blades before babes

Another Year At The Same Dang Age, As Usual [open]

2026-01-13T22:18:16Z

Magnus has already largely celebrated his birthday, in the way that is rapidly becoming standard: a small joint party with Galahad and their closest friends, with plans for another small family dinner on the actual day. It's precisely the way he likes to celebrate: not too much fuss, a fun time with people he loves, and a small invite list.

On the actual day, he's feeling a little fitful. Maybe it's that it's been just one mansion-week since he saw Frey. Maybe it's that it's been eleven years to the day, now, since he died. Maybe it's just that, with Rainbows over, autumn is rapidly approaching.

He's tired of his continual attempt to rehabilitate the bicycles in the shed, and there's nothing to putter around with around camp; he and Alex tidied everything just last night. Sunny's sunflower patch club house is fully grown, and there's not much else he can do to prolong its ability to stick around. He doesn't feel like going out on the Big Banana or climbing the mountain or wrestling with Dro. He's not in the mood to explore, or read a book, or start a new project. He's tried meditating and rapidly given up, like, three separate times, and he's even taken Jack out to tell him stories about the good old days in a fit of trying to avoid ruminating on... whatever.

Jack had a date with a morningstar in the armory, though, and so Magnus's latest endeavor is seeing exactly how long of a clover chain he can make before it's time to get ready for dinner. He's using the slit method, and so far, it's about six feet long.

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Second Verse, Same As The First. A Little Bit Louder, A Little... Less? Worse? [interlude]

2026-01-07T06:18:01Z

By the last day of Rainbows, Magnus no longer expects Frey to show up. In a sense, it's almost embarrassing. He'd talked about it with his family, to process the visit in advance. Dad asked if he wanted to speak to Frey, and when Magnus told him, well, I don't not want to talk to him, he and Dad took advantage of Sunny's pout to exchange a Significant Look that Magnus totally caught sight of.

But the thing is, he actually does kind of want to talk to his father. His biological father. He wants to know how things are going in the Nine Worlds, and he wants to be up-front where last year he was circumspect: he's been adopted, even at his age, and he's happy about it. He's seen Mom. He has family here. He's doing okay.

So it's kind of a surprise when he takes a nap the last afternoon of Rainbows and wakes up to Frey perched awkwardly on the side of the Big Banana.

"You're still using your boat," Frey says, when he sees that Magnus is awake and arguably aware of his surroundings.

"It's so yellow, Frey-dad," Magnus says, and then: "Hi. Um, sup?"

"It's midwinter in the Nine Worlds."

"So it felt better to show up here?"

"Magnus." Frey still has that way about him, that aura of calm and peace. He smells like woodsmoke, like Magnus's campfire, like the bonfires Dad builds for Wanderers Gather every year. "Do you want me to be here?"

It could be an imposing question. Magnus imagines that on a lot of fathers, and a lot of gods, it would be an imposing question. But Frey-dad is so awkward about everything. His cowlick is as pronounced as ever, and there's treesap on the arm of his flannel shirt, and he's wearing whatever the Vanir version of Birkenstocks is. Collectively, this paints an absurd image, and Magnus finds himself suffused with fondness. There may be no truly good god, but Frey isn't a bad one. There are good dads, which Magnus now knows intimately, and Frey isn't one, but he isn't a bad dad, either.

"I do," Magnus tells him. "Did you know Mom came here? Last year?"

Frey looks surprised. "I didn't," he says, struck. "How is Natalie?"

"She's good. I miss her."

"So do I."

At least there's that. Magnus steels himself. Should he tell Frey-dad about his other dads now? Later? He has other agenda items, too. Should he get through those first?

"This boat feels older than it should," Frey comments, interrupting Magnus's thoughts.

"Um," Magnus says. "My alternate future self gave it to my best friend as a, like, pity gift." He notes that Frey is nodding, like this should make perfect sense for some reason, and this emboldens him. "It was a pity gift for controlling his emotions, I think?"

Frey nods. "Gods don't like that, either."

"So that is a power I could have," Magnus says. He doesn't want it! But he has a rare opportunity here. "Frey-dad?"

"Yes, son?"

"Can you teach me more about our abilities? Before you have to go? I want better control."

