A/N: Uh, whoops. Hi, y'all. Long time, no see. I started writing this in 2014 (I think) so if there are minor character details that are different please just roll with it. There's no way I'm gonna remember that.
"How is your hand healing?"
"Wonderfully, thank you. I would be surprised if it scars at all." Ana said while taking her seat opposite Doctor Lecter's chair.
She smiled, "It does make me appreciate the artistry behind stitch, the opposite side of what I do in some ways."
She crossed one foot behind the ankle of the other and leaned an elbow on the arm of her chair. Hannibal noted the vegetal smell of fresh parsley and the pronounced smell of iron when she adjusted her sitting position. She was dressed unusually, more casual. A pair of tailored black pants and a white, fitted dress shirt with the sleeves cuffed. Her hair was pulled back into a tight chignon and her face was bare.
"Mortician or butcher?" He placed a glass of deep, red wine next to her as had become their custom during her sessions.
"Aren't all butchers morticians? In some manner of speaking." She asked, smelling the wine. "Liquorice? To overwhelm or accompany the smell of blood on my hands?"
"To accompany. You and I both know the smell can't be overwhelmed."
"All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this hand." She took a sip, "I'm not a butcher. I work at Lengua downtown; it's a nose to tail restaurant. Our commis that I've been training was out so I was playing tournant tonight. Tonight also happened to be fabrication night which is a nice way of saying I prepped all the offal for the next night's service. So I guess I was a butcher, if just for the evening." Her voice and mannerisms became so relaxed, not the carefully calculated and designed sentences meant to reveal only a glimpse behind the curtain. Even in this moment of exposure she held his attention.
"The act of creation and reparation cannot exist in the absence of destruction. They are the two edges of the same sword, Ana. Without Shiva there is no Brahma."
"Are you to be the Brahma to my Shiva then? The one who finds my path of destruction; the one who heals the things I touch and shatter?"
"If that's what you need. Maybe the thing you're searching for isn't the destruction of others, but the destruction of yourself. To begin anew."
"And then what will I be? The maintainer, the preserver? What will I preserve?" She took another sip and stared into the cold, empty fireplace.
"Destruction and rebirth doesn't have to be housed in separate people, Ana. It is a part of everyone. We all have the ability to begin again, to destroy ourselves and transform the destruction into something else; into someone new. The caterpillar that spins the chrysalis does not alter its original shape until it is a moth. It dissolves itself and reconstructs its body once it is unrecognizable."
"But whose image will I remake myself in?"
"That is up to you. What creature crawls out of the chrysalis for you, Ana? What is it hungry for?"
"I don't know. But it feels… unyielding and unsatisfied. Like a gnawing emptiness that ebbs into resentment and restlessness."
"Then perhaps it's time to allow that part of you to emerge and abandon the cocoon."
The two paused, each taking a sip from their glasses. Ana pulled a cigarette from her bag and let it sit, unlit, between her lips while she considered the weight of his words. Her wordless stare into the cold fireplace relented nothing to him. Her silence brought an uneasy weight to the room, the almost tangible feeling of the oxygen being ripped from his lungs.
She gave a short, breathy laugh before lighting her cigarette, a small smile lingered on her face while she spoke, "If I didn't know better, I would say you were leading me to the edge."
"To the edge of what?"
"Everything." She said, pulling closer the ashtray he had placed next to her chair, "But you're right. You're almost always right."
"Almost?"
"Almost."