I Embrace My Inner Tarzan [open post]

[summerdude]

There's a massive old oak about fifty yards west of Magnus's favorite clearing. It has thick, sturdy branches; he can climb nearly forty feet up it before he starts to worry about them holding his weight. There's a family of squirrels that lives nearby -- good squirrels, nothing like Ratatosk -- and Magnus likes to listen to them discuss their acorn deposits. Sometimes, when they're not looking, he'll grow and stash more acorns for them to discover; he's not sure how long the winters here get.

He's pretty sure it's cold outside, but it's not cold enough to affect him, and so he's still barefoot and in a t-shirt pretty much all the time.

Today, he's been scrounging in some of the out-buildings. There's a portable outdoor fireplace. While he doesn't feel the cold, he finds (contained) fires comforting, and it'll be nice to have some hot food, so he shoulders it and a makeshift grill surface, and lugs them to the base of his oak tree. Now he'll have an easier way of preparing the fish Mothwing sometimes leaves him than trying to summon the right amount of summer into them so that they cook and don't explode, at least.

He lights a modest fire, feeding it with fallen sticks. Then he shoves an apple, picked from another nearby tree, into his mouth and a book he'd pilfered from the library into the waistband of his pants, and climbs up an easy ten feet to his favorite branch. Things don't seem so bad, living out here.

Comments

[agula]

Qi Yan has been limiting her time outside as the weather grows colder, beholden to her duties to Nangong Jingnu and her promises to Mothwing. But as she steps out for a little fresh air, bundled in a warm, fur-trimmed coat she found in her room,¹ she sees a fire burning in the woods.

It is not all that surprising, upon investigation, to find Magnus. She first encountered him in the woods, not far from here, and he seems comfortable in nature. The area around his tree is warmer than the surroundings , and Qi Yan expects it's not wholly from the fire. She's happy to see him; she has been thinking hard about various matters since the day of the curse.

Magnus does not like being addressed as young master, so she simply calls up to the tree above, "Magnus."

¹It's likely not cold enough for most people to be heavily bundled, but Qi Yan is sensitive.

[summerdude]

Magnus swallows his bite of apple and peers down through the increasingly-barren branches. "Oh hey, Qi Yan!" he says, enthusiastically. "How's it hanging?"

[agula]

Qi Yan does not understand the question. "I promised we'd speak later. The compulsion to speak my thoughts was a curse, it seems."

[summerdude]

Magnus considers this for a second, and then leaps down, landing firmly, yet easily, about a yard away from Qi Yan. "But you're feeling better now?" he asks, concerned.

[agula]

"I am." Each conversation Qi Yan had under the curse was different, and she has relived them all, thinking carefully of what was revealed and what it means. Several people learned disparate pieces about her background, her relationship with Nangong Jingnu, and her transgressions against the Nangong family. Lan Wangji and Gu Xiang both even learned she was a woman. Yet nothing has changed; no calamity has befallen her.

She has longed, all these years, to throw off the trappings of the Wei empire and live again as herself. But she has waited so long to do so that she can no longer remember how. Her first language is rusty. Her archery skills have deteriorated. She has no family to teach her what a prince of the Chengli tribe is meant to know. And here, she doesn't even have Nangong Jingnu's company to comfort her. She is lonely, and she is lost.

Magnus reminds her of the kind of friends she had when she was young—spirited, generous and brave. She likes him very much, and she does not want to be Qi Yan of the Jin province to him, if she is allowed another option. "There were things I didn't want to be forced to say to you under a curse, but I would like to say them now. May I?"

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji had, prior to the truth spell, been -- in his way -- doing what he could to disassemble the barrier of silence that existed between himself and the other residents of this mansion. It does not come easily to him, and it never has, but he had made a choice, and he had been trying.

Recently, that has slipped back out of his grasp. He keeps to Wei Ying and his quarters and seeks out no one. There is nothing, however, no shame or dissatisfaction or distraction, that could keep him from his duty. He rises at mao hour, he meditates, and he makes his rounds, no matter how many times he makes the same circuit of the grounds, no matter how little changes each time. This morning, though, something has changed in the woods. There is a fire. It comes in no form Lan Wangji has ever seen before, but it is unmistakable, and seemingly contained. He stops to examine it.

It is useful to be perceptive. Something tugs at his awareness, a familiar warm aura, and Lan Wangji looks up until he sees an even more familiar face, light-haired and disheveled and beloved to him. "Magnus," he says, startled enough to let some surprise and concern color his voice.

[summerdude]

"Hanguang-jun," Magnus says, an instinctual smile blooming across his face. He tucks his book into the crook of a nearby branch, settling the apple on top of it, and -- absolutely to show off a little -- hooks his legs around his seat and allows himself to fall backward, so that he's hanging upside down by his knees. His hair, which is loose and no doubt bestrewn with twigs, hangs below his head; his t-shirt settle somewhere around his armpits. If he hadn't tucked his necklace underneath the neckline of his shirt, no doubt it would have smacked him in the face. "Hi!"

