blades before babes

Magnus has had an incredibly busy morning. The winter feels less oppressive in the wake of that totally insane blizzard the other day, so he spends the first few hours digging out camp with Alex (which does take some time, because they do take a couple of breaks for snow fights, make-out sessions, and snacks), and then digging out Galahad's church. In the process of tracking down a shovel to do said digging, he learns that the Mansion is making things again (thank gods), so he also takes advantage of that, once his home has been unearthed, to find another outdoor fireplace, a few candles and tiki torches, and a weird wooden chest thing filled with paper and markers. Plus some bells.

He takes all of these things back to the church, and works in earnest to continue setting it up. He writes TABERNACLE GOES HERE? on one of the papers, which he wedges in one of the slats of the box, demonstratively, and places it on his former reading branch, urging the branch to grow around the box a little more snugly. He threads bells through smaller branches, and then moves the branches like vines, securing them in place above the cross. The outdoor fireplace he puts next to the place where he imagines Galahad might sit or kneel or whatever, so he can stay warm; he places the candles on top of it, and then drags Dro's perch to the other side of the kneeling/sitting space. Finally, he shoves the torches into the frozen ground in a line leading up to the space.

Then, he decides, he can't do anything else without some sort of direction from Galahad. So he goes back to camp, gives Alex another big old kiss, and shoves his notebook into his backpack. "I'll be back by dinner," he promises her, "with dinner," and trots off to the Mansion to find Galahad.

The first thing Magnus does -- with Alex's help -- after fully healing is board up the hole in the side of the greenhouse where the cheetah ran through. The second thing, once he learns the full scope of Dark (it's different at camp; he'd already taken out a ton of camp-appropriate food for when Galahad and Laertes couldn't make it out there, and so he and Alex have been fine on the eating front) is go to the greenhouse again to figure out what plants in there yield edible produce. (Also, he tries to scrub his blood off the table. It... partially works?)

Partly it's that he's still feeling weird after the whole affair. The season doesn't help, but he does feel closer to his own mortality than pretty much any point since he died for real the first time. Being around growing plants helps that. Mostly, though, it's because he doesn't want anyone to get, like, scurvy living on bushels of rice alone.

He doesn't want to overtax any of the plants, but some can be cajoled into fruiting. Right now, he's got his hand on a kumquat tree, and he's trying to convince it that it can speed up the growth process by a few weeks. Drosera is with him, 'helping:' she's found a dead leaf, and she's chasing it down the pathway between some plants. If anyone shows up -- either because they've heard of his near-death experience and want to check in on him, or just to hang out, or even because they're drawn by the way it looks like sunlight is coming from the greenhouse itself -- he'll be glad for the company.

Galahad probably didn't expect Magnus to come pounding on his door in the middle of the day when they agreed Magnus would try sleeping on his own, especially since Magnus decided pretty quickly that he wanted to sleep outside again (but on purpose because he prefers it, not because it feels like the only option that doesn't end with the walls closing in on him). But here Magnus is, anyway, in the middle of the day, knocking loud enough that he has to force himself to take a step back so he doesn't break the door down.

"Dude, it's me, I need you," he calls, just so Galahad knows for sure it's him, or whatever. "You're in there, right? Galahad?"

Magnus wakes up, normal again except for how he's in an unfamiliar room. Not Galahad's old room, either. A nondescript one that, as far as he can tell, just has a bunch of clothes and stuff. Also he's wearing silky pajamas he'd never pick out automatically on his own?

It doesn't take long for him to feel like the walls are closing in on him. It's out of respect for Aornis that he stumbles out of her room through the door (barefoot and in the silky pajamas) and goes outside the normal way. Once outside, he flops into the snow, calling summer and feeling the way the snow steams against his skin as it melts.

He's not feeling totally regular again when he sits bolt upright, remembering that Drosera is probably in Galahad's old room with two people that aren't Magnus or Galahad. Existential crisis over, there's a child to retrieve! And hopefully, he'll run into Galahad in the halls.

Magnus, triumphant, has finally managed to make some old bamboo sprout. With Drosera fed recently enough that she's not complaining of hunger and resting in her new favorite perch (lounging on his shoulder tucked right against his neck, her beak tangled in hair that is once again getting long), he sneaks it into the Mansion, hides it in a large gift-bag a closet gives him, and hangs it on Claudius and Galahad's doorknob with a quickly-jotted note that reads Claudius, What next? - MAGNUS CHASE.

Then, since he's already inside, he figures, why not wander around until he finds someone to talk to?

Magnus is walking down the front steps of the Mansion, freshly-loaded bag of food in tow, ruminating on a few of his most recent and devastatingly embarrassing conversations, when he hears footsteps behind him.

