![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
🍴 ( 009 ) Video
[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.)
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.)
no subject
[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.]
no subject
There's something to be said for extra cruelty. And... spurious reasons.
no subject
[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.
no subject
no subject
...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.
no subject
You like it here?
no subject
I love it. But I'm an odd case.
no subject
[ He extends a hand. ]
Hiziki Gard.
no subject
Anya Lehnsherr. Welcome aboard, by the way.
no subject
[ Might linger a little, in the handshake. ]
no subject
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.]
no subject
Would you care to talk about what brought you here in the first place?
no subject
[She makes a habit of being open about this, unless it directly contradicts some objective. It's easier to admit than it is to remember, and she takes a small breath and sips her champagne, lets the old ghosts of vicious desperation settle back down in her rib cage.]
There was more, of course, murder and conspiracy and lies and turning a neat coup into a devastating messy war. But that was the heart of it.
no subject
[ He considers, for a moment, that she has already reached a measure of redemption. That changes things - it should change things. ]
Sounds - very messy. The heart, not the war.
no subject
[Frank, not maudlin.]
Did you expect something less monstrous?
no subject
[ She's impressed him. ]
no subject
With other people it's just keeping up good habits.
no subject
[ He does, actually. Honesty with himself is the only thing he's ever reliably had: he sure can't be honest with anyone else. ]
It's a rare skill.
no subject
[And she's a pragmatist.]
no subject
no subject
The fact that it's worth it seems to me not cynical at all.
no subject
no subject
[She swirls her remaining champagne contemplatively.]
I've been deeply cynical for most of my life. I'm not surprised at myself for defaulting to that phrasing, but it isn't - indicative of my current perspective.
no subject
no subject
[She's teasing. Mostly.]
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)