🍴 ( 009 ) Video

[youwill]

[Hannibal is seated at his desk, the camera balanced against something there: he is dressed in a tux, legs crossed, a glass of champagne in his hand. He sips it gracefully.]

Consider the ortolan.

[He smiles faintly, as if it's a joke he knows no one will realize.]

It was the practice of certain gourmets to eat these small birds for centuries. A rite of passage, of sorts, where one must hunt but not kill. Capture it alive and keep it so, for a time. It was best to blind the bird, placing it in a small cage filled with grain. Its reaction to the darkness is to gorge itself. If you were particularly thoughtful, you would add oats and figs to this diet as well. Once it had fattened itself, these gourmets would drown it in brandy - Armagnac, preferably. On high heat, roast it whole for six to eight minutes.

There is a tradition for consumption as well; of course there is. You would place a cloth over your head, to contain the aroma, to make it last, but also to hide your soon-to-be atrocity from God.

[He smiles again.]

Place the bird in your mouth, with only its beak escaping your lips. Bite down, and place the beak in your place. Chew slowly. Savor it. There is the sweetness of the flesh and fat, the brandy and the fig you have forced it to eat: this is God in all His wonder, from whom you must hide this act. I wonder if they tasted shame, too. Next there is the bitterness of untended innards, of organs uncleaned: this is the suffering of the Son, His blood on your tongue. It will soon be joined by your own, as your teeth crack hollow bones, as those bones slice your gums. Your blood, the sweetness, the bitterness - this is the Holy Spirit, and the Trinity come together in one mouth. A rite of passage, a mystery revealed.

It is terribly cruel. And terribly delicious.

[Spam for Ned]

[Shortly after his post, Hannibal heads for the pub sans champagne but still wearing his tux, and knocks at the door. He's already begun the set up, but there is one thing he still requires.]

[Open Gallery Spam on the Deck]

[Hannibal has been hard at work. With little to do between death tolls and less to occupy himself, he has been drawing. Mal was kind enough to supply him with tools enough for his art, though his pencils are never quite sharp enough without a scalpel to do the job. When he has finished, there is only one thing to do with his art.

Setting up takes time, but he goes as quickly as he can manage: Mal requested presentation dividers, which makes it feel just professional enough to satisfy Hannibal. The sketches and portraits are spaced out on the deck, providing plenty of room to walk around and observe. There is a small table near the pub entrance with glasses of champagne, and a very serious pie maker making certain that nobody does anything untoward to the champagne.

Hannibal himself can be found wandering through the little corridors he's made, observing his art on occasion but mostly observing those who have come to look.

It's opening night.]


(Hannibal is paraphrasing from Brendan Kiley's The Urban Hunt.)

Comments

[fridgetothefire]

[After her first route, she circles back a few times. People's reactions are interesting, and the whole event collectively makes her reluctant to turn her back on it. Hannibal is being provocative, of course, and she worries about what he might provoke. In the meantime - new guy. She meets him near her own portrait.]

Are you usually this stoic, or is mostly to deny him the satisfaction?

[gard]

[ When he glances to her, the corner of his mouth twitches. ] Yes.

In any rate, I'm wary of granting satisfaction to a killer I haven't even met.

[fridgetothefire]

He's the one who was talking about drowning birds in Armagnac. Do you want his on-ship rap sheet or would that ruin the exercise of...

[She gestures vaguely at the drawings with her champagne flute.]

...observing.

[gard]

Ah. Plenty of species have customs like that. But I've never found it a good sign when described so lovingly.

[ Violence is a tool. Loving violence is wrong. ]

And I don't say no to information. Just a general rule.

[fridgetothefire]

He killed three people, mutilated and posed them, cooked their organs, and then fed them to some of his original victims while they were death tolling in the infirmary, and announced himself as the culprit before anyone else could catch up to him.

He's really into cooking.

