Chapter Text
And our love is a monster, plain and simple
Though you weigh it down with stones to try to drown it
It floats, it floats
- the extra glenns
Agatha Harkness had the perfect plan, (albeit, through her eyes, every plan she strung together was flawless). Unfortunately, Evenora Harkness had spent over two decades dealing with her daughter's 'plans' and weaponised rebellions, and had become well versed in the antics of her ungrateful brat.
So when Agatha strode up the steps of the grand family manor, coated from head to toe in mud with less than an hour before the coach to the ball was due to arrive, Evanora was prepared.
"I'm simply in no state to woo and charm potential suitors, mother dear, I'm afraid we will just have to cancel." Agatha preens, raising her soiled hands to her muddy cheeks with a mask of false despair. "I'm so sorry. It simply couldn’t be helped, mother!"
Agatha's mask falters as Evanora's thin lips rise into a smile.
"No need to fret, Agatha," the matriarch begins, "we delayed the coach's arrival, but you would have known that if you weren't foolishly gallivanting off in the gardens. Come along."
Agatha stares, brows slowly sinking in resentment, a lopsided sneer of disdain forming on her lips as servants approach her to take her arms and guide her inside.
"How... fortunate," Agatha drawls, snatching her arms back from the servants as they escort her to the bathing quarters.
It had been a perfect plan, until Evanora intervened.
- - -
Evanora watches the transformation from bog monster to presentable young woman with a critical and sharp eye. Agatha glares from the icy bath water, teeth locked together in a snarl (though the impact was less effective when her teeth were chattering). A servant sponges the mud from her skin as another washes her tangled dark locks. Muck floods the water, only for another bucket of ice cold water to be poured over her head and flush away the dirty water.
"It would have been warm, if you weren't late," Evanora sighs, studying her own finger nails as her daughter involuntarily yelps from the shock of another icy bucket being poured over her head.
"I'm s-sure it would have been," Agatha growls, fingers clutching the edge of the bathtub with such tension that it’s a marvel the bath didn’t bend and fold under her grip.
Each time Agatha makes a motion to delay or derail the process, Evanora restores order. A knocked over perfume bottle, she has a replacement; a torn garment, she has a back-up piece in hand. Her daughter was conniving, smart, a royal pain in her ass, but Evanora had the advantage of age, wisdom, and experience of dealing with Agatha. Evanora had been planning this evening for months, and there was nothing that Agatha could summon in her youthful mind that Evanora was not prepared for.
The ball was going to go exactly as Evanora planned. Agatha would be introduced to the foolish family who agreed to marry their son to her for her title and wealth (and when it was too late to reverse the marriage, she would be their headache too - hopefully a burden shared would be a burden lighter).
"I look like a lady," Agatha's lips curl at her reflection before the mirror. Her waist has been crushed into a sharp hourglass figure that heaves her bosom up towards her chin, combining an illusion of voluptuousness with the horrors of organ farming to give her the appearance of curvy and slender. Padding and petticoats exaggerate her hips, and luxurious fabric fall in controlled curves to the floor.
"I suppose dying before I even reach the altar won't be so bad," Agatha laments, fingers spreading out over her waist as if it would help her breathe within the corset. She turns, watching her unfamiliar silhouette turn in the mirror. She should appreciate the hours of work that some poor worker in the city had poured into the details of the dress; the elegant embroidery, the perfectly spaced ruffles, the sculpted bows, but she loathes it all, loathes how it strips her of anything that made her Agatha Harkness and reduces her to something for men to ogle at.
"If you're planning to die, do it after we've received the dowry," Evanora sighs, holding her frame still as a servant touches up her make up. "My position on my inheritance still stands, Agatha. It will not be left to you unless you are married. And you would make a terrible peasant. You would not be able to keep that hideous horse of yours."
"Scratchy is not hideous," Agatha growls under her breath.
"If you can tolerate that horse, you can tolerate a husband." Evanora flashes a thin smile and cups her daughter's cheek in her palm.
"Just, try , dear. You don't need to like him, heaven knows your father and I- well I was very happy when he was on his little business trips." Evanora tries to push a warm smile to her lips, but shows a little too much teeth, and Agatha grimaces at the attempted gesture of affection. "You will be miserable poor. You can tolerate a husband. The boy has a good future ahead of him, you will want for nothing."
"Except a divorce," Agatha quips.
Evanora tilts her head to the side in disapproval of her humour.
"Do not embarrass me tonight, Agatha Harkness, or you can say goodbye to that ugly horse of yours."
- - -
Momentarily left in the supervision of a young servant boy, Agatha’s mind works on how to ruin her mother’s stupid evening without losing Scratchy. Certainly, he wasn’t the most handsome of horses, not a purebred award winning stallion; but he was Agatha’s horse, a loving, dozy headed creature whose presence elevated Agatha from the foulest of moods.
"Get me my riding jodhpurs, boy," Agatha growls to the servant. He's young, naive, a fresh faced fool. Some boy from the local village who thought working in the Harkness estate would make a comfortable life for him and his family.
"Me?"
"No, the other boy in the room," Agatha gestures at the empty room. "Now go, before the harpy comes back." The boy is barely gone for a minute.
"Here you go ma'am," the servant returns, hands trembling as she snatches the trousers from his outstretched arm.
"Finally, now hold." She grabs up the layers of her dress, hitching them up to expose her legs. The boy obeys, but turns his head as far from her as it can, his eyes pinched shut as Agatha wiggles into her riding trousers under the dress.
"I don't think we should be doing this."
"Then don't think, boy."
"My name's Billy-"
"I don't care, Jimmy," she snaps, hips wiggling and gyrating to worm into the fitted trousers. "I need to be repulsive enough to deter a man, without losing Scratchy."
"Can't you just tell him you're not interested?" Billy asks, brows pressing together.
Agatha glares at him, lips parted in a disappointed sneer. She drops into an inelegant squat as she all but melts the trousers to her skin to allow her to move more comfortably in them.
"They really do just hire anyone, don't they? Don't be so stupid. My opinion doesn't matter, but my actions do."
She rises. Billy pauses, "right... but-"
He bolts upright, hands slapping to his side as Evanora glides into the room.
"Come along, Agatha."