#josh thoughts

Will is unpredictable and volatile, a wildfire that consumes and follows the wind. God does Hannibal love watching the wild creature lick flames wherever he goes.

But Chiyoh is stone. Cold, rough, solid stone that he can lean on, without fear of abandonment. She will always be there. Hannibal cannot return home, but he has her. Flashes of their silly little childhood games and made-up rituals, bright-eyed teenagers trying to find deeper meanings in the world. Holding hands in the dark of nights, time not a factor as they simply watched a candle melt away under a timid, flickering flame.

She was smaller than him, but fiercely protective. Not like a dog, blindly loyal and eager for praise, no, but a lioness taking care of her pride. He can always go to her for silent comfort, they need not words between them on hard days curled up in the castle that seemed frozen in history, every haunting moment left lingering down its halls.

Chiyoh was a handmaiden under the woman he yearned for. They both looked up to the lady with awe and respect. Chiyoh's eyes dulled in the moonlight when a young and brash Hannibal whispered his confessions to her, but she did not say anything.

After all that he had done, Lady Murasaki fled from him in an instant. But Chiyoh was still there. She comforted him, and he could see the pain in her eyes, too. The two comforted each other under sheets, tangled in desperation and inexperience. Even after that, Chiyoh did not change. Curiosity gnawed at him like a black hole, and the eager cub gave in without much thought.

Decades later, she is still home.

She knows him before he got his degrees, before Il Mostro.

She understands and accepts Hannibal as the beast that he is. She doesn't denounce him for what he does, as it would be denouncing a fox for killing and eating birds. What she does stop him from, is killing out of *emotion*, because that is human, not beast. This is why she stopped him from killing the man who supposedly killed and ate Mischa.

Here is her reaction to Will telling her everything, supposedly including Abigail, one that he killed out of human emotion and not out of instinct as a beast.

She is still his protector.

From himself.

Hannibal asks her to watch over him, lest he does it again.