Liadan had never learned to dumb down her fashion in order to fit in with the typical clientčle of the places she occasionally frequented for business. When entering the Hogshead, a few heads turned in the witch's direction. The clothes she wore were obviously expensive, and the quiet clack of kittened heels did nothing to aid her short stature. Liadan shed her coat upon entering the building, glad for the warmth of the fire, and let her mismatched eyes scan those who were already gathered.

Azorma had informed her that she would be looking for an elderly woman who had too much to drink. Lothario had not told her much of his business contact. Whether it was from lack of information, or indifference she had not been able to tell. Sometimes he kept his knowledge to himself out of spite. The two had never been particularly close, and Liadan often used him for his contacts throughout the wizarding world. It was a business relationship more than anything.

Of those gathered, only one other was female. And she was indeed elderly, and seemed as though she had been drinking. The type of person who got drunk for a business meeting was one of two thing. Very incompetent, or incredibly apt at doing their jobs. Liadan hoped for the latter as she dropped into a seat across from the woman. "Liadan O Morain," she offered, holding out a hand. "Thank you for taking the time to meet with me."

The elderly woman gave Liadán an old-fashioned appraising look from under her hat. It was distressing, that hat. The little birds attached to it looked altogether too real, and the plastic fruit and flowers did nothing to distract from this. Someone had made a spirited attempt to make it cheerful and had gone entirely too far in the other direction.

At least it distracted from the face underneath, which was not unpleasant by itself, but the masterminded scowl she wore was enough to ensure she had the corner of the establishment to herself. She looked Liadán up and down and then took her hand, shaking it with more strength than her withered frame should have had.

"Yer welcome, Miss Móráin," she said, taking a long pull from her cigar. The smoke from it didn't seem to get past the hat. "Do you wanna stay 'ere fer yer appointment, or go somewhere more private-like? I understand 'oung ladies don't always like their business out in the open." She grinned, revealing yellowed, gap filled teeth. "Not many ladies 'ike you come to see an Agony Aunt 'bout anything other 'n a man anyhow."

Liadan arched an eyebrow when the woman asked if she preferred a more private location. "This will do. There are spells to prevent eavesdroppers. I never do my business totally in private- it seems suspicious." With that, Liadan flicked her wand to prevent others from hearing the conversations that might transpire at their small table.

"I haven't any need for a man," was her response to that particular comment. "With my looks, pedigree, and financial status I have no problems attracting men. Besides, the last thing I intend to worry about at the moment is a relationship or marriage. My number one priority is figuring out a way to save my family's business. For generations we've been running the from, and in the last few months I've suffered a huge hit to profits. The creatures have contracted some sort of magical disease and most of my herds died off. I'm currently in the process of rebuilding, but it will take a couple of years to get back to where we were just a few months ago."

"My gringotts vault is far from empty," she informed the woman. "But taking such a financial hit is just unacceptable. People are viewing my business as weak. Just the other day an American sent me an owl to request a meeting- and during this meeting he offered to buy my farm. Nobody has ever tried to buy us out, and if someone thinks it is possible now, then they think I cannot bounce back from this hit."

Liadan cleared her throat and leaned back, relaxing a little. "I'll not bore you with my entire family history, but my father used to be in the business of breeding dragons. They are dangerous creatures, granted, but they make a lot of money. Their parts, the hide, and of course the eggs. The only problem I happen to be facing, is that we no longer have any dragons on the farm. We've not had them since I was a young child. What I need from you is a few eggs. I understand they are not easy to find, and they will be incredibly expensive. The common welsh green, romanian longhorn, and swedish shortsnout would be best. The only ones I refuse to accept would be a peruvian vipertooth, hungarian horntail, and the chinese fireball... If you think it is something you cannot do, that is fine. I will not waste your time any further, and I will continue searching for someone who can."

((D'oh! I wrote out this reply a few days ago and appearently the site ateit. Sorry for the delay!  )


The old woman watched Liadán as she spoke and made no reply; however, Liadán could probably tell she was being listened to intently, to an almost unsettling degree - every word spoken was being carefully assessed and judged.

