Scarlioni's Escargot au Beurre

A silver dish of glazed escargot arranged with delicate precision, the butter sauce pooling in the shell’s hollows, its aroma sharp and unmistakable under the laboratory’s sterile metal. Kerensky’s eyes flick toward it as Scarlioni slides the dish forward like a concession, a sudden fragile marker of comfort in the cold, functional space. The meal is withdrawn just as abruptly, its purpose not nourishment but leverage—Scarlioni wields it like a variable in an equation, its presence or absence a reward and punishment tailored to Kerensky’s compliance.