milliways_bar | Party Post | Urquhart's Wake -- outside

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Party Post | Urquhart's Wake -- outside

As patrons enter the bar today, they may notice something a little different. A little more color, a sweeter scent; flowers, beautifully arranged. Sitting unobtrusively to one end of the Bar near the message board is an easel-mounted wreath arrangement, at its center the name Angus Urquhart, with the dates of his life, his afterlife, and his ultimate passing from the bar.

Should you follow the arrow pointing to the back door, similar but smaller flower arrangements mark the path to the lakeside. There, a modest affair is underway; seats, sturdy refreshment tables at Miss Sunshine's behest, music, and the makings of a bonfire closer to the shore for when it gets dark. The occasion may be somber, but above all this is a celebration of life — of the ever-so-much-more-than-nine lives of Angus Urquhart.

Come have a drink in his honor, or share your stories of his many adventures.

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"Would you expect not to be," Dr. Lecter asks.

Autor shifts his knees in the dirt. "I hope so. But Milliways provides her own unique circumstances, so there's no guarantee that I would or wouldn't be," he says. "True of everyone, right?"

"Of course," Hannibal says. "And Urquhart's loss reminds all of us of that fact."

Autor buries his hands in the dirt. "He liked you," he says. "Wanted to open a restaurant at the end of the universe."

"His cooking would have made for one very interesting restaurant," Dr. Lecter says. "Freshly caught fish and oriental influences, with a dash of Mediterranean, some German traditions, and a hint of haggis."

"Mm," Autor hums, politely non-committal. "It was quite good."

He brushes his fingers across the fern-like top growth of the asparagus crowns, and plucks at the weeds again.

"And he made excellent muffins," Hannibal continues. "I think Rae taught him that."

"Do you even grieve?" Autor says abruptly, sitting up to face Dr. Lecter. "Or is this a fascinating spectacle, a feast with the choicest cuts of hurt and trauma? I can't imagine you were too attached to the man at any rate."

"My dear Autor," Hannibal says, shaking his head, "whatever makes you say such a thing? I didn't know him very long, but as fellow food and wine lovers, we had a lot in common. Believe me, I sincerely regret the loss."

"Which means that you 'sincerely regret the loss' of his benefit to you," Autor says, rooting out a weed with tight, jerky motions.

Which is how the boy would have expected to grieve, given his relationship to Urquhart--and given his relationship to death--but things... changed. Somehow.

"Spare me the endearments, please," he says, trying for clipped and controlled.

"And you, I take it, loved him dearly and deeply?" Dr. Lecter says, slowly shaking his head.

Autor opens and shuts his mouth, and then glances at the dirt. "No," he admits. "But I did admire him."

"Do you really think I did not?" Hannibal says.

Autor clicks his teeth together once. He returns to weeding again, uprooting the invasive bastards with a grim satisfaction.

"No," he says, and a weed slips through his fingers. "I'm sure you did. There was... was a lot to admire."

"Yes," Dr. Lecter says, gravely. "There was. I know."

"So you've said," Autor says, glaring at him. The boy's breath comes to him soft and quick, and he sets his teeth. "I don't have to take this from you, you know. I don't."

"Don't take it so personally, Autor," Hannibal says. "It's not. Really. I have other things to think about."

"Then why did you come find me?" he says.

"To talk to you about Urquhart whom we both miss?" Dr. Lecter says.

"Effugium," Autor hisses, leaping back onto his rapidly expanding carpet. He shucks his gloves off like dried corn husks, and hurls them on the ground.

Then he clasps his shaky hands behind his back. "The next time you plan to drink me in, I'll try not to hand you the straw."

And then he flies away into the night, battling the wind as fast as he can for as long as he's able to sustain it.

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Party Post | Urquhart's Wake -- outside

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