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

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

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 ]]

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Perhaps in time, he'd come to realize that Liliana Vess didn't do pity. It wasn't her style. Sympathy was possible, but quite rare, too.

He'd likely figure out just what she'd meant - and why - much sooner that that, however.

"I do owe you answers," she agreed. "Either one with depth, or several all at once, to make good."

"Preferably the first one," said Ignis, though he certainly wouldn't be so bold as to assume his preferences would have any convincing influence on the matter, of course. "I do enjoy quality over quantity. But..."

He did, also, enjoy narrative pauses.

"What got you into necromancy?"

It all depended on what he asked!

Luckily for him, he had, in fact, chosen an answer that lent itself very well to depth. And also luckily for him, his wording meant she could give him a generally honest answer.

"I was thirteen when my father began my tutelage with Lady Ana," she said, settling in comfortably and reaching for her wine to sip. "She'd been staying with us anyway, since my youngest sister's birth had been hard on my mother and Lady Ana had helped her through it and recover afterwards. I'd had enough magic even back then to learn magical healing as well as the healing of knife and herb and she was both a noblewoman and an important member of the Forward Order, which meant my parents could quite trust her to keep me out of trouble and learning what I'd need to know as a cleric and the daughter of a count as well." She shrugged and said with a wry smile, "She had varying luck with those. I think I have lovely manners and I was certainly eager to learn healing..."

But keeping Liliana from doing what she'd wanted had always been something of a fool's game.

"I was eager to learn healing, but I was also ambitious and impatient." To Ignis' utter shock, probably. "Her methods took so long, were so tedious. I didn't want to learn eight various weaves of gauze and ninety-two ways of rolling each of them, or the twelve different ways to chop herbs, or any of that. I wanted to learn how to save lives, how to cure the most grievous wounds and insidious illnesses. At some point, probably after a day spent learning the fifty-fourth way to strain a poultice in case the other fifty-three proved useless, I ended up going going to our library to see what we had for books to supplement my own learning. Real learning, not just rote memorization. And amongst our collection, I found several books that taught the basics of necromancy. At their heart, the two are quite connected, you know. You need to fully understand how bodies work to excel at either. Bring a zombie back that's missing certain tendons or ligaments, it'll be useless at the task you're raising it for. Harm the wrong part of the brain while pulling out memories and you've left the victim a drooling husk. Or dead. The foundations overlap quite a bit, they just look in different directions."

She finished her wine and set it down, not bothering to refill the glass. "And that was how I got my start. Barely more than a girl, reading dusty necromantic times in her family's graveyard - it was quiet and I have always had a commitment to aesthetics - frustrated at the speed of her education and wanting to become a brilliant healer and help our people win the war. Though, admittedly, I was much more skilled at necromancy than healing, even then."

Edited 2023-09-24 12:49 (UTC)

Well. Ignis had asked for quality, and Liliana had provided it in spades with that answer. He'd leaned forward slightly, as she began, an ear tilted slightly more her way as he listened, intently, for the chance to add even more to the increasingly more complex and enchanting perception of this woman who had begun to invade nearly every corner of his mind in the past few weeks. The vague silhouette becoming slowly more articulated and actualized. He eventually settled back comfortably in his chair, glass in hand, though he didn't do much drinking from it, as she continued, and when she finished, he was quiet for a moment, as if taking the time to ensure that all the various tidbits and suggestions and confirmations and further questions were neatly organized, arranged, and filed away precisely where he would need them to be.

Then a sip of his wine, and he set what remained back down on the table as he leaned forward slightly again.

"And which," he asked, "do you like better?"

"I am a necromancer," Liliana pointed out with a wry smile. "I gave up healing a very long time ago."

She was still smiling when she said it, still sounded archly nonchalant, but Ignis was nothing if not perceptive. And he was getting the distinct impression that asking why would sour the mood.

