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After the talent show is over, once the anxiety and embarrassment coursing through Magnus's veins subsides, he walks the halls of the Mansion.
The day went... okay, he thinks. It's the longest he's spent inside since he passed out after the zombies, but between the open air and the convivial atmosphere of the show, he managed without any huge claustrophobic flare-ups.
Jack is still off-pendant, hamming it up with the stragglers. Magnus is happy to let him do his own thing. Jack deserves a nice life, even if his current master is fight-averse at the moment.
There are a lot of things on Magnus's mind. Fake-flyting in front of what he assumes was most of the Mansion was bracing, in a way. He doesn't miss fighting, or training to fight, every day, but he does miss the camaraderie that comes with being on a side and working with others to win. He feels the loss of his friends back home acutely, more acutely than normal. He wishes that Hearthstone and Blitzen, in particular, were here: unlike his other friends, they're not really warriors, but they can fight. He wants to ask them how they navigate the world, knowing that Ragnarok will come. Knowing that, as mortals with nonhuman lifespans, they'll probably not live to see it. It's not something they've really talked about before. Survival, yes, but not the big picture. Not what it all means.
He's finding it harder and harder to stomach his destiny. Can he stay here forever? He misses traveling. He misses being able to nip out for fresh falafel with his friends; he misses the Chase Space and the kids who flow in and out of the doors; he misses taking a wrong turn and ending up in a totally different part of the World Tree. His life has never been this stationary before. Even as a kid, his mom would take him camping nearly every weekend. Being so sedentary... he's not certain that he likes it. He feels a little trapped here, with no way out.
But he does like the people here. If he left, he thinks he'd miss them as much as he misses his people back home. And he can't fathom letting Jack back into the Nine Worlds if keeping him away means Ragnarok is indefinitely postponed. There's no easy answers.
As he ruminates, Magnus's wandering feet take him up the stairs and down another hall. They pause at the door to his room. He takes a deep breath and pushes it open.
It's clear people have been in here. The space has been neatened; someone has fixed the window. His plants are alive. Galahad has definitely rummaged through his books and his clothes; Magnus can see the voids left where certain things have been relocated to his outdoor hide-out.
He takes a deep breath and goes inside.
His first stop is the plants. He can't really read plants like Ragnelle can or anything, but he runs his fingers over the leaves and, on a whim, calls on them to grow a little. He thinks that maybe, without really realizing it, he's been doing that all along... or had been, when he was still living in this room: they've grown less in his absence than he expected. It's weird to think that, in the absence of his own daily regeneration, he's been using his alf seidr without thinking about it or even really realizing that's what he's been doing.
The view out the window beyond the plants is calm. It's clear that they're settling down toward winter: most of the leaves have fallen from the trees. It looks like a cold wind is blowing. Branches are twitching, and off in the distance, there are ripples on the lake. There's a chill when he presses his fingers to the glass.
When he closes his eyes, he sees his atrium back in Valhalla. It's always a breezy summer day in there, the trees strong and the grass soft. Nothing really changes in Valhalla. Not like here, where so many days run together but there's still a strange momentum to everything. Like stuff is moving and shifting, and since he's caught in the current, he's changing with it. He thinks, sometimes, about how Alex has the same atrium. About what it means. About what would happen if he went back and suddenly there was a mismatch. He wishes he could reach her, somehow. He wishes he could show his room back home to his friends here.
It's still weird, in a way, to be a guy who has a regular place to live. This room still feels like his, for all that he's almost reached a point where he's spent as much time avoiding it as he did living in it. A place to come back to; a place he can call home. But it's still so different from his room in Valhalla. Oh, sure, it's extremely sparse and incredibly neat. He makes up for the fact that this space doesn't have an off-set space to sleep in by putting all clutter in areas that you can't see from the bed, and by keeping the bed close to the windows. But he needs that open sky, right now, much more than he needs shelter or home or a single place to go back to. He needs exit routes and trees and walls that don't close in on him. The walls in this room -- they lean; they loom. They press. They're pressing right now, tight enough that they trap the air in his chest, and he can't shake himself loose to breathe.
He has to get out. He has to go. He'd thought, after that day, maybe -- but he can't be here. He's alone in here; there's no space. Jump, he hears his mom saying. Run. I'll find you after.
This time, at least, he doesn't crash through a closed window, breaking glass as he leaps blindly and trustingly into a fray. This time, he pushes it open and climbs out onto the roof. He sits on the steep slope of it, arms wrapped tight around his knees, shaking and staring off at the trees, willing himself to calm down and grow up. It's so stupid that being inside bothers him this much. It's so stupid that he can't just grow a pair and deal with his shit and move on and have fun. It sucks that he can't handle spending any more time than it takes to have a cursory shower in the shittiest easy-access locker room with extreme bad-shelter vibes in this place. He'd thought today might change things, and sure, he lasted longer than usual, but this fallout is a lot worse. He still can't catch his breath. He still can't stop shaking. He wants to be ready to be where all his friends mostly are, most of the time. He wants to know the path he can take to reach readiness. But he doesn't, and he's not, he's not, he's not.
