chef_chocobro | Vess Manor, Stensia, Innistrad, Wednesday (Fandom Time).

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Vess Manor, Stensia, Innistrad, Wednesday (Fandom Time).

For a good, long time, even when they were back on Eos, Ignis had never been afflicted with that particular Fandom phenomena of random animal (or, in some cases, plant) transformations, as if the powers behind such whimsy knew that he'd need to still be quite himself for the sake of the others. But as soon as that was not necessary, as soon as he, too, seemed to have someone to take care of him, he had his first bout, a little bat comfortably nestled against Liliana, dreadfully on the nose with its thematic accuracy, and that was, then, what he suspected he would continue to be in those moments. After all, Prompto was always a puppy, Gladio always the flower of his namesake.

But that was, clearly, not the case. He'd taken a different form this time, at a horribly inopportune time....or was it? The 'foxicorn,' as he had been so charmingly dubbed by Chandra, was in actuality, a carbuncle, a legendary Eosian creature. A Messenger, in fact, a creature that might inspire comparisons to angels in other realms, though you certainly wouldn't catch Ignis making that connection. Of the twenty-four messengers that served the Astrals, all of them answered to the Oracle...except for one, who answered specifically to the Lucian royal house. Carbuncle, of course. Noctis' father had given him a Carbuncle totem in his youth, around the same time as his mother's death, around the same time that he'd also brought Ignis to him to be his companion and steward. Carbuncle, too, was a helper and a healer. A guide, a guardian, a protector.

So was it really much of a surprise, then, that it had been the form that Ignis had taken, in that moment? It wouldn't have been the first time, either, that Carbuncle made its presence known to him, at some moment of imminent danger.

But while he was in this new carbuncle form, it was all warmth and comfort and light. It was all a bit fuzzy, too, and it was with a feeling of clarity and the return of darkness that Ignis realized he was back to himself again. He was curled up against Liliana, and there were cool, chill fingers in his hair, right behind his ear, where her nails had gently scratched. There was the slightest moment of a hesitation before he uttered his first human sound in several days, just a deep, grateful rumble of appreciation, his head tilting and leaning into the touch. And were it not for the fact that he had arms again to hold her and lips again to kiss her, he might have stayed exactly there to revel in it. But he did have both those things, and so much more, and memories and awareness starting to flood back in, as well, so while he may have lingered a bit longer than he might have ever allowed years ago, he shifted, unraveling himself only to turn and wrap himself anew around Liliana and seek out her lips with his own, and murmuring into this as he regained his voice.

"Hello, my love," he said. "Miss me?"

He had no idea how many days had even passed, but it hardly seemed to matter.

[[ obviously for the shamelessly modded necromancer in the bed with him, and NFB for ~distance~ ]]

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Liliana had been drowsing, scritching on autopilot as she'd sunk further and further towards slumber. Because of this, she had utterly failed to notice the shifting of textures beneath her fingers, fur to hair (though, in her defense, both were incredibly soft), and even the import of that rumble. It was a noise she associated with safety and contentment, and this was hardly the first time she had fallen asleep with it in her ears.

Embarrassingly, it wasn't until his arms were wrapping around her and his lips were seeking hers that she began to truly understand the situation. His mouth swallowed the happy gasp she let out at the realization, and his kiss stole away almost everything else, leaving behind only the ardent, "Always," that she whispered in the short lacuna between the end of their first kiss and the beginning of their second. Her arms twined around him, holding him close--clinging, one might even say.

Desperately, her brain added, but fortunately, her mouth was otherwise occupied because there was no force on this plane (or any other), that could have stopped her from saying it aloud, up to and including her towering pride.

That second kiss was followed by a third, and then a fourth, and there would have been a fifth as well, if not for the fact that, with the return of his own flesh and bone also came the return of everything else far less tangible. The foremost of those things were, naturally, that unerring sense of duty, and, worse, that unrelenting pressure that came with a dereliction of said duty. So somewhere after the fourth...no, wait, there would be fifth after all, and that one lingered so much and so desperately that it may as well have spilled into a sixth, but who was really counting, anyway?...Ignis drew back for air, and his embrace loosened, almost apologetic, as he asked, "How are you feeling? Are you alright?"

The fingers that now brushed over her skin would usually be seeking for the things that would not be included in whatever answer Liliana would give, but, for now, they were just reveling in that fact that she was simply there.

