There was a sense of familiarity in the one that approached him now. The others had been dull and hive like. They'd all moved together with the same purpose. They'd all had the same goal. They'd all smelled pretty much the same way.
But this one.
There was a pining where his heart would have been had it been alive and beating. Her scent drifted past the decay and blood and filled his nose. The sense of regret he'd had previously fell away.
It was her.
There was a low groan in his throat and he broke away from the pack he'd been moving with. They started to move with him, but an absent movement of his arm stopped them.
Hannibal stood in front of River, looking down at her as he had many times before. His muscles remembering how it felt, mimicking the movements of life. He moved her hair out of her face and tucked it behind one ear.
No real words could escape the rotted maw of his mouth, but that was okay. She would know.