Ignis Scientia

Since Ignis was already here now that he was taking on duties as a substitute mathematics instructor, and since you'd have to be pretty much blind to not see Seivarden's increasingly distressing state, he thought, perhaps, a good move would be to surprise their apartment benefactor with a nice breakfast and, perhaps, a open ear for listening.

So, after the class had finished, he swung by Turtle & Canary for some fresh ingredients and a few unintentional inspirations, went back to the apartment to find himself pleased that his assessment that Seivarden might not necessarily be up and about quite yet was correct, went to the kitchen, and got to work.

In short order, then, there would soon be an impressive spread of a nice garlic and broccoli quiche, garlic and herb sausages, a berry lavender baked oatmeal, some tea-infused waffles, a selection of fresh fruits, and, of course, a high quality breakfast tea.

(Ignis, for his part, would be enjoying a nice strong coffee in the meantime while he worked).

And, eventually, he would even feed a few bits and pieces to the cat, but only after she'd earned them by sitting quietly and not intrusively begging for them. He knew that, between every one else in this apartment spoiling her rotten, it was likely an uphill battle, but he would take small victories where he could.


[[ mostly for the sad and miserable roommate, and most likely great SP glory, but also definitely open if you're into that! ]]

Technically speaking, Ignis was in his office earlier that day just because he figured it could use a little bit of dusting and tidying from him having not really used it much since the start of the summer, but once the activities for the day that Prompto had dragged him to were concluded, he returned to the office in earnest, so that Nina could meet him there for their appointment. Since he was expecting at least one person to stop by, he had also used that morning to whip up some tarts and have some tea ready, while he, in the meantime, indulged in a (presumably) much needed Ebony while browsing through some of his correspondance and browsing through some of the news from around Eos. A refresher, of course, since he'd already done that earlier that morning and was now mostly going through them again for any small or useful detail he might have missed the first time around.

He'd nearly forgotten how much he enjoyed the quiet isolation that the office usually afforded him, and the thought of how that quiet was likely to be spoiled once Nina arrived might have amused him if he hadn't suspected that whatever it was she wanted to speak to him was a rather serious matter if she wanted to ensure privacy to do so.

[[ and though he's expecting someone, the door and post are very open! ]]

Ignis was far from his usual attentative, focused self that morning when he rolled into Fandom and into his office for his usual office hours. Obviously, last weekend had been quite the ride, and Ignis, always one to emphasize the importance of being impeccibly neat and smoothly presented, felt quite off with so many theoretical loose ends just hanging about, incapable of mending them. Obviously, he'd gone and spoken to King Regis as soon as he possibly could regarding some of the more disturbing details of Spero's haphazard account of this potential future; after all, even if the probablility of such a future was incredibly low, something like the destruction of an entire crown city was something that needed to be brought to the king's attention!

But Regis had been...oddly dismissive of the whole thing, not in an overt way that seemed to suggest that he disregarded the whole thing as something nonsensical, but rather...Ignis wasn't quite sure what it was. It was as though he understood the possibility, but simply was not concerned about it...

No, that wasn't quite it, either.

The idea clearly did disturb the king, even if he tried not to show it. It was more as if the king felt that it was something that Ignis should not concern himself with.

Which was, quite frankly, impossible.

As someone who had dedicated his entire life to serving the crown, to be so summarily dismissed was....not exactly settling well with Ignis, especially when there was a terrible knot in his stomach that there was something going on and he was intentionally being kept in the dark regarding it.

It made it exceptionally difficult to focus on his lesson plans for the remainder of his class.

The several cans of Ebony he was making short work of were probably not helping much with that, either.

[[ open door, open office! ]]

Well. They had been warned.

Ignis was starting to feel that he really did not give Summer enough credit about her acumen for these sorts of things, but, in his defense, it was easy to be a little skeptical about the voracity of something she'd described delicately as 'horny pollen', especially when his own colleague had insisted that it really wasn't 'all that bad.'

He could tell by the way that Prompto was expressing even more frustration than usual with his mobile phone game that his colleague's memory on this particular event had not served him well. Not all that bad, indeed.

( Cut for...essentially playing with myself. (*cough*) )

And then waited until he was certain Prompto had stomped far down the hallway if not out of the building entirely before letting out a long, long breath of relief that he felt like he'd been holding for a very long time, felt the own rush of something like a blush creep into his face now that he was alone, and he shook his head, loosening one of the buttons of his shirt, and feeling it really was a shame there appeared to be nothing on the market at the moment for an antihistamine against sex pollen specifically.

Still, he had to admit, this was excellent practice in keeping his cool under the most trying of circumstances...

[[ open door, open office, open post! my head is sometimes a very magical place ]]

Sitting at his desk, in this office that had become remarkably familiar to him over these last few months, Ignis sat back for a moment, took off his glasses, and had to rub his eyes a little bit, partly in frustration, partly because he felt they were about to gloss over from the documents he'd been pouring over on his computer screen. He was terribly distracted at the moment, which didn't help things, because it was very clear to him, from the goings-on about Insomnia and around Lucis in general, not to mention Nina (excuse him, Aine's) extended worked there and her subsequent return here in general, that something was going on under the surface. And while the notion was clear, nothing else about it was. Where he sat now, he could not figure out the exact shape of it, and Ignis was a man who didn't even need glasses, but wore them anyway, because he preferred to keep things as clear as absolutely possible.

Rubbing his eyes didn't seem to do enough, as his hand traveled up to rub his forehead a little, too, as if he could knead out a building headache. He should focus on what they were going to do for his class tomorrow, but all he could think about was something the king had said to him this past week, when Ignis had proposed that perhaps he should be spending less time in Fandom.

