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]

Oh, that makes a lot more sense. He staggers with the force of her hands and releases her foot, twisting to try and get a better hold on her -- one where she can't keep striking him in tender places, saying "Oh, yeah. Of course. That's totally what I meant," as he moves.

[thepurpledanger]

"You're just trying to get out of learning to feel qi," she says accusingly as she whirls to put distance between them. "You're afraid you can't do it! But you don't know what a good teacher I am!"

[summerdude]

"No, no, I really want to learn!" he says, earnestly, backing up a step but staying at the ready. "...Does what we're doing make qi happen?"

[thepurpledanger]

"No, dummy! Do rivers make water run downhill?? Don't you know anything?"

[summerdude]

"Wait..." totally distracted now -- but not distracted enough to fall out of his stance. "They don't? Isn't that, like, the entire point of a river?"

[thepurpledanger]

"No! Rivers are just where the water is falling!"

[summerdude]

"Oh, you're talking about, like, gravity."

[thepurpledanger]

"You use qi when you're fighting! Even babies who can't wipe their own shit know that!"

[summerdude]

"I'm gonna ask Sunny and see if she knows that," Magnus tells her.

[thepurpledanger]

"Sunny doesn't count, she didn't grow up in the jianghu."

[summerdude]

"I didn't grow up in the jianghu either," he points out. It doesn't seem like she's going to attack him again (he does acknowledge that he definitely started it) (well, she started it, but he continued it), so he very warily settles back into the initial seated position, his spine a clump of loose wavy vines.

[thepurpledanger]

"Yes you did. A bunch of super powerful people fighting each other all the time? Secret politics and clan and sect bullshit that no one seems to feel like explaining until you're up to your neck in it? That's the jianghu." She settles back down across from him, letting her shoulders settle comfortably and her spine fall into alignment as she breathes.

[summerdude]

Oh. That makes sense, actually. "Okay, well, it's not a qi jianghu, at least," he says, and tries to match Gu Xiang's breathing with his own.

[thepurpledanger]

"Okay," says Gu Xiang. "Do you feel how the air is filling you up? It's not just in your lungs and your belly. It's filling you all the way up and mixing with your jing, like ... like your jing is a comb, running through the qi you breathe in, taking out all the snarls and weeds and crap."

[summerdude]

Magnus squints one eye open. "My jing?"

[thepurpledanger]

"You know what qi is, but not jing? Who the fuck taught you anything!" Right, calming down! Deep breaths! In and out! "Jing is ... your essence, I guess? It's like your spiritual guts. But it's also your guts guts. And your marrow, and your blood, and even your balls. So when you breathe in qi, it's not just sitting in you like you're a wine bottle, it's squishing through all your jing and getting refined."

[summerdude]

"My spiritual and real guts, got it. So I push my breath through... my balls?" That sounds operationally complicated, but Gu Xiang knows her stuff, so Magnus is willing to try.

[thepurpledanger]

"No, you just breathe! If you're trying to push it around, no wonder you can't feel anything happening--all you're feeling is yourself pushing! Do you try to push your dinner through your guts, too? Do you have to think about turning it into shit? Your body already does that, dummy! Don't think so hard!"

[summerdude]

"So my balls are filtering my breath into qi?"

[thepurpledanger]

"No, the qi's already there. Qi's in everything. It's just ... making it so you can use it."

[summerdude]

Magnus, it's safe to say, is hopelessly confused. "So I just meditate and breathe, and then I'll be able to detect qi?"

[thepurpledanger]

"Yeah, exactly," says Gu Xiang. "You have to feel it kind of filling you up and moving through you, and then you'll start feeling how it's moving outside of you, too. Like wind, or a current in a river."

[summerdude]

"Inside, outside," Magnus repeats, and manfully resists the urge to start quoting the Who. "Okay." He flashes a smile at Gu Xiang. "I'm ready to try."

[thepurpledanger]

"Okay." She sits back, settling herself with her spine straight, inhaling slowly through her nose. Magnus has rattled her, but she's Wise Girl now! She's going to show him how to meditate!

Inhale. The air slowly fills her, lapping at the edges of her awareness, awakening senses that run deeper than her nerves. She feels power pooling in her belly, quiet but deep, a well that she can draw from a thousand times without emptying it.

Exhale. Her strength flows out into the world, touching everything, becoming part of it. Her consciousness, too, flows into the world, and she senses the soft breeze and the tickle of grass. She feels the gauzy shadow of a cloud pass briefly over her face, and then the sun streams down on her again with its full force.

Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale ... exhale.

... in less than a minute, she's snoring.

[summerdude]

Oh. Is sleep the big secret? That's easy enough. Thanks to Sunny, Magnus has gotten really good at napping. He curls up around his trashbagpipe and dozes off.