New Plan, Step One: Provide For My Community [open]

[summerdude]

Magnus needs something to change, so when a Mansion calendar helpfully informs him that it's International Falafel Day back on Earth, he goes to the library for some cookbooks, and then to the kitchen.

He lays out ten different falafel recipes. He gathers the ingredients they list, as best as he can understand them. He has canned chickpeas and fresh chickpeas and dried chickpeas and chickpea flour and box mixes of falafel that say 'just add water!'

Cripes.

"I can do this," he says, peering at the assorted recipes intently for a good ten minutes, and then takes the dried chickpeas over to the sink to rinse and soak.

Comments

[summerdude]

"I thought you said you didn't know about him before you got here."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I didn't. But I have been told of what things were like, what I was like, in his time and Sagramore's."

[summerdude]

Something about this isn't connecting for Magnus, and he finds himself frustrated. He turns to run his hand through the wet chickpeas, which are still all hard as little rocks. "Explain to me how that's, like, you though?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot's brow furrows, "How is it not? It is not as if it was some other man. Both he and Sagramore knew me on sight, even if I am younger than they recalled."

[summerdude]

Magnus is in an extremely awkward position: he's not, like, friends with Lancelot or whatever. He barely tolerates the guy^*, in fact. He's certainly not inclined to let things slide. He's judge, jury, and -- well, he's not really thief here, but Magnus has always been the kind of guy to give assholes what they deserve: a pickpocketing, a comeuppance, a snarky retort. All this to say that he's not inclined to go easy on the guy. While Lancelot may have redeemed himself somewhat, in Magnus's eyes, by like, saving him and indulging him and teaching him or whatever... you know, little things like that? He's still, like, a douchecanoe. Probably. Magnus definitely doesn't like the guy^**.

But also the stuff Lancelot is saying reeks of prophecy and fate. And Magnus hates prophecy and fate so much more than he hates Lancelot^***. He turns back to face him, crossing his arms. "Are you going to start treating them that way now?"


*Citation needed.
**Citation needed.
***This is true, actually!

[lanselos_du_lac]

"What? Of course not."

[summerdude]

"Okaaaaaaayyyyy," says Magnus, drawing the word out and raising his eyebrows. "So, like, again, if you haven't done it and aren't going to do it, how is it you?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot can't help it; he looks at Magnus as if he's just a bit daft.

"It has happened. To them. That is their experience. They know it was me, and why would I disbelieve them? I know that somewhere within me is the capacity to treat them thus. They are entitled to feel as they do, and to choose how they engage with me, and I have no right to ask them to feel differently if they do not," he says all of this very patiently, deliberately. (He does not mention the guilt he feels, whenever he thinks of this. It's not about him.) "I am seeking to respect Galahad's experience. If he feels differently, as Sagramore has come to feel, he is welcome to let me know. But I'll demand nothing else from Galahad, aside from what he wishes to grant me."

[summerdude]

Magnus chews on this for a little while. Honestly, the look Lancelot is giving him helps, and he turns the thought over in his mind to look at it from another angle. "Have you told Galahad this?" he asks, finally.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"No. I have sought to give him space."

[summerdude]

"So you, like, want whatever kind of relationship he's willing to have with you, but you haven't told him that you want whatever kind of relationship he's willing to have with you?" If there's any tone to Magnus's voice, it's confusion; he's trying to get this straight.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"As I said," as patiently as he can, "I do not wish to make demands. I have told him I am here and will do what I can to make this place safe."

[summerdude]

"And in your mind, saying you're interested in whatever relationship he's willing to have is making a demand?" Magnus asks. "Dude, if I know my best friend at all, he's not gonna do something he doesn't want to just based on a statement of fact."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"It seems--" Lancelot pauses. He's not entirely sure what he means. After a moment he adjusts and says, "I will consider discussing it with him."

[summerdude]

"Okay," Magnus says, with a little shrug. It's really no skin off his nose either way. He starts to gather up more of the ingredients for the falafel, then pauses. "Where I come from, prophecy is, like. Pretty important."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He frowns again, "Prophecy? What's this about prophecy?"

[summerdude]

Patience, dude, Magnus is getting there! He's explaining himself! (Don't get used to it!) "Like, I know how the world ends, and how I die, and how Alex dies, and how my dad dies, and -- all of that. The prophecies are relentless. You can, like, postpone the inevitable but they say it's still inevitable. All the gods know exactly who is going to betray them and how, and which fight will be their last, and where they'll fall, and what weapon will kill them." He pauses. "My sword kills my dad. It's a whole thing."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"That's all very troubling, I find, but what has it to do with any of this?"

[summerdude]

"And then," says Magnus, blatantly ignoring the question. "I met Alex. Alex is... you know, just as fucked over by prophecy as the rest of us, but she's, like." He smiles, because he's thinking about Alex. "So given to change. You know? And you can't be with someone like him without just really learning how to live in the moment. Figuring out smaller ways to take control over your destiny, here and there. Prolong the inevitable. Then I came here, and I met Galahad. He's like me, you know? Screwed by fate, and all that. But..."

Here, Magnus makes direct eye contact with Lancelot. "There's another way. If I keep my sword here, he can't get back to the Nine Worlds to release Fenris Wolf and start Ragnarok and kill my dad. Neither me nor Galahad are, like, gods' pawns anymore. We're not... we're not fulfilling some prophecy we've been told is our future. Do you see what I'm saying?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Slowly, very cautiously, "I understand your meaning in terms of yourself, and Alex, and even Galahad. But I see not how it relates to me, or my relationship with him-- aside from the fact of his birth."

[summerdude]

Without even meaning to, Magnus perfectly replicates the expression Lancelot gave him - the one that says he finds Lancelot just a little bit daft. "You come here, you're told these things about your future..."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Magnus, that is not prophecy. It is not the same thing."

[summerdude]

"Obviously it's not an actual prophecy," Magnus says, rolling his eyes. "But tell me how it's, like, functionally different."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Flatly, resisting the urge to roll his eyes, "It has already happened. In actuality."

[summerdude]

"Not to you."