Hannibal lifted the fork to his eye level, and examined the sautéed peice of kidney with a throughtful eye for a few moments, before slowly placing it in his mouth, and chewing.
For a single, split second, he thought he had succeeded.
But then the flavor expanded across his tongue, metallic and bitter, filling his entire mouth with a cloying taste he could barely breathe past.
For a moment more, he attempted to keep the food in his mouth, just out of spite, but Stergata, sitting on the perch he had placed next to his chair, cuffed him in the side of his head with one wing, and he reluctantly gave in, picking up a napkin and wiping the ruined food off his tongue.
"Too bad." He muttered, standing and picking up the plate of wasted food.
Stergata lifted one mocking wing as he passed her on the way to the kitchen, but he simply ignored her, and calmly scraped the plate of food into the trash as though it were something that happened everyday.