In The War Of The Pranks, You Ball Or You Die [closed post]

[summerdude]

Magnus has had an incredibly busy morning. The winter feels less oppressive in the wake of that totally insane blizzard the other day, so he spends the first few hours digging out camp with Alex (which does take some time, because they do take a couple of breaks for snow fights, make-out sessions, and snacks), and then digging out Galahad's church. In the process of tracking down a shovel to do said digging, he learns that the Mansion is making things again (thank gods), so he also takes advantage of that, once his home has been unearthed, to find another outdoor fireplace, a few candles and tiki torches, and a weird wooden chest thing filled with paper and markers. Plus some bells.

He takes all of these things back to the church, and works in earnest to continue setting it up. He writes TABERNACLE GOES HERE? on one of the papers, which he wedges in one of the slats of the box, demonstratively, and places it on his former reading branch, urging the branch to grow around the box a little more snugly. He threads bells through smaller branches, and then moves the branches like vines, securing them in place above the cross. The outdoor fireplace he puts next to the place where he imagines Galahad might sit or kneel or whatever, so he can stay warm; he places the candles on top of it, and then drags Dro's perch to the other side of the kneeling/sitting space. Finally, he shoves the torches into the frozen ground in a line leading up to the space.

Then, he decides, he can't do anything else without some sort of direction from Galahad. So he goes back to camp, gives Alex another big old kiss, and shoves his notebook into his backpack. "I'll be back by dinner," he promises her, "with dinner," and trots off to the Mansion to find Galahad.

Comments

[summerdude]

Magnus gives the soup another careful stir. It looks kind of like doenjang-jjigae? And it smells about right. He goes to get some bowls. "So. Themed lego sets, or just a whole giant box of random lego pieces so people can just make whatever they want?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"What kinds of themes are there? Besides your tree."

[summerdude]

"Pretty much anything you can think of," Magnus says. "Buildings, books, movies, vehicles, time periods, animals, characters, gardens... tons of stuff."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Animals."

[summerdude]

"More animals. Great animal theme," Magnus nods. "Do you want me to try and something like your impaled heraldry, or just random animals?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Can it make animals that would live in Wales? Things Percival showed me."

[summerdude]

"We can look together," Magnus says. "Day after tomorrow?" He's finding that he's having fun making specific plans. He's never really been Schedule Guy before -- either the days are blurring together or he's on a frantic quest with a tight turnaround, there is no in between -- but maybe it's good to have a specific shape to your days? Instead of throwing everything into just growing all the produce and/or trying not to die?

[onthewillowsthere]

"Day after tomorrow," he agrees. He's always liked specific plans: the structure of them, the knowing what's coming.

[summerdude]

Surely the stew is done by now. "Moment of truth," Magnus says, carefully spooning a tiny bit into one of the bowls so he can taste it.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad is very curious to see what Magnus thinks of the soup, and he watches.

[summerdude]

It's... not bad! It's not doenjang jjigae, or at least not what he remembers doenjang jjigae to be, but it's warm and savory and that's mostly what Magnus wanted. "It's pretty decent," he tells Galahad, scooping more into his bowl.

[onthewillowsthere]

When Magnus is done with the ladle, Galahad fills his own bowl. He liked the broth, and he knows he's fine with the vegetables, so he's generous with those, but he carefully selects only one cube of tofu; he doesn't want to waste it if it proves too slippery for him.

[summerdude]

Magnus has always been a pretty fast eater, and this is no exception -- he's only careful not to burn his tongue (yes, he could heal it, but it would still hurt). "Wha oo oo hink?" he asks, mouth full of radish.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't like tofu," he says, after a bite to confirm. It is Too Slippery. "I like everything else."

[summerdude]

Magnus nods and swallows. "Is it the taste of the texture?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Texture."

[summerdude]

"More for me," Magnus says, adding a bunch more tofu to his bowl. "We should try fried tofu sometime, it's got a super different texture."

[onthewillowsthere]

"More firm?"

[summerdude]

"Firm and crispy, yeah."

[onthewillowsthere]

That sounds much better. Galahad sips the broth and nods. "I would like to try."

[summerdude]

"So maybe we find an Asian cookbook," Magnus says, and then thoughtfully adds, "Maybe not Chinese, though. I'm a little worried Hanguang-jun might get sad we didn't just ask him for lessons."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Do you want to? I think he misses having disciples."

[summerdude]

"Yeah," Magnus says. "I'd learn anything from him. Maybe we could ask for cooking lessons and then separately do a cookbook just the two of us?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. I think we should."

[summerdude]

"Cool."

Magnus finishes up his stew pretty quickly, and starts searching for some tupperware to bring the leftovers to Alex.