It was also, generally, harder to notice a lack of sound than it was a sound itself, but again, perceptive. Which was why he also noted that since Liliana had sat down, her dress hadn't rustled once, even all the times she'd moved and shifted while talking or sipping her wine or finishing up her meal with another one of those pleased sighs.

"I mean, I still remember all those tedious lessons Lady Ana taught me: the healing properties of roots and herbs, the signs and symptoms of hundreds of illnesses, mixing potions and tisanes and poultices. And I do draw on those skills from time to time, when there's nothing else for it. But I am a black mana user and its application for magical healing is very limited."

Ah, but that didn't really answer his question, did it? A greater skill for something did not always translate into a greater love for it, and were Ignis a more foolish man, he might have pointed that out. But not answering the question, especially with that subtle edge of warning, might be an answer all of its own. Certainly nothing to poke at now, but definitely something to be tucked away to consider another time.

After all, he had no want for things to consider at the moment anyway, and, right now, he was consider the end of the meal, the curious quietness of a previously whispering dress, a tumble of hair, and frank statements of intention.

And of distances and fortresses and crumbling walls.

His fingers drifted for a moment along the base of his glass, thumb and forefinger playing at the stem, before he picked it up, lightly, swirling it around as if to determine how much wine remained inside.

"So, then," he said, "do I return to the question about my cooking now, or do have an alternate question to ask now instead?"

Crumbling walls were a staple of the public perception of necromancy...

"Oh no, I'm still quite curious about you learning to cook." She splayed a hand over his heart, feeling it thump under her palm. "The story of a man discovering one of his passions is not to be missed."

And even though that thumping steadily regulated after that initial surge when Liliana's hand landed, it still pulsed quicker than Ignis would have preferred, despite his best efforts.

"Do you remember," he asked, "those tarts I brought into your shop the other day?"

It was hard to believe, really, that that had only been a couple of days ago, or how anyone involved could forget. Woe to him, indeed, if she had.

Edited 2023-09-24 14:27 (UTC)

And, as a necromancer and ex-healer both, he could rest assured the elevated rate was noted.

"I will admit, my attention was drawn away from them quite sharply not long after I received them," she said with an impish smile. "But they made for an excellent lunch that day and the next."

There was a soft, prideful (yes, prideful, certainly not without a side of relief) huff to accompany the smile at Liliana's answer, and his glass was set down again so that hand could be better utilized by drifting over to the her on his chest. "Well," he began, "they're a well-known dessert in an area of our world called Tenebrae, and Noctis, in his youth, spent a spell there while recovering from an injury. Naturally, as an eight year old already developing an abysmally picky palate, the little treats became a quick favorite of his, only to lead to a devastating realization, once he returned to Insomnia, that they were actually entirely unique to Tenebrae and hardly anyone in Lucis had ever even heard of them, much less knew how to make them. Eventually, as I started to....very reluctantly, mind you; ensuring proper nutrition in Noct was a challenge I was actually not looking forward to tackling....take on the duties of cooking for our young prince, and he would constant bemoan and be wistful over this elusive sweet of his past, I saw in it a challenge I could actually see myself pursuing. From there, I set out to put together this puzzle of a pastry, and, after several years of trial and error, adjustments and reconsiderations and experimentations....I finally mastered it."

Here, he paused, taking a moment to relive that moment privately before letting it be shared.

"And the look on his face when he took that first bite....changed everything, and I saw for the first time that food could be so much more than just nourishment for the body, but for the soul as well."

He felt her nod to that and her long moment of thoughtful consideration. One could be forgiven for assuming that she was, perhaps, thinking about her own such moments of food as a balm; that moment in a city with alabaster walls, perhaps, or some dish unique to her homeland.

But her next question proved that potential assumption incorrect. She knew full well it wasn't her turn; she also knew she didn't care. "What dish nourishes your soul, Ignis?"

Luckily, even Ignis had long since abandoned any sort of regulation on balances of questions and answers, and that certainly was a good one. He had his favorites, of course, those meals that seemed to revitalize and inspire him in ways that many others didn't. To choose just one was always a conundrum, but there was one answer that came first before all others, especially after he'd laid not just one, but two parts of that soul to bare already...

