Disclaimer- I own nothing, not a thing. None of this is mine, all of the characters belong to the most talented Thomas Harris
Well guys, here I am again, under rather a different guise. Having taken a liking (again) to the Silence of the Lambs; and subsequently, Hannibal, I have decided to make a shot at writing from that most interesting point of view.
This takes place after the MOVIE of Hannibal, using the alternate ending. For those of you who haven't seen the DVD with the alternate, it's like the original, but without the losing of the hand, or the cuffs.
Personally I could have written it either way, but I found the chosen ending of the movie a little too violent. I have never seen the relationship between Clarice and Lecter as violent. I believe this piece goes well with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. (bad joke alert)
- ---
The streets of New Orleans glistened with moisture, and the French Quarter bustled with activity. People sitting outside the late cafes, sipping their lattes and talking animatedly; drunks passing out it the streets, and the ever-present scent of rich food in the air. Far above the bustle, Hannibal Lecter paced silently in his apartment. Only a temporary home, just long enough for him to complete his business and then he would be gone, or so he kept on telling himself.
Indecision was not a common emotion to the self-possessed doctor, and when it did come around, he found it more than a little off-putting. Shaking his head to clear the cobwebs, he lowered himself once more into the padded armchair that was pulled up against the small desk.
A glass of deep red wine, Merlot, perched at the edge of a thick sheaf of heavy paper, right beside the ink pen. Balancing the pen in his fingers, Hannibal tapped it to his chin thoughtfully, and finally applied pen to parchment.
Agent Starling,
It is a pleasure to see that your transfer to New Orleans suits you so well, not simply because you have ceased to stop looking for me, as of late. It brings to wonder weather it was the decision of your superiors, or of your own free will that has brought you to such a standstill. Still, to know that I will not be so actively hunted allows me much more freedom. Possibly they have put someone else on the case, but I'm sure you realize that it will do little good.
They won't find me, Clarice, but I believe that you have deciphered that for yourself.
I never did have the opportunity to thank you for your rather gallant rescue, has your shoulder healed well? I do hope it has. I would hate to think that you had sustained any lasting damage caused by Mason Verger's ill-conceived plan.
I believe you know now that I will not come after you, nor you for me. But I could hardly let you go, without at least thanking you. I don't believe there is anything left for me to say, nothing that you would ever allow yourself to hear, Goodbye Clarice.
I do hope the lambs stop screaming.
With Freedom,
Hannibal Lecter, M.D.
Numbly he sealed it, and felt a great weight lift from his shoulders. Unfortunately, as is common with endings, another weight soon followed.
'The mail is late, again.." Special Agent Clarice Starling thought to herself, sipping her morning cup of coffee, black, two sugars. It was hardly her biggest problem, but she had to admit that the two week enforced holiday was a bit of a relief. She hadn't taken any of her time yet, despite all of her years in service, and now she had no choice. Reaching for the coffee pot to refill her cup, she never knew that maybe today, it would be better if the mail never came at all.
Dressed simply in denim and cotton, she made her way out to the mailbox, watching the traditional blue van drive away. She wondered why her mailman drove the traditional van, when absolutely nothing else about him was conventional. Looking over at her house, a little white one with green edging that she rather liked, Clarice sorted her mail as she walked back up the driveway.
"Bills, flyer, ads, all junk.... Letter?" she said, tossing the stack of junk into a basket beside her front door. Turning the correspondence over in her hand, she retrieved her coffee (now cooling) and curled up in her favorite chair, not too soft, but just enough to lounge in.
"No return address..." she mumbled, "Just a plain white envelope, heavy though.." Slitting the seam with her thumb nail, she discovered the source of the weight. Inside was another envelope, this one in a heavy paper, rough looking, but smooth to the touch, and almost warm. But it was the writing on the front that caused the lump in her throat. Her name, in that all too familiar copperplate script..
Setting down the letter, Clarice rubbed the half-healed scar on her shoulder, it had been one of the major reasons that her superiors had enforced the vacation. With trembling hands, she picked up the letter, and opened the old-fashioned wax seal.
"Just a thank you?" she said out loud when she had scanned the entire message. It seemed too simple, there was no malice, no teasing. "Nothing I would allow myself to hear?" she asked the empty room, but of course, she got no response. It only served to make her more curious.
