Aesthetically Creepy Mansion, Saturday

[deathsmajesty]

Liliana was regretting bringing the lyre back to the store. She was in a restless kind of mood, one that was more suited to pacing than, say, going down to her workroom for a few hours, but pacing didn't do anything to keep her hands occupied, nor did it command her attention. The lyre - or, more properly, a smaller harp - would solve that problem most handily, in a way that even one of her pianos would not, since she'd have to sit down to play that.

Not that she had a piano here, either. And wouldn't until the music room was finished being renovated. And that couldn't happen until the gaming room was finished. Which couldn't happen until Gladio gave their contractor back.

She paused for a long moment, debating whether or not she wanted to take belated issue with this trade of contractors. Hmmm...no. She wasn't in an ill temper right now, simply a restless one. That important distinction made (as well as the vital decision to not pick a random fight about it), she continued her pacing. Besides, having an intact music room and piano wouldn't actually solve her issue of having returned the lyre in the first place.

"Too many memories," she muttered. "This place stirs up too many memories." She was aware of the irony of her complaining that things were digging up stuff she'd rather keep buried, but Liliana has never been particularly bothered by her own hypocrisy anyway.

Should she... should she exercise? That would likely help with the restlessness, at least... Another pause to consider and Liliana was pleased to discover that no, even her current mood wasn't enough to make her want to go to those extremes. That, at least, was a comfort.

[Open for calls and visitors]

Comments

[chef_chocobro]

Although he was neither caller nor visitor, Ignis did find it rather difficult to not feel Liliana's restlessness on an incredibly deep and, quite frankly, concerned level, though he did try to not let it. A part of him wanted to assure himself that if it was anything bothering Liliana that she wanted him to know, she would share, and, otherwise, it was none of his business. However, a much larger part of him was very convinced that the state of Liliana's well-being was precisely his business. Perhaps he should just ride it out, occupy himself with other things, to see if it passed eventually, though he found it almost impossible to focus on anything right now anyway.

And while his first instinct was merely to leave Liliana to her devices and not be some bothersome nuisance, he had more than enough evidence to remind him that when he followed that instinct, the results were, typically, quite disastrous, actually.

And so, a somewhat cautious approach.

"Liliana, darling," he said, "might I make a proposal? I find myself uncharacteristically unable to keep my mind on my work today. Perhaps, instead of continuing to try to extract blood from a stone, I'd be better spending my time with something perhaps less productive, but at least more entertaining. I don't suppose you might know what to suggest?"

Then, a small smile. "On second though, now I'm almost wondering if you ever have encountered an instance of blood from stone..."

[deathsmajesty]

Look, Liliana simply wanted all of your attention, which she clearly wasn't getting if she were being left to her own devices. That's just facts. And logic. And logical facts.

"You too, my darling?" Liliana asked, her pacing ceased, at least for the moment. "Perhaps it's something in the air, like right before a storm." Oooh, she could go for a giant storm right now, with high winds and booming thunder and vivid zigzags of lightning...it was impossible to be restless with a proper storm echoing about outside.

"And only if you count Sorin Markov's personality," she said wryly. "But yes, I do believe we could find something far more entertaining to do together. Join me on the divan and we can brainstorm."

The idea of settling down, abhorrent just moments before, seemed much more palatable with the promise of lying with her head in Ignis' lap, his hands running through her hair.

[chef_chocobro]

Liliana had barely even finished saying the word and Ignis was already making his way there, and falling into it with ease and open position, so that she might fall into it around him in whatever fashion seemed more comfortable to her in that moment.

"If I weren't for the expression I know you're about to give me in response," he noted, with that faint smile growing just that slight bit more, "I'd almost be tempted to note that it seems Sorin Markov has graced your thoughts far more often recently than he has any business to. Is it just your impending lesson, darling? Or might there be something else in that regard?"

[deathsmajesty]

She did enjoy curling around him in various configurations, it was true. This time, however, she was resting her head on his thigh and taking her headdress off and setting it aside. Surely that was enough to let Ignis know where she wanted his hands.

"Oh, it's definitely something else," she teased right back. "After seeing him in action again, I couldn't help but be reminded of how positively obnoxious he is."

A soft chuckle and then her tenor changed entirely, going more thoughtful. "You know, I was wondering why I had been so...reminded of the past recently, but I suppose it's rather to be expected, no? Between the Astrotorium, seeing Sorin for the first time in well over a century, fighting Baron Sengir of all creatures, finding that lyre..." My past has positively infiltrated my present, hasn't it?"

