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 doesn't think so, but he can't be sure. He shrugs. "Shen Yuan might know."

[onthewillowsthere]

He nods, a very Shen Yuan would know nod.

[summerdude]

"Do you wanna learn modern sports?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"No. I was curious."

[summerdude]

"Oh. Cause I could teach you at least, um." Magnus runs though a list of sports in his mind. "Three of them."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Which three?"

[summerdude]

"Skiing, badminton, volleyball," Magnus recites. "...And probably baseball and basketball, but we'd need a lot more people for those."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Tell me about them?"

[summerdude]

"Okay," Magnus says, slinging an arm around Galahad's shoulders. "Which one first?"

[onthewillowsthere]

It's a nice feeling, having Magnus' arm around him. "In order. Skiing."

[summerdude]

"Skiing..." Magnus says. "I know more about cross-country skiing than downhill skiing, cuz that's what we did to get from Skadi's castle to Naglfar when we were in Niflheim. Cross-country skiing is when you ski across places, and downhill skiing is when you ski down hills, you know."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't know ski."

[summerdude]

Huh. "I thought that would be the one you'd most likely know about," Magnus says. "You strap these, like, long narrow strips of wood to your feet and use them to basically skate around on top of snow. They make poles so you can use your arms to help. Rich people use them to go down mountains for fun. I think the Norse used them to travel in the winter."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I know skating on ice, but not skiing," he says. "Do you think Claudius does? The winter is longer and colder where he's from."

[summerdude]

"He might! And now that the Mansion is making stuff again, we could probably find some cross-country skis somewhere and try it out," Magnus suggests. Which reminds him that he had an earlier point. "We can also make anything else the church needs."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad considers. "We can't have Eucharist because there is no priest, so we don't need any of the things that are part of it."

[summerdude]

"Do you need a priest?" Magnus asks, taking absolutely the wrong message away from Galahad's statement.

[onthewillowsthere]

"No. I don't want one."

[summerdude]

"Cool. That's easy then."

[onthewillowsthere]

He tries to imagine what the sacrament of penance would be like now, with everything he has to repent of, and he's glad there are no priests. "I already know my psalms and canticles, and I don't need a book of common prayer."

[summerdude]

"What's a canticle?" Magnus asks. The word strikes a chord of memory. "And are they for Liebowitz?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"A song taken from the scripture. Who is Liebowitz?"

[summerdude]

"A Canticle for Liebowitz is a book. He's a character in it. ...I don't think you'd like it. I haven't read it since I was alive."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Not a romance."

[summerdude]

"Science fiction about the end of the world."