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

[onthewillowsthere]

He glances down at it. "It's good."

[summerdude]

"Phew," Magnus says. He's not sure what else to say, after that. The first thing that comes to mind is 'you look cleaner,' but that's so rude. He settles on, "I've been training, like, all day. My sword is a real taskmaster, you know?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I saw. Is it enchantment?"

[summerdude]

"You know, I've never asked," Magnus says. He calls to Jack, "Hey, Jack! Are you enchanted?"

"Don't think so, señor!" Jack calls back, and then, to the tune of the Lady Gaga hit, starts singing, "Baby I was forged this waaaaay."

"Maybe he is," Magnus tells Galahad. "Do enchanted things act like... that?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad looks nonplussed, which mostly just reads blank on him. "Not the ones I've found."

[summerdude]

"Oh yeah?" Magnus asks. He leaves Jack to his little song-and-dance routine and pulls up a seat on a soft-looking patch of grass, a yard or two away from Galahad. "What sort of enchanted things have you found?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"My sword is enchanted."

[summerdude]

"Oh cool, what does it do?" Magnus asks. In a whisper pitched for Galahad's ears only, and lamenting the fact that so far no one he's met here seems to know sign language, which Jack can't understand, he adds, "If you gave your sword up for love, though, you probably shouldn't mention that where certain flying singing swords who happen to currently be my companion can hear. Certain very sharp and very opinionated blades have a lot of feelings about that kind of thing."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad tilts his head. "It was in a stone in a river, and I drew it," and he smiles slightly at how trivial that is, especially in the face of a singing, sentient sword. Then, remembering, he straightens up. "It's here. I found it a month ago, and--"

[summerdude]

"Wait, Excalibur?!" says Magnus, whose grasp of Arthurian legend is limited at best. There was something about a sword in a stone, or maybe a sword in a lake, and this seems to fit both possibilities?

[onthewillowsthere]

He laughs, which startles him. "No. Excalibur is the king's sword. It was drawn from an anvil. My sword is the Sword with the Red Hilt."

[summerdude]

"Ahhh, I see," says Magnus, who doesn't, really. "Sword with the Red Hilt, huh? Let me guess. Its hilt is red."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Bound in red leather," he agrees. "I remember where I put it."

[summerdude]

Magnus glances at Jack, who seems to have settled down. He's hovering at a distance -- they both know that when Magnus picks him up again, Magnus will pass out, or at least get extremely exhausted instantaneously -- but not wiggling around or singing anymore.

"Oh, cool," he says. It sounds like they're going to go on a sword hunt. Jack, at least, will be thrilled. "Did you bring it with you, then? What kind of stuff does it do, besides float in rocks in rivers? And -- okay, this is going to sound like such a weird question, but there's a point, I promise: Do you happen to know its gender?"

[onthewillowsthere]

It's too many questions all at once, and Galahad freezes -- he'd been halfway to his feet, and rather than answer Magnus he says nothing, just gives him a blank look before turning to go back to the mansion.

[summerdude]

"I only wanted to know because Jack is a huge flirt," Magnus calls after Galahad. He assumes he's invited along on this hunt? But maybe he's not?

He decides to hoist himself up and follow Galahad anyway.

[onthewillowsthere]

It takes him a little while to dredge up the memory of where he hid the Sword with the Red Hilt, but he remembers the general area: once inside, he's able to locate it fairly quickly.

Unlike Sagramore's two-handed greatsword, the Sword with the Red Hilt is a one-handed sidearm, lighter and more versatile (it would be called a knightsword, if Magnus had a great familiarity with old-fashioned weapons). Galahad wasn't entirely sure if it would still cleave to him the way it did when he was the Grail Knight, but it does: as with Laertes' rapier, it fits perfectly into his hand, an extension of his body.

He's no longer Laurel, and it no longer frightens him to wield it so easily. He was born to this; he's been used to this since he first came to Camelot at sixteen. He tests the weight of the Sword to make sure it feels right: it does.

To Magnus it must look very ordinary, except for the deep red leather that wraps the hilt.

[summerdude]

"The aura on this thing," Jack swoons, flying close and spinning around his own axis as he takes in the Sword with the Red Hilt. "Oooh baby, I bet you could do some damage on the battlefield."

Magnus glances at Jack, who rarely remarks on weaponry's auras -- not since Skofnung, if Magnus remembers it correctly, so that's -- concerning, maybe. Then he glances back at Galahad, who looks very much like he's come home by picking the sword up.

"Looks like it was made for you," he says, carefully.

[onthewillowsthere]

"It was Balin's before me." He tests it again, letting the blade weave in the air, then sheaths it. Unlike the scabbard for Sagramore's greatsword, this one wasn't made for the weapon. It's decent, but not a perfect fit. Galahad cocks his head at Magnus. "Do you want to?"

[summerdude]

"To... what? Spar?"

[onthewillowsthere]

He nods.

[summerdude]

"Hell yeah," Magnus says. He glances at the sword again. It's a beautiful specimen, truly, and he'd love to wield Jack in fighting it, but if he takes hold of Jack now, he will pass out. Training sword it is, then. "Back outside?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods again, and follows him.

[summerdude]

Once outside, Magnus grips his training sword firmly in hand. He's starting to get a little tired, even with the energy bars he snacked on between earlier bouts, so he doesn't do anything flashy with it, like try to start with his non-dominant right hand or anything.

He takes a swig of water from his bottle and then straightens to face Galahad. "How do you want to do this?" he asks. "Just... go for it, or...?"

[onthewillowsthere]

He hesitates, halfway through putting the scabbard aside. He doesn't, actually, know how he does this. He never trains. It's a gift from God, this ability, and it comes to him like breathing -- his body knows what to do to and he just is.

"I think," he says cautiously, "you could start, and I'll follow."