thatsit: (But we don't have to be)
thatsit ([personal profile] thatsit) wrote in [community profile] spira_rp2019-04-16 11:02 am

Now you know it's so much better to pretend

Since the revelations of the meeting the mood in the Palace had shifted. In part, that was because the population had shifted. A number of attendees had left for their own homes once more, and the air had felt a little less tense ever since.

Bellatrix had been the first to depart, slinking off with her tail between her proverbial legs before anyone had chance to notice her retreat. Ariane Emory had stayed the night and left for Gralea the following day. Ignis had no doubt the woman would be back, but since her chances of laying her hands on the stone were currently zero she'd likely considered it a waste of her time to linger. He wasn't sorry to see the back of her black clad followers, whose impassivity was unsettling and existence an affront, although neither of those things were the fault of the individuals themselves.

Sir Integra and Alucard had stayed an extra night, which Ignis suspected had more to do with the presence of Noah clan in the Palace than Integra's own wishes. Alucard was a barely leashed attack dog at the best of times, but the Palace was, if not a no-combat zone then at least a neutral one where residents were expected to behave themselves. Ignis had sought her out prior to her departure, and they'd spent an hour discussing the meeting, the attendees, and Ignis and Gladio's plans to stay on a while longer.

She'd promised to pass his well wishes to his aunt before she'd left.

The Noah remained, though they seemed more intrigued with the Arrancar than they did with Ignis and Gladio. It wasn't unfounded; the meeting had held a number of revelations, not least the fact that Captain Aizen's underlings were daemon-infused experiments. It explained a lot about some of them, such as why, despite their reputations and behaviours, they were kept around.

It only raised questions about others. Nel, for example, seemed perfectly level headed and competent, and even had a background as a ranked watchwoman, and yet as one of Captain Aizen's Arrancar, she was infused with daemonic power. Why she had consented to that was a small mystery, and one that was probably rude to enquire about unless one knew her personally.

She was preparing for another visit to D District, maintaining the air that she was Captain Aizen's lover. Ignis had informally taken over some of her kitchen duties, duties that were not, Nel had said, given to her but which she had assumed because it was that or allow a disorganised free for all that would see inhabitants surviving on cup noodles and ready meals, and no one ever washing the dishes.

Aside from anything else, it gave Ignis a good position from which to ingratiate himself with the Palace's other inhabitants. Some were self sufficient, stubbornly so in some cases. Others were accustomed to Nel's presence, and became similarly accustomed to Ignis's.

He had two flavoured batches of Lucian Delight, cooled and ready for slicing into cubes to one side. He'd found an apron too, which made him feel much more at home in the Palace's kitchen. With his sleeves rolled up and his jacket hanging over the back of a chair, he practically looked like he belonged there as he sifted cornflour and icing sugar together.
thesilentstorm: Bored/Displeased (Looking back...)

[personal profile] thesilentstorm 2019-04-17 08:42 pm (UTC)(link)
"Is anybody?" He asked, giving his head a light shake. "Other than Marluxia, and perhaps Luppi." He wondered if Ignis had seen the Arrancar's tiny, stink-free specimen. He certainly wasn't shy about carrying the damned thing around like a handbag sized dog and wave it at anyone who would look.

The idea of him keeping Malboros around the cottage they had purchased made his skin crawl. The place was covered in climbing plants as it was and Marluxia had assured him that most of them flowered. It was a sickeningly quaint little cottage, spacious enough for an older building, but very definitely on the wrong side of the twee hotel painting scale. The garden was sure to attract more unpleasant buzzing little insects than Lumi could tolerate, without Malboros being brought into the mix.

"If he wants them, he can lock them in his room with him," he said, wrinkling his nose. "They are not roaming around."
thesilentstorm: Interested (Never enough.)

[personal profile] thesilentstorm 2019-04-17 09:09 pm (UTC)(link)
"Of course not," he said, looking up from the box containing his batch of Lucian Delight. "The cottage has two rooms, there's no reason for us to share any more than here is for us to here."

It was a bonus, really. It means that Marluxia could fill his room with as much petal-laden nonsense as he could stand while leaving Lumi's as bare as he wanted. Lumi had little need for 'stuff'. He was used to very small living quarters with no space for clutter. There was no need to accumulate it now.
thesilentstorm: Smile I (When the scent is calling again.)