A moment of thought. "Have I ever told you how we met, Sorin and I? Our relationship?"

[chef_chocobro]

Ingis' fingers were almost immediately heading for Liliana's hair, anyway, softly brushing through it with the occasional lingering detour against her shoulder before returning again, though the was a pause, albeit brief, when she mentioned the lyre, a small stagger in his rhythm that then continued on as if uninterrupted.

"I certainly hope not," he said, "because that would me that, if you had, I have allowed it to slip from my mind..."

[deathsmajesty]

"Hmm?" That brief stutter earned a small, inquisitive noise, but when his fingers found the rhythm again, she was happy to let it go.

"It was on Innistrad, of course," she said. "He calls himself the Lord of Innistrad, though nobody can remember appointing him to that position, oddly enough." Her tone was scathing. "He came to me once I'd finished my necromancy apprenticeships, so I must have been...almost fifty? Somewhere around thereabouts anyway. My training was very thorough."

To Ignis' complete lack of surprise, surely.

"He challenged me to a duel," she continued softly. "Not an unheard of occurrence, especially amongst Planeswalkers, but also not common, especially with the disparity in our ages. He was six thousand years old and I was still in my first mortal lifespan."

She laughed, a bitter thing. "He crushed me. The battle barely lasted five minutes. He brought everything he had and everything he was to bear in me - if I hadn't been a Planeswalker, I would have been dead several times over. I genuinely did think his aim was to kill me. But no. Instead, he simply pronounced me too weak to be a threat. Then he informed me that Innistrad was his and that I'd best be a civil guest--or he'd find me and finish what he'd started here. And then he Planeswalked away, leaving me lying in the muck, trying to summon the strength to rise."

She told the story simply and easily, as if relaying a particularly tiresome run-in with an annoying neighbor at the grocers, but well. If nothing else, Ignis knew her pride.

[chef_chocobro]

Ignis knew her pride, indeed. Which also meant that he was not also discounting the fact that Liliana had willingly offered up to him a tale of defeat.

(Though he also imagined the inherent, undeniable rise from that defeat had helped in that matter slightly).

"Well," he stated, "that was rather foolish of him. Though, I suppose...I imagine, after six thousand years, one could get quite bored."

There was a soft sound, there, a faint grunt laced with disgust at the belated realization that he unfortunately knew the type.

"Perhaps he saw in you a particular challenge,that in riling you up he could make things a bit more...interesting..."

The dry drawl of his tone suggested that, yes, it was a theory he was proposing, but, no, he didn't particularly believe it himself.

[deathsmajesty]

"Sorin Markov can go kiss Kothophed in the Abyss," Liliana declared, flatly. "I think he just gets off on the power trip. Did I tell you, there was a Planeswalker in the Helvault? A kor woman, Gaia only knows how long she was in there or why."

She shook her head. "I can't fathom it," she said. "Getting bored. At least to the degree you're talking about. Especially when one has the whole Multiverse at one's fingertips. There is always something new to learn, to explore, to discover. That...ennui of an unending lifetime just suggests to me that the individual couldn't have been that interesting as a person even before they became immortal." She sniffed. "Certainly not a trap I intend to fall into."

[chef_chocobro]

"'Only boring people get bored,'" Ignis quoted, a ghost of his own past self, with an oft-repeated phrase to a listless young prince desperate for entertainment.

But the topic of Liliana's own potential boredom was one he didn't care to dwell on.

"What happened," he asked, "with the other Planeswalker in the Helvault?"

[deathsmajesty]

"Only boring people get bored and make a lifestyle of it," Liliana offered instead, since boredom was, sadly, an inescapable fact of life.

And, interestingly enough, she had intended to ask him what he'd do with an eternity - you know, just one of those questions you asked somebody during a chat about vampires, but his own question distracted her. "She left," Liliana said. "The Helvault opened, she came out long enough to look around and for me to see she was kor, and then she Planeswalked away. My curiosity was piqued, but then events continued apace."

Surely, however, this random Planeswalker would never be relevant to their lives again.

[chef_chocobro]

Oh, no, most assuredly not...

And, to be fair, that bit of wisdom on the topic of boredom was coming from the very wise and sage advice of a nine-year-old...

There was a small sound that seemed to doubt the narrative just slightly, but, for the most part, Ignis nodded.

