InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "oops! she found the dead rat"

Erik (i_haunt) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2015-01-22 19:24:00

Entry tags:

arya stark, erik, hannibal lecter, zz:status complete

Delicacy (Hannibal, Arya)
The girl he left in his kitchen was in pain. She suffered. She waited for him. The girl left in his kitchen was in pain. He was responsible for her. Erik drew his scattering thoughts back to Arie again and again. Above it all, she was a singular thread, iron and brutal and ugly, but nothing like the horrors left in the vacuum of Christine's absence.

His servants had relocated to basement storage the wheelchair that Hannibal once sent to his manor. On his way down to the storage room, Erik remembered to grab the phone. The doctor's number was still on speed dial - a courtesy and convenience built in for his servants (and his wife, his wife) when Erik was too ill to dial the number himself. When Hannibal's voice answered, Erik opened his mouth and said something - less than a handful of words. As soon as he dropped the handset on the last bit of furniture he passed, he forgot whatever it was he'd said. The door to the basement stairs closed behind him.

There were a few minutes lost to his memory. He could remember only the presence of old friends - the hand of rage on his shoulder, the breath of helplessness against the back of his neck, the claws of pain raking his chest. What had drawn him back? He looked at the handles of the wheelchair in both blood-speckled hands, knuckles stinging, then checked behind him. The basement door was destroyed, and the blood must have been his own.

A sound came to him, the siren bell, ringing. He walked with the wheelchair (the girl is hurting) to the door of his manor, straightening last night's rumpled shirt with one flattened hand. Hannibal. Yes, of course. Erik pressed the button that would allow the doctor entrance through the otherwise-inpenetrable security around his manor, then turned back toward the kitchen. Arie was waiting. She needed him.

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i_consume
2015-01-30 04:48 am UTC (link)

"Mischa and I starved within the ruined cabin. I don't know how long before the men showed up. I tried to keep her warm, but we had no fire and only tattered blankets to stave off the chill. She was sick, I had no idea. The men knew, however. They knew as soon as they spoke with us. For days they attempted to hunt and only brought back skinny beasts to cook, which they boiled in Mischa's copper tub." Hannibal studied Arya carefully. She had seen horrors, terrible things. He believed she would not have as much trouble with this next part as many did, though she would likely recoil from the thought. "They took her out to our barn and returned without her. That night the stew had plenty of meat in it. More than enough to go around and fill all our bellies."

He did not doubt that the girl across from him would pick up on that particular word. Our. "They left me for dead then, chained, cold, alone. I don't recall leaving the cabin, I don't recall anything until I was found wandering in the snow. I was taken to an orphanage then. They had taken over my family's castle and made it into a home for boys with no family. Bigger children attempted to bully me because I did not speak, I only screamed in my sleep. I would not adhere to their pecking order. I was punished for this, but in that punishment, I found my way out through passageways only my family knew of. I found my way to my uncle's house, I found my Lady there and she brought me back to myself."

That was a tale for another time, though. When she was ready to train, Hannibal would explain what Lady Murasaki had shown him.

"I eventually found those men, Arya. I killed them all." He detailed for her each death. What he had gone through. The loss of Lady Murasaki because he would not stop his hunt. The feeling of satisfaction he felt when every sketch he'd drawn were finally just ghost faces of dead men.

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fear_cuts
2015-02-04 05:31 am UTC (link)

Arya listened quietly. The story of cannibalism didn't shock her; she'd grown up hearing stories of the Rat Cook, after all. And there were the rumors about the bowls of brown in King's Landing. For all she knew, she had eaten someone's little sister in the few bowls that she had during her time living on the streets in Flea Bottom.

But she knew what it was like to be starving, and to lose her family. "I have a list," she said. "I'm going to remember, and I'm going to find my way home, and I'm going to kill them all." Valar morghulis, she told herself. All men must die.

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i_consume
2015-02-06 07:29 pm UTC (link)

"Good." He told the girl. "Revenge is good. Proper. A healthy expression of what needs to be done in order to settle your soul."

It wasn't really the truth. The truth was that he should have encouraged her to find a way to release it, get past the horrors that she had seen. Hannibal did not want that for Arya Stark, however. He wanted to see what she could become if she was properly mentored. Shown the ways to do what she needed to do and do it right.

"I will help you." Hannibal said calmly.

He imagined that once Erik was also made aware of all of these facts, the composer would want to teach young Arya his own tricks. Together they could mold her into the perfect killer.

The idea of it excited him, but he was careful to keep it to himself.

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fear_cuts
2015-02-08 02:23 am UTC (link)

"Good," Arya said.

The fierceness in her answer seemed to be the last fierceness in her at the moment. Her injuries, the fright at her discovery, and telling her story had all seemed to drain her, it felt like. Like she was a waterskin with a hole in it and suddenly all the water was gone, leaving her empty. She leaned back in the chair, suddenly looking no different than any other tired child save that she was dirty and bruised. "Can I sleep now?"

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i_consume
2015-02-08 04:01 am UTC (link)

"Yes." Hannibal said, and stood.

He moved across the room to summon the staff. She needed to rest, but first she needed to be clean. When they arrived, he directed one toward the bed, and another toward the attendance of Arya specifically. She could choose if she wanted a real bath or just to be cleaned with a sponge. He imagined she might want the former, he would. He would want to soak away the ache and the dirt, allow himself to become relaxed and sleepy, before getting into bed.

There were also instructions to not give her any further morphine, if she had pain she could have acetaminophen or ibuprofen. He would not have her on opiates of any kind. He did, however, allow that she could take a sleeping pill if she desired. He promised her that it would not harm her in any way, and that she would sleep a long and dreamless sleep.

Hannibal left Arya to be tended to, spoiled in ways she probably had not been in a long time.

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