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Infinite Consortium, Monday

From the fuss the chair and the armor made at her reappearance, one would think Liliana had been gone for months rather than a few weeks. And, truth be told, it made her feel decidedly odd. On the one hand, yes, of course she should be adored and missed. On the other hand, her underlings - which these most certainly were - ought to be properly terrified of her and should have seen her absence as an escape.

Was she losing her touch? Was she becoming...nice?

Wonderful. A small identity crisis to deal with on a Monday. Just what she always wanted.

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What? Was Ignis suggesting that living amongst vampires and necromancers and liches on Innistrad was not an environment that lent itself to warmth and kindness?

"Because I'm starting to think that the misapprehension that I am nice is growing and that displeases me," Liliana declared. "I shall have to think of some way to properly combat it."

Was that a faint twitch, in the corner of Ignis' mouth?

Perish the thought. Must have been a trick of the light. Or perhaps some anticipation of the arancini he was about to pluck up.

"Might I suggest," he mused, "you get started right away, then, to better staunch any further spread of this infection in progress? Perhaps this week, loudly criticize everyone's menu choices at Supper Club? And I suppose our lavish parties must now sadly come to an end. Everyone does love those, which no doubt is only contributing to the problem..."

Liliana glared at him. Don't be cute, Ignis. "I don't mind being charming and enjoyable," she said. "That's different than nice. The chair and the armor missed me. That's preposterous."

Nobody at Supper Club had missed her!

Correction: no one had said they'd missed her. The exclusion did not necessitate a fact.

"And are we quite certain," Ignis drawled, arching a brow at her, "that this doesn't merely exhibit a preference, considering the alternative for company in your absence?"

Because, really, now, if it was down to her and Dean Winchester...

Okay, he was making an excellent point there--the one about Dean, not Supper Club.

"I suppose I can't argue that," she said, tugging him in to reward him with another kiss for his mastery of logic.

"...How are you feeling about your incipient conversation with Gladio and Prompto?" she murmured when she finally pulled away.

"Oh, so that's how goes, is it?" asked Ignis,after his own moment of impeding his own response with another kiss, fingers drifting lightly down her cheek and unable to hold back the soft smile of his face any longer. "I start making good points, and so we change the subject?"

But actually answering it chased the smile back again, replacing it with a small furrow of consternation between his brows that worked in contrast with his words.

"And I'm feeling quite good about it, really," he said. "I have, after all, been preparing to have this conversation for quite some time. I'm..." Again, the pause seemed in conflict with the words. "...sure they'll understand."

"If I cannot win the current game, change the rules," Liliana said with a soft laugh and another kiss. "Surely you cannot fault me there."

"Regardless of whether or not they understand, they will certainly come around to it in time," she murmured, fingers stroking over his face again. "They love you too much to not."

...It would almost certainly add to Beefslab's list of grievances towards her, but Liliana was supremely unfussed about that possibility. Prompto might also start giving her sad puppy eyes more, but she was also confident in her ability to ignore those.

"I absolutely can and will fault you there," Ignis insisted, nudging away the ghost of a chess game from his mind, "and I daresay," his next kiss came with a small but well deserved nip, "it's hardly very nice of you, either, 'Iana."

But again, his smile was fleeting, retreating back into the weight of what he faced this weekend, and for all his efforts to exude confidence about that matter, that one gnawing bit of doubt in him managed to sink its teeth into him with a voracious hunger for how small a beast it was. But those cool fingers against his face helped, and he leaned into them a little, turning his head to kiss their soothing tips as well, bringing his hand up to cradle hers.

He tried that soft smile again.

"Hopefully not too much time," he said. "For their sakes more than mine, of course."

And those puppy eyes could be rather powerful, Liliana. Best not underestimate them!

Confident in her ability!

"They will have so much less of it than you do," she agreed, understanding his meaning immediately. "But you have been bound together by too much - and shared too many losses - for them to be so careless. Especially if you are able to get them to understand the few ways in which you will be changed versus the many ways that you will not."

She helped herself to a few of the seafood bites. "You never did say who you'd planned to ask."

"Well, I'm still working on that," Ignis said, with a faint huff, as if taking personal indignity over that particular lack of progress. "And now, with everything that's happened..."

He sighed, and began to reach for a bite of the fudge, but then seemed to change his mind and redirect toward the short ribs.

"There's a good chance that the bulk of my research thus far could be rendered completely unhelpful now. The dynamic between the clans...or, rather, whatever is even left of them is shifting, but the good news is that it will be prime time to ride the tide of Emrakul's to my own advantage. If I hope to get in well with any of them, I'll find no better moment. I suspect I have a good deal of work ahead of me..."

He chewed a moment, swallowed, brushed a bit of phantom sauce that wasn't there from the corner of his mouth with his thumb.

"Would you..." he ventured, quite a bit softer, "....have any preferences?"

Then, the smile returning, with ease. "Besides, of course, the obvious opinions."

But if she did want to snag this opportunity to just rant for a while about Olivia Voldaren, Ignis certainly wouldn't object.

"Olivia would be the easiest, especially since I'm certain her brood got decimated, but she's not allowed to claim you," Liliana said with a sniff. "She'd be entirely too graspy about it. She might say she'd be willing to do it as a favor, but I know better than to think she'd ever truly remove her fangs from your throat."

Mostly speaking metaphorically. Mostly.

"I shall never forgive you if you become a Domnathi," she added. "There must be an equivalent Eosian saying about lying down with wargs and waking up with fleas and that's no less true when we're talking about demons." She sneered. "Also, I'll never not be able to call your sire a cow to her face and that will probably be a point of contention between the two of you. The Falkenraths are basically barbarians and the Maurers are brutality in a nice shirt. Piotr would have been perfect and Runo remains my preference, and he, like Olivia, is likely interested in replenishing his ranks."

Too bad Runo had once again fucked off into the sea to try to find the old god he'd once worshipped now that Avacyn was gone.

"Did Kristoff have any suggestions?" A pause. "Are you thinking Kristoff...?"

"Kristoff," Ignis said, "is not an option."

That agreement had been abundantly clear right from the get-go, without either of them having actually discussed the matter directly. Because it didn't need to be discussed; it was intrinsically understood.

"And he, in true, respectable fashion, has done his part to remain as impartial as possible. His professionalism is truly astonishing. Inspiring, really. And while I do feel I've noticed quite a good deal of suggestion and opinion in some of our discussions, I feel it would be a disservice to him to speculate too deeply on them.

"I suppose," he ventured, "what I'm trying to pin down is essentially the least amount of investment. A one-time transaction,and then respected enough to be left to my own devices, with minimal opportunity for this favor to come back around down the line to call. Another reason I hope to help with what I can in the reconstruction. Wouldn't it be convenient and ideal, if it turned out they were the ones owing me the favor, and not the other way around?"

"You will need to accrue a very large debt if that is the case," Liliana said. "Progenitors don't like to let go of their scions easily; the size of their bloodline is often just as much a powerplay as anything else."

And surely Ignis was going to go for a progenitor. Or, at the very least, as low a generation as he could possibly get.

"Though I suppose it makes sense for Kristoff to refuse, considering the circumstances of his turning. If I remember correctly, Florian Voldaren insisted that Runo send the fledgling that turned him to the Bloodless Wall in Thraben as punishment. He was worried Kristoff would quit his business out of anger and spite."

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Infinite Consortium, Monday

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