Me and My Best Friend Put On A Show That Would Make Freya Totally Jealous [closed post]

[summerdude]

Magnus wakes up, normal again except for how he's in an unfamiliar room. Not Galahad's old room, either. A nondescript one that, as far as he can tell, just has a bunch of clothes and stuff. Also he's wearing silky pajamas he'd never pick out automatically on his own?

It doesn't take long for him to feel like the walls are closing in on him. It's out of respect for Aornis that he stumbles out of her room through the door (barefoot and in the silky pajamas) and goes outside the normal way. Once outside, he flops into the snow, calling summer and feeling the way the snow steams against his skin as it melts.

He's not feeling totally regular again when he sits bolt upright, remembering that Drosera is probably in Galahad's old room with two people that aren't Magnus or Galahad. Existential crisis over, there's a child to retrieve! And hopefully, he'll run into Galahad in the halls.

Comments

[onthewillowsthere]

"I had a vision of the Fisher King."

[summerdude]

It takes Magnus a moment to place the name with a memory. "The guy you needed to get the Grail for?"

[onthewillowsthere]

He nods again. When he casts his mind back to the vision it feels as though he's stepped out of his body, that he's watching himself from a distance -- watching himself kneel beside the coracle, as the Fisher King turns his chin side to side.

"He was pierced with a lance that unmanned him." His voice sounds distant in his ears. "The land became a waste."

[summerdude]

"What does that mean?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Hurt in his groin, he explains -- it's easier to say with his hands, although his hands don't feel like his right now; his movements feel floaty and faraway. Cut away his male organ. The land is tied to him. If he can't be fruitful it can't either.

[summerdude]

Thoughtfully, Magnus says, "Maybe instead of a Grail you could have just brought him to, like, an Intro to Gender Studies class." He'd taken Intro to Gender Studies to the Death in Valhalla (Alex had been sick of being called an argr by the other einherjar), once, and it had been very illuminating.

[onthewillowsthere]

The wound is deep. He can't ride or walk right. Sits in a boat and fishes only.

[summerdude]

That explains the name.

[onthewillowsthere]

I think he knew my mother.

[summerdude]

Yeah? How's that?

[onthewillowsthere]

He said I looked like her.

[summerdude]

In your vision? Magnus asks, totally ready to accept this as a valid source of meaningful information.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods.

[summerdude]

Yeah, okay. Visions are a great source of accurate intel, so Magnus nods, too. "I don't get why a guy needs a dick to be fruitful, though," he muses. "Plenty of guys don't have dicks."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I think it's a metaphor," he ventures -- he finds figures of speech to be occasionally bewildering, but he's pretty sure he's right about this.

[summerdude]

"Oh," says Magnus, considering this. "Yeah, okay, I can see that."

[onthewillowsthere]

"He told me to come heal him."

[summerdude]

Honestly, if the Holy Grail can do phalloplasties, Magnus can kind of get why people used to want to find it. Gender-affirming care must have been really hard in Camelot. But that's not important; what's important right now is how Galahad is still clearly pale and shaken by his vision. "Are you okay?" he asks, frowning.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't understand why He would send me a vision. I forsought my purpose. I can't do what He meant for me to do," Galahad watches his body say. "It doesn't make sense."

[summerdude]

Magnus purses his lips, and then nods to himself. He takes Galahad's hand and walks out of the bathroom. Drosera is there, right by the door, snoozing away, her beak tucked under her scraggly little wing. She lifts her head when they come outside, and then nods off again.

"Are all your visions from your god?" Magnus asks, as he sits down next to Dro and tugs Galahad down with him. "I think mine come from different gods. And sometimes from Ginnungagap."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad's body smiles at Drosera -- the way she waits for them reminds him of a cat -- and he sits squished between her and Magnus.

"Always from God. They're visions of what I'm meant to do, or people it will be important for me to meet, like Percival's sister."

[summerdude]

"Percival has a sister?!" Not the point, Chase. "Is this the first vision you've had since you got here?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"No, but it hasn't happened in a while."

[summerdude]

"I thought you said god wasn't talking to you here."

[onthewillowsthere]

"He isn't. When He speaks to me it's with words. The visions are something else."