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Luke's Diner; Tuesday [08/26].

Ignis had to admit: some of his favorite days here at the diner were the days when he came in to discover that there was an influx in a certain ingredient, be it by ordering blunder or random chance, because there were few things he enjoyed quite as much as turning cooking into a puzzle to be solved. To take a particular ingredient and figure out interesting ways to come up with new recipehs and try different things. Or stick to improving classic staples. Or take something familiar and turn it just a little one way or another.

The challenge was fun, and the results were usually exceptional, and so, with that, once he'd gotten his coffee made, he settled in to figure out some new and interesting ways to bring miso, specifically, to the specials board today.

It helped, as well, that he'd had a very productive weekend filled with promising prospective for the new Ravnica property filled with robust negotiations...and excellent kitchen spaces.

Today's Specials

Honey Miso Chicken with Delicata Squash
Miso Sesame Soba Noodles
Miso Coffee Caramel Brownies

Luke's is open!

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'Negotiations,' huh? Was that what the kids were calling it these days?

"Oh Iiiiigniiis," Liliana called as she swanned in through the door. Her grin was as audible as it was bright, she had that particular kind of airy lightness that she got when she was Up To Something™️. "On a scale of one to ten, my darling, how industrious are you feeling today?"

Yes, that amount of Is in his name was always an instant flag of brilliant suspicion when it reached Ignis' ears, especially when falling from certain people's mouths. But this suspicion was far more complicated than just mere caution, because it came with an additional side of sharpened intrigue almost powerful enough to defeat that suspicion for dominance.

Luckily, they both could have their place, just as he would take his place at her side. His hand at its place against her waist. His lips at their place against hers, and lingering there not just to delay the inevitable but also because it was always so difficult to draw away.

"I would say an 8.5," he reported with confidence. "Highly productive with the charge of creati ity behind it thanks to an excess of miso, but still room for improvement on the overall scale of importance and impact. Why do you ask?"

A grin, then, after all of that, and the familiar drop in his tone with his lips vrusjed against her throat.

"Is there something in need of doing?"

Genuine excitement for some task? Or flirtatious nudge at innuendo?

Yes.

"Oh, you'd better believe there is," Liliana said, Ignis feeling those words as much as hearing them. Could it still count as innuendo when the promise in her voice was this blatant? "But I have, you see, come to see whether or not I can play merry havoc upon your duty and diligence. Do try to contain your disappointment, my darling, when I give you the sad news that I come not with a task, but with a gift."

"Mmm."

Liliana had, of course, heart that spind, that soft yet ever expressive grunt, from Ignis many, many times, in a variety of slightly different intonation, though this was one of the rarer ones that failed in her directive with faint though undeniable lilt of dismay. All for show, of course, but...

...well, mostly for show.

"A task," he informed her, "is often a gift, my love, but I can tell that, in this instance, they are not one in the same, are they? Is there even a special occasion?"

But for someone so quick to disparage the idea, he did sound terribly amused about it nonetheless.

"A task is a chore, not a gift," Liliana sniffer. "And no, of course there isn't. I simply had an idea and needed to work on it to make it a reality."

She took one of his hands - his right, even though she had been showing a marked preference for his left as of late, but then, he was a right hand reader - and brought it up to where she had pulled this mysterious gift from her pocket. It was a small book, bound in buttery-smooth leather and embossed with constellations. There was a title, metal rivets cunningly attached to the front cover, but Ignis had only gotten as far as Undyi-- before she was pulling the book away again.

"Though it seems like you're uninterested..."

"Perish the thought," Ignis said, and his hand, with its fingers still curled on the ghostly remainder of that unfinished word, reached out to stop herself, quick but gentle, wrapping around her wrist with his thumb brushing softly against her pulse there. "Nothing you ever say or do would ever be uninteresting, 'Iana. That's be impossible. It's merely that you know..." What his eyes could not do in holding her gaze, his voice and the circles of his thumb were certainly trying to make up for it, "...how much easier it for me to accept things if they're well-earned. And I did warn you," yes, warn, a word chosen with a smirk, "about my industriousness today."

Which seemed to have gone up nicely to a 9, if the kiss that followed was to be considered in that guage.

....9.5, even.

She was excited to see what it would spike to once he got his hands on that book.

Which she would absolutely get back to in a moment; first, though, she had to twine her arms over his shoulders, pull him flush against her, and let him kiss her with the fervor of a man who had long since learned to blend passion onto industry and make a lifetime vocation of it.

"Perhaps I should wait to give it to you," she said with a soft laugh, barely a breath away from his mouth. "I'm interested in seeing what effect it could have on you even when something else has your focus."

She slipped the book back into his hand. "Make me something complicated," she murmured, giving him another kiss. "Well. As complicated as your industriousness leads you to be, hmm?"