Her cordless phone sat on it's charger beside her chair, she reached for in automatically, and dialed the number for the local postal service. After quite a few rings, it was answered by a man with a rough, gravelly voice. "Post office."
"Yes, I was just wondering, I have received a rather odd letter, I was just wondering if you could tell me where is was sent from?"
"What's your name?"
"Clarice Starling..." She could hear the sound of keys on the other end, it seemed he was looking it up in their directory. ""Inter-city mail, rush delivery. There was no return address or name left with it."
"Thank you, good bye." And with that, she hung up the phone, and just stared at the paper in her hand.
"A patron of the arts.." she muttered, shaking her head, and trying to figure out why it suddenly seemed so important. "There is a group coming into town tonight... what were they performing?" she thought to herself, hunting around for her newspaper.
"Much Ado About Nothing... well, it's Shakespeare. But that's ridiculous, I don't want to see him, he's a killer!"
Somehow that didn't stop her, and she managed to get tickets for opening night.
She was still trying to convince herself of the futility of this plan that evening as she searched for something suitable to wear to the theatre. An entire row of simple suits and jackets met her eye, as well as shelves of track suits and sweaters. Flipping from hanger to hanger, she half prayed, half hope not, that something would jump out at her. So when it happened, she was only half disappointed.
It was black, with a plunging neckline and a loose skirt. Brushing back a few strands of hair that had come lose from her ponytail, she studied the garment in front of her, trying not to remember the last time she had worn it. It seemed like forever now, but had really just been a few months. Deciding that it was probably the only semi-formal outfit in her entire closet cinched it. Then she had to find shoes.
The theatre was decked out in lights, as people milled about outside. Clarice kept her eyes peeled, but to no avail. When they opened the doors, she found herself being shuffled along with the rest of the well-dressed people of New Orleans. Luckily she had managed to secure good seats, just a few rows back, and soon the story being told swept her up, and she forgot all about her real reason for being at the theatre in the first place.
Clarice laughed at the soldiers returned from war, and at the caustic bantering between Benedict and Beatrice. She nearly cried when the heroine was denounced by her husband at their wedding, and when it seemed the villain had won after all. And she was one of the first to applaud the actors at the end of the last act. But when the curtains closed after the last curtain call, she winced, and remember why she ad come.
What she didn't realize was that she had been seen. She had been watched throughout the performance, and by none other then the esteemed Doctor Lecter.
One again Hannibal was touched by indecision, and again it struck a sour note in him. Finally deciding that this could be interesting, he went back to his rented apartment and gathered up his paper and pen.
Nothing was in the mail the next day, nor the day after that, but on the third day, there was another heavy letter in her box.
Clarice Starling propped her feet up on her coffee table, weighing the letter in the palm of her hand. She contemplated throwing it into the trash, or burning it, but found that her curiosity got the better of her. Cutting open the seam, a pair of cards dropped into her lap. Setting them off to the side, she unfolded the letter, and with trepidation, she read it.
Dear Heroine,
It was a pleasure to see you at the theatre, I assume you enjoyed the performance? I myself find much of Shakespeare's comedies a little repetitive, but entertaining none the less. An interesting group has decided to set one of my favorites to music, and I had hoped you would attend. In that vein, I have gone to the liberty of procuring you a ticket. Until then, Heroine.
Graciously Yours,
Hannibal Lecter, M.D.
Picking up the set of cards, she saw that one, indeed, was a ticket to the newest performance, and the other was a pick-up card for the local Versace dealer. Swallowing back the lump that had once again formed in her throat, she debated the wisdom of accepting the offer.
She had never even been into the Versace dealer before, much less actually to own something. Handing over the card, the man a the counter asked her to wait for a moment while he collected the box from their back room. It was a large box. Setting it on the counter, the dealer, a rather lanky man in a black suit, he opened the lid and pulled out the item in question. Clarice had no idea what to expect, but it certainly wasn't this.
The dress was ivory colored silk. The neckline was edged in creamy lace and was surprisingly low. The sleeves were long, and detailed with the same lace, the skirt hung in softly draped folds, embroidered with pinpoint green Flowers on the old-fashioned bodice. "Is this to Madame's liking?" the dealer asked, Clarice could only nod, and her eyes widened even more when he pulled out a smaller container from inside the box, containing the most beautiful piece of jewelry she had ever seen. A cascade necklace in silver and diamond, accented by tiny green emeralds.
