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]

"I suppose that rather puts me in the spot," Dr. Lecter says. "Theoretically, I should ask her permission to mention her name to you; practically, it might be easier if you just describe her to me, so I can be sure."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Oh - I'm sorry, I didn't even think," Rae shakes her head, apologetic. Doctor-patient confidentiality is not something that has ever cropped up in Rae's experience. "I was just concerned I didn't know who to leave a note for, when the time came."

"I had been planning on heading home soon," like later today soon, as he knows, "but neither her nor my door is reliable, and with the time differences between worlds, the cake will likely have to come first."

"She's a soldier of some sort. Tall, blond hair and blue eyes?"

Kind of presumptuous?

[cook_the_rude]

"I know who she is," Dr. Lecter says. "If you want me to leave a note for her concerning the cake, just tell me, and I'll do it for you."

He finishes his glass.

"Let's go to the kitchen and grab ourselves something with avocado before we have to leave for the opera, shall we?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"It'll take me a while to actually make the cake," she admits. "I've never made a wedding cake before - this'll be my first - and it's been years since I've done any decorative icing. I want to make sure it turns out well."

Her own standards of quality won't accept anything less. So she'll be practicing, first.

Rae smiles slightly, and finishes her wine as well. "Sure. That sounds good."

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal opens a door. "It's downstairs," he says, gesturing. "Would you like a helping hand with the cake, once you're sure of the parts?"

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae follows, glancing at the art upon the walls as they go. "I think I'll be able to handle it, but thanks for the offer. It's been long enough that I should probably give decorative icing another chance, anyway. Just to keep my hand in, even if I don't use the skill that often."

[cook_the_rude]

"Are you going to do it before you leave for your world?" Dr. Lecter asks, leading the way downstairs.

[sunbaked_baker]

"I think I'll have to," she replies. "It's no good, taking a commission and then accidentally disappearing back to my world until after the wedding. I can't say with any reliability when my door will appear, or how time in my world will pass differently than in the bar, and neither could the woman who ordered the cake."

[cook_the_rude]

The stairs lead to a large foyer, tiled in trompe-l'oeil marble, with doors leading off in all directions. One, thrown open wide, leads to a reception room with a massive fireplace and a harpsichord, and several sofas. It is all rather palatial, and filled with historic art.

"Dining room and kitchen are over there," Dr. Lecter gestures.

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae can't help but stare, as much as she tries to keep it off her face. Everything is so lush. The colors are richer, the lights brighter and the shadows darker. Like an art gallery, there is too much to take in at once - cursory glances do not do anything justice. The only things her eyes shy away from are certain of the decorations. Horns, antlers, skulls of various creatures. Some worked into arrangements of flowers, as though to accent the underlying symbolism of all flowers - life is brief. Beautiful, but brief.

The heels of her silver-white shoes echo upon the marble.

"Your house is very beautiful," Sunshine murmurs. Because there is too much here, too much that she perhaps had never truly believed would actually exist in an actual person's house, for it to go without comment.

[cook_the_rude]

"Thank you," Hannibal says. "I do enjoy living here. The antiques dealers love me, of course."

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine chuckles, still somewhat caught in awe of the place, glancing his way as she steps in the direction he had indicated they were going. "I bet they do."

[cook_the_rude]

Dr. Lecter walks through one of the arches that lead away from the foyer, into a short passage that opens into a dining room.

The walls are done in cobalt blue moulding; one wall is covered with a hanging herb garden and papered with an enlarged art print of twisted trees, and over the mantle, there is a lush rococo nude. Horns and spiky flowers dominate the arrangement.

[sunbaked_baker]

The herb garden is what catches her eye first as Sunshine steps into the room, bringing a soft smile to her face, the dark greens of fragrant foliage, their shadows edged in glimmering emerald, blending into the mural of stark tree branches above. The table is the centerpiece, rich, solid wood of beautiful quality. The cobalt-blue walls in their curves and layers cast many shadows, allowing her eyes to skip past the antlers and horns that again feature in the decorations. But her gaze soon stops, caught.

Over the mantle. As though to make sure she's looking at what she thinks she's looking at.

The smile fades into a look of bemusement at the painting, with its languid, inviting central figure and the intent swan.

"... Odd choice for a dining room," she says diplomatically, after a moment, though there are shades of Wait... really? in her tone and expression.

[cook_the_rude]

"How very perceptive of you to notice," Dr. Lecter says. "Most people simply notice that it's rococo, and must be boring. Others ogle it in silence and don't dare to speak up."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Really?" Rae breathes, amazed. "No one comments on it?"

She doubts she could pick rococo out of a lineup of art movements, but she would still see what's been painted in each piece, at least.

[cook_the_rude]

"Hardly anybody ever," Dr. Lecter says. "A slightly unpleasant acquaintance openly ogled it lately, that is all."

[sunbaked_baker]

Though she tries, Rae cannot completely contain the urge to roll her eyes at the idea of someone unabashedly ogling the painting. Wow. How... ugh.

"Of course," she says, dry. Sunshine lets her gaze move back to the herb garden, something much more to her tastes, as though to get that bad taste out of her mouth and mind.

[cook_the_rude]

"You're welcome to touch the herbs if you like, or taste a leaf," Dr. Lecter says. "They're all safe."

[sunbaked_baker]

Faint smile returning, Rae takes that invitation, wandering forward to enjoy and investigate.

"I've never seen some of these before. Others, only dried, or in stores," she says, leaning slightly to inhale the spicy-sweet scent of a ginger plant in bloom. The lemongrass gives her a moment of pause before she breaks off a small tip of one of the leaves, and tastes it. Ah.

[cook_the_rude]

"I try to have everything fresh and at hand," Hannibal says. "It's annoying to suddenly realise at three AM that I have no tulsi."

[sunbaked_baker]

There are multiple types of tarragon she recognizes, and she takes a tiny bit of a leaf from each, to smell their differences while the others are fresh on her mind. "I've felt that, or similar. Running out of cinnamon half an hour before closing, while preparing the cinnamon rolls for the next morning."

[cook_the_rude]

"Unfortunately, that's not so easily grown in a mere dining room," Dr. Lecter says.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Or gotten in the hours when the spice shops are closed," Rae smiles, wryly, stepping back along the rows of herbs. "Our baking supply order that week had been delayed by an ice storm. Only lucky that we had fewer customers at the time for the same reason - half of the cinnamon rolls ended up as giant date-and-pecan sticky buns."

[cook_the_rude]

"I'm sure they were very delicious," Dr. Lecter says, "but it just wouldn't have been the same."