The day went... okay, he thinks. It's the longest he's spent inside since he passed out after the zombies, but between the open air and the convivial atmosphere of the show, he managed without any huge claustrophobic flare-ups.
Jack is still off-pendant, hamming it up with the stragglers. Magnus is happy to let him do his own thing. Jack deserves a nice life, even if his current master is fight-averse at the moment.
There are a lot of things on Magnus's mind. Fake-flyting in front of what he assumes was most of the Mansion was bracing, in a way. He doesn't miss fighting, or training to fight, every day, but he does miss the camaraderie that comes with being on a side and working with others to win. He feels the loss of his friends back home acutely, more acutely than normal. He wishes that Hearthstone and Blitzen, in particular, were here: unlike his other friends, they're not really warriors, but they can fight. He wants to ask them how they navigate the world, knowing that Ragnarok will come. Knowing that, as mortals with nonhuman lifespans, they'll probably not live to see it. It's not something they've really talked about before. Survival, yes, but not the big picture. Not what it all means.
He's finding it harder and harder to stomach his destiny. Can he stay here forever? He misses traveling. He misses being able to nip out for fresh falafel with his friends; he misses the Chase Space and the kids who flow in and out of the doors; he misses taking a wrong turn and ending up in a totally different part of the World Tree. His life has never been this stationary before. Even as a kid, his mom would take him camping nearly every weekend. Being so sedentary... he's not certain that he likes it. He feels a little trapped here, with no way out.
But he does like the people here. If he left, he thinks he'd miss them as much as he misses his people back home. And he can't fathom letting Jack back into the Nine Worlds if keeping him away means Ragnarok is indefinitely postponed. There's no easy answers.
As he ruminates, Magnus's wandering feet take him up the stairs and down another hall. They pause at the door to his room. He takes a deep breath and pushes it open.
It's clear people have been in here. The space has been neatened; someone has fixed the window. His plants are alive. Galahad has definitely rummaged through his books and his clothes; Magnus can see the voids left where certain things have been relocated to his outdoor hide-out.
He takes a deep breath and goes inside.
His first stop is the plants. He can't really read plants like Ragnelle can or anything, but he runs his fingers over the leaves and, on a whim, calls on them to grow a little. He thinks that maybe, without really realizing it, he's been doing that all along... or had been, when he was still living in this room: they've grown less in his absence than he expected. It's weird to think that, in the absence of his own daily regeneration, he's been using his alf seidr without thinking about it or even really realizing that's what he's been doing.
The view out the window beyond the plants is calm. It's clear that they're settling down toward winter: most of the leaves have fallen from the trees. It looks like a cold wind is blowing. Branches are twitching, and off in the distance, there are ripples on the lake. There's a chill when he presses his fingers to the glass.
When he closes his eyes, he sees his atrium back in Valhalla. It's always a breezy summer day in there, the trees strong and the grass soft. Nothing really changes in Valhalla. Not like here, where so many days run together but there's still a strange momentum to everything. Like stuff is moving and shifting, and since he's caught in the current, he's changing with it. He thinks, sometimes, about how Alex has the same atrium. About what it means. About what would happen if he went back and suddenly there was a mismatch. He wishes he could reach her, somehow. He wishes he could show his room back home to his friends here.
It's still weird, in a way, to be a guy who has a regular place to live. This room still feels like his, for all that he's almost reached a point where he's spent as much time avoiding it as he did living in it. A place to come back to; a place he can call home. But it's still so different from his room in Valhalla. Oh, sure, it's extremely sparse and incredibly neat. He makes up for the fact that this space doesn't have an off-set space to sleep in by putting all clutter in areas that you can't see from the bed, and by keeping the bed close to the windows. But he needs that open sky, right now, much more than he needs shelter or home or a single place to go back to. He needs exit routes and trees and walls that don't close in on him. The walls in this room -- they lean; they loom. They press. They're pressing right now, tight enough that they trap the air in his chest, and he can't shake himself loose to breathe.
He has to get out. He has to go. He'd thought, after that day, maybe -- but he can't be here. He's alone in here; there's no space. Jump, he hears his mom saying. Run. I'll find you after.
This time, at least, he doesn't crash through a closed window, breaking glass as he leaps blindly and trustingly into a fray. This time, he pushes it open and climbs out onto the roof. He sits on the steep slope of it, arms wrapped tight around his knees, shaking and staring off at the trees, willing himself to calm down and grow up. It's so stupid that being inside bothers him this much. It's so stupid that he can't just grow a pair and deal with his shit and move on and have fun. It sucks that he can't handle spending any more time than it takes to have a cursory shower in the shittiest easy-access locker room with extreme bad-shelter vibes in this place. He'd thought today might change things, and sure, he lasted longer than usual, but this fallout is a lot worse. He still can't catch his breath. He still can't stop shaking. He wants to be ready to be where all his friends mostly are, most of the time. He wants to know the path he can take to reach readiness. But he doesn't, and he's not, he's not, he's not.
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