childrenofbahamutlogs | [winter catch all] Ignis

“Yeah, you know. Grip's different on the knife. Though, I haven't really looked into using my claws themselves… I dunno if I want knives on my hands all the time, not to mention the upkeep.” She's actually been trying to blunt her new nails so she stops ripping her blankets and towels and curtains; but they don't stay filed down for very long, as she continues to change day by day.

“Well, whatever you wanna do, I'm up for it,” she offers as she follows Ignis to the kitchen, noting with appreciation how well-kept the house is. It's pretty nice to her, her fireplace ain't this clean and cozy!

By way of making small-talk, she adds, “how’re you feeling about turning into a dragon? When my natural horns first grew out, I was kind of weird about it, but my uncles tried to be supportive about it so it was okay. Horns are pretty cool actually.”

"I think I could do without," Ignis says matter of factly, no beating around the bush.

Still... He knows this isn't anything to be snappish at her about. This is just... the unfortunate situation that all of them are stuck in. So, with just a brief quiet sigh, he heads over to the counters while continuing to talk. "I would have rather we had more time, and a better idea of the exact changes. Not to mention all of this happening while right as winter is starting.. It has made things something of a struggle."

All very practical reasons to be bothered and upset! And with no indication of his own dysphoria about his body changing outside of his control.

They don't need to talk about that.

What they should be talking about instead? Cooking! "Has the soul attached to you begun speaking yet?" he asks, setting out a pair of knives. "Mine was quiet for quite some time, but, since my wings have grown out at least this much, he's been a little more helpful. Apparently, he knows more than a little about cooking in various states, and so he has offered some advice for handling things with claws."

Granted, that dragon has also said it would be easier if they could shift forms already, but that isn't what they get for now, so.

"Show me how you would usually try to hold a knife with your claws coming in like this."

“It is a bitch of a situation,” Absinthe agrees with a sigh. “On the plus side, well, since complaining about it doesn’t change anything, fire breathing’s pretty cool. Yeah, my dragon patron’s started whispering in my mind and stuff!”

She’s not too fussed to play the mom friend, so Ignis giving a response, and sounding alive and not horribly depressed about it, satisfies her just fine. “Yours is a chef? Mine fights and stuff- at least the dragon patrons have something in common with us.”

She pulls off her gloves, revealing a full set of dark red claws, and folds up one leg like a flamingo so she can slide her dagger out of a holster strapped to her calf. She holds it well enough, wagging the blade up and down to demonstrate, but has to occasionally adjust her grip as her claw-tips slide along the wooden hilt like one might struggle with long fingernails.

"I'm not sure if a chef professionally, but enough to know his way around a kitchen. He's been rather reticent to tell me too much about himself." In case the part where he's been silent longer than he's been talkative wasn't an indicator. "I suppose there isn't much that I can do to convince him otherwise for the time being..."

He'll figure it out, he supposes. As long as he has a name to address the dragon by, that's more than he had before.

For now, there's a different focus, and he observes her movements. As before, at the party, he can tell there's a good base to her grip. It's just... Well, the exact same as him, and he nods. "That was what I had to deal with as well," he tells her. "It was frustrating, especially with how used I am to chopping things quickly." Not safe to do that with an unsure grip! "However, from what my carry-on has told me, this is what he would do when he was in a hurry and could not change his hands in time for whatever reason or another..."

What those reasons could be is an utter mystery to Ignis. It doesn't really matter right now. Instead, taking one of his own kitchen knives, he holds it out to her with his palm up so that she can observe his fingers without anything being awkwardly in the way. It's not the normal way he's used to, but it's clearly a style that has been come up with to adjust for long claws.

"He has said that, at least with himself, the scales were adjusted specifically on his palms to help grip it, and I have at least found that similar for myself." He's just fortunate that claws and scales came in together on his hands.

“Oh?” A pause, as she considers this. “Would you prefer it if your dragon was chattier?”

