The Creepy Abandoned Mansion; Saturday Evening [09/23].

[chef_chocobro]

Well, Ignis had won a bet (entirely fairly, mind you; yes, it was on a particularly petty technicality, but technically correct was the best kind of correct, and he suspected a valuable lesson about word choice had been learned, as well), which meant that he was cooking dinner for Liliana that evening. A good portion of the day yesterday was spent brainstorm, his mind a flurry of ideas as he lay on the couch, flipping one of his new knives in his hand with deceptive idleness. A whole catalogue of recipes flipped through his mind, each one being summarily dismissed for some minor unworthy offense, until a few seemed to fall into place perfectly, and he caught the night with one hand, snapped his fingers with the other and let out a resounding "That's it!" and started getting to work then because the sooner he was able to whip up the marinade for the steaks, the better.

So he arrived at Liliana's doorstep without too much trouble, with all his ingredients and prep work in hand, a few things he knew he couldn't chance Liliana not having on hand. There was a small bit of uncertainty with working in an unfamiliar kitchen, but he'd made do with pretty scant conditions before. Just so long as there was a place to chill the sauternes he'd brought to accompany the fluffy chiffon cake for dessert.

But first? Getting set up for cooking his pomegranate balsamic flank steak, and preparing the salad and the potatoes, with a good malbec waiting to bring it all together in the end.

That was certainly the plan, anyway, but its effectiveness relied solely on how distracting the hostess decided to be. But it would certainly seem that he'd chosen dishes that did not require a lot of maintenance and fuss for a reason, too.

[[ for she whose kithen is being invaded, of course~

*belatedly tacks on a *nsfw* cw, doo doo doo ]]

Comments

[deathsmajesty]

The important part was that it had been effective, even if he managed to extricate himself from it. She carried her pleased smile with her as she returned to her perch, carefully out of his way again.

"So what do you do on the island?" she asked. "Do you have a shop? I realized the only way I knew to reach you was to go to your home."

And you could understand why she had refused to do that as a step too far.

[chef_chocobro]

"Well, that's technically two questions," Ignis pointed out, because of course he would, "but the second is an easy one, so I won't hold that against you. No, no shop. I originally came here to teach." There was a soft, nostalgic sort of snort at that, the sort that suggested that was much more to the story than he was letting on there, no doubt emphasized by the shake of his head. "And I did do a little of that when I returned, but this last semester..."

He trailed off slightly, which was a good time to pour a little more focus into the cooking, which was a convenient excuse.

"...I might go back to it, in the spring, but in the meantime, I'm working at the diner on Tuesdays."

Then, a frown, as the full scope of her question really seemed to hit him. "Have you not gotten yourself a phone?"

[deathsmajesty]

"No?" Liliana said, frowning. "Those are the little boxes, right? People take pictures with them, I've seen. I learned some about pictures from Prompto, but that didn't seem important enough to warrant me fetching one for myself."

[chef_chocobro]

"It's primary function," Ignis offered, "is communication, actually. From one phone to another. All the other things are just bells and whistles."

[deathsmajesty]

A pause as she absorbed this.

"Ah," she said, tone a bit more formal and cool. "Well, I suppose that does make more sense than some version of calling hours at various shops and things the way I was starting to wonder."

What else has she been missing?

"I suppose I shall have to fetch one of those sooner than anticipated then."

[chef_chocobro]

"And when you do," said Ignis, meat in the oven, sauce stirred, and now to tend to the salad, "then that'd be another way in which I can be reached. So...what do you have for me next?"

[deathsmajesty]

Even feeling slightly foolish, that didn't stop Liliana from having more questions. And nothing would keep her from asking them.

"What did you teach?" she asked, still less easy sounding than before, but with an excited curiosity that was obvious.

[chef_chocobro]

"Cooking," Ignis said, with performative sweep of the salad tongs in his hand, "naturally, but also some battle tactics and strategy. Every so often, I'll join in with Gladio and Prompto and we do a teamwork workshop."

He made a few adjustments, a stir here, lowered heat, a moment to flip the steaks, and then to shave the parmesan.

"And what," he volleyed back, "did you do before coming here to the lovely Fandom Island, Liliana?"

[deathsmajesty]

A far more complicated question than Ignis knew, were she to be fully honest. But she had no intention of that kind of full honesty, oh, ever really.

