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

[onthewillowsthere]

"We're getting the garden ready for winter. Some of the plants have to come inside, but some of them can be covered up in the garden. Some of them are all right as they are."

[summerdude]

"I like how much your boyfriend likes gardening," Magnus tells Galahad. "I've been thinking about asking him to teach me some stuff, actually, because, like -- I can grow pretty much any plant, obviously, but I don't know how to do it the regular way." He wiggles his fingers, to indicate his alf seidr. "There was a park I slept in a bunch, when I was homeless, and I always found it really interesting to see how the plants changed through the year."

[onthewillowsthere]

"He knows about every plant," with a touch of pride, and then he amends it: "Almost every. But if you ask, he'll tell you about them, and what they need." He pauses. "What do you mean when you say homeless?"

[summerdude]

"Does 'living on the streets' clarify anything?" It's a genuine question; Magnus isn't sure if he knows how to explain the idea to someone from hundreds of years ago.

[onthewillowsthere]

"You mean landless, like a beggar?" He's not certain this is entirely equivalent, but it seems to fit .

[summerdude]

"I mean..." Magnus thinks for a minute or two, grateful that Galahad is the kind of guy who doesn't mind long, thought-searching silences. "So when I'm from, most people have a home of some kind. You might own it, or you might pay the person who owns it for the right to live there. It can be a house, or just a set of rooms in a bigger building. If you don't have a regular place to live -- if you have to sleep in your car... um, cars are like horseless carriages?... or outside, or even in a hotel... that's like an inn, if you have those? -- If there's no permanent place you usually stay at, then you're homeless. Sometimes there are shelters -- basically, places that have food and beds and other resources, like medical aid or clothes. There were a few decent kids shelters in Boston. But they were really crowded, and you were usually only allowed to stay a few days without the authorities being notified, if you're a kid. So I mostly avoided them." He thinks back over what he said. "That was convoluted. What parts can I explain better?"

[onthewillowsthere]

There's an equally thinking silence from Galahad. There are bits he can get from context, and he's trying instead to draw a through-line on the things he knows about Magnus. "And you have panic attacks, from being inside, too. So you slept outside."

[summerdude]

Magnus nods, cheek rubbing against Galahad's hair. "It didn't help that, like," he says, and makes a face. He told Hanguang-jun about this, and he even mentioned it to Nina once, but it's not really an easy thing to say. "When I was fourteen, my mom was murdered by, basically, magic wolves? She told me to run, and that she would meet me later, so I ran, but they made our apartment -- the rooms we were renting -- exploded. And since I had a disciplinary record, the police --" What was it Sagramore had called them? "--Sagramore said police are like reeves? I don't know what a reeve is, though. But anyway, they thought I did it, so they were trying to find me, so I had to move around. Avoid the shelters unless the weather was terrible or I couldn't find food elsewhere, stuff like that. Even if they weren't crowded and cluttered and therefore, like, triggering, they'd be hard."

[onthewillowsthere]

This is a lot to absorb, and he almost signs overwhelmed, but it feels suddenly very important that he not, that he take all of this and process it, even if that takes a little while. Magnus is so bright, summer sun and warmth, and though Galahad is aware that he has sadnesses and worries, most of them feel within the scope of what he can easily understand: purpose, love. This is something else, harder to grasp and unravel. This is the loss of a parent by violence, unjust condemnation for the same, the struggle for survival.

He doesn't know what to say, of course. He squeezes Magnus' hand tightly instead. Then, after a moment he says, also, "I'm sorry."

[summerdude]

"Thanks," Magnus says "It was like ten years ago, so I've had some time to come to terms with it. But I was homeless until I died. So that was kind of a sucky two years ." He tries to remember how they got on the topic. "But on the plus side, I got a really good sense of how plants change through the year?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Right. Galahad nods. "He would like to talk about that. And if you know any plants that are clever, he'd like that too."

[summerdude]

"Clever?" Magnus asks. He's never really thought about that before. "Like what, for instance?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"He told me there's one by the lake that traps flies to eat. It smells good to them and it's smooth inside so they can't fly away. He liked that."

[summerdude]

"Oh, like a venus flytrap!" Magnus says. "Or maybe a pitcher plant? Yeah, those are really clever. There weren't so many like that outside in Boston proper, but there were a few in this place Mom and I used to go camping." There had been a museum demonstration once, too, that he'd wanted to go see, but he couldn't afford the tickets and since he was a street kid, he didn't have any of the necessary paperwork to get in for free.

[onthewillowsthere]

"A pitcher plant," he agrees, pleased that Magnus knew. "I want to learn more about plants like that, and draw them."

[summerdude]

Magnus wishes that his plant powers extended to being able to create something from nothing, just so he could conjure up some other plants for Galahad to draw. "Maybe there are seeds somewhere, inside the Mansion," he says, trusting Galahad to follow what is, largely, a non sequitur.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad, whose mind often does something similar, nods. "I can look." He tilts his head at Magnus. "I can bring you things you need from inside, too, if you want. So you don't have to go in."

[summerdude]

Warmth floods Magnus's chest and spills over; the temperature around them raises a few degrees. "Thanks, man, I love you," he says.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I love thee too," softly.

[summerdude]

Magnus squeezes Galahad's hand happily. "I don't know how much longer I'm going to stay out here," he admits, because Galahad is safe, and his best friend, and Magnus can share his insecurities freely. "I should probably try to get used to being inside again soon. I don't know how the weather gets here in the winter."

[onthewillowsthere]

He nods. Since Magnus has said inside is easier with someone else, he adds, "If you want company, I can stay with you at first. If you need it."

[summerdude]

This, frankly, shocks Magnus. A good shock, but totally unexpected nonetheless. "Really?" he asks.

[onthewillowsthere]

"If you want me to," with a touch of shyness now -- he's second-guessing whether he read the situation right.

[summerdude]

"I'd love that," Magnus says, thinking of the easy comfort he felt when they were curled up around each other right after the zombie attack. "I think it would really help. You really wouldn't mind?" He had it in his mind that Galahad really likes the fact that he lives with Claudius. Not that Galahad would be moving in, really, but still.

[onthewillowsthere]

He's fairly confident Claudius will understand this -- Claudius likes Magnus, he's said so at length, and it won't be a long time. Galahad can think of ways to make that easier. "Thou art my best friend."