Now you know it's so much better to pretend

[thatsit]

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.

Comments

[thatsit]

Ignis removed the filter paper and used grounds from his own coffee. It was as strong as he could make it, short of letting another batch brew in the same water, and it would, at least, keep his caffeine addiction sated.

"Less," he faltered, searching for the right descriptions. He didn't want to offend by referring to other capitals as 'rustic', although some of them certainly were. Historic, perhaps? But Insomnia had plenty of history, too. "Airships and ancient castles," he ventured, "and rather more tall buildings, cars, and air conditioning."

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi's eyes went fractionally wider at that revelation and he looked at Marluxia, eyebrows raised.

Ignis could talk rubbish about the other capitals all he liked, as far as Lumi was concerned. Rustic wasn't a strong enough word to describe the state and age of some of them. There were probably ruins of great civilisations on his ancestral world that weren't as old as some of Spira's ancient capitals. He had little appreciation for old ruins, he didn't care about what time and nature did to man-made structures, or how well they stood the test of either. He liked modern.

He liked air conditioning.

"Is it too late to retract the offer on that house?" He asked, keeping his face deliberately blank.

[gracefuldahlia]

Marluxia looked at Lumi flatly. Lumi liked modernity. So did Marluxia, but Marluxia liked his modernity with a little less clinical austerity and a little more natural life than Lumi tended to prefer.

"Yes," he answered, "although should we find ourselves in the market for a second home," he continued, "the choice of location would be yours." Air conditioning, after more than one trip to Rabanastre, and far too many nights in travel inns, sounded very tempting.

Even if Insomnia, a city of tall buildings and air conditioning, sounded a little too like something Xemnas might design. It certainly had his flair for unusual and dramatic names.

[thatsit]

Ignis laughed at Lumi's reaction. It sounded as if Marluxia's penchant for expensive comforts was a shared one, even if Lumi was the more adventurous of the two. "I wouldn't wish to oversell it," he warned. "As I said, I'm not particularly well traveled, but you are more than welcome to visit and see for yourself."

The hotels would definitely be to Marluxia's tastes. And Lumi might enjoy the Galahdian food.

[thesilentstorm]

"You said it has air conditioning," Lumi pointed out, sipping his coffee after speaking. "There's nothing you could do to oversell it." He looked at Marluxia again. "I miss air conditioning. I wonder if it would be possible to get it installed on the ship."

He rather hoped so. He missed the background noise of it, and the cold feeling it gave the air. Humidity was something he only associated with the awful planets he had disliked visiting and here he was, on one of them, for probably the rest of his life, without air conditioning... or so he'd thought.

"What is Insomnia like when it comes to Selkies?" He asked.

He wasn't one, of course. Neither was Marluxia. He could attest with confidence that none of his ancestors, or at least none of the genetic material used to make him, was Al Bhed. But even so, white hair marked him as one of Spira's halfbreeds and he had to deal with all the Looks and whispered comments that came with the stereotypes of that race, as did Marluxia. They didn't mingle with society in general, sticking to the bigger and, as a result, rather more mixed cities, but they were ever aware of it.

Lucis and its isolationist policies may be even less forgiving.

[thatsit]

Ignis picked up his coffee and inhaled its aroma while he thought of how best to answer that question.

"To be frank," he said, looking to Lumi and Marluxia in turn, "coming here was the first time I've ever seen Selkies. Al Bhed are practically nonexistent in Lucis," he explained, "Selkies are rarer still." There could well be a few, but blonde haired humes weren't the oddity on Eos that they were on Ivalice so from a distance they stood out rather less. Selkies, conversely, would stand out considerably.

"People would be more like to comment on the fact you're foreign first," Ignis added. Lucians certainly had their jingoistic streak, and it seemed to come before racism. At the very least, the racism was more likely to go on behind closed doors. The parts of Lucian society Ignis would be likely to introduce people to definitely knew well enough to keep their unsavoury thoughts among the likeminded. "Lucis is less exposed to the stereotypes and prejudices of Ivalice. We have enough of our own to keep us going," he finished, giving Lumi an apologetic smile.

[gracefuldahlia]

Marluxia looked at Lumi, keeping his face carefully blank at the planmaking going on. He was a fan of modern conveniences of course, and that included air conditioning, but Lumi looked as if someone had just told him there was a pot of gold at the end of this particular rainbow.

"Being judged for being foreign at least makes a little more sense," he commented, when Ignis had finished, throwing Lumi the tiniest of little smirks. Ignis had no clue just how foreign they were, but the idea of his alienness coming before his hair colour and people still being incorrect in their judgement of him amused Marluxia. "Perhaps," he said, still looking at Lumi, "if you find nowhere else able to provide the equipment for air conditioning, Lucis might be worth a visit to see about its installation?"