"I'm a necromancer," she said, watching his reaction. "Which is...more a calling than a profession, I suppose. Ever since my spark ignited, I've wandered the Multiverse, learning and exploring. Owning a shop is the first time I've actually plied a trade since...since I was a girl on Dominaria, I suppose."

[chef_chocobro]

"Mmm." If there was a reaction, that soft, thoughtful hum was it. Ignis took advantage of an idle moment in his various current culinary tasks to take a sip from his wine. "And what was that trade?"

[deathsmajesty]

"I was a cleric in a sect known as the Forward Order," Liliana said with puckish amusement at the very idea. "A healer. Though cleric more by vocation than volition."

Even then, Liliana hadn't been particularly religious.

Time for her question and it was a doozy. In a soft voice, she asked "Why do your scars feel like death? The magic in them practically calls to me."

[chef_chocobro]

"...ah," said Ignis, because, yes, that was quite the doozy. Well, perhaps not the initial, simple answer, but that answer would be one practically primed to just inspire the next several other questions. "Well, I think it might be best to save that answer for the table. The food is just aboit finished, and I would hate to interrupt myself to start having to scoop potatoes."

[deathsmajesty]

"Indeed," Liliana agreed easily. "I will endeavor to not get so entranced by the meal that I quite forget we're supposed to be having conversation as well, but no promises. It smells divine."

And over the course of the next several minutes, the food was prepped and plated, moved from the the kitchen into the smaller, more intimate breakfast nook, rather than the echoing formal dining room. Liliana hadn't brought Ignis over to yell from opposite ends of the table.

She didn't immediately restart the conversation, even once they were seated and the wine poured, content to let Ignis reply in his own time. "You truly are an artisan in the kitchen," she informed him, looking down at her plate in admiration. "Left to my own devices, I barely manage edible and you create beauty."

[chef_chocobro]

Oh, she'd hardly have to yell; his hearing truly had reached preternatural levels at time, but Ignis agreed, this was much better.

He took a moment to bask a little in the praise, especially when savored with a bite to prove it was not mere flattery, and he smiled, softly, but entirely lacking any of the usual restraint.

"And to think," he said, over a sip of wine, "I never really cared for cooking, at first, but if I'm not mistaken, we were about to get into a different story, weren't we?"

[deathsmajesty]

While Liliana could and sometimes even did offer empty flattery, it was always for some specific end. Here, she doubly had no reason; Ignis offered her nothing she needed empty flattery to get, and everything he provided earned all the praise she could offer, and likely more besides.

"We were, though I'll admit I'm fascinated by the mystery of that story, too," she said, around another bite. "Hard to imagine an Ignis without care for cooking. How would you have seduced me with conversation in a mere three minutes without it?"

An out, if he wanted it? Surely not. Liliana didn't do that kind of thing, especially when she was intensely curious about the first topic under discussion. She was just making conversation.

[chef_chocobro]

"I'm certain," said Ignis, "I would have floundered pitifully, and then you may have left with your hunger completely unsatiated. Although, really, let's not ignore the fact that I did have timing on my side. A first impression is a lasting one; it does make one wonder if it woulve been even remotely effective further down the line.

"But," he started, taking a bite so it hung there while he chewed, "one question at a time. You're getting a bit greedy..."

Forget that he was practically just ladling them out for her to devour as fervently as the meal itself, if she so chose to do so.

"You were asking aboit the scars. And why they feel like death, yes?"

[deathsmajesty]

"I'm always greedy," she chides, her hand reaching out to trace the line of his jaw, down his throat. "When there is something worth wanting."

She let that hang there between them as well, like the shimmer of a heat haze in the air. He couldn't see her gaze, but he could feel it, locked on his with the full intensity of everything she was.

And Liliana Vess was a lot.

"But yes, I was. There's necromantic energy suffused in them somehow. It is a very curious thing."

[chef_chocobro]

She certainly was, and Ignis felt everything pouring out from her in that gaze in the form of a shiver racing as quick as lightning up his spine as her finger dragged down his neck. And a moment, to catch his breath, before he could answer.

"Not exactly so curious," he said, "once you know the story. They feels like death because they came from death. From thirteen dead kings, to be exact, called the Lucii."

