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

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine nods, gathering another bite of the lovely salad. "If they won't be persuaded, they won't be persuaded."

It's what she tells herself, when things go badly. She can try her best, but she can't make them listen. And there is no room - no time - for half-measures, when it comes to vampires.

Or serial killers, she would imagine.

[cook_the_rude]

"I think," Dr. Lecter muses, "we have time for a tiny dessert before we go."

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine smiles slightly, drawn only a little down by the topic of conversation.

"A tiny dessert?"

[cook_the_rude]

"As opposed to a large, elaborate one," Dr. Lecter clarifies.

[sunbaked_baker]

"What kind of tiny dessert?" she grins, clarifying in turn.

[cook_the_rude]

"It might involve some chocolate and something else," Dr. Lecter says, smirking.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Well, with chocolate, it's certainly off to a good start," Sunshine chuckles, eyes shining, both amused and intrigued.

Desserts - both tiny and As Big As Your Head - are a special interest of hers, after all.

[cook_the_rude]

"One can hardly go wrong with chocolate, and it combines well," Dr. Lecter says, taking a sip of his wine.

[sunbaked_baker]

"It does," Rae knows it well. "And it's versatile, depending on the taste you're going for - definitely fun to experiment with."

[cook_the_rude]

"Well, I do have some ideas," Dr. Lecter says, eating the last of his asparagus.

[sunbaked_baker]

"I'd like to see what you've made," she smiles, finishing her salad with the last bit of avocado. Rae has no doubts that it will be sublime.

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal takes their salad plates away, then takes out two tiny dessert plates and some containers from the fridge and the freezer.

In quick order, he adds to each plate a small piece of flourless white chocolate cake, some slices of kiwi, some halved strawberries, a small blob of whipped cream, a sprinkle of chopped pistachios, and a light swirl of a redcurrant sauce.

Then, he serves one to Rae, and sits again to consume the other one.

[sunbaked_baker]

Pistachios and kiwi and white chocolate, oh my! An anticipatory smile forms on her face as she watches the desserts put together.

"Oh my," Rae breathes as the dessert is served. So many of her favorite things, all on one plate.

[cook_the_rude]

"I hope you like it," Dr. Lecter says, smiling at her as he starts eating his own dessert.

[sunbaked_baker]

She bets she will. The first bite, fork laden with a bit of kiwi and strawberry, a tiny pistachio and a taste of the cake, touched to the whipped cream and redcurrant sauce, is taken with great focus.

Oh gods, that's delicious. The tart fruit, the sweet white chocolate, smooth whipped cream and slight crunch of the pistachio, all together. Sunshine savors it, and even after swallowing the bite she simply sits and basks in it for a moment, a faint smile on her face. It doesn't show, perhaps, with the dress, but the dessert is toe-curlingly good.

"...Oh wow," she murmurs, at last, the beginning of wondering applause after the lingering silence at the close of a piece of music. "This deserves a name."

[cook_the_rude]

"Then you should name it," Dr. Lecter says.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Not me," Rae smiles, savoring another bite. "All of my dessert names tend to skew towards the morbid, and this is anything but."

[cook_the_rude]

"I simply picked the national colours of Italy," Dr. Lecter admits. "In honour of Giuseppe Verdi, the composer of tonight's opera."

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae tilts her head slightly. "Its name would have to be something in Italian, then."

[cook_the_rude]

"Or something in Nabucco," Dr. Lecter muses. "We can keep an eye out for a name during the intermission."

[sunbaked_baker]

"We'll think of something," she nods, trying another bite of the utterly delicious dish. "Something this good needs a name."

[cook_the_rude]

"It's not hard to make," Hannibal says. "I'm sure you can do the flourless white chocolate cake in your sleep, and the rest is utterly easy. I like the idea that, in years to come, something enters your repertory back home that I helped devise."

[sunbaked_baker]

"There are plenty of more difficult desserts that wouldn't be as good as this one," Rae replies. In her opinion, difficulty isn't a measure of how good something is.

"If I served this back at the coffeehouse, it'd be a mirror-image of Bitter Chocolate Death."

[cook_the_rude]

"The polar opposite," Dr. Lecter nods. "Sweet Chocolate Life, positively. La Dolce Vita di Cioccolato."

[sunbaked_baker]

Her expression breaks into a smile. That's perfect. "Oh, I like that."

"La Dolce Vita di..." Pronunciation. She may have a decent ear for it, but she wants to get it right. The texture of the vowels in chocolate and Cioccolato is not the same.