Jack Puts Me Through My Paces [open post]

[summerdude]

"Señor, you really should practice more," Jack says, as Magnus rearranges his mental notes and sighs.

(Anyone else might think Magnus is just lying back on a bench on the grounds, staring at the sky, lost in thought. And technically, he is. But he's working hard!!! He's trying to sort out everyone he's encountered so far!!!)

"You're right," Magnus groans. Being in a weird Mansion with no way out, no established Battle Practice, and no pressing quests to go on is not an excuse to let his limited fighting skills fall by the wayside. He hauls himself upright and shoves his (still largely blank) notebook into his backpack.

Twenty minutes later, he's secured a practice sword from some random closet or another in the Mansion. It's dull steel, not sentient, and heavy in his hands.

"Perfect," Jack decides, so Magnus tramps back out to the spacious lawn, one sword in each hand. Checking to make sure no one is directly in harm's way, he releases Jack and brings the dull training sword up, ready to parry whatever attack Jack decides to throw at him.

Comments

[summerdude]

Oooh, Laertes is good. Magnus dances back, and then tries for another angle of attack, trying to knock him out of his stance.

[summerdude]

Something about what Sagramore says twinges a recent memory - Magnus and SecUnit in Galahad's bathroom, the stink of Galahad's rotting hand still on the air even after Magnus finished healing it. "Pure... Sorry to change the subject, but -- you're from Camelot," he remembers. "What's the whole deal with, you know, purity over there?"

He says 'purity' in the same tone he'd say Helheim: like it's a curse.

[sagramore]

In spite of all his best efforts, he does roll his eyes. "You've been speaking with Sir Galahad."

[summerdude]

"Yeahhhhh," Magnus says. "Look, dude, I kinda get the vibe that you don't really like him. And that's totally fine! Seems like you, um, have different approaches to the world and stuff. But it sounds like he got some bullshit quest from some god? With some really effed up stipulations. And then you mentioned purity of curiosity, and it made me wonder... like... you know." He shrugs. "So is that like, a whole thing? Where you're from?"

[sagramore]

"It's-- listen, I'm not entirely sure I actually believe in God, which stands me in poor stead to evaluate his convictions. There is in general an expectation of chastity from unmarried people, but I don't know whether in practice very many people really are. I certainly don't consider it a virtue. But Sir Galahad will live and die by the church, so his priorities are different from mine."

[summerdude]

Magnus decides to sit down on the rock they're perched on, bringing a knee up so he can prop his elbow up on it and rest his chin against his hand. Staring out over the lawn, he says, "I guess people when I'm from have a lot of opinions about premarital sex, too, but it hasn't really registered in my family, and when you spend a few years on the streets and then you die and go to the Viking afterlife, you have bigger concerns than, like. When people start to have sex." He quirks a grin. "My mom and my uncle both had affairs with gods. Mom never married. I think she loved Frey her whole life. We certainly went camping enough so she could feel close to him, before she died. My cousin... her mom is Athena. Totally different pantheon, so that's... wild. Though I think Annabeth was literally a brain child, so maybe my uncle didn't... I don't know. He got married later. Annabeth said that he didn't have a romance with her mom."

He shrugs. "But what about, uh, I guess postmarital chastity? If someone is married, or equivalently committed, does that make the sex pure?" He doesn't wait for Sagramore to respond -- he's on a musing sort of roll. "Some of the weirder opinions I've heard are, like, it's only good if it's for procreation." Another grin, this time directed more at Sagramore than the middle distance. "Which, obviously, to Helheim with that. But I really don't know about the relationship between, like, purity and chastity in my own time, much less any others. My aunt -- I mean, I guess, technically my aunt, Freya? My dad's sister. She's had affairs with like half the svartalfs in Nidavellir, and that's considered completely normal to everyone involved, but I bet if you told some of the televangelists that they'd have a total meltdown about it."

He wrinkles his nose, thinking about both the televangelists and the few scraps of information he'd gotten from Galahad. And also the fact that he's recently met a literal christian demon AND a literal christian angel. "No offense, but the more I learn about it, the more I think christianity is the weirdest religion."

[sagramore]

Since Magnus has alighted, Sagramore settles down as well, carefully placing his sword beside him. A great deal of what Magnus is saying sounds like thinking aloud, and he doesn't feel entirely compelled to keep up.

At the end, though, he says, "I'm not sure whether it's the strangest -- I clearly don't have your breadth of knowledge -- but I don't particularly find it compelling. You have on the one hand a God who would hang Himself to spare us from our sins, which are determined by Him in the first place, and on the other hand you have Sir Galahad, who is entirely miserable, so being spared from sin carries no relief." He shrugs. "I wouldn't want his life."