Pros and cons to both options, when she thinks about it. Absinthe considers herself fortunate that she likes her dragon patron well enough. “And yeah. I mean, I can still do it,” the Tiefling adds, swivelling her dagger in a slow circle with two claws pinning it at the hilt; but to the trained eye, her added caution and settling for her simplest of “tricks” is noticeable. At least she knows she should not, even if she claims she can.

Watching Ignis’ demonstrated grip, Absinthe stops swinging her dagger around and copies it, flicking her wrist a few times experimentally.

“How do you adjust the scales? Or is it just the arrangement that they grow into over time?” Well, Ignis’ dragon patron must be holding knives in some kind of half-shifted form a lot, huh.

"I suppose it's hard to say. With how he is currently, I do admit that his presence is... surprisingly unobtrusive." Which is nice, he supposes, because it makes him still feel a bit more himself. The flip side, of course - "Yet this does mean that I don't know as much about him as would perhaps be beneficial."

Frankly, Ignis is impressed that he managed to get out of the dragon that he did some manner of cooking in his past life, and he's fairly certain that only happened because he wanted to make sure he didn't cut off a finger by accident.

"As for the scales... I've been fortunate. This is mostly how they've been coming in along my hands." Ignis stops abruptly, gaze just a little over her shoulder, before he hums.

"...Sveargith spoke just now. He said that while, in time, we will likely be able to adjust the scales on our own with some practice, it is rather luck of the draw in the middle process. At least, if he had to hazard a guess. Well, I am thankful to learn that much."

“My dragon talks a bunch, but I don’t mind. It helps make my cottage feel less lonely. That’s not a problem you have, obviously.” Even if nobody else is home right now, this is clearly a multi-person household; which has its pros, but even if it is quiet there’s also a sense of luxury for her in having the run of an entire cottage to herself.

“You think so too? Yeah, it’s okay… Is there a carrot or something you want cut up? I want to try this.” She likes the grip, and her dragon is rumbling agreement in her ears, so, Absinthe moves on to the next obvious thing. She should also practice stabbing people and things with the knife, but the inside of this house is not the best place for that.

Stabbing people and things would indeed be something she should practice outside of Ignis's kitchen, which he would be quite grateful for her to do. As it is, for now, he only nods and gestures over to the counters. As his hand moves, so too does the wing on the same side in an awkward little jerk. He's... still getting a handle on what muscles move what back there.

"I was thinking that we could try something with onions first, since it appears those bags from the autumn celebration are in good circulation now. Do you like spring onions?" Because that's sure what he'd rustled up from the bag ahead of time.

“Hmm,” Absinthe replies in the breezy tone of someone who doesn't know exactly what a ‘spring onion’ is, and is trying not to show it. “I wouldn't eat one right out the bag, but they're good in many dishes, right?”

To her credit, though, Ignis revealing one such specimen will inspire recognition from her, and mild surprise that this is also an onion. Ah, well, you learn something new every day. The Tiefling circles closer to the countertop, curiosity piqued.

“Ah, I was thinking of those big round onions! Can you show me how you chop these?”

"That is what I thought would be in the bag as well," Ignis admits with a small little smile. "However, someone else was experimenting at the party, and I saw them pull such out at one point. I suppose as long as it is called an onion in some capacity, it is as fair game as anything else."

With that said, he sets the bag down and out of the way so that he can focus on the interestingly defined onion set upon the table. "As for this, the most common way to incorporate them into a dish in my experience is chopping them neatly to be folded or sprinkled about. You can eat all of it, if you like, but using the green is what I tend to do for the dish I'm planning." While waiting for her, however, something occurs to him, and he shows his clawed hands.

"Ah, but still... Along with cleaning your claws ahead of time, you will want to see if you can keep them clipped short. It will make it easier in the kitchen." As in, curling his fingers enough in proper kitchen safety techniques.

With that said, he gets right into finely chopping up a part of the spring onion. For all that he's complained about them, it's obvious that Ignis has already made himself adapt to the claw problem, at least in the kitchen. Just don't ask how long he forced himself to practice. "So like that - as thick or thin as you like. Would you wish to try?"

