#|| ascension.

[ignisia-blog]

❝ It’s awful, this humiliation. ❞

|| The Swan Princess.

          “Which is the more powerful? You, or this humiliation?”

     Perhaps it was his own self awareness that kept Ignis’ surprise at bay. His ego lay in his intelligence, his cunning, and he was all too aware that, for some enemies, even the most clever of tricksters could not outsmart sheer, overwhelming brute force. Perhaps Vergil had never himself faced such a revelation; perhaps the power the nephilim possessed left him blinded against the possibility of defiance against him and his reign.

     No, that didn’t seem quite it. The demon canted his head, arms folded neatly across himself. Vergil was a curiosity in his own right, quite the captivating one. One that, to date, Ignis had yet to completely figure out. And he was vain, more so than he likely realised, another creature who prided himself in the capability of his mind. So — what part of himself had disappointed?

          “Strong is the man who makes no mistakes, but stronger is the man who owns them, without yielding to their weight.” And besides, the son of Sparda was far too young to be so dissatisfied with himself. “Do tell me: how strong are you?”

[ignisia-blog]

|| @imperatorre

     Though he always knew he would shed no tears for his king’s downfall, never — never would he have imagined such a... sudden turn of events.

     He had only ever been of a mind to watch on, of course, from the shadows, to keep a reasonable distance from Mundus’ unraveling. It was to be expected: the past few hundred years, especially, have seen his own role in his monarch’s machinations dwindling, the once-esteemed demon king devolving into little more than a fool drunken with power, consumed, blinded, by rage. No, the fall of Mundus comes as no great surprise to the seasoned tactician.

     And then, there’s the matter of the boy.

     Ignis remembers Sparda, oh, yes he does. For its worth he never forgot the man’s strength, the raw power in his possession, even in the midst of a betrayal so grand. But the nephilim children he’d spawned had been nothing more than a footnote for most of Ignis’ own life following, an afterthought. He understood his master’s paranoia but considered it little more than just that, the ravings of a demon confronted with the worst of his fears, the loss of his control.

     Even one with such considerable foresight as himself would not have seen a son of Sparda laying claim to the throne, to whatever might be left of demonkind’s fractured monarchy. And as the tensions among warring factions climb steadily towards their climax... Ignis cannot help but wonder just what this new king of theirs plots from his earthly palace.

     Earthly may be putting it a tad lightly — even from a distance the demon can tell its facade is rotting, years of neglect taking its toll on its strange human architecture, though Hell in its current state would be no more fitting a court, surely. For now he waits, watches, observes the oddities of this world and its weather... waits to see if the nephilim will approach him or if he, instead, must act first.