You Say Overkill, I Say Due Diligence [open post]

[summerdude]

Magnus copies the sign onto seven different pieces of paper. It reads:

WANT TO LEARN NEW SKILLS? ME FREAKING TOO. I (Magnus Chase) Will Trade Lessons In Any Of The Following For Something You Know:

• ASL (Alf/American Sign Language)


• Camping (pitching tents, campfire safety, celestial navigation)


• What To Do If You Find Yourself Lost In The World Tree Yggdrasil


• Pickpocketing (But only if you promise to use it for good (stealing ONLY from dickhead rich people) and ONLY if you have to!)


• Swordfighting for Beginners (I am intermediate but Jack is advanced and he can help!)


• What It REALLY Feels Like To Die (NOT ADVICE!!!)


• (Trans)Gender Identity and Fluidity (from the perspective of a cis guy) (Alex-approved content only)


• What To Do If The God You're Talking To Is Super Obnoxious Particular


• Why Falafel is the Best Food in the World

All skills welcome! But if you know any of the following I am especially interested: Cooking, Geometry, How To Declare Your Love To Your Partner, Hand-to-Hand Combat, Balancing a Budget, Writing Poetry, Social Studies, Codebreaking.

(Sorry but I will not learn pottery from anyone but ♥Alex Fierro♥. I hope you understand.)

PS if there's enough interest we can maybe do full classes where everybody gets to take turns teaching and learning?

He adds a note about the areas where he can most frequently be found and then posts one sign in each of the two kitchens he's encountered, one by the welcome table, one on the door to the greenhouses, one in the library, one on his bedroom door, and one by what he believes to be the most-populated lounge. Then, with a great deal of eager anticipation, he goes about his day.


[A note from Magnus's typist: Open indefinitely!]

Comments

[summerdude]

"An instruction manual on making filigree," Magnus says. "I think it's about sixteen steps ahead of where I'm at with making things, which is still coil pots out of clay. But my friend Blitzen -- he's a dwarf -- he's really good at smithing, so I was also imagining what it would be like if he tried this."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Tell me about him?" He has, at this point, figured out that Magnus likes talking about his friends, and he likes listening to Magnus talk.

[summerdude]

Magnus touches Galahad's elbow, guiding him toward the hall. As they walk, he starts to tell him about Blitzen. "He's really cool," he says. "He and Hearthstone -- Hearth's an elf, he's Deaf and he's Blitzen's boyfriend -- it turns out they watched over me when I was homeless, cuz they knew I was a demigod and that Loki wanted to target me due to all those prophesies. But for years I thought they were some dudes who were just being kind to a kid who was down on his luck. People at the shelters used to call them my mom and dad." It's clear he's touched by this, even though he doesn't particularly like to call anyone but his mom 'mom.'

"Anyway, Blitz is technically my cousin? His mom is my dad's sister, even though we don't really track relationships on the godly side since, uh, that gets really complicated." In a stage whisper, he adds, "A lot of gods are kinda hos. And deadbeats. Not a useful family relationship to track."

They reach the door of the Mansion. Magnus holds it open for Galahad.

[onthewillowsthere]

He ducks through. He's already glad he asked -- Magnus explaining things is like Percival explaining things, full of chaos and aside jokes, and even when Galahad can barely follow he likes it. His smile is so quick Magnus probably won't get a chance to notice, but it does pass through.

[summerdude]

"Where to now?" Magnus asks. "Man, this was a good idea. It's so nice out today." There's a crisp autumnal chill on the air, and an invigorating breeze. As he waits for Galahad's response, he thinks about what to say about Blitzen next.

[onthewillowsthere]

"The lake," decisively.

[summerdude]

So Magnus turns toward the lake. "Blitzen is really into fashion," he says. "He doesn't think he's a master crafter? But he made Hearth a tanning bed so Hearth can stay with him in Nidavellir without getting, like, sick or whatever -- elves need sun; dwarves can't tolerate it. One time, Blitz had to duel Eitri Junior to get the rope needed to re-bind Fenris Wolf," here, he shivers; he hates Fenris. "So they had a craftsmanship competition. He made metal expand-o-ducks, which, turns out giants freaking hate those guys. Great in a battle against Jotunns. Fun little tip from me to you. His other things were chain mail neckties and vests. They looked really good? Super fashionable, and handy if, for example, your girlfriend is beheading-happy."

