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]

"Oh, that would be awesome," Magnus enthuses. He sits up and drapes his flower sash over Galahad's shoulder. Yeah, that suits the guy.

Fortunately, in the time it takes him to do that, he re-thinks joking about the game night serving as an inaugural meeting of the daddy-and-god-issues club. Instead, he says, "What kind of games were you thinking?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't know any." A brief smile at the flower sash. "I never played games, before."

[summerdude]

"Well, there's board games and there's games of skill," Magnus muses. "And I think sometimes people do storytelling games?" He sits up even straighter. "Oh my gods. Galahad. I want you to absolutely own me at air hockey."

[onthewillowsthere]

Magnus' enthusiasm makes him smile again, and this time it stays a little longer. "Air hockey?"

[summerdude]

"Yeah!" Magnus says. "It's like... there's this table with tiny holes that shoot air up in a way that makes the puck -- like, a small flat disc? -- move around really easily. And you're holding onto a thing that basically looks like a small, hard top hat, which you use to slam into the puck and try to push it through your opponent's goal -- kind of like a slot the puck can fall through? -- while protecting your own goal from them doing the same thing. With your reflexes you'd wipe the floor with me, but in a really fun way."

He grins at Galahad. "Oooh, but I bet I could at least tie you in foosball once or twice. It's another table game where you're spinning these four staggered rods with little figures -- like cylinders -- that are attached to them, and you're using the cylinders to try to knock a little ball into each other's goals. I mean, once you got the hang of it you'd probably beat me there, too." This clearly doesn't phase Magnus, the least aggressive einherji in Valhalla, who beat Loki in a flyting because of how much he loved his friends being really good at stuff.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I'm only skilled with weapons. Games I don't know. You might best me no matter what."

[summerdude]

"Oh, sometimes air hockey can feel like a weapon," Magnus says. "They do it to the death in Valhalla, but even with regular people and pucks that aren't sharp as razor blades it can really hurt your fingers." This, obviously, is a plus. "But I guess we could find out."

[onthewillowsthere]

He nods. "What else?"

[summerdude]

"What other games? There's Candyland. That's a board game. Snakes and Ladders. Settlers of Catan. Um, board games all consist of a board, and pieces, and sometimes cards, and you use them to get points or achieve objectives."

[onthewillowsthere]

"What else do you like?" he clarifies.

[summerdude]

Magnus opens his mouth, then closes it. "You know," he says. "I don't really know? I like not dying in the middle of games, so I usually avoid game nights at Valhalla, and it's been years since I tried one outside of there."

[onthewillowsthere]

"You can find out too." He looks pleased.

[summerdude]

"Yeah! It'll be fun," Magnus says, grinning.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad smiles back. "Thank you."

[summerdude]

Magnus nods. "Hey," he says. "Speaking of the guy - Have you figured out how you want Shen Qingqiu to paint you?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"With flowers."

[summerdude]

Magnus glances at the sash he's placed on Galahad's shoulder, and then at Galahad's face. "A good look," he decides. "Do you have any favorites?"

[onthewillowsthere]

He rolls the edge of the sketchpaper into a tight scroll. "Myrtle."

[summerdude]

"Myrtle is good," Magnus says, picturing it. "It'll suit you."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad unrolls the edge, smoothing it out with his fingers. Magnus listens. Magnus understands him. Magnus will understand this.

Finally, he says, carefully, "I want this. To be painted. But it feels-- it feels like a sin."

[summerdude]

Magnus considers this seriously. "Sins aren't really a thing in my, um. In Valhalla the only sin is not fighting as hard as you can, basically. Samirah is Muslim, though, and follows really strict rules because she cares about her faith. No touching men outside her family, fasting during Ramadan, praying five times a day, that kind of stuff. And from what I gather, your thing also has... a lot of rules. But I don't know which rules are about sins and which aren't. Do you mind, uh, telling me what a sin is? To you?"

[onthewillowsthere]

He's quiet again, sorting through thoughts and vocabulary. "Sin is word, deed, and desire in opposition to the eternal will of God," though this sounds more like a recitation than his own original idea. "There is ancestral sin, concupiscence, venial sin, mortal sin, cardinal sin, and sin unto death."

[summerdude]

Magnus knows what most of those words mean individually, and makes a mental note to look them up. "Samirah fasted for Ramadan during our entire quest to take Loki down, but I did learn that she was allowed to stop because she was traveling and because it a life-and-death situation, both of which are, like... exceptions to the rule. Are there exceptions to sin? Extenuating circumstances?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Sin may be forgiven. By a priest in confession and by God in the ultimate. Except sin unto death, because that's apostasy."

[summerdude]

Suddenly, it occurs to Magnus that he hasn't actually specifically told Galahad outright that his father is a god. He wonders how he'd take it -- if maybe Galahad would think differently about him, since christianity seems so important to Galahad's whole deal.

"And as far as I know, there's no priests here," Magnus says, nodding. And Galahad had said God hadn't been talking to him since he got here. "Does that... make things harder for you?"