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]

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."

[thepurpledanger]

"You have to do it outside somewhere so that you don't get distracted by moon cakes or pretty clothes or pictures of men who aren't wearing anything," says Gu Xiang earnestly. "It was really hard until I figured that out! I mostly meditate on the roof. And maybe now that I've been practicing, I can start looking for places with really concentrated qi so that I can get powerful like Lan Wangji!"

[summerdude]

"Like that one part of the cave! It's empty now, by the way, Little John -- wait," waggling his eyebrows. "Gu Xiang. How many pictures of naked men do you tend to, um, encounter when you're trying to meditate? Are they part of a collection or do they just... show up?" And if they just show up, can he get them to just show up if he ever meditates with Galahad and Hanguang-jun?

[thepurpledanger]

"They're in the library," says Gu Xiang. "I went there because I wanted to meditate like a scholar, but there were all of these floppy books full of pictures of pretty clothes and makeup and naked men!"

[summerdude]

"Do you think we could move those books to where Hanguang-jun and Galahad meditate every morning in a totally unsuspicious and normal way?"

[thepurpledanger]

"Why, do you want to distract them?"

[summerdude]

"I want to see if they can get distracted. And they both like naked men," probably, presumably, given that they're both gay, "so. I bet it would work better than moon cakes for them. Not sure about pretty clothes though. They're both pretty fashionable."