Marluxia didn't expect Lumi was about to let somebody else get their hands on his precious ship, but if Lucis was affluent enough to have air conditioned buildings, they'd have what Lumi was looking for.

[thesilentstorm]

"Now that sounds like a good idea," Lumi said, thinking about how nice it would be to have air conditioning again.

It was certainly one of the luxuries he'd missed. Probably the most after the freedom of air travel, another thing he'd recently regained.

He looked to Ignis, half pleased to hear that the prejudice that had obviously befallen the Al Bhed and their mixed-race descendants wasn't a thing in Lucis. He had been told that it was cultural, apparently a result of some action or other taken in a thousand-year past war, that still persisted in the collective memory, causing them to be persecuted and then simply tolerated. It wasn't as bad now as it had been fifty years ago, apparently, but the prejudice could still be felt in some cities and towns, and keenly.

Spira, like any world, any collective of people, was full of prejudices. The lowerworld preoccupation with treating those descended from the Al Bhed wasn't the only one they felt, not when there were other species to hate for trivial reasons. Beyond those, there were Mistants...

"And 'foreign' I can deal with."

[thatsit]

It sounded as if Lumi and Marluxia had decided they were definitely coming to Lucis. Of course, it might not be in any official capacity, but there was time to work on that. Ignis wanted to get to know them a little better first, but they had the potential to be powerful allies.

Lumi sounded very enamoured of his ship. For someone of a nomadic lifestyle, and yet one that was in a position to 'miss' air conditioning, an airship represented a lot of mobility. It also sounded as if he was set on doing a lot of the work himself. Perhaps that was what he was accustomed to? Being able to repair and modify ones own craft was probably an important skill.

"If you have difficulty, I'm sure the mechanic that modified the Regalia would be happy to lend her services," Ignis suggested, "even if it's just in the sourcing of parts."

[thesilentstorm]

"Sourcing would be useful," he said, putting down his coffee cup. "My ship is pre-War, so in order to modify her in any way, one has to have at least a passing familiarity with ancient ships. It makes sourcing somewhat difficult."

It sounded good, but it wasn't like he had an encyclopedia knowledge of it himself. He wasn't a mechanic, primarily. Back in his own world, he had a Mechanic work on Silence, only doing it himself if it was inconvenient to involve the expertise of a third party. Here, he'd had to learn it all from the ground up, but knowing the language helped. Having a mysterious engine with an apparently inexhaustible energy source helped more.

Jylland was never involved in the War of the Magi. Their technology was rather different. In order to repair a Pre-War ship, the parts had to be salvaged, or made to order, or the systems had to be altered to fit new parts. It hadn't been easy, but with the help of Refia and Yylfordt, she was almost perfect.

[thatsit]

That caught Ignis's attention. He knew enough of Ivalician history to be aware of the technological backslide that had occurred in the aftermath of the War of the Magi. It was, after all, why Lucian technology, and that of most of Eos, tended to outstrip it. They'd suffered their own backslide, of course; Lucis's own history suggested a lot had been left behind, and resources were scarcer and riskier to secure on a floating continent, especially when Jagd made trade with the lowerworld more difficult.

"Well," he said, "Cindy Jagd-proofed the Regalia, so she may have the resources you need, or at least know where to get them." The prospect of an ancient Ivalician craft was an enticing one, too. Ignis liked cars. Airships weren't something he'd ever had the chance to really familiarise himself with before, but they held a similar appeal. "I'm sure she'd be thrilled just to see your ship," he added. "She'd hardly be alone."

[gracefuldahlia]

Marluxia caught Lumi's eye and allowed the corner of his mouth to lift. It sounded as if Lumi was making a friend. A friend he was going to make very good use of. If nothing else, it was someone other than Refia and Yylfordt for Lumi to talk airships with.

So long as he didn't replace Marluxia in Lumi's affections. Not that Marluxia was overly concerned with that; Ignis had that brauny meathead bodyguard, so Marluxia wasn't worried he had designs on Lumi in that sort of capacity.

[thesilentstorm]

"It must have been difficult to source a Jagd-proofed engine," Lumi observed. "Lowerworld import..?"

That, plus the modification... that can't have been easy. The source itself was still a mystery, usually sealed into a chamber of the engine. Books on the subject suggested the substance was volatile, dangerous even, so it was never released. His mechanic had either done something extremely inadvisable and freed it from the casing, or transferred the source, casing and all, into a smaller engine. Either way, they obviously had a talent for it. That could be useful.

[thatsit]

"I believe so," Ignis confirmed. He hadn't asked too many questions on the subject. Cindy had been happy enough to discuss the difficulty of the modification, but when it came to the sourcing of the parts required she'd been atypically taciturn, which Ignis had taken to indicate that he probably didn't want to know the answer. She must have called in a rather sizeable favour in order to Jagd-proof the Regalia.

