#and luring instead of hunting down happens with lucy too

[thegoatsongs]

The June 18 entry makes me realize how hunting to consume life happens through luring.

The old Count in a letter where he addresses Jonathan as "My friend", lures Jonathan into his house with the enticing job offer, and traps him in, to be kept in a tight space for a time until he's ready to be fed on. To renew his youth, to live and keep feeding on life.

Renfield does the same with the animals. He puts sugar on the threshold of his window so flies can be lured in his cell, keep them for a while, until they are ready to be consumed (and then the spiders that eat flies, and so on). To negate the effects of aging, to live and keep feeding on life. Zoophagous means life-eater (ζωή+ -φαγία)

[secret-engima]

(Whispers) FFXV ten years younger AU; Noctis is like, 10yrs younger than C!Noct. How do you think that would work out???

HGFDSDHGFDS WAIT WAIT WAIT.

I’M CONFUSED.

Do you mean that Noctis is BORN ten years later and the plot still kicks off? Or that Noctis time-travels and ends up ten years younger. I’m gonna assume you mean the former so here we go. I’m sticking this under read more because I am going to RAMBLE LIKE CRAZY.

-The wedding is not a thing. Because Noctis is TEN.

-It is quite possible that he never got attacked by the Marilith, because by the time he was eight, Tenenbrae might have already been invaded.

-That or the invasion was delayed until Noctis got there, which means Luna would be 22 when she meets Noctis and Ravus is 26 so both are WAY more mature and comfortable in their own skin/morals by the time the invasion happens. Ravus does not beg Regis for help but instead helps with the evacuation, Luna is not dumb enough to stop and let the MTs take her, Sylva may or may not still die, but at least she doesn’t take a flame-thrower to the face (might still get stabbed by Glauca).

-Also Gladio is there because he’s like- 21 at this section of timeline and has taken his Crownsguard oaths. Ignis is there too.

-Imma go with my petty side and say that with two adult oracles, an adult Ravus (who was no doubt trained to be a deadly guardian of his sister), a Very Angry Gladio, and a semi-homicidal and reckless Ignis, Glauca has a Bad Day. Maybe dies, maybe not.

-Luna and Ravus escape with teeny Noct and Regis and take sanctuary in Lucis and denounce the Nifs for what they’ve done (Sylva too if she isn’t dead? Which she might be) and the world goes on something of a mass riot because the reason they didn’t attack the Oracles before was for fear of what the public would do if they found out.

-They’re called consequences you morons. You poisoned your cake now eat it.

-Luna and Nyx are a thing. Because Noctis is way too young to even consider it and Nyx finds this feisty Oracle woman who demands to be trained in the glaive with her brother to be Really Hot.

-Luna becomes the Glaive healer, using the Kingsglaive’s movements to disguise her own from the empire so she can still help people.

-If Glauca is still alive, he Glauca tries something as Titus and is murdered by one very angry Luna and one Super Angry Ravus who now has LC magic on top of whatever brand of magic male Nox Fleuret can use (yes I know oracle magic is a girl only thing but MAGIC, the boy has to get something even if its not healing based) because he joined the Kingsglaive.

-Ravus maybe becomes the new Captain of the Glaive? Either him, Nyx, Libertus, or Luche, who is not a traitor because I’ve grown to like him.

-Noctis loves his Shield and his Oracle Sister and Big Brother Ravus, Luna can feel destiny bearing down on them and often cries in private because Noctis is TEN.

-With the world rioting in fury over the truth of what happened in Tenebrae (which I HC in canon was never leaked because the two royals were being held hostage and the Tenebraen people either didn’t know or where being blackmailed into silence with the lives of their beloved royal children), the Nifs take some serious damage to their power base.

-Nifs offer a ceasefire with Lucis to begin “making reparations” with the Tenebrae line and Lucis two years after the invasion.

-Regis smells a rat.

-The rat looks like Ardyn.

-Still, he DOES have little choice but to accept, BUT with the Oracle’s healing and the world public on his side, Regis has way more leverage in this treaty, demands territories be returned and stuff (Galahd included).

-Nifs agree to the terms and come for the signing, Regis doesn’t send Noctis out of the city because as bad as his feelings are, Noctis is TEN and Ignis and Gladio are just young adults.

-The Nifs still pull their invasion nonsense because- well- NIFLHEIM. The Emperor is pretty power mad at this point and is like “if we crush Lucis the dissenters will shut up out of fear”.

-It’s pretty intense. Fire everywhere, traitors making trouble (NOT in the glaive, the Glaive were lured out of the city with leaked reports of a fleet to get them out of the way, it’s corrupt Nobles and disgruntled citizens that do this).

-Without Glauca there, Regis doesn’t die, but he DOES probably get injured and separated from his son, whom Ignis and Gladio take and flee the Citadel, trying to escape the chaos.

-In the chaos of trying to flee the city, they bump into a rookie Crownsguard who just took his oath like- a WEEK ago and he helps them evacuate the prince with his crack shot aiming skills and his knowledge of the city’s back streets (”I like to take photos of the alley cats okay????”)

-The four end up outside the city, separated from all backup, in a hotwired car that Ignis took (”Since when do YOU know how to hotwire a car?” “Since I thought the skill might come in handy now shut up and watch the road”).

-Insomnia doesn’t fall, but the Empire is freaking stubborn and starts a siege or something, so the bros can’t get back in, and since they encountered some Crownsguard traitors in the chaos so they don’t trust anyone outside their foursome and they’re being actively hunted by the Empire ... 

-Who’s up for a road trip?

