June 18, 1892 — Poppy Dashwood's Debut Ball; Dashwood Hall, Surrey

The eldest Dashwood was joining society and the Morgans had been invited to it. The hall was resplendent as one might expect from the Dashwoods, he supposed. He was a little more interested in the party getting started. Soon enough, the debut part of things was done and Desi was free to mingle as he liked. "Admiring the combination of floral and charm work?" He asked of as someone seemed to be peering up at the flowers coming from the ceiling.

  

Endymion had almost forgotten where he was: he had been gazing upwards, as one might at the night sky, at the disorientating, luscious upside-down field of flowers, his mind a world away, for who knew how long.

So he didn’t hear much of the remark until he had blinked, shaken out a crick in his neck and a new, heavy daze, and reoriented himself to the ballroom floor, trying to remember whose debut this was and what he had been doing before he’d looked up –

“Desi!” Dymion exclaimed, delighted, as his eyes fell upon the elder of the Morgan brothers (both of whom he liked very much), who had somehow, sometime, appeared at his side. Belatedly, his brain sprang back to life enough to digest the question he’d missed the first time around. “Mostly the flowers,” he admitted. “Peonies. Why, what are you doing?” he added teasingly, as he discovered a stray macaron in his hand and took a ponderous bite out of it.

---

  

---

Endymion seemed a little out of it and Desi had to wonder if he hadn't taken a little something. Not that it mattered much to Desi if he had or not. Who among their circle didn't slip a little opium or something into their tea every now and then?

"Doing what one usually does at these things. Flirt, gossip, dance," Desi said. "Were you in the greeting line for the debuting young lady or did you get here after it was done with?" Some had arrived after the customs a private debut tended to have had been observed.

  

Oh, just the usual. Desi Morgan was quite as laidback a fellow as he, so this came as no surprise. Now that he had been shaken back to the present, Endymion glanced at the dance floor to be sure he had not missed any of his own engagements – no, this set was not yet finished – and then pulled a face at Desi. “I was in the line, of course,” he explained, squinting at Desi to decide whether he’d skipped the bore of it and shown up late. “One has to be if they’re looking for a wife.”

He raised his eyebrow to say: and I’m trying, aren’t you?

---

  

---

"I was there too. She's a lovely young woman," Desi said, since, well, it was true. "And how goes the wife hunt this evening?" Desi wasn't too discerning when it came to a potential bride for himself. So long as they weren't someone his mother would desire to kill on sight and was someone he could have fun with.. well, they would do just fine.

  

“Oh, about as well as ever,” Endymion said airily – he had met the new debutante (lovely enough), would have a dance with her later, had danced with an abundance of other young ladies who were, by and large, lovely enough. (That was of course the problem: lovely enough.)

Thinking of it, all his feigned lightness suddenly fell away, and he turned to Desi with an anguished look. “By which I mean tragically,” he exclaimed – quietly, although his tone was despairing. “I’m Sisyphus, Morgan, Sisyphus with the boulder! Prometheus chained on the rock,” – but never mind his liver, there were vultures eating out his heart the moment he so much as fancied he felt the slightest emotion from it – “Tantalus in his lake. Eternal punishment,” he explained, coming down from the peak of melodrama and shrugging helplessly, for despite his best efforts the wife hunt was going nowhere, “and I simply don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it.” Surely it ought not be this hard to fall in love?

---

  

---

Desi was used to melodramatics in others by now. Perhaps because of who his mother was as a person? His siblings? He didn't know but either way, he was used to someone going from perfectly fine to being in the pits of despair the next.

"Oh, well then," Desi said in response to Dempsey's revelation that he was Sisyphus, Prometheus, Tantalus and it was all he could do not to add more mythologically tortured men to the list. "Are your standards particularly exacting? Sometimes that could be it." Desi couldn't see that being the case, the other man tended to be so laidback that sometimes Desi wanted to do something to shake him up.

The following 1 user Likes Desiderius Morgan's post:1 user Likes Desiderius Morgan's post
   Endymion Dempsey

“Exacting?” Dymion echoed, looking perplexed. “I – should not have said so,” he protested lightly, “but she cannot be just anyone, of course.” Of course not. No one ought to just call a woman ‘interesting’ and settle for that.

“All I’ve been hoping for is someone who feels like a dream but is real,” he confessed, waving a hand to conjure some explanation of the unfathomable feeling. “Like an angel come to earth. Who is witty but not unkind, sweet without being dull, charming, beautiful, free-spirited and happy, generous... who wants in their description a brighter word than bright, a fairer word than fair,” he quoted dreamily.

“Someone who alters the colour of my life, makes me forget myself entirely... but it’s not as though I have any expectation in name or standing or great dowry,” Endymion added quickly (though as a second son who would not inherit much himself, possibly he should). “Would you say my standards are exacting if all I require is love?” (So yes, one had to be a little picky if one was looking for the love of their life – but he didn’t think he was being unreasonable.)

---

The following 2 users Like Endymion Dempsey's post:2 users Like Endymion Dempsey's post
   Desiderius Morgan, Ozymandias Dempsey

---

"Of course," Desi said in agreement because at least that much was also true for him. His mother would box his ears if he so much as thought to bring a veela home to wed. Or a vampire. Not that he personally had much against them.