This last is said blissfully. Alex has only beheaded him when he really needed it, but sometimes they like to tease each other.

"He has a store now. Blitzen's Best. Sells clothes in Boston, all of his own design, all involving really sick metalwork. So I was looking at the book and thinking, it would be nice if I could ask him to show me how he does what he does. I don't know that I'll get the chance anytime soon, now."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods. He doesn't actually think he knows how to say anything comforting, so he chooses silence and hopes Magnus will understand it's well-meant. He expects Magnus will keep talking without him saying anything.

It's one of those fall days when the leaves are starting to drop and the air is cool but the sun is still capable of creating heat when there aren't any clouds to block it. The goldenrods and asters along the path are losing their color as their white fluffy seeds supersede the flowers, and there are rustles in the bushes from small birds and mammals. Galahad catches Magnus' sleeve to stop him -- there's a jay in the bush honeysuckle plucking bright red berries and gulping them down like there's a contest to win. It's the single Stellar's Jay, and it's blue-black. It cocks its tail and flies over their heads.

[summerdude]

Magnus stops, following Galahad's gaze until it lands on the bird.

"Hey," he calls after it. "Can you come back here for a bit so my friend and I can, uhhhh, admire you?"

Why not, the bird says, and flies back to them. You better have a treat for me, though.

"Um," Magnus say to Galahad. "You don't happen to have a treat for the bird, do you?"

[onthewillowsthere]

He only has the Mountain Dew and his sketchbook, and he shakes his head quietly, but it's impossible not to be thinking of Percival and the unicorn, Percival catching the cicada, Percival finding birds' nests and badger dens and making friends with every stray dog in Camelot. Galahad has the foolish light-footed thought that maybe God isn't angry with him after all, if He's let him have another Percival -- maybe it's as Tress said in the very beginning, that His silence is only trust -- but he knows that that can't possibly be true. He's just been fortunate that people here are kind.

"What else does it say?"

[summerdude]

Magnus thinks for a moment, then encourages some of the longer grass along the worn path to grow to seed. "How's this?" he asks the bird.

The bird cocks its head. Adequate, it tells him.

"Can you understand my friend when he talks to you?" Magnus asks, then.

Yes, the bird says. Tell him my name is Phil and I like peanuts.

"Phil likes peanuts," Magnus tells Galahad, dutifully.

[onthewillowsthere]

He files this away. He's only seen one bird like the jay, so it shouldn't be that hard to remember its likes.

"Can you talk to all birds?"

[summerdude]

"As far as I know," Magnus says. "Not all birds are chatty. Robins and crows definitely are; they'll come right up and talk to you. I guess others have to be approached?" He shrugs. "Other animals too, actually. We had to kill Hearthstone's dad after he turned into a ring dragon, and I accidentally consumed his heart's-blood, and ever since then... Bam! Weird new powers."

Are you done with me? Phil asks. I'm bored.

"Yeah, you can go," Magnus tells him. "But come back sometime, we'll try to dig up some peanuts somewhere."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad watches the jay fly back to the bush honeysuckle and grips his sketchbook tighter. He wants to ask Magnus if they can try talking to every bird, and the cervids he's seen glimpses of in the forest, the frogs and snakes down by the lake that always leap or slither away before he even sees them. He wants to know what every animal wants. If Magnus asks, maybe they'll stay long enough to be touched -- or drawn.

He wants Magnus to know he's wonderful. He makes Galahad want to surprise him, the same impulse that made Galahad unafraid of Temeraire when he first met him, because Percival would have loved to meet a dragon. Galahad wants to share something with Magnus that's as wonderful as all the things Magnus has shared with him (his hand shakes on the bottle of Mountain Dew, which is another of those things).

Instead he says nothing.

[summerdude]

The look on Galahad's face is... rapturous, maybe? It touches Magnus. He likes that look very much. He touches Galahad's elbow again, and continues on toward the lake. He keeps his eyes peeled for more animals, though -- Galahad looks good when he's looking at animals -- and starts chattering again in the meanwhile.

