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Tweak says, "Come along, Pond!"

Pandora Montgomery (pandacharms) wrote in finnigans_rpg,
@ 2014-10-05 20:04:00

Entry tags:

character: pandora montgomery, character: richard summerby

Who: Dora and Richard

What: Moving into the new flat

Where: Clink St.

When: around 3pm

Rating: SFW for now

Pandora made certain to be on time. She actually left early to make sure she could find it, and didn't have too much of a problem. She'd thrown all her (rather few) belongings into one of her self-made extra-dimensional containers and paid her landlord the last of what she owed him, dismantled her over-the-top wards, and headed on over. She didn't bother to wear long sleeves today, but enjoyed the cooler quality of short ones, and didn't bother to cover up her Mark.

After all, Richard already knew about it and had seen it before, and it was nice to have an element of comfort for once without having to hide parts of herself.

She pushed her hair back and looked around for Richard, knowing she was in the right place. This was a very nice area, and one she had a feeling she'd be more comfortable in than her former very poor housing. She'd grown up with money, and the last years had been rough in a way because it was so very different, though she was rather too proud to admit it.

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the_richard
2014-10-08 08:22 pm UTC (link)

"It slices, it dices, it makes julienne fries." Rich quoted the television commercial at Dora, not thinking whether or not it would go over her head. "It will also give you a reservoir of power to draw on without using your own. You never want to load it completely full because you can also use it to absorb some spells that are cast at you. Even better, you can preload spells like you would with a staff, and it takes minimal extra energy to trigger them. Oh, and it also looks impressive as hell when you illusion magical fire onto the blade."

He paused in what he was saying while he set a healing charm on each of her legs. It was slow working, something he had learned from Alicia, but it would do the job and leave Dora with no scars to show for her experience.

Chuckling, he went on. "Could have summoned your fighting outfit; I gave you time. And I didn't take anything from the building wards you couldn't have. No, I was thinking of when the tempo of the fight changed, when that hotfoot I snuck in on you at the start took effect. That was when I got inside your decision loop and you lost initiative. It gave me time to rattle you, make you angry, set some traps for you to run into. If you'd just said 'fuck it', backed off, reset your attack, I'd have had to start over with a new plan to get you close, coming after you. As it was, you charged straight in on me and gave me the one shot I'd been waiting for. Game over. On the other hand, you're good. Scarey good. In a real fight I'd have done my best to blow you up in the first few seconds instead of tossing schoolboy pranks at your shoes."

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pandacharms
2014-10-08 10:08 pm UTC (link)

Pandora looked at him a little blankly, the reference completely eluding her though she knew it had to be a specific reference. The only television she'd ever watched was through the windows of a store or in a store, briefly. She flapped a hand slightly. "I don't usually preload my staff," she said, gesturing to it. "It's considered poor form to do much of that on the circuit. I almost always straight up cast with it. Master Markov was very strict about that when he was teaching me." Casting with the lignum vitae wood staff with its crystalline jade fractals in the very thin middle had been a wonderful learning experience. "Generally I might put a couple of spells in it."

Dora set the blade carefully to the side and kept perfectly still as he did the spells, hands folded across her stomach as if she were relaxing on the beach rather than getting healed from some painful scrapes.

Her lips quirked at him. "No, I couldn't. You can't summon things out of that chest," she told him. "Not when the ward is activated, and I have them all on. Everything I own except for a few Galleons in the bank is in that thing." And call her paranoid, but she'd been robbed before. Someone as well off as him probably wouldn't understand, but she did more than most because she had been rich and the last years she'd spent her life scrapping up a living from nothing, using only her skills.

She listened as she examined the small cuts on her arm where the sword had nicked her above and below her knife, poking them idly to see if they were done bleeding yet. "No, I wasn't angry until you shook me like a doll," she said, not looking up. "Well, not any more angry than I normally am," she amended. "That was probably the point I'd pick where it started going wrong, mostly because I was forced to act before my rune had properly degraded your shield. The hot foot wasn't that awful, I mean, I know my feet will hurt later, but it never would have been any issue if I'd had my boots. I've had to duel naked before, I can take going barefoot." And that was a story in and of itself. Not to mention that, aside from the lack of spell-repelling gear, she preferred to go without shoes, where she didn't have to depend on a spell to feel if someone was coming.