"I am alive," Liliana said, trying to pull him back for that sixth (or maybe seventh?), though Ignis would hardly be able to ignore how much weaker her grip on him was that usual. Strength was ~~her dump stat~~ never her forte, but even so, she was usually stronger than this.

An indignity she had been very aware of since she'd first come back to consciousness and that hadn't been remedied yet. Rude to prideful necromancers.

"What else matters beyond that, my darling?" she asked, voice still rich and glorious--if slightly raspier than usual, too. She had done a fair bit of screaming, at the end. In pain, in rage, at Jace, at Emrakul, at the Chain Veil... "I am alive and you are yourself again, and from there everything else will follow."

More kisses now, please.

Liliana had, no doubt, felt, in the asking of that question, the long and exhaustive list of things that would also matter, actually, to him in that moment, building on Ignis' tongue as he began to open his mouth with an answer, but she would also have felt the way that her last statement halted all of them, and they all just melted away with his deep sigh of relief, and, yes, more kisses, which truly was a much better use of his lips than forming that litany of worries and concerns.

Everything else will follow.

Yes, it would, and that she was alive (that they both were, really) was all that mattered in this moment, and the most important thing to matter beyond it, and everything else will follow, and he needn't worry about any of that now.

He did, however, some innumerable, infinite amount of kisses later, find one question somehow managing to slip past his tongue:

"How long has it been?"

"Thr--no, four days," Liliana said. "I woke up sometime, oh, Sunday night?" After close to thirty-six hours of unconsciousness, yes. "It's Wednesday now, if we're going by Fandom time."

Which they were, because canon rudely had not named the Innistradi days of the week.

"My manor, like the rest of the plane, is in utter shambles," she added. "But, like threat of the plane, it's still standing--though I have had to make due with the indignity of a living servant."

The indignities just never ceased.

The answer had Ignis relaxing, melting into Liliana a little more, with the last even managing to pull the faintest little wry smile out of him, complete with the lightest amused huff. But that wasn't long at all, four days, and that was, in a sense, very good. It made him think that she should be resting more (as opposed to whatever it was she was doing now, Ignis? But how could she be resting properly if he was bothering her with all his clinging and kissing and fussing?), but if it had been longer and she'd still sounded like this, then he'd really start to fret. Four days was nothing. All things considered, she was doing remarkably well for only four days.

"Well, then," he stated quietly, "good thing I'm back to help alleviate some of that particular distress."

Had he then thought to pull himself away, to go take care of something to eat, or to drink, or even just fetch some coffee for himself so that neither Liliana nor this human servant would have to be troubled? Yes, of course he did, but it was fleeting, and it disappeared quickly, because he didn't really want to do any of that, anyway, it was just an old habit, a stubborn reflex, and he shoved it away conclusively by simply burying his face into Liliana's neck instead, and just focusing on the measure of her breathing, the scent of her skin, the coolness of her touch.

Her breathing, much like her pulse, was still probably faster than he'd like, but both were strong, and regular, and that counted for a great deal. And, unless he asked, she saw no reason to get into the litany of injuries she had suffered. Jace had enumerated them when she'd woken up, but added that Nissa had healed her, however reluctantly, and that all she needed to do now was rest and let her body finish the job, since Nissa had only been able to mend torn flesh and repair damaged organs; replenishing her blood and working through the residual pain and exhaustion were up to her.

"I'd like another day or two to recover, and then I know I will be ready to head home," she said. If it weren't for the busybody squirrels, she'd be happy to get home sooner, but she was absolutely not about to step foot on the island until she was capable of walking up their stairs under her own power and without panting like a dog with sunstroke afterwards.

But she'd had quite enough of Innistrad for awhile.

"How about you, my love? Are you quite well?" Her own hands began sliding over his naked form, sadly searching out for signs of injury, rather than any fun reasons. "Emrakul...you were all very lucky that Cloak Boy's spell went off; I don't think any of you would have survived her onslaught if it hadn't."

Ignore how her hands clutched at you right there, Ignis. Her dreams over the past few nights had been split equally between his death and hers. Save, of course, when they were filled with a soft blue glow and the foxicorn that Ignis had become.

She wasn't thinking about that, either, thank you.

"Cloak--?" Ignis started, with a faint thread of confusion riding on it, but it wasn't there for long. "Ah. Right."

On a list of things he was perfectly fine not thinking about ever again, Jace Beleren was certainly on the very top of it.