"And a kor is...?" he prompted, letting the question trail off.

[deathsmajesty]

"A race of near-human creatures," Liliana explained, because that was a very normal way to talk about thinga, thank you Wizards of the Coast. "They have gray, blue, or white skin, and males have an extra sensory organ that looks like little barbells hanging from their chin." She brushed her fingers against his chin, then let two of them dangle down to about where a kor's would be. "They're from a plane called Zendikar, I believe." Again, never going to come up again, don't even worry about it. "On Dominaria, people believed that they were the descendants of one of Urza's special projects, but I believe they were actually kidnapped from Zendikar as shock troops for the Phyrexians, and those that managed to survive settled in New Argive, since it wasn't exactly like they could go back home to their old plane again."

[chef_chocobro]

That touch of Liliana's fingers against his chin brought a soft smile to Ignis' face, and, before she could move her hand too far away, his lifted his to catch it, entwining his fingers in hers, and a brush of a kiss on her fingertips.

"And why," he wondered, "couldn't they return?"

Not that he knew anything about what they might be like...

[deathsmajesty]

"Because they would have needed a Planeswalker to bring them across the Blind Eternities back home," Liliana said quietly. "Or access to the Phyrexian technology that brought them there, but the best and safest thing to do with Phyrexian tech is to destroy it immediately and as thoroughly as possible." Her voice was grave; even if Ignis would never encounter a single Phyrexian (and why even would he?), it was still important that he know that rule as deeply as if he'd been raised on Dominaria himself. "And, even before the Mending when such things were possible, it was still a great deal of effort to bring people with you, never mind an entire colony of people, some of whom had been born on Dominaria anyway."

Her tone shifted to melancholy, the way it often did when she discussed the Mending, but there were other threads to it - threads that might remind him of the lingering grief and guilt she had when she spoke of Josu and that day in the sickroom, only this time around the concept of carrying people through the Blind Eternities.

[chef_chocobro]

The squeeze Ignis gave Liliana's hand was an apologetic one; in his curiosity and the simple pleasure that was just listening to her and learning more about the worlds from which she came, he failed to really connect to some of the broader implications and all those little subtle details that added up to much weightier things. "I fear that sometimes," he said, "having grown accustomed to the portals available here lends itself to forgetting far too often that it's not so simple elsewhere. Ironically, considering the complications I've encountered with them myself...

"I knew a Cor, actually," he then added, to veer perhaps toward slightly lighter fare, "back home. Cor Leonis. Though he is," was? It was difficult to imagine the Marshall in the past tense, especially after all these years, "quite human, no matter what the legends about him would like to suggest."

[deathsmajesty]

There was a moment when she hesitated, almost as if she were thinking of continuing with...something, but then she shifted and let it go, focusing on his comment instead. She had talked about her corner of the Multiverse plenty of times and they hardly needed to ruin the mood by getting into what had happened to her the day of the Mending itself - not when they so rarely talked about his life on Eos. So instead she smiled up at him, fingers gliding over his handsome face, and happily moved with him in this conversational dance. "Who is this estimable Cor Leonis and why does he have so many legends about him?"

[chef_chocobro]

"They call him Cor the Immortal," Ignis offered, "because he could survive anything, and, as far as I know, it's still quite true. He was the Marshal of the Crownsguard, so he trained Gladio and myself, and we, in turn, trained Noct and Prompto. One of the youngest to ever join the Crownsguard, I owe him a great debt for a substantial amount of my skills and knowledge. Until Gladio, he was the only one to ever survive the Tempering Grounds, and he did so when he was but fifteen years old, and has served through three separate Lucian kings."

[deathsmajesty]

"The Tempering Grounds?" Liliana asked.

And then hesitated. "My darling...why don't you ever talk about your family? Your life before coming into the Crown's care?"

[chef_chocobro]

"Ruins," Ignis explained the easier question first, and without hesitation, "discovered some forty years ago in the Taelpar Crag in Cleigne, and said to be the resting place of the spirit of Gilgamesh, Lucis' first Shield to the King, and all the spirits of fallen Lucian warriors, laying in wait for the strong and the brave to meet their challenge and prove their worth."

He was quiet for a moment before adding, "Many have, in those forty years, made the attempt, only to join the rank of those soldiers. Only Cor and Gladio have set foot on those grounds and survived."

And he was quiet again, for a much longer time, before addressing the other.

