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]

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?"

[onthewillowsthere]

He nods. "It should be once a week. I arrived on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Christ and it is now the feast of St. Martin of Tours, that is eight weeks. And--" A sigh, in spite of himself. "It doesn't matter. It feels small. To care about venial sins when I've broken my vows."

[summerdude]

"I think it makes sense to care about things that are really important to you," Magnus says. He puts his hand out between them, in case Galahad wants to hold it -- it helped him when Galahad was helping him work through his own stuff the other day. "Even if other conditions change, or things you always thought to be one way aren't that way anymore."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad takes it immediately -- it does help. "Shen Qingqiu told me to feel beautiful, but vanity is a sin." He's quiet for another moment, before he says, "Everything I want is a sin," softer, shame burning his face. To say it aloud feels both terrible and a relief.

[summerdude]

Magnus strokes his thumb over Galahad's knuckles. "Happiness is a sin?" he asks -- his tone is one of genuine curiosity, not that of a man who knows the answer and is guiding someone else to it. That would, after all, explain -- some of the park preachers he used to encounter when he was trying to sleep on the benches.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Austerity is a virtue," with a gasp of a laugh for a joke there's no reason for Magnus to understand. "I want--" To be loved. To be held. To touch things whenever I want. To be kissed whenever I want. To be painted, to paint, to look at myself in the mirror and not feel shame for looking, to eat until I feel sick, to be unafraid of sensuality, to be loved by God even if I did all those things. "Too much."

[summerdude]

Magnus is of the opinion that wanting is one of the things that lets you know you're alive, and that you're enjoying life. "Wanting is a sin?" he asks, also just to check.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I have more strictures. Because God chose me. It's different for other people."

[summerdude]

This strikes Magnus as monumentally unfair. At least in his pagan afterlife, if a god likes you, they give you things, and most of those things -- well, they might not be good, necessarily, but they're not aversive. "And god told you this?" he says, trying to remember what Galahad had mentioned about talking to god back when Magnus was healing his hand.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods. "He has been with me since I was a child. This is the first time He's not told me what to do."

[summerdude]

"I haven't been able to reach my -- um, the gods I know, either." This is said thoughtfully, but only because all of Magnus's thoughts are focused on processing what Galahad is telling him. He doesn't want to say outright that he thinks Galahad's god is a bully with weird standards.

[onthewillowsthere]

"It's-- hard." With the hand Magnus isn't holding, Galahad rolls up the edge of paper again, making it tight. "I'm used to--" To being told, he thinks. To following directions. To knowing exactly what to do because it's laid out plainly, and even if he can't understand what people expect he at least knows clearly what God does. To taking the knowledge of what he wants and burying it down within himself where it can't hurt anyone he loves, which has always meant only Percival but now is expanding definition at a stomach-turning pace. "Not choosing," he finally settles on.

[summerdude]

This, Magnus can understand. "Oh shit, yeah," he says. "It's really... unmooring, right? To suddenly have options and not know which you can take or what they'll do if you take them?"

[onthewillowsthere]

An emphatic nod. "It was easier. Now I feel-- there's too much. I get-- caught."

[summerdude]

"I think it's kinda like a muscle," Magnus muses. "Making choices. You gotta exercise it, but you don't know what exercises are good for it at first, and if you start off really intense without building up, you can strain it really badly and it gets harder for a while."

[onthewillowsthere]

A fleeting smile. "You're very wise."

[summerdude]

A reflexive grin, in turn. Magnus can accept this at face value from Galahad, and it warms him. "I don't know how you'd go about exercising a muscle if you feel like some of the, um, possible training regimens are forbidden, though," he says. "But I can try to help you figure out a way?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad is quiet again, for a very long time. Then: "I need to try wanting things, without-- without being afraid. I should learn how to ask. Everyone else can."

[summerdude]

"I think a lot of people struggle with it, actually," Magnus says, contemplatively. "I know I do." He gets that it's different for Galahad than it is for him, though, so he adds, "But like, in pretty different ways."

[onthewillowsthere]

A considering pause. "What do you want?"

[summerdude]

"There's the impossible stuff," Magnus says. "Like, when we were in Niflheim to defeat Loki, and someone opened the door to Helheim -- um, that's where most of the dead go -- and I thought I heard my mom's voice, and then later I learned that it's prophesied that I'll be able to talk to her again. I want to know when, and how, and if it can be soon." He picks a few blades of grass and sprinkles them over his lap, distractedly. "And then there's the hard stuff. Like, for example, with Alex, I want --" here he blushes, bright warm. "A lot of things. We've talked about some of them, which was really hard by the way, but there's some I haven't mentioned, because I'm scared. Like maybe they're too much, or things Alex won't want, or will think are weird. Not just, um, sex stuff. Life stuff too."

[onthewillowsthere]

He feels a pang, both at the emotion in Magnus' words (it's a new feeling for him, but he wants to help, not just to know how to say the right thing but to be able to tangibly help) and at how much they align with the things he wants too, the things he can't say either.

[summerdude]

"We've kind of committed to living in the moment," Magnus says, partly to Galahad and partly to himself. "Which is good, I was actually really bad at that. I'm a little better now, but it's a lot easier for Alex than it is for me. I like to know... that there's a plan, or a way to come up with a plan, or what things mean. Alex is a lot more flexible. Changeable, if you will." This is a joke about Alex being a shapeshifter. "A lot of the stuff I'm scared to ask about is stuff that's about -- definitions, or plans for the future. What things mean."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods and squeezes his hand. All of those are things he would be afraid to ask too, if he and Claudius were even within the realm where they could be asked.

[summerdude]

Magnus squeezes back. "Can I ask you a question?"