May 8, 1893 — High Street
Barnaby Wye

Having moved to Pennyworth with her husband, Morgana had felt great about it for a long while. There was no annoying neighbors too. She had space and her own little garden. Her little brood of snakes were finding it to be a wonderful home. She had taken herself to High Street to do some shopping for more seeds. The clerk had gifted her some sunflower seeds which she had no use for. The bright, sunny things would hardly go well with her belladonna and aconite!

Shaking her head at the very thought, she smirked when she spotted a familiar, ghostly figure ahead. She had not seen the haughty ghost in a long while. As her greeting, she tossed a sunflower seed right through his head.

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Things went in one ear and out his other all too frequently, in Barnaby’s experience. Hailstones and raindrops, falling leaves, the odd disoriented pigeon – and he was none the worse for wear for any of them, for of course he could not feel them.

Nevertheless. Barnaby noticed the sunflower seed soaring through him, and although it had no physical effect it did serve to knock the deep and important thought he was in the middle of having right out of his mind. Rather irksome, that. It might take days to come back to him.

As sunflower seeds did not oft go leaping about through the air of their own accord, Barnaby swirled around, casting his eye to the skies – had it come from the beak of a bird, mayhaps? – to along the street, where his eye fell upon –

“O, thou little brazen-faced punk*,” he muttered, eyes narrowing instinctively at one of the more recent banes of his death. Or rather, “muttered” – it was loud enough to carry indeed.

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*or else from punk "prostitute, harlot, strumpet," attested by 1590s, of unknown origin.

  

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Morgana was quite pleased to have made her target. She was not fazed when the ghost took notice. Good. She had been bored. This should prove to be a little diverting then she could go home to Marvolo with an amusing tale to tell.

Where was he looking anyway? He had looked to the skies first before looking at the street and taking full notice of her. Oh how pleasant! He seemed to recognize her. Had she really made such an impactful impression upon him? Never mind, that it had been a rather negative impression. "Merry meet to you too, Mawworm," Morgana said, having the cheek to curtsy mockingly.

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MAWWORM — a hypocrite of the most unpleasant kind.

  

“Would that I could wash thy dirty little mouth out,” Barnaby muttered, though in truth he was more peeved by her affected, mocking curtsy than anything she had said. He floated over closer to accost her properly (as best he could, without being able to afflict her bodily). “Dost thou throw seeds at me?”

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Morgana simply laughed at the mutter coming from the ghost. He couldn't do much, could he? And she doubted very much that he wished to take to haunting her which might have been the only thing to truly bug her.

His proximity brought a chill with it. Instead of answering verbally, she took up another sunflower seed, made sure he could see it quite well, and flicked it through him.

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The little beast had the gall to do it again, and Barnaby lost three hundred years of (supposed) maturity in moments. “What hilarity,” he bit out, and folded his arms so that they rested atop the hilt of his sword. “Have thou nothing better to do? How sad indeed. Thy life is as miserably empty as thy head?” To illustrate his comment, Barnaby stuck his hand out and put it through her, hand groping about as if he was searching in vain for a brain in her. It would not be remotely comfortable for her – indeed, more delicate creatures might have fainted at such a sensation – but in this case he did not care.

(He was not sure he would have found a heart if he had looked for one, either. Or a soul.)

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"Yes, I am quite bored at the moment," Morgana said airily. "You have it worse than me though, might as well be a source of amusement." That wasn't really what she thought of ghosts. Some did sadden her when she thought of their robbed life - but this one had the bad misfortune of having Morgana find his indignation especially amusing. And it wasn't like she was the nicest person in the world in general.

Morgana felt a chill right down to her bones as the ghost put a hand through her. "Remind me to come seek you when the summer heat is beating down upon us."

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“I,” Barnaby sniffed haughtily, “would rather be dead than a peasant like thee.” And he was indeed dead, but the fact remained. She had it worse than him, with no manners and no money, and more was the pity that she couldn’t even see it.

Barnaby drifted bodily into her now with a vicious air. “Mayhaps I shall haunt thee all winter,” he threatened. She might be a devil, but he could make himself a nuisance. (Miserable as he was in her company, he was certain he could make her life a misery too if he committed to the bit.)

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Morgana simply cackled in response to the spirits words. She personally loved her life with her snazzy new Pennyworth home, her darling husband and now a fun spirit to antagonize. What more could she possibly want other than the rest of the worlds population to drop dead?

"You know mister Spirit. One of the blessed things about being a peasant, as you call me, is that we are used to the cold. I will outlast you." Never mind that she was most decidedly not a peasant. She was a Gaunt.

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Barnaby smiled darkly at that. All her bravado, her witchy cackle – I will outlast you was a remark of such ego and youth that it made him want to laugh.

“Not so,” Barnaby retaliated, with a slow dawning smile of triumph. “I could haunt you for every year of your life. I could see every humiliation, and every hardship. I could arrive at your deathbed. I might see you become haggard and old and see sickness take you, if poverty or freak accident does not, and I will see you achieve nothing, watch all your dreams turn to dust. And I will be entertained by’t. Because I will outlast you: it is the privilege of the already dead.”

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"And yet all you can do is watch," Morgana said, not in the least bit bothered by the others words. She was a Gaunt. She had seen success just by being born into that name. Everyone else was nothing much as they tried to lord their wealth over them. "While doing absolutely nothing yourself."

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Watch and do nothing – that hurt. Barnaby’s eyes narrowed. She had not been cowed by the rapier, not by wit alone: he would simply have to commit to the bit.

“Hast thou heard me sing?” He mused innocently, a smile threatening now – and his singing was often a gift more than a nuisance, and she hardly deserved it, but it was something he could vow to do, immortalise her as the annoying wretch she was. “Hark! There goes a vagrant I do spy...” he began to trill thoughtfully, making up a tune.

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"That caterwauling was what you were doing when I first gazed upon you," Morgana said, purposely effecting her voice so that it sounded like she was recollecting a fond, romantic memory. Blech. Only Marvolo was truly worthy of her affections in that way but she was enjoying rattling the ghost. Everyone had to get their kicks somewhere.

"Do you hear that? I think a cat is being strangled nearby," she said in response to his singing.

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She was terribly catty, this wench; Barnaby shot her a similarly simpering smile in hatred.

And by Jove, even her quip had the gall to rhyme perfectly with the start of his song. Insult as it had been, Barnaby only amplified his tone and kept singing (perfectly in tune, and not like a dying cat at all, thank you). “Always a cruel word from this mangy witch / whose fate is so set to die facedown in some ditch...” Ignominious ends for ignominious sorts. “What was your name?” he interjected, in the middle of dreaming up some ghastly ballad to befit her ghastly personality.

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Oh what a thrill it always was to see she had needled someone into looking at her so full of hatred. It was an amusement for her that Marvolo tended to find amusing while also pondering their audacity.

"Morgana Gaunt, good sir. Now why don't you continue causing your little stir?" Morgana said jovially.

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Barnaby gasped, aghast. “Did – you – just – rhyme – at me?” If he weren’t already dead, he might’ve dropped of an apoplexy. How dare she rhyme at him?

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