For Sinthia

[cook_the_rude]

When she follows him, she will find the office upstairs, near the library, in an area of the non-linear rooms section that feels more business-like because of that location; it is small but functional, with clean-lined modernist furniture made of pale wood contrasting with the 19th century prints of poisonous flowers in ornate frames that adorn the walls. There are two comfortable chairs with end-tables, a small book-case, and a pale leather couch. There is a small drawing table with two straight-backed chairs that, at this moment, holds nothing but a flower arrangement made from the cuttings Sinthia gave him. There are two doors, one slightly ajar to reveal a tiny pantry kitchen, the other firmly closed, with a covered lock that clearly labels it a bathroom door, lockable from the inside.

 

There are two floor-length windows obscured by pale, gauzy blinds, at the bottom of which a balcony is visible, and beyond its grate, the lake area, with a view to the stables, the garden, and the forge.

 

A tall carafe of cool water, two glasses, and a box of tissues in a metal holder are set out.

 

"Please take a seat, Sinthia," Dr. Lecter says.

Comments

[abyssum_invocat]

Sinthia enters on quiet steps, looking around the space; the balcony is an obvious escape point, as would be the restroom a decent place to wait and regroup should events turn that way. It takes her a solid few minutes to catalogue most of the room and its contents, trying to remember details she'd otherwise have not thought about. Maybe they will be threads a memory can get tangled in and stick.

"Thank you," she murmurs, taking a seat in one of the chairs; she doesn't precisely understand the point of a couch in this setting, but she supposes it plays to type. She also doesn't want to lie down. "Do people normally know what they're coming to you for?"

[cook_the_rude]

Dr. Lecter sits in the other chair and smiles at her.

"It depends," he says. "Some come to discover what precisely theiee problem is; some come ready to solve it; and some even only come because somebody said they ought to see a therapist."

[abyssum_invocat]

"I suppose I'm in the latter group," she says lightly. "Though the recommendation was for psychiatry specifically. I can only assume the therapeutic aspect was more or less inconsequential."

She shrugs, crossing her ankles and tucking them to one side: she'd cross her knees, but that oddly means a harder time lashing out with her legs if the situation so evolves. Sinthia likes being prepared, and though she hardly knows everything about the man--she hasn't cared to go looking yet--she does unerstand very well that he is dangerous.

She wouldn't be here if he weren't, in some way. "And what do you do for people like that?"

[cook_the_rude]

"I just let them talk," he says. "What is your life like? What do you enjoy?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"I like building things," she says lightly, after a moment to think. "I like knowing...how things work, and what they're made of. My life is slightly...complicated. It isn't normal," Sinthia amends, correcting herself.

"I...don't know how to describe it. Why?"

[cook_the_rude]

"Why is your life not normal?" he asks. "What would a normal life look like, for you?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"I was born in 1937 in Berlin," she says. "I grew up inside..." she hesitates to say it, lips firming closed for a moment. "Inside HYDRA," Sinthia finishes, though she has to lift a hand and pour a glass of water--she doesn't rise to do it, but the carafe and glass tilt into each other as easily as if her hands held them.

"I suppose....a normal life would be if I weren't like this. If I didn't have the abilities I do."

[cook_the_rude]

"What is HYDRA?" Dr. Lecter asks.

[abyssum_invocat]

"It was--is--the science division of the SS," Sinthia explains. "They used to be an occult group, built on the Norse myths, the stories of Odin leaving one of his treasures on Earth. But they went past that, and they grew away from the Nazi party. They wanted to take over the world."

[cook_the_rude]

"Organised supervillains," Dr. Lecter says. "I see. Was it your choice to be one of them?"

[abyssum_invocat]

She shakes her head. "Not...precisely. My father was the head of the organization," she explained. "He had me with an unknown woman, desperate for an heir. He wanted a boy, I'm told, but he got me."

[cook_the_rude]

"So why do you feel guilty?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"I killed many people on their orders. I'm good at it," she confesses, though she speaks slowly, as if trying to string the words together in a language she's not quite fluent in.

"I don't remember some of them. Most of them, really."

[cook_the_rude]

"Which was the worst?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"The worst of what?"

[cook_the_rude]

"Your murders."

[abyssum_invocat]

She bit her lip, silent for a long protracted moment. "I...it's hard to describe. When I was eight... They put me in a room with a man I didn't know. He wouldn't talk to me after a few minutes, he'd only say his name and his rank. And I knew he was afraid. He was terrified of me. But I stomped on his trachea, and pulled his heart out of his chest."

[cook_the_rude]

"Was that what they wanted you to do?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"Kill him," Sinthia says simply. "Get...information if I could, but to instill fear. It worked. But he was afraid of me, and I hadn't done anything."

[cook_the_rude]

"He found you scary," Hannibal nods. "He found you other. You, an eight-year-old girl."

[abyssum_invocat]

"I was other," she murmurs. "I'd been put in that experiment, and I didn't know what had changed, but something had. I knew...I was wrong. It's called the uncanny valley," Sinthia says lightly. "The degree of proximity to human and the emotional response to it have an inverse relationship at one point. I fall squarely in that valley."

[cook_the_rude]

"You don't think you are human?"

[abyssum_invocat]

She looks up at him curiously. "You do? You know what I can do." Those are not human attributes.

[cook_the_rude]

"You think that mere superpowers dehumanize you?" Dr. Lecter asks.

[abyssum_invocat]

"I think...the process of acquiring and learning to use them did," she says slowly, looking down at the floor with her brows pinched in thought. She usually doesn't have to explain this. "Don't you?"

Most people would consider an eight-year-old killer inhuman.