Frey looks surprised. "My understanding was that you were well-versed in your alf seidr."

"Yeah," Magnus says, rolling his eyes. "Accidentally. Janet — she's my friend; she's a magician — she's been trying to help me figure out what I can do that I didn't already know about." He won't tell Frey-dad about Janet's choicer words on the subject. "But she doesn't really understand our magic system, so even if you don't have time to go over everything, just like... information that can set us in the right direction would be helpful."

Frey's expression grows bemused in a way that reminds Magnus, with a bizarre, dissociative sort of hilarity, of Lancelot. "If that's what you want."

"We can walk and talk," Magnus offers. It's not like the Big Banana is on the high seas. He and Galahad took it out for a little sail, to see if they'd find anything interesting, and Magnus stayed on it after they got back to shore to just hang out and take care of chores and, like, nap or whatever. He'd kind of hoped Alex would join and they could, you know, do a few R-rated things that they never got around to their first time on deck.

Basically, it's super easy to hop off and walk around.

"Besides," he adds. "There's a few new things I could show you."

"Very well," says Frey-dad, and the way he says it reminds Magnus, this time, of Hanguang-jun. Not in the way it might have, in the past. He's happy with the dads he has. He doesn't need more. He knows Hanguang-jun loves him, and views him as family, and that's genuinely enough, now. But it reminds him of Hanguang-jun in a way that still strikes him: the family he's built here is strong, and sprawling, and he suspects that the reason he's seeing people he loves in things Frey is doing is less about missing Frey and more about valuing the people here.

And so they get off-deck and go for a long, meandering walk. Frey tells him a little more about alf seidr. There are things Magnus has never thought to try that he's definitely going to bring to Janet. There are things he doesn't want to try at all that he's going to bring to Dad. And Magnus tells Frey-dad the truth: that he has family here.

Frey hovers awkwardly at that revelation for a too-long moment, and then envelops Magnus in a crushing hug. Magnus smells pine, bruised and sap-rich, and feels like one of the sunflowers growing tall in the patch he planted with Sunny, craning toward the light. "I'm glad you're cared for," he says, at last.

"I'd introduce you," Magnus assures him. It would go so badly, but he would. "If you could come here outside of my dreams."

"You're a good boy, son," Frey says. He ruffles Magnus's hair, and Magnus feels warm all over, in the way he always feels around Frey-dad. It's not a magically-manipulated emotion, he's certain of that much. It's the sheer, unbridled summer and that aura of peace that always surrounds him. "I'm glad to see you, when I can."

"Me too," Magnus says, and finds that he means it.

—

When Magnus wakes up, he's back on the deck of the Big Banana, and the sun is setting. He hops into the surf, returns the ship to handkerchief form, and shoves it deep in his pocket.

Then he goes home to have dinner with his family.

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Look, Is It So Much To Ask For Every Day To Be An Adventure, But Not The Stressful Kind? [closed]

2025-11-25T02:44:50Z

Magnus sits on the boulder on the Mansion's main lawn, cross-legged, meditating. At his side, he has a backpack full of supplies: three books on identifying fossils (Ediacaran Assemblages of the Eastern Hemisphere, Ravkan Bryozoans: A Field Guide, and Fish Dicks and Fern Trees: The Rise and Fall of the Devonian), a magnifying glass, a chipping hammer, a trowel, and — of course — snacks and several bottles of water. His face is tipped up toward the sun, and he's concentrating on the idea of the middle ground.

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This Is The Best Movie In The World! I'm Crying, You're Crying. [semi-open]

2025-11-18T15:49:43Z

Obviously the first time Magnus watches the Princess Bride at the Mansion, it's with Dad and Dad and Hanguang-jun (and Wei Wuxian, who tagged along, and Alex, who has already seen it, but there's no way Magnus is going to not invite Alex to every viewing), and Magnus cries.

The second time Magnus watches the Princess Bride at the Mansion, Alex is busy, and it's with Galahad and Shen Yuan, in one of their rare bids for another guy's night, and Magnus laughs... and cries a little. He's also invited Secunit, but if Secunit comes, it's just in the form of its drones, which Magnus doesn't specifically look for. He also extends an invitation to Ophelia, because he gets the vibe that she'd be a great addition to Guys's Night, and shows Galahad how to work the VCR so that Galahad can watch it alone with Claudius later.

