The Universe's Mixer

Hannibal's adjustment period for his twinned soul was brief. He took in the boy and made him a part of the man. He made sure that the memories of certain people were locked well away so that he could make those discoveries all over again, with fresh eyes.

He had tasks and goals in his life. Plans. He was in the midst of opening up his practice again, his business cards had just come in. He was keeping an eye out for a secretary. Despite his wishes to not advertise - it was entirely too tacky - the City had seen fit to place a small ad in the paper for him. At least there weren't commercials on television, and he'd only seen the ad once, so hopefully it wasn't going to be a regular occurrence. The ad itself was as tasteful as it could be. Plain text, no images. Then there was also the production Erik was planning. As well as his training of Arya.

The doctor moved around the city easily, thanks to the knowledge of the boy on how it worked. He found himself looking for certain people now and again. He would have liked to see the girl, River Tam, for himself. The youth had assured him she was gone before he'd died, though. And Lestat, that vampire, Hannibal wished to meet him, as well.

There was one person that he wished to see more than any of the others, though. One face he hoped that he would encounter again. Clarice Starling. Hannibal found his thoughts roaming to her again and again. He didn't want to seek her out, that was too easy. He'd already sent her a watch, she knew that she could be found. What he wanted was another chance encounter. A second run in with her out in the wild. He wanted to see that look of surprise on her face when they both reached for the same apple, or when she glanced up at a restaurant to see him sitting across the room.

Another face appeared before him in the crowd as he walked, one that distracted him entirely from his former focus. Now Clarice could wait. This one...

Hannibal moved through the people like a ghost, jostling nobody, not even letting his suit lightly brush the arm of another, swiftly yet gracefully moving his feet until he found himself face to face with the subject of his brief hunt.

"Well, hello, Will."

The weather in the City was pretty much always perfect. There were days with rain, but they were still mostly warm. But there were still seasons. In fall the leaves fell (the trees were never bare, though), in winter there might be some snowflakes (never anything like the one great storm where the City had gotten carried away), and summers were warm and sunny and nobody had school.

Still, this year, the City felt like celebrating spring. Not any particular holiday. Just spring in general. There were new people around, there were couples in love, and it wanted to have a great big party for everyone.

Overnight, it set up the great festival. Streets all around the park were closed off so that people could walk around without issue. The park itself was expanded to over twice the normal size. A great clearing was made in the center, stretching from one side to the other. There needed to be lots of room.

Through this clearing the City placed tents, stands, and tables. These were filled with food and wares of all types. There were representatives for all the popular shops, as well as some that nobody had ever seen there before. There were stands for balloons for the kids, too, free of charge. And flowers absolutely everywhere. Woven into the stands themselves, laying on tables, set up in vases, growing in every patch that the City was sure nobody would accidentally step on them. Colorful ribbons, some as large as crepe streamers, also decorated everything. The City wanted as much color as it could possibly get.

At one end of the clearing the City placed a small carnival. Rides, games, everything it could think of. Even a petting zoo, though some of the animals within weren't typical farm animals that usually went in petting zoos. At the other it placed a few stages for performances. Concerts, plays, musicians. The stages were all contained within their own invisible sound barriers, as to not disturb one another, but the noise from all could be heard on the main promenade.

It put signs up all over, put notices in mailboxes, ads on the radio, commercials on television, and even made Candy and Frank talk about it on the morning news.

The celebration would go from sunrise to midnight. At sunset, the City would have a bonfire, complete with a pig roast and s'mores. At that time, it would move the park closer to the water, creating a beach between for the bonfire to settle on.