[personal profile] thesilentstorm 2019-04-17 09:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Lumi allowed himself a snort.

Ah, so Ignis thought what everybody else did. In all honesty, Lumi wasn't sure he'd ever spoken to anybody who didn't think that he and Marluxia were a couple. They were certainly a pair, but not a couple, not in that sense.

"Not that close," he said, giving the ghost of a smile, the amusement showing in his eyes. "But I wouldn't worry. You're hardly the first to arrive at that conclusion."
thesilentstorm: Smile II (Cold reflections...)

[personal profile] thesilentstorm 2019-04-18 09:32 pm (UTC)(link)
"If it helps any," Lumi said, picking up another piece of the Lucian Delight between his fingers. "I rather think that's just Marluxia. I don't get the impression that his ... flamboyance is a sign of anything."

It was just him. He was a showboater. He liked to make an impression, especially when it was around eighty percent done to make a point. A hail of chakra rose petals was unusual enough as it was, but when it was accompanying a scythe pulled from nowhere at lightning speed? It was entirely to draw attention.

Lumi couldn't agree with what many said about pink hair being a sign of sexuality, it was hardly fair to assume that every pink-haired Selkie batted for the other team. Szayel certainly played into the stereotype, the man could sashay standing still, but Marluxia..? Less so. He just enjoyed a spectacle. He'd be the same if his hair was as black as Nnoitra's.
thesilentstorm: Bored/Displeased (Looking back...)

[personal profile] thesilentstorm 2019-04-19 07:48 pm (UTC)(link)
"I did rather get that impression," Lumi said, giving a wry smile.

He was fully aware of what people thought of them, though it nevertheless surprised him a little every time. Just a little. It also amused him a bit that people thought they were a couple largely because of Marluxia.

"I could be wrong about him, of course," Lumi said, giving a shrug. "It's never really been raised in conversation. At any rate, I doubt I'm his type."
thesilentstorm: Sideways look (...the animal heart inside of me.)

[personal profile] thesilentstorm 2019-04-19 09:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Lumi gave another soft laugh, smiling very slightly. A smile on him, however faint, may as well have been a grin for how infrequently it happened.

"For all I know, he could prefer your Gladio to somebody like me," he said, helping himself to a piece of the Lucian Delight.

Well, the willowy prettyboy look didn't suit everybody. Lumi knew that he occupied a strange niche in that he was obviously pretty, but also the type of pretty that had a habit of intimidating people. It was a stark beauty, so Marluxia had told him. Like a snowy day. He had plenty of experience with people considering him too pretty to approach, whether they knew he was armed to the teeth or not. It didn't bother him. Intimidation was a good enough weapon.

"I think he prefers women."
Edited 2019-04-19 21:09 (UTC)
thesilentstorm: Mild (Throw them away.)

[personal profile] thesilentstorm 2019-04-19 09:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Lumi met Ignis's eyes when he looked at him, curious as to why he looked away so quickly. He had assumed Ignis and Gladio were together, but maybe he'd been as wrong as Ignis had about himself and Marluxia. Ignis certainly seemed nervous in that moment, concerned that he'd seen through something he wasn't supposed to.

And then he spoke and it was Lumi's turn to look away.

Not each other's? He hadn't said that. He'd simply said that Marluxia seemed rather disinterested in him. Did he also give that impression? He knew he had a tendency not to display emotion or opinion particularly strongly on his face and that his behaviour lent itself more readily to his perceived role as Marluxia's loyal dog than anything else, but if people assumed them to be a couple... he licked the icing sugar from his lips and gave a slight tilt of the head.

"True enough," he said.
thesilentstorm: Curious (...are pictures lost in time.)

[personal profile] thesilentstorm 2019-04-19 10:31 pm (UTC)(link)
"Ah," he said, understanding. There were classes he knew of which were similar, back where he was from. Similar reasons, too. Well known family names, supposedly well-bred families. They married for land and power, the same as they supposedly did in the olden days.

It was a rarity, though. Other cultures were rather more common. One major group tended towards marriage and monogamy. His culture tended very much away from that. Spira seemed rather more like the planet-based system, which made a lot of sense. It didn't have the space limitations or a need to vary the gene pool with casual and near-anonymous encounters like the other two.

