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

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Yes," tentatively, "provided you aren't planning to argue with me the whole while."

[summerdude]

"No, no, I'm done." Well. He's tabling the conversation for at least twenty-four hours. "We can talk about something else."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Very well, then. Tell me what I should do."

[summerdude]

"Chop an onion? Rough. I'm going to find a food processor." Somehow, due to the low linearity of the mansion, Magnus has learned what food processors look like but has not yet learned that the chickpeas require more than a twenty-minute soaking.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"That, I can do." He grabs a knife, finds an onion, and gets to work.

[summerdude]

It only takes Magnus a minute or two in the pantry before he's lugging the food processor back out into the main kitchen. Double-checking the recipe reveals that baking soda should soften the chickpeas some more, so he dumps some into the bowl and sets into peeling a head of garlic with his hands. "So," he says. "What do you want to talk about?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Are you pleased with your progress?" This is about as circumspect as he can make the question, and he asks it casually, his attention on his task.

[summerdude]

"Yeah," says Magnus, depositing individual cloves into the processor as he peels them. "I think so, right? There's, like, a whole theory behind, um..." He glances around. "Competitive knitting, isn't there?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

He stifles a chuckle, but he does smile. "So there is. I have always found it interesting."

[summerdude]

"I think I'm starting to actually get it," Magnus admits. "You know, beyond, like, um. Yarn here, needle there, poke an eye out."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He glances over, "Yes?"

[summerdude]

"Yeah. I mean, don't you think?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot nods. "I have seen good progress. Your control is better, you seem less flustered. You were talented when you began, but you are honing that talent."

[summerdude]

"Cool," says Magnus, scuffing his toe on the ground as he peels another clove. "Good."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Do you think it will be useful to you?"

[summerdude]

Magnus considers the question seriously. "I hope not," he says, baldly honest. "But if it has to... yeah. I do."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"That's well." He finishes up with the onion and scrapes the bits into a neat pile. "And you still wish to keep your work a secret?"

[summerdude]

"Yes," says Magnus, immediately. "No one can know. Um, you can put the onion in the bowl of the food processor?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot starts to do that, mulling Magnus' answer over. After a moment he asks, "Not even Alex?"

[summerdude]

Magnus sighs, scuffing his foot on the floor. "No," he says. "I mean, yeah. I mean. I do gotta tell him."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"So he doesn't know."

[summerdude]

"She might know. She's very perceptive. I just haven't... told her."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He carefully does not look at Magnus, "Don't you think you should? If only to share your success?"

[summerdude]

"What do you care?" Magnus asks, adding his garlic cloves into the bowl, too. Not confrontational, just curious.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He's quiet for a long moment, weighing out his answer.

"I find that keeping a secret, particularly one you are keeping for fear of hurting or worrying someone else, is like carrying a weight," he says at last. "Little good, in my experience, can come from it. It spares the people you worry about very little, and wears one down over time. You do a lot of good here, for many people. We can ill afford any of us to be worn down, least of all you."