-Also Regis probably thinks Noctis is dead because Angst and is furious beyond words and Luna smuggles herself out of the city to go wake up the Astrals and ask what to do now only to find out from a really vague Gentiana that the Chosen Lives so she’s off doing that solo adventure playing Hot-Cold with the bros as they run around trying not to get spotted by Nifs and figuring out WHAT TO DO. HELP.

(and this is the point where I could either make this a horrible tragedy about child kings and sacrificial lambs but I hate sad endings so I won’t so have some crack-flavored Fluff instead)

-Cor smuggles himself out to join the search but Ignis is doing his job a little Too Well so nobody can find these bros as they run around and Noctis ends up befriending Titan through the sheer power of his Cute and then Ramuh comes down to see because the Chosen isn’t old enough to take on his destiny except oh look. BBY. and his Granddadly instincts are roused for the first time in Millenia and so now the group has a doting Grandpa showing up at random to give advice and Smite People.

-Noctis continues to befriend just about Anything That Breathes as Big Bro Gladio, Brother Ignis, and his new Brother Prompto cart him around the wilderness of Lucis trying to figure out how to get safely back in Insomnia when there is a siege happening (the Siege is keeping the Glaives busy btw, which is why they aren’t out in force looking for Noctis).

-At one point Noctis gets separated from his bros in like- Lestallum or something and is wandering around freaking out when he bumps into someone. “Sorry,” he sniffles, trying hard to be dignified but also is so close to crying. The figure turns and ... looks at him. He doesn’t like that look.

-Noctis, who has been repeatedly told that he is in danger and needs to keep a low profile, starts to duck away from the man, afraid of being spotted, but then the man is in front of him, blocking his way and there are no other people around and Noctis is shaking and terrified, magic sparking under his skin as the man REACHES for him with a leer- and Noctis sobs and his magic reaches out instinctively in search of help-someone-please-PLEASE-

-A sword goes through the man’s chest, pinning him to the wall and suddenly there is a stranger there. A stranger with crackling, snapping magic that coils around Noctis, old and deadly and wounded but not- not evil. The new stranger turns and looks at Noctis, something cold and confused in his gaze, and maybe Noctis should be terrified of this man with red hair and tacky clothes and what looks like black makeup that’s all runny like he’s gotten it wet or been crying, but all Noctis can think is that someone rescued him, someone is HERE and that man has magic just like Noctis so he must be safe and-

-Ardyn feels like the wind has been knocked out of him less because of a scrawny ten year old cannoning into his waist in a desperate sobbing hug and more because- because-

-He hadn’t expected the Chosen to be a child.

-He had known, conceptually, that Regis’s son was very young but that- that was different from seeing it. From feeling young, immature magic latch onto his in desperation and needy trust and looking down at this tiny child who was already sobbing his heart out into the waistcoat of a MONSTER.

-The Chosen King is a child.

-And Ardyn can already feel two Covenants burning under the boy’s skin.

-The Astrals mean to make a CHILD their sacrifice? They will not even wait until he is grown?

-And Ardyn is not ... sane really, but no matter what he tells himself he still has standards and underneath the screaming of the scourge the old Healer King, the older brother who did more to raise his sibling than their father ever did, rears its head and snarls NO.

-Gladio, Ignis, and Prompto, who are all losing their minds over getting separated from Noctis, find him sniffling but content on the hip of a strange hobo-like man who smiles false smiles and says nothing with a great deal of words and somehow inserts himself into their group and never leaves. Noctis doesn’t WANT him to leave and the three are terribly astonished when Noctis blurts out that this poor man is sick and has magic like Noctis, but his sickness makes him tired and cranky.

-Ardyn is trying not to laugh to the point of tears over such a SIMPLE explanation of the Starscourge.

-Anyway to make an already stupid long ramble shorter, Noctis cutes his way to victory by melting the heart of the Accursed into going “Mine. My Nephew Now.” The Empire overreaches and gets it’s back broken by mass riots and Lucis’s defense and Altissia and Tenebrae both rising up in a bid for freedom, Ardyn gets medical help from a Very Confused Luna and they end up curing the Starscourge through the Power of Cute and the Power of Spite (aka Noctis and Ardyn) and then come back to Insomnia with a defected chancellor in tow who is now fully cured and mostly sane again and utterly devoted to his cute nephew.

-Regis is too grateful at finding his son alive and well despite prophecy to really care about the ex-Chancellor happily passing Noctis candy under Ignis’s exasperated eye every time Noctis looks the slightest bit Cuter than Normal.

[ignis-scientia-estrogen-brigade]

For some reason Tumblr is being a buttmunch isn’t showing the proper chapter number in the link above, but I have tested it myself and can guarantee that it does, in fact, lead to the final chapter of my ongoing Blind!Ignis fic, Memory Lane and Pastries.

If you’ve been following along with the promises I’ve made thus far, then yOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS HUEHUEHUE ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[ISEB Author’s Note: It means Ignis gets nekkid. Very, very nekkid.]