Well. He did tell Galahad he'd ask everyone. Might as well start now. "Can you explain the birds and the bees -- I mean, sex -- to me?" he demands, even before he sees who it is.

After the talent show is over, once the anxiety and embarrassment coursing through Magnus's veins subsides, he walks the halls of the Mansion.

The day went... okay, he thinks. It's the longest he's spent inside since he passed out after the zombies, but between the open air and the convivial atmosphere of the show, he managed without any huge claustrophobic flare-ups.

Jack is still off-pendant, hamming it up with the stragglers. Magnus is happy to let him do his own thing. Jack deserves a nice life, even if his current master is fight-averse at the moment.

There are a lot of things on Magnus's mind. Fake-flyting in front of what he assumes was most of the Mansion was bracing, in a way. He doesn't miss fighting, or training to fight, every day, but he does miss the camaraderie that comes with being on a side and working with others to win. He feels the loss of his friends back home acutely, more acutely than normal. He wishes that Hearthstone and Blitzen, in particular, were here: unlike his other friends, they're not really warriors, but they can fight. He wants to ask them how they navigate the world, knowing that Ragnarok will come. Knowing that, as mortals with nonhuman lifespans, they'll probably not live to see it. It's not something they've really talked about before. Survival, yes, but not the big picture. Not what it all means.

He's finding it harder and harder to stomach his destiny. Can he stay here forever? He misses traveling. He misses being able to nip out for fresh falafel with his friends; he misses the Chase Space and the kids who flow in and out of the doors; he misses taking a wrong turn and ending up in a totally different part of the World Tree. His life has never been this stationary before. Even as a kid, his mom would take him camping nearly every weekend. Being so sedentary... he's not certain that he likes it. He feels a little trapped here, with no way out.

But he does like the people here. If he left, he thinks he'd miss them as much as he misses his people back home. And he can't fathom letting Jack back into the Nine Worlds if keeping him away means Ragnarok is indefinitely postponed. There's no easy answers.

As he ruminates, Magnus's wandering feet take him up the stairs and down another hall. They pause at the door to his room. He takes a deep breath and pushes it open.

It's clear people have been in here. The space has been neatened; someone has fixed the window. His plants are alive. Galahad has definitely rummaged through his books and his clothes; Magnus can see the voids left where certain things have been relocated to his outdoor hide-out.

He takes a deep breath and goes inside.

His first stop is the plants. He can't really read plants like Ragnelle can or anything, but he runs his fingers over the leaves and, on a whim, calls on them to grow a little. He thinks that maybe, without really realizing it, he's been doing that all along... or had been, when he was still living in this room: they've grown less in his absence than he expected. It's weird to think that, in the absence of his own daily regeneration, he's been using his alf seidr without thinking about it or even really realizing that's what he's been doing.

The view out the window beyond the plants is calm. It's clear that they're settling down toward winter: most of the leaves have fallen from the trees. It looks like a cold wind is blowing. Branches are twitching, and off in the distance, there are ripples on the lake. There's a chill when he presses his fingers to the glass.

When he closes his eyes, he sees his atrium back in Valhalla. It's always a breezy summer day in there, the trees strong and the grass soft. Nothing really changes in Valhalla. Not like here, where so many days run together but there's still a strange momentum to everything. Like stuff is moving and shifting, and since he's caught in the current, he's changing with it. He thinks, sometimes, about how Alex has the same atrium. About what it means. About what would happen if he went back and suddenly there was a mismatch. He wishes he could reach her, somehow. He wishes he could show his room back home to his friends here.

It's still weird, in a way, to be a guy who has a regular place to live. This room still feels like his, for all that he's almost reached a point where he's spent as much time avoiding it as he did living in it. A place to come back to; a place he can call home. But it's still so different from his room in Valhalla. Oh, sure, it's extremely sparse and incredibly neat. He makes up for the fact that this space doesn't have an off-set space to sleep in by putting all clutter in areas that you can't see from the bed, and by keeping the bed close to the windows. But he needs that open sky, right now, much more than he needs shelter or home or a single place to go back to. He needs exit routes and trees and walls that don't close in on him. The walls in this room -- they lean; they loom. They press. They're pressing right now, tight enough that they trap the air in his chest, and he can't shake himself loose to breathe.

He has to get out. He has to go. He'd thought, after that day, maybe -- but he can't be here. He's alone in here; there's no space. Jump, he hears his mom saying. Run. I'll find you after.

