Liliana's Office, Thursday

[deathsmajesty]

Liliana was certainly In A Mood^TM when she got to her office today. Not only to lose valuable class time to something that wasn't part of her lesson plans, but to do so to something that was just ridiculous? That was just adding insult to injury. Those depictions of ghouls! The perpetuation of the myth that they only ate brains! The idea that they could be held off by giant plants.

She tried to sit down, realized that she was too upset for that, and prowled about her office in an angry, almost feline stalk. If she had a tail, it would be lashing.

Clearly, the only thing to do was to find whoever programmed that simulation and show them exactly what being hunted by a zombie really entailed.

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[chef_chocobro]

And, oh, the oblivious of the man who knew not what storm awaited him behind that door! And if Ignis had not spent his morning pleasantly in the kitchen, focused on yet another new recipeh (something light, that didn't necessarily need to be eaten right away, that wasn't too terribly fussy, and, in fact, could be easily enjoyed with just one hand, lest the other so happened to be otherwise engaged), he might have been in a bit more cautious of a mindset to have picked up on the energy contained within those walls. But, alas, his mind was quite elsewhere, as he came up to Liliana's office, and gave but a light rap of his knuckles on the door to announce his entrance before methodically, almost habitually, slipping off his classes to tuck into his breast pocket and opened the door with his inquisitive, honing "Liliana?"

[deathsmajesty]

"Oh darling, you're just in time."

Well if he hadn't noticed the angry roiling anger beforehand, the silky malevolence in her tone would certainly give the game away. Her smile was tight, her eyes a flaring violet.

"You can help me plan a murder."

[chef_chocobro]

"Ah." Hardly the greeting Ignis expected, but also hardly one that stirred a sense of shock and surprise, either. The lock on the door was still schicking into place as he closed it, though, before his attention turned to the matter of impending homicide.

"And whose doubtlessly overdue demise are we plotting for today?"

He honestly hadn't decided if he meant the question in earnest or jest, though, really, it could be either in equal parts...

[deathsmajesty]

"And therein we have the crux of the issue," as opposed to having an already reanimated corpse. "I don't know. I suppose we could start with whomever originally programmed the Danger Shop and work our way down to whomever broke it before I could use it today."

Although she did truly adore Ignis' immediate leap to a ride-or-die accomplice, as opposed to trying to talk her down over trifles like 'morality' and 'we can't just murder everyone we don't like.'

The latter argument just sounded more like a skill issue than anything else.

[chef_chocobro]

Well, there was the genuine fact that Liliana did have a legitimate list of individuals that warranted a bit of murder, but also a good deal of trust given to her hyperbolic nature that made him feel as thought quite a bit of this ire would dissipate once she'd had a taste of his food (or of him, let's be honest), so it was just a matter of weighing exactly where she was in this process and exactly what had sparked it.

He was rather relieved to hear that this time leaned more heavily toward the latter than the former, but now he faced the conundrum of managing to keep a straight face. Luckily, he had decades of practice with that.

He opened the container with his dumpings, offering it out to her in case a little nosh might help settle her nerves at least slightly, rather wishing he'd brought something sweeter for an occasion such as this.

"Was it giving you issues for you class today, then?" he asked, with a small frown, as he knew Prompto was getting things set up for his class probably as they spoke, and it did rely heavily on the danger shop today, but Prompto had been hacking into that thing since his school days here, if anyone could set things right.... "It does tend to do that on occasion; last summer, nearly every class we tried to teach in it had a bad habit of being flooded with chocobos..."

[deathsmajesty]

"Indeed," she growled, and then stopped for a bite of one of his dumplings, not a mere bit of lunch was going to cool her--

Okay, actually wait, that was delicious.

...So the rest of her rant was going to have to wait until she'd eaten the entirety of her first dumpling, but that didn't mean anything. She just liked biting right now. "I was planning on bringing the class through the sewers of Ravnica to see how zombies are integrated into the Golgari swarm, and instead, it spat out a simulation where your garden fought off green and rotting zombies with buckets on their heads! A mockery of necromancy and worse? A waste of a class."

And while she was clearly in high dudgeon over the mockery of necromancy thing, it was the loss of viable class time that really seemed to be the core of her upset and displeasure.

She was gonna eat another dumpling about it.

[chef_chocobro]

Was that a small twitch of a smirk in the corner of Ignis' mouth, at that pause and the slight shift in the air, as subtle as the reduced weight of the container in his hand? No, no, of course not, don't be silly. Perish the thought. Did you think Ignis would risk being put next in line on the murder list like that? Nonsense.

