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]

"Green tea, no milk, zero sugar, herbal jelly," Magnus says, fondly. "I bet that's his order."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Let's make it."

[summerdude]

"Cool. So that'll be drink number three."

[onthewillowsthere]

"All right." He's watching Magnus, but he's still not wholly certain he grasps this process with the boba.

[summerdude]

Conveniently for all Magnus Chases, all the ingredients are prepped and fresh and just need to be assembled. Carefully referring to the instruction sheet, he measures milk and tea into a cup, then adds enough brown sugar syrup to hit 50% sugar, a scoop of ice, and all the bubbles. Then he takes the whole affair over to the lid-sealing machine thing and lets it do his thing. Finally, he gives the sealed cup a good shake, and retrieves a straw. "Ta-da?"

[onthewillowsthere]

All right, that seems manageable! He likes having an instruction sheet to follow as well, but having gotten to see Magnus in action he feels more confident around the components. He steps forward to take a cup.

[summerdude]

"So I guess my favorite would be, ummmm..." Magnus suspects taro root might be a little more complicated. Especially with pudding and foam. Luckily the instruction sheets are pretty clear, and it's just a little extra measuring. He likes his at 70% sugar with very little ice.

When he finishes compiling, it's a little more all-over blended than he thinks it probably should be, but apart from that it seems to be right. He licks some taro milk off his finger and it tastes regular, so.

"Okay," he tells Galahad, once the taro milk tea is sealed shut. "Go ham."

[onthewillowsthere]

Green tea, no milk, zero sugar, herbal jelly is not, frankly, very complicated, and making it feels akin to following any recipe, which Galahad is good at doing. Within moments he has Lan Wangji's drink made.

"Will it melt if we don't take it to him now?"

[summerdude]

"Nah. But maybe we should include this one in our line-up to decide if it really does feel fitting first." He grins at Galahad. "You can spit the jelly out if you want."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad makes a delicate face at him. He doesn't want the jelly in his mouth in the first place, Magnus!

[summerdude]

"Or not!!!"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Let's try them."

[summerdude]

"Do you wanna try this set before coming up with your own combos, or do you wanna concoct one from vibes first?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Try first." He needs a baseline of what these drinks taste like.

[summerdude]

"Cool." Magnus gives each cup one final shake, then hands Galahad a fistful of three straws. "You get to do the funnest part of boba besides the drinking of the boba. I mean, you get to do that, too, obviously, but. Unwrap the straws and stab the pointy end of each one into the tops of the cups."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad accepts this responsibility gravely. He unwraps each straw one by one before stabbing the first one through the lid. And-- it is incredibly satisfying. He looks up at Magnus, pleased.

[summerdude]

Magnus grins at him. "Isn't it great?" he asks, nudging Galahad happily, then swooping in for a quick taste of that first one. Oh, good, it tastes like it's supposed to. Phew. Okay. At least Galahad can form an accurate opinion.

[onthewillowsthere]

To Galahad’s slight surprise, it does taste good -- not that he doesn't trust Magnus, he trusts Magnus deeply, but sometimes Magnus' optimism and desire for Galahad to like things overcomes his realism about what Galahad actually likes. The milk and tea are things he already likes, and he finds the sweetness and faint molasses complexity of the brown sugar syrup very pleasant. He is avoiding the boba so far.

[summerdude]

"You like it!" Magnus crows, immeasurably pleased. "What do you think of the actual boba?"

[onthewillowsthere]

With a faint begrudging vibe, he sucks one of the boba pearls up through the straw and chews it. The texture is slimy outside, but once chewed the sliminess doesn't persist; it is acceptable. "Acceptable," he says, once he swallows.

[summerdude]

Magnus's pleasure doesn't diminish in the slightest. "Not a go-to option, but not going to cause a case of Dying From Jell-o Disease?" (There's no world in which he hasn't told Galahad every single detail of Sunny's... affliction.) "Hey, actually, I bet you'd love popping boba. Um..." he finds some spoons and scoops up a sample of both yellow (mango-flavored?) and pink (strawberry? lychee?) and proffers them, one in each hand.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad takes the spoon of pink boba, eyeing it somewhat suspiciously, and carefully rolls a single pearl into his mouth with his tongue. The way it pops when he bites down is reminiscent of roe, when he tried it with Claudius, but the flavor is fruity instead of fishy, and the liquid inside is more like syrup than the creamy texture of salmon eggs. He looks up at Magnus in mild surprise. "Good."

[summerdude]

"Right? It's, like, surprisingly fun."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Too sweet for Claudius," thoughtful.

[summerdude]

Magnus tilts his head. "What's the right sweet ratio for Claudius? Like, would that still be too sweet if it's in a un-sweet tea?"