Clarice carried the box out to her car very carefully. Her stomach felt tied in knots, and her hands shook. Sitting down behind the wheel, she rested her forehead on the leather, "Goddamnit!" she cursed with a hiss, and flipped in the radio, if only to distract from her own confusion as she drove home.
Nodding her head to the beat, it did help to organize her thoughts. "Ok, I'll go to the show.. find Lecter, apprehend him.." she thought out loud, and there she was stuck. "Apprehend? HA! He'd rather die. Besides, it won't matter, he'd kill me before I had a chance. Or would he?" Her mind fell back through the last few months, to memories of that last night she had seen him, to the memories she had tried so hard to suppress.
"Would you ever ask me to stop? If you really love me, you would stop?" she heard him whisper, she could almost still feel his breath on her face. "I came halfway across the world to see you run, will you let me run now?" he had asked her, and she had let him. It made no sense at the time, but she had let him. He had saved her, she still didn't know why, or how, but he had done it. Her memories were so foggy, from lack of blood, and the morphine, she now knew. But she could remember his face, looking down at her as he removed the bullet from her shoulder. The bullet that would have killed her. He had come halfway across the world... and now he was back.
'I should have asked him to stop.' She thought with a touch of whimsy.
The New Orleans Opera House was a lavish affair in lights and draped garlands of violets and creeping ivy. The crowds were filing in slowly, but she couldn't see him. 'I probably won't... the letter never said he would be here, it just implied.' She thought bitterly. The night was lovely, the air cool with the touch of approaching autumn. Absently she straightened her gown, feeling more than a little out of place in so much finery, thought she had to admit that most of the other patrons were dressed far more lavishly.
"I'm glad to see you could come." Came a soft whisper in her ear, very close. Turning on her heel, Clarice cursed herself for her lack of observation. And there he was, Straight and dressed well, his dark hair slicked back from his face, and those eyes that were all too unnervingly familiar. "Why all the games Doctor?" she asked quietly, only loud enough that he could hear. "I had thought you had stopped trying to find me, Clarice, I'm a little disappointed that you have not."
"I had stopped, right up until you decided to contact me again."
"A simple thank you, nothing more." She smirked,
"It would be rude not to, am I right?"
"Exactly, but the opera is to start momentarily, we should find our seats." His voice was so reasonable, that for a moment it was easy to forget that this was a man who had killed many times before, a man who was insane.
They found their seats easily.
When the performance started, Clarice realized that is wasn't in English, but in Italian. Shaking her head for the lack of foresight, she tried to calm her frantically beating heart, sitting so close to Hannibal the Cannibal without the Plexiglas was more than a little terrifying. The actor on stage was dressed in rags, sitting against a very impressive mock tree trunk. His voice was powerful and commanding, the language flowed, but she could not understand. "Her soul understood mine, her smile it was more beautiful than life, and I love her...only she cares not for me.." she heard the translation whispered so softly in her ear.
"I thought there was a hope for us,
but it was only my longing.
My longing for her.
I lay my heart in her hands,
In hopeful promise,
And there she holds it still.
My hopeful heart,
She breaks it,
And in the moonlight,
I bleed."
Clarice was spellbound, entranced by the story. Of the hero that was fated to be alone, and of his death, and subsequent journey to the afterlife, his struggle to return to her. And in the end, how he cheated death and returned to her, only to discover that she had married and still did not love him. And through it all, how he whispered the translation in her ear, until being so close to him didn't bother her at all. And then, it was over, and the crowd was applauding. Standing along with the others, Clarice clapped her hands, and glanced over at Hannibal, but he was gone. Scanning the crowd of applauding people, she couldn't see him anywhere.
But there, sitting on his abandoned seat was a phone. Shaking her head, she picked it up, and made her way out of the theatre, her mind on her task at hand. Unfortunately, she was all too aware that she had no idea what her task was, and that she was almost completely at the mercy of the rather ruthless murderer that had just sat with her. The thought gave her chills.
Clarice had almost reached her car when the cell phone the she had grabbed, rang. Sitting down behind the wheel, she stared at the phone as though it had teeth. Hitting the SEND button, she held it up to her ear. "Hello?"
"Hello Clarice,"
"Doctor Lecter.. where are you?" she asked, staring out her car window in fear. She could hear him laughing. "I thought I have already made it perfectly clear that I had no intention of hurting you. You never did answer my question, how is your shoulder?" Clarice rubbed the still-tender spot.
