Don't say that, you're not a cuss!"

She had no idea what a cuss was. But it sounded rude. Nor did she realize she technically wasn't objecting to him being greedy and old.

"You've done so much to help me, I'm truly grateful! And I know that you'll make me an even better Queen."

"But I am old and greedy it seems," Scrooge laughed. He took a moment to calm down. "I'm just nudging you away from the bad habits your parents passed down. You're a determined young woman, lass. When you're crowned Queen, I have no doubt you'll use the lessons you've learned to become the best ruler you could possibly be with or without me here."

He was an old man so he wouldn't be around forever. That and eventually he'd have to name and set up his successor to lead McDuck Enterprises. (Given the current circumstances, he had a very good idea of whom that would be.)

He looked down at the jewelry, tilting his head to one side. "You know what? This could be salvaged." He picked up a sapphire necklace, the large gemstone surrounded by diamonds and gold to the point it was a miracle the beautiful dark blue stone wasn't entirely lost in the costly monstrosity. "The sapphire itself would make a lovely pendant. Maybe keep a few of the diamonds to surround it in a setting and then hang it off a simple gold chain..."

Minnie did have the decency to blush when being called out for accidentally insulting him. She would have apologized, but he seemed to take it in stride, so she allowed them both to move on.

"I didn't think you'd know so much about jewelry." Minnie admitted, but then not entirely surprised - whenever it came to anything involving riches, this man appeared to know anything. It was a shame he didn't have a nice lady friend to spoil with such knowledge. She had once or twice been tempted to find a date for him, but in one of her rare moments of wisdom, decided that such interference wouldn't end well for both of them.

"I think she only wore it a few times, anyway." Minnie added on, reaching back into the far corners of her memory. "She didn't like wearing the same thing too often. "

"That seems to mesh with what little I know about her."

Unfortunately. Little wonder Minnie had been baffled by the idea of reusing dresses for different parties.

"As for jewelry, I'm not as much of an expert as my jewelers, but I did quite a bit of gem mining in the southern parts of the New World. Never cut the gems myself though. One bad cut and it ruins the gem."

Oooh, was it story time? Minnie did love to hear about his various exploits and adventures. It was like reading a thrilling book. "Did you mine the gems yourself? That must have been so difficult!"

"Oh, the mining was the easy part! But in that part of the world, it's swelterin' even during the winter. Even in the shade, you'd be drenched in sweat. Down in the mines with little air flow where all that heat could just collect, it wasn't unusual to have a few people needing to be carried up to the surface due to them passing out."

If there was one thing Scrooge could be counted on, it was having quite a few tales on hand. (Though many people claimed he exaggerated them.) But one thing he always valued was a very appreciative audience.

"We'd fill bucket after bucket with rocks and dirt which would get hauled up to the surface. If you were lucky, you got to be one of the ones sifting through the dirt and rocks for the gems since you'd be sifting it in the flume. Nice cold water running over your hands and arms."

And she was very appreciative - to her, other lives were absolutely fascinating. One would think a princess would be disgusted about tales of dirt and sweat, but her eyes were glittery, with a smile a mile wide.

"My goodness!" She replied, seeing it all play out in her head. "I bet you found quite a lot of them! You must have been ever so strong to do a job like that!"

"Oh, aye. Found plenty and learned a lot about them in the process. Definitely put those muscles I'd built up working on sailing ships to good use, too." He tapped his finger atop his cane. "I got into that job when the ship I'd been sailing on was spending a few months in port for repairs."

Curious head-tilt, as usual. "Does that mean once the ship was finished, you stopped mining?"

"Stopped mining there. Did a little bit in other places, but most of my time was working on various merchant ships. I'd learn from the various merchants about their trade and did a little buying and selling on the side to add to my wages." He beamed. "Proudest day of my life was when I'd worked my way up the ranks and saved up enough to buy the William and become her captain."

Minnie let out a few delighted giggles - his stories were always amazing, and a guaranteed happily ever after, since he obviously lived to tell the tale.

"Honestly, Mister McDuck, you simply must write these all down someday! I bet you'd become twice as rich selling such novellas!"

He gave a careless wave of his hand. "Ach, lass, I'm no writer. Besides, most people automatically assume I'm telling tall tales."

It was the people who worked closely with him that believed even half of his stories.

"Though I wouldn't be upset with being twice as rich as I am now."

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