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]

"I think it's a great idea. I'd come to you for my horoscope."

[thepurpledanger]

"I'm going to tell you your horoscope right now!" And Gu Xiang takes out a small book full of illustrations of the world's two moons, with printed text beneath each lunar conjunction that tells the demeanor of a person who arrives under those moons. Gu Xiang has diligently annotated the book with the names of everyone she knows and when they arrived, consulting the calendar and bothering Galahad for precise dates when (as usual) her memory fails.

She leafs through to Magnus's conjunction (Kumaras, Waning Gibbous; Asvinau, Last Quarter), and reads aloud, "On the outside, it could seem like you are meant to be a dark individual, with a life full of hardship and trials -- but the Last Quarter brings in the strength to triumph over those hardships." Then she flips to the little calendar she's tucked into the back of the book, and consults it for today (Kumaras, Full Moon; Asvinau, New Moon). "Today Kumaras is at its strongest and Asvinau is at its weakest, so life is going to be crap for you right now! You're going to be suffering all the time, and you're not going to have any strength to face it!"

[summerdude]

Magnus sits back, considering this with all due gravity. "Makes sense," he decides, after a long moment. "I kinda feel like my birthday's been cursed ever since I died on it." He scratches his head, trying to think back to the time that the grandmother of the family that owned the Korean restaurant underneath his apartment did his horoscope, one day that his mom had been caught up at work and he'd forgotten his key. "Does being born in the Year of the, ummmmmmmm, uh, um, the Year of the Tiger change anything?"

[thepurpledanger]

Gu Xiang's eyes go wide. "You were born in the Year of the Tiger, too?? That explains why we're so much alike!"

[summerdude]

Magnus's eyes go wide, too. "Really?" he says. "That's so cool. Um, what does Year of the Tiger... mean?"

[thepurpledanger]

Gu Xiang straightens, smoothing down her clothes as she adopts an attitude of great wisdom. (This means her eyes are half-closed, and she looks slightly as though she is about to sneeze.) "People born in the Year of the Tiger are brave, and good at fighting, and say what's on their minds! They aren't patient or easy to push around."

[summerdude]

Magnus grins. "That does sound like us," he says, and holds up a hand. "High five."

[thepurpledanger]

Gu Xiang slams her hand against Magnus's, producing a concussive slap that echoes through the trees and sends a couple of squirrels scampering for cover. "But that's not the most important thing for reading your horoscope here," she says, once the echoes have died down a little. "This book says the moons when you came here are more important than the year you were born, or even the stars and the elements!"

[summerdude]

Magnus shakes out his arm, which is absolutely ringing. "The moons, huh?" he says. "Wait, how do you know what moons were like when I got here?"

[thepurpledanger]

"Galahad knows when everyone got here. Claudius writes it down in a little book somewhere--I should steal it sometime! I want to see what he wrote about me!"

[summerdude]

"You know what?" Magnus says, after a moment of deep contemplation. "If you steal it, I'll distract him. On the condition you never ever tell me what it says about me."

[thepurpledanger]

"Don't you want to know?"

[summerdude]

"As a rule? Basically never."

[thepurpledanger]

"Why not?"

[summerdude]

"First of all, that's his business. Second of all, he definitely doesn't want to, like, kill me, so it's not like I need to look for safety reasons. Third of all, I already see people's memories when I heal them. I don't wanna make it worse. Fourth of all, he notices things. I don't wanna know if he's figured out stuff about me that I haven't figured out about me yet. Fifth of all, Galahad would do this if he found out." He makes a Galahad-style frowny face, with the corner of his mouth slightly and mostly-imperceptibly etched downward and the barest suggestion of a furrow between his brows, and then grins. "But I bet you could handle all of that, so. I'll help you."

[thepurpledanger]

Gu Xiang snorts at the Galahad face, then covers her mouth. "Why don't you want to know what he's figured out about you? That's the most interesting part!"

[summerdude]

"You can look at what he's said about me, if you want. And you can tell Alex, and the two of you can tease me with it whenever I figure out whatever it is."

[thepurpledanger]

"Do you just like being stupid about yourself?"

[summerdude]

Magnus shrugs. "I like figuring things out on my own time, I guess."

[thepurpledanger]

"But that takes so long! And people are just watching you stumble around like some kind of brainless donkey the whole time!"

[summerdude]

On cue, Magnus does a very credible (thanks in part to being Alex's boyfriend, but mostly due to Sunny's encyclopedic knowledge of and interest in animal sounds) donkey bray!

[thepurpledanger]

Gu Xiang falls over cackling, whacking Magnus's knee as she goes. "You sound like that pile of trash in your lap!"

[summerdude]

Magnus doesn't bother hiding his wince at the whack -- Gu Xiang is great at casual violence in a way he really appreciates. And then he's cackling, too. "Thank you," he grins. "It's always good to know my hard work is paying off."

[thepurpledanger]

"My horoscope says I need to find calm in my life," says Gu Xiang. "So I've been working hard, too! I meditate almost a quarter of a shichen a day!" Most days. When she remembers. And if she doesn't get bored.

[summerdude]

"Oh, awesome! A quarter-sichen is, like, half an hour, right? That's a good chunk of time." Magnus laughs. "Maybe I should try harder. Hanguang-jun showed me how but I keep forgetting to do it on my own."