"And as for my family," he said, "I don't say much, because there isn't much to say. House Scientia was already small before my parents were lost to the war, and then it was just me. And I was too young when it happened to really even remember much about them. In truth, Cor probably was the closest thing I had to a parent, after that."

[deathsmajesty]

"Am I allowed to go into these ruins and test my strength against them?" she asked lightly. It was terribly unfair for Eos to have all these excellent necromancer enrichment programs and to be stubbornly locking itself away so she couldn't enjoy them. "I should quite enjoy letting Gladio know he isn't all that special." She squeezed his hand, though; teasing aside, this place sounded significant to Ignis and while she hardly cared for such things - especially when there was an opportunity to flex her necromantic muscles - she cared enough about him to extend the space and the ordeal some respect.

Especially considering what he'd just admitted Cor was to him.

"I...do not ask you enough questions, I fear," she murmured, more serious now. "I have spent so long deflecting queries into my own past that it has become second nature to avoid asking others of theirs, since it is usually taken as an invitation to return the curiosity. But that does not mean I don't care about the life you led and how it shaped the man you have become. I assure you, my 'Nys, I care very much."

[chef_chocobro]

That pulled a soft but somewhat distant smile out of Ignis, the back of his fingers lightly brushing against her cheek. "I'm afraid there really isn't all that much to tell, anyway," he said. "You'd doubtless just wind up terribly disappointed. And I assure you, my 'Iana, were you to actually find a way back to Eos at all, I should say you'd be allowed to go anywhere you damn well please."

[deathsmajesty]

Hmm. Perhaps another project to dabble with. What Portalocity couldn't do, perhaps a Planeswalker could...? Something to consider.

"You do not disappoint me, Ignis," she said quietly, with his name rather than any soft endearment or nickname to make sure it stuck. "I ask questions to find out more about you,, so how could I be disappointed in the answers?"

She paused, pretending to give something consideration.

"Assuming, of course, you make certain to pet my ego appropriately while answering them," she added, because who had two thumbs and needed to lightly deflect after all that sincerity she'd just unleashed?

...And possibly to help her ignore the warm flush that had made her smile when he'd said 'my 'Iana.

[chef_chocobro]

Ignis had an answer to Liliana's question. Perhaps not one she would agree with, but an answer all the same, but he was keeping it to himself. Because guess who also had two thumbs and a desperate need to take her up on that deflection?

"With nearly every other breath," he promised, and then, as if to prove it, "each one as easy and effortless as the last."

[deathsmajesty]

He deserved it, for the ways he made her need to use deflection to keep from spontaneously combusting on the spot for the truly ridiculous things she ended up saying and the even more ridiculous things she ended up thinking. Thanks Gaia she retained enough self-respect to keep from saying everything that crossed her mind, her self=preservation ego would never survive it.

"You should use several of those breaths to kiss me," she murmured. "Unless you wish to be prodded for more stories of your past or, worse, saddled with mine."

[chef_chocobro]

"You already have such an abundance of them that you've been carrying by yourself for so long," Ignis said softly, with anotger gentle stroke of her cheek. "It's the least I can do...and a distinct honor...to help ease that burden from your shoulders in any way I can."

And, in that moment, that way involved shifting and leaning in to give her that kiss, and several more after. Until there was hardly any breath left to give.

[deathsmajesty]

She didn't - quite - snort at the idea of it being any kind of distinct honor. Not because she didn't think he meant it, but because once he heard them, he'd realize so many were the exact opposite. Liliana Vess hadn't concerned herself with honor in centuries - hell, even basic human decency oftentimes eluded her. Which made it all the more foolish that she should want to share these stories with him - some kind of twisted tripartite desire to be seen for who she really was, to offer him the worst of herself before he found out through other means...and to drive him off now, before she found herself deeper than she already was.

The question for her was always when not if, and she had very stupidly not pushed the matter before it had come to the point where it would hurt her terribly when it did.

...The most terrifying part was that she was unsure if there had ever been a time before that point at all.

Unpleasant thought. This was why she avoided introspection as often as possible. Instead, she fell into his kisses. No, not fell. Dove and dove gladly into them, slowly pushing herself up to encourage those kisses to go deeper, go longer. Kissing him until time lost all meaning and air nearly did, too.

