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

[lightbearinglord]

"Claudius asked what he would say to Galahad when first we contacted him. Would you have me ask again?" Lan Wangji has no doubt that Shen Yuan could come up with additional words. He has no trouble speaking at length even when the medium is qin music.

[summerdude]

Magnus looks away, stung. Hanguang-jun had asked for messages, but not for Magnus? Claudius had asked... did Hanguang-jun not remember to ask about Magnus because he's not Hanguang-jun's disciple? "Yes," he says; his voice wobbles.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji hesitates, abruptly unsure. "Are you certain? Not what he would say to you?" He couldn't have lied to spare Magnus' feelings. He has already apologized for neglecting to ask for Shen Yuan's words for him. There are too many reasons Magnus' voice might be so suddenly shaky, and he feels unusually unable to untangle them.

[summerdude]

Magnus waits for a long, long minute, until he's composed himself. "You can't do both?"

[lightbearinglord]

"I can. I thought you might not want to wait." He can't play Inquiry indefinitely; it is not an easy technique, and the difficulty is compounded by the complexity of many of the questions he has asked and the even greater complexity of their responses. But he can ask at least two more questions.

[summerdude]

"I can wait."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji hesitates for a second time, something sour in his gut, but Magnus asked. He wants Magnus to have what he wants and needs from this. So he does as he said he would, steadies himself and his qi, and asks, What else would you say to Galahad?

As he suspected, Shen Yuan faces no difficulty in devising additional words. He listens, focusing silently on the music. There is a moment partway through when Magnus, who knows him well, may well notice the suppressed flare of surprise that crosses his face, the flicker of something a little more vulnerable. He masters himself again.

"He asks that we pass along what we just learned about the nightmares, and tell Galahad not to worry," he begins. "He knows that memory loss is already a painful subject for Galahad. None of what that woman takes is gone forever. Shen Yuan remembers everything now. That message is for everyone. The truth remains, and we will restore it somehow."

[summerdude]

"I'll tell him."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji darts one quick, troubled glance at Magnus. He hopes that asking Shen Yuan this next question will help, though, and so he plays it, exceedingly careful: What would you say to Magnus?

Again, he listens, quietly attentive. It makes something catch in his chest again. He has been alternately disappointed with, angry at, and pettily irritated by Shen Yuan. But spirits cannot lie when he questions them this way. Shen Yuan loves Magnus, unmistakably.

"Shen Yuan wants to thank you for everything you have done. He misses you. He urges you to speak honestly with Galahad. Finally, he is sorry. His killer warned him that she would try to kill you, then took the memory of the conversation." He has to take another breath here. There is nothing Shen Yuan could have done without that memory. He can imagine the fruitless anger he would feel in that position. "He wishes he could have done something to stop it regardless."

[summerdude]

"I miss you too, buddy," Magnus says. "I love you so much, you know that, right? It's not your fault you couldn't warn me, and anyway, I survived." He pauses, thinking about anything except the fact that Shen Yuan didn't, then turns to Lan Wangji finally, eyes wide. "Is there any risk to him? As a spirit? That either of you know about?"

[lightbearinglord]

Before he gives his own answer, Lan Wangji asks Shen Yuan. It seems that Aornis told him a great deal, relying on her own powers to keep him from retaining any of it, and that she did not account for the possibility of communication after death. That makes Lan Wangji inclined to believe that she has no particular power over the dead -- but Shen Yuan might know more.

"He doesn't know," he says a moment or two later, with an ephemeral little frown. "I am inclined to believe that her powers do not extend to the dead. If they did, she would have done more to stop me from contacting Shen Yuan each day. But I can't say for certain."

[summerdude]

"Be careful," Magnus tells Shen Yuan. "If something happens to you before we can shove you into your new body I'm going to be so pissed." It's an empty threat, but he does, from the bottom of his heart, mean it.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji looks at Magnus, his eyes soft. He can tell that something is amiss. Perhaps more than one thing is amiss. But he is so powerfully fond of this boy. "Do you have further questions?"

[summerdude]

"Is there anything else he wants to say?"

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji's eyebrows lift, just barely. This line of inquiry¹ has the potential to truly stretch the limits of qin language, depending on how Shen Yuan chooses to answer.

Firstly, then: Is there anything else you want to say?

With a welcome and surprising flicker of humor, Lan Wangji says, "Yes, there is. I will ask what." He does -- and this answer is longer, but not so long as he had been half-fearing.

"Shen Yuan wants to speak with you about everything you have been saying to the plant that will become his body," he says, "but not through me. It is not the same this way."

¹Yeah, yeah.

[summerdude]

Magnus's eyes widen. "He's heard," he breathes, and then looks around. "How should I talk to him?"

[lightbearinglord]

And so Lan Wangji puts his hands back to the qin. How shall Magnus speak with you? he plays.

The look on his face softens again while he listens, faint regret. "You will need to wait until he has returned."

[summerdude]

"Okay," Magnus sighs. "I can wait."

[lightbearinglord]

"Is that everything?" Lan Wangji prompts, as gently as he can.

[summerdude]

"I can't think of anything else I should ask right now," says Magnus. He doesn't want to let Shen Yuan go yet, though. "Is there anything else I should be asking right now? -- That's another question."

[lightbearinglord]

Magnus' quiet desperation, unlike the rest of what he is feeling, seems obvious. He is rattled and afraid, just as they all are. He wants the key that will unlock guaranteed safety for this mansion. Lan Wangji suspects it does not exist -- but he doesn't say as much. He nods. He plays the question. Is there anything else we should ask?

Again, a small frown tugs at his face while Shen Yuan's spirit plucks the strings. "He bids us to ask about the remainder of his killer's power over memory." And so he does, without waiting for Magnus to prompt him.

He does not care for the answer, but that is not Shen Yuan's fault. The information is useful, and he is glad to have it. He is glad for very little else just now. "She does not only take memories. She can create false memories as well. He believes her ability to do so is limited -- she did this to Shen Yuan only at the end, by making him believe that Luo Binghe had harmed Galahad during their confrontation when he did not. He urges us to check in with one another, to compare memories, and to believe the best of each other."

[summerdude]

"Shit," quietly. "And she targeted me because..." He puts two and two together. "I could remember some stuff that she tried to make me forget, I guess? And Shen Yuan to get to Luo Binghe? Why did she give Galahad the nightmares?"

[lightbearinglord]

If Lan Wangji is beginning to flag, he certainly will not show that to Magnus. And he, too, is curious whether there is a reason that Galahad received those nightmares. He asks.

"He doesn't know for certain. Broadly, she wants to sow misery. Shen Yuan suspects she wanted the blame to fall on Luo Binghe." A memory comes to him, almost certainly a real one: Claudius asking about the nightmares, understandably ready to name Luo Binghe the culprit; Lan Wangji's hesitation, for all the hatred and mistrust he feels toward Luo Binghe, and his fear of the power of a false accusation.

[summerdude]

"That's so stupid. Even Loki had a reason, as dumb and horrible as it was."

[lightbearinglord]

"It is stupid." He lets his hands rest at the edge of the qin, between the strings and himself. "I fear this can end only in her death."