Hello all I'd love to thank my wonderful, beautiful, and kind reviewers for your praise and wisdom. You really have absolutely no idea how much every single thing that you said made my day.

So this time I'm afraid I'm giving you a bit of a short chapter, most authors would call this a filler chapter, but in my opinion it's a character growth chapter for Lady Murasaki. I hope my you will respond well to it.

Disclaimer: I own nothing nor profit anything from this story and am merely doing this for my own curiosity and pleasure.

Chapter 3: Buffalo Bill and the Flowers

So much had changed in Paris since Hannibal Lecter had left the city, Lady Murasaki had seen the prosperous age after the war spread throughout the streets and a renaissance of new ideas flood the streets over the years. And as much as she welcomed new ideas Lady Murasaki often found herself walking about parts of the city that had yet to change with the times.

On this cloudy day she found herself in a quiet little café near the Tuileries Gardens that Lady Murasaki had not visited for a long while. In front of her was a steaming cup of tea the remains of a meal and a newspaper that the Japanese woman was reading keenly. The paper was flipped open to an article, the print in English.

Lady Murasaki had never considered herself a political expert but at that moment she wished she new more about the American Government, specifically the Senate. Another girl had been abducted by Buffalo Bill, she was the sixth one so far.

Her name was of little importance to Lady Murasaki, but the American Tabloids were certainly wallowing in it. A picture of a pretty but heavy set girl was in the center her name was Catherine Baker Martin, from what she read her mother was a senator from the state of Tennessee.

This article mentioned little of Hannibal but it had caught Lady Murasaki's eye when she saw the name Buffalo Bill. Had she seen the article in any other time she probably wouldn't have looked twice, but still this was the man the Hannibal was being asked to identify.

As she read through the article Murasaki found herself becoming more and more disgusted not only by Buffalo Bill but also by the American Press. Although Lady Murasaki was no psychologists she saw that Bill was a very disturbed man, with an insatiable lust for blood, his killings had no motives unlike Hannibal's first murders had been. Whatever could drive a man to kill and skin women?

Buffalo Bill was twisted to say the least, the papers did not specify if the girls had been dead when Bill had begun to skin them, and Murasaki prayed that he had killed them before inflicting such a torture upon their bodies.

As Lady Murasaki stared out of the window her thoughts once again carried her to Hannibal, she hadn't known him as a child, but when Robert had brought her home his eyes held a quiet intelligence that she had never seen before. As Hannibal had grown his mind had grown vengeful and calculating, his dark past revealed to Murasaki, and through his eyes she had seen horrors that she did not even imagine existed.

Maybe like her Hannibal Buffalo Bill also had a sinister past, shaking her head Murasaki stopped herself before she could ponder on a childhood so horrible it would cause someone to slaughter and skin people. Buffalo Bill was nothing like Hannibal she refused to compare the two.

To her Bill was sadistic and unrefined, whereas Hannibal always would always be in her mind polite and courteous. A part of her still saw him as the shy mute boy that she had met so long ago, who was eager to help her and Chiyoh arrange her flowers.

Arranging flowers brought back a memory from just before Robert died. Hannibal had still been mute although he had been living with his Aunt and Uncle for several months then. Lady Murasaki and Chiyoh had been passing the time arranging flowers and speaking of Chiyoh's ever nearing engagement.

When he had first entered the room she tried to coax him out of his shell by speaking in a few Japanese words. Speaking to Hannibal had been very relaxing she found he did not judge, at least if he did he was unable to say anything.

She still remembered that day perfectly…

Chiyoh was sitting behind s screen playing out a tune on the lute, when Hannibal had wondered in looking a bit lost and inquisitive. Lady Murasaki had not been able to speak with Hannibal as much as she would've liked to and saw now as the perfect time.

She bowed her head toward him good manners were almost the same in every culture He stood before her looking about the room soaking it in, his maroon eyes darting from the slow, rising smoke of the incense and the easel she kept in the corner for her calligraphy. After a moment she invited him to sit across from her.

It was usually normal for her to sit in silence with another person but she could feel his eyes roving about her body resting on her face, breast, and hands.

"If you do not want French or English or Italian, we could use some Japanese words, like kieuseru. It means 'disappear'." The word disappear made her think of her lost home and family in far, far away Japan.

Suddenly she heard herself telling Hannibal of her lost home in Hiroshima, her hands working quickly moving the flowers, picking at the stems. She looked deep into his maroon eyes, her lips spilling out more words than she knew.

"My world of Hiroshima was gone in a flash. Your world was torn form you too. Now you and I have the world we make-together. In this moment. In this room."

She tore her eyes away form his haunting stare. What was she doing she hadn't even voiced her grief with her husband or Chiyoh, and here she was spilling everything out to this boy who she barely even knew?

She began to rearrange the flowers again offering some to Hannibal commenting on his drawings. Lady Murasaki remembered him cutting his thumb after this. She remembered sewing it up, his expression did not change throughout the whole ordeal, his eyes glazed and mind far away.

It was in that moment that Murasaki bonded with that boy, his hand nestled between hers, the drops of blood on the white silk Kimono, and that breathless look in his eyes. She remembered taking him up later to the room of her ancestors where she kept the swords and armor of her ancestor Date Masamune. The swords he had been fascinated with at first sight, the short sword was the first weapon that he had ever killed with.

Oil of Cloves she remembered saying, after Hannibal began speaking she remembered teaching him Kendo, my she had been so young then. Now Lady Murasaki would barely arc her sword without feeling a slight pain in her joints.

Shaking out of her head Lady Murasaki looked at the sky it was dusk. Her plan to go to the Jeu de Paume was impossible. She sighed, there was always tomorrow.

Paying her tab she glanced once more at the picture of Catherine Baker Martin, earlier in the day she felt almost nothing to this women's plite, but an after hours of thinking, and remembering a wave of pity, remorse, and sadness came over her at the sight of the doomed young women's fate, and she really began to hope that her Hannibal would help Clarice Starling catch Buffalo Bill before it was to late.

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