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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan sighs. "I like Sunny," she says. This is particularly true now that Susan is no longer on Sunny's caregiving roster. She liked Sunny then, too, but Sunny brought up altogether too many complicated emotions, by virtue of being a child under Susan's care, for Susan to truly enjoy the experience at the time. "And Lancelot adores her. I shouldn't want Sunny's beliefs about the nature of our relationship to prove an obstacle to Lancelot and I spending time with her. My apology was her condition."

[summerdude]

He squints at her. "You yelled at me because of Lancelot," he says. "And you're apologizing also because of Lancelot?" Look, he knows Dad loves Lancelot, for some weird reason, but it's wild that there's, like, multiple people here who do. Lancelot is, like, fine now - a pretty good teacher, as it turns out, and fun to mess with - but he's still mostly just like a totally lame, uh, adult figure who gets weirdly serious and intense about stuff, but in a much more embarrassing way than how, say, Hanguang-jun gets non-weirdly serious and intense about stuff. "And Sunny, I guess. Did it ever occur to you that you could have just, like, not yelled at me, and avoided this whole thing?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"No," sharply. "That wasn't an option."

[summerdude]

"I wasn't, like, trying to hurt him, you know. I wouldn't do that. He did save my life or whatever."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"No, but you might've considered the potential consequences of your actions at some point!"

[summerdude]

Magnus glares at her. "Did you ever think maybe I did? And then he was, like, 'this is fine and I agree to your terms as long as I can tell Susan,' so I took him at face value? Anyway, nothing happened, did it?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan takes a deep breath. "I should like to be able to tell Sunny, honestly, that I apologized. I have made every apology I can honestly give. I am sorry for confronting you in front of her."

[summerdude]

"Is that the apology she wanted you to make?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It is not."

[summerdude]

Magnus chews on this for a minute. "So what, then? I'm not going to lie to her."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Perhaps Susan ought to take the same tactic she took with Sunny in the first place. "I do value your contributions here, you know," she says. "To our community, I mean. We've got friends in common, too, and they speak highly of you. I haven't got an interest in - in verbal defenestration. I meant only to defend the man I love, and I shan't recant that for sake of a meaningless apology. I don't expect that I shall confront you again, as you've ceased to force Lancelot to keep secrets, but if ever I must, I shall take you aside privately. Which, I might add, I tried to do. You refused. But I ought to have come back later instead of addressing the situation in front of Sunny. I should like to be in her good graces, as - like I said - I care for her, but if I can't accomplish the primary task set before me, I shall attempt to reach them in another way."

[summerdude]

Huh. Magnus did do that, didn't he? "Okay." He doesn't want Sunny making decisions about who to be friends with based on his opinions of people, he wants her to make decisions about who to be friends with based on her opinions of people.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I beg your pardon?"

[summerdude]

"Okay, whatever, I accept your shitty half-apology. It's, like, moot or whatever anyway. Like you said. I told my important people. And I didn't stop Lancelot from telling you. But he can talk to whoever he wants now, okay?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan blinks, startled, and does not ask are you certain? "Very well. Good. So shall I tell Sunny I did as she bid?"

[summerdude]

Magnus laughs. "You? She probably won't listen to you. I'll tell her an attempt was made." He pauses, and when Susan doesn't immediately walk away, he rolls his eyes. "You can go now, okay? If that's the best you've got, I don't see the point in, like, malingering or whatever."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

What a terrifically unpleasant boy! At least she's made some sort of effort. "Fine. Good day," says Susan, and strides off.