I couldn't be more proud of what you've done for Noctis, Ignis. You've done a fine job. But I can't help wondering if it isn't time for you both to become familiar with a bit more indepedence.

How could Regis say something like that and not expect Ignis to try and break it down into its various potential interpretations and try to figure out exactly what the deeper meaning in those words could possibly be? The man was clearly at work at something, with comments like that, and everything with Nina, but Ignis felt perfectly blind as to what it might be. All the while combatting with a part of himself that felt it was obviously not his right to know.

But, yes, let us put all that aside so that he might focus on cupcake lessons...

[[ open door, open office! ]]

Ignis had, very briefly, considered skipping his office hours this week. Honestly, if he got right down to it, they did seem rather...superfluous, didn't they? He could certainly be an early enough of a riser to get to Fandom well before his class on Friday mornings, so was this extra day really necessary?

But then he considered how much work he actually did get done on these Thursdays, even if a considerable amount of it had very little to do with his job here at Fandom, because to have such a large swatch of time where he was not surrounded by the pressing demands other duties and distractions was a rare and precious thing, and for that alone, he should take advantage of the uninterrupted littel haven that this office had become.

Well...

Mostly uninterrupted.

It was clear by the flood of text messages and pictures he was getting from both Prompto and Noctis right now (and, occasionally, from Gladio as well, much to the benefit of Ignis' sanity) that made it increasingly clear that their current itenerary for weekend training was not nearly strict or involved enough.

They were getting beans in every meal next week, so help him...

"That's it!" he remarked to himself suddenly with a snap of his fingers, ignoring his phone almost completely now as he leaned over his computer to dive ito some research. "I've come up with a new lesson plan!"

[[ open door, open office! ]]

After the last few weekends at Fandom seemed to be packed with all sorts of activities and parties, Ignis was looking forward to a nice quiet one this time around, as well as a whole week in Insomnia next week since the school would be on a break.

Little did he know, of course, that this was not going to be the case at all, and all his research into the culinary practices and dishes of Japan would turn out to be useful not only for his students, but for himself as well.

But for now, it seemed, ignorance was bliss, as he frequently jotted down notes and new recipe ideas as he engrossed himself in a fascinating food journey. And it was very interesting to note, he felt, that a lot of the cuisine of Japan seemed incredibly familiar and not at all dissimilar to what he was already familiar with back home in Insomnia! Sometimes, the parallels between this world and his own really were uncanny!

[[ open door, open office! ]]

Another Thursday, another day back in his office, pondering over how this had all become routine rather quickly. Of course, it helped that things back home had been rather quiet lately, in a way that sometimes made Ignis feel a bit nervous, like it was some sort of calm before the storm, which he wished he could chalk up to mere paranoia, but thanks to experiences with this place via Prompto, he knew that this paranoia could be very well founded.

For now, though, he was trying his best not to think on it too much, focusing instead on his class for tomorrow and where to take them from here now that they'd covered a good portion of the basics.

Of course, it was also his birthday this weekend, but he was never one to make a big deal out of such an occasion, it was, after all, merely just another whirl around the planet, but it did amuse him a little thinking that perhaps that made it a good enough reason to have the students attempt to tackle a cake...

[[ open door, open office of course! ]]

Back on the island again for his class and the weekend, Ignis, armed with a can on Ebony, of course, made his way back to the office and got settled in to get back to the task of refining his lesson plans, jotting down a few new recipe ideas as they came to him and wondered if they might be good ones to introduce to the class, and then, because that barely took any more time, poured over some new reconnaissance information regarding some of the movement of the Niflheim Empire throughout Tenebrae and its surrounding areas, trying his best not to feel too uneasy about what he felt some of this movement might suggest.

It was hard to ignore the feeling that there was something stirring, something just under the surface, like a lidded pot about to boil over...

...or maybe this whole splitting his time between teaching and his normal job was starting to just put everything into the perspective of a cooking metaphor, and he should have brought more Ebony with him to his office.

Either way, he was there and back should anyone need him, in precisely the place you'd expect him to be, because he was, indeed, truly that nerd.

[[ open door, open office, of course! with the typical ohgodwork sp caveat ]]

After Ignis had woken up, found his way to the shower, and got himself properly dressed, he went about his day as usual, which meant trying to figure out where exactly he might find Noctis, so that they could go on from there, figuring out if today was a day they could enjoy for themselves or if they had Very Important Things to attend to.

And despite feeling as though his search around the apartment had been thorough, it was clear that Noctis was not here, which meant that it would be pretty important to find out where Noctis may have gone, hoping that he wasn't off getting himself into trouble, meaning that Ignis was slacking off on his very important job!

There wasn't much to go off of, though, although there was...a cat.

"Hello, Mr. Cat," Ignis greeted the cat respectfully, bowing slightly to it, which meant he had to adjust his glasses when he came back up. "I don't suppose you know where I might find the prince?"

Issa blinked up at Ignis, let out a long yawn, and ceremoniously started to groom herself.

"Hmmmm," Ignis frowned a little, humming thoughtfully. "I see. Well. Perhaps there might be something in the fridge that might help loosen your tongue a little, Mr. Cat..."

Unfortunately, not even the leftover seafood from the paella in the fridge would convince the cat to be helpful, much to Ignis' disappointment, so he supposed he'd have to venture out to solve the mystery on his own.

[[ open, of course, especially to the rooooomaaaaate, though with potential SP ]]