"Complicated, then, is it?" Ignis asked, and, with thr book now in his possession again, he could feel his fingertips itching for the remainder of those rivets. But they would content themselves with just luxuriating in the already known feel of the leather, for now, while his mind turned over ideas and options, most of them tumbling over two very specific ingredients, and he grinned, a certain spark to it that would be right at home in his eyes were they not burned out.

"So be it," he said, and as he kissed Liliana again, he pressed the book right back into her own hand.

"We'll save that," he declared, voice bordering on an almost giddy eagerness, "for later. When it's finished. And in the meantime, pray that complicated doesn't necessarily equate to time-consuming."

One more long, lingering, bolstering sort of kiss, then, before he would try and pull himself away to the kitchen to get started.

Liliana thought about pulling him back, about explaining the point of surprising him with it here, and now, was to enjoy watching the battle between his work ethic and his (hoped for) reaction to her gift, but that joyful sparkle too brilliant to be affected by mere blindness, that giddy enthusiasm, had her letting it go. Better the surprise that gave him joy than the one she'd imagined for him, no?

Though he was getting distressingly good at stymieing her surprises without even trying.

"I'm not much one for praying anymore," she said instead, since she knew Ignis would have heard the inhale that meant she'd been about to speak, "but I suppose I can remember the forms. Go on, my darling. After all, I'm...hungry."

Ah, but a challenge, darling, and a chance to earn a prize that he was already delighted by for the merits of it existing, for the surprise, that Liliana had worked on it? Of course, he was dying to know more, to have it in his hands again, to know what the rest read, but now, to build just that small bit of anticipation...

"I won't be long," he said. "I promise."

And, indeed, it wasn't that long at all before he emerged again after leaving for the kitchen, looking smug now as well as excited as he presented a plate, bringing it over to their booth where he had no doubt she'd taken up residence in the meantime: a French toast filled with peanut butter and a strawberry rhubarb jam, with a side of bacon as close to a candied bacon as he could managed with a little of that extra jam and some chili oil to give it a slight heat to balance the sweetness of the dish. A little fresh fruit to compliment, a cup of tea, and...

"There," he said, leaning in not just to place down the food but to deliver it with a kiss as well, and, yes, there was smugness over the accomplishment there, but also a pleased sense of pride and contentment, a satisfaction in the work. "Now we both have something to enjoy digging into."

And, without further ado, he opened his hand for the book, the slight twitch of his thumb betraying his otherwise restrained facade

"You ridiculous man," Liliana teased, as if he were not about to realize how ridiculous she was in return. "You shall have to indulge my curiosity by telling me how your industry would have fared with this in hand."

The full title was 'Undying Flame's and the first page simply said, Little things I found that reminded me of us. Feel free to add if you wish., almost like a dedication. It had started life as a blank book, and what followed were pages upon pages of quotes, poems, song lyrics, and snippets of text that Liliana had found in various places and painstakingly copied in to the book in Braille. Some were sweet, some funny, some were filthy, some hinted at a vulnerability that Liliana could not bring herself to admit to aloud, some read like Ignis himself had written them. There were well over a hundred in there already, with plenty of blank pages remaining for the addition of more.

The soft smile on Ignis's face grew when his fingers swept over the words on the cover and moved onto the first page. And it wasn't necessarily anything in particular on any of the pages beyond that caught him the most as he briefly scanned through some of their content, but the fact that there were so many. Every time he turned a page after a certain point, there was a small, surprised thrill to find even more, and when he realized he likely wouldn't be reaching the end without making Liliana wait even more for his response...

"If you had not absconded this," he said, "if this had been in my hand, then I'm afraid you'd have surely spend the rest of the day starving."

She wouldn't, of course. He have never actually have stood for that. But it was likely going to be quite some time before she got to her meal currently, because Ignis had no intention to do anything but pull Liliana closer to him to kiss her for a good, long while.

"I would have feasted upon the satisfaction of watching you fight yourself to keep working, versus pausing to read another small passage or two, and how each one would join the aggressive campaign against your diligence and determination," she said with a laugh, some amount of time (and some amount of kisses) later. "Little amuse-bouches to whet your own appetite."

"As if I weren't insatiably ravenous enough to begin with," Ignis murmured, burying his face into her shoulder, her hair, her neck. And though the urge to read more was strong, the need for his fingers to read her instead utterly demolished it. After all, there would be time enough to spend pouring over it, to waste for too many hours lingering and reveling in each one, to have her read some to him, just for the merits of hearing those words in her voice.

Darling, how could that time ever be a waste?

"As if I would let a little thing like that that stop me," Liliana replied with a laugh, shifting over to sit in his lap, one hand drifting up to play with the back of his neck, drawing cold patterns along his skin. "Not until I've claimed your every need for my own. Until you hunger for me, thirst for me, eschew the very air just to breathe me in..." She leaned in for another kiss, whispering, "Surrender" against his lips before meeting them with her own.

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Luke's Diner; Tuesday [08/26].

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