Liliana's Office, Thursday

[deathsmajesty]

There was a gremlin in Liliana's office today.

Liliana wasn't sure how the wretched little thing had gotten in and there was a very tense standoff for a few minutes while it hissed at her, baring dripping fangs, and she hissed back, holding up hands that were alight with power. "What," she asked, low and tight, "will it take for you to get out of my office peaceably? I like my rug and I don't want your rotting carcass to stain it."

The gremlin hissed again...but then pointed at her bag of leftovers from class.

"You...you want my food?" Liliana asked. The gremlin nodded. Liliana looked truculent for a moment before reluctantly setting it down on the ground in front of her and nudging it forward with her foot. "Fine," she said. "Take it. And if you even try a damn--" The rest of her threat when unfinished as it grabbed her food and skittered off.

Liliana slammed the door shut after it and then prowled around, making sure it hadn't licked anything or spat on something that could still give her hallucinations.

Mugged by a gremlin. She was almost offended.

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[chef_chocobro]

And wouldn't you know, Ignis Scientia, the man always so precise and particular in his words, had not even been aware that he had said it. It had merely slipped out of him, slipping over the sound of a different, but somewhat adjacent word, natural and effortless in its simple (almost heartbreaking, really) truth.

Even if he had realized it, it wasn't as if he could even begin to deny the appropriateness of its application.

But there would be no careless slips of the tongue now, as Ignis considered Liliana's question with great care in how to answer. Not so much to tailor it, as he sometimes did, to what might sound the most appealing in her ear, but rather to root around for that exact, precise honesty that, a moment ago, had been so effortless that it slipped right by his usual calculations and determinations.

"Mostly?" he said, finally, and his hands squeezed her again. "I wished I actually could witness you, in all your glory and power, rather than merely deducing as much based on the chaos of my surroundings at the time."

[deathsmajesty]

Liliana freed a hand, but only to bring it to his cheek. "I highly doubt that 'glory and power' was what Prompto and Gladio were thinking," she murmured. "And this is why you are mine. You...you I do not wish to fear me, but...to glory in what I am."

Or at least, most of her. She didn't think he would glory in all.

[chef_chocobro]

And that fact that she recognized that, or, at the very least, could acknowledge it, even if only just to herself...

Ignis smiled softly, pushed out with a small huff. "Prompto and Gladio," he said, "as much as I respect and care for them both, are hardly known to be purveyors of good taste, my love. And that is why I am, unrelentingly>/i> yours. Because I cannot comprehend how anyone could do anything but glory in you."

Was it a bit hyperbolic? Perhaps. There was no shortage of rather unglorious things about Liliana, to be sure, but what were pebbles to towering mountains?

"Ever since I first met you," he said, with an unexpected tightness forming in his chest, making the words come out slightly tighter, slightly more desperate in its longing, "I knew how deeply I desired to glory in as much of you as I possibly could, Liliana."

[deathsmajesty]

She had long accepted it; it was one of the reasons she worried about the longevity. There was more than one place where the name Liliana Vess was synonymous with 'atrocity.' And, also, she had a terrible habit of not eating.

Ignis was the one who eschewed words whenever possible, Liliana delighted in them. But she heard that desperation, that longing, even now that he had her...She kissed him then, in lieu of words. Kissed him deep and long and slow and sure, lips promising him a lifetime of glorying if he wished it.

And when she finally pulled away, it was to say something, but only one word.

"Yours."