This time, at least, he doesn't crash through a closed window, breaking glass as he leaps blindly and trustingly into a fray. This time, he pushes it open and climbs out onto the roof. He sits on the steep slope of it, arms wrapped tight around his knees, shaking and staring off at the trees, willing himself to calm down and grow up. It's so stupid that being inside bothers him this much. It's so stupid that he can't just grow a pair and deal with his shit and move on and have fun. It sucks that he can't handle spending any more time than it takes to have a cursory shower in the shittiest easy-access locker room with extreme bad-shelter vibes in this place. He'd thought today might change things, and sure, he lasted longer than usual, but this fallout is a lot worse. He still can't catch his breath. He still can't stop shaking. He wants to be ready to be where all his friends mostly are, most of the time. He wants to know the path he can take to reach readiness. But he doesn't, and he's not, he's not, he's not.

The zombies are gone, the bodies are healed, the Magnus is exhausted. He's had an extremely strange few days. First, everyone else seems to start unloading their entire hearts at him -- unexpected! But pretty cool! -- and then he wakes up to zombies.

It really gets him thinking, is the thing. He's been practicing swordplay daily since arriving, sparring with people or against Jack, trying to keep a hand in and not let his mediocre skills atrophy. He's also been exercising in new-to-him invigorating ways, learning new stuff, meeting new people...

He likes it here. He really, really likes it here. He misses his friends back home more than words can possibly express, but if he went back to Valhalla right now, he'd miss the people here, too, some of them even equally as bad. And he doesn't want to subject these people all to Valhalla -- it's really not for everyone -- but he also can't figure out how to bring all his people here. Jack still can't rip through the barriers between worlds here like he can anywhere else in the Nine.

He likes it here... and it's becoming abundantly clear to him that he doesn't want to fight all the time anymore. The zombies have made it really, stunningly clear how much he doesn't miss Battle Practice or dying all the time. The rest has clued him into how much he likes learning new things, and talking to different kinds of people, and figuring out who he is when he's not constantly in crisis all the time, zombies aside.

But liking it here so much feels kind of like a betrayal? Especially after all the specific, deliberate choices he's made to stay in Valhalla with his people. And this sobers him, a little, blunting the rough edge of the adrenaline that's still coursing through his body.

His thoughts are distracting and, thusly preoccupied as he walks through the halls in the vague direction of his room, a shower, and a nap, he absently reaches out and returns Jack to pendant form...

And immediately passes out.

[Post intended for anyone who will be particularly upset by Magnus passing out xoxo]]

Magnus copies the sign onto seven different pieces of paper. It reads:

WANT TO LEARN NEW SKILLS? ME FREAKING TOO. I (Magnus Chase) Will Trade Lessons In Any Of The Following For Something You Know:

• ASL (Alf/American Sign Language)


• Camping (pitching tents, campfire safety, celestial navigation)


• What To Do If You Find Yourself Lost In The World Tree Yggdrasil


• Pickpocketing (But only if you promise to use it for good (stealing ONLY from dickhead rich people) and ONLY if you have to!)


• Swordfighting for Beginners (I am intermediate but Jack is advanced and he can help!)


• What It REALLY Feels Like To Die (NOT ADVICE!!!)


• (Trans)Gender Identity and Fluidity (from the perspective of a cis guy) (Alex-approved content only)


• What To Do If The God You're Talking To Is Super Obnoxious Particular


• Why Falafel is the Best Food in the World

All skills welcome! But if you know any of the following I am especially interested: Cooking, Geometry, How To Declare Your Love To Your Partner, Hand-to-Hand Combat, Balancing a Budget, Writing Poetry, Social Studies, Codebreaking.

(Sorry but I will not learn pottery from anyone but ♥Alex Fierro♥. I hope you understand.)

PS if there's enough interest we can maybe do full classes where everybody gets to take turns teaching and learning?

He adds a note about the areas where he can most frequently be found and then posts one sign in each of the two kitchens he's encountered, one by the welcome table, one on the door to the greenhouses, one in the library, one on his bedroom door, and one by what he believes to be the most-populated lounge. Then, with a great deal of eager anticipation, he goes about his day.


[A note from Magnus's typist: Open indefinitely!]

"Señor, you really should practice more," Jack says, as Magnus rearranges his mental notes and sighs.

(Anyone else might think Magnus is just lying back on a bench on the grounds, staring at the sky, lost in thought. And technically, he is. But he's working hard!!! He's trying to sort out everyone he's encountered so far!!!)

"You're right," Magnus groans. Being in a weird Mansion with no way out, no established Battle Practice, and no pressing quests to go on is not an excuse to let his limited fighting skills fall by the wayside. He hauls himself upright and shoves his (still largely blank) notebook into his backpack.

Twenty minutes later, he's secured a practice sword from some random closet or another in the Mansion. It's dull steel, not sentient, and heavy in his hands.

"Perfect," Jack decides, so Magnus tramps back out to the spacious lawn, one sword in each hand. Checking to make sure no one is directly in harm's way, he releases Jack and brings the dull training sword up, ready to parry whatever attack Jack decides to throw at him.