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]

"I remember. The chocolate syrup."

[summerdude]

"Yeah," blissfully. "I gotta find a way to try to pull something like that off again. Alex's reaction, that is."

[onthewillowsthere]

"We could do something together that bluescreens both of them," Galahad says, ever helpful.

[summerdude]

"Yeah," he says, immediately. "We really should. What are you thinking?" As he talks, he opens another door at random. It's the circus room, which he hasn't seen but he has heard about.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad considers. In his romances, friends -- or people who are destined to become lovers, often -- will pretend to be entangled in order to arouse the passions of the people whose attention they would like, but kissing Magnus seems unlikely to interest Claudius.

As he told Kade, he doesn't read modern romances -- there's too much he doesn't understand in them. At least the historical romances, while they're still in his future, are familiar enough to follow. But he did read a few of the modern ones before he realized he didn't like them, and he reproduces a page in his mind, crisp black text printed on white paper.

"Wet t-shirt contest?"

[summerdude]

Magnus snorts. "Yeah, that could work," he says. "As long as it doesn't evoke drowning in the ocean... ooh, or maybe... this," pulling out what seems to be a bin of sequined, fringed pasties and cheap wigs.

[onthewillowsthere]

"What's that?"

[summerdude]

Magnus holds one up demonstratively.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad's eyes widen slightly and he flushes feverishly.

[summerdude]

"What, you think it could work for you?" Thoughtfully, "I think Alex would just, like, crack up."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't think it would work on me. I just imagined Claudius."

[summerdude]

Magnus considers this, and then pictures Alex in the pasties, and then flushes an even deeper red than Galahad. He clears his throat. "Ah. Uh. Huh. Yep."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I know," with all the feeling his inexpressive voice can muster.

[summerdude]

"Wow. Okay. Yeah."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Let's keep going."

[summerdude]

With only the faintest reluctance, Magnus tosses the pasties back into the box and leaves the room. "What next?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad passes by several other doors that don't feel quite right before coming to one carved entirely from maractite, the glowing runes and dots wavering slightly in front of their eyes. "This one."

[summerdude]

"Ooooh." Magnus nods -- the door looks really cool. "Yeah. Do it."

[onthewillowsthere]

So Galahad curls his fingers in the smooth polished stone of the circular handle and pulls.

The room inside is underwater.

The water doesn't spill through the open doorway -- it stays in place, as if they were looking down at it instead of face-to-face. Inside, the water is black, lightless, except for the biolumiscence in the mouths of fish or hanging in drops from rods above their heads; tiny comb jellies, glowing pulses that travel down the ridges of their bodies. Galahad stares.

[summerdude]

"Holy crap," Magnus breathes, and pokes the water. A little dribbles onto his finger, but the barrier isn't broken. It feels like his finger is being squeezed, and he yelps, pulling his hand back. "Cold!"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Is that what it looks like beneath the sea?" Galahad asks, awed. Is this what the Israelites saw as the passed through?

[summerdude]

Magnus, who has been on the bottom of the sea, when he was Aegir's "guest," nods. "This is, like, really deep down," he says. "And not the parts that are magically lit up by jotunn god powers."

[onthewillowsthere]

"It's so dark," softly. He reaches out his own hand, just to feel what Magnus did -- it is cold, and the pressure is intense; he can only bear it for a few seconds.

[summerdude]

"Honestly? I kinda wish we could go in there," Magnus says. "But, um, I think maybe that's a bad idea. Probably."

[onthewillowsthere]

"We could try to save this door too."