nepharious: (Default)
[personal profile] nepharious
 Collapsable as we go:

Date: 2016-08-07 01:48 pm (UTC)
itrhymes: (Default)
From: [personal profile] itrhymes
And here, right here, something is born. Hannibal had never had much desire for children before meeting Triss. To be entirely, completely, undesirably honest, he hadn't had much desire after meeting her, either. What he had wanted was to see where this newfound power would go. What it might grow into. What he could help shape it into.

But in this melding of his worlds - one of mutants and magic, and one of hiding that from the public - he is suddenly not alone in a way that's new as of today. Triss had been part of that hidden world, of course, but she'd been unhappy there. Now, she's still frightened of her own potential, but it's a fear she is going to work to overcome. Now that she's taking the first few steps of being inquisitive, in asking for his secrets...

...Hannibal realizes that he'd been missing that opportunity. To give over his secrets to a willing, deserved heir.

In that moment, Hannibal wants a child for reasons most parents want one: to be immortal through them, to watch their own worldviews be handed over and then energetically reshaped and repurposed.

More easily than he would have ever thought possible, Hannibal feels himself unfolding those secrets that he's never told another adult. "I collect books on every supernatural subject I can. Knowledge of a thing can reduce fear of it, and allow you to put it to its best possible use."

Hannibal is very carefully placing the books he was holding atop the one Triss has placed down. Everything stacks neatly on his desk. "And, before I found you, these books were some of my only contacts to people like myself. My only sense of family."

Date: 2016-08-08 06:36 pm (UTC)
itrhymes: (Default)
From: [personal profile] itrhymes
"Yes." Surely anyone can sense that there's a but about to follow that allowance, though. "Please always check with me about which book, however. Some are more fragile - or even dangerous - than others." Yes, Triss, even the ones that are kept in public spaces. You've just mentally clocked his weird adrenaline habit - having supernatural items in plain sight is just one facet among many.

But this is an opportunity for an encouragement, as well, and it's one he won't miss. He leans one hand, and then that hip, against his desk, nearly sitting on the edge so he can watch her without simply looming straight up. "But, once you are comfortable enough with fueling your powers that you can see whether or not a book is magical on your own, you are welcome to touch any you'd like that wouldn't pose a hazard."

And then he gets to listen to Triss work herself through the logic of his power to a conclusion that is... It's endearingly hopeful, if nothing else. "Only in the sense that I can smell its components and its practitioners. It sounds as though yours is the sort of power that I usually need to outsource to for my finds." Will she consider it - thievery, recon - as a potential job when she's older? Will him planting the seeds now be to blame, or simply fate? "I find these books by the quiet channels that metas use for passing along tips and information. If I find one myself and I'm unsure about its properties, I use those same avenues to locate someone like yourself, or like Argus, who can examine it more thoroughly than I could."

He's leaning back fully against the desk now, hands folded in front of his hips. "Anything that anyone gets accomplished in our community, they often had help from others. It's a large extended family, even if most of us claim to be solitary."
Edited Date: 2016-08-08 06:37 pm (UTC)

Date: 2016-08-10 12:20 am (UTC)
itrhymes: (Default)
From: [personal profile] itrhymes
Hannibal shifts off of the desk, pivoting carefully so he can begin to stack the three topmost books off to the side on the blotter. "Yes, you may." Because this one happens to be in English, modern English even. Triss may find the eclectic languages of fae- and meta-record keeping to be frustrating in the future, but today she can read all about kelpies in her native language. "And if you have questions, you are more than welcome to ask me." He's not certain if he should expect questions or not. He fully expects her to have questions, after all, but would she actually bring them to him? Would they be things she'd want him to know she's wondering or worrying about?

She's showered off the grit and smell of the kelpie and whatever harbor it dunked her in, but Hannibal is already wondering if there will be nightmares in the future about this incident. He can't imagine that even her best intentions about arming herself with knowledge won't give her more reasons to fear what may try to snatch her next.

'Then...I can help?' She's hit on it immediately. Hannibal's smile reaches his eyes, an honest happiness at thinking they might ever work together. Triss embracing her gifts for any reason is going to be a sight to behold.

"I was hoping so, Triss." The offered book is now bare, and Hannibal simply leaves it be, for her to reclaim. "I would love to see you use your gifts for something you can be proud of."

Date: 2016-09-08 05:50 pm (UTC)
itrhymes: (Default)
From: [personal profile] itrhymes
It's an odd question. Not because children are so self-centered that they never ask what adults are doing, but because Triss doesn't often interrogate Hannibal about anything personal. If she plans on going upstairs to read, whatever he's doing elsewhere in the house wouldn't bother her in the slightest, which must mean she has another reason for asking--

Which Hannibal thinks he discovers as she finishes that thought. 'Cause of what happened'' is hardly a stinging indictment, but there is the hint of 'cause of what I did' that can't help but slink along after the phrase, like a guilty dog hiding under a kitchen table. Hannibal has a few decades of experience in acting unaffected by events, a practice evident in how he smiles and leans a bit heavier against his own desk. Nonchalance is projected with a crisp elegance that nonchalance seldom has. "Aside from enjoying my sudden day off, you mean?" Is she old enough to have noticed the way adults jokingly always want to get out of work, the same way children try to get out of school? "It's very likely I'm going to read quite a bit, myself."

Silence barely has time to settle in after his words before Hannibal continues. "Would you want to read in the same room?" That freshly-ironed nonchalance envelops the last sentence as well, perhaps a bit more tightly than anything else so far.

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