I Turn, Um... Uh... Sixteen? For The Tenth? Time???? [open post]

[summerdude]

It's Magnus's birthday and he is a man with a surplus of plans. And many, many plastic recorders.

He's still a little overstimulated from the birthday party Galahad got Claudius to throw for the two of them — he loves all his friends, but that was a lot of people in one space, most of whom were also feeling many, many things about their visitors — and so it's been a quiet few days. Sunny is still a little subdued, so they've been having muted hangouts in the mornings; Galahad, also overstimulated from their birthday party, has fortunately been on Magnus's wavelength about just sailing around aimlessly on the Big Banana with many snacks and very little conversation during their daily hangs for the past few days. He drags himself to sword practice with Lancelot once or twice, has his weekly dinner at Hanguang-jun's, spends a great solo afternoon cleaning out Little John's cave in case anyone else wants to use it at some point, and lets Alex tease him into wrestling and, um, other stuff after dinner basically every night.

But on this, the twenty-sixth anniversary of Magnus's actual birth, most of his energy has returned to him. He's made birthday dinner plans with just his immediate family (and also Alex and Hanguang-jun) at their house for the evening. He's had his liveliest morning of the week. And with his newly regained energy he's found critical supplies for his afternoon: a roll of duct tape, several trash bags, eight recorders, a handful of hollow pens, and a dream. He's sitting cross-legged in the middle of the Mansion's lawn, a look of grave concentration on his face, as he makes little holes in a bag, duct tapes two recorders and one pen here and there, and then seals it all up.

And then he takes a deep breath, fits his mouth to the hollow pen, and blows the bag up. When he places it under his arm and squeezes, he's gratified to find that his makeshift bagpipes work perfectly. And he still has supplies for a couple more!



I know everyone is still busy with visitor's day so feel free to take your time on this one... but I would love to ultimately have a ton of Chaos Thread Opportunities.

Comments

[summerdude]

"It's when you do crimes to cause fear, usually in the name of, like, politics? Or religion, I guess? Like bombing a marathon, or shooting up a, like, school or synagogue or something, or flying a plane into a skyscraper -- that's a really, really tall building, like at least twenty stories or something -- or, um, in this joke... giving a bunch of seven year olds recorders and free rein to play them as bad and as loud as they want." Magnus is definitely flushing. Spelled out like that, the joke isn't as funny as he thought it might be.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad stares at him for a long, horrified moment. What Magnus is describing seems like the kind of destruction only God could enact, but knowing Magnus' opinion on God Galahad is certain he would have clarified the point if He were the one doing such things. So it must be men striking fear through destruction and murder.

"This happens often?" softly.

[summerdude]

Magnus shrugs, feeling monumentally guilty for being the guy to drop the proverbial bomb (no pun intended) on Galahad about this. "Often enough," he says. "Those have all been within my lifetime. Um, actual alive lifetime."

[onthewillowsthere]

"And many people die?"

[summerdude]

"Um. Yeah. Yeah, they do."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods and says nothing this time, turning this new knowledge over.

[summerdude]

"Trust me," Magnus says. "What I said was a really funny dark humor-y kind of joke if you grew up when I did."

[onthewillowsthere]

He presses his lips together. He doesn't think he particularly likes the time Magnus grew up in, for many reasons.

[summerdude]

"I'm sorry, though. That, um. You know."

[onthewillowsthere]

"You don't need to be sorry."

[summerdude]

"Yeah, but still," Magnus says, but since Galahad never lies, he tells himself sternly not to feel bad about bringing this up. "Anyway, back to my original point, second graders definitely shouldn't get recorders. Or first graders, obviously."

[onthewillowsthere]

"How many grades are there?"

[summerdude]

"Twelve, plus kindergarten, which comes first. And preschool for a lot of kids. And after twelfth grade, a bunch of people go on to college, which is, like, two to four years at least, depending on the degree."

[onthewillowsthere]

It's astonishing to think of -- now that he's here, he understands how a person could have more than thirteen years of things to learn, but it's still wondrous to imagine. He nods. "What degrees are there?"

[summerdude]

"I dropped out in ninth grade. If I went all the way to twelfth, I would have had a high school degree, which is like... the bare minimum for a lot of jobs. Then there's, um. Community college, which gives a two-year degree... I forget what it's called. And four-year colleges give you a bachelor's degree, which is the bare minimum for a lot of other jobs. And then you can go to grad school to become a doctor or a lawyer or an MBA asshole or a teacher, or to get a master's degree or PhD. And that's just in the United States." Magnus plucks a stalk of grass and rolls it between his fingers. "My Uncle Randolph had a PhD in something or another. Before he got fired, he taught at Harvard, which is one of the really famous universities of my time... did they have Oxford or Cambridge yet in your England?

[onthewillowsthere]

"No. A university?"

[summerdude]

"Huh," says Magnus. "Halfborn made it sound like they were built right around Viking times." He shrugs. "Yeah, they're like really old really famous universities. Kind of like the Harvards of Britain. Except lots older than Harvard, because europeans didn't show up and start colonizing America until later."

[onthewillowsthere]

"There are seminaries."

[summerdude]

"I think maybe a lot of old-school colleges started out that way," says Magnus, thoughtful -- and very manfully not making a bad joke about seminaries being another word for circle jerks.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Do you think I would have liked school?" suddenly curious.

[summerdude]

"Dude, you would have loved school," Magnus says, with immense confidence. "Though I bet if we were in school together as kids you would have hated me at first, because you'd be all, hey! I want to learn and also respect the teacher! And I'd be all, hey! I want to learn but the teacher is a total jerk!"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Are many teachers jerks?"

[summerdude]

"In my experience? Most of 'em." Magnus shrugs. "Not all were as bad as Miss Mangler -- um, I mean Mengler -- she's the one that taped my hand to the desk because she thought it was bad that I'm a lefty -- but, like... most weren't great." He considers. "My sixth grade science teacher was pretty cool."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Why do people teach, if they don't love to impart knowledge?"

[summerdude]

Magnus shrugs. "Dunno. Maybe they're all just really, really cranky because it's basically a thankless job. I think teaching has to be, like, fifty percent kid-wrangling. And I'm pretty sure they're all underpaid. None of those things is a reason to be a dick to kids though."