Late afternoon, outside

[cook_the_rude]

Outside the back door to the general behind-the-scenes area which isn't far from the kitchen door and which Dr. Hannibal Lecter seems to have found by simply wandering away from the infirmary day room with his drip stand, there are a few chairs and a table which people seem to use to take breaks from whatever they had been doing there. A few waitrats are actually lounging around in the late afternoon sun and not paying any attention to Dr. Lecter; in fact, one of them has a little sign that declares WE'RE ON A BREAK!!!

Dr. Lecter sits in one of the chairs and looks up at the sky. He's wearing a paisley dressing gown over a soft green sweater, and a matching paisley shawl is covering the low-hanging thing on the drip stand. His slippers are plaid.

He is still rather pale and wan, but his face, as usual, will give away little.

Comments

[cook_the_rude]

"Waitrats are not for eating," the man informs them. "Big no-no. I'm not fit enough to cook for you at the moment, I'm sorry."

Pause.

"And yes, I suppose the doctors get that from the bar by magic."

[gredya]

Franchek and Masha turn to their mother for confirmation; she gives them a raised-eyebrow look and they go back to nosing along the length of the kitchen wall. Maybe there will be mice. Gredya watches a moment to be sure they're behaving before turning back to Lecter with a little shrug. "What do you cook?"

The waitrats that had been pointedly ignoring the werewolves pointedly ignore them a little harder.

[cook_the_rude]

"Anything, really," the man says. "I'm very curious about unorthodox ingredients and traditional recipes from all over the world. Many worlds, as it is."

[gredya]

"Then you cook them." She laughs a little, showing white teeth. "Wyr don't cook."

[cook_the_rude]

"You don't have to, as long as you eat what I cook, eventually," he says, with a little smile.

[gredya]

Her skepticism on the subject shows in her face, but she's still smiling a little. "We eat fresh. When we can."

...although she has thought, privately, that sometimes it might be nice to have an alternative to chewing on week-old deer hooves.

[cook_the_rude]

"Do you eat vegetables at all, or just meat?" the man asks.

[gredya]

"Grass, plants," she says. Close inquiries into the canine diet may prove regrettable.

[cook_the_rude]

"And what do you eat in human shape?" he asks.

[gredya]

Gredya gives him a doubtful look. "What we have. We hunt, we eat that. Sometimes we pick fruit...?"

No, hang on, he has a point. "One time I find a bag, I think they are called potato chips. And sometimes people have things. One time, a person had, what is it. Sandwiches." A hiker.

[cook_the_rude]

"And you liked that as well?" he asks.

[gredya]

"Yes. Pretty good," she admits, and laughs. "Someone eats like that every day, maybe they start to complain about hunting."

[cook_the_rude]

"Still, I have to try and make something that you will enjoy, at least for one day," he says.

[gredya]

It's a funny way to pass the time, she supposes, but why not? "Maybe I bring you something. From some world."

The children have failed to find any mice and are starting to edge closer to the waitrats again. She tsk-tsks at them and waves them off. "So many rules."

[cook_the_rude]

"Yes, I would quite like something from some world," he says. "Some interesting meat that I can cook with. If I'm not at hand, you can leave it with the bar for Hannibal Lecter; that's my name."

[gredya]

It'll be a good project for the children, if nothing else. She nods. "I will. And you tell me about your world."

[cook_the_rude]

"I can do that," Hannibal Lecter says. "It's not a very interesting world, really. No monsters beyond the ordinary human variety; no literal vampires and werewolves. For us, those are metaphors for the terrors inside the human mind."

[gredya]

She moves from crouching to sitting, stretching her bare toes in the grass. "Cities? Computers? You go to other worlds often, where you live?"

[cook_the_rude]

"Cities and computers, yes," he says. "I've been to some other worlds from here, but not directly from where I live. Not literally."

[gredya]

Good to know. She doesn't want the attention of any other frequent travelers between worlds.

Gredya nods at the children. "They need to learn that kind of world. Some time."

[cook_the_rude]

"Unfortunately," he says, "I'm out of a home and a stable city to go to; I don't even have my computer any more. There was trouble; you saw me coming in the other day."

[gredya]

Yes, she did. She smiles a little. "Maybe you go home with that monk. He is trusting. Very trusting."

[cook_the_rude]

"I don't think I've met a monk," he says, "but I've seen a short fellow around who does look a bit like a medieval monk."

[gredya]

"Yes, he is short." She'd been joking, of course. But she finds the monk's apparent vulnerability unsettling. "Probably he will talk to you. He talks very much."

[cook_the_rude]

"I don't know that a medieval monastery would be my best option..." he says, smiling.