To see an opera

[sunbaked_baker]

(Up in her room, Rae gets ready.)


When Sunshine comes down the stairs, today, she may not look wholly like herself. The baker is usually seen in the bar wearing bright t-shirts or sweaters, with colorful jeans and sneakers, her hair up in a ponytail or held back by a likewise colorful kerchief. One colorfully casual customer.

Today her hair is down, tumbling about her scarred shoulders in loose waves of red, and what she wears is not her normal style at all.

She takes care with her steps, and not just because of the silver heels that grace her feet. As she moves down the stairs, Rae consciously straightens her spine against the fluttery nervous feeling in her stomach, and hopes it will soon pass.

This is going to be an enjoyable outing. Rae refuses to let her feelings of self-consciousness mar it.



(ooc: Sunshine will likely be out of the bar for a while after this, so any and all threads are welcome, but will be millitimed to before her thread with Hannibal Lecter.)

Comments

[cook_the_rude]

Dr. Lecter doesn't take long; he just walks through a door in the back of his office and returns, some minutes later, with two glasses of white wine.

"A simple domestic Chardonnay from Napa Valley," he says. "Crisp and deep, earnest and without frills. I find it goes well with books and music."

He offers her one.

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae has made her meandering way back around to another bookshelf by the time he returns. She accepts the offered glass with a smile for the 'no frills' comment. She feels quite frilly, in comparison.

"All the best things go with books and music," Sunshine replies, breathing in the wine's scent for a good moment, before she sips.

"Mm, lovely. There're apples," she murmurs with a smile. After another sip, she adds, "and citrus. Indian summer in a glass."

[cook_the_rude]

"Having a psychiatrist you need to lie to is counter-indicative to any good therapy," he says. "What were they specialists for? Survivors of vampire attacks?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"I wondered at the time, but I didn't ask - I suspect it was Other trauma. Not... not many people get away from vampires, specifically." She had been told it's not unheard-of, but that had been news to her. "SOF wanted to know what happened, and I had to tell them I didn't remember."

[cook_the_rude]

"So they wanted these psychiatrists to stir around in your brain and see if they could bring up some useful memories?" Dr. Lecter says. "Not conducive to a patient-therapist relationship based on trust."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Useful, maybe. Their emphasis was on that it was for my own peace of mind," she replies, sipping her wine. "To help me remember and heal." Et cetera.

"The problem being that I did remember, and what I remembered would have landed me in even deeper trouble than the relative cakewalk of lying to SOF about amnesia from partially-faked post traumatic whatever."

"Not accepting their referrals meant I didn't have to lie more."

[cook_the_rude]

"That was a great bucket of lies they threw on you, anyway," Dr. Lecter says. "Positively buzzword bingo. You were right not to take up their referral."

[sunbaked_baker]

"I believe some of them were sincere," Rae replies, shrugging slightly. The movement pulls at the marred skin of her shoulders, where her many scars and the golden traceries of her sunlight-web overlap. "At the time, I was just a survivor of an Other attack, suffering from PTSD. Not someone for them to wonder about."

That came later.

"They didn't... push, you know." It was not an interrogation.

[cook_the_rude]

"No?" Dr. Lecter says. "What do you think they believed to be doing?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"I think the people I talked to meant to help," Rae replies. "Giving a report after something like an Other attack is standard practice. Like giving as detailed a report to cops after a burglary or a mugging. Standard practice includes giving the names of possible contacts for therapy to the person who'd been attacked, too, if they're showing signs of trauma."

[cook_the_rude]

"Standard practice is not always best practice," Dr. Lecter shrugs. "But we shouldn't dwell on that. I don't even know your SOF friends."

[sunbaked_baker]

"These weren't my friends in SOF, anyway, just the SOF agent assigned to take my report at the time," Rae shakes her head slightly. She knows SOF isn't perfect, knows it better than most, but she believes their intentions were good, in this case.

[cook_the_rude]

"Who failed to see something very rare had happened," Dr. Lecter nods. "But it was probably for the best."

[sunbaked_baker]

"For me, it certainly was," Rae remarks, nodding. "Even if I left out the how of it, which they certainly wouldn't have let me do, telling one of the SOF-suggested therapists that I had saved the life of a vampire - whatever the circumstances - would've done... absolutely no one any good."

Especially not her.

[cook_the_rude]

"They like their monsters to stay in the little boxes they put them in, do they?" Dr. Lecter says, quietly shaking his head.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Never mind that he was likewise doing me the service of saving my life at the time," Rae replies, slightly wry, "preserving the life of a vampire fits all sorts of criteria for anti-social behavior."

Even apart from being impossible, the action itself would be more than just a worrying sign to the psychiatrists.

[cook_the_rude]

"Who are they to arrogate the sovereignty of interpretation?" Dr. Lecter says, looking at her with an expression of earnest worry. "You know what you are doing, Rae, much better than any of them ever could."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Oh gods, Dr. Lecter," Rae breathes, a faint smile lightening her wry expression. "If I know what I'm doing better than they would, we're all doomed."

Not true, technically, but the words suitably express her exasperation with essentially having to fumble around in the dark.

"My ally has said that he and I are on uncharted territory - humans and vampires don't ally - and even he has admitted that in some cases we have to make things up as we go."

[cook_the_rude]

"But that is how anything creative comes into existence," Dr. Lecter says. "You have to use unorthodox methods as orthodoxy has deserted you. With the SOF's standard approach, you have told me, your world is a hundred years from complete doom. With yours, it has a chance. So of course you know better what you are doing, even if it's a bit experimental at the moment."

[sunbaked_baker]

"More than a bit," she murmurs, sipping her wine. There is so much that everyone knows is impossible that is turning out to be... not.

"There've been... heartening signs that it is having an effect, but it's small, and slow. There'll be a tipping point, eventually."

She expects it will only get messier as time goes on, if they continue being successful. Master Vampires will become increasingly aware that their way of unlife is in danger, and will retaliate. She is sure of it.

[cook_the_rude]

"I am sure there will be, and then your way will end up being the true and tried standard," Dr. Lecter says, sipping his wine as well.

[sunbaked_baker]

"I'm hopeful," she answers. "It's not what I planned on doing with my life, but it's what I'll do."

Even the difficult things.

[cook_the_rude]

"Sometimes, your vocation in life picks you, not the other way around," Dr. Lecter says. "You were born to be a baker, but life made you a vampire slayer."

[sunbaked_baker]

"No, I chose to do this," Rae replies, quietly. "But a vampire slayer is not what I am."

Slaying vampires is not what she does, at the heart of things.

The slaying is incidental.

[cook_the_rude]

"Because you are able to do it, and they know, you can choose not to do it," Dr. Lecter points out.