milliways_bar | Two pups, two muns

"I didn't know that," the girl smiles, rather pleased at the compliment. She dries her hands on her apron. "...'ve not seen a lot of cooking competitions. It's just easier to clean-up as one goes, so you don't have to worry about it later."

Dirty dishes build up surprisingly quickly, she knows. Now she is left wondering what tv channel she could find cooking competitions on - yet another reason to try and avoid her mother's wrath, in addition to all the normal reasons.

But even with the prospect of cooking shows, she's curious. So, greatly daring, she asks, "He was relying on the one who did the crime?"

During this discussion, he finally looks away, pulling out a chair to take a seat.

There's another pause at Rae's question, but then Graham nods.

"He was."

"In the end, he realised he had been used," Dr. Lecter says. "At least in my world. My Will helped him -- but I don't know what Will here did? Our worlds are already different."

The girl's expression darkens faintly, in sympathy for the unknown Peter who was betrayed by one he had trusted. She doesn't know what that feels like, personally, but imagines it would be horrible.

"Worlds can do that?" she asks, after a moment. How weird it would be, to meet a friend you know but who comes from a different version of your world. "I think... I'm the only one who comes here from my world. Nobody here's heard of Independencia, or Others, and most peoples' worlds don't even have magic."

Which is weird, to say the least.

"Worlds might vary as much as the people who experience them," Graham suggests, quietly.

"Here we touch on the theory," Dr. Lecter says, "that every person experiences reality differently, there is no objective observable truth, and everybody is hence a world to themselves. Communication and understanding could only ever be an illusion. Isn't that the very opposite of that you do?"

Pause.

"Rae's world is not an illusion; I have seen books from there."

Much of this goes over the ten-year-old's head.

Much of it.

But she considers the idea, anyway, or tries. It's true that some of the hype-heads and derelicts in Old Town experience reality very differently from most people. But every person doing so? 'No objective observable truth' makes it sound like the whole world is all in one's head.

"I've... heard of people being off in their own little world, when they're day-dreaming, but all that makes it sound like the actual world itself is just... something people make up as they go." War and death and destruction and all. She struggles to put her thoughts into words. "Like, if there is no obj... objective observable truth, there is no actual real reality for everyone to be experiencing and interpreting. They can't experience something that doesn't exist."

Rae shakes her head - she doesn't buy it. Or get it, really. "The... world I come from is real enough, without needing me to interpret it."

"You raise some excellent points, Rae," Dr. Lecter says. "While philosophy can do whatever it likes and has been doing so for some centuries, at least, it's better we keep our eyes on some sane gauge for reality, with our head up and our feet down, in order to not go off into our own little world."

He smiles, pouring a tiny dash of ginger syrup into the ice cream.

"From that, I conclude that the worlds which Will here, and the other people from our shared past, now all are slightly different, because things are happening for them that haven't happened for me."

Graham doesn't move, and doesn't say anything during this. From the way he watches the wall, rather than either of them, someone who didn't know better might think he wasn't really paying attention. But he's not going anywhere else right now.

Then he asks, abruptly, "Why do you cook with Dr. Lecter, Rae?"

His tone is distant, but otherwise it's nothing unusual. He doesn't look at her when he asks it.

Sunshine blinks at him in mild surprise, thinking on the question.

"Because I enjoy it?" she says hesitantly, glancing at Dr. Lecter before looking back at Will. It's the most pertinent point, but doesn't fully answer the question. "I mean, I like cooking good food, and I like learning new things and trying new recipes for things I've never made before, and Dr. Lecter knows more about cooking than I do, and I enjoy talking with him, and cooking is sometimes just more enjoyable when it's not by yourself."

Like the good food that results, the experience of cooking is better when shared with someone else.

"Lots of reasons," the girl finishes, lamely.

"Rae is a very apt pupil, quite gifted at what she does, and I'm honoured she likes to learn from me," Dr. Lecter says, smiling at Graham.

Graham raises his eyebrows, and still doesn't look to either of them.

But all he says is, "Her perspective feels as real as mine."

Rae, still smiling a little at Dr. Lecter's words, wonders aloud, "How do you judge how real someone's perspective feels?"

For that matter, what does a fake perspective feel like?

"Will has the gift of standing in another person's shoes, as it were," Dr. Lecter explains. "It's called empathy. An almost uncanny skill of looking at the world from somebody else's point of view and knowing what it feels like from the inside."

Graham doesn't add anything to this.

But he does glance back to Rae.

Rae nods slightly, uncertainly. That didn't really answer her question, though, but it doesn't look like she was really getting one. Not an uncommon occurrence in a kid's life, really. She still wonders what makes a person's perspective feel real. Especially if - as the theory goes - there is no objective reality to judge it on. And what would make a person's perspective feel fake? Would it be like a character in a poorly-written piece of fiction? She doesn't know if she could ever see someone like that.

"Charlie says everyone has some measure of empathy - and should, because it's important." There are so many people suffering, with the terror of the Wars and the crash of the world economy. Kindness, fellow-feeling, camaraderie, empathy, they're often all that are holding some people up. Aside from the good food, that is often what the people of Old Town come to the coffeehouse to find.

"But there are... empaths in my world, too, though it's a very rare skill for even a powerful magic-handler to have," the girl says, glancing between them. "Even rarer than being a seer, and being able to tell the future."

"Will here doesn't have magic," Dr. Lecter says. "It doesn't exist in our world. But what he can do is son uncanny to ordinary people, it almost feels like magic. Your world would probably perceive it as that."

He thinks of Ava asking if he knows his world has demons, and Beverly snapping, You said you just interpret the evidence.

Graham speaks to Rae. "It means - I can have trouble, telling someone else's feelings from my own."

Rae nods, solemnly.

Stories like that always had a way of... following me out of the pages.

More scary stories?

"I'm sorry," she says, sincerely, perhaps understanding a little more now. It sounds rather horrible to her. "I've... heard it can be like that. Kids from magic-handling families usually start their apprenticeships around nine or ten - empaths much earlier."

For their own sake.

"And now imagine a world where nobody has that kind of gifts, nobody can teach him properly," Dr. Lecter says, gravely.

"Some have tried."

It's careful a diversion from his first thought - that imagining something like that wouldn't be so hard for Rae.

Oh, she's imagining. The girl doesn't know which would be worse - to go through life having to learn one's gifts on one's own, or to have had others try to teach, and fail.

She'll find out for herself, eventually.

"That's not how it should be," she says quietly to Will, knowing that it doesn't really help to say so, but wanting him to know that she wishes things were different. Brief, ephemeral comfort, like a cinnamon roll or a cup of coffee.

"I am among the people trying to help Will, back in our world," Dr. Lecter says. "He is not all alone; he has friends, people who accept him and deeply care about him."

"I'm not alone," he agrees, quietly. But he doesn't take his eyes off Rae, as though it's meant to reassure her.

Rae can tell these explanations are intended as comfort and reassurance in return, so she nods. All of it sounds good. To not be alone, but accepted and cared for. Supported.

("It's comforting, sometimes, to know that other people think of scary things, too. It only gets bad when they come up with something you've not thought of before.")

But Will does not look especially comforted. She thinks of his face as he impassively watched the caged bird on the table, thinks of the rules to a game shared secretly between grandmother and granddaughter, the answers one hopes to find by reading scary stories, and the dangers not easily shut away in a book.

"I... I hope it's enough," Rae murmurs. Suddenly and irrelevantly, she is sorry she ran, that first time they met.

Edited 2015-01-01 02:36 (UTC)

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