InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Engage."

fear_cuts (fear_cuts) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2015-09-25 21:26:00

Entry tags:

arya stark, hannibal lecter

Wolf blood (Hannibal)
Since removing her cast, Arya had spent much of her time making her leg strong again. Some of it could be mistaken as a child playing--running around the grounds of Erik's estate and chasing after birds, or standing on her toes as long as she could. She also spent time sneaking out, which wasn't as hard as she had initially thought now that her leg was better. The City was large and strange, and she was hardly given a second look. She walked and watched and listened while she was out, and when she returned, rumpled and smelling of the burning fuel of the cars, nobody said anything.

When she dreamed at night, she saw the City in another way: sometimes low to the ground, sometimes high up, sometimes with the taste of blood in her mouth. But there were shadows almost as dark as those of Westeros, and lights almost as bright as the day, and sometimes in the day she passed places that she had seen as she slept.

She had food and shelter and a bed and clean clothes. There were no Lannisters or Freys. She could almost let her guard down.

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eatspeople
2015-09-30 03:02 pm UTC (link)

Red eyes floated upward to settle on the girl. He was pleased to see her moving about easier, though he wanted to see her posture to see if her leg was healing cleanly. Hannibal imagined that even if she ended up with a limp, she wouldn't allow it to slow her down very much.

"You know who I am, Arya." He raised an eyebrow gently.

Hannibal wanted her to use her eyes and other senses to determine his name. He knew that she could, she wasn't a stupid girl. She had known him, she had seen his differences. She had witnessed his mannerisms and the ways that he moved. These things were unchanged. She should, maybe not now, but in time, be able to tell anybody by their personal nuances.

He decided, because he'd used her name - her real name - and that might come as a slight shock, to give her one more hint. It was a luxury that she would not have with him going forward.

"I promised to train you, and that's what I've come to do."

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fear_cuts
2015-10-15 09:57 pm UTC (link)

It took her a moment. The voice was deeper, and the face was different, but the posture was the same. She hadn't seen him die, and she hadn't seen him change his face, but that didn't mean that it hadn't happened. She'd seen a man die and change his face before. A girl could believe that it could happen again.

"Hannibal." She said it with surety. "You look older."

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eatspeople
2015-10-16 09:50 pm UTC (link)

"I am older." He agreed. "More... experienced. I have much more to offer you now than I did, which is saying quite a bit."

He moved away from the piano, trying to urge her out from the doorway so that he could see her walk and move. He wanted to know if she'd taken care of her leg.

"There were two of us within the City walls for a time. The Hannibal you knew, and myself. There was something of an incident, which I will tell you about should you like. Now he and I are one, essentially. His soul is in here with mine. His memories reside inside of my Memory Palace."

He carried the physical differences as well. But those were obvious.

"The world has not, ultimately, lost anything. Erik has seen that, I hope that you can as well."

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	fear_cuts 2015-10-19 02:09 am UTC (link)
	That made very little sense to Arya, but this place was strange. "What's a memory palace? What incident? Are you a Faceless Man? Do you have those here? Why did Erik think you were dead?" She came closer, curious. "If there were two of you, did one of you have to die? Did you win a fight?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

eatspeople
2015-10-23 06:57 pm UTC (link)

"Erik believed a truth. He had no idea that the youth lives within me. He witnessed the death of his friend, and thus mourned the loss." Hannibal chose this question because it was the most important, and easiest to explain. "I did not kill him. I'm not sure if one of us had to die, or if that's just the way it happened. He died doing what he loved, one of the things, at any rate. He was playing music that Erik composed. A beautiful threnody that quite literally burned him up from the inside. We watched in awed horror as the boy became smoldering ash, and then I ate his heart."

Hannibal watched Arya move, content with the way that her limbs worked, glad to see that her healing was going well. She had done what she was supposed to do to assure that she would not have to walk with a limp or worry about difficulties later in life.

"With that, I took him into myself, it seems. So both of our souls reside within this one form. I don't know what a faceless man is, I'm sorry to say, it sounds very intriguing."

He moved to the more difficult question, the more complex. "A Memory Palace is a place within that you store every single memory you ever have, and thus can recall it at a moment's notice. You can ask me about any point in my life and I can tell you what happened, what the weather was like, the smells and textures around me. And his, now, as well. Rooms upon rooms, Arya, always building. You can dedicate rooms to subject matters, visit them when you feel lonely. Change things as you go. I can teach you, if you like. It seems as if I was going to, anyway."

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fear_cuts
2015-10-25 03:21 am UTC (link)

It was all a little confusing to Arya, but she did grasp one thing. "You ate his heart?" she asked in fascination. Old Nan had told her once about the Rat Cook and how he'd served an Andal king his own son, and there were stories about what evil wizards in Essos did. (And somewhere within her mind, there was a memory of running on four legs at night with a pack, finding men in the forests, and the taste of blood in her throat.) "Is that magic? I've heard stories..."

She trailed off. She knew something that Hannibal did not. She had felt lost since coming to this world, and now to know something that someone did not made her feel good. She chewed her lip, wondering if she should share her knowledge, and decided to share a little of it. "They're the best assassins in the world, from Braavos. They can change their faces." She thought of the coin that she kept on her at all times, the iron coin with the face worn away.