The third time Magnus watches the Princess Bride at the Mansion, it's with the Molotov Cocktail Crew, plus a few random additions: Gideon and Tally, because he's absolutely certain they'll have a lot of strong feelings about it; Mercutio, who will likely have strong feelings of a different way; Benvolio, who isn't fully a part of the Molotov Cocktail Crew but who comes in basically a two-pack with Mercutio these days; Gu Xiang, obviously; Gaheris, because Gu Xiang is coming; Alex, also obviously; and then Nina and Tress, who also aren't really part of the Molotov Cocktail Crew, but it felt rude not to invite them when everyone else was coming. Magnus laughs, and pretends like he isn't also crying a little.

The fourth time Magnus watches the Princess Bride at the Mansion, it's with Dad and Lancelot. Alex doesn't come, and Magnus pretends like he's not crashing on one of Dad's dates. He doesn't think to invite Susan; he mostly just wants to create an opportunity to quote Inigo Montoya at Lancelot for their next month of practices. Focusing on all the sword talk actually helps keep him from tearing up like he usually does!

The fifth time Magnus watches the Princess Bride at the Mansion is also the sixth. It's just with Alex, and they watch it twice in a row, and recreate every one of the kisses, and Alex teases him for crying again, even though Alex is definitely crying too.

In between -- and after -- those times (which happen in the space of one week), the VHS sits in the game room. Anyone has access to it.

Prose-react with your puppet's reaction to the movie! Say if they have a viewing with someone else, so that person can be tagged in... or if your puppet just stumbles across it and figures out how to make it play, that's obviously fine too!

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I Might Be Flexing, But This Is NOT A Flex [closed]

2025-09-18T00:09:14Z

It's one of those days when Magnus is preoccupied by things that aren't swordfighting lessons with Lancelot during his swordfighting lesson with Lancelot. They happen occasionally, days like this. Sometimes he pushes through it. Sometimes he gives up and goes home. Occasionally, he gives up, and he and Lancelot will have a conversation instead. Shockingly, those conversations are only sometimes rife with mutual ribbing. Lancelot actually can be (Magnus will never tell him) a good listener. And Magnus doesn't even threaten Lancelot to keep some of those conversations a secret or else, anymore, so that's growth, right?

It's thanks to those rare quiet talky lessons that Lancelot is the only person besides Alex and Sunny who knows Magnus killed Olaf. He actually knows a little about a lot of things, at this point: little smatterings of the stuff that's keeping Magnus from focusing, that Magnus shares so he can get them out of his own mind and return to form (i.e., training and teasing).

By rights, Magnus shouldn't be out of sorts today. Nothing out of his ordinary is weighing on him. But he just can't get it together, for some reason. He knows he's being obvious. Lancelot can definitely tell that Magnus is out of sorts. He's failing to land hits during obvious openings, and he's not getting his blocks into place in time, and he's getting more frustrated with his own slower-than-usual reactions than he has in months. After he nearly trips over his own feet, he sighs, drops his sword on the ground, and takes a lap around the clearing, tugging at the ends of his hair.

—-

After his conversation with Lancelot, feeling more — determined, at least, if not lightened — Magnus goes to hunt Janet down.

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I'm A Jack-Wielder Of All Trades [open post]

2025-07-29T18:27:21Z

It's springtime, and now that all the planned work on both the camp and Hanguang-jun's surprise garden is basically done, Magnus has a new project at hand! He's found a part of the Mansion that seems, so far, to be untouched and undiscovered: a derelict swimming pool that opens to a door in a hedge beyond which lies a path that leads to ten different gated gardens, each with different biomes^*. Each garden feels impossibly large inside, and yet circumnavigating it with one hand on the boundary hedge never takes longer than twenty minutes. One garden is an oasis in the middle of a desert; another evokes the wilds of Jotunheim, a third -- with just the barest pathway to walk upon to keep your feet above water -- boasts thick, tropical mangroves. There's a dense, humid temperate rainforest, lianas stretching up along tree-trunks, an open prairie strewn with wildflowers, and an area that, upon research, turns out to be an Afro-alpine slope, giant lobelia stretching from solifluction hummocks, stubby strawflower and inflorescent giant groundsels dotting the landscape^**.