[lightbearinglord]

Neatly torn between pride, amusement, and continued concern, Lan Wangji opts to simply take the path that requires the fewest number of words. He backs up a pace or two, enough to get a small running start that is, in turn, enough for him to jump neatly, pivot with the sole of one boot off the trunk of the tree, and then land with equal tidiness next to Magnus on his chosen branch, nearly floating into a seated position that does not jostle the tree at all when he lands. Tree-climbing is Wei Ying's domain; he enjoys goading Lan Wangji into doing it, then scolding him for approaching the activity with too little gracelessness and enthusiasm, for not getting his hands dirty enough. Lan Wangji knows no other way to approach it.

[summerdude]

Magnus hauls himself back up with an easy surge of strength, and then scoots closer to Lan Wangji, leaning against him. "Thanks again for the other day," he says, as the heavy weight of Lan Wangji's pendant settles against his sternum again.

[lightbearinglord]

The only answer that springs to mind is there is very little I would not do for you, so Lan Wangji says nothing, and tucks a firm arm around Magnus' shoulders. He is silent, sitting in the pleasant warmth that Magnus seems to emanate, and then he reaches to pluck a stray twig from Magnus' hair, a frown creasing his brow.

[onthewillowsthere]

Because Magnus is his best friend, Galahad has part of a tarte tatin for him (this is very important). He's aware that Magnus is in the tree, and Percival did teach him to climb trees, but he isn't certain whether Magnus wants company today. His primary errand is to leave the tarte tatin and A Lady for a Duke, since they talked about it, and he'll be happy either way.

[summerdude]

It take Magnus a moment to notice Galahad, but when he does, he grins. "Dude," he calls. "Do you wanna come up, or should I come down?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I can't carry this up. May I leave it?"

[summerdude]

"Yeah, of course," Magnus says. "Wherever is good. My bag is on the other side of the trunk, if that's easier?"

[onthewillowsthere]

He nods, realizes Magnus might not be able to hear him, and says, "Yes," before leaving the book and the tarte tatin with Magnus' things. Then he pulls himself ungracefully into the tree. Percival taught him to do this, but Percival had been climbing trees since he was a child his mother would set in the branches, and Galahad was only a poor student next to his innate confidence. He does manage to get up to where Magnus is, though.

[new_inglewoodblues]

It's a cold day indeed, and Ragnelle has been slowing down. Her blood, like sap, gets thicker and more sluggish in the winter, preparing her to settle down for a season when trees never do much besides rest and conserve and wait. Magnus, however, has changed the equation.

She's found a new dress with a shorter hem, so that it's not always dragging on the ground, and has bundled all her hair into a huge thick braid. She appears at the foot of Magnus' tree, and begins to scramble up to him without asking.

"Magnus! Wouldst thou know what this one thinks?"

[summerdude]

"Always, Ragnelle," Magnus says, wedging his book in the crook of a nearby branch and scooting out on the limb a little to give her ample space to sit.

[new_inglewoodblues]

She pulls herself up beside him, flushed and pleased. "First, summer."

[summerdude]

Magnus grins; he can't not. He closes his eyes and lets the warmth of companionship with who he has decided is a like-minded woman flood his chest; it spreads from him like a space heater. The air warms; the day lightens; three branches away, the oak puts out a leaf-bud. "Better?"

[new_inglewoodblues]

The traveler's joy blossoms all along her braid, in great feathery white flowers, and she grins, holding out her hands as if warming them before a fire. She already has more energy. "Mary, that is well! Thou art as good as Óengus."

[thepurpledanger]

From a tree above him, Gu Xiang swings her head down in a cascade of long black hair and beads. "Hey," she says, "did you piss someone off or something?"

[summerdude]

"I don't think so?" Magnus says. He drops his book to the ground, bites partway into his apple to keep hold of it, and climbs up a few more branches so that he and Gu Xiang are on a level. He straddles a likely-looking branch and takes the apple out of his mouth again. "I'm just... chilling."

[thepurpledanger]

"You're not going anywhere. You don't need to camp out here. Why are you out in the cold?" Unhooking her legs from the branch, Gu Xiang descends to balance daintily on Magnus's bough. "If you pissed someone off, you can tell me. I'll put horse shit in their bed for you."

[summerdude]

Magnus gives a surprised bark of laughter. "I appreciate the offer, Gu Xiang, but I really don't think I've pissed anyone off. I just wanted to be outside for awhile, you know?" Gu Xiang makes him feel playful, and so gives in to whim and hooks his legs over the branch, then leans all the way back until he's dangling by his knees. Unlike earlier, he's careful to tuck his shirt in his waistband as he leans so it doesn't fall over his face. "And the cold never bothered me anyway; I can sleep outside through a snowstorm and the only thing that affects me is if I get wet from it."

[thepurpledanger]

"Oh, wow." She gives due consideration to the benefits of being so warm that a snowstorm is barely an inconvenience. For one thing, she wouldn't have to carry nearly so much firewood! "So you just like it out here?"