(Almost) Everything Is Comin' Up Chase [closed post]

[summerdude]

Magnus, triumphant, has finally managed to make some old bamboo sprout. With Drosera fed recently enough that she's not complaining of hunger and resting in her new favorite perch (lounging on his shoulder tucked right against his neck, her beak tangled in hair that is once again getting long), he sneaks it into the Mansion, hides it in a large gift-bag a closet gives him, and hangs it on Claudius and Galahad's doorknob with a quickly-jotted note that reads Claudius, What next? - MAGNUS CHASE.

Then, since he's already inside, he figures, why not wander around until he finds someone to talk to?

Comments

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes! I think leopard because it has spots. Have you seen one?"

[summerdude]

"I sure have," Magnus says, grinning. "Have you ever heard of a zoo?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Never."

[summerdude]

"Oh, dude. You'd love zoos. They get all kinds of animals from all around the world and put them there, in big enclosures that are designed to feel a little like home." He squints for a moment, and then jokes: "Kinda like us here, I guess."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Do animals in zoos decide to stop being fighting guys?"

[summerdude]

Magnus laughs. "Probably," he says. "There's enough food that they don't have to compete for it."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Then we just need a-- giraffe."

[summerdude]

"Yeah! We already have a dragon and a griffin and some horses and -- oh man, did you see that we got another cat?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Another? Does it talk too?"

[summerdude]

"I can talk to him but Georgia couldn't so I think he's more like Dro than like Mothwing." He pauses. "Um, Georgia is his human. They came together."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I haven't met her," he says, although that doesn't really mean anything -- they both know that Galahad is less likely than Magnus to greet new arrivals.

[summerdude]

"I only saw her the one time," Magnus nods. He's still thinking about animals and zoos and the way that Galahad had a different name for giraffes. "Hey, how many animals are in that bestiality of yours?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I have it." He climbs to his feet and goes to the bookshelf on his side of the bed, where he's been keeping his favorite books instead of returning them to the library. The bestiary is an illuminated manuscript with full-page illustrations of the creatures inside, both real and mythological (there's actually an entry for a lindwyrm in addition to griffin, unicorn, manticore, harpy), with an entry on the habits of each, although this information is, as the age of the book might suggest, largely wrong.

[summerdude]

"Okay, this is so cool," Magnus says, laughing at some of the weird names and weirder facts listed for some of the animals.

[onthewillowsthere]

"We had one in the nunnery like this. The sisters let me look at it sometimes."

[summerdude]

"What was different about it?" Magnus asks, curiously. He's never been this up-close and personal to an old-timey book before. He's heard of illuminated manuscripts, but this is way beyond what he ever imagined.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Some of the beasts here," meaning this book, "weren't in it. And on the page for dragons there were paw prints. A cat walked in the ink when it was being made."

[summerdude]

"Oh." Magnus blinks, strangely overcome at that mental image. "I really like that."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I liked it too." He glances over at Drosera, who's curled up like a cat herself now, with even her taloned feet tucked up under herself. "When I was lonely I would pretend I was the monk who wrote it. I used to pray to God to send a kitten for me to find."

[summerdude]

"Did he?" Magnus asks, curious. He strokes a hand down Dro's back, gently; she shifts a little and then tucks her beak more firmly under her back paw.

[onthewillowsthere]

"No. I don't think it was important to Him." There's no censure in it; he doesn't expect this to have been something that would concern God. "I used to ask for a lot of things."

[summerdude]

"Gods have weird priorities," Magnus says, in tones of great commiseration. "What kind of things?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"For the birds to stay in the kitchen garden and not fly away when I came to pick herbs. For another child to come to the nunnery. For fish to be meat so we couldn't eat it during Lent. For Sister Mathilde to live to nine-hundred years like Methuselah." He looks thoughtful. "To be better at sitting still. I was scolded a lot for moving too much."

[summerdude]

"Dude, me too," Magnus says. "Um, that last one. I don't know who Sister Mathilde is and we didn't do Lent. I always got in trouble for fidgeting too much."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Sister Mathilde was my favorite nun, but she was old. She died when I was eleven." Galahad taps his fingers on his thighs. "I did get better at being still."