Finally, at the mention of dragon's eggs, the crone's lips curved into a vicious smile. "You want me to go chasing after dragons, then?" she said, leaning back and looking thoughtful. She retrieved a cigar from the depths of her clothing and lit it, taking a long pull and blowing a smoke ring. Then she grinned; sounded like fun,to be honest.

"I assume, based on your...description of your situation, you would prefer the Welsh Green," she said. Her voice was raspy from the years of cigars, but her accent was gone now; in its place her voice was precise, cold, and sounded thirty years younger.

She smirked. "Of course, there's always the Hebridean Black, too," she continued after a moment, "However, regardless of which breed you want, I will need...considerable compensation for such a dangerous undertaking." She grunted after a moment. "Or, alternatively, lower pay, but the assistance of someone who is skilled but...expendable. Your cousin knows quite a few, I gather. Someone who wouldn't be missed." She smiled icily. "Bait."

Liadan liked the way this woman thought. "More than a few expendables," she assured her. "I'll have Lothario send you someone." Surely her cousin had someone for the job. If not, she would send one of her own workers. There were quite a few witches and wizards hard on their luck employed by O Morain Farms. Perhaps she could send Declan out and finally be rid of him for good. Now that would be quite amazing.

"But yes, the Welsh Green would be ideal for my situation. Naturally, I haven't a clue what type of compensation we're talking about. I don't typically do this business on my own. But I felt as though this was too important to put off on someone else." Most of the time this type of acquisition was actually done by her cousin, but Lothario had refused to get involved with dragon eggs. What if it hatches? he had asked. What if it set his gallery aflame? He was ridiculous. It wasn't as though she would have left the egg in his care more than an hour or two at the most. An hour or two longer than he was willing to give her.

She extracted the coin purse she had with her that was filled with galleons, and set it on the table. It made an audible thud, and Liadan inspected the woman's features and reactions. "The details are quite important. I think it is important that the source from where the egg comes from is not going to launch a full on investigation. Any creature related crimes and the aurors immediately come knocking on my door. If you lead them there, I will be less than happy. It has taken years to get any peace from them."

She pulled the bag towards her and weighed it in her hand, then poured the coins out on the table and started counting an fastidious old-lady kind of way. "One person would be satisfactory," she said as she counted. "Too many and they'll just get in my way." She smiled. "Lothario knows what I mean - I'm sure he can find the right type."

She carefully separated out about 250 Galleons, shoving the rest back. "There's several places I can acquire them," she said. "The reservations are out of the question, of course - as much fun," she smiled again, "As acquiring an egg from a live dragon would be, they count them, there. Should a single egg disappear, well." She grunted. "We both know what that means, I expect. Now, there's several smaller operations that will do the trick." Again, the smile; it was a smile that was unsettling on an old woman. It would have worked better on a shark. "Unless, of course, you'd rather not hinder your competition?"

Liadan nodded. She had faith that Lothario  could easily find her the right person. She watched as the woman counted out the coins, and when she was done and shoved them back, the slightest frown twitched at the corners of her lips. The old woman could have at least point them back in the bag. With a flick of her wand, they rose in the air and filled the bag. Liadan pulled the strings and tucked it away in her pocket.

"I would not expect you to take it upon yourself to take an egg from a live dragon," Liadan commented. "If you thought that was the way to go about it, I wouldn't do any business with you. I know there are better routes to take than stealing from a reservation or a wild dragon." Only a fool would do that. Liadan might not know where to get the eggs herself, but she knew that her father had gotten them from someone.

The idea of hindering the competition was, naturally, a nice thought. But she wasn't about to admit it. "I have never had to go out of my way to ruin any competition. My business has always flourished, competition or no." Until recently when everything had been dying. But that was different, it was a special situation. It wasn't as though she was always having problems with the heath of her creatures. This was, in fact, the first time such a scandal had hit the farm since she had taken it over. Before then, there had been no scandals in reference to the health of the creatures- just in reference to the owners and their less than legal lifestyles.