“Man,” Absinthe sighs at the reminder that selfcare is something she needs to put effort into, having crawled out of the Faerunian countryside less than a year ago into the big city. “I’ll look into it.”

Ignis’ demonstration is a welcome distraction from the talk of claw care. Absinthe doesn’t comment on his proficiency- it’s unsurprising to her that he would be practiced, and she’s doing the same by coming here as well. By the time Ignis is done she lets out a hum of recognition now that the onions have been chopped into the form she recognises in her food. “Aaah. I didn’t realise these were onions as well. Yeah, let me try!”

Absinthe holds up her dagger (it’s fineeee, she hasn’t used it to stab anything recently) and wipes it on a cloth before reaching out to slide the onion and cutting board over. She’s a quick learner when applying herself- the problem is applying herself- so, having paid attention to Ignis’ hand placement and the size of the cut onions, she begins imitating his motions with curled fingers in one hand and chopping knife in the other.

"Look into it the moment you leave this house," are the final words before she gets to cutting. Just to be sure she knows. He refuses to accept subpar nail care in his kitchen.

Still, he doesn't hound on her much after that. Instead, he says politely and carefully to the side in order to give her all the room she might need, just to be comfortable. With how they're all developing tails and wings (his wings more than his tail at present), that's all the more important to keep in mind. And he has to say he's quite impressed.

Of course she had shown considerable dexterity with her knives back at the party. Ignis had seen that with his own eyes; he doesn't doubt her skill in that arena. But just because someone is good at juggling a knife or doing fancy tricks doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be good at kitchen work.

It's a wonderful sign to see her catching on quickly here. "Excellently done," he praises. "Very clean cuts." While it's not the only important part to cooking, especially in a situation like this where they can't simply shove things into a modern oven or crockpot and call it a day, it's still nothing to sneeze at. "Those will fold in excellently for the recipe I had in mind for them. Would you like to practice on another one, just in case?"

Absinthe would preen at Ignis' praise if that was the only thing he gave throughout the attempt; but he's also given her instructions like he's her boss, so now the vibes are quite off. She gives him a sideways glance as she sweeps the onion bits into a little pile like she'd seen Ignis do.

“You're not my boss, so you're gonna have to pay me to do the nail thing so fast. But I will cut up more onions if you've got them.”

She doesn't even know he offed Ardyn once, so he's just some young-looking guy who's trying to take on more authority than he's owed.

If Ignis has his way, very few people will ever get to know about the fact that he murdered Ardyn and buried his corpse (for all the good that did in the end), so this suits him just fine. All he does is make a small huff, which probably only reinforces the sulky nerd image.

"It's sanitary," he tries to insist, although at least he's not making any further orders on that matter. Still, he does oblige by getting another spring onion out from the bag for her practice.

"Even if we are all turning into dragons, that doesn't mean we're immune to things like sickness, or things slipping into our food..."

She looks at him a second longer than necessary- suggesting perhaps she might not actually know what the word means and is bluffing- before huffing, making no further comment. Not because she doesn’t know exactly what “sanitary” means, nooo.

As Absinthe accepts the new onion and begins to chop, she decides to follow up instead with: “There’s a guy in town who says he can eat raw meat and not get sick, did you know? People are wild.”

That look is certainly noted, but Ignis at least doesn't say anything right away. Instead, he busies himself about in the rest of the kitchen as he prepares what little else is required for the dish he had in mind. The change in subject is definitely allowed without any protest or attempts to pull it back.

"Hm, that's not surprising. A lot of different types were pulled in. Some have different digestive systems even before dragons became involved, or others can't get sick..."

Or, if they're Ardyn, they're immortal and hate themselves enough to not care about the temporary discomfort...

"But I think I would still prefer cooking in the end. It makes the food far nicer, and that can make yourself and those you care about happier." He looks to her. "Do you like omelets, now that I am thinking on it?"

[winter catch all] Ignis

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