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creative inspirations

Creative Inspirations | Monday, period 1

"Good morning," Hannibal began when they were all present. "Today we will once again be experiencing a manmade curiosity. In the thirteenth century, the abbot of the Sedlec Cistercian Monastery brought back soil from the holy land, prompting a great number of the faithful to want to be buried in the church. As has happened in other places, once there was no further room for burial, the bones were kept in an ossuary nearby."

//From the outside, it doesn't look like much,// Jono said, hands in his pockets, looking over the faces of the students for any signs that anybody might be uncomfortable with today's trip. It wasn't exactly a cheery vacation destination, however fascinating it seemed to himself and Hannibal, after all. //It's just a small old church, more or less. The inside is… a little bit more striking. The bones were stored there, yes, but there were so many of them, a woodcarver was hired to put them in some sort of order. The result was… rather spectacular, if macabre.//

"If at any point you feel unable to remain with us," no pun intended, naturally, "there is a nearby gift shop, or you can wander the small town. Though we will be in the Czech Republic, so unless you speak Czech, I recommend you not go too far," Hannibal cautioned.

Jono was still briefly tempted to elbow Hannibal for that completely-unintentional-honest pun all the same. Honestly, Hannibal.

//If you're exceptionally uncomfortable and would rather not wander alone, feel free to grab me,// Jono added, just to be on the safe side. //I'd rather not have anybody doing anything they're really not okay with today, especially given that these are actual human remains we're dealing with. For those who do stick around… no touching, please. Because, again, human remains. Respect for this history and the people involved in it above all else, while we're out today.//

"And whether you are awestruck, horrified, or any combination thereof, we hope that it inspires you," Hannibal said.

He led them through the portal, which let them out in the charming little cemetery surrounding the chapel. It was a lovely day.

[OOC: OCD up! Also, a warning, links lead to photos of (very artistically arranged) human bones. Click at your own discretion!]

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Jono needed some aggravation in his life.

Hannibal just made sure all her skirts were behind his head and let her hold on as much as she needed. It was impressive balance. "Did you see a lot of bodies at home?" he asked mildly.

If she wanted training in killing people, he could probably help with that, too. They maybe just wouldn't tell Jono. It wasn't like he could read minds or anything, right?

Her parents would certainly be pleased if she got training in killing people. They'd sort of given up, once Nanika had been uncontrollable.

She grinned down at him, briefly, before looking back up. She let go of his hands as she did so, since she didn't need them.

"I don't know," Alluka said, after a moment. "What's the normal amount of bodies for people to see at home?"

Zero, Alluka. The number was zero. The fact that she didn't know that probably said a lot though.

"That depends on the home, I suppose," Hannibal answered. He kept his hands on her feet just in case her confidence was better than her balance. "Some people don't see any; it sounds as though you had quite an education, though."

She giggled and pointed over to a different part of the floor. "Can we go over there next?" she asked hopefully. "Or do we have to stay here?"

Alluka could stay here. It was fine here. They didn't have to move but, oh, she wanted to!

"My family is very smart," she said agreeably. "And, and it's important to know everything for when they go out for work. So there were bodies."

Even for the toddlers to look at.

"Of course." Hannibal walked carefully to the place she'd pointed, going slowly more to appreciate the scenery than out of concern.

"It's very good to know things in advance. What sorts of things did they learn from the bodies?"

And Alluka still didn't wobble, staying rock steady on his shoulders. She had no idea that it was an impressive feat of coordination at all.

"Thank you," she said, since being polite was part of being a good girl. "And they learned all sorts of things from them!" Alluka threw her arms out eagerly to show just how many things they learned and babbled at him: "Like how to break them and how to make it so people didn't know they were broken and how to poison them so that they were still alive for awhile and how people had different bodies and how some were better at surviving some things than others and what the best ways of handling people with different abilities were--oh! Look, that's someone's malleus. Do you think they put their incus and stapes near it?"

... Nanika liked ear bones.

Edited 2015-07-20 22:32 (UTC)

"You have a very good eye!" Hannibal smiled up at her and moved closer to the ear bone. "Can you spot the others?"

While she was looking, he glanced up again. "What sorts of poisons and breaking did you learn from them?" He'd admit to curiosity, and Jono was going to flay himself but would still want to know.

"I can try," she chirped, preening under the compliment. What? It wasn't like she got many of those.