But, of course, it would be impossible to discuss what had happened without venturing that way, and while a part of him wondered if it was something better left for another time, he also knew that there was often no time like the present, and it was often best just to get unpleasant things out of the way as quickly as possible, and he sighed. Deeply.

"I wish I'd have figured it out sooner," he murmured. "I should have trusted my gut instinct and defenestrated him from that absurd mind tower from the very beginning. I should," a kiss pressed against her for emphasis, "have been there fighting at your side, 'Iana."

The next kiss dragged on longer, almost like a desperate plea.

"I'm sorry that I wasn't."

"Mind tower...?" she asked. "The hells? All I know is that Emrakul sent a surge of power out, you all fell over unconscious, except for him and the elf, who just stood there screaming for a few minutes before toppling over herself. Then it was just Jace standing there, doing nothing of value that I could see."

Leaving her the only person awake and aware enough to do something. Like take on an Eldrazi Titan by herself out of spite.

And no other reason.

"It's probably for the best you weren't awake, my 'Nys," she continued. "I might have just kidnapped you through a portal and been done with it."

She was not a hero, Ignis.

Edited 2025-04-16 13:16 (UTC)

Liliana's confusion inspired a slight grunt of irritation out of Ignis; not at her, of course, but just at the reminder that that particular personal hell had very much been exactly that, some perception of Jace's mind that he had inextricably been woven into, for some reason. Perhaps the less said about that, the better.

Especially when there were far more encouraging things to focus on instead.

Although he imagined Liliana would take great contention with his classification.

The grunt, even, had made way for another one of those faint smiles, and his next kiss found her shoulder with a deeply tender outpouring of gratitude.

"But you didn't," he said. "And you were there. And none of us would be here now if you weren't."

And considering how deep and painful that ache in his chest for her refusal to help when he left this place what seemed like ages ago now had been, how could there be any words in any language in any universe to express just how much that meant?

She could deny it all she wanted, but the evidence, he felt, was squarely in his corner.

Edited 2025-04-16 13:26 (UTC)

SHE HAD DONE IT FOR VERY SPECIFIC REASONS, SCIENTIA. DON'T GET IT TWISTED.

...Though, she supposed she should start softening that stance up a bit, considering she was going to be joining Jace's little group just as soon as she manipulated him into asking her again.

"What can I say? I always did like making an entrance," she said. "And I was tickled to be considered Innistrad's last hope." She sighed. "Abyss knows there wasn't anybody else riding to your rescue. Olivia summoned the entire Voldaren line to march off with Sorin to fight the Lithomancer who brought Emrakul here, rather than Emrakul herself."

Her scathing tone softened slightly. "I wonder how many of them survived? I haven't exactly been up for visitors and it's not like mail is happening, so I haven't any idea of who remained standing after all of this. Sorin is free to find his miserable end on a wooden pole, but I don't know about Olivia, or Runo, or Piotr or Kristoff."

Ignis' hand sought out Liliana's, fingers itching to entwine themselves in hers and hold on tightly, eventually also lifting them so that he could brush a kiss across her knuckles, as her musing list became a roster of things he'd need to follow through on, a reminder of why he'd been so persistent on saving Innistrad as he had been, and a realization that, for all their efforts, his options might still have been drastically reduced.

But there would still be options...wouldn't there? A pit of dread started to clench his stomach, and a frustration at the idea that they would have gone through all this, only to have that be the end result.

(Almost enough to make a man start to wonder exactly what the point of saving worlds ever really was, really...)

He was quiet for a moment, holding her hand where it was against his lips, trying to push away the boxes that were forming alongside the lists, unbidden and begging to be checked.

"There's plenty of time to sort through all of that later," he stated, although whether it was more to himself than to Liliana was anyone's guess. "I'm just glad it's over. And I'm sorry. For not exactly dragging you into it, 'Iana, but at the very least anchoring you here."

That, she could also try and deny all she wanted, but he didn't think she would. Not here, anyway. Not now. But even if she did try, he certainly wouldn't hold it against her or even blame her, either. But he did slip on that soft smile again, as he tried for another dash of levity:

"Though Innistrad's Only Hope," yes, he was going to make a more accurate adjustment, thank you, "is a rather nice addition to your already impressive list of epithets, my love."

See, Ignis? Being a hero never pays off. Might as well just be in it for yourself.