But there was an opportunity there, too, to answer to a hunger completely divorced from food, an opportunity that almost seemed too good to pass up. And, well, if she was going to be greedy...

His hand moved to cup her face, both convenient excuse to touch her as well as work as a guide for him to lean forward to kiss her, the kind of kiss that kept wanting more the long it went.

"Coffee," he then answered, with a smile no doubt more felt and heard than seen with how he barely pulled away to say it. "Good, strong, dark coffee."

[[ guess who entirely missed the notification on this one, oof ]]

Liliana laughed, low and breathy. "Noted," she murmured and leaned forward to kiss him again.

Moaning softly into the kiss, her noises were swallowed by his mouth. She moved closer to him, all but pressing herself against him and if Ignis hadn't noticed before - doubtful- her lack of dress was impossible to ignore now. She was still wearing something, he could hear the sound of her boots on the floor as she pushes herself closer, could feel a fragile confection of lace and gossamer against her skin.

Their kisses lengthened, lingered. Would break for air before hungrily diving back in for another. Her steward's arrival was heralded by careful footfalls, setting down the bottle of wine and the dessert he'd gathered from the fridge. He barely had a chance to intone, "Dessert," before he was shooed off by an inpatient gesture from Liliana.

It has not been sympathy or pity that had motivated her command, but the selfish desire to keep him beside her, even for the short length of time it would have taken for him to fetch dessert himself.

[All good!]

Well, now, who didn't love a good costume change leading into the next act? There was no small amount of satisfaction in the confirmation of which of the two possibilities for Liliana's suddenly mostly silent wardrobe was at play here, and Ignis very clearly needed to know more. When she moved in closer, he pushed back his chair, to make more room, to draw her in closer and into his lap to close the gap and make it that much easier for his hands to take in the details that his eyes could not.

Of course, he'd been aware of the apparent arrival of dessert, a sliver of his brain always reserved for that survival instinct of awareness, though it was, admittedly, dulled significantly in favor of those deep, longing kisses. It helped, too, that he was willing to dismiss it entirely right now. Ironic, really, as dessert had been chosen specifically as one of those favorites that could have been the answer to her last question, but in that moment, he was wondering if his initial response was far more accurate than he'd thought.

As proven before on the beach, Liliana had no qualms about climbing into his lap, only this time she chose not to straddle him. Instead she sat on his lap, back pressed against his chest, hand gliding up into his hair again to as her mouth angled over her shoulder slightly to seek his. And if her hips undulated slightly in his lap, well, clearly she was just making sure she was comfortable on her new seat.

But this position did make it easy for his hands to explore her new costume. Her boots were her favorite pair, supple leather that reached above her knees with a crisscross pattern of lacing in the front. Beneath those were silk stockings that extended higher to mid-thigh, held in place by a garter belt, one of which had a cunning little knife sheathe worked into it, currently empty. The garter spanned several inches of otherwise bare flesh before his fingers met the hem of a negligee, whisper-soft and thin as a dream, made of gossamer so fine he could likely pull the whole thing through a bracelet if he had a mind to, all of it nearly as soft as her hair, spilling down over his shoulder now as she continued kissing him.

Any moan released into her lips at any undulation was clearly just a deep approval of her comfort.

And while Ignis' hands had clearly luxuriated in mapping out the details of the new outfit and appreciate the fabrics, the cut, the...accessories (a moment of lingering on that sheathe in particular, its emptiness, and the interplay of intrigue, disappointment, and marked, logical relief that went with it)...it was then Liliana's skin that was getting all the attention, fingertips dragged down her neck, across her collarbone, circling around the curve of her shoulder. He caught her lower lips between his teeth for a moment before pulling away and ducking his head. He kissed her shoulder as if that circle had been making a mark for him, the fingers now drifting slowly down her arm while his lips moved in toward her neck, clearly reveling in the ease of it from this position.

