(no subject)

[cook_the_rude]

Today, the rats have brought Hannibal Lecter more than the wine he ordered: on the same try, they brought a few inches of branching antlers, decorated with tinsel.

Dr. Lecter looks quite pleased with having that piece of decoration on his table while he is leisurely sipping his wine.


[[OOC: This idea came from Merc in chat -- I couldn't resist!]]

Comments

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Lesgle finishes the glass of wine he'd been carrying when he paused at the table, and twirls it meditatively between his fingers. "It would certainly be something to take with one to the--but there you are. No grave for Actaeon. Was that offer of wine still...?"

[cook_the_rude]

"That offer is still valid, of course," Dr. Lecter says, ordering a bottle of what he is having. "And no, no grave for Actaeon, except the jaws and bellies of the hounds."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Les gueueles," Lesgles supplies. "A subject of some familiarity." He takes a seat, rather wishing he weren't. They're back to mythological Actaeons and not real ones; the little impulse he'd had towards finding something out is childish.

But he takes a seat anyway. "But you're not one of the hounds to your particular Actaeon?"

[cook_the_rude]

Dr. Lecter fills his glass as soon as the bottle arrives. This will be a noticeably better wine than Bossuet is used to.

"In a way, I was," Lecter muses. "I hounded her to where she came face to face with the huntress and completed her unfortunate transgressions. But no, I didn't take her apart; I didn't have to. And then, the door took me right here."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Hm."

Yes, it's a very nice wine.

"Actaeon's hounds, poor easily-deceived creatures, aren't generally credited with driving their master to his transgression. I wonder how one would develop that argument."

[cook_the_rude]

"He followed them through the woods, of course," Lecter says. "Hunting, he happened on the huntress and became prey."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Did the hounds know they would find her, I wonder."

[cook_the_rude]

"The hounds knew she would be at hand," Lecter says, sighing. "Of course. But still, Actaeon wouldn't desist; he had to satisfy his curiosity. It was all very tragic, true to Greek myth."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Sometimes stories seem determined to run their course, don't they. --Tragic for Actaeon, and I can see an argument that it was tragic for the hounds; but what about the huntress?"

[cook_the_rude]

"The huntress had a right to remain unseen," Dr. Lecter says.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"I wouldn't call that tragic, though. Don't you think? It takes something more than an Actaeon in the wrong place."

[cook_the_rude]

"It takes hounds, ready to turn on him and tear him apart," Dr. Lecter says. "And an angry goddess."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"I meant for the huntress. Is the story tragic for your huntress, too?"

[cook_the_rude]

"The story was tragic for absolutely everybody," Dr. Lecter says.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"A proper Greek bloodbath." Lesgle smiles unevenly. It's not quite enough to turn a man off his glass of (very good) wine, but this sort of exercise in airy pretentious nonsense conversation is much more enjoyable when you aren't wondering how many dead bodies are piled up somewhere.

[cook_the_rude]

"A bloodbath alone isn't tragic," Dr. Lecter says. "Tragedy is personal -- there need to be connections broken, tragic irony, transgressions against the normal, and very painful reversals of fate."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"One might trust, looking at any bloodbath, that all those ingredients are there. Humans being human. Anyone coming to my own little bloodbath might not have known that there were--connections, irony, transgressions, reversals--but there they were."

Mmh. He scrubs at his face. "And yours, I take it, was--is--will be--as full of those as anything by Euripides?"

[cook_the_rude]

"To the brim," Dr. Lecter says, sadly.