I won’t bore you with the details of what was going through my mind when I wrote it, but I will say that it’s another long, rambling story, so feel free to skip ahead to the steamy bits if your eyes start glazing over. I meant to do this last time, but I’m going to go ahead and tag a few peeps who I know might be interested: @thirdstreetcettin, @fencrocks, @roses-and-oceans, @atarostarling why u no let me tag you (´༎ຶོρ༎ຶོ`), @sweetchocobae, @emeraldlatias, @sailorwiggle, @saurgristiel, @diadyn wat u too (´༎ຶོρ༎ຶོ`), @chocobroobsession, @jellybabiestomanual cmon now (´༎ຶོρ༎ຶོ`), @ardorminerva wtf tumblr (´༎ຶོρ༎ຶོ`), @lunar-magnolia, @herondalcarstairs Lastly, I just want to mention that although this is the last chapter of Memory Lane and Pastries, the whole reason I wrote it was to establish an OC in that time frame, so that I may revisit Ignis and Ophelia in future one-shots. I’m going to make a separate post about my plans for the next week, but I do look forward to entertaining people again with my longer fics in the future!

(Abso-fucking-lutely NSFW; Click on the link above or the cut below for the full text of Chapter 5.)

“Tell me more about that Karlabos.”

“Hm?”

“You know—the one that supposedly murdered your mother. Did you ever manage to take your revenge?”

“Ah.” A smile touches the strategist’s lips as they round the usual corner of the alleyway leading back to his apartment. “As a matter of fact, I did.”

“Well? Don’t leave me in suspense.”

Ophelia’s fingers find his and she squeezes his hand teasingly. “My friends and I confronted the colossal beast on a shore overlooking Cape Caem some years ago,” he says. “We’d been sent on a quest to dispose of a Dread Behemoth that had been terrorizing the locals, and there he was—hiding like a coward behind his fellow monstrosity and taunting me with those beady black eyes of his.”

“Did he give you any trouble?”

“Not nearly as much as the prince did. Noct evidently had worse eyesight than me, because I couldn’t take two steps without having my feet frozen to the ground, no thanks to his poorly aimed Blizzaga spells.”

“I presume you were victorious, seeing as how you’re still alive to tell the tale.”

“Indeed. Can’t say it was worth the effort, though—we couldn’t even enjoy a nice lobster meal afterward, since whatever the creature had gained it size, it had seemingly lost in flavor.”

His heart skips a wayward beat when her fingers slip from his hand and move to rest at the small of his back. “I saw a Karlabos, once,” she says, her voice thoughtful. “At the monster arena in Altissia. What was that place called?”

“Totomostro—also known as the gambling addiction I never knew I had. And before you ask, I’d rather not talk about it.”

Her laughs are carried by the breeze as they halt at the front steps of his apartment. “It’s likely your own fault for losing money. You should know you’re always supposed to bet on the Spiny Speedsters.”

“An error in judgment, to be sure,” he says, as her arms slowly encircle his waist. “Maybe my luck will start to look up from here on out.”

“I’d say it already has.”

He then feels her soft lips brush against his, just as he had felt them touching his own every night after work for the last three weeks; it was getting easier for him to show his affection for her in public, the anxiety of being spotted by perfect strangers growing less and less insistent with each passing day, and the weight of the pendant against his neck hadn’t bothered him in quite some time.

It’s a chaste kiss, nothing terribly overt or ambitious, and it’s over nearly as quickly as it had begun. But he can’t fully bring himself to let go of her this time, not tonight, not like he could before, because the warmth of her body beneath her cardigan pressing against his chest was as addicting as the lure of ten-to-one Totomostro odds, and Ignis had almost forgotten what it was like not to feel so completely and utterly alone.

“Would you care to come inside for a moment?” he asks, scrambling for any excuse that would stay her departure for even one minute more. “I wouldn’t dream of forcing a cup of Ebony on you, but I did make some pastries the other day that could use a proper taste test.”

“I’ll pass on the coffee,” she demurs, “but I suppose I am a bit curious to see how well your baking skills stack up to mine.”

So she drops her hands from his waist, and the strategist’s heart cries out only a little at the travesty before he returns his attention to fishing his keys from his pocket. When he’s managed to finally open the stubborn door—‘stubborn’ in the sense that it wouldn’t open under its own free will when his nervous fingers couldn’t seem to find the correct key—he climbs the narrow stairwell leading to the unit two floors up, Ophelia’s footfalls echoing lightly behind him.

Another ‘stubborn’ door later, and he is stepping into the foyer of his apartment and showing her in. The strategist had never actually seen what the inside of his own home looked like, but he’d signed the lease solely based on the layout; the custom built cabinetry was spacious enough to accommodate his extensive collection of cooking utensils, and the open design of the kitchen flowing into the living area helped him to avoid walking headfirst into any unnecessary walls.

He flips a light switch and hangs his keys on a hook he knows is eye-level and exactly eighteen inches to the right of the front door, listening intently as Ophelia strolls into the space. “This is nice,” she says. “Quite comfortable, all things considered.”

He then moves into the kitchen, frowning slightly as he reaches for a clean plate. “All things considered?”

“One generally doesn’t list ‘bright neon lights encroaching on the living room’ as a must-have when apartment hunting.”

Ignis had almost forgotten about the supposed view from his flat; he’d saved a fortune by renting out this particular unit rather than a west-facing one, since his landlord had struggled to find potential tenants who would be unbothered by the bright EXINERIS Industries sign that glowed annoyingly just beyond his easternmost window. “One of the few perks of being blind,” he comments. “It also helps to save money on electrical, since I don’t even have to use the overhead lights when I’m home alone.”

“I was wondering if I might ask you about that.” A gentle creak echoes from the living room as she makes herself comfortable on a leather sofa. “How long precisely did it take you to regain your mobility after you lost your sight? I’ve seen you prepare complex dishes that someone with four working eyes and six arms couldn’t even manage.”

He retrieves a set of tongs hanging above the sink and opens the refrigerator door. “A couple of years, I suppose. Never underestimate the power of a strategist with an obstinate streak.”