"I was planning on being very cross with you about it," Liliana informed him, though he could feel her preening at his adjustment. "About all of it really. But then her magic burst over us and you crumpled--" She stopped. Probably to catch her breath and not at all because she was unsure if her voice was going to give out. "And then she had the audacity to attempt to take over my zombies. And then it became clear that the real reason I'd needed to stay was to show that overgrown smog cloud who the baddest bitch in the Multiverse really is."

Sure, Emrakul had technically won their battle, but which one of them was stuck in the moon, hmm? Not Liliana, that was for damned sure.

"I may remember to be cross with you about it later," she said, voice dropping as she buried her face into his neck briefly, lips brushing over his skin as she spoke, "but I rather think I might just decide to be gra--to be glad that you're none the worse for wear after all of this."

She eased away, cupping his face in her hands, as if she could make him look her in the eye. "Do not let your tendency towards sacrifice take you from my side sooner than you already will be," she told him, her voice quavering ever so slightly. "I don't know if I could forgive you for that."

And perhaps, in that moment, despite the sightlessness of his eyes, he actually did meet her gaze. In his own way, with its own intensity, as his hand covered one of own. The way he hesitated to respond, as well, certainly seemed to suggest that the levity had returned to something heavier, and it wasn't just Liliana he was trying to look deeply into.

Especially with those words, and he sucked in a deep, bolstered breath.

"It wasn't sacrifice," he said. "At least, not entirely. I...well, I suppose I must...confess, that I haven't been...quite honest with you, 'Iana, about what I've been working on here, on Innistrad, with Kristoff. And that my motivations were mostly that I couldn't bear to lose all the progress I've made before I could even truly get started..."

Liliana's brow furrowed and her hands fell away. "What?" she asked.

Hasn't been honest with me? How dare he!

Have you been fully honest with him?

Mostly! Just...little things!

Like experimenting with the Chain Veil?

Oh do shut up. You're me, you're supposed to be on my side.

"What kind of things?" What dishonesty could he be getting up to with Kristoff of all people...? "Is he trying to seduce you with one of his descendants?"

Look, it was the best guess she had. Because the idea of Kristoff being involved in financial impropriety was impossible to contemplate.

In Ignis' defense, he hadn't exactly been dishonest, either. He had just been very careful with his words and had staunch skirted the space between admission and omission.

He let Liliana draw herself away from him, as he'd been expecting as much, and he hated to frame it in this way, but he still needed some time to rally himself to actually speak the words aloud.

"I assure you, my love," he said, first, to clear out any suspicions along that line, although he liked to think that, even in her tone, she already knew that couldn't possibly be it, "Kristoff has far too wise a hesd on his shoulders to ever even think of pursuing an endeavor as pointless and bound to failure as that."

Another deep breath, and a tangle in his stomach for the slip possibility that he had steered himself horribly wrong.

"No," he explained, "it isn't that, though I imagine there will be a certain sort of courting involved eventually. He has been...assisting me...in research, on....the various clans of Innistrad..."

He spoke with the slowed measured pace of trying to read her reactions as he went along, so perhaps she may find the thread and pull it herself, but he realized that he owed it yo Liliana to be blunt and honest and to hear it from his lips as plain as could be.

"...so that I may be best informed when I finally choose which one to sire me into my own vampirism."

Blink. Blinkblink.

Liliana needed to sit down. Which she was, which was great, but there had to be a way of sitting more down. A thousand thoughts and emotions crashed into her, leaving her looking slightly stunned.

(For the first time, she was rather grateful for Ignis' blindness, because at least then she was spared the indignity of him seeing her slackjawed and slack-witted both.)

"You are...thinking of becoming a vampire?" she asked. "Is this--because of that weekend? Where you were one? I...I had no idea you were even--I thought you had decided to never think of it again...that it had been too much for..."

She trailed off. "You are certain you wish this?" she finally asked a moment later. "You're not going to change your mind?"

Don't give her hope for what was only a maybe, Ignis. She didn't think she could bear it.

"The reason why I haven't mentioned it yet," Ignis answered softly, not all of her questions, of course, but the most important ones first and foremost, "is because I wanted to ensure a clear, consise, undeniable and unshakeable path forward before I did. A straight shot, no detours, no pitstops, no turning back. And so now that I have said it..."

He lifted his chin, in that immovable stubborn determination that she'd seen in him time and time again.

"I am certain. Nothing will change my mind. And we have Emrakul to show that I will not let anything stand in my way."

