I'm About As Organized As Ran, I Guess? [closed post]

[summerdude]

"And then we realized Frigg was knitting with clouds. Actual factual clouds," Magnus says, passing another box that, as it turns out, holds nothing useful down to Galahad. He climbs up another rung on the little stepladder and starts in on the next shelf. "How many boxes of Legos do we have so far?" He knows it's certainly not enough for a bachelorette party yet, but surely there's something they can go on. He'd kind of tonight that this far after Dark, there would be... more? "Do you think we should find another room to look in? Maybe the game room isn't the best choice."

Comments

[onthewillowsthere]

"You should." It's an irrational thought, but he wants Magnus to try again and get something better this time.

[summerdude]

"This one looks funky," Magnus says after walking up and down the hall, surveying his options. It looks a little fancier than the other doors: there are wrought iron elements, and sparkles reminiscent of crystal inlaid into what would, on other doors, be plain wood.

When he opens it, he gasps. It's so beautiful. There's a grassy knoll stretching out from the doorway, implausibly emerald, glittering with a nacre that casts off stunning little stained-glass rainbows where the sun hits it. And yet the grass is just grass, not crystal or glass. There are little rainbow flowers dotting the hillside, iridescent and shifting. The sky is streaked with a daytime aurora, shifting and dancing from color to color. Off in the distance, he can make out a smudge of trees. Even this far away, they're incandescent with impossible streaks of color. Shrimp colors, if you will, finally beheld by human eyes.

It is, frankly, an assault on the senses of a guy who likes to be outside because outside is outside-colored. Magnus likes wildflowers and rainbows, but this looks kind of like a world that Lisa Frank threw up. If he spent too much time here, he'd definitely end up with a headache.

Magnus has no way of knowing this, since he and Kade aren't particularly close, but this door to Prism is one of the few permanently interred in the Mansion. Kade and Antsy haven't talked about the vestigial Door to Prism she could have pulled out of his bedroom wall at the school with the slightest provocation, because they both know that Kade is done with that world. But the Goblin Empire wants their Prince-in-Waiting, and they are willing to wait a very long time for him to be sure. Magnus sees just a cute weird little facsimile the Mansion has brewed up for two guys having an interesting afternoon, but this is, in truth, one of the only true extant passages to another place outside of the Mansion's reach.

"What do you make of this?" he asks Galahad, eyes bright.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Can we go into it?" He takes a cautious step forward, one foot in the prismatic grass. It's overwhelming to him, too, but in a tantalizing way -- it reminds him of the unicorn, somehow. He wants to see it.

[summerdude]

"Can't hurt," Magnus decides. He props the door open with a handy decorative vase and follows Galahad.

[onthewillowsthere]

He crosses the threshold and walks several steps into the new world, and then kneels down to pluck a blade of grass, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. There's something vaguely familiar about this place, besides just the unicorn sense of wonder to it, that feels as if it's on the tip of his tongue.

Without entirely noticing, he brings the blade of grass to his mouth and brushes it against his lips.

[summerdude]

"We should bring some of these back to Claudius," Magnus says, crouching down to run his fingertips over the flowers. He can't say exactly how he knows it, but-- "These are definitely not Earth flowers."

[onthewillowsthere]

"All right. We need to be careful. We have to dig them up without breaking too many of their roots."

[summerdude]

Magnus doesn't have anything that's great as a shovel, and he's a little worried that if he turns back for one, the door will close and this place will be lost. Luckily, the ground is soft; he digs carefully around one of the flowers.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad reaches into the pocket of his hoodie and removes a bottle of Mountain Dew, which he pours out onto the grass. "Do you have a knife?"

[summerdude]

"I sent Jack off so we could talk."

[onthewillowsthere]

The bottle will probably be useless as a pot without some way to widen the opening, so he nods and slips it back into his pocket.

[summerdude]

"Wait, what were you thinking?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Cut the top off the bottle and put soil and a plant inside. It would be protected."

[summerdude]

"I have an idea," Magnus says, holding his hands out for the bottle. "It might not work."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad hands the bottle over readily, more than happy to trust Magnus.

[summerdude]

Magnus might not have thought of this, but this place feels an awful lot like Alfheim. Not the manicured rich-Boston-suburbs Alfheim, though... maybe the part that skirts Folkvanger. Freya, he thinks, would like the iridescent emerald grass and beautiful flowers. She'd probably have her personal band compose a song about the way the sun sends little shimmery rainbows up where it hits the ground.

Which is to say his alf seidr feels closer and softer than ever. These things get misshapen when you dump boiling water in them -- he learned that the hard way. He draws summer heat into his hands, curling them around the top of the bottle, trying to warm the plastic up enough that he can pull it wider open.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad watches as the plastic softens and opens like the mouth of a pitcher plant, gaping to invite in soft-bodied insects. It opens so wide that a handful of dirt and fibrous roots can easily be tucked inside.

[summerdude]

"There," Magnus says, when he's done. It's only then that he notices his hands, glowing, are sending off little rainbows too. "...Huh."

[onthewillowsthere]

A curious tilt of his head. He reaches to touch Magnus' hands.

[summerdude]

The rainbows dance over Galahad's fingers!

[onthewillowsthere]

The effect is beautiful, and Galahad turns over his hands, watching the rainbow light.

"Thank you," finally.

[summerdude]

"'Course." Magnus turns back to carefully working a plant out of the ground. "This place is wild. Much better than all the jotun crap."

[onthewillowsthere]

"It's beautiful." He wonders how far it goes -- it's not just a room, it's a world, it has the feeling of the world; something that could go on for a long, long time. It makes him wish he'd brought the camera along.

[summerdude]

"I kinda wanna take a nap here," Magnus says, with a half-laugh. "Poppies... poppies! Hey, you read the Wizard of Oz yet?" He thinks chances are pretty good, given the play. He hasn't read it yet (but he's seen the movie), but Galahad could have. "You think this is Oz? Somewhere over the rainbow?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I haven't." He only knows about the Janet version of the play. "What do the poppies mean?"