Which meant that the crown owed her a sizeable favour in return.

"She often knows where parts can be obtained, even if she doesn't have them herself. She might be able to help you source parts for your craft, should you need them." Air conditioning aside, Lumi's ship was obviously airworthy already if he was considering a trip to Lucis to be a real possibility.

[thesilentstorm]

Ah, so that's it.

Salvaged parts were hard to come by, especially the engines. Jagd proofed engines were extremely sought after, but they were also difficult to get and hard to get to. They were often found in inhospitable, Mist-filled corners of the world, away from usual routes of travel and, as such, teeming with dangerous wildlife and worse. Lumi's own ship had been sourced from a veritable graveyard of ships and parts, an old battlefield. She hadn't been perfect when she'd been collected, but months of work had brought her up to snuff. Some parts had been collected on that day, some later. Others ... he'd had to source on the black market. War-era ships were obviously no longer produced, but they were common enough back in the day that many small parts could be gathered, but if others gathered them first the price skyrocketed from 'found for free' to 'as much gil as an enterprising Al Bhed thought he or she could get out of a stupid Selkie'.

If his mechanic had managed to get an engine, a functioning engine, it had cost a fortune.

"My craft is a little difficult," Lumi admitted. "She's Pulsian in origin, rather than Ivalician. A lot of the parts I find I need require modification before they work, even if they're from the right era. It may be worth discussing it with her if she's able to alter them to fit the different systems. It's the modification that's the hard part."

[thatsit]

Ignis straightened slightly, his expression shifting.

"Pulsian?" he repeated. "Fascinating."

Serendipitous, perhaps. Ignis didn't want to say more without discussing it with Gladio first. Saying more would involve revealing a little more information, perhaps more than would be wise at this juncture. The plan was a half-formed plan, a possibility, rather than a certainty, entirely dependent on Ignis's ability to find willing and able candidates to join. The Lucian government was understandably reluctant to fund a trip to Pulse that comprised of their own people. Pulse was, reportedly, hell, and it would take the best and the strongest to survive a sojourn there. Should whoever they sent not prove to be as strong as required, Lucis was ill equipped to weather the loss from its own forces.

"Where did you get it?" Ignis asked.

[thesilentstorm]

"A region of Bancour called the Vile Peaks," he replied. "It's in the Wildlands region and sits deep in the Jagd that swathes the east of that country. It's an old battleground, and too dangerous for the usual Al Bhed salvage parties due to the Mist, monsters and Hollows."

It was only the Mist that had stopped the corrosive nature of the sea breeze from ruining all the Machina that still sat there and even then, most of it was beyond help. The rust and wear had set in to the ships and wrecks closest to the sea and those further back were already damaged from the ancient impacts of their fall.

"It's not called the Vile Peaks for nothing," he said. "I enlisted the Arrancar to take me there. They have a Jagd-proof Grappler Ship. Without one, I doubt anything of any decent size could be extracted."

Jagd-proof ships were rare, but Pulsian ones were rarer. It was technology taken from the Lowerworld and reworked by the Pulsian natives during a very short window of trade, before the Mist came and ruined everything on the Ivalice and the Purvamae both. The examples were few and those that had made it to the Lowerworld and survived the intervening centuries were fewer still.

"Would you like to see it?" He asked.

[thatsit]

Ignis listened to Lumi, and mentally placed befriending the Arrancar, and by extension Aizen, higher up his list of priorities. A Jagd-proof grappler ship would be invaluable.

"I'd love to," he answered, honestly. "There are tales of Pulsian technology," he elaborated, "but I've never actually seen any before. It's supposed to be more greatly advanced than anything we've created to date."

Tales of lost technology, of course, could be greatly exaggerated. It was easy to romanticise something that existed in rumour and memory, rather than having empirical evidence as to its actual capability. Still, no one had yet created a Jagd-proof engine from modern resources, and the fuel for them remained a mystery, so there was some scope to argue that the things that didn't make it off Pulse might be even more powerful still.

[gracefuldahlia]

Marluxia barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He threw Lumi a look that was filled with amusement. He did seem to be in the habit, lately, of collecting airship nerds, and it sounded as if Ignis was going to turn out to be one.

Or at the very least, a history nerd with a thing for old airships and technology. Which on this world gave him a shared interest with Lumi.

"I'll leave you two to it," he said. Airships were Lumi's thing, and things that blossomed from the ground were Marluxia's. He appreciated Lumi's airship and the freedom it gave them, but it was very definitely Lumi's airship.

Perhaps, if Lumi was busy entertaining his newest friend, Refia was at a loose end somewhere?