Author's note: The little kitten thinks it's a game to push my notebook off the desk. The big one thinks it's kind of fun, too. Ugh. Maybe I shouldn't have tried to type 2 chapters up tonight.

Momentis
Part II: Lestallum

Two's Company
by Philippe de la Matraque


Ignis wasn't sure where he would find Aranea. He hurried through his shower, dressed and fixed his hair. He picked up his glasses and cane then headed downstairs. As he passed people, he heard fearful whispers. The sun had not come. Lestallum, he knew, was well lit within the walls so it was not dark per se. But seeing the sun each day had meant something to everyone who could see it. The last bit of their old lives.

Ignis didn't feel that way. His life had changed dramatically almost a year ago, and again when they lost Noctis to the Crystal. The things that were a part of his old life were people. Other than Noct, he still had them all. Then he remembered an older life. The one in Insomnia where he saw his uncle in the Citadel, baked desserts for Noctis, and drove home at the end of the day. Paradigms had been shifting and shifting. This was just one more.

He stopped at the Outlook and leaned against the railing as if he was looking over. He'd seen Lestallum at night before, so he imagined what he might have seen. Lit up streets with a darkened horizon. Oddly, the air didn't feel any colder for the loss of the sun. Perhaps the star still offered heat but no light.

"It's no darker than it was for twenty-three hours yesterday," she said. He'd heard someone approach. Someone with high heels.

"They're just not used to the darkness," he replied. "I got your notes."

"See?" she teased. "I told you you could read." She leaned closer to him.

"Ah, if only they printed books with bubble-ink."

"How's Iris?" she asked, getting serious.

"Alive and recovering," he told her. He relayed the story as he knew it. "Gladio's probably still with her."

"Good," she said. "She's a strong fighter. It would have sucked to lose her."

"Indeed."

"So, are we going to have dinner?" she asked. She shifted and Ignis thought he heard something else shift. Was she carrying a bag?

"We should be," he told her, "but I've not managed all the ingredients. I traded eighteen rations for most of them. But the chickatrice leg has eluded me."

"I hope you didn't trade them all at once," she flirted. "I wouldn't want you to starve."

"Well, I have had two months to gather them," he chided her playfully.

"Well, you're in luck." She shuffled the bag to the front. "I'm going to let you cheat with the meat." She put something round in his hand, approximately one inch thick. It was flat on the top and bottom, except for a pull-tab.

"Canned chickatrice?"

"Pre-cooked," she confirmed. "I found some canned goods in an abandoned shop."

Ignis turned his face fully towards her. "Are you sure you want to do this? It could be end up unpalatable."

She smiled. "I have faith in you."

He offered her an elbow and she walked with him back to the hotel. But he didn't go up the stairs. He'd made a deal with the owner for use of the restaurant's kitchen. As everyone ate in the dining halls, the restaurant was closed. Ignis bartered two service days off for her for two months for use of the refrigerator, stove, dishes, and spices for two months. Ignis had to promise that all the dishes and pans would be washed and put away. He sincerely hoped Aranea wouldn't mind ending their dinner helping with that.

There was a bar just in front of the kitchen, so he dropped her off at one of the stools there to watch.

As he washed his hands, he replayed his visualization of this in his head. He'd thought it through every night before sleeping for two months. He just hoped the process would go as smoothly as he imagined.

First, he arranged each of the ingredients on the counter. He placed the canned chickatrice, then retrieved the birdbeast egg, saki, soy sauce, chickatrice stock, and onion from the refrigerator. From the cabinets below he pulled brown sugar and a brand new bottle of mirin. He left the oil seeing as the chickatrice was already cooked.

"What will you be making?" she asked.

"A dish I first saw here in Lestallum," he told her as he retrieved two pans and sat them one on the stove. He placed the other near the sink. Then taking a one cup measuring cup, he filled it twice, using the tip of his finger to feel when it was full. "Noctis noticed a woman eating a dish he thought looked good. Prompto agreed, saying it would be like a party in his mouth."

"Sounds like something he'd say."

"I thought I could recreate it easily enough." He set the pan of water on the stove then measured two servings of rice, using a finger to brush off the excess from the top of the scoop. He counted the stove's controls with his hand until he found the right one, then knelt down so he could hear it better and feel the heat when he turned it on. He turned it all the way up then dialed it back to where it seemed right. He set a timer on his phone with voice commands. Then he started measuring ingredients for the sauce.

He cracked the egg and carefully, pulled it apart over a small bowl. He put the bowl in front of Aranea. "No shells?"

She took a moment. "Cleanly cracked. You're good."

He poured the contents into the second pot then stirred the rice. He opened the can of meat, drained it over the sink, then poured it into the pan. He measured the soy sauce, saki, and mirin before pouring them in. He stopped to stir the rice, then moved on to the brown sugar, which he packed into the measuring cup with his hand.

The next part was tricky, but he thought he had a safe way around it. He got a cutting board from the cabinets and a pastry cutter from a drawer. It was a sturdy kind with sharp edges. He placed the onion on the cutting board and lined up the pastry cutter next to his hand. He pushed it through the onion then chose the number of slices he needed. He stacked them and rocked the pastry cutter over them to cut them again and again until they were the right size. He scraped them into the pot.

"Creative," she commented. "You've given this a lot of thought."

Ignis lit the second burner as he had the first. He stirred the rice then stirred the ingredients of the sauce together. So far, so good, he thought. It felt good to be back in a kitchen. He was cautiously optimistic that this was going to turn out decent. If he didn't burn it.

One by one, he pulled spices from the spice rack, opened them and smelled the contents. Satisfied with three, he added a pinch of each to the sauce and stirred both pots.

When his timer went off, he turned the heat under the sauce down and turned off the burner under the rice. The rice was fluffy when he stirred it. He got two plates and set them on the counter. He poured what felt like half the rice onto one and the rest onto the other. He picked up both plates and compared their weights. Close enough.

He returned to the stove and tested the sauce by dipping his finger in the bowl of the spoon. Not ruined. He let out his breath slowly, hoping she hadn't noticed. He turned off the heat and returned to the plates. He spooned sauce over one plate then the other, back and forth until it was gone. He put both plates on a tray, adding forks and two paper napkins he'd saved from the dining hall. Then he got two bottles of water from the now empty fridge.

He set the tray on the edge of the bar. "Table for two?" He held out a hand toward the tables beyond the bar. "I didn't know when you were coming so I couldn't prepare."

"Not a problem." She chose a table and took the chairs off of it, setting them down on each side. Ignis carefully walked the tray over. She lifted the water bottles, napkins, and forks off while he set the plates down one at a time.

"It looks and smells delicious," she told him. He left the tray at the bar then sat across from her. He waited for her to take the first bite. She chuckled. "Oh, this is good!"

Ignis sighed and tasted his own. It was good. He'd done it. He smiled.

She touched his hand. "I knew you could," she said. "You needed to know it, too."

They ate in comfortable conversation, and she even offered to help clean up before he had even had a chance to ask. After it was all done, he picked up the box, and they walked it over to the dining hall. The cooks were closing up after dinner. They thanked him for returning the supplies and asked how it went.

"It came out right," he told them. "I just had to do it a bit differently."

She kissed him again, longer than before, before she left for the barracks. As Ignis lay in bed that night, he mused that the first day of full darkness for everyone else was the happiest day he'd had since Insomnia fell.

But that night, he dreamed the vision over and over, and, by morning, he felt guilty for having been happy.