Her skin was warmed by the time they broke, her hands especially so with how they'd snuck under his shirt and claimed patches of warm skin as their own. "You are not unburdened yourself," she murmured to him, a valiant attempt to keep their conversation going, rather than simply sliding so easily into warmth of desire that never died down to even embers between them before flaring up again, hot and hungry.

[chef_chocobro]

"No," Ignis allowed, in a sighing attempt to catch that deftly stolen breath, leaning his forehead against here and feeling no urge whatsoever to disentangle his fingers in her hair at the back of her head, though his own roaming hand settle near her waist. "Perhaps not. But I feel lighter now than I've probably ever been."

Sure, it helped, that the largest of his burdens were either dead or inaccessible, but that hardly negated the sentiment.

[deathsmajesty]

"I'm glad, my 'Nys," she murmured back, the dimness of the room acting like a veil against the rest of the world, where she could say things that she'd never allow others to hear. Where she could set down being Liliana Vess for awhile and simply be Liliana.

No. Because Liliana was Liliana Vess, she didn't wear a persona, she was who she was and always had been. But a place where she could be 'Iana, perhaps, since the alternative, had accumulated too much baggage to bear, between Josu and the Raven Man.

"You deserve to feel light. Even as little as I know, I know you've earned it." Not just for years of effort already put in, but sacrifices willingly given. "I like to see you happy. Not just pleased, or satisfied, or content. But happy."

She trailed kisses down his jaw while her hands began unbuttoning his shirt. "I don't think my stories will spark that for you."

[chef_chocobro]

"No," Ignis agreed again, with another deep sigh, this one deep enough to pull a soft groan out of him, as well, as he lifted his chin to offer more of him for her to kiss. "I don't imagine they will. But I don't care. They're yours, and so I want to know them."

The hand in her hair had finally pulled itself away, drawing his fingers along her jawline, to curl under her chin, and gently lift her face toward his, his sightless gaze focused with the intensity of trying to will them to do the impossible.

"I want to see you, Liliana. All of you."

[deathsmajesty]

She kissed him then. First a soft brush of her lips against his, a soft, sweet kind of kiss that only served to make her crave a deeper one, though she denied herself - them both - that immediate follow up. Because then she leaned up to press her lips directly below those scorched out and colorless eyes - eyes that used to be the color of summers in the Caligo - one on either side, and then two more immediately above them, on his brow. And if he closed his eyes under her tender ministrations, she laid a final kiss upon each lid.

"I know it pains you that you can't look at me in in the literal as well as the metaphorical," she murmured, lightly grazing over his lips again to take advantage of that proffered throat instead, now interspersing teeth with her kisses. "But I hope you know I would not change a jot, because the you that you are is mine." She would find and she would fix if she could if ever he asked, but of her own volition? Nothing, save the way they changed each other, simply by being together. "But even now, you see me better than anyone alive. And...you may see me better than anyone gone, too, because I have always kept secrets."

So my sweet little sister dabbled in necromancy...

"You make me want to share them. Because it doesn't feel like you're trying to collect bits of me to keep and to hoard. But simply because--"

And then she kissed him, fulfilling that promise of sweet yearning and then some.

[chef_chocobro]

Simply because--

And Ignis fell into that kiss, utterly and completely, because what else was there to say, that couldn't better be said with his lips against her, against her cool skin, perhaps even against every last inch of her, eventually, eventually...Seeing her as thoroughly as he could with his fingertips, and every other method still available to him.

[deathsmajesty]

It was not long before she was bared to his questing fingers and ardent mouth, her own lips spilling demands and entreaties both about where to see and how to touch, as if he weren't already eagerly fulfilling them practically before she could give them voice. He'd only had six months to study her body, but he had proven himself a most attentive student, not needing something as pedestrian as sight to learn the ways to pull an entire symphony from her in sighs and gasps and cries and moans. His hands skimmed over flawless skin, no signs of her various injuries lingering as scars, though he could feel the occasional line of the demonic contract Kothophed had etched into every inch of her.

Perhaps that was why no scars dared mar her, so there could be nothing that could possibly interfere with the sanctity of that contract.

He was bare soon afterwards, their clothing lying just as entangled on the floor as they did the divan. She was skilled in leaving things unsaid, but she didn't have his drive to keep quiet rather than speaking when words might be superfluous, so she had to be grateful for his mouth, for his throat and shoulders and fingers and other secret places where she could bury words into his own skin until the urge to give them into the open are had passed again.

Like I am a lap-harp and you are collecting my strings not to own but simply to hear the music I might play...