voice.

[am_i_a_monster]

I've been wondering about love lately. Not just romantic love, any kind of love. I was told that every love is different and unique. It seems like it doesn't matter - love always messes people up. Like love always end up hurting people in one way or another. People hurt the ones they're supposed to love or hurt themselves or hurt someone else. Or they leave us, even if they don't want to, and that hurts.

[Long pause.]

So why do I...why does anyone want to be loved?

Comments

action;

[am_i_a_monster]

Nice to meet you, Nate.

[Those manners that Hannibal taught her are ingrained for certain times, such as meeting someone.

She nods. The scarf actually makes her more comfortable, feeling it in place a reminder that the scar behind it is covered. She's worn them nearly constantly when in public, ever since the day her father cut her throat.]

Yeah. It's very lightweight. Margaery made it for me.

[She thinks she must have had the weather in mind when she did.]

She's very nice.

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[nonscriptum]

Likewise.

[This is not his forte and it probably shows in the way he shifts. The last person who should be giving advice to teenagers is Nathan Drake, who is arguably a terrible influence.]

Can't say I've met her, but maybe I will. [This place is only so big, after all. Hard to avoid running into anyone.] So...you wanted to talk about some hard stuff.

action;

[am_i_a_monster]

You'll probably meet her when you need clothes. She has the sewing shop.

[She hesitates. There are many thing she wants. Most of them she can't have in Hadriel, especially talking things through with Hannibal as she used to do.]

There's stuff I need to talk about. Stuff I'm trying to figure out.

action;

[nonscriptum]

[Nate needs clothes badly. He may have to visit this Margaery sooner, rather than later. There's only so much a guy can scrounge up from the decrepit shops around them.

Hands in his pockets he moves to the water's edge of the sprawling feature in front of them, settling on the steps that lead down into it. Idly, he wonders how well it would go over if people sat here with their feet hanging in, like T.E. Lawrence in the oasis. He looks to Abigail again, nodding at the space next to him.]

Well...why don't you start there? What are you trying to figure out?

action;

[am_i_a_monster]

[Abigail sits down in the space next to him.]

I'm trying to figure out love. Hannibal said every love was different. He said that my father loved me. And that it was okay for me to love him too. That it didn't mean there was anything wrong with me. But most people say that what my father did wasn't love. It was sick, or selfish, or just bad.

[She sighs.]

It just feels like all love is that way. Or could turn out that way. Especially after the gods' influence led to everyone acting kind of like my dad.

[A hand reaches up to touch her scarf.]

Everyone ends up in pain. Traumatized by it.

[nonscriptum]

...okay, slow down.

[What she tells him is simultaneously a lot, and nothing. The lack of details makes him assume the worst - as someone with a shitty dad, Nate can relate - but there are some glaring areas that require definition.

He doesn't have the basic foundation laid for why her trauma even exists. Why she thinks love has to hurt.]

Let's start over. Because unless your friend is Hannibal Barca, Carthaginian commander in the First Punic War, I'm a little out of my depth here.

[Context clues tell him she's not from 182 BC.]

[am_i_a_monster]

[Abigail shakes her head. It's almost amusing. Though she could see Hannibal as a war leader, she can't picture him without his gourmet kitchen, fancy suits or other luxuries of modern life.]

No. Hannibal was my guardian. I lived with him before I came here, and I lived with him here until he disappeared. I'm from the USA in 2013, um 2014.

[It's an easy mistake. She was living in Hannibal's basement where it was hard to keep track of time.]

He said we would be family and then he was gone.

[nonscriptum]

[2014. That's not so bad, about a year behind him.

She has a guardian. She had a father. Whether the latter is alive and well and a terrible person, or dead and buried, remains to be seen in this particular tale. Nate rubs his chin for a long moment, wondering what it must be like to be a teenager depending on an adult.

He never had the luxury.]

So he was going to adopt you? After something happened with your dad?

[am_i_a_monster]

Not officially. He couldn't have adopted me legally.

[It would have been a life always on the run from the FBI, the press and others. She believes Hannibal would have made it a good life despite that. He had money and plans for them in Europe.]

But we were like family. Me and him. It was going to be Will too.

[That hadn't happened and now she's not sure how she fits in with Will here.]

Hannibal became my guardian after my parents died, so he could take me out of the hospital sometimes, before I lived with him. He'd cook for me and I'd help him with the dishes afterwards. We would talk. It was better than any of the therapy at the hospital.