"Where I'm from relationships with a sexual element are a rarity, as are marriages," he said. "It is... not the done thing to pair yourself with a comrade. The close quarters expected of the lifestyle sets itself firmly against anything that could cause conflict or the possibility of inbreeding. Physical relationships are considered much less important than family, blood or otherwise, and is relegated to a system of casual encounters. I believe the term is 'no-strings attached'."

Were they in Lumi's home, the very concept of him and Marluxia being anything other than allies simply wouldn't come up.
thesilentstorm: Mild Disapproval (Last night I watched a memory.)

[personal profile] thesilentstorm 2019-04-20 08:27 pm (UTC)(link)
That made sense, in a strange way. He supposed it allowed the boys to get experimentation and mutual stress relief out of their systems without, as Ignis mentioned, any unwanted illegitimate children. It didn't surprise him that it was kept quiet, though.

His own culture were fairly open about sexuality, with those who stick strictly to one sex being more of a rarity than those willing to take pleasure from both, but the others he was used to were rather less casual. The Palace seemed fairly unbothered, but he sometimes wondered if that was typical of Spira on the whole, or just expected because Khamja was, by and large, made up of strange people who existed on the edge of society at the best of times. They were hardly a normal cross-section.

"I take it your family won't be pleased," Lumi said.
thesilentstorm: Hesitation (...on the moments of our lives.)

[personal profile] thesilentstorm 2019-04-21 09:20 pm (UTC)(link)
"Not especially," he said, after a moment's thought.

He wasn't entirely certain, but he got the feeling that he might be. He seemed very close to Gladio, though after this conversation, he had rather started to feel like he'd made the same mistake others made about him and Marluxia.

"You're hardly Szayel."
thesilentstorm: Listening (So distant that I forgot.)

[personal profile] thesilentstorm 2019-04-22 11:34 am (UTC)(link)
"It's less that people look more closely and more that there isn't an expectation towards normality. What is considered normal here is different, I think."

He wondered if it was just that Ignis had not met many people like himself. Lumi usually found it easy to pick out those similar to himself, though of course it wasn't foolproof. Even so, a dog always seemed to recognise a dog, even if one was a large shaggy mutt and the other was a small, sleek thing. It was possible to fool the people around you by never barking just as it was possible for a cat to wag its tail when happy or a dog to do the same when annoyed, both to give the wrong impression, but more often than not you could see somebody for what they were.

He rather thought that Gladio probably knew. The way he looked at Ignis suggested he probably knew.
thesilentstorm: True Neutral (All our yesterdays...)

[personal profile] thesilentstorm 2019-04-22 10:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Lumi thought back to the shower of petals that had accompanied his scythe-summoning ability. Toning it down would be a good start, but it was unlikely.

"You aren't wrong," Lumi said quietly, amused. "Where is it you intend to visit when you go out looking for culture?"

thesilentstorm: Listening (So distant that I forgot.)

[personal profile] thesilentstorm 2019-04-23 10:35 pm (UTC)(link)
"New Archades is rather nice, but some of the areas are essentially blocked off from visitors due to the need for a pass of some description," he said, thinking back to the one occasion he and Marluxia had decided to visit. "Bhujerba is on Dorstonis, so it's not the Lowerworld. On the plus side, it would be easy for you to visit on your return to Lucis. The house Marluxia and I bought is on the outskirts of Alexandria and as far as capitals go, the separation of districts by their use makes it easy enough to navigate. Midgar... was rather famous for being revolting before the Fall, so I doubt you're missing much. It was known for the Plate, but there were slums below with measures to stop those from there getting above their station. I hear people lived and died without ever seeing the sun."

It sounded dismal to him when he had read the newspaper reports about it. The Plate had collapsed, crushing those beneath it in the slums. There had been no survivors, no chance of escape, according to the report. Even in the wake of the disaster, Midgar's government had come under fire for their treatment of the city's disadvantaged.

"These days much of Bancour's capital culture survives in Palumpolum, which is supposed to be rather less unpleasant than Midgar itself," he told him. "Though Ingram is said to represent the core of the country more accurately."

He remembered the minor outcry that Ingram wouldn't be made the country's capital in lieu of Midgar, too.

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