June 7th, 1893 - Dempsey Residence

Witch Weekly was a daft publication, but Sina found reading about the new debutantes to be important. They were competing with her sisters-in-law, after all. She had snatched a copy from a news stand after leaving the hospital that morning, and after a several-hour nap to catch up on her sleep with sunlight streaming through her open windows. Finally, in the early afternoon, Sina dressed for the day, ate a smattering of fruit, and went down to a study to read it.

At the sound of footsteps in the doorway, Sina glanced over the top of the article to affirm the identity behind the sound. She smiled, face hidden behind the magazine, when she saw her husband.

"My shift for Friday was canceled," Sina said, lounging in her armchair with her legs curled under her. The impression she was trying to give off was that she hadn't been sitting in Oz's most frequently-frequented study, waiting for him, but of course that was what she had been doing. "So I thought that I may as well go to London with you."

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set by MJ

Oz's "work" went in cycles based on his moods; he'd go weeks without even bothering to trek down to his workshop, leaving half-finished projects abandoned likely never to be resumed, then when the inspiration struck him he could work ten hours in a single stretch without breaking for anything except the occasional bite of toast. He'd been in one of the latter moods the past few days. The timing was inconvenient, with the social season just properly spinning up, but he'd been sneaking off to his workshop every time he had a free moment between engagements. He had emerged now because he had a pre-existing appointment for cards at the club and he couldn't have delayed even five more minutes and still arrived on time, particularly given that he need to change first. He might have canceled it entirely, except one of the gentlemen attending had been vaguely hinted to have some interested in Shalott, and after the disaster that was Christabel's short-lived marriage to Daphnel, Oz was hardly going to miss an opportunity to vet any future would-be brothers-in-law.

He was half-dressed and on the hunt for his pocket watch when he came across his wife (he misplaced things twice as often when he was in one of his inventing moods, but there were only so many places his pocket watch could be — and if it turned out to be in none of them, he did have others; this was only his favorite pocket watch). "Fine," he said without paying much attention to what he was responding to. He had moved to the desk, opened the top drawer, and scanned the contents before what she'd said actually sank in. He stopped, hand still on the handle of the drawer, and looked at his wife as though she had just handed him a letter in a foreign language.

"I'm going to the ballet Friday," he said, frowning at her. Of course she would have no reason to know that; he didn't keep her apprised of everything he did while she was working, and she'd had this shift scheduled since last month. She would also have no reason to know why he might not be eager for her company during the ballet, obviously. Well — her company during the ballet wasn't half so problematic as it would be during the activities he'd planned after the ballet.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Sina turned her attention back to Witch Weekly and Miss Quibbleberry, and was rather surprised when Oz spoke again. He seemed busy, so she had not expected a follow-up conversation about London. Sina looked up from her magazine and pursed her lips at her husband. She could not recall ever pretending to hate the ballet, which did not mean that it had never happened, but did mean that she had not been particularly committed to the bit if she had.

"It doesn't matter much to me what we're doing there," she said.

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   Ozymandias Dempsey

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set by MJ

Oz frowned and worried the tip of one canine with his tongue. He did not want to take Thomasina to the ballet. He took lots of people to the ballet because it gave him a convenient route to schedule trysts after the performances, and a handful of his friends had commented on how he often seemed distracted during the shows. None of them had yet pieced together that he was only distracted when Sophia was on stage, but Sina would. She was smarter than most of his friends, and more perceptive (not a high bar to clear on either count). She probably wouldn't jump to an accusation based only on his watching a particular dancer more closely than the others — Sophia did tend to stand out whenever she was on stage, so he had that working in his favor — but it might be enough for her to pay more attention if the ballerina's name ever came up in another context, or if they happened to be at the same event in the future, and Oz didn't want Thomasina paying more attention.

He could skip the ballet and take Sina somewhere else, but then he had to think of an excuse to change his plans. If only he'd had the forethought to consider this before he'd said he was attending the ballet, he wouldn't have ever had to say anything about it. Now that he had, though, he worried that changing activities would either look suspicious or sentimental, and he wasn't sure which was worse. (Not to mention if he came across as openly sentimental by suggesting they do something she liked, that would be suspicious in and of itself).

Perhaps they could go to the ballet and he could make it a rule not to actually watch the performance. The box was private enough that he could have pulled Thomasina back for some... activities that one didn't normally accomplish in public... during the height of Sophia's stage time. The problem with that was that what might not have been visible to the rest of the audience would have been visible to her from the stage. Sophia knew he was married, of course, and if he'd had to write her and cancel their plans so that he could entertain his wife she would have understood without a question... but that didn't mean she would be thrilled to be treated to a view of him feeling his wife up in the middle of her performance.

