Ozymandias had been saying something about the decor (not that he had any real opinions about the decor, but Oz could always be counted upon to create an opinion whenever someone prevailed upon him to have one) and wondering whether it would be gauche to smoke a cigarette when Endymion interrupted him mid-sentence. He had always indulged in tobacco more for the aesthetic than for the nicotine, in the past: cigars in the club or after a dinner party with a scotch in the other hand; snuff before sex if a partner offered it; a cigarette in a theater lobby mostly as a conversational prop. Not an actual habit. Since seeing Sophia, he'd found himself wanting to smoke the way that she did: cigarettes to accentuate the tension of a moment, casting emotions into starker relief — an etching of a moment instead of a pencil sketch — or, in cases like this, as a treatment for restlessness. He was resisting the habit for now, but couldn't entirely ignore the urge. This dreary ball — time, allegedly, but probably the actual theme was time crawls — could certainly be improved by a string of cigarettes.
At least, that was his feeling on the matter until he followed Endymion's nod and spotted the only woman in the ballroom he could possibly have been talking about. Ozy suddenly didn't need a cigarette. He didn't know her — that was, they had never been introduced — but he was sure he must have known of her. Society wasn't large enough that such a woman could have gone unnoticed and unremarked upon very long. It took a second for him to go through his mental catalogue of society and land on the likeliest candidate. There had been talk already, of course. She may not have been in the country long, but one did not emigrate with a veela into the midst of British society and without creating a stirring of rumors, and for all his pretenses Ozymandias did pay a good deal of attention to what society was talking about. "I can guess," he responded wryly, though he thought there was little chance he was wrong.
(The most damning piece of evidence he realized only after speaking: he'd lost track of Thomasina. They hadn't been together since they'd arrived, and typically at social events they were seen in each other's company only a handful of times throughout the night, but Oz always knew where she was. Parties with his wife were like a choreographed dance the whole night through; he didn't lose track of his partner's steps, and never missed his cue to rejoin her to stage a scene. For him to be this wholly distracted, and that at such a seemingly innocuous event, smacked of magical intervention).
Hopefully Endymion didn't plan to make too much of a fool of himself. On the one hand, they were in a ballroom; he could hardly do much. On the other hand, he did have a bit of a history with veela.
At least, that was his feeling on the matter until he followed Endymion's nod and spotted the only woman in the ballroom he could possibly have been talking about. Ozy suddenly didn't need a cigarette. He didn't know her — that was, they had never been introduced — but he was sure he must have known of her. Society wasn't large enough that such a woman could have gone unnoticed and unremarked upon very long. It took a second for him to go through his mental catalogue of society and land on the likeliest candidate. There had been talk already, of course. She may not have been in the country long, but one did not emigrate with a veela into the midst of British society and without creating a stirring of rumors, and for all his pretenses Ozymandias did pay a good deal of attention to what society was talking about. "I can guess," he responded wryly, though he thought there was little chance he was wrong.
(The most damning piece of evidence he realized only after speaking: he'd lost track of Thomasina. They hadn't been together since they'd arrived, and typically at social events they were seen in each other's company only a handful of times throughout the night, but Oz always knew where she was. Parties with his wife were like a choreographed dance the whole night through; he didn't lose track of his partner's steps, and never missed his cue to rejoin her to stage a scene. For him to be this wholly distracted, and that at such a seemingly innocuous event, smacked of magical intervention).
Hopefully Endymion didn't plan to make too much of a fool of himself. On the one hand, they were in a ballroom; he could hardly do much. On the other hand, he did have a bit of a history with veela.
MJ is the light of my life <3