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

[summerdude]

"Okay. Climb on, standing up, and hold onto the rails."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad does this, clasping the bars, straight-backed as perfectly upright, which is about to not serve him well.

[summerdude]

"Okay," says Magnus, going around to the opposite side. "Hold on tight." And he grips his own handlebar and starts running, as hard and fast as he can, before leaping on and letting it rip.

[onthewillowsthere]

Standing straight and perfectly-upright on a merry-go-round is, as it happens, a terrible idea, and as the centrifugal force hits Galahad, with no God-strength to grasp the bar, is flattened.

[summerdude]

Magnus sticks out a foot and lets the friction slow the merry-go-round down. "Dude, are you okay???"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes," happily.

[summerdude]

Magnus cackles. "Again? Wait, do you wanna be the runner this time?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes, let me try."

[summerdude]

So Magnus settles himself in place on top of the merry-go-round, then flashes Galahad a thumbs up.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad can't run as fast as he used to -- in fact, he can't very fast at all, because he has zero lung capacity -- but the thing about merry-go-rounds is that you don't need to be all that fast, you just need to go around once or twice and then they do most of the work for you, and soon enough Galahad jumps on and clings as this one spins at a reasonable clip.

[summerdude]

It's definitely still dizzying. Magnus chooses a fixed point to look at -- Galahad's face -- and grins.

[onthewillowsthere]

He grins back, the kind of expression he couldn't imagine his face ever being capable of before Magnus, and then squeezes his eyes shut to feel the stomach-churning spinniness of it.

[summerdude]

When it winds down to a stop, Magnus stumbles off, regaining his balance. "Slide next?" he proposes.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad opens his eyes gingerly. "Yes. Slide."

[summerdude]

"Race you to the top of the structure," Magnus says, gesturing -- there's a scramble to get up to the first platform (the choices are ladder, rock-climbing wall, or knotted rope), and then about five more platforms to ascend before reaching the tallest slide. Obviously they have to go to that one, though, because it's the only slide that's clearly meant for racing someone down -- one of those side-by-side affairs undulating to the ground.

[onthewillowsthere]

There's no way Magnus won't win now, but Galahad is game anyway : he goes for the ladder, scrambling ungracefully up from platform to platform.

[summerdude]

Magnus could just jump to the top platform, but he gives himself a handicap, climbing up the rope with just his arms and then bounding up the platforms just one at a time. He reaches the top a hairs-breadth before Galahad.

[onthewillowsthere]

At the top of the slide, he looks over at Magnus. "Do we run down?"

[summerdude]

"We sit," Magnus says. "Pick a side. And then when we're sitting we push off, so that we slide down."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Oh. All right." He picks the left side and waits for Magnus.

[summerdude]

Magnus sits down on the right side. "Okay," he says. "On the count of three, we go down, okay? One... two... three!" And he pushes off.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad tries to time it so he pushes off at nearly the same time, and goes flying along with Magnus. The slide has waves in it that keep their speed up, and it's a long one, as the amount of climbing promised. Galahad's dandelion-seed puff of hair blows in the draft they make.

[summerdude]

They reach the ground at the same time. "Gods," Magnus breathes. "It's been years since I've gone down a slide that good. Most of them are, like, kid-sized. So you don't go very far."

[onthewillowsthere]

"We should keep this one too, if we can."

[summerdude]

"We're absolutely going to try to keep this one," Magnus says, emphatically. "What next? Swings or something else?"