"I'm not sure how many I will eventually need. I want to start slow to ensure that whatever sickeness is plaguing my farm is not going to affect them. It would be a huge waste of money to buy multiple at a time, only have all of them succumb to whatever has been going on. They do tend to have a stronger immune system. They are so inherently magical that most illnesses do not affect them in the same way. I am going to count on that in this endeavor."

Azorma gave her no reply to her comments on stealing from live dragons - not the smartest way, but certainly the most, well, fun. Oh well - people didn't always pay her to have fun. A pity.

"One or two eggs to start with, then?" she asked, calmly pocketing the coins.  "That shouldn't be too difficult," she admitted, blowing a smoke ring and thinking for a few moments. "Unless you have a specific person you want hit, I will need about - to be safe - a week to find a target," she said after a pause, tapping her cigar on the ashtray. "At most. It may take less time, depending on the circumstances. After that..." she rubbed her chin.

"After that I can have the eggs in a few days, most likely - most of the...amateur farms are protected by pells rather than people." Again, a pity. "Where do you want the eggs brought?"

Liadan nodded. "Yes, one or two would be fine. I do not intend to spend hundreds, or even thousands of galleons on dragons unless I am certain that they are able to survive. But as I said, I am hoping that the dragon's natural resistance to magic will help." If not, then she would know how serious things were. But Liadan also knew it might just take a few tries. Dragons were tricky things to raise when they were hatchlings. She had the knowledge, but not the experience. When her father had dragons she had never been a part of it. Declan had learned some of it, but there was no way she could talk to him about it, lest the ministry find out.

When she stated it would only take a week or two to find what she was looking for, Liadan nodded, pleased. "Are you at all familiar with Ireland?" Liadan asked, when the woman wanted to know where to bring the dragon eggs. "You will have to bring them directly to the farm. Lothario refuses to keep them even for a few hours at a time, he says it is too great a risk for him."

"There are multiple protection spells around my farm. None of them will hurt you- but it might make it more difficult to find if you are not familiar with Ireland. My home is not connected by floo network- there are few people able to travel in and out of the estate by floo. Apparation would be risky, given the fact you have never visited there..." Liadan reached into her purse, and extracted a small bit of parchment. She murmured a spell, and a map began to draw across the page. "This should help. If you have problems finding the estate, I could come to you. Though such an exchange could not be done in a public setting. Naturally. I would not want to put either of us at risk."

"If the job should prove more difficult than anticipated, then I understand if the price should increase. Although I do believe it is fair to make you aware that I have put out feelers for this job. I am unaware of your contacts in the wizarding world, and should hear of my looking, that information is likely due to people not knowing that you have been found. I don't like my associates to believe I am trying to cheat them or go behind their back. Should this prove to be a pleasurable and effective transaction, I may need use of your services again. I trust that is alright by you?"   

"I am somewhat familiar with Ireland, yes," Azorma said, taking the map gratefully - not that she was about to show that. She smiled in a businesslike manner. "I don't think getting to your farm will be that much trouble - no offense meant to your enchantments, of course. But getting into hidden and protected places is a speciality of mine." She tilted her head to the side, adjusting her awful hat. "As your cousin knows quite well."

She nodded as she mentioned other contacts - it was a smart thing to do, though deep inside her she was a bit offended. "As I've only recently come to England, I do not have a lot of jobs lined up," she said. "My schedule is, as you say, open. In the event of a change in plans, price or other details - how would you prefer contact to be made?"

Liadan nodded, pleased that the woman did not seem adverse to attempting to find the estate. "Owl is fine. I use charms to prevent my owls from being detected- simple enough." She had to when she was a person of interest to the ministry of magic. You never knew when they were going to decide to intercept your mail, so it was best to make undetectable if at all possible.

She gathered her things and stood up, flicking her wand to release the spells she had put up to prevent themselves from being overheard or overly noticed. "I do appreciate your business. I look forward to the final result, and I certainly hope that you enjoy the job. Have a good evening, miss, and feel free to keep in touch throughout the process if needed."

Liadan wrapped her coat around her and left the Hogshead, pleased and excited about the possibilities of soon having the dragons she would need to hopefully reimburse the losses that she had suffered from the problems with her farms. She would have to write to Lothario and thank him for putting her in contact with a  competent business associate.