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]

"And one of them is being painted when you feel beautiful?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad picks a blade of grass to focus on. "I have always been an-- an object. A weapon for God to use. To feel beautiful, I would have to--" Quiet. "I want to stop being a thing. But then I know God won't take me up again. It will be-- really over."

[summerdude]

Magnus considers this seriously. He knows that he personally hates being see as a tool by gods, but he supposes he can empathize with how someone might feel differently, especially if they'd held that role for most of their life, instead of just the last two years and then the first few of their death. "I get that that would be really hard," he says. "But would it be so bad?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"It would be-- there has never been anything else."

[summerdude]

Magnus nods. "And if you gave it up, then all you'd have is a lot of choices without any clear direction?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I would have to decide everything. I would have to find-- a purpose. I-- my reward was to be death, and I would have to live."

[summerdude]

"Dying sucks," Magnus points out, automatically. "Trust me, bro, I've done it a lot of times in a lot of different ways and none of them are fun." Then he winces, and tilts his head, still cuddled against Galahad, so he can see his face better. "Sorry, dude. I get that living is also hard." He doesn't really share that opinion, but he gets how people can have it.

"But like, maybe a purpose doesn't have to be big. Like, I guess I have 'a purpose'" -- here, he does scarequotes in the air with his free hand -- "But you know what I was saying about trying to live in the moment better, instead of just worrying about the future? It's hard, but it's really helpful for not thinking about how my final death is foretold, too, and my entire job is to die fighting so the world can end. I can focus on littler purposes. Like... the Chase Space. That's this big old home I got, a reward for beating Loki, so I can help other homeless kids in Boston. Food, shelter, tutoring, you know. Or helping Jack find a girlfriend blade. Or making Alex laugh. Or teasing Sam and Amir about their betrothal. Or, I guess since I got here, learning more skills and hanging out and talking about the big scary stuff with my best friend so that it feels a little less big and scary."

[onthewillowsthere]

A littler purpose. He thinks about the grain of wheat in his hand at the end of Lan Wangji's meditation lesson. Something small, with possibility in it. If he closes his eyes and sinks down inside himself to the uncut field of wheat, he can imagine that all those stalks are heavy with handfuls of small things that could be something, all those wants and desires he's buried grown up for harvest, all those things he likes -- sketching and baking and arranging flowers, reading frivolous books, learning games and tasting new things -- ready to be turned to sustenance.

He squeezes Magnus' hand again.

[summerdude]

"Yeah, man," Magnus says. "You get it."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Thank you."

[summerdude]

"Anytime, friend."

[onthewillowsthere]

For a while he says nothing else. He's grateful that with Magnus he can be quiet when he needs to be quiet, grateful for the unhurried space Magnus is so good at making. Percival was like that too. They both know when to fill the silence and when to let it gain depth on its own.

Eventually, though, he says, "You said Hearthstone speaks with signs."

[summerdude]

"Yeah!" Magnus re-engages in the conversation; he's been drifting and daydreaming, comfortable -- frankly, cuddling against Galahad's side. "I learned them all from him so we could talk. I'm probably fluent at this point."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Will you teach me something?"

[summerdude]

"Heck yeah, my dude," Magnus says. He straightens up, regretfully letting go of Galahad's hand, and maneuvers until he's sitting cross-legged in front of Galahad. "This is the alphabet; it's the most basic foundation," he says, and slowly goes through each letter in turn, waiting for Galahad to repeat each one.

Then it occurs to him that he doesn't know if knights from Camelot know how to read. Oh, but hadn't Galahad mentioned something about monks, or nuns, or something? Surely there was some kind of literacy there.

[onthewillowsthere]

Perhaps not for everyone, but Galahad was a titled lady's son, raised in a convent, and he can read and write in English, French, and Latin. He copies each letter back to Magnus, in the very serious way he has -- they aren't just abstract concepts, they have meaning, and he wants to commit that meaning to heart. After Magnus gives him the alphabet he spells out both their names, half to himself.

[summerdude]

"Yeah," Magnus says, encouragingly. "Finger-spelling is great especially for when there's a word you don't have a sign for, like names or like when Hearthstone is trying to tell me about all the different runes. With people you know, you can make up a name-sign that's usually the first letter and then something about them - either another word, or something illustrative about them."

He rolls his eyes. "Since my mom got my name from a bunch of Scandinavian kings, my friends back home like to tease me by making my name sign the combination of M and crown." He demonstrates this, and then smiles. "For you... you could pick what you want. Maybe..." He holds up both hands, left hand open-palmed and facing him, right hand plucking the air above his fingers twice. He turns the second pluck into a G, and then moves the G from the right side of his nose to his left. Choice, flower. "But it can be anything that feels right or good."

[onthewillowsthere]

Warmth suffuses him. His name has never been his -- it is his father's name, it is a faraway land, it is something he uses because no alternative have ever occurred to him, even knowing he did choose for himself once. But Magnus has made his name into something new, something that hasn't ever belonged to something else.

"What does that mean?" as he copies Magnus' gesture.

[summerdude]

"It can mean Galahad," Magnus says. He finds that he's actually a little anxious about this -- Galahad doesn't have to use it, but he wants him to like it. "It's the signs for choice," and here he signs choice again, "G for Galahad, and a variation on flower." He shows Galahad both the official sign for flower, with appropriate finger positioning, and then the modified g-version again. "If I said that to Hearth without telling him your full name first, he'd interpret it as G Flower-Choice. Um, but if that's too much..."

[onthewillowsthere]

His face is blank, as it often is when he's overwhelmed. He makes the sign again, and his heart cramps the way it does when Claudius calls him beloved.

"Thank you," quietly. "It's good."

[summerdude]

"Good," Magnus says, greatly relieved. He signs the word as he says it -- hand to chin, dropping firmly. Then he hooks his index fingers together, twice, switching the orientation of his palms each time. "That's friend." He signs: Galahad. Magnus. Friend..

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad signs it back, once or twice to feel comfortable with it: Friend, friend, friend. It's the best thing he's ever learned. He could embrace Magnus, he could weep, he could try to speak and tell him how glad he is to be his friend. Instead he signs the word; it's so much easier than talking.

[summerdude]

The air around them is warming. Magnus, largely impervious to temperature, doesn't totally realize that he's summoning summer in his happiness; he's more focused on Galahad saying friend. He wants to let both of them sit with this, for the moment, but if truth be told, he also has a bit of an agenda: He'd taught Claudius how to say 'I love you,' and he wants Galahad to be able to understand it for what it is if Claudius ever says it to him.

He signs friend back.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Thank you," he says again. He always runs cold, as he told Shen Qingqiu, and he's grateful for the warmth, even if he hasn't quite processed that it's Magnus' doing.

[summerdude]

"Oh, here's another one that uses the alphabet," Magnus says, as if it's just occurred to him. "If you combine I, L, and Y with the same hand at the same time, it means 'I love you.'" He demonstrates, first forming each letter individually and then presenting the final sign.