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eatspeople
2015-10-30 08:07 pm UTC (link)

"Some in the world think that it might be magic. Many cultures eat pieces of others of their species. Humans eating humans is not a new concept or a strange act, though it is something of a social taboo. There are tribes that eat the bodies of their enemies for reasons varying from trapping the souls on the mortal plane, to attempting to gather the strength of the dead into themselves. For some it is an insult. For others, an honor.

"I ate the heart of the younger Hannibal to honor him. Because I knew that it was what he wanted, since it is what I would have wanted. I had no idea when I completed the act that he would literally become a part of me. That, I believe, is due to the city that we're in, and not some kind of actual magic on my part."

Hannibal's head tilted as he listened to Arya, a distinct trait that they both had shared.

"Interesting." He assessed her face and the way she spoke. The reverence in her voice. "You admire them."

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	fear_cuts 2015-11-04 03:37 am UTC (link)
	"They can get anywhere and kill anyone," Arya said, remembering Weese's body at the bottom of the stairs, his spotted bitch licking at the blood, and Jaqen H'ghar watching it all. "They can be anyone. There's a lot I would do if I could do that." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

eatspeople
2015-11-05 08:10 pm UTC (link)

Hannibal raised an eyebrow as he listened to the girl speak. She had it in her to be what he was. She had the drive, and the base of knowledge. She was intelligent and willing to learn - this he had known already.

"You don't have to be anyone to do what they can do, Arya. Well, you don't have to be able to change your face at any rate. What I began to teach you, how to keep your stories straight, that is just the beginning of my knowledge. I have many things I can show you."

Many things.

"You can be like them, only better. What good is a killer that has to hide who he is in order to get away with his deeds? Better he is able to hide in plain sight and escape all suspicion in the first place, don't you think?"

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fear_cuts
2015-11-07 04:15 am UTC (link)

He could say that because nobody was looking for him. Nobody would hold him hostage or kill him and put his head on a pike if they found him. She would rather be nobody until everyone on her list was dead, and then she could be Arya Stark again and go back to Winterfell.

But Winterfell was gone and there was nobody to go back to, and she was here anyway. She could be herself if she wanted and Arie the orphan girl if she didn't and maybe that was okay, too.

"I suppose," she said reluctantly. Then, with more excitement, "Can we work with a sword soon? I like that. I'm good at that."

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eatspeople
2015-11-12 09:44 pm UTC (link)

"You sound uncertain about what I say. Let me pose it to you as this: the things that I know, that I am going to be teaching you, do you imagine that they have gone unemployed in my life, or do you think that perhaps I know them more intimately? Just consider, no need to answer. The query is more hypothetical than anything.

"There may be people here you know, or there may be nobody who knows your face at all outside of the friends and acquaintances that you've acquired since arriving. There are two familiar faces for me within this city."

Hannibal thought about Clarice and Will with a bit of a smile. He really did need to get the two of them into the same room.

"We can work with swords soon." He promised. "Have you been practicing your story? Arie's story?"

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fear_cuts
2015-11-14 02:49 am UTC (link)

The way that Hannibal talked reminded her of King's Landing. Not the smallfolk in the streets, but the lords and ladies in the Red Keep, the ones who made talking their lives and business. He might have been at home there, she thought. They played a deadly game at court, and he could have kept up with them easily.

Her lord father had not been one for that kind of talk. Eddard Stark had been direct and blunt. But he'd died, and the people who could talk from both sides of their mouths all lived. Maybe there was a lesson there.

The thought of a Lannister arriving while she'd been in Erik's mansion made her flush in fury. "No," she admitted. "I was more worried about my leg than my story." She paused. "I told Erik the truth."

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eatspeople
2015-11-16 08:03 pm UTC (link)

"It is good that you've told Erik the truth. He needed to know. He can help you, as well. Now that he knows who you really are, he'll be more open to it. He'll be more open to you. Though he might be upset for a little while that you kept anything from him to begin with, I'm sure he'll get over it. He's a... I won't say he's a rational man, but he's a man who understands when things need to be done a certain way for certain reasons."

Hannibal was pleased by her reaction to having been lax. It was important that she know she couldn't let her guard down at any time, that she couldn't let herself grow soft in any way.

"You will need to learn how to focus on more than one thing at a time, Arya. While I'm glad you were concerned for your leg and your healing, you should have been doing the other, as well. I should have been able to come in here and quiz you on any bit of Arie, even things you have not yet made up. You should be able to answer without thought at this point. I'll give you a week. At the end of the week, you should know the color of eyes on her first pet. And remember, basing your lies in facts will always make the lie more believable and easier to recall in dire situations. If you can do this, we will spend a day at sword practice."

He thought that was a large enough motivation, though he was sure the girl was motivated to do what he asked anyway. She was the one who wanted to become like her faceless men. This was all a step toward that.

"I will teach you whatever is within my scope, this I can promise you. But you have to promise me that you will be a proper student, that you will not doubt or question my methods. That if you ask to learn something, you will do your best to learn it and not become lazy. There are some things in the world that perhaps you are not meant to learn, and I will be able to tell if we happen upon one of those, but I will always give you the benefit of the doubt."

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fear_cuts
2015-11-18 04:38 am UTC (link)

Arya glowered, though she was more angry at herself than at him. Hannibal was right. She should have been working on her story, because what if the Lannisters arrived some day? What if she walked into the kitchen and Queen Cersei stood there just as she'd been the last time Arya had seen her?

Well, Arya would grab a knife and stab her in the heart and have no reason to lie in that case, but Hannibal was still right.

"Okay," she said. "I'll do my best."

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