[summerdude]

"See, that just sounds like extra paperwork to me," Magnus says. "Much more reasonable to have a god that sets forth the sins and a different one to take them down again." Actually, he finds the concept of 'sin' dumb in general, but that's a different matter entirely. "I guess what I don't get is, like, love is good, right? So how can doing stuff that celebrates it be bad? Seems pretty pure and potent if you ask me."

[sagramore]

He laughs. "You're speaking to someone who already agrees with you. I'd argue my church is the bedroom. But-- I don't know that that's a common opinion, in my time and place."

[summerdude]

"Mine either," Magnus says. "But gods can be reached in incredibly weird places. A bedroom sounds super reasonable to me.^*"

*Magnus does not entirely get that people don't necessarily go to church to try and talk directly to god.

[lightbearinglord]

Magnus' apparent cheer does hearten Lan Wangji. He restrains any further grief over the situation and glances back toward Jack as the sword's name is mentioned.

After a moment's thought, he draws Bichen with a flash of glacial sword glare.

[summerdude]

"Well hello, sexy," Jack says, flying near. "Lookin' sharp today, my good sword. Did you see my feint just then?! Do you want to go out sometime?"

"He really likes your sword," Magnus observes to Lan Wangji.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji returns his gaze to Magnus, his features bordering on amused for the barest moment. Bichen will not be going out with Jack, obviously. That much goes without saying. It stays by Lan Wangji's side.

They can, however, spar. Rather than saying anything aloud, Lan Wangji steps closer to Jack, flicking Bichen demonstratively through the air. The blade glows blue, as ever.

[sagramore]

"I don't know whether that answers your question, but I wouldn't measure my world by Sir Galahad. He leads a sad life."

[timebethine]

Unfurling easily into a one-handed stance, Laertes angles his body away from Magnus, leaving him to contend with only the blade. It's harder to wield this way--Laertes's wrist is used to the weight of a rapier, and Jack is a stouter blade--but his form remains impeccable. "Tricky," he says appreciatively, making a couple of noncommittal feints just to gauge how Magnus reacts.

[summerdude]

"Oh, sure," Magnus says. "I was more, like... trying to understand where he's coming from than anything, you know? So thank you."

[summerdude]

"This is the best day," Jack says, and immediately flies into a showy block.

[summerdude]

Magnus almost falls for the first feint, but he quickly catches onto how Laertes is holding himself beyond his judicious application of Jack. He tries for a move to draw Laertes in for an attack, instead -- Magnus has been practicing a disarming counterattack privately for weeks.

[timebethine]

And this much, Magnus will quickly learn--Laertes can be baited. He's an aggressive fencer, swift and punishing on the attack. (Magnus may also observe that, now that Laertes is fencing one-handed, he's mostly left off the sidelong hews and slashes of broadsword fencing, and his style tends to favor the thrusting movements needed to score with a rapier.) If Magnus should retreat, Laertes will advance.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji could smile, nearly. He has missed this feeling, the effortlessness of the way Bichen becomes an extension of himself. No words are necessary, only crisp, efficient movement. He presses closer with a flurry of slicing slashes, restraining Bichen from releasing its qi in the service of infusing each swing of the glassy blade with perfect intent.

[sagramore]

"Did I actually help with that at all? -- Don't tell me, it just comes as a shock." He stretches. "You should really talk to him, in any case. The two of us aren't friends, I hardly understand his mental state."

[summerdude]

"Yeah, but you're both from Camelot," Magnus says. Hearing what he's just said, he winces. "I do hear how that sounds. If someone was like, 'yo, Magnus, my dude, explain to me how all the other einherjar operate' I'd be like I don't freaking know, man, I guess we kill each other a bunch but that's literally it?" He shrugs a little, self-consciously. "In this metaphor, you both being from Camelot is like me and all the other einherjar killing each other a lot."

[summerdude]

Magnus watches as Lan Wangji fights Jack. It's like, a freaking masterclass in swordsmanship. On Lan Wangji's side, at least; Jack is still showing off with little flourishes that don't actually ad anything to a fight. Jack has also started singing Call Me Maybe, loudly and incorrectly.

After a few minutes, Magnus slips himself -- and his practice sword -- between Lan Wangji and Jack, and blocks Bichen's next swing.

[summerdude]

Magnus does retreat. This is an unfamiliar style of swordplay to him -- in Valhalla, the norm is less on swordplay and more on total defeat of enemies. It's a fun way to switch things up, though. Magnus has never been the one, on his floor, to go for the final kill -- usually he lets Jack take that on, while his own M.O. is more about disarming everyone with an accidental use of the Peace of Frey and trying not to die for as long as possible. So it's nice to be fighting with people who are also not going for a final kill -- they're just enjoying the... game, really.

He shifts his grip on his practice sword, and waits for Laertes to charge.

[sagramore]

Sagramore laughs; he can't help it. He likes the way Magnus talks, all references he can't possibly understand, and yet Sagramore can catch his meaning well enough.

"More or less."