He sets up base camp at the doorway between the pool and the hedges. He has no experience with glazing windows, and so the cracks in the roof he's leaving be for the time being - at least until he can track Dad down and ask for help figuring it out. But he can scrub down the flooring and make, like, signs or maps or something, so that everyone knows all this stuff is here. And obviously he's going to have to explore all the biomes in order to make appropriate signage.

This is a lengthy undertaking, ultimately, and Magnus would love company for any restoration or exploration work.

*Think Chrestomanci's garden, but slightly less trap-y
**The other four biomes are threaders' choice!

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Does This Count As Arts and Crafts? [closed]

2025-06-22T17:12:06Z

In the wake of Dark, Magnus takes a day or two to dig camp out from the snow drifts with Alex, then presents himself, finally, for lessons with Hanguang-jun.

They've been talking about it for a while, him and Hanguang-jun and Galahad — since Magnus first got weird about Galahad becoming Hanguang-jun's student. By now, he pretty much knows he's not going to stop feeling weird about stepping into a lesson with the two of them — even one totally unrelated to sword stuff — so he might as well rip off that proverbial bandaid.

He's a largely punctual guy, a trait recently intensified by Sunny's interest in making plans to hang out in one week and Magnus's role in keeping her calendar, but there is still a lot of snow to fight through to get to the Mansion's doors. He's a little breathless when he sweeps into the agreed-upon room, raking melting snow out of his hair with his fingers.

"What's up, my favorite comedians?"

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Trick Or Treat... But DON'T Smell Sunny's Feet!!!! [open]

2025-05-23T00:15:09Z

It's Dark now, and Magnus has been preparing. He doesn't want Sunny to get bored or to feel the pervasive lack of the month, and so he's been squirreling away the necessary items for fun. It's not a surprise activity — Sunny has been on board since the very beginning, helping pick out exactly what they need to make it truly exceptional — but it does have a very intensive prep.

Finally, about a week into the month, they reach a point of cabin fever where the time seems right. It's not so intense that they're truly cranky, but they're definitely both in need of some diversion. Apu's cold is waning, and Far's isn't very advanced, and so Sunny allows that she can take a break from playing nurse (a word which here means verrrry carefully but verrrry insistently bringing them both cup after cup of water) to play Halloween instead.

And so, equipped with a closet full of costumes and an enormous basket, they start their rotation of Every Single Door In The Mansion (And All Other Non-Mansion Buildings Where People Live). Magnus knocks loudly, Sunny at his side, poised to say the magic words.

Halloween! In... May. When tagging in, please just get your character to the point of opening the door: we're going to describe Magnunny's costumes in our first tags!

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They Say That If You Build It... Something Will Happen? [open post]

2025-03-30T01:19:57Z

It's winter now, deep enough into the season that drifts of snow cover the grounds, marred only by the desire paths formed by the regular routes residents tend to take as they go about their days: between the Mansion's many doors and the greenhouses, the training ground, the stable, Magnus and Alex's camp (which is cozier than ever), the not-so-secret training clearing deep in the forest, his family's house, the regular archery range and the forest archery range, the pier, the beach... okay, there are actually a ton of desire paths cobwebbing around the grounds.

There is a large swath of unadulterated snow along the gentle hill to the left of the Mansion's main entrance, and it's here that Magnus is setting up shop. First he drags out a folding table. Then he goes to the kitchen for, like, so many carrots and powdered Kool-aid singles and Crystal Light packs and maple syrup and condensed milk and hot chocolate sachets and bags of tea. Then he goes to the arts and crafts room in the basement for popsicle sticks, buttons, and a box of dress-up clothes. Finally, he drags over his outdoor fireplace from camp, lights it, and sets his grill grates over it. Upon this he places a huge pot of water and a smaller pot of the maple syrup; the final pot (which has a bag of popcorn kernels, a bottle of oil, a salt shaker, and a bag of sugar tucked underneath the lid) he sets to the side.

Then, confident he'll soon have people stopping by to see what's up, he starts rolling snowballs.

