I Lived, Grinch! [open post]

[summerdude]

The first thing Magnus does -- with Alex's help -- after fully healing is board up the hole in the side of the greenhouse where the cheetah ran through. The second thing, once he learns the full scope of Dark (it's different at camp; he'd already taken out a ton of camp-appropriate food for when Galahad and Laertes couldn't make it out there, and so he and Alex have been fine on the eating front) is go to the greenhouse again to figure out what plants in there yield edible produce. (Also, he tries to scrub his blood off the table. It... partially works?)

Partly it's that he's still feeling weird after the whole affair. The season doesn't help, but he does feel closer to his own mortality than pretty much any point since he died for real the first time. Being around growing plants helps that. Mostly, though, it's because he doesn't want anyone to get, like, scurvy living on bushels of rice alone.

He doesn't want to overtax any of the plants, but some can be cajoled into fruiting. Right now, he's got his hand on a kumquat tree, and he's trying to convince it that it can speed up the growth process by a few weeks. Drosera is with him, 'helping:' she's found a dead leaf, and she's chasing it down the pathway between some plants. If anyone shows up -- either because they've heard of his near-death experience and want to check in on him, or just to hang out, or even because they're drawn by the way it looks like sunlight is coming from the greenhouse itself -- he'll be glad for the company.

Comments

[sagramore]

Sagramore slips an arm around his shoulders, tugging him into a sideways hug. "I assume there's a good reason to think that?"

[summerdude]

"You'd have to ask them," Magnus says, now leaning properly against Sagramore. "It was like, I was inside, just walking down the hall but then the hall kept repeating itself and there was the same table with the same art over and over again. And then suddenly it was like I was in a museum, but not one I've been to, and there was a sword in the display case, but not one I recognized. And I ducked the ceiling fan that started falling, but couldn't get out of the way of the sword or the breaking glass. Lancelot had to get it out because the point was stuck into the ground. But by the time he got there it was just the mansion hallway again and I was just covered in the broken glass and the sword and nothing I'd seen was there anymore. But it wasn't a vision."

[sagramore]

He frowns. "No, it sounds like magic, doesn't it? Like a magic trap." It sounds like something Morgan le Fay would do.

[summerdude]

"Yeah, I guess." Magnus wrinkles his nose. "But I don't think anyone here has it out for me? Like, I don't think Ran's bounty on my head extends past the Nine Worlds. So I can't imagine why it would be, like, specific to me."

[sagramore]

"There's no one you've been troubling?"

[summerdude]

"Not that I can think of? Me and Dionysus are fine after that whole closet thing, and me and Lancelot are, like, good or whatever now too."

[sagramore]

"Well, that's not the point anyway, that's not what I meant to ask thee. Thou hast enough people around thee strategizing on how best to protect thee and what manner of threat thou facest. I wanted to speak to thee of how it feels to come near death, that's all."

[summerdude]

Very, very quietly: "I thought I was used to it. I've had so much worse. But it felt different."

[sagramore]

"Hmm," he says, a listening sound that invites Magnus to go on.

[summerdude]

"I guess I'm out of practice."

[sagramore]

Sagramore hums softly. "What I remember is that there'd been a point when it was exhilarating, and as I got older, it just started to feel-- well. Finite. Less like cheating Death through cleverness and more like working free of his trap by gnawing through my own ankle."

[summerdude]

"I've never, like, liked it," Magnus says. "Just tolerated it. Necessary evil, or whatever."

[sagramore]

"Hmm."

[summerdude]

"Dude, are you aware that you keep humming?"

[sagramore]

"...Damn it."

[summerdude]

"It's, like, really obvious that you're having an opinion." Magnus says this apologetically, like he's sorry to call attention to it.

[sagramore]

He presses his fingertips to his temple. "Of course I have opinions, I have opinions about everything. --It's a habit I picked up from someone."

[summerdude]

Magnus twists his head so he can raise his eyebrows at Sagramore a little more obviously.

[sagramore]

A sigh. "Don't look at me like that. I just didn't realize it."

[summerdude]

Now the look has a healthy dollop of suspicion!

[sagramore]

Another, more put-upon sigh. "Dost know Asmodean?"

[summerdude]

"Sort of? He said he'd write a song for Jack if Jack starts getting really annoying about me not being able to go on that Bragi quest since I'm here. --Bragi is, like, the god of poetry. He disappeared. Jack wants an epic cause I forgot to mention him when I flyted Loki."

[sagramore]

"He's, ah-- we used to be-- it's complicated, actually."

[summerdude]

"Lovers in the night?" Magnus supplies, after watching the facial journey Sagramore goes on while saying that.

[sagramore]

"I'm not sure why night, specifically--"