hugtopia_logs | Take these stars from my crown

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Take these stars from my crown

♥ Who: Lucis Family + SOs
♥ Where: The food testing area
♥ When: Late Nov/Malom
♥ What: The Eosians getting together for a family gathering.
♥ Rating: Probably just PG?

Cor made a point of getting to the tower early so he could make some preparations, setting the table for the full family. Even Will is coming and that is so strange. Cor has never once in his life had a +1 for any kind of event. Yet here he is setting a table for nine instead of eight.

The prep work had taken weeks of going over the correct textures and tastes with the research team, something Ignis had taken on the bulk of the work for while the others worked on the wall. Still he was confident that they were close enough to get a solid match on many foods, leaving some of their bet recipes only very slightly off from the originals. Cor had taken over rolling a large selection of sushi as well as a light starter soup. Some of the more robust recipes had been Ignis' purview but, if nothing else, Cor is an efficient prep cook.

All in all there's a pretty spectacular spread when everyone arrives, something for everyone and a familiar Altissian berry cake for dessert.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[you're a nerd, noctis. and he's experiencing an emotion best described as 'gobsmacked'.]

How?

[Which is good, because that is his very favourite reaction.]

Honestly? I'm still not sure myself. Lot of potions, lot of grinding, and way more luck than any of us deserve. We were chipping away at it for hours before it finally went down for good. I guess when you get that big, y'know...

[Tiny moving targets! Hard to hit. Though the number of times they got curbstomped in that fight, you wouldn't have guessed.]

Is the entire blasted bloodline just mad beyond redemption, is that what it is?

...Yeah, probably.

[A pointed look in his direction. Look where they came from and think about it.]

Anyway, isn't it a king's duty to protect his citizens? Would've had to deal with it sooner or later.

A truly noble ambition, though I struggle to imagine having the power to deal with any such thing myself. Perhaps I'm a bit envious.

Less power, more tenacity, I think.

[He hasn't heard differently, so he assumes Ardyn has the full power of any Lucian king, plus he's a healer, besides. Raw power is definitely not what killed the damn thing.]

...And we're just that awesome.

[Mostly ego.]

[Noctis both was and was not correct; while he shared all the same power and capacity for power as any other Lucian king (and...a little more besides) he lacked the armory Regis possessed. His own abilities extended as far as swarms of phantom blades and a single lost royal arm that never was.]

...Perhaps you've a viable point there.

Uh-huh.

[The awesomeness of his entourage is always valid.]

For real, though, you should try it. Could be once-in-a-lifetime.

[He has no idea how long his replicator is going to magically gift him turtle meat, so it very well could be that.]

Well...I suppose it would be a waste not to at least try.

[fine jeez he'll steal a little of your turtle steak]

[It's such a stupid, little thing, but Noct can't help feeling victorious for it. He grabs his own forkful, chewing thoughtfully as he watches for the reaction. It's more than just bragging rights, or giving his family (family! multiples of them!) a taste of home- even with the help of Ignis, he had been a part of the cooking process, which means he's curious to see if they all turned out as good as they smell.

The meat itself is delightful, delicately spiced (by an experienced cook, clearly), thick and beefy, with a unique texture. Chewy, but soft and juicy enough to not be an unpleasant chore to eat. If there were ever a meat worth fighting a giant monster for several hours to acquire, well, this is probably as close as it gets.]

So?

[He processed that for a moment or two; food really wasn't remotely the same as it used to be, which was an overwhelmingly positive fact.]

Well--truth be told I am not fully sure what I expected a creature older than me to taste like, but I will admit this is delightful.

[Heck yeah, that's one success! Ignis will be so proud ~~of his doing the bare minimum in the kitchen~~]

No kidding, right? I totally expected it to taste like an old tire, but during the fight any time we threw fire at it, it smelled kind of amazing, so we had to try.

That's--

[WHAT IS YOUR LOGIC, CHILD????]

...questionable reasoning, but better that than have it all wasted?

[The same sort of logic that would drive said child to attack a mountain-sized turtle, probably.]

I mean, we had to do something with it after it was dead. A creature that size could feed half of Lucis. [And would stink up the entirety of Longwythe if they just left it there, besides.] Thankfully it was more stoneshell and bone than actual meat, so we still had a mountain left after it was done.

A fair enough point, ultimately. I'm glad it was resolved without overmuch trouble past actually dealing with the problem itself.

Same here. That region's got enough problems as it is.

[With the empire looming so close after Insomnia fell, on top of the usual wild monsters and daemons roaming about? It's a rough area.]

So the adamantoise was around even in your time? Just how old was that thing?

I can't say that I have ever encountered it, mind you. More that its existence was already the sort of thing spoken of in stories that ended up being halfway doubted more often than not. Some people swore blind that they or their ancestors had seen it, others thought it was just a myth and that nothing could possibly be that large while also going unseen.

...Which is absurd because I've never seen Titan and everyone knows damn well where he is.

So in short, 'quite old'.

[And here he was about to ask something silly like "did you ever try to fight it". It's very clear what side of the gene pool he's from.]

I guess it was just sleeping most of the time, though I don't know how it could've stayed alive without eating. Unless it just eats dirt.

[Which sounds as absurd out loud as it had in his own head, but it's the only thing he can imagine being in abundance where the damn thing's head was- namely, underground. There's no way a monster that size could hunt anything subtly.]

Never figured out what woke it up, though.

I manage it well enough.

[ardyn...]

Perhaps it only needed to eat every few millennia or so. You would be surprised how warped one's scale of time can actually get, living like that for so long.

Uh.

[awk....ward...]

Yeah, I guess...

[he would? know? is there literally any good way to address that.]

[Poor Noctis. For his part, Ardyn didn't seem bothered by his own offhand remark--he'd just been stating a fact as far as he was concerned.]

So do you make a habit of eating the strangest wildlife imaginable, or was this a special case?

[Well at least one of them isn't feeling uncomfortable about it. There's a pointed slump in his shoulders, relieved as the conversation moves on.]

It kind of ended up that way, I guess. A lot of the hunts we got commissioned to handle had some kind of new meat to try, and Ignis kept coming up with ways to cook 'em. All aside from the daemons, obviously. ...And the giant bugs.

[He draws the line at eating bugs. No thanks!]

Oh? I doubt someone that clever in a kitchen failed to think of something to do with giant bugs.

[...is. is he teasing you, noct.]

[He... might be!? Let's test that out.]

As royal retainer, he couldn't defy the will of his prince. [He absolutely could, he does it all the time.] ...And he was outvoted.

How terrible.

[children, please.]

Gods forbid he should force you to eat anything so terrible as flame-roasted insect legs.

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