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I Turn, Um... Uh... Sixteen? For The Tenth? Time???? [open post]

2025-01-13T15:24:52Z

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.

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Jack, Please Sing Me "The Best Day" By Your Favorite Dwarf Diva [interlude]

2025-01-03T16:25:17Z

Magnus knows his mom is coming, he just doesn't know when. So while he's always been a tidy guy, he ratchets up several levels as summer fades into autumn. (After all, the last vistor's day was in the fall!)

Camp is always spotless, or at least as spotless as an outdoor living situation can be. He organizes and reorganizes his cooler, and starts putting the stuff that doesn't need to be weather-protected onto the shelves he and Laertes have been building. There's a proper sort of lean-to shanty half-built on the far side of the clearing — the opposite side from Magnus and Alex's bed-and-belongings set-up. Mostly it's going to be space to store Alex's artwork and outfits — plus Magnus's few belongings — but there's a planned dedicated space on one side for Drosera to sleep now that she's gotten way too big for her dog beds and bird perches. With Alex and Galahad's help, he figures out how to build a big swing that hangs from the branch he'd climbed when Shen Yuan painted him; it doubles as extra seating. The trampoline is pristine; the makeshift shelter he built before Alex arrived looks more like a permanent outdoor camp than a cobbled-together array of tarps and canvases. It's perfect for the changing of the season and the cooling weather, though he does make a mental note to ask Dad(s) if he and Alex can come crash if there's another blizzard like there was at the end of Dark last year. (They'd survived, obviously, and mostly been cozy after the snow covered camp, but it was... a lot.)

It's a lovely autumn morning when Natalie does come. Magnus has, for once, not picked Sunny up for adventures bright and early — their plans are for after lunch — but he still wakes up at the buttcrack of dawn every day now out of habit, so he takes advantage of the time to do his and Alex's laundry back at the mansion. He's freshly arrived back at the camp, kneeling on his favorite patch of moss, folding one of Alex's fluffy skirts when—

"Hey, pumpkin."

Boxer shorts and t-shirts go flying. "Mom," Magnus cries, dashing headlong into a hug. He doesn't feel like pulling his strength, so he sweeps her up instead, spinning her around, laughing and laughing and laughing.

They take an hour or so to catch up. Magnus tells her all about his life —

"Pumpkin, I'm so sorry I left you alone to deal with all of that."

"It's not your fault, mom. I did my best. I didn't go to Randolph, I—" and he's crushed against her side again as she pulls him into a hug.

— and death —

Natalie's lips thin when he mentions Randolph's quest for the sword, and her face blanches when he tells her about Surt. There's a stormy look behind her eyes as he talks about the all-faith chapel, but the look softens when he tells her about Annabeth. Throughout, her hand is warm on his, her grip steady, unchanging.

—and afterlife. He makes a big show of ignoring her when she tries to apologize for not telling him about his heritage, and instead tells her about his valkyrie and his hallmates and his Alex. She tells him she's proud of him for stopping Loki and postponing Ragnarok, and when he tells her that Alex is sometimes his girlfriend and sometimes his boyfriend, she gives him a resounding kiss to his forehead. And she looks misty enough when he mentions meeting Frey that he doesn't complain for even one second about how useless Frey can be, just says that he managed to visit here once during the summer.

"And where's 'here,' pumpkin?" Natalie asks, glancing around. "It doesn't look like Valhalla..."

"It's not, it's some... pocket world," Magnus tells her. "Not one of the Nine. It's mostly totally separate."

"Mostly?"

"Sometimes stuff leaks through. Hanguang-jun's brother gets his letters. Frey heard a few of my prayers."

"A few of your—!" and she crushes him to her side again. "You? Praying?"

Magnus laughs, ducking his head. "I know. I know. I was surprised too. It's, um." He pauses, then admits, "Mostly snarky."

Natalie laughs, misty-eyed. "That's my boy," she says, fondly.

"There's, um, some people you should probably — I mean, would you like to meet some of the people here? The important ones? To me?" When Alex came, she wanted to wander and get to know the place on her own terms, because she's Alex; that's her way. But Magnus isn't letting his mother out of his sight until she gets yanked away by the powers that be. "They're, like. Sort of like my adoptive family at this point."