And then Endymion continued speaking, all flowery like. To his credit, he did not laugh. He was a very good friend for not doing so, Desi felt. This all also sounded rather familiar. At least the brighter than bright parts did.

"I suppose not if you follow that due to having loved her, you would believe her to be possessing all the qualities you said earlier," Desi allowed after some thought. He did think that his friend was expecting for things to be so right away when Desi personally felt it required a little more effort than that.

The following 1 user Likes Desiderius Morgan's post:1 user Likes Desiderius Morgan's post
   Endymion Dempsey

He grinned naturally enough when Desi seemed to be on the same page as him. Of course, he’d said, and Endymion knew there were certain other standards he might have – given his status as eldest son of his family – but they seemed mostly aligned. But then Desi punctured his spirits slightly with continued agreement that sounded rather less like agreement to him. I suppose not, he said, almost dubiously, as if he was trying to disguise his dissent in an explanation of the logic.

Except that was not the logic at all. Endymion opened his mouth and closed it again, unsure of how prepared he was to get into a discussion of reason and rationale, particularly with a friend who was already indulging him; particularly amidst the public scene of a party. He bit his lip, considering. “Well – not believe,” he corrected, because he didn’t want Desi to mince his words enough that he misinterpreted them. “She would have to possess all those qualities before I could love her, I think. Possess them objectively and truly, you know,” he remarked, as if no man ever ought to be subjective, and as if Endymion would dream of being subjective and emotional and irrational least of all men on earth.

And maybe his standards were exacting, then, if Desi thought he was asking for too much, but Endymion wasn’t certain he could accept less than someone who had every facet of character, for he wasn’t sure how he would ever fall head over heels without that. He had tried to love women before, of course, but in the end they had always had some immovable, unignorable flaw. If he could find none, then surely it stood to reason that he would fall more completely than he ever had? Love would surely bloom then. And if it didn’t in the face of earthly perfection, then he didn’t know how it ever would. With this gaping worry in his stomach – that perhaps he was going about this wrong, or else that something was wrong with him – he chewed on the inside of his cheek and glanced swiftly at Morgan. “Or – what is it you’re looking for in a wife?” Desi hadn’t said he was suffering as Endymion was in the pursuit of one, necessarily, but he wasn’t married yet either, so he couldn’t have exactly made all that much more progress.

---

  

---

Desi fixed his gaze on Endymion as his friend corrected him. Possess all of them before loving her, perhaps even when just having met her? Very romantic but also kind of improbable, Desi felt. Was his dear friend going to die an old bachelor? What a waste of such handsome features.

"A pulse," he couldn't help but immediately quip in response to the inquiry about what he was looking for. He was purposely stating what he felt was the absolute opposite of Endys expectations. "I should like her to be good-witted, good-humored and not be someone my mother is liable to arrange the murder of." Not that she would do that. Maybe. He also wouldn't mind a rather pretty wife but it felt shallow to say so aloud when his friend had just waxed poetically on about his own expectations.

The following 1 user Likes Desiderius Morgan's post:1 user Likes Desiderius Morgan's post
   Endymion Dempsey

Blank confusion and a disapproving, aghast look crossed Endymion’s face in quick succession at that quip, and even when he realised Desi was only teasing, the thought was still so objectionable that he could scarcely bring himself to laugh at it. He elbowed him in the arm instead.

Morgan at least offered up a few more prerequisites, which settled his spirits down again from blossoming indignation, but in spite of his smile, Endymion did scoff quietly and say, almost plaintively, “Morgan, if all you care about is a wit and a half-decent nature – and your mother is not in the habit of hiring hitwizards – why, I could introduce you to ten suitable debutantes tonight!” It would be the easiest match to make on earth. They could have Desi courting in a fortnight.

---

  

---

Desiderius's lips quirked as he resisted the urge to laugh as Endymion stared at him so disapprovingly. He rubbed his arm as the other elbowed him.

"You're naive if you think it is that easy," Desi scoffed in turn.

  

Endymion raised his eyebrows at that turn. Desi had called him exacting, but now he was making it sound awfully hard to find a wife. (Endymion decided to ignore naive. It was, after all, a dig he had heard more than once before.) “Well, I’m not saying it doesn’t require a small amount of effort –” one could find a perfectly suitable match to Desi’s specifications in a minute, but one did have to woo them as well, and that meant on some level Morgan did have to try. “But I shouldn’t think anyone would turn you down, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” Endymion teased, with a grin.

He was sure it wasn’t what Desi meant – Desi was an eldest son; his family had money; he was certainly handsome and confident and sociable enough – but he didn’t know what else his friend possibly could mean by that, either. Falling in love was the difficult part. The rest was surely simple as pie.

---

  

---

"It isn't," Desi said with the confidence of a man who knew his merits. "Perhaps I am looking for traits that even I am not aware of." Though he didn't personally think that he was seeking anything too extensive.

  

Ah. If he hadn’t known it before, Endymion realised that Desi Morgan could be very deep. He inclined his head to concede the point, but all this philosophising was making him no more confident about getting married anytime soon.

“Well, I suppose we’ll see which of us finds someone first,” he said pensively, his smile almost joking. After that, though, he let out a dramatically deep sigh, supposing he really ought to do something about that.

---

  

---