And she could look while she answered his other questions.

"Not a whole lot compared to my brothers," she said matter-of-factly. "When I got put in my room, they got to keep learning, so I'm behind. But I know all the parts of people," she even remembered a lot of those parts, despite lessons being a long time ago, "and a lot of the basic poisons."

Common, Alluka. Common. That was the word you wanted, not 'basic'.

"I never got to use them though," she added, which was a disappointment to her.

"Perhaps some day," Hannibal answered. "How old were you when you got put in your room? Are your brothers the same age?"

She had to stop and count on her fingers and then just shook her head and gave up.

"I was maybe five?" she guessed. It was kinda fuzzy and time wasn't really her best thing. Alluka brightened as she answered the other question. "But Killua is two years older than me, and Kalluto is a year and a half younger than me, and Milluki is, ummm, five years older than Killua and Illumi is twelve years older than Killua."

That was a no!

"That's quite a range!" Hannibal said. "So, Illumi, Milluki, Killua, Alluka," he tweaked her foot, "and Kalluto. Your parents must be very busy."

She giggled when he tweaked her foot and looked down to grin at him.

"I think so," she said, "but Illumi's out on business a lot now, Killua tells me, and Milluki never leaves home, so I think it works out for them. And there's always Grandpa and Great-Grandpa too, if they need help."

"Does Milluki not have business yet?" Hannibal asked. "Or does he prefer staying home to help? Does he visit you often?" She'd only ever really mentioned Killua before, but Hannibal could think of little excuse for someone living in the same house not to visit.

"Oh! No, it's all in the family," she said happily. "Daddy looks after the jobs and assigns people to them. Milluki prefers to stay home and work on security there, so that's his usual job. Illumi's better at going out and getting things done, so he does that and Killua and Kalluto too."

Alluka looked up and her eyes happened to land on-- "I found the stapes! Do you think it's from the same person? And, and Milluki's not allowed to visit me. He always asked for Nanika to do things for him, so Daddy banned him."

Probably sensible of the man if he wanted to keep his family alive.

Hannibal eyed the bone. "The bones are so old it would be difficult to tell, even with medical tests. What do you think?"

She peered at it.

"You're probably right," Alluka agreed. "But wouldn't it be more interesting if it was from the same person? But there's so many people here and ear bones are so tiny that it could be from anyone."

"True. The bones were moved at least once before they were placed here," Hannibal pointed out, "and there's no telling how the artist worked - he may have separated them into piles by size or shape so he would know what materials he had to work with."

He smiled up at Alluka. "If you prefer that, I say we declare it to be from the same person. Nobody can say for certain that it isn't, after all."

She clapped her hands together, and nodded.

"Then it's from the same person," Alluka decided happily. "And, wow! I didn't even think about how they'd have to be moved, but I guess they couldn't have all died here."

... Yes, she'd been working off of that assumption.

"No." Hannibal chuckled. That would have been very sloppy of someone. "These people came from all over Europe, wanting to be buried here because of the holiness of the ground. After they were buried long enough and nothing but bones, the bones were disinterred and stacked up so they'd take less space. Then they were used to make this."

"Ooooooooooooh."

Alluka thought about that as she looked for the incus. Just one bone left to find out of the three.

Then she looked down at Hannibal and said brightly, "It would have been faster just to kill them all, if they'd wanted to make this."

That was true enough, yes.

It would, yes.

"I don't think they began with this in mind," Hannibal pointed out. "These people died over several centuries; they originally intended for everybody simply to be buried."

"I suppose so," she said agreeably. It wasn't like she knew better. "Is a century a really long time? People sleep for centuries in some of my fairytales, and it seems like a long time, but then they never age. It's funny."

"A century is one hundred years," Hannibal said. He was somewhat surprised she didn't know that, but he kept it to himself. "So, long enough that most people would age. But fairy tales often deal with magic, so perhaps that keeps them from aging."

"I knew that," she said, giggling. "But I don't know how long that feels."

She was pretty bad at time. It came from sitting in her room without clocks for years and years.

"Ah, I see," Hannibal said. "Well, very few people live to be one century old. I am half a century myself. Think of how long it took you to become ten, and then multiply that by ten," he suggested. "Or think of it as roughly thirty-six thousand five hundred days."

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Creative Inspirations | Monday, period 1

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