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.

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[summerdude]

Magnus heaves a heavy sigh. It's mostly put-upon, overly dramatic. He wishes he had some friends from home here, but he doesn't want to constrain them to being caught here, especially if only one of them could come. People here seem to come in twos, most frequently, except for maybe the Camelot crew. And all of his friends have other attachments back home; he'd feel bad breaking anyone else up.

(Alex. There's Alex, of course, always Alex. He misses her so much, and he knows that he's her biggest attachment in Valhalla -- he's not the kind of guy to deny that -- but he also knows just how much she hates feeling trapped. He wants her here, but he wants her to be able to choose.)

"We are," he tells Galahad, nudging him with his shoulder. "I'm glad you're here to remind me."

[onthewillowsthere]

He nudges back. "I will."

[summerdude]

"Good. Me, too. Whenever you need it."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Thank you."

[summerdude]

Magnus curls up against Galahad, working on allowing himself be quietly happy, letting the sounds of the forest fill his ears. The family of squirrels below starts chattering, loudly; he picks up the occasional scrap of conversation. He nudges Galahad, nodding toward the louder of the juveniles.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad looks down, and signs what? with just one hand (because Magnus holds his hand so much, he often signs the mirrored two-handed signs this way) before clarifying it to what did it say?

[summerdude]

Magnus thinks for a moment, and then reluctantly lets go of Galahad's hand and uncurls from his side. He twists, carefully shifting his balance, so his torso is oriented a little more in Galahad's direction; his knee nudges against Galahad's leg. Hortense, he finger-spells. And Henrietta.. Launching into regular sign, he adds, Children. They're bickering.

[onthewillowsthere]

What about? (Do children bicker? he wonders. He was the only child in the nunnery. He has no idea what normal children do, ones who aren't raised in service to God or like wild creatures in the woods. Did Percival squabble with his sister?)

[summerdude]

Magnus listens for a moment. Hortense -- this time he just spells h-o, to differentiate -- ate something Henrietta was saving. I think...

He's not familiar with the way Hortense is describing the food, and it takes him a moment to place a likely suspect. Raisin? Now she's saying Henrietta stole her favorite part of the nest.

[onthewillowsthere]

It's pleasant to listen to the smallness of it as Magnus describes it. He loves watching other people sign -- when Magnus does it, it's like the way he talks, quick, unspooling his thoughts as they come to him, correcting or changing as he learns more, like watching water rush down a fall of rocks. Shen Yuan is more measured, but often there's a playfulness to his hands, sometimes self-deprecating, often relaxed, and graceful, above all, as if the body he inhabits can't help bringing a sense of dignity in spite of Shen Yuan's friendly nature. The two contrasts always feel present. Claudius signs the way he talks, with flourishes, with teases, with hidden meanings that Galahad can read more easily when they're hinted at by fingers rather than expressions. Even his signs carry the emphasis he likes to lay on words.

He watches Magnus' hands and feels peaceful.

[summerdude]

The mom is Hildegard, Magnus says. Dad is Horatio. I don't know what's up with all these names. They have a son named Hubert but he has a nest with a squirrel the girls only call 'Bessie Bushy-Tail' in a maple tree deeper in the forest.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad laughs. When we met, you asked if I had been named after someone too. Who are you named after?"

[summerdude]

Me? Magnus asks, a little surprised. A bunch Swedish kings. Hence-- He makes his name-sign, M-crown, with a little eye-roll. I looked them up once. A lot of them did war on your boyfriend's country. This time, his face is apologetic, even though he wasn't the Magnus waging war on Denmark. One of them was gay and ended t-h-r-a-l-l^* slavery, which is cool.

Honestly, the Swedish Magnuses seemed kind of lamer than the Norwegian Magnuses, when Magnus was younger. The Norwegian ones did sound a lot more bloodthirsty, though. Maybe it's good his mom wasn't thinking of them when she picked his name.

*So typed because this is finger-spelled.

[onthewillowsthere]

The waging of war on Denmark by a king who may or may not have been Magnus' ancestor is so fully abstract (and, he thinks, probably doesn't matter to Claudius) as to be insignificant. You don't like your name?

[summerdude]

Magnus purses his lips, thinking about this. My mom gave it to me, he decides. With a laugh -- this is one of his favorite jokes, even though no one else has ever found it funny -- And it rhymes with s-w-a-g-n-e-s-s.

[onthewillowsthere]

What does that spell?

[summerdude]

"Swagness," Magnus says aloud, with another laugh. It's a slang term. It means cooler than cool. He laughs again. I want to be clear that this is a super lame joke. Everyone rolls their eyes. I'm the least cool person most of my friends know.

This last is signed fondly, with a smile and another roll of his eyes.

[onthewillowsthere]

Cool? That's good?

[summerdude]

Cool is good. Cool means... swag. Magnus laughs again. If you had told him two months ago that he'd be defining 'cool' to a knight... well, actually, he'd probably believe it; his life has been weird for years. But he's happy to be doing it. Since he's starting to use signs he hasn't specifically taught Galahad before, and he's not sure they're in the books he knows Galahad has been reading, he speaks quietly along with his next set of signs. It means a lot of things, I guess. Awesome. Kickass. Interesting. Excellent. It can also mean acceptable or all right, depending on how it's used. When I say all my friends are cooler than me, I mean they stand out or make things look effortless or whatever. I'm just some guy, and I have to work hard. He grins at Galahad. This doesn't bother him at all; he knows he's still okay at a bunch of stuff, and he loves his friends. Falling silent again, he adds, In my book, you're very cool.

[onthewillowsthere]

I think you're cool too. Galahad hesitates, and then makes a letter M and uses it to make the sign for sunlight, circling it over his temple and then throwing his fingers open.

[summerdude]

Magnus stares for a minute before he fully makes the connection, and then he launches himself at Galahad. It's only his einherji reflexes that keep him from toppling them both off the branch, but he braces one hand against the trunk of the tree as he pulls Galahad into a hug and stabilizes them both in time. "Sorry," he says, once he knows neither of them are going to fall, and then: "I love you so much, man. Thank you."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad hugs him back tightly, and murmurs, "I love thee too."

[summerdude]

It must be said that, in this moment, Magnus is feeling a lot less conflicted about the prospect of averting Ragnarok forever by just staying here. "You wanna get out of this tree?" he asks Galahad. "I wanna try that thing you made before the squirrels realize it's there. And," he gestures down at the fire pit. "Mothwing keeps bringing me fish, if you're hungry?" He knows it's not the most appealing of prospects -- fish badly seasoned with some stuff he's pilfered from the kitchens, cooked over an open fire -- so he's not committed to pushing it.

[onthewillowsthere]

A beat, and then he says, in a testing voice, "I hate fish," as if he expects to be struck down by God's hand from on high for saying it; when this doesn't happen, he says again, "I hate fish," with a faint smile. "Thank you, though."

[summerdude]

Magnus laughs. "Good," he says. "Frankly it's terrible, but it's all I -- oh wait, no it's not, hold on."

He leaps from the branch, landing neatly on his feet, and then goes to rummage through his backpack, carefully lifting the pastry Galahad left there out of the way. There are some protein and energy bars tucked away into a side pocket, for when he gets peckish and doesn't feel like putting in any effort. He grabs them, and then, bars and pastry in hand, circles back to look up at Galahad still on the branch. "Wanna try?"