But that trace of a smirk that was absolutely not there seemed to grow into a soft, warm sort of smile that he was far less concerned with hiding. "The Danger Shop can be an excellent tool at our disposal when it works according to plan," he noted, "but, much like several other things around this island, it often seems to possess a mind of its own. And, unfortunately, I'm sure quite a few other teachers on staff would be quite put out if we decided to extrajudiciously put an end to its mainframe..."

There was a small, significant pause, as he now helped himself to one of those dumplings.

"Not matter how well deserved it may be."

[deathsmajesty]

"Or perhaps it would free us from the tyranny of a malfunctioning computer. Viva la revolución!" she muttered darkly. And this was happened when she got her hands on some of Earth's history books.

"I spent so much time bringing Ravnica to life," she added, still very frustrated. "And it's not like Innistrad, where I could just order a portal and bring the class there to show them what I want, but choose not to for safety and convenience. I can't swan into the halls of the Golgari with a crowd of Gateless!"

She technically shouldn't even be in there, but Liliana went as she pleased...if sometimes more stealthily than others because one did not lightly tweak the nose of a ten thousand year old 'god-zombie' even when one was very curious.

She curled up by his side and grouchily ate a third dumpling.

[chef_chocobro]

Ignis slid an arm around Liliana for more effective curling and I can keep my threads straight, shut up, and with that curling, Ignis felt a little more bold to get away with a soothing kiss on her forehead. "It might not be entirely lost," he told her encouragingly. "We can have Prompto look at it after my class today, see if it can't still be salvaged or if it's just been corrupted. He knows it extremely well; he's actually likely there right now taking care of some things for me...And now I wonder if he's encountering exactly what you did this morning that made your own simulation go awry..."

[deathsmajesty]

Liliana was petty enough to hope that he failed so she wouldn't be the only person dealing with Danger Shop issues today and also wise enough to not say anything about that out loud.

...And also comfortable enough in their relationship to know that Ignis didn't need her to say to still guess what she was thinking, and yet. Here he remained, feeding her delicious things and letting her curl up against him.

"You know, my darling, there has been a grave oversight to my rant that needs to be properly rectified," she said, then repositioned slightly to lean up and kiss him. "There. A more proper greeting."

Well, by their standards, anyway. And Liliana had never been particularly fussed by propriety anyway.

[chef_chocobro]

"Mmm." Ignis hummed softly into the kiss, and repositioned himself a little, as well, to not only match her a little better but also to allow him to set aside the container of dumplings to free that hand to find her cheek, instead, lightly brushing his thumb there. "And what if I prefer a more improper greeting?"

And kissed her back in a fashion well deserving of that description.

[deathsmajesty]

Ignis was a consummate tactician and strategist, one who had been making a study of Liliana and her reactions for half a year now, so she could only assume that he knew the consequences of what his actions would be even as he claimed that highly improper kiss. She was a woman of strong passions and even though she was no longer seething, her temper was still simmered not very far below the surface.

And when he kissed her like that, it exploded.

Suddenly, there was a Liliana in his lap, hands frantic at the buttons on his shirt, mouth demanding on his. Normally, she was careful, delicate, making sure to send him off to class looking tidy and put together. Not now. Her mouth was demanding, hard enough on his that their lips would be sore later. One of her nails snagged a button and she only barely controlled it enough to keep from popping the ridiculous thing right off his shirt. She ground against his lap, impatient and demanding.

Ignis. Darling. You had to know.

[chef_chocobro]

Oh, Liliana, darling. He knew.

It might be a minor ding to his ego, a little bit later, to discover that his deft and clever machinations to revert that energy into something more...productive had not fully diffused that explosiveness, but, then again, this was Liliana, she had more than enough to burn, and he'd never expect any spark inside of her ever truly being extinguished.

And he was ready for it, had been hoping for it, almost aching for it before he even walked through that door, a drive that only grew stronger once he had. When she pushed, he pulled in kind. When she pulled, he obediently followed. Ans the sooner he helped with those buttons, the sooner his hands would be free to start tugging at her clothes, as well, though getting slightly distracted in the process with his hands on her hips, encouraging her grinding with a soft, deep moan.

[deathsmajesty]

Whole salacious sonnets had been written for her in the past and none of them had done a damn thing for her even half so much as that single moan had.

She bit down on his throat, hips responding to the encouragement of his hands and yearning noises both, and whispered to him, "Tell me you want me."

It wasn't a question. It was never a question; Ignis didn't let it be a question. But she wanted to hear it, his deep voice in her ear, with that soft, rolling accent that neither Prompto nor Gladio shared. A rich voice that promised sin and salvation, both. Honestly, she might have fallen in love with his voice, even before--

Her hands slid beneath his open shirt, following the contours of his body, fingers finding the dips and curls of the musculature under his skin, the lines and scars across it, her own aching need rising to a fever pitch.

"Know that I need you."