She flashed him a fierce smile, looking up from her arm where she'd finally quit prodding the open wounds with detached curiosity. Her eyes weren't nearly as flat and focused as they had been just a few minutes ago. "Thank you. I take pride in obliterating my enemies, and I've worked hard at it," she said, speech more relaxed as well. She got both blunter and less censored as well as slightly less enunciated after a fight, generally, if she wasn't mad. She found it incredibly... relaxing, in a way, to get it out of her system like that.

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the_richard
2014-10-08 11:38 pm UTC (link)

Rich nodded. "What you do on the circuit is your own business. That was zen, this is dao. Any resource you can have on call is legitimate. Play with it. One other thing that sword will do for you. I had the goblins load it with the first ten sword kata. Hold the pommel to your heart and command it, 'teach me'. It will puppet you through the movements until you master them on your own. No cheating. It won't advance a level until you've mastered the one before."

He nodded. "In your bedroom upstairs there's a small box that is keyed to you personally now. You'll find the information on your Gringotts account - your new one - cheques, a charge card. There is also a commercial charge card on my working account. Get three or four of everything of your fighting gear and set it up. Carry at least one set, shrunk, with you at all time. There's also some official identification for you as a security contractor for International Exports. One of the advantages of being a partner, albeit a junior one, is that I can do things like that so it is completely legit. Keep receipts. I can even write you off as a business expense and stiff the taxman."

"Point is, you started dancing to my tune." He frowned at the mention of her feet and tapped his wand first to one and the other. Again, dragons. It was always a good idea to be able to heal burns quickly. "I can throw a general heal on you if you want. Take a few hours to work but should clear up the aches and pains and that little cut you seem so intent on playing with."

"Naked in a pitch black room. Three opponents. Them armed, you not. Been there. Hell of a graduation exam."

Richard thought for a moment longer. "Get yourself an assortment of business wear, some normal, some severe. Black on black is good. Dark sunglasses. When the schedule works out, I'll take you around with me, let people start to get used to you. Parts of Russia, your bodyguards are sort of a status symbol. 'Only one woman?' they'll ask me. 'All I need' is what I'll tell them."

"So, are you happy with the arrangement?"

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pandacharms
2014-10-09 09:06 am UTC (link)

She mmed softly and examined the sword again contemplatively. Training charms she had experience with. "No use in trying to cheat them anyway, you always pay for it later," she said.

Her brows raised at him from her prone position. "You know my dueling robes are top of the line, lined with dragon hide and everything, right?" She asked. "I won them as a custom job just like my staff." The subtext saying they were hellaciously expensive. If she sold her robes and staff she could have gotten on better, but they were some of her most intrinsic and valued items. She snorted softly as he mentioned shorting the taxman. Not very Hufflepuffian, she thought, but definitely something a Slytherin could sympathise with.

"I'll take that today, yes," she said though she knew better than to depend on such spells. Some pain was of the good sort, but this duel had been rigorous and it had been a couple weeks since her last bout with Filius. She did offer him her arm though, the cut vivid red and the Mark vivid black against her pale skin. Nothing he could do would affect her Mark except make it hurt, maybe.

"Dueling arena with a nearly two thousand spectators," she said dryly. Most men would likely scoff but it would have put off a lot more women than men. As it was, she'd had to deal with a lot of shit off people for quite a while.

It was almost overwhelming to suddenly have access to money and be told to buy so much stuff, but she took it with relatively good grace. "I've always enjoyed Russia," she mused aloud. "Yes," she said after thinking it over a moment. No need to be rash - that had always been her brother's purview. "I think we'll work together just fine."

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the_richard
2014-10-09 02:14 pm UTC (link)

"You remember I own this building? Am partners on most of the block?" Rich snorted a soft laugh. "This is an upscale neighborhood, even if it is muggle. The big flat, up above mine? Usually rented to rich tourists for 1000 galleons a week. And this is just a sideline. Not to mention, how much is my arse worth, if yours is between it and trouble? Hufflepuffs are loyal and hardworking. Says so on the box. Stupid is nowhere in the product description."

He was silent as he ran the tip of his healing wand over the cut he had given her, the moved the wand to her head to cast a general restorative.

"Barn in bumfuck Scotland, a Death Eater and two snatchers," he said softly. "Beginning of Voldemort's reign. Had the knowledge of fighting, didn't have the experience doing it for real. I do now."