Liliana didn't speak, just threw her arms around Ignis and held him, curling up so that he could fully wrap himself around her. And only then, when she was cradled in his embrace and her face was tucked against him did she whisper, "I get to keep you."

There was a world of pain in those words, voice raw and rough not from her ordeal but from emotions. Finally after loss after loss after loss, after Jace, after Annika, after Zarah, after Josu, here was someone who could stay.

Could was not the same as would. They'd both come too close to death to be so sanguine about it...and there was still the fact that she was who she was and Ignis was so very good--that he was the type to go out and try to save a plane and she was the type to refuse to even countenance such a move--

But he could.

And that was everything.

Edited 2025-04-16 15:56 (UTC)

Because of who he was, there was a small part of Ignis that wanted to point out that they shouldn't get ahead of themselves, it was nothing yet set in stone, they didn't even know how the events of the last week might have wreaked havoc on all his carefully laid plans, but that part was, thankfully, soundly squashed by the part of him that just wanted to hold Liliana. The part of him that did, in fact, wrap around her, pouring over her with that deep sense of relief and contentment.

The words that almost left his lips, eventually, were As long as you'll have me.

But what left them, instead, was a simple, dedicated "Yours" before he was shifting to that those lips could no kiss her, for the hundredth time, the thousandth time, the millionth time, and for so many more times to come, until the very end of their days.

If she'd have him.

But funny how that barely seemed to concern him anymore these days.

"Mine," Liliana agreed, nails suddenly sharp against his back, her kiss suddenly much deeper and sharper than a moment before, with her teeth catching his lower lip.

They'd keep talking in a minute. She wanted to know who he'd decided upon, how he thought Gladio and Prompto would react (the easier way to live was just to do as you wanted and not give a damn about what anyone else thought, just saying), when he planned to make this happen, all sorts of questions. But right now, the man she loved had just told her he was contemplating eternity for her, on top of having been a fuzzy creature for the last few days...

"You said I was Innistrad's Only Hope," she pointed out, her hands slowly dragging up his spine towards his hair. "But, I don't believe I've received a hero's thank you yet..."

Edited 2025-04-16 16:31 (UTC)

"Well, I have be a bit indisposed," Ignis pointed out.

And she had been a bit on the brink of death, and it had only been a few days, and while his own roaming hands and hungry kisses clearly welcomed and embraced this distinct shift, he wanted to be cautious and careful and not make anything worse.

But, oh, that was going to lean be a challenge, especially now with that awful week, all that horrible distance, now behind them.

Stupid physical bodies. This never happened back when her form was just a tangible expression of her will.

"Yes, actually..." Liliana said, before pausing to bite his throat, "what in Gaea's name were you?"

Another pause to suck on the mark she'd left, leaving a small, purpling bruise behind, right where his pulse beat in his throat.

"Much better to cuddle than the bat, though significantly harder to carry around in my cleavage..."

"Oh, well," Ignis scoffed faintly, after a small groan and a valiant attempt to collect himself again, bringing his hand around her side and to her breast; after all, how could she expect to bring that fantastic cleavage to his attention and not have it be immediately marked for his new target? "Certainly not with that attitude."

Though he was doing an excellent job of making up for that small oversight now, an activity thoroughly more enjoyable (and arguably productive) than addressing Liliana's question, though he was going to get around to that eventually.

"And that," he stated, with a flick of his tongue over his latest attempt to not leave any marks or bruises, though he was treading that line closely, "was a carbuncle. An Eosian creature of legend, with strong ties to the Royal House of Lucis, said to possess strong healing and guidance capabilities."

Those facts, he would allow her to make of them what she will, but she'd have to do so with the distraction of him carefully wrapping an arm around her to shift her to make it that much easier for him (and hopefully comfortable for her) for those kisses to start trailing down her stomach.

"Foxicorn is a better name than--ah!" Liliana's breath caught in her throat, then was exhaled in a soft cry as his mouth teased her skin on its path. Her scars, usually faint and prone to disappearing under his touch, were more prominent now, remaining stubbornly present. He could not read the script they were written in, but he could feel them, lines and lines and lines of text over nearly every inch of her body, her demonic contract written over what she'd purchased with it.

He vividly remembered the grievous injuries that he and Nissa had frantically packed with poultices; not only were those mostly healed - a bit sore and tender, especially where the skin had torn - but they were healing without scarring, even the most dreadful of them. Nissa's magic could not account for that.

The demons simply refused to let any other scars mar their perfect contract.