"It's healing, it'll be fine."
"I thought you might say that."
"Then again, Doctor Lecter, you always seem to." Once again she could hear the slightly mocking chuckle. "Turn on your car Clarice," Fishing her keys out of her handbag, she turned on the ignition and tucked the earpiece into her ear. "Now, I have to know, Agent Starling, will you be continuing to find me?"
"I don't know, Doctor Lecter, do you want me to keep looking?"
"Interesting question. I'm sure you have a lot of them. So, I suggest we return to the original agreement."
"I give you an answer, and then you give me one, right?"
"Good memory, that is precisely what I mean. Unfortunately, you haven't got any more case files that your working on, so this should make rather an interesting game, I'll even let you ask the first question." Clarice thought about her question for a moment, tapping her steering wheel as she started the decently long drive back to her house. "Alright, Doctor Lecter. I'll start with a simple question. What part of the country were you born in?"
"Hmm, interesting first question. I was not born in this country, and so I cannot answer." Clarice shook her head, maneuvering down the back roads that lead to her house. "Alright then Doctor, your turn."
"Yes, alright. Did you enjoy the opera, Clarice?"
"Very much, Doctor Lecter. My question, what makes you so different from other killers?"
"Ah, but am I so different?"
"I believe so, Doctor, you did save me after I was shot."
"Quid pro quo, Clarice... you had just saved me from a rather nasty death."
"I guess so, Doctor, but I wouldn't have done that if I thought that you would kidnap me."
"Kidnapping?" now he sounded offended, "I don't think I did anything that could be misconstrued as 'kidnapping'! Had I not been thee, that it would have been a terrible waste. Unless you harbor some wild desire to be eaten alive by pigs? If that is the case, I'm sure I can organize something suitable."
Clarice parked outside her door, stepping out of the vehicle (careful of her dress). And headed inside and upstairs to her bedroom. "Why the opera, Doctor? The dress, everything?" A short silence ensued.
"I merely thought that you would like it, besides, it's not nearly as enjoyable to attend the theatre alone."
"I guess that makes sense Doctor, it's just so simple."
"It doesn't have to be complicated, Clarice. Now, my turn. Why will you never refer to me by name? I do believe I've known you quite long enough that you would have gotten over the initial hesitancy." Clarice stopped for a moment, pondering the question as she unclasped the necklace and replaced it in it's box.
"Honestly, Doctor, because it's easier not to. The moment I start using your name it makes you a person."
"I believe I already am I person, at least in the more textbook definition. But I see what you mean. It must be very hard for someone with your ideals to look at a murderer as a person. Someone with a life, and a past, a childhood, because from that comes all sorts of questions. Does this person have parents? Siblings? A home somewhere with people who are waiting for him to return." She could only nod.
"You understand very well, Doctor."
"I'll make it very easy for you then. I have no parents, or siblings, anymore. You know that I have no home, no loving wife to return to, nor do I have any desire to create such an overstated urban oasis. It simply takes too much work."
"You have siblings, Doctor?"
"I HAD a sister, Special Agent Starling... she is not someone I like to speak about." Clarice smirked wryly, bending her arms back to get at the rows of tiny buttons at her back. "Then you have some weakness, Doctor?"
"Not a weakness, just an aversion."
"Do you really think that not talking about it will make it go away?"
"It's been a long time, Agent, and I have no desire or inclination to discuss that part of my life."
"Is it really so painful?" she asked, sitting down at the edge of her bed, wrapped her old blue housecoat. "Not especially." Was the sharp reply. Clarice couldn't help but feel a little bit of pride at finding at least one chink in what seemed impervious armor. "Your question, Dr. Lecter." She said, trying to conceal the sarcasm in her voice, he knew her too well. "Will you come after me, Clarice?" he asked simply. She had to think for a moment, but the answer was all too clear in her mind. "No, no I won't. Not if you don't want me to. Dr. Lecter, what are the 'things I won't let myself hear'?" There was a pause, and then,
"Your very naive, Clarice. I do not mean this as an insult, merely an honest observation."
"What are they?" she asked again, more urgently, sensing that he would soon clam up on her.
"You don't need to know that. Everything you need to know has already been said, but you did not listen then, and I hate repeating myself." He replied calmly.