“That’s what they call you, right? I’ve seen it in the newspapers—‘Ignis Scientia, also known as The Strategist’.”

“That’s what they used to call me. About the only strategies I work out nowadays is how best to satisfy Cid’s sweet tooth without having to go out and harvest Ulwaat berries myself.” He selects a pastry off the upper shelf of the fridge, then strides into the living room and stops at the sofa. “Speaking of, give this a try.”

“What is it?”

“Memory Lane Pastry—a Tenebraen specialty.”

The plate in his hand disappears. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it.”

“They were a favorite of the prince’s when he was recuperating there as a child,” he says, as he lowers himself onto the couch beside her. “I never could get the recipe quite to his liking, but he’s not exactly around to complain about it any longer.”

Either he is unable to entirely conceal the hint of sadness in his voice, or she is more perceptive than he initially gave her credit for; he hears her shift closer to him on the couch, followed by the sensation of her hand squeezing his knee. “I imagine you must miss him a great deal, considering the sacrifices you made for him.”

It was a different kind of pain, losing Noct; as he rests his arm along the back of the sofa, and his lips press together into a thin line, he concedes to himself that honor of serving the last king of Lucis in his final hours far outweighed the burden of sorrow he still carried on his shoulders. “I’ll spare you the grisly details of the time he drove the Regalia off the top of the Duscaean arches,” he says. “Go on—have a bite.”

She must have sensed his desire not to be bogged down by old memories, because she doesn’t press him for details, and instead removes her hand from his leg to focus on the dessert on her plate. It’s only when he hears her nibbling at the soft crust that he realizes he’d forgotten to set out some napkins; as he ruminates over the most polite and gentlemanly way of offering to lick any wayward crumbs off her lips with his tongue, his ears pick up on an audible gasp beside him.

“Are they to your liking?” he asks. “Or should I just set the contents of my kitchen on fire altogether?”

“These are delightful,” she breathes. “How on Eos have you been hiding these from me all this time?”

“They’re not particularly common in Lucis, although I did happen to learn my recipe from an establishment in Galdin Quay. Ulwaat berries inarguably make a superior filling, but they’re fairly hard to import unless you know exactly which merchant to talk to.”

He then hears her set the empty plate aside. “Really, Ignis—have you considered selling these for Mr. Tostwell? They’d certainly give my father’s Baklava pastry a run for its money.”

“I’m not really the competitive sort.” His nose wrinkles, and he pushes back on the lenses of his visor. “Besides, there’s something about capitalizing on nostalgia that doesn’t quite sit right with me. I suppose I’m getting a touch sentimental in my old age.”

“Come now, don’t be obtuse. You’re hardly old.”

“Maybe not, but these scars aren’t doing my features any favors.”

He suddenly feels her fingertips tracing over the lesion nestled above his right eyebrow. “I like your scars,” she says quietly. “More like marks of distinction, in service to the greater good.”

His spine begins to tingle under her gentle touch. “You are perhaps the only one who finds any measure of value in them.”

“Perhaps,” she echoes.

Her fingers then move to the bridge of his nose, pausing over the small scar there before drifting down his cheek. His mouth opens slightly when she glides a thumb across it; before he can sample the flavor of any powdered sugar still clinging to her skin, however, she removes her digit and replaces it with her soft lips.

He needn’t have worried about the sugar, he surmises, because she tastes like Ulwaat Berries and pastry crust and all the things that made her so delightfully sweet. His hand moves from its resting spot on the back of the sofa to sift through her hair and draw her in close, and he’s rewarded with the sensation of her tongue chasing after his. As the scent of her Sylleblossom perfume swirls in his nostrils and muddles his senses, the strategist yields to her playful probing and fronts his own sensual assault.

They’ve kissed before, but it was never like this; something about it was different, something wholly electrifying, and the nerve endings in his brain are firing impulses at light speed. He feels her palm slip under the collar of his dress shirt and caress the crook of his neck, but before he can reach up and entwine his fingers in hers, she ensnares his wrist and drags his hand down toward her thigh.

But a gentle leg caress evidently wasn’t what she was aiming for, because she doesn’t let go of his arm until she’s guided his hand several inches past the hem of her dress; an inkling of doubt worries away at the back of Ignis’ mind, and he withdraws from her slightly as he breaks their kiss.

The confusion in her voice is obvious. “Is this all right?”

He then retrieves his fingers from the edge of her undergarment and frowns. “Yes, of course.”

“So then, how long are you going to play the consummate gentlemen before you allow me to lead you into the bedroom?”

Her hand is still locked around his wrist; when she makes no move to release him, he gives up trying to extricate himself from her clutches and settles for resting it awkwardly on her knee. “I… don’t want you to think that’s why I invited you up here this evening.”

“I’m the one who’s offering, aren’t I?”

“Er—right.”

“Am I being too forward?”

She finally lets go of his arm, and he lets out a defeated sigh. “It’s not that. It’s just been a rather long time since I’ve been this intimate with anyone.”

“That makes no difference to me.”

“That’s kind of you to say, but, well—ah, you see—”

Scarcely anything was shameful enough to ruffle the strategist’s feathers and leave him at a total loss for words, but the matter of his own deficiencies was admittedly a source of embarrassment. “There is some lingering damage from the trauma I’ve sustained,” he says finally, pushing back on his visor again. “I couldn’t even tell you if the parts still worked properly.”