"Mmmm..." she agreed with his words, all of which she'd definitely heard and paid attention to. Her hands had finally made their way into his hair, nails running over his scalp...and an unconscious scritch, right behind an ear.

Being reminded of those scars, of the way the altered the landscape of that familiar territory and their persistent presence even in the absence of the topography changes he would have expected, gave Ignis pause. His touch became lighter, more cautious, as his attention shifted, slightly, from his original intent. And in that moment, it was almost like a reminder, a warning, perhaps, a reprimand, that while he could dedicate himself to be hers for all eternity, she was still far from truly being his.

A complicated, convoluted feeling, that, one that always seemed to rear its ugly presence no matter how much he believed it didn't matter. But he would still kiss the spaces between those scars with more tenderness, while his thumb gently brushed over them to as if to soothe them.

But then her fingers were in his hair, and it truly didn't matter. He breathed out for the relief of it, to warm her skin, and his fervor and his path resumed, after there was a moment of just leaning into her hand, especially at that scratch behind his ear, prompting a small, almost needy sound before turning his head to briefly kiss her wrist, her palm, those magnificent fingertips that he was astonished he'd managed to survive those days away without, not to mention his entire life up to this point.

How far he had come from the Ignis of...was it only a year ago? The one that had sworn he would never dare claim her, that Liliana Vess was beholden to nobody. No, more than a full year, because while explaining to her about potential future children was the first time he'd given voice to the Mine that had blossomed in his heart, but it hadn't been the first time he'd thought it.

Liliana, of course, had had no such compunctions. She had worked to conquer and claim him utterly, practically from the very beginning.

For a moment, when he paused, when his touch lightened, and his caresses fell away, Liliana's eyes had opened up from where they'd closed in sybaritic pleasure, the warmth and dreamy lassitude that had surrounded around her like a blanket suddenly vanishing, leaving her cold.

Jace had hated her scars. Had done his best to avoid touching them, moving hands and lips away from wherever they momentarily appeared. That she was covered in them didn't seem to matter, so long as he couldn't see them, but she'd seen the shudders he'd tried to hide when he brushed against them. And now there was Ignis, who couldn't even see them, pressing kisses in between--

His gentle touches along their heavier edges soothed more than just the scars themselves. He--he wasn't avoiding them. Not entirely, at least. And he wasn't shuddering, or drawing away. But she couldn't deny that something had changed for a moment there, something that she'd forestalled by her hands in his hair.

But...if they hadn't been?

Then Ignis resumed and Liliana was tempted to just let it go, to lie back and enjoy the pleasure he was so intent of giving her...but no. She couldn't. Not yet. Not like this.

Just as his lips reached the bottom of her abdomen, she pushed herself up on her elbows a bit, and reached down to stroke her fingers over his cheek. "Do you hate them so much, too?" she asked. An inflection of her voice suggested that she was not the other person(s?) represented by that 'too.'

Ignis lifted his face toward Liliana as she pulled away, a line of consternation creasing his brow as he cursed himself for that hesitation, for letting his surprise get the best of him and cause him to stumble. "I..." he started, thinking of how best to explain, wondering if it had really thrown him off that much, so much so that she would stop him.

The truth, of course. Always.

"It's just that I wasn't expecting them," he said, and, in a moment of decision, he shifted, pulling himself back up beside her, with his hand drifting, admittedly somewhat pointedly, to her stomach. "Not so prominently, anyway. Other scars, certainly, from what happened, but those...you said it's been several days, hasn't it? They usually don't...linger so long."

And even though it felt like very much not the point, that fact that she had noticed only sent one thought ricocheting through his mind so fiercely that he couldn't ignore it.

"Are they hurting you? More than usual, anyway."

"They don't," Liliana said. "They rarely hurt me. Only when they're bleeding." And then they were agony. But pain was only temporary and a small price to pay for power. "I channeled more power through the Chain Veil than ever before. I had even possibly thought I'd mastered it; for awhile, I was using the Veil without pain, without bleeding. But that didn't last."

Obviously.

At his touch - his deliberate, pointed touch - she curled into him, resting her cheek against his chest. "You would...not have been the first," she said softly. "To dislike them. To wish to not touch them. So when you changed how you were touching me, I thought--"

She bit down on whatever that was going to follow that. It was too much, too vulnerable. Surely he didn't need her to say it out loud for him to understand. And, if she didn't say it out loud, there was always room to deny that such a feeling, such a thought had ever existed in the first place.