"Okay, kiddo," and when Natalie gets to her feet, she's as limber as he remembers, easily rising. She's so, so beautiful with her blonde pixie cut and sharp green eyes and the wicked smile — with its fledgling smile lines — etched into her mouth. She still looks the same as he remembers — forty-two, athletic, always ready to laugh — which he guesses does make sense.

He loves her so much. He rises, too, and as he's rising tells her, "I love you so much. I missed you so m—" and again, the rest of the word gets muffled in a hug.

(It feels, Magnus thinks, like there's a spell over her visit. Like if he asks her where she went when she died, he'll break it. (There isn't a spell. He still — he'll let her tell him, if she wants to, and he won't pry. He's just happy to have her.))

Eventually, she asks, "So who exactly are all these people?"

Magnus purses his lips. "Hanguang-jun is probably the easiest to find. He and Galahad will be done with training and he'll be doing his, like, sky patrol right about now. Alex is at the kiln, so we can make our way there. And then... well, you can come with me to lunch and meet Sagramore and Sunny and Laertes." He takes his mom by the hand and leads her from the trees, explaining who these people are to him as they walk.

( Hanguang-jun )
( Alex )
( Sagramore )
( Sunny )
( Laertes )+++
Lunch is a rambunctious affair, and Magnus's heart is so, so full throughout it. He wishes Alex was feeling up to joining them — especially since Sunny is still jealously subdued, and he really thinks they could do with talking to each other — but his mom gets along well with everyone, and he's teased within an inch of his life. He helps do the dishes after, trying to coax Sunny into a smile and letting Mom have a parent-parent conference in lowered voices with Dadgramore behind them, and then asks if Sunny still wants to keep their afternoon plans, since his mom would definitely be joining them.

She doesn't, and so his next order of business is leaving a note for Alex at camp about the whole affair, and then he and his mom are packing up for a night under the stars. "We could find our own camp spot," he tells her, "but also my Evil Twin gave Galahad Frey-dad's boat, so we could also do that. Oh, you have to meet Galahad, he's my best friend, he can sketch us! And take our picture! And if we run into Claudius or Uncle D or Shen Yuan or, like, I guess my sword teacher, I'll introduce you, too. And—"

"Honey," Natalie says, pulling Magnus into a firm hug. "Slow down. We have a full day ahead of us. We have time for everything."

Magnus takes a deep breath and doesn't argue that one day isn't long enough. He wants so much more time, but... he's also so thrilled to have any time at all. "Okay," he says, and gives his mom one more squeeze. "Okay. One thing at a time. Wanna hike?"

"Yeah, pumpkin," says Natalie. "I really do."

Single-tag reactions from other residents encountering them on their post-lunch walk are welcome - and ones from the characters Magnus specifically mentioned at the end are especially encouraged!

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I Engage In Some Brotherly Fainting [interlude/closed post]

2024-12-30T05:06:40Z

Magnus hasn't told any of his numerous fathers his plan because he knows they'd put the kibosh on it immediately. Sunny knows, because he's doing it for her. Alex knows, because he's definitely going to be passing out in front of him. Galahad knows, because Magnus likes to keep him in the loop, and because Galahad needs to explain things to SecUnit if SecUnit notices and gets worried. (SecUnit doesn't know, up front, even though Magnus promised to tell it about dangerous activities, for essentially the same reasons he's not telling his dads.)

He takes Sunny flying around on Jack after lunch and then, when he returns Sunny to their dads, sends Jack racing around the entire diameter of their whole world a couple of times while he wrestles with Alex (in varying animal forms) and then wrestles with Alex (in an entirely different and human way). And then he spends about half an hour meditating on Sunny's siblings, and when he's so tired that he can barely keep his eyes open, he calls Jack back and returns him to pendant form, thinking Violet and Klaus. Violet and Klaus the entire time.

He can feel Alex catching his collapsing body, and then everything goes dark.

First, his dreams show him Blitzen and Samirah in the dressing room at Blitzen's Best. Sam is being fitted into her wedding dress; Blitzen has pliers out and is adjusting the chain mail lace detail at the edge of her hijab. Magnus takