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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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"Lots of pieces," she agreed, wriggling her feet underneath the table. Her blobby rope was starting to look the way it was supposed to, as she coloured some of it black.

The butlers always wore black.

"Lots to know."

//Lots to know about each piece,// Jono found himself agreeing, a bare echo as he watched her add the black. //What's that you're adding in now?//

He was right to be concerned, right?

"Clothes," she said absently. She pointed with one end of her pencil at a squiggle of black across the page. "That's a shoe."

It didn't look much like a shoe, but what she was drawing didn't look much like a person any longer either.

Though the shapes were starting to come out on the page all the same, and, even if they weren't cooperating and they demonstrated a child's understanding of form and perspective, it was plainly clear that whoever that blood had belonged to hadn't had a very good day in the least.

//Well, it's a very nice shoe...//

Jono was thankful, not for the first time, that he couldn't throw up.

//What happened to him?//

She wrinkled her nose, not at the question, but at having to look for a different pencil.

This time she picked a brown one. There wasn't much hair to colour, but it needed to be coloured in anyway.

"Nanika," she said, once she was busy doing the colouring again.

Weren't you glad that you'd agreed to her requests now, Jono?

Edited 2015-07-21 00:24 (UTC)

Yyyyyyyyyyup.

Very much.

//... Well, she's very thorough, I'll give her that.//

Dear lord.

Alluka giggled.

"She got mad," she explained, "but then she wasn't mad again by the time I came back out."

But there'd been the body on the ground.

//Well, I'm glad she's feeling better, then.//

No, really. Jono could not properly express how much of a relief that was.

//But she's not the only one who left bodies around for you to see, back home?//

Oh, Jono was still being silly.

She laughed and smiled, finishing up the poor butler's hair.

"No," she said. "We had to learn about bodies and if you're going to learn about them, you should learn from the real thing."

Jesus bloody Christ. It was probably also fortunate that Jono couldn't go any more pale than he already was, too.

//What were you being taught about bodies for, exactly?//

See? Just idle curiosity, there.

//You were being prepared for something...?//

Her head bobbed in agreement as she studied her picture. Should she draw the grass? Oh, but the green would get in the blood's way.

"The family trade," she said happily. "We all get to learn it, though everyone knows way more than me since I lost time in my room. But, if I'm good enough, they'll let me catch up, maybe."

She could hope!

Jono didn't want to know this. Jono didn't want to know this. Jono didn't want to know what the family trade was in the least. Jono really did not. Want. To. Ask.

//Oh? Well, that's interesting. What does your family do?//

Jono was going to just cry himself to sleep tonight, wasn't he?

"Assassination," she chirped.

Yes, yes he was.

WHY DID THE UNIVERSE KEEP DOING THIS?

WHO SAID THIS WAS OKAY?

//Oh?// Well, now he was doing a damn good job at playing it casual, considering how much he had to fight to keep his eyes from shifting to crimson. //I used to do a bit of that myself, actually.//

A fair bit, even. That didn't mean that he was pleased about this.

"My daddy's the best," Alluka said, a trifle defensively. She was scared of her parents, but she loved them very much underneath all of that. "And my mommy's so good that Daddy brought her out of Meteor City to marry him."

And it was a love match, it really was, and beautiful.

"Were you any good?" she asked, as she kept colouring. She had no idea Jono was upset.

//Well, I certainly wouldn't want to take away your daddy's prestige,// Jono replied, shrugging his shoulders. //Or your mommy's.//

He was starting to wonder if maybe he should have asked Alluka more about her home life a long time ago.

//And I suppose I was good, yes. I'm still alive, and there are a good many people out there who aren't. I didn't much enjoy the job, though.//

Except for that time when he'd been brainwashed to.

"Living means you didn't lose," she said agreeably. "And you got a new job after?"

That was weird. The weirdest.

Grandpa was doing it until he died. Even she knew that.

//I've done a lot of different jobs, since,// Jono replied, shrugging his shoulders. //So far, one of my favourites is teaching.//

This job, this one right here, in fact. Which involved far less killing.

"I like you as a teacher," she offered and then set her pencil down and beamed at him. "Look! I'm done!"

Feel sorry for that poor blob that had once been a real human being, Jono. Feel sorry for him.

He did. He really, really did.

//It's quite the striking picture,// he replied honestly, not quite able to take his eyes from the finished piece. //Is that his liver, over there next to his necktie?//

Seriously. So thankful he couldn't puke.

She studied her picture.

"His hand, I think," Alluka said. It was also blobby and bloody, so it was hard to tell. It was hard to remember exactly what each piece had been too. "Did you want to keep it?"

He could... he could stick it on Hannibal's fridge!

//A gift for me? Are you sure?//

It was impressive how he was so simultaneously flattered and repulsed. A gift from a child was a precious thing. And never in his life had a child offered him something quite so horrifying.

He let that flattery carry through, though. The twisting in the guts he didn't have, he kept very much to himself.

She beamed up at him.

"I'm sure," Alluka insisted. "Because I want to give it to you."

//Well... then thank you, luv. I'm honoured.//

It probably would end up on the kitchen fridge, too. That was the hell of it.

He reached to take the picture, and then, after a moment's pause, leaned over to pull her into a hug. A very impulsive, and somewhat clingy hug.

Oh! Oh! She loved hugs!

She snuggled right on into that hug and giggled and said, very quietly, barely audibly, "Love you."

Maybe he'd hear it, maybe he wouldn't, but she'd said it.

Re: Create!

furnaceface - 2015-07-21 01:59 (UTC) - Expand

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