"Like I said, I got this skill in Alfheim. Where the elves live. Alfheim sucks, actually? It's like the worst McMansion suburbia you can imagine, and they've paved down most of the land so almost none of it is wild anymore, and pretty much every elf I've met besides Hearthstone is kinda a dick. There are a few wild spots, but they only keep them because they've forced all the hulder into servitude and since hulder are nature spirits, they need that to survive. The Alfheim police pulled us over, actually, and it was so dumb? They kept kissing my ass because of my dad, and they were such dicks to Hearthstone just because he can only talk in sign language, and turns out elves? Not great about disability."

It is, Magnus thinks, possibly an indictment against is father, actually. Since Alfheim is under Frey's jurisdiction, and Alfheim sucks ass.

[onthewillowsthere]

As they walk the rest of the way to the lake, he listens -- he is, like Magnus, keeping an eye out for animals. "Disability?" as they reach the shore.

[summerdude]

"Yeah, like," Magnus says. "Hearthstone is Deaf, and he can read lips I guess but primarily uses sign language, and none of the other elves would use it with him. They'd just say effed up things about his 'pointless gestures' and talk to him verbally and get mad that he wasn't just like everybody else and couldn't say things back to them. Um, but disability includes other things as well? People who are blind, people who can't walk, people whose brains work differently enough that stuff most people think of as regular is especially difficult." He shrugs. "Before I died, I had really bad asthma and sometimes panic attacks, too. That's, like, really low level, but it still made life harder in some ways."

[onthewillowsthere]

There are a lot of threads in this he wants to follow, but the most immediate thing is the one that affects Magnus. "What are those?"

[summerdude]

"Well, like," Magnus shrugs. "I was really scrawny before I died. I'm still not, like, super buff, but -- I couldn't run. And attacks also hit me at total random? So I'd be going about my day and suddenly it felt like someone was tightening a belt around my chest so I couldn't breathe. It really impacted my sleep. Being outside helped," he remembers. "Which was good, because when I was homeless I could just sleep in a park or whatever instead of dealing with a shelter. Like, I'm glad the shelters are there, but temperature doesn't impact me and I don't like being in crowds. But yeah. It made playing harder, and sleeping harder, and at a certain point you start avoiding doing things because you're just anticipating how bad it can get, so you don't want to give it the chance. And then you miss out on a ton of activities."

[onthewillowsthere]

The texture of his silence shifts and his voice is careful when he asks, "Does it still happen?"

[summerdude]

Magnus glances at Galahad. "I don't have asthma anymore," he says. "Perks of being an einherji. But I can still remember it, like, viscerally, and it..."

He looks out across the lake as they come up to it. "I still don't like things that remind me of it. The panic, too, still... Yeah. Sometimes. I still don't like crowds. Or wolves. Or things that remind me of the feeling of an asthma attack, like... I don't like to be touched?" He remembers holding Galahad's hand, though, and how nice it felt. "Except with specific people. You're okay. You're safe, like Alex or my mom. But with other people... I mean, now I have all these weird powers, so sometimes I'll accidentally blast out a Peace of Frey if things get too intense. That was the thing I did when I disarmed you when we were sparring, but then it was because I was getting tired, not because I was overwhelmed."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad sees no reason not to take Magnus at his word regarding touch -- if Magnus is like Percival in so many other things, then he's probably as likely to be honest. He nods, too, at the idea of Magnus accidentally losing control of his powers when he's overwhelmed, which feels of a kind with Galahad's holy fire, even if he's only been upset enough to use it once.

He processes you're safe a moment later and looks back at Magnus in surprise.

[summerdude]

Magnus notes the surprise, but can't imagine what he might have said that would cause it. "What?"

[onthewillowsthere]

A quick shake of his head. "What helps?"

[summerdude]

"With the panic?" Magnus asks. He gives the question all due consideration. "It depends, I guess. For me, going outside really helps. Finding a place that feels... wild, and green, and fresh. If I can't get outside, then a quiet, dark room. Preferably empty. Focusing on my breathing, or counting, or talking myself through easy steps for something familiar. Or, like --" he blushes a little. "Putting my head in the lap of someone safe and having them stroke my hair, sometimes, if someone's around. I think? It's worked with Alex and it used to work with mom. Usually realizing that it's panic and not my asthma coming back helps it stop fastest."