Clarice propped herself back against her pillows ad tucked her robe in a little tighter. "You asked me before, if I would tell you to stop. If you loved me, would you stop? Weren't those your words?"
"You know they were."
"Would you, if I asked you?"
"You responded with, 'Never in a thousand years,' I think that was answer enough."
"Would you?" she demanded.
"I guess that depended on why you wanted me to." She couldn't answer that, she wasn't ready to even consider that line of thinking yet. "I think the real question is in the phrasing. 'If you loved me, would you stop?' The important part is weather you love me in the first place."
"You know I do. And that is much, much more than you ever need to know." His voice was soft, and touched with an emotion that Starling couldn't place.
"That's the problem, I do need to know. Since I met you, I've needed to know. Sure, first it was to save Katherine Martin, but then when the Bureau put me back on the case, Dr. Lecter, it's like I... I don't really understand it myself."
"Ahh, Clarice. That's exactly what it is, don't you see? Or have you blinded as well as deafened yourself? The reason that you don't understand is because you do. You do understand."
"And what do I understand, Dr. Lecter?" Her voice was straining at the edges.
"Probably more than I should like. Rest assured, Clarice, I will not come after you. Not unless you decide that you should want to see me after all. It is entirely your decision, I suggest that you consider the ramifications of your actions very carefully. But for now, I think it best that you get some rest, don't you agree?"
And she did.
"Never in a thousand years... goddamnit, never in a thousand year." Starling repeated, growing more and more agitated. "What the hell is wrong with my head?" clutching the offending part between her hands, she stared down at the screen of her laptop. She had been surfing the Internet, with no avail, trying to find some record of past offences. Not that the multiple murders were in any way growing stale, but she felt the pressing need to know. To know that he had been this way long before even the police had caught on.
Flopping back against her chair Clarice kneaded her scalp, willing some inspiration to show itself. For some reason she couldn't shake the idea that she had missed something, and that it was contained in their earliest meetings. "Ok, it was the case, Buffalo Bill... umm... he was baiting me with tidbits of information... fucking hell... he wasn't born a killer, he was made one." And then it hit her, he had given it to her, right there in that simple sentence. "He wasn't born this way..." she whispered.
Clarice Starling had never looked much into the early years of Hannibal the Cannibal, and now she wished she had. Through the World Wide Web, she pulled up a fairly impressive dossier of his habits and tastes (most compiled by herself). But none of it was relevant, and she was getting frustrated. Then finally, after nearly 12 hours in front of the screen, she hit pay dirt.
It didn't seem so at first, but the great leads never do. It was in her own files, ones that she had tossed aside because they seemed irrelevant to understanding, now she knew better.
It was the coldest part of the morning, in the wee hours before dawn. The glossy hair of Hannibal Lecter shone in the candle light that lit the room. In his hands he held the letter that had arrived earlier that day, or the day before if your counting the hours; he wasn't. The letter had no return address, nor had it been opened. The heavy vellum paper lay like a weight in his palm as he stared down at it's seemingly innocent exterior. Hannibal. She had addressed it to him, his name in her tiny, curving cursive. Not Dr. Hannibal Lecter, or Doctor, or Hannibal Lecter M.D., just, his name.
It had been so long since he had felt fear, that he had almost forgotten the emotion completely; and with that unassuming vellum, Clarice had stricken to the marrow of a seasoned killer, and he hadn't even opened the letter yet. Finally, reaching for his letter-opener, he cut the seam. Unfolding the page with deliberate slowness, he could feel his heart begin to beat a little faster in his chest. He didn't know how she had found him, and he never did.
Dear Dr. Lecter,
Born in Lithuania, near Vilnius. Your mother is from Italy, it explains a lot. One younger sister, four year difference, but she has almost no record at all. For that matter, for a very large period of time, you have no history either. What happened to her, Dr. Lecter?
What happened to Mischa?
Is she your equivalent of the lambs?
It was left unsigned, but it didn't matter. He read the letter over and over again, tracing the lettering with the tip of his finger. How did she know? Squeezing his eyes shut, Hannibal tried to block out the images that surged forth from his memory palace. But that place in which he had lived for so long had developed a bit of a life of its own, and refused to be stopped. A modern psychiatrist would simply call it 'repressed memories' but Hannibal Lecter had never been a normal patient. He had never been the patient at all. He was the doctor, and even he had no words to describe it. Now she knew too much,
And you can only learn so much and live.