"Why'd they cancel your shift?" he asked, with a little of the irritation he felt at the situation seeping through to his tone. "That doesn't usually happen."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Oz was being odd. He was frequently odd, but this was particularly unusual for him, because he was not being odd in a way that interested Thomasina. She wrinkled her nose at him; not because his question was out-of-line, but because she didn't understand him.

As to the question, Thomasina dismissed it with a sweep of her hand. "The junior healers need more hours to finish their learning on time," she said, "And I didn't mind the loss of income." Obviously. Sometimes she thought that the hospital was wasting resources by paying her — but she liked having additional coins on hand, to do with what she wished.

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set by MJ

He hardly listened to her answer, because he hadn't asked because he'd cared about it; he'd just been buying himself time to think of what he wanted to do about the ballet. He did take note of her expressions, though: wrinkled nose, slight downturn at the corner of her lips. She was already on to him, and he hadn't even said anything properly suspicious yet.

"What happens if they don't finish training on time? They're barred from the hospital?" he bantered, but of course he didn't care about these questions either. "They're opening a new production on Friday," he continued; he had decided he would have to take her. "Don Quixote. I've been to a few of the rehearsals. I don't think you'll like it." He probably would have said this regardless of which ballet was on the stage, but in this case he believed it was true. "The relationships are rather one-dimensional."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

"Rehearsals?" Sina said skeptically; she understood that these things existed, but if her husband was going to them then he really needed more hobbies. "It's not as if I'd be going for the realistic depiction of relationships," she added, "You're the one with the tickets." Sina was less invested in the ballet than she was in the time with Oz; if the show was boring, then she would simply have to come up with another way to entertain herself.

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set by MJ

"I'm one of the ballet's sponsors," Oz rebutted, though it was unclear whether he was defending himself against the implied accusation of the word rehearsals or explaining why he'd bothered to get tickets. He didn't think this was news to her — it had been nearly a year since he'd made the arrangements, and it certainly had come in conversation with various members of his family since then, when he'd taken them to this show or that one — but they had never explicitly talked about it, so he didn't know whether she had opinions about his giving moderately large sums of money away to performance troupes. Presumably she would have opinions if she knew his motivation in doing so, but that was neither here nor there.

"It's sort of expected that all the sponsors attending the opening night," he continued. "So they've reserved the usual box. But I don't have to go, if we'd rather not."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Had Thomasina known her husband was sponsoring the ballet? She couldn't remember their discussing it, but it was entirely possible she had put it in a bucket of things that she forgot because she didn't care about them. She once again discarded the information, at least temporarily.

"If you're expected —" this was such a silly rich person thing, it might be worth it just to find material to mock him with "— then we should go. I'm sure I can find something to be interested in."

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The following 1 user Likes Thomasina Dempsey's post:1 user Likes Thomasina Dempsey's post
   Ozymandias Dempsey

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set by MJ

"Good," Oz said, voice clipped. "Then we'll go. Fine."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Sina fluttered Witch Weekly back open. "Great," she said, "It'll be fun."

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set by MJ

A second ago Ozymandias had been annoyed at the outcome of this conversation (even though he had shaped the course of it just as much or even more than she had); now he was annoyed that she did not seem to notice or care that he was annoyed.

"It's not meant to be fun," he said almost petulantly as he turned his attention back to looking for his pocket watch. "It's meant to be art. Everyone sits still and pays attention to the stage and then applauds politely on all their cues. And afterwards they congratulate each other for being so cultured." The you won't like it signal could not be flashing any more clearly or brightly in his description.

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   Thomasina Dempsey

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Sina looked up from her article and huffed out a breath. Oz was being so persistent about this that it made Sina want to ground her heels in more; normally she enjoyed their games, but this one was less inventive than many of them.

"I don't know why you sponsor it if you think its attendees so banal," she said flippantly.

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set by MJ

"I find everyone banal," he returned, equally flippant. There were obvious exceptions, but the fact remained that if Ozymandias avoided every event in which he was likely to encounter stupid people he would never leave the house. "That's why I go to the rehearsals, without the pageantry."

That was decidedly not why he went to the rehearsals, but it fit the narrative well enough that he was hoping Thomasina wouldn't poke at it.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Sina rolled her eyes at her husband. "You have too much time on your hands," she chided. It was a frequent insult she leveled against Ozymandias, used even before she was actually fond of him, so there was little real bite to it. "Rehearsals. Are they not performing worse at rehearsals?"

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set by MJ

Oz would have rolled his eyes, except that she'd beaten him to it and now he didn't want to seem as though he was parroting her. "You're too busy," he retorted. He wouldn't have so much time on his hands if Sina didn't routinely abandon him for long stretches of the day. If she hadn't insisted on working, they might have been abroad for whole months at a time, doing — something more exciting than attending ballet rehearsals.

"The dress rehearsals are fine," he said with a shrug. "Right before they open. But anyway. We'll see it if you want," he said, as though the entire scheme had been her idea and he was only reluctantly capitulating.

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MJ is the light of my life <3