Dr. Hannibal Lecter tends bar

[cook_the_rude]

It may even be that Dr. Hannibal Lecter volunteered to take over from the bar today.

In any case, he is standing behind the bar now, in an apron and with rolled-up sleeves, serving drinks and food. His specials board is eclectic and European, somewhat like himself.

Drinks

2012 Grüner Veltliner (Lower Austria)
2011 Schiava Gentile (Alto Adige)
2010 Prosecco Valdobbiadene (Treviso)

Budweiser Budvar (Czech Republic)
Rubarb Juice Spritzer

Food

Mixed Salad with Pumpkin Seed Oil and Speck d'Alto Adige
Lamb Carpaccio
Cream of Pumpkin Soup
Blueberry Marinated Salmon with New Potatoes and Lemon Hollandaise
Iced Coffee with Dulce de Leche

[[meta: as always, nothing in this food is people. people are only fed people on request. thank you!]]

Comments

[closesecond]

"You're a man of many talents, Dr. Lecter," Kane says.

He takes a sip of wine. As expected, it accompanies it quite well.

"I have also begun looking into some other patrons. Can't hurt to know, though I haven't quite gotten around to you yet."

[cook_the_rude]

"I take it telling people that they might be fictional will likely upset them," Dr. Lecter says, "and is generally frowned upon. By people who care about such things."

[closesecond]

"I would imagine so," Kane says. "Not everyone is willing to accept the full implications of the existence of a multiverse. Which is why I will refrain from bringing it up in conversation with them."

[cook_the_rude]

"We're not to scare the sheeple," Dr. Lecter says. "It might scar their souls, which I then in turn would have to carefully, professionally un-scar again. Unnecessary and unispiring make-work, so yes, I second that."

[closesecond]

Kane chuckles. "No, indeed, we mustn't," he says.

He takes another forkful of salad.

"The first I looked into was one Dr. Charles Xavier. Have you met him?"

[cook_the_rude]

"I did," Dr. Lecter says. "I read his dissertation, which I liked. He read my mind, which I did not like. What kind of material is he from?"

[closesecond]

"A rather irritating ability of his," Kane says. "Fortunately I have devised a few methods of negating it.

"He is primarily a comic book character, though other versions of him have appeared in different media. This younger version hails from a film adaptation. Assuming his universe precisely mirrors the events of the adaptation, he is to eventually lose his hair and, more significantly, the use of his legs."

[cook_the_rude]

"Which does not induce much schadenfreude as that will leave his mental abilities unimpaired," Dr. Lecter says. "How do you negate them?"

[closesecond]

"Unimpaired and perhaps even strengthened," Kane says. "And if anything, I think the hair loss is an improvement, too. Though I perhaps might not be the most impartial judge of that."

He pauses a few seconds to eat a little more salad. "As for the negation of his abilities, it is not entirely dissimilar to meditation. It takes an adept mind to learn, though you would no doubt be capable of it. Psychics played an important role in the Third World War, so in my world it was very necessary."

[cook_the_rude]

"Concentration and meditation, I can do," Dr. Lecter says. "I have ordered my knowledge in a mnemonic system called a Memory Palace, and can go anywhere that I choose within it, so I can present the good professor with an infinity of wine labels. Telling when he is or is not reading my mind, or already bored out of his skull by varieties of Chateau d'Yquem, that is the question."

[closesecond]

"Well, it sounds as though it would be simple matter to learn it, if you should wish to do so," Kane says. "A matter of layers within layers, portions of the mind working in parallel - something not far at all from what you're doing already."

[cook_the_rude]

"There is only one way to find that out," Dr. Lecter says, sounding speculative. "I will have to inconvenience the good professor some more."

[closesecond]

"I would, of course, be happy to teach you," Kane says. "I'm sure we can come to some kind of arrangement."

He would, in fact. He rather likes him.

[cook_the_rude]

"How would we determine that it works, with neither of us being a telepath?" Dr. Lecter muses.

[closesecond]

"I suppose we won't be certain until the next time you see Dr. Xavier," Kane says. "Or any other telepath who comes here."

[cook_the_rude]

"I don't know of anyone, but I would be glad to try it out," Dr. Lecter says.

[closesecond]

"It will be worth the trouble, I think," Kane says. "We all have our secrets."

Though some have more than others.

He takes up another forkful of salad - at this point he's eaten more than he has left right now.

"I think it might be best to begin on the next course. I suspect I'll be finished soon."

[cook_the_rude]

"And nobody died and made Professor Xavier the god-given judge of people's characters in this place," Dr. Lecter says, almost acidly.

[closesecond]

"No indeed," Kane says. "Certainly I wouldn't have agreed to it."

Xavier's presence is annoying enough as it is without having to worry about him prying into his plans for the world. Kane can only hope he doesn't discover the fictional representations of him.

[cook_the_rude]

"Nobody would," Dr. Lecter says. "The whole discussion about privacy and having nothing to hide expands into an entire new dimension with a judgemental telepath around."

[closesecond]

"The worst part is that he seems to believe he has a right to do so," Kane says. "Despite all his protestations to the contrary, I believe that he truly thinks that. That I was able to exclude him from my mind was a source of some hostility and suspicion, though he concealed it behind the politely-smiling veneer of the well-heeled."

[cook_the_rude]

"There is nothing wrong with politeness," Dr. Lecter says. "Without it, the grit of unfettered truthfulness would cause the engine of human society to creak and crunch and sometimes grind to a painful, bloody halt. I found him rather rude: when confronted, he delivered a diatribe, gabbling about his abilities and his abhorrence of violence, then flounced off in a huff."

[closesecond]

"The line between 'polite' and 'disingenuous,' is a thin one," Kane says. "He may have smiled, but behind it was little else but contempt."

[cook_the_rude]

"That is what I saw as well," Dr. Lecter says. "Actual politeness needs a slightly better performance."

[closesecond]

"Genuine courtesy is a distressingly rare thing," Kane says.

The salad is nearly finished now.