His remark isn’t precisely accurate, although there had been long stretches of years where Ignis had been unable to achieve anything remotely approaching rigidity between his legs. Just when he had begun to believe his impotence was yet another permanent reminder of the physical sacrifices he had made, however, he’d occasionally wake up in the middle of the night with an erection so painful and acute that the only source of relief he’d been able to find was by submerging himself in an icy cold shower and rubbing one out several times over. And while it had mercifully been several months since his last miserable episode, his body’s natural functions had proven to be more than a little erratic, to say the least.

Ophelia returns her hand to his arm, but it’s not to restrain him against his will, and instead she runs it gently across his shoulder. “There’s only one way to find out.”

He gnaws at the inside of his cheek and hesitates. “I would hate to leave you feeling disappointed, is all.”

“Ignis, you couldn’t disappoint me if you tried.” She then captures his face in her small hands, lowering her voice as she brushes her lips against his ear. “Now, are you going to follow me into your bedroom like a proper gentleman, or do I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you in there myself?”

He feigns a smile, but doesn’t immediately stand up when he feels her rise from the sofa—partly because he hadn’t expected for things to move so quickly and he wasn’t sure whether he was prepared to bare his broken body to her fully just yet, but mostly because he didn’t want to draw attention to the obvious tenting in his trousers—and it’s only when she begins to tug gently on his wrist that he swallows his reticence and gathers himself to his feet.

But she doesn’t promptly tackle the buttons of his shirt the instant they step foot into the bedroom, nor does she launch herself at him like a rabid Voretooth as her insinuation might’ve suggested; if anything, she seems entirely unhurried in her plot to assess his virility, and simply asks him to remove his shoes while she briefly excuses herself from the room.

“I’m going to freshen up a tad,” she says. “I’ll be just a moment.”

And then she’s gone, and he’s left with nothing but bare feet and a testy groin to distract him from the fears that are currently plaguing his thoughts. Leaping out a window seemed like a disproportionate response to an unusual dilemma, but he can feel the bulging in his pants already starting to soften; when the silence in the bedroom grows increasingly deafening in his ears, and he’s spent five whole minutes calculating the odds of surviving a fall from the nearest fire escape, his mind slowly begins to registers the smell of newly applied Sylleblossom perfume.

He then feels her hands snake around his waist from behind, and when he turns to face her, he discovers she’s removed the cardigan she was wearing earlier; the skin on her arms is soft and velvety smooth, the scent of her floral fragrance both mild on his delicate senses and wholly seductive to the primal part of his brain, and his reservations ebb somewhat when he traces his fingers along her shoulders and collarbone.

But a flicker of panic returns when her own fingers move to his face and touch the sides of his visor, and he seizes her wrists before she is able to fully remove it. “You may want to consider turning out the lights first,” he says. “For your own benefit—I wouldn’t want you to have to stare at my bare face all night.”

“I look forward to staring at your bare face all night,” she teases, brushing his hands aside. “In fact, I’m counting on it.”

There was a deep-seeded insecurity buried somewhere in the depths of the strategist’s psyche, the origins of which could be traced back to long before he had ever lost his sight. Corrective lenses or frosted visor, the absence of the comforting weight across the bridge of his nose made him feel altogether more naked and vulnerable than even the worst torture he had endured during the Hydraean catastrophe. So when Ophelia does finally remove his visor, and he hears the sound of her setting it carefully on the nightstand behind him, Ignis is unable to entirely quell the distress poisoning his insides; he remains paralyzed in place when she caresses his disfigured left eyelid, and it’s only after her hands finally fall from his face that he lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

But one anxiety is quickly replaced by another as she fingers the top button of his shirt. “There’s something you ought to know,” he whispers, grasping her by the wrists again to slow her progress. “My injuries, they—well, they’re not limited to my face.”

The strategist is beginning to think she is either braver than Bahamut or more reckless than the Infernian, because her only response to his warning is to touch her lips lightly to his mouth before resuming her efforts. His heart beats hard against his ribcage with each inch of his torso she exposes to air, until there’s nothing left for him to hide behind and she’s pushing his shirt down around his elbows.

She then runs a hand tentatively across the gruesome laceration that bisects him from shoulder to navel. “Does it hurt?” she asks.

He shakes his head wordlessly, and at the back of his mind he wonders how on Eos she is able to stomach the view as he feels her rake her teeth across his pectorals. He doesn’t have time to ponder the enigma for very long, however, because her mouth soon drifts to his right nipple, and the tongue she is circling it with is working wonders to distract him from his own self loathing. He briefly considers staging one last protest—his occluded eye is sensitive enough to note she had not turned the bedroom lights off when she went to remove his visor—but he abandons all argument when her hands drop to the waistband of his trousers.

She hadn’t show the slightest hint of doubt in her resolve until now, and it’s only when several moments pass without hearing the audible whir of his zipper being released that he notices her struggling with the notches of his belt. “Sorry,” she laughs. “It seems you aren’t the only one who’s been through a bit of a dry spell as of late.”

The tension in his chest eases a tad and he offers a her small smile, running his fingertips lightly along her arms until goosebumps appear on the skin there. When she finally manages to discard the stubborn piece of equipment, he feels her grip him gently by the forearm to steady him; he acknowledges her silent signal and steps out of his trousers, kicking them far enough away so as not to be a walking hazard on the path toward the bed.

For a moment, he isn’t quite sure what to do with himself; the mental picture he conjures of standing blind and nearly naked before her doesn’t exactly recall to mind the dignity and decorum of his former self. But she offers up her own answer to his conundrum by wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning into his embrace, and his cheeks warm slightly when he feels her hips pressing against the fabric of his briefs. The tightening there has resumed its arbitrary behavior and is now standing at embarrassingly full attention, but she doesn’t appear to care—the hands gliding down his buttocks being her only outward reaction to his uncontrollable prodding—so he simply enjoys the sensation of her small figure nestled comfortably against his torso before reaching around her back to finger the zipper of her dress.

