Everybody having Sunday dinner

[ostro_goth]

This Sunday evening, there are many patrons in the bar, having dinner. among them are:

• Teja, having a roast and bread, with greens, and a clay cup of well-watered red wine. Under and around the table, all four of his cats are waiting whether something will happen to fall down for them.
• Madame Thénardier, who is eating brioches with jam in her favourite nook by the fireplace while reading a paperback novel with Egyptian hieroglyphs on the cover.
• Father Pearse Harman, who has a fish pie and a salad, this being a Sunday in Lent. He's not reading anything, for once.
• Lady Margolotta, with her usual tea and knitting. It's not exactly dinner, but she's sipping something while giving people friendly, closed-slipped smiles.
• Dorian Gray, who is watching something on a small device with only one ear-bud plugged in while nibbling on Japanese rice crackers and sipping green tea. More food is, presumably, forthcoming.
• And finally, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, who isn't in the bar room itself at the moment, but in the kitchen, most of his formidable attention firmly fixed on the dinner he's cooking for himself. It involves lamb.

[[OOC: Katrina, albeit in the icon, isn't there; everybody else is. Say in your tag whom you want, or you might get any of them, barring Hannibal.]]

Comments

[patterns_bloom]

Alana Bloom dresses for battle today. She dons a little black dress that cuts off at mid-thigh and her favorite black pumps. Her jacket is a understated white affair with the delicate outlines of red balsam flowers. She curls and teases her dark brown hair until it falls in shining waves about her shoulders. The addition of a gold necklace her mother gave her long ago completes her armor.

She descends the stairs poised and confident, and catches Margolotta's eye. Alana smiles back. "I've never learned how to do that, so it's a skill I envy," she says, gesturing to the knitting.

[margolotta]

"Good evening, my dear," Lady Margolotta says. "Would you like some tea? I could teach you to knit, but I'm afraid a nice knitted cardigan wouldn't really fit with your style."

[patterns_bloom]

"Oh!" Alana says, surprised by the offer, but very grateful. She straightens her skirt and sits down, "Tea would be lovely. Please, allow me to introduce myself and have the pretense of manners. My name is Alana Bloom. And you are?"

[margolotta]

"I'm Margolotta Amaya Katerina Assumpta Crassina von Überwald, but you can call me Lady Margolotta," she says, pouring tea for Alana. "It's lovely to meet you, Miss Bloom. I like your style, by the way. Have thought so every time I've seen you pass, which hasn't been too often."

[patterns_bloom]

Alana blinks at the name and at the lady's comment about her style--and not seeing it much. "Oh, thank you, Lady Margolotta," she says, accepting the tea. "For the tea and the compliment."

She glances down at her tea. "I've admit I've been staying up in my room entirely too much. I need to start making friends."

[margolotta]

"I think I saw you beat a hasty retreat upstairs once," Lady Margolotta says, sounding very sorry about it. "You've got people here who aren't friends, don't you?"

[patterns_bloom]

Alana glances away. "Doesn't everyone? I mean, not everyone has to like each other," she says, and offers a soft, nervous laugh.

[margolotta]

"People you could call enemies, if that wasn't so terribly melodramatic, something a grown, modern person simply doesn't have any more?" Lady Margolotta suggests.

[patterns_bloom]

Alana sips her tea, considering this. "Why are you interested in whether I have enemies, Lady Margolotta?"

[collects_strays]

This time, Graham steps through the threshold of the kitchen door.

He doesn't say anything, for the moment, but stops near the counter.

[cook_the_rude]

"Hello, Will," Lecter says, turning towards him with a little smile that looks almost pleased.

He's picking small potatoes, both yellow and purple, from a large basket of them. On the counter sits a fillet of lamb, seasoned with pepper and salt, but as yet uncooked. One of the ovens is turned on, and a skillet with oil is heating up on the cooker.

[collects_strays]

"Dr. Lecter."

He glances over the ingredients, but doesn't say anything else.

[cook_the_rude]

Dr. Lecter very fastidiously sorts through the potatoes he has chosen, then deftly puts the fillet into the skillet, where it sizzles nicely.

"It's so good to see you, Will," he says. "Would you like a glass of wine while I'm cooking?"

[collects_strays]

He blinks up.

"Let me get it."

[cook_the_rude]

"If you like," Dr. Lecter says, smiling into Will's eyes before turning back to his skillet to turn over the meat. "The bottle is over there" -- he points with the spatula -- "and glasses are on the sideboard by the bar door."

[collects_strays]

Graham walks over to the sideboard first, then to the bottle. Once he's done, however, he doesn't immediately reach for his glass. He steps back from the counter, and takes off his coat.

"Rae's not in here today," he says, as he folds the coat neatly over the back of a chair.

[cook_the_rude]

"No, she is not," Lecter says. "She is sometimes a child, and sometimes a grown woman, and she doesn't approve of me in the latter incarnation."

Pause.

"I hope you'll share this meal with me."

[the_cupbearer]

"Lamb," says Ganymede in an indulgent murmur, leaning back on the doorframe. He himself is carrying a wineglass, swirling a gold wheat-colored liquid around the bowl, and watching Hannibal's back move under his shirt.

"How symbolic."

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal takes a moment to turn around, as he is still dusting the salt and pepper over the fillet of lamb.

"I am eating innocence itself?" he then says, smiling at Ganymede.

He reaches up onto a shelf and gets down a bottle of grape seed oil.

[the_cupbearer]

"Innocence, or sacrifice," he replies, moving closer to watch what he's doing.

"You decide, I suppose. So long as you're not dusting it with bitter herbs, you can skate by on that. But the symbolism isn't so easily erased. Wine?" he asks, holding out the glass.

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal takes the glass with a little smile, inhales the aroma, and then takes a sip.

"The sacrifice of innocence to our sophistication, perhaps," he muses.

[the_cupbearer]

"I assume the lamb enjoyed its childhood as much as you will its end," he says with a tiny chuckle, looking down at the cut of meat. "Though to be honest looking at this I'm not entirely sure which end it is."

[cook_the_rude]

"Do we ever enjoy our childhoods, or is it something that we decide later, when we look back at it and realise what we had to let go?" Hannibal muses.

[the_cupbearer]

"Well, I don't know about you, but I quite enjoyed mine," he says. "I remember it faintly, but the time was pleasant."

[cook_the_rude]

"I vaguely remember the early part of mine as pleasant," Hannibal says. "But that might be hindsight, back to a world when things were as they ought to be."

He takes another sip of wine, puts the glass down, and then puts a skillet on the cooker, turns on the gas, and pours some oil into the skillet.