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Some people refuse to be taught, and waste the effort of their teachers.

The blood may already be disappearing from his white clothes, but it is still matting his hair and vividly staining his pale face when the Bright Shiner enters the bar from New Orleans tonight. He licks the thickening liquid from his fingers like a a cat cleaning its paws, or perhaps like a child who has run their fingers along the side of a mixing bowl where still some frosting clings. Each thorough lick is thoroughly enjoyed.

Soon, his clothes are pristine again, and Yrael takes a seat at the bar.

"Dear Lady, would you permit me a glass of Atlantean wine?" he requests, smiling. He adds a heartfelt thanks as the glass appears. The wine tastes of liquid light, heady and potent. And that is good, for - all things considered - it has been a good night.

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"Blood does look black in moonlight," Dr. Hannibal Lecter says.

He's leaning on the bar, sipping red wine.

Yrael smiles, turning his head to glance at the doctor. He knows humans lack the night-vision of cats and things occasionally shaped like cats.

"And red loses its color fastest in low light," he says instead, drawing a bead of blood by running his pinched fingers down a small lock of red-soaked hair. Amid all the red, the white hair looks like bone peeking out from among fresh meat. Yrael tastes the blood. "The Purkinje effect, I believe."

He looks at his friend for a moment, taking in his appearance.

"New haircut?" he says, lightly. It's a larger question than it appears at first.

"Yes," he says. "I lost my former barber, you might say, and must make do with a vastly inferior one."

"That's a shame," Yrael murmurs. "Surely we could find you one better."

"We could here," Dr. Lecter says. "But that would get people to panic at my return."

"Enjoyable panic or inconvenient panic?"

All the panic Yrael has encountered today has been very enjoyable.

"A little inconvenient, I'm afraid," Dr. Lecter says. "They'd search my cell for scissors."

Yrael wrinkles his nose and makes a faint sound of displeasure.

Inconvenient.

"And if you were to go back with hair noticeably longer than it had been the previous day there? They accuse you of witchcraft?"

Dr. Lecter nods.

"I will have to get the same inept haircut before I return the next time," he says. "It wasn't noticeable the last time around, luckily."

"I am certain we could find you a better and more skilled barber in your world, if you wanted," Yrael offers, tilting his head slightly.

"I'm sure you could get me out of my cell if I wanted it," Dr. Lecter says. "Unfortunately, I don't. Not yet."

"Fair enough," Yrael nods. He wanted to make sure.

"As long as I'm in there, Will knows where to find me," Dr. Lecter says.

"Some things are worth the price," he murmurs, sipping his wine and watching Dr. Lecter.

He has changed even since they last spoke of change, and freedom, and the price of risks.

"I have found," Dr. Lecter says, "that Will is."

"Good. Then may he continue to be, long after all prices are paid," Yrael offers, lifting his glass slightly to his friend.

Dr. Lecter lifts his own glass. "I'll drink to that," he says. "And one day, I might drink with Will again."

"I hope you do," Yrael replies. "I hope he drinks with you again, one day."

Yrael drinks, feeling the delight that is Atlantean wine as it rolls over his tongue. It is a long moment before he speaks.

"You have now both imprisoned the other, sought unsuccessfully to cut the other from your lives, and still the bond between you is strong... what must change before you can drink together again?"

Beyond the mere unlocking of doors.

"He must make the barrier go away," Dr. Lecter says. "He must change me. He must see."

"Then may I offer my wish that he opens his eyes soon," Yrael says, with an upward quirk of the corners of his mouth.

"Some things are best when shared."

Good food and good drink, certainly, and an enjoyable hunt, and naps, and sometimes - depending on those in question - lives.

"Oh yes, the are," Dr. Lecter says. "And Will's the person I most enjoy sharing them with, back home in my world."

"He has the capacity to understand and accept you," Yrael murmurs, sipping his wine.

He may be thinking of others, who have come and gone.

"He should not waste it. Or time."

Mortals live so briefly, but seem to spend so much of their lives fighting against or simply not accepting who they are. Dr. Lecter has always been refreshing in that respect, because he does not.

"At this point, I am rather sure he won't," Dr. Lecter says. "And he's getting there. He might not yet admit it to himself, but he is."

"Hopefully, he will learn," Yrael says, poking a finger at the tip of a lock of his hair, now stiff with drying blood.

"The young man I met earlier this evening refused to. He was wasting his education."

"He probably didn't have Will's class, or potential," Dr. Lecter says. "I met a lot of wannnabes, before Will."

"He had some potential, at least," Yrael tastes the blood on his fingers again. "A mutant, I believe, and he had a good sense of humor. Would have made a good assassin, too, with his ability to camouflage himself, but he thought he had already learned everything he needed to know."

"So he tried to assassinate you?" Dr. Lecter guesses.

"Yes," Yrael replies. "Another student, sent for a lesson."

Like the one they had encountered, in the alleyway in New Orleans. Sent for a reminder not to get too secure, too proud. A lesson in caution, in awareness, and in humility.

"He failed his first attempt, though it was a good attempt. I caught him, and showed him why he failed, and how he could avoid such missteps in the future. He did not appreciate my help."

"So he ended up the hi no maru on your white flag," Dr. Lecter says. "Pity."

"He wasted my effort and my good will, and was wasting the efforts of his other teachers," Yrael remarks, sipping his wine. "But he makes a fine lesson."

A clear-cut example of what not to do.

"One that hopefully will not be wasted on his fellow students."

"If it is," Dr. Lecter says, "then perhaps you'll need another strategy of dealing with all the blood."

Which will keep coming.

Yrael smiles at his friend, amused. "What, like taking a bath?"

Charter forbid.

"Good grief, no," Dr. Lecter says. "You're too feline and too fiery for that. I usually have this handy plastic over-suit, but that doesn't work for spontaneous incidents."

"Being fiery does help with the blood, too," Yrael admits, grinning slightly. Then he shakes his head like a cat disliking its collar, and his form brightens. The lingering blood in his hair and on his face is burned away in the contained heat, leaving unmarred pale skin and clean white hair with no sign of having been covered in blood the moment previous.

Dr. Lecter takes a deep breath.

"Interesting," he says. "And very handy. But not something you can do in New Orleans, mutants or not."

The smell of Free Magic lingers for quite a while after Yrael goes back to looking as human as he ever does.

"Not in the main streets, at least," he smiles. "I have not yet had any trouble in the alleyways. People rarely look where they don't want to see."

"Not if there were fiery mutants settling scores," Fr. Lecter agrees.

Yrael smiles into his wine. "Some of the local fish-wrappers have fueled great flurries of speculation from time to time on whether local celebrity Felix White is one of those dangerous mutants the government keeps warning people about, which has mostly only served to drive up the number of people trying to get into any venue where I am to be playing."

A certain amount of notoriety can be beneficial.

"I doubt it would work anywhere else. The city of New Orleans is used to a certain amount of leniency that much of the rest of the country does not offer. It is relatively good to its mutant population." And the Bright Shiner who has adopted the place as his own.

"Where I am from," Dr. Lecter says, "fish wrappers are at least one step up from sensationalist web sites with lots of lurid click bait."

"Advertisements in papers are oddly easier to ignore; I tend to avoid websites where one encounters click bait."

Sometimes, his curiosity is too much for him.

"But they do write about you, and bring you an audience," Dr. Lecter says, smiling.

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