It hadn’t felt like all that long ago when he was the one quieting the trembling hands of a nervous lover; the strategist of old had always been in control, his nerves seemingly tempered in steel, and there was a period in his life when he would’ve rather been publicly flogged than ever be caught dead showing the slightest sign of weakness. But Ignis Scientia isn’t the same man he was before, and its his own hands that are trembling now, and he bites back a curse as he fights with the leading hook that evidently required the use of an electron microscope to unfasten.

But then he does finally manage to unfasten it, and relief washes over him when the zipper mercifully comes undone without further issue. Ophelia steps away long enough for him to hear the sound of her dress pooling to the floor; he had tried never to get into the habit of resenting his circumstances, but he can’t quite help the bitterness he feels at being denied the rapture of gazing upon her figure with his own two eyes.

But he still has two hands, and she is seemingly well aware of this fact as well, because she guides him to sit on the edge of the bed before grasping his palms and placing them on either side of her waist. He flexes his fingers tentatively, only allowing them to make contact with parts that weren’t explicitly covered up by her undergarments—he finds the flesh of her belly is as delicate as silk and twice as smooth, while the taut muscles of her back ripple and yield as he draws his fingernails lightly down her spine—and he takes the opportunity to nuzzle his nose against the softest part of her neck when she moves to settle herself in his lap.

The wetness he can feel even even through her undergarment is positively tortuous against aching groin, but old habits die hard, and he chokes back the growl threatening to claw its way up his throat. He had always been a quiet lover, because he’d always preferred listening to melody of his partners’ ecstasy over the sound of his own ardor, and it was even more critical to him now that he relied so heavily on his hearing; as he grips her buttocks and angles his hips against her heat, he is rewarded with exactly the moan he was hoping to elicit from her.

So he allows her vocalizations to feed his inquisitiveness and finally lets his idle hands wander, teasing his fingers under the straps of her brassiere while his other hand circles around her torso to tackle the clasp at her back. His grip is steadier now, a little of his former confidence returning each time she presses her lips hungrily to his, and he feels her nails dig into the thickest part of his shoulders when he liberates her from the constricting garment; a moment later, and she’s arching her neck against his open mouth and drawing his hands to her chest to make her insistence known.

As much as he would’ve liked nothing more than to ravage her nipples with his tongue, however, her hips bucking hard against his erection is distracting him from the effort, so he shifts his weight and guides her to lay down on the bed beside him. A frustrated whine escapes her at not having her immediate desires fulfilled, but it’s soon replaced by a whispered gasp when he settles in between her legs and draws his teeth across her belly. His fingers slip under the waistband of the lace separating him from the last of her nakedness, but he doesn’t immediately tear them off in a fit of lust; stoking the flames of passion took time and patience, and although the strategist might’ve been a little out of practice, he had never forgotten the fundamentals of his basic training.

He can’t resist indulging in a smile when he feels her writhing beneath him, and he opens himself fully to the sensations his four other senses are currently experiencing all at once. The scent of her perfume swirls in the air around his nostrils each time he glides a hand across her breasts, his fingertips lingering at her nipples and pinching them lightly until they’ve grow hard against his unyielding touch, while her soft moans reverberate like an aria in his ears. It’s the way she tastes, however, that perhaps ignites his libido the most; the delectable flavor of her skin is a borderline aphrodisiac, and the hardening between his legs strengthens with every inch he comes to closer to stripping her of her panties.

But if he thought she’d immediately wrap her thighs around his neck like angry Malboro tentacles the instant he freed her from her underwear, he is sorely mistaken. “Ignis,” she says hoarsely, as he draws the lacy accoutrement down around her ankles. “Consider trading places with me for a moment. This was my idea, after all.”

He brushes his lips against the inside of her thighs before drawing them over each of his shoulders. “You wouldn’t deny a starving man a few bread crumbs, now would you?”

His desire to please her has less to do with wanting to oversee the direction of their activities, and more to do with logistics; the evening wouldn’t be a completely wasted effort if he could at the very least bring her to climax, in the likely event that his body eventually betrayed him. It helped that the single greatest joy the strategist generally took in life was the sampling of new, unexplored flavors, and he doesn’t waste any time burying his maimed face into the warmth of her flesh.

Every partner tasted a little different, but no more or less decadent than any other, and one of the perks of having a palate as sophisticated as his own was being able to distinguish the subtle nuances between each one. He feels her legs relax around his shoulders as he nuzzles her sensitive hood, and his mind picks apart the fragrances of her natural odors and Sylleblossom perfume much like he would if he were nosing a glass of fine wine. She flinches slightly when he presses a rough tongue against her folds, but he doesn’t yield or shy away; he probes onward instead, allowing her soft gasps to entice his exploration further.

Even if his better days were behind him, the strategist was always a man with a plan, and tonight is no different; as he settles into a measured pace with his tongue, and he feels her thighs finally begin to tighten around his shoulders, he moves to wrap a hand around the back of her knee; the artery there is close enough to the surface of the skin to detect the slightest fluctuations in her rising pulse—the human body surrendered all the knowledge a lover could possibly require in order activate a pleasurable release, if one were shrewd enough to know just how to decipher its secrets—and he slips his other hand between her legs and presses a finger inside of her, alternating the pressure on her nub between his thumb and his mouth.