His attention to and approval of her comfort was appreciated, especially since his teeth in her lip and his lips on her skin caused her hips to rock over him, not just keep slowly circling.

He had learned that Liliana ran cold physically as well as emotionally days ago, her body temperature low enough to be concerning if one wasn't expecting it, her breath constantly chilly instead of warm. But even though her skin remained cool to the touch, his preternatural senses could tell it was warmer than usual for her; flushed from sensation. His exploring lips and fingers were also reacquainted with the curious sensation of her skin - every so often, he'd come across a new texture. Sometimes it felt like ink from a tattoo. Other times, like thin lines (scars?) etched into her flesh. But they were impossible to follow and seemed to almost come and go under his touch.

One more curiosity about Liliana Vess to add to the pile.

Her head lolled back as he claimed her neck and throat with his mouth, a weak chuckle escaping her. "You are... thoroughly ruining...my plans," she informed him, sounding not at all sorry about it. "Eating dessert... with you fully aware...of my attire..." or general lack of it "... further ratcheting up the tension..."

As if these last few weeks hadn't been enough.

And what a looming, fascinating pile that it had become.

"Is that what the plan was?" Ignis murmured, very close to Liliana's ear, and, as if to emphasize that closeness, it was now her earlobe caught between his teeth, followed by a slow kiss just behind it. It was meant to be just the one, but, once where, several more followed before he added, "Should we go back to it, then? I would hate to be a wrench in all your carefully laid out machinations..."

Just ignore the fact that he immediately resumed burying kisses into her neck, the hand now drifting from her arm to her stomach, to pull her in even closer, the very opposite of his suggestion.

"It seemed brilliant in my bathtub..." Liliana murmured back. Of course, in her fantasy, she had been much less affected that she was currently, enjoying the temptation she was subjecting Ignis to, rather than falling prey to it herself. She had not underestimated his appeal - oh no, her instincts were very clear on the dangers of underestimating this man and that in itself sent a frisson of excitement through her - but she had certainly overestimated her ability to remain aloof from his charms.

"I believe that now you are aware the trap was sprung, your attention will be on avoiding being caught by it..." she continued with a soft gasp as his lips hit a particularly sensitive spot. "Hardly any fun...or where your attention should be." She was, in fact, entirely pleased with it where it was, focused on her near entirely, leaving her basking in it like a cat in a sunbeam.

"But...you are my guest..." she added, running her nails lightly up the arm he was using to pull her in closer. "What is it that you want, Ignis?"

How often did people ask him that? How often did he ask himself that? And how often did he indulge himself with the answer?

It was actually a question he'd been asking himself endlessly throughout this past week, the whole time feeling the answer was elusively slipping past his fingertips whenever he thought he might finally, truly grasp it.

In this moment, however, ensnared in this trap that he had eagerly thrown himself in without even the slightest regret, the answer was astonishingly clear.

"You," he said, the word low and husky and from some place much deeper than his throat, on the edge of a growl that his usual soft, measured, restrained tone would rarely ever approach. The hand on Liliana's stomach began to slide down between her legs.

"Now," he added, into her ear against before the rest became slightly muffled from breathing in the intoxicating scent of her hair. "Here, though I might be persuaded on that last point."

Her legs were already splayed open over his, but that didn't stop her from opening them further, not just in invitation to his fingers but something almost like entreaty. It had been a very long time since she had wanted something - someone - with this intensity. This fervor.

"The only negotiation on location," she said to him, turning her face towards his once more, "is whether we stay in this chair or you bend me over the table."

Their dinner was done, the dessert far enough away it would be spared harm if they decided to shove everything out of the way to make room.

The fabric of her negligee slithered along her body as she pushed it upwards, leaving her bare. At the same time, her teeth caught his bottom lip before her tongue flicked over it to soothe the sting.

Edited 2023-09-25 16:51 (UTC)

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

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