The home of Clarice Starling was at the very edge of the city of New Orleans, isolated from the normal bustling noise by a long driveway, winding through the forest. The early morning sunrise was just beginning to lighten the sky in the East when Dr. Lecter pulled up in front of the gabled building. Armed with a slender stiletto, he made his way up the stairs in absolute silence. The very air felt cold, and damp with dew, surreal. His feet felt like lead.
The lock was a joke, and Dr. Lecter had it opened in a matter of moments. From there, the interior of the house was unknown to him. Light filtered in through the light blue drapes, and the carpet was thick and cream colored. The house smelled of her, he stopped and breathed deeply, wanting nothing more than to hold onto that scent as long as he could.
'Quick and painless' he thought repetitively, like a bizarre mantra. 'Quick and painless, it must be painless. She can't wake up, it must be quick. Oh, so quick, she'll never feel a thing. She mustn't. ' The hand on the stiletto held on so tightly that his knuckles were white, and some detached part of his consciousness told him that it would be very stiff in the morning. 'She knows too much. Too much. But it must be painless, and swift.' Then he realized that she wasn't asleep in bed, and in his silent walking, he had come into the living room. And there she was, in front of him, her face upturned and peaceful in slumber.
He was not prepared to come across her so abruptly, and for the first time, his nerve almost failed him. She was so small, so helpless looking with her quilt thrown off. Her head was pillowed on her arms, face streaked with a few errant tear tracks; her nightgown was nearly sheer and he could see her breast tremble with her heartbeat. So exposed, so vulnerable, it would be so easy. Just one quick thrust with the deadly sharp blade, and it would al be over, and that pulse would be stopped. Her skin was bathed so delicately in the first rose hues of dawn, as he knelt by her side, and watched her.
Smelling deeply of her, memorizing every line and curve of her body. Every color and shade etched forever in his mind, in a special room all her own. He watched her pulse throb beneath her skin, so soft, he touched her cheek. With a gentle caress he drew his fingers across her eyelids, silently praying that she not wake. But she stirred, so slightly, edging closer to his warmth. He knew her actions were not conscious, and that she was still sleeping, but it pulled hard on the strings of his very being.
Closer now, until he knelt at the very edge of the couch on which she lay. He could feel the heat rising off of her skin, and swallowed back the urge to run; then he remembered the stiletto. He raised it , and brought it to bear above her heart. Quick and painless. Quick and painless. Quick. Painless. Quick painless quick painless. He could feel her, was suffused in her, and, strangling a desperate moan, he plunged deep.
Her eyes opened.
She whispered his name.
A tear slid down his cheek.
His breath was short.
"If you love me, would you stop?" she asked, reaching for him. He met her halfway, enfolding her in the embrace of a desperate man. "I would." He replied, his arms feeling weak. "This ends here.." she murmured into his shoulder.
"Could you have ever cared for me, Clarice?"
"I have loved you since I learned who you really were." Her voice cracked.
"And who am I to you?" She didn't say a word, just leaned against him, her head feeling light.
And he lay with her, in silence, as the sun broached the horizon in streaks of ruby and brilliant gold, the dew sparkling like millions of perfectly faceted jewels. And she clung to him, feeling as safe in a madman's arms as she had ever been in her life. And they slept, with the knowledge that everything had changed. His leg was curled around her knees, and one arm was tight around her slender waist, the other tangled in her hair. And he was at peace, cradling her close. She was silent, but slept not for a long while. She was happy with him there, it just felt natural.
Mischa and the lambs were silent.
And the stiletto was forgotten, embedded in the floor.
'Your heart, understood mine
And it loved me through the pain,
Your soul, it played a chord,
And with mine, made the music of,
Perfect Harmony'
- ---
Well? What did you think? I have to admit, it took me a few days to finish this piece (3 to be specific) and even if it was a little OOC at the end, I 'm very proud of this.
Some of the information was taken from the book, Hannibal. sigh I wasn't a fan of the way they changed the ending of the book in the movie, to me it simply made more sense in the book. I'm already planning a second story, and I'm thinking it will be a branch off of this one, but maybe not. It's focused more around Misha and Hannibal. I'm very interested in how a conversation between them would be. Look for it soon, the working title is 'Dreams in Aubergine'.