His dedication to maintaining a methodical cadence quickly begins to yield positive results; he can hear her breath shortening in her lungs, the whimpers escaping her lips wavering in volume depending on the pressure he is bringing to bear against her hood. It may have been eons since his last intimate encounter with anyone, but the muscle memory is still there, and as she rakes her fingers through his tawny hair, he can feel her walls trembling with each of his deft caresses. He focuses most of his efforts on employing his tongue, but he can’t resist the urge to nibble gently at her hardening nub, and it takes all of his willpower not to ravage it altogether every time her gasps echo in his ears.

At the back of his mind, though, he knows he’s losing himself in the moment; he’d be of better service to her if he could rein himself in and extend her ecstasy for just a little longer, but the stalwart discipline that had defined the strategist in years past is in direct conflict with his selfish desire to hear his own name on her lips. Which is exactly what is on them right now, because his mouth is pressed hard against her sex, his tongue lashing back and forth against her quivering hood, and his fingers are buried to the knuckle in her warm and dripping fluids. The sharp tug of his hair being yanked on and the vice grip her legs now have over his neck seem only to heighten the fervor that is overtaking his senses, and he casts aside the last of his restraint in his unwavering mission to push her over the final edge.

“Ignis,” she whispers, her fingers nearly tearing his hair out. “Please, I—”

There was something wholly otherworldly about bringing a woman to orgasm; the way Ophelia’s body writhes beneath his touch without rhyme or reason and entirely of its own accord was a curious sight for any man to behold. But Ignis doesn’t immediately cease his ministrations the instant he feels her walls clench tightly around his fingers, and instead keeps his tongue pressed firmly against her nub as he carries her through each wave of her climax, until he feels the tension in his scalp and around his neck suddenly ease and her body grows still on the bed.

Only then does he grudgingly pry himself away from her warmth, running a cheek tenderly against her thigh before moving to rest beside her on the comforter. He feels her arms snake around his neck and draw him in close, and the only sound that can be heard for a long moment is her labored exhales and her heartbeat resuming a more measured pace inside her chest.

He then feels a finger brush the lock of hair that falls across his forehead. “If you ask me,” she says quietly, “I wouldn’t have said you were out of practice in the least.”

He smiles softly and runs a hand along her bare arm. “This retired strategist still has a few methods left at his disposal.”

“Care to let me show you some of my own methods?”

“Hm, maybe not. It’s getting rather late, and I’m feeling a bit tired.”

It’s a lie, and he knows it’s a lie, and he also knows that she knows it’s a lie; she guides him to roll over onto his back before pressing an open palm against the flesh that is still—mercifully—rigid between his legs. “Then perhaps you’d agree to lie back and let me do a bit of the legwork.”

She somehow manages to push his briefs down around his ankles before he even has time to object. “Really, Ophelia—it’s fine. You know how irritable Mr. Tostwell gets when any of his employees are late for wor—”

But his words are cut off by the sharp hiss that escapes his lungs when he feels the sensation of her tongue slowly circling the head of his shaft. It had been an eternity and a day since he’d exposed his manhood to anything other than ice water or his own calloused hand, and he bites down on the inside of his cheek so hard and so suddenly he can taste blood.

If he thought that would be the extent of her delightful torture, however, he quickly begins to realize the worst is yet to come; she was merely priming his equipment, evidently, because her mouth lingers on his aching cock only long enough to deposit a copious amount of saliva there before she is straddling his waist like an armored paladin and guiding him inside of her with a gentle hand.

The flavor of blood intensifies on his tongue as he bites down on the urge to scream; his eyes roll back against his closed eyelids and he arches himself against her heat, a warmth that is at once both comfortable and inviting yet so searingly hot it feels like he is quenching his flesh-and-blood sword in a vat of boiling liquid. His breath escapes him and he gasps for air, and it’s only when she presses a palm to his forehead that he is able to regain control over his senses—but only just a little, because she’s already beginning to rock her hips, and it takes everything in his power not to immediately fire his empty rounds inside of her right then and there. He gropes for her arms in an attempt to curtail her momentum—she isn’t even moving that fast, he concedes, but anything quicker than a snail’s pace would almost assuredly bring an abrupt and embarrassing end to the evening—and she responds to his flailing by leaning over his chest and pressing her mouth hard against his.

His fingers sift through her hair, and for a moment he forgets altogether that he is blind and broken and a bitter husk of his old self, because he can see her, somehow; maybe not with his eyes, but in his mind he can envision the lithe body that fits together with his like pieces of a puzzle, can hear the smile in her voice when she moans aloud, can feel the warmth and kindness emanating from every cell and fiber of her being, and Ignis doesn’t need the use of his sight to recognize it was undoubtedly the work of the Six that set her path on a collision course with his.

Heartwarming as the sentiments may be, however, they’re little help in the fight against the growing insistence in his loins; he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold fast against her jostling, and if he doesn’t take matters into his own hands soon, he might find out a little sooner than he prefers. So he slips a hand around her waist and takes firm hold, rolling her onto her back without disturbing the union of his cock buried deep within her cunt.

But being on top has its disadvantages, the strategist suddenly—and regretfully—surmises, because now she doesn’t have the annoying nuisance of the bed getting in the way of her legs. When he feels her ankles lock around his hips to accommodate his girth more fully, and the telltale sign of his own imminent climax pulses at the base of his pelvis, he forces himself to a halt.

“I’m sorry,” he pants, desperate to delay the inevitable. “I—give me just a moment, if you would.”

