Disclaimer. If it was mine, you'd know, but it's not.

Author's Notes. For draculard.

The snow is a clear white when she wakes up in the morning. The sun lies clear in the sky, casting a bright sheen over the surroundings when she steps out the door. Shadows from the foliage lay light over the expanse, angled together and crossing in a pattern almost like a cobweb.

Brilliant and delicate, a glacial dance orchestrated by the sun and the growing wildlife. An undeniably intelligent voice that has yet to gain a particular note of sureness, shot from a past of dusky night conversations.

She could stand for a while, and let her own shadow join the landscape, if she wanted to.

If she wanted to.

She first meets Hannibal Lecter as a boy, cold and abandoned, absent a sister and a voice. Her days after are mainly spent on assisting Lady Murasaki in helping him adjust to the surroundings, though on the occasion she looks after the boy herself, when the Lady is occupied with something – usually Robert.

He begins to speak in short remarks, low intonations one could easily miss if they weren't listening for them, but his eyes are sharp and dark and almost lovely, and she can't help but wonder.

Later, they will spend nights after rain, with smoked wood, incense, and her keen attention on him. He speaks fluidly, giving quiet guidance at a glimpse of his waking experience – a game in imitating his peculiar birthright. When he looks at her, there's a calmness and certainty to his expression (much like the Lady) that so stolidly seems alien to his silence and all his muffled shouts in the night.

He tells her of it like this: a sharp crash and in a moment, charred corpses take over the role of a fearful family – an exchange that almost renders both the figures before and after imposters. The days that bled into nights and the inscrutable passing of time, unable to understand if he wanted to live through the hunger. The smudged-dark hands that spent their time looking for hunt reaching for her, and the uncanny moments between then and the stark view of hunger, devouring.

Mischa Lecter. A name, a tombstone, and an empty grave. She never asks, and he never tells. What she knows is enough to keep the man behind his bars, with his dolls, until he dies – and nothing else. Nothing else.

Petrichor fills the air, and the leaves make a sharp crunch underfoot. It'd be difficult to tell that it isn't evening without checking a clock; the ever present clouds cast a subdued tinge over the entirety of the land. Her routine in hunting the various wildlife for food is well-tread, and it's only up to the animals themselves to provide variation. There's almost a static to the forest at this time of day, the specter of water leaving everything sluggish as she keeps her eyes keen to find food for herself and her prisoner. She almost certainly will. It's mostly a matter of time, but she's patient. A few weeks ago she'd gotten a newspaper, headline blaring HANNIBAL THE CANNIBAL. Shocking, but she can see how it aligns with his boyhood, all the queer expressions and the current under his surface.

She knows he will not come to her. She will not come to him. She cages the killer of Mischa Lecter, or she kills him, as decided the night Hannibal found him. It was her decision, now become her resolution, and the curiosity that broke his fury that night, and the frozen life she leads, cannot sway her.

Author's Notes. Originally posted on 2021.3.24 on Ao3 for the It's All in the Name exchange.