[deathsmajesty]

Not only had she missed a decade of eternal darkness, she'd also missed a conclave of thirteen undead kings throwing about magic? Increasingly rude to necromancers.

"During the Long Night?" she murmured, a concept he certainly hadn't mentioned to her.

[chef_chocobro]

Well, Ignis knew his friends could be a chatty bunch, but that made an eyebrow lift.

"Before," he said. "By about a month, month and a half."

[deathsmajesty]

Shoulda let her bond with them by slapping your ass, Ignis. Instead now they have to use their words. You did this to you.

"Is this how Noctis--" she paused. "I could keep asking questions to situate this in what I know of what happened in Eos, but it might be easier to simply ask for the story directly." Her chilly fingers travelled back up his face, outlining the scars there briefly before sliding over to follow the curve of his ear. Liliana was curious about the magic that had caused his scars, but Ignis had never gotten the feeling she was all that curious about the scars themselves. They were simply there, a feature of his face like his nose or high cheekbones, to be neither fixated in nor avoided.

"Unless, of course, you'd rather regale me with the tale of how you learned to love cooking, especially since you could not have possibly known that it would one day help in your seduction of a charming necromancer."

[chef_chocobro]

"Well," Ignis' voice was much quieter, much softer; how could it be anything else, really, as he leaned a little bit into her roving touch, "if we're keeping track, I believe you're a bit overdue to be regaling me. I have to admit, though, this game does make it rather difficult to get very far in unraveling a narrative thread effectively, doesn't it?"

[deathsmajesty]

"I guess we'll just have to continue to find time to keep playing in order to get all the way through," Liliana mused, since the other option would be to have a conversation like normal people and who would even do that?

"Though...if we wanted to, you could tell me your story all at once, and then hold me accountable for an equivalent number or depth of answers," she added. "If you feel that I can be counted upon to satisfy." She took a long sip of her wine. "The debt between us, I mean."

[chef_chocobro]

Ignis was quiet for a moment, perhaps considering the options that opened up for him, perhaps just considering the most streamlined, efficient way to explain further. And all the millions of other questions it was sure to bring up.

"We were in Altissia," he offered, knowing the name would mean nothing, but attempting to set the scene all the same, "for several different things that all ended up cultivating into a perfect storm of everything you don't want to happen all at once. The city was under attack from the Empire at the same time Leviathan, the Tide Mother, one of our gods, made it very clear she had no intention of making a pact with Noctis, while another god, Titan, the Archaean, who had made a pact with him, attempted to fight her into submission. And on the middle of all of this, Ardyn...well, I don't even know where to even begin with Ardyn Izunia...but let is just say that things were dire. Both of us, beaten, battered, bruised, and one wrong move from complete annihilation at his hand. Until I noticed. The Ring of the Lucii, passed down from generation to generation of Lucian kings, now in the possession of the newly crowned King Noctis Lucis Caelum, or rather....it had been. In the fray, it had slipped away from him, but it was right within my reached."

He paused a moment, for a bite, a sip to wash it down.

"The Ring of the Lucii contains all the power of all the Lucian kings of the past, to be wielded by the next in the bloodline so that they could impart their wisdom and powers to the next king, a power only to be wielded by the Lucian heir.

"But it was the only option I had. I knew bearing the ring would kill me, but I also knew that there was no way Noct could survive without their power."

There was a smile, but it was thin and grim.

"They were so moved by my willing sacrifice that they decided to spare me. And just leave me blind instead. And the day was...mostly saved."

[deathsmajesty]

That had not been at all what Liliana had been assuming the answer would be when told that an enclave of dead kings had blinded him.

"That certainly explains the addition of 'tragically' to your loyalty," she murmured. She reached for his face again, cupping it between gentle palms, and leaned in to brush cool lips to the corner of each cloudy eye. Had she ever been that loyal? To anyone outside of herself?

No, never. And never would, either.

But, for once, Liliana didn't immediately think of how to use that loyalty for her own ends. She would get there, because that is who she was, but for this briefest moment, she was perhaps more of the girl she had been, back when she'd been a cleric fostering with Lady Ana, and less of the woman she'd become in the decades since. "Perhaps they weren't showing you mercy, but the world that would be less for your loss instead."