1 May 1895 — The Dempsey Estate
Ozymandias Dempsey

Lowri’s garden had seen better days. Better weeks, even. Ever since it had been announced that they had a date for court over the summer, the Dempsey family Matriarch had taken all her frustrations out on her poor hydrangeas had been cut and magically regrown at least half a dozen times within the past few days. Poor Sophie had run out of rooms in the mansion to bring the cuts to, she’d started to give them out to the rest of the house staff.

It was with this in mind that Lowri decided to target her peonies instead. The world could not do without too many peonies. As soon as the flowers were picked, she loaded the vase up and marched them towards one of the wings she often tried to avoid.

“Ozymandias,” She sang in a tone that was completely innocent and devoid of implying that she wanted anything from her son. “Dearest Shelly, I’ve brought you a gift!”

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Left to his own devices, Oz might have spent the morning locked in his study, working. The Ministry was insatiable; it could swallow all his time and effort and still have a mountain of things still to do. Thomasina had plans to go to Galway for the morning, and she had dropped some heavy hints that he ought to accompany her. Supposedly she had things to discuss with one of his sisters — hosting things, social season things, things he had stopped paying so much attention to — but once they'd settled in to the familiar estate in Ireland he suspected that perhaps her real aim had been to drag him out of the house before he could entomb himself in the study. Probably for the best — it was nice to be back in Ireland in the spring. He'd had a leisurely brunch and had taken up in the parlor to read the newspaper, and thought perhaps he might even go for a walk on the grounds following — perhaps with his father, if the man hadn't already disappeared to either his writing desk or his sailboat.

These tentative plans were derailed when his mother entered the room, arms full of flowers. He was broadly suspicious of any sudden interruption from his mother — or, in fairness to her, from any member of his family. He would have been no less wary if Christabel or Lycoris had suddenly presented themselves and announced they'd been looking for him.

"Oh, you remembered my fondness for pink," he remarked dryly, tipping the paper towards the flowers. "How thoughtful."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

“Oh don’t be like that, dearest, they bring a pop of color to your existence and you know it,” Lowri responded, deliberately oblivious to his quippy remarks. She was a woman on a mission today and did not have time to endure such antics from her eldest son (her eldest, right? Honestly sometimes they all got mixed up in her mind.)

“Are you enjoying your day today? Do you require anything I might have Millie fetch for you?”

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Oz arched an eyebrow at her. The flowers on their own were not especially damning; it might have been nothing more than a whim for her to have brought them. The unexpected gift coupled with such a fawning question were highly suspicious. If he had required something then he would have already gotten it. He'd lived here most of his life and knew all the servants better than he knew the ones in his London house. He wouldn't have stood on ceremony and waited for someone to come host him, he would have already rang for it. So she was trying to butter him up, and she wouldn't have done that without a reason. She was angling for something.

He paused to consider. It was tempting to push this little charade and see how many things he could demand of her before she would tire of placating him and get around to whatever it was she wanted... but on the other hand, if she got out with it quickly, he could get back to the paper faster. Working at the Ministry he was sometimes busy enough that he didn't get the paper fully read for two or three days after it had been published, and had a stockpile of previous issues to work through on the weekends; he valued his paper-reading time quite highly these days. Directness won out. He folded the paper down to signal that she had his attention. "What is it you want, dearest mother of mine?"

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Aha! Lowri eyed his folding the paper down with triumph and took this as a cue to sit down in the chair opposite him; but not before she sat the large vase of hydrangeas in the middle of his desk. “I’d like to talk about this upcoming court date, if you have room to pencil your poor mother into your schedule, that is.” She stated, leaning back to cross her hands in the middle of her lap. She tilted to the side in order to peer around the hydrangeas to stare at her son.

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It was a comically large vase of hydrangeas, he had to give her credit there. Did that mean she realized this was a very tenuous request? Did she correlate size of bouquet to magnitude of favor requested?

He rustled the paper slightly, as though considering putting it back up. "We can discuss it," he allowed. "But I don't have any sway on the court, I'm sure you know."

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MJ is the light of my life <3