[She sips at her glass. It's not an impassive recital, precisely, but it's not an impassioned one, either. She could hate him for Zane, she could hurt him for Abigail, she could help him for Mal. For herself, of all the things he's done, it was letting the barge panic and seethe that she dislikes most. He upset the equilibrium of her home, and that isn't acceptable. Murder and pretentious presentation are easier to swallow.]

[gard]

Thought it might be something like that.

[ Careful control. But maybe it's obvious that he's seen things like this before. ]

[fridgetothefire]

You're not here to beat him. You're here to help him.

[She doesn't ask whether that's going to be difficult. She just makes the observation.]

Generally, anyway.

[gard]

Some of the killers I hunt - they can't be helped. Death and rebirth is the solution.

I'd like to say I've killed enough, but I have this feeling it never will be.

[fridgetothefire]

He's died a lot, since that stunt. Rebirth is harder.

[She doesn't mind. Certainly he's brought it on himself. And she's not sure he'll ever change enough to really qualify as rebirth. But she does believe he can be persuaded to modify himself.]

I'm sorry.

[This is sincere; her life is not ruled by duty, but she can imagine it, and she understands the weight of killing even when one cannot regret.]

[gard]

Doesn't mean the same thing here.

[ Rebirth, for the Joined killers he's hunted, means re-Joining. It means a new host. New memories. ]

I'm not sorry. Someone has to do it.

[fridgetothefire]

And that's why I am sorry.

[In the sympathetic sense, that he takes it on himself, because it is necessary. It is worthy of sympathy.]

[gard]

[ He shoots a smile, sideways, at her. He can accept that, and he does, with a little nod. ]

So, this guy. Egocentric? Thinks he's a step above everyone else? This whole place, all these drawings, reminds me of a wall of knives. Raw weapons and sharp edges.

[fridgetothefire]

So much. He's an artist, after all.

[There's a little fondness in her derision. Just a little.]

[gard]

An artist. I see.

[ He actually understands this humor. ]

[fridgetothefire]

Anyway, he's not actually worse than a lot of us, skull-count-wise, no matter how -

[She gestures at the drawings, manages to encompass his particular psychopathic perspective without saying anything that might damage their current odd detente. It's not that she thinks he has a way to listen; it's just that she's thorough.]

[gard]

Grotesque?

There's something to be said for extra cruelty. And... spurious reasons.

[fridgetothefire]

He's outclassed by a few people in cruelty, too. Probably not quite as many.

[Thinking of Abigail, what he did to her when she was alive, not any of the murders. No matter how he thought about it. He wasn't really thinking of her, after all. Gard has her on the last point, though, and she nods.]

There is that.

[gard]

Not that I find it particularly productive to rank inmates.

[fridgetothefire]

It's a survival mechanism, when you're trapped in. Know the hierarchies. We all do it.

...them, them. Lord, I keep forgetting I'm on the other side of it, now.

[She takes an extra swallow of champagne.]

I do find it useful, though. Death is so flimsy here, it's important to keep...perspective. He's a bit of a pariah because nobody likes a fearmonger in an enclosed space, but that doesn't make him less our responsibility. And it doesn't make the ones with better reasons less dangerous.

[gard]

[ When he looks at her now, it's curious. He hadn't judged whether she was inmate or warden, preferring to let her tell him, but knowing that she transitioned is interesting. ]

You like it here?

[fridgetothefire]

[Her smile is wide and warm and real, just the tiniest bit chagrined.]

I love it. But I'm an odd case.

[gard]

I like odd cases.

[ He extends a hand. ]

Hiziki Gard.

[fridgetothefire]

[She shakes back firmly.]

Anya Lehnsherr. Welcome aboard, by the way.

[gard]

I think I'll like it here.

[ Might linger a little, in the handshake. ]

[fridgetothefire]

[She doesn't pull away - she likes touch, in general - but doesn't quite pick up on it either. For all that she's normally very perceptive, this isn't a realm of cues she has any experience with.]

It's never boring.

[This is not what she likes about it best, but it has a high chance of appealing to a wider variety of people without her particular history and neuroses.]