Ignis Scientia

When Liliana hadn't shown up for his class today, Ignis' first instinct was to be concerned, but his second, much more logical, reasonable, hopeful instinct was to wonder if perhaps he had simply heard incorrectly when he'd gone over the roster. So, as soon as everyone had cleared out of the classroom, he pulled out his phone, directed it to his saved files and had it pull up the roster so he could listen to it again. Alphabetical order by surname, of course, so he had to wait until the very end to confirm that, yes, according to when the list was last sent to him, anyway, she had signed up.

So. Back to concern, then. Worry. And even dread, which felt perhaps a bit....overdramatic, but, well, have you met him? Also, there was a good precedent set for him feeling that way, and with how....off everything had been last night, how...strangely out of step they'd been....stilted conversations, private baths, no doubt a line run into the rug of the study from his endless nocturnal pacing...

It did not exactly bode a great deal of confidence.

And so, naturally, he wasted no time in returning to the mansion to seek her out. Perhaps she'd not been feeling well; that would explain how...distracted and distant she seemed last night. Perhaps the arduous trouble of waking so early for her first class of the semester had simply gotten the better of her and she'd settled in for a nap and merely unintentionally slept through his. But when he arrived and called out her name, and went searching through the various rooms and received a confirmation from the steward that his mistress was, indeed, not home, things went from not boding well to boding even worse.

"Do not tell me she's gone off to Innistrad again."

"The Mistress did not say."

That was not at all encouraging, especially since Ignis could not even be entirely certain of the Mistress truly did not say, or if the steward was just compelled to say she did not say.

And so he called her.

Several times.

All of them bouncing directly to her voicemail. Each time, he was tempted to leave a message. Each time, he hesitated, with that same hesitation that held him back from disturbing her last night. Of not wanting to bother her, or make whatever it was worse, or just getting in the way and making himself more of a nuisance than a pleasure, not to mention his lack of confidence in being able to keep the desperation out of his voice.

But, with the last one, the final one, and then he'd likely be off to pace more lines in the carpeting, he did leave one. Short. Brief. Concise. "Liliana. It's Ignis. Call me back when you can. Please."

So much for keeping that desperation out of his voice.

And, once that was finished, he sighed, and, feeling the need to only have to juggle one potential explosive issue at a time, instructed his phone to make another phone call that probably should have been made days ago, really.

[[ mostly for....myself, brain willing, although the post is certainly open for anyone else who live s there, or might want to visit or call or even fallaciously shout out accusation of gentrification ]]

To say that the air was tense and awkward in the spacious Imperial transport as the Chancellor of the Empire himself airlifted them out of their imminent doom at Titan's fall would certainly be an understatement. After all, Ardyn had promised their safety, but there was no guarantee where he would be taking them now. For all they knew, they would soon be headed straight to Niflheim to be dropped off right at Iedolas Aldercapt's feet.

( Just to be on the safe side.... )

"....Indeed," said Ignis, who would gladly admit that it was fortunate that returning to the Disc would be far easier with chocobos at their disposal, but his attention was already on something else that diminished that stroke of luck entirely. Because when he went to click the communicator back on, there was no discernible change in it. Almost experimentally, he pressed the button, hoping to spark the device back to life, but it seemed to remain nothing but a cold piece of equipment strapped to his wrist.

Had it been the heat from the Disc, perhaps? Maybe he'd sustained damage to it during the battle without realizing it. Perhaps it had been some sort of technological interference on the Chancellor's part. Whatever the reason for the communicator's malfunction, though, as Prompto's energy and excitement and relief pulled them all down the road toward the chocobo farm, he thought maybe it might be best to save this particular bit of bad news for later.

If only he knew they'd have a deluge of bad news already ahead of them.

[[ dun-dun-DUUUUN. NFB, definitely NFI, OOC always welcome. This is probably half actual FF XV stuff and half my own embellishments on this one ]]