He feels her nose nuzzle his damp cheek, followed by the sensation of her lips pressing lightly against his own. He yields to her kiss in an effort to distract himself from his own hypersensitivity afflicting every inch of his flesh, but the fingernails she is dragging up his spine is causing the nerves in his lower back to tingle, and he lets out a frustrated growl as the carnal side of his brain wrenches free will away from the rational one.

His hips move without thinking, his thrusts growing more erratic as her hands find his fingers and entwine them with her own. There was a time in his life that being in control was the difference between life and death, and that losing firm grip over himself meant risking the safety and wellbeing of the people he loved; that time has long since passed, however, and not even the Knights of the Round could save him now, because the blood locked away in the hard tissues of his shaft have reached a saturation point, the hormones flooding his brain sending the appropriate signals to direct the proper flow of seminal fluid, and he is suddenly spilling his hot seed inside of a woman for the first time in over a decade.

But not even a whisper escapes his lips when he climaxes, because old habits really did die hard, and instead he simply allows his body to relay the messages he cannot adequately express vocally himself. She holds him tightly in her arms through his final throes, raking a gentle hand through his hair and brushing her lips across the light perspiration dotting his forehead, until the last of his strength fails him and his biceps begin to tremble under the strain of his own weight.

For a long moment, neither one of them moves; the stillness of the bedroom is in sharp contrast to his screaming pulse galloping throughout every vein and capillary of his body. Then he feels Ophelia push back on him slightly, followed by the sensation of her fingertips tracing the outline of his jaw. “So much for not being the touchy-feely sort.”

He finally finds enough strength to withdraw from her, and pushes himself upright on the edge of the bed. “Right.”

“You clearly had nothing to worry about. Seems to me all the parts work just fine, after all.”

He then rises from the bed and moves to open the nearest window; whether it was merely a coincidence of his namesake, Ignis wasn’t sure, but his skin always felt like it was on fire after making love, and suddenly the room feels rather asphyxiating. “I suppose not.”

The worry in her voice is evident. “Is everything all right?”

His feature crumple into a frown as he leans his head out the open window. The humid breeze of nighttime Lestallum is doing little to lower his internal body temperature, and he narrows his eyes against the glare of the neon EXINERIS sign he can sense off in the distance. “Yes, of course.”

But he’s not all right, not really, because as the chaos of the last few lustful minutes begins to clear from his mind, and his feet slowly return to this plane of existence, one singular thought turns over and over in his head: What have I done?

It’s her earnestness that defines her, and he knows it, which is why he isn’t surprised in the least at her next words. “I can’t very well put your mind at ease if you don’t tell me what’s bothering you. Spit it out.”

It wasn’t Ophelia’s fault; he’d always been like this, growing ever more aloof in the aftermath of intimate relations, even when he was younger and the only thing at stake was his reputation, and even—nay, especially—when he was with the one who visited him in his dreams, because while chaste kisses and benign handholding were relatively harmless in the grand scheme of things, there was something about consummating a relationship that put a spotlight on the harsher realities of life.

He gives up on his effort at cooling off and heaves a heavy sigh, retrieving his trousers from the floor as he makes his way back toward the edge of the bed. “I can’t give you what you want, Ophelia.”

“You don’t even know what I want.”

“I don’t think you are fully aware of the challenges that lie ahead. I’d rather not put someone in a position where they have to double as my caretaker.”

“You seem to be under the impression that I am unable to make my own decisions,” she snaps. “And besides—there isn’t a thing I can’t do that I haven’t seen you do twice as well.”

“I can’t read. I can’t drive. I can’t even father a bloody child.”

Her ire suddenly dissipates, and she pauses. “You can’t?”

He resorts to stepping into his pant legs to hide his scowl. “I told you, my injuries are not limited to my face.”

She grows quiet on the bed behind him for a long while; it’s only when he is sure his argument has likely spurred her to silently weep into a pillow that he feels her fingers reach out and touch his shoulder. “I’m not asking for a marriage proposal—I’m only asking you to take things one day at a time. Preferably with me.”

A younger, more prideful version of himself might’ve deflected her advances, letting her down gently with the same words he’d used on countless other lovers in the past. But the sincerity in her voice strikes an annoyingly sensitive chord inside of him, and he’s more tired than he used to be; tired of the aches and pains of his lingering injuries, tired of carrying the grief of losing Noct and the redhead and the hundreds of thousands of people he couldn’t save from the Empire and the starscourge, and—most of all—tired of maintaining the walls that still guarded his wounded heart.

So he swallows his dismay and turns to face her, covering the hand she has on his shoulder with his own. “I would hate to be the reason your prospects wind up so limited. You have such a bright future ahead of you, and I feel like I would serve only to weigh you down.”

Her fingers lace with his, and she leans to rest her head against his chest. “Are you happy being alone, Ignis?”

“Not particularly.”

“That makes two of us, then. And if I had to take an educated guess, I’d say there there’s scarcely a person who has ever crossed paths with you who didn’t think you deserved to be happy—not Noctis, not her, not anyone.”

He thinks back to what Cid had said to him, about something tying him down here in Lestallum; maybe there was and maybe there wasn’t, and maybe one day he would eventually return to Insomnia and resurrect his hopes and dreams that had died there all those years ago.

But maybe there was actually something worth staying here for, a seed worth planting, a relationship worth cultivating. The weight of his skull necklace feels as light as a feather now, and the scent of Ophelia’s Sylleblossom perfume is unlocking a long-forgotten door inside his heart. “Perhaps you’re right,” he says simply.