"Good." He nodded. "And it was a fun little practice. unpack, get settled in, use the hot tub up here if you need to get the rest of the kinks out. Remember everyone else but us around here is muggle if you practice on the roof. Most of 'em are used enough to me running on the streets every morning and doing kata up here so just about anything but overt magic will be fine. If you really want to blend in, and want to stay with that sleeveless look, you might consider going for a whole tattoo sleeve. The Dark Mark is startling. An entire sleeve, or two, is a fashion statement."

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pandacharms
2014-10-09 09:40 pm UTC (link)

"Yes, well, darling, doesn't mean you should spend that kind of money on me," she drawled, playing up the bored upper class Scots accent she'd been born into. She didn't say that her father wouldn't have sponsored her in such a manner, even if he'd been alive, around, or whatever had happened to him. "Yeah, never did buy that 'bunch of duffers' fodderall some people were selling in school," she said.

"Yeah, sucks, doesn't it," she said in the same soft voice. She felt both sympathy and a hard, sudden aversion to adding to the conversation with more than her dueling background, at least at the moment. She liked Richard; she felt a great affinity and kindred quality with him. But some things, talking about came incredibly hard to her, when she even remembered everything to do with them or not.

She sat up and then rose to her feet, feeling a few pangs through the not quite as distant haze. "Definitely fun," she agreed. She'd needed that, actually, more than she'd thought. She stretched, arms going up above her head and back arching. "I'll do my best, Richard. I've not been in the Muggle world but maybe ten times in my life, not counting managing to get here today," she said bluntly. "I've never in my life really had to hide my magic." Her parents had never taken them into the Muggle world, even though she knew her mother's job often brought her in contact there. They hadn't been blood purists, but they sure hadn't let her out in it.

Her arm curled protectively against her chest, hiding the tattoo and covering up the inner flutter of panic she felt at the unexpected suggestion. "True," she said. Then, truthfully, "I've considered getting another tattoo. I'll think on it." There was a vast and infinitely complicated morass of emotions associated with the Mark and then with tattoos, one she had yet to really delve into.

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the_richard
2014-10-10 02:21 am UTC (link)

"Think of yourself as an investment on my part." Rich shrugged. "Putting you on a retainer and picking up some of your equipment, which is what the official paperwork just happens to say, may or may not be cheaper in the long run than hired guns. But hired guns are just that, hired. Bringing somebody in and training them in the IE way of doing business, giving them a shot at a piece of the take... You can't buy loyalty. But even a business can earn it."

"It's a mean world out there, and getting meaner. There's still a fair number of knuts out there to be made though. Don't even know if it will work out in the long run, be cost effective for the company. Doesn't affect the agreement between you and I. But if it does work, I can see us having our own security and disaster response team on staff."

"We survived." He shrugged again. That doesn't suck. May have been a time when I wasn't too sure about that. I'm getting over it."

Rich nodded. "My time is limited, but I'll help when I can. Probably could bribe one of the bright young office assistants to drop by and give you lessons in muggleation, or you're free to find your own teacher. I'll be honest here. The wizarding world is limited. There's much more business out there for me to do with muggles. They're just people like us, use technology instead of magic, do things we can't do as a matter of fact, and have pretty much the same hopes and aims we do."

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pandacharms
2014-10-10 12:24 pm UTC (link)

She nodded, conceding to him in this. She couldn't help that she ... distrust wasn't the word, but was wary about matters of money when she had so little herself currently. Pandora would work hard to earn the opportunity he was giving her, however.

"I look forward to seeing what I can do to help out," she said. Kicking a little arse for money was rather appealing; after all, it was in a variation what she'd done for several years.

She lifted one shoulder. She wasn't so sure she agreed, but she wasn't prepared to argue at the moment. Some days she would agree, but right now she was tiring and in a weird headspace.

Dora smiled at him gratefully. "I appreciate that. I'll let you know what I need in the next week or so." She agreed, at least to an extent, about the Muggle world; however, she thought the wizarding world had a lot left to offer as well.

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	the_richard 2014-10-10 08:27 pm UTC (link)
	"Right then," Rich returned his healing wand to the sheath below his back collar. "Any other questions or problems that need to be handled now? If not, I'm for getting cleaned up and heading back to work." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

pandacharms
2014-10-11 02:00 am UTC (link)

"Not right now, but thank you, Richard," she told him, giving him a broad and genuine smile. She felt the urge to hug him or kiss his cheek, but held back; she didn't yet feel familiar enough with him to risk such liberties, even meant purely in gratitude for what he was doing for her. "I'll just settle in and everything. You have a good rest of your day at work. Don't overwork yourself."

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