Bodies tell stories.

Most people ignore this simple fact, although people of particular professions tend to be more aware of it than the rest. Detectives and others who work on homicide cases can catch murderers by tracing back little bits of evidence determined from the victim's wounds. Doctors and others trained in the medical field know how to read a patient's history within their lingering scars, whether internal or external. And those knowledgeable in psychology can read the figurative ones.

Hannibal Lecter is very much aware of how bodies tell stories.
It's not just because of his familiarity with all three of the aforementioned fields of study. Nor is it just because of his morbid hobbies, although that does help.

Hannibal is not sure which of his scars comes first in his chronology, but if he were to guess, he would most likely settle on the small notch on the inner side of his left index finger, as that is the only scar with an origin that he can recall from back in the days when his sister Mischa was still with him. It came from a little knife when he, on a whim, had decided to see if he was just as skilled at three-dimensional art as he was at two. The trickle of blood that ran down his finger and stained the wood that he'd been trying to whittle told him quite plainly that he wasn't. Not with wood, anyway.

The next come in a series. Years and years and years of repressing the memories of his childhood prevents him from remembering the causes of each and every one, but he can make educated assumptions. In the span of time during which he and his sister were being held captive by the group of rouge Nazis, life had not been especially easy. Frequent beatings, getting shoved over onto rough gravel, anger and frustration getting taken out on the two small and terrified children, et cetera. None of these scars are large, but he knows there they are anyway, at least some of them. Uneven textures on his elbows and the undersides of his knees. A tiny raised line on his forehead near his temple, usually obscured by his bangs. Another, on his jaw, barely visible unless you know that to look for.

Mischa's murder and following cannibalism left no physical scar. The psychological wound that it left, however, is not so much a scar as it is a gaping and infected wound that has been wrapped with ten or twenty bandages so as to pretend as though he can't still feel the throbs of agony that occasionally heave upward under his skin.

There are some small markings that come after that, from fights during his days at the orphanage, but none of them are noticeable enough or significant enough to be worth pointing out.

The next is a burn on the outer edge of his right hand. A tanned and smooth stripe against the thick calluses of his palm. It comes from one of his experiences cooking alongside Lady Murasaki. Unlike all of the others, this scar evokes warm memories of her from the days before medical school and before his first kill. Hannibal would not admit to anyone that he can on occasion get rather nostalgic, but it is true. Sometimes when he runs his finger over the old burn he likes to close his eyes, and imagines that he can still smell the light and somewhat foreign floral scent of her perfume.

He has none to commemorate his first kill.

He does, however, have several from other parts of his life not long after that.

A mark on the first knuckle of his left pinkie finger from a calligraphy pen. He had realized pretty early on that calligraphy pens are supreme when it comes to inkwork, and so they were one of his choice materials for when drawing out anatomically-correct references during his time medical school when training to be a surgeon. One thing that is important to know about calligraphy pens is that they are surprisingly sharp.

A tiny impossibly-thin line on his inner forearm, near the elbow, from a scalpel. He had done it for the endorphins during a surge of anger and anguish and loss. Afterward he concluded, the practical part of his mind once again taking the reins, that this method was fixing absolutely no problems and so he has not tried it again since.

The scars from his years as a surgeon mar the skin of his patient, not his own.

Nowadays, he is too careful to get many new ones. He knows the dangers of getting injured when in physical conflict with a chosen victim, and so he takes absolutely no chances. Along with the nearly inhuman strength and control that he demonstrated even as a child, practice and maturity has brought a deadly precision and calm to his techniques.

Psychologically, he has learned how to tweak and twist nerve endings in other's brains. To raise invisible scars in their psyches that even they do not realize he has afflicted until it is far too late for them to do anything about it.

Will Graham is his new favorite plaything for this. Never stops fascinating him, all of the ways in which he can shatter the man's fragile mind without getting the blame – instead, it is quite the opposite.

Every new scar that Hannibal slashes across Will's thoughts, Will clings closer to him.

It is unlike any experience with another human being that Hannibal has ever had.

And, he thinks, even if these scars are mental ones instead of corporeal ones, that does not change the fact that they are still there and always will be.

And that is enough.