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

[sporesprouter]

"If there's one way, maybe there are others?"

[summerdude]

"Yeah! Exactly." Magnus starts pouring the measured hot water carefully in to the bowl. "I was able to see Alex. In my dreams. But I couldn't reach her. Like, she confirmed that the stuff I saw actually happened, but she had no idea I was, like, there."

[sporesprouter]

"Oh, that's incredible. It's... I dream about Charlie, but I don't think they're real like that."

[summerdude]

"Yeah," says Magnus, apologetic. "I had these, like -- well, not prophetic, but accurate dreams of stuff happening in the moment before I got here."

[sporesprouter]

"So did you know it was the same thing immediately when they happened here?"

[summerdude]

Magnus shakes his head. "I hoped," he says. The mixture is getting kind of tough to stir, so he starts to put his augmented muscles into it. "Alex confirmed it for me on the day she visited."

[sporesprouter]

"I'm glad she made it here to you."

[summerdude]

Magnus closes his eyes for a moment. "Me freaking too, Tress. Me freaking too." Then he opens them again. "I wonder if we all take a vote and agree it's most important for Charlie to come next, if he'll show up?"

[sporesprouter]

It's Tress's turn to close her eyes for a moment. "I wish it were that easy."

[summerdude]

"I'm sorry," Magnus hastens to say. "I can drop it."

[sporesprouter]

She opens her eyes again and shakes her head, smiling a little. "It's okay. I'm glad it's not just me who wishes he were here."

[summerdude]

"It's not," Magnus assures her. "He sounds really, really great." He glances down at the bowl. "Do you think this is mixed enough?"

[sporesprouter]

She looks down at it. "Yes, that looks good, I think. Next we just have to let it sit for at least ten minutes."

[summerdude]

"Cool. Root beer?" Magnus asks, going over to the fridge.

[sporesprouter]

"Sure. I've never had any before. Is it good?"

[summerdude]

"I like it!"

[sporesprouter]

"I'll absolutely try it, then."

[summerdude]

Magnus gets out two bottles, twists off the tops, and hands her one. Then he boosts himself up so that he's sitting on the counter, his usual kitchen-conversations perch. "So what's new with you, Tress? I feel like I'm out of the loop on, like, everything and everyone."

[sporesprouter]

She takes her bottle and leans on the counter, thinking. "Some of these aren't new new¹, but out of stuff I'm pretty sure you don't know about... Near the end of Dark Nina had a little get together with some of the other girls about our age that I went to. That was fun." She takes a sip of the root beer, trying to parse the taste. "Huh. That's interesting. I haven't tasted anything like it before.... Oh! I also gave Claudius a quest."

¹Mansion linearity striking again.

[summerdude]

"I heard about the sleepover! Was it fun?" Magnus asks, and then does a double take. "Quest? What kind of quest?"

[sporesprouter]

"It was fun, yes. And I gave him the quest to find out my actual name. Tress is a nickname."

[summerdude]

"Tress is a... what?" Magnus stares at her. "Tress, please, you have to tell me. I promise I won't tell him."

[sporesprouter]

Tress contemplates this for a bit. On the one hand, she wouldn't mind telling him, on the other, he's also Galahad's best friend, and that's a very narrow bridge. She takes another sip of her root beer. "How about this. I'll give you a hint that you can tell him if he comes searching, and you can feel free to make him work for it. And then I'll tell you as soon as I know he finds out."

[summerdude]

"Okay," Magnus says, after a moment of consideration. "But you should know, I'm really good at keeping secrets."

[sporesprouter]

"Okay. In that case... I'll give it a month. And if he still hasn't found out, I'll tell you. And you still get the hint now."