Edited 2025-04-16 20:02 (UTC)

As Liliana curled into him, Ignis wrapped one arm around her shoulders to draw her in closer, while his other hand continued to brush against her skin and her scars. So long as he wasn't causing her any more pain by doing so, but he was carefully noting any flinches or winces she might be trying to hide him from.

"Well, I can't say I'm terrible fond of them," he admitted, after pressing a kiss into her hair, "or what they represent." He considered her moment of barely dodged vulnerability, and decided to offer another in turn. "Especially not what they represent, but they are as much of a part of the intricate pattern," and here, the hand brushing over her skin traced a finger along one of those scars, "that has been woven into the fabric that makes the woman I love. That makes the woman whom I would face down a plane-devouring entity for, just for the opportunity to spend an eternity with her."

Not to mention dealing with Jace Beleren, which he'd honestly probably place even more trying than any plane-devouring entity, but who he had a sneaking suspicion would not be wise to mention quite at this moment.

"I'll admit that I'm not sure I could ever truly come to love those scars," he said, "but I love you, Liliana. Inextricably, explicitly, infinitely. No matter what else that might come with. I didn't...I'm sorry I let them distract me."

The only places where he noticed any reactions that spoke to tenderness or pain were the ones that had been the site of those dreadful injuries that had nearly killed her. The rest, she reacted the way she always did at his touch: welcoming, wanting, and with a rising hunger.

She shifted in his lap, facing him directly as she straddled him. "Perhaps we could pick up where we left off?" she suggested, though her lips were busy pressing kisses over his face--

No. Over his scars.

The one over the bridge of his nose. The one that bisected his eyebrow. Her tongue flicked over the scar on his lower lip, before she moved over to kiss the scattered scars on his forehead, working her way down to the large one over his eye. "I do love yours, though," she murmured as she went. "Not what they represent--" which to her was not, as he likely assumed, his tendency for self-sacrifice "--but the scars themselves? I do." Her hands were busy as she kissed him, bringing his own hands back to her breasts, encouraging him to once more get lost in her.

And perhaps that was a particularly deep thread of guilt running through him, over this whole misstep, the fact that she could love his scars, and he wasn't so sure he could ever feel the same way about hers. After all, were they that different? They both represented sacrifice, although one had been arguably selfless while the other categorically selfish, but should that--

These thoughts, already muddled by their very nature, were becoming impossible to keep straight with her kisses, the flick of her tongue derailing them almost completely with a faint, sighing groan. The ability to grasp the intricate subtleties of his prejudices slipped from his fingers as they grasped her breasts now instead. Maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe he'd misspoke. Maybe he could love them, as an intricate part of her beautiful design, of everything that made her this glorious woman with her adoring kisses brushing his face. Maybe it was just that she actually could see his, plain as day every day, on his face, and he only 'saw' hers in times of distress and anguish, weeping and dripping with all that blood...

(He'd have to learn to love that blood).

But those were thoughts for later. Thoughts for when he wasn't angling his face to catch the next kisses with his own, for when his fingers didn't ache to touch every last inch of her, for when the weight of the trials of the last week wasn't begging to be lifted of his shoulders by the sweet sanctuary of just being with her, completely and fully.

Needless to say, it didn't take much encouraging it all.

It almost never did.

They kissed, the air between them growing heated, her skin flushing, warmed by his touch, his breath, his kisses. Eventually, she pulled him with her as she sank back onto the mattress, enjoying the firm weight of his body over hers.

This time, when his mouth charted a course down her stomach and between her legs, she didn't stop him--at least not until she was so sensitive that his every breath against her core was almost too much to bear, and she giddily had to demand no more. Though, of course, she didn't mean nothing more, as she immediately had to prove when he began to move away to let her rest (unnecessary) and catch her breath (slightly necessary). She clung to him, legs wrapping around his waist, kissing him slow and deep as she glided over him. His capitulation came not long after, 'over' shifting to 'into', his rhythm as slow and deep as those drugging kisses from earlier.

Later that night, as he held her, hands still stroking over her, whether to prove that he didn't mind her scars, or to keep checking that she was alright, or just for the joy of having hands again and her skin beneath them, Liliana whispered two words into the darkness. The second was Always, their private little call and response.

And the first?

Yours.

Edited 2025-04-16 22:08 (UTC)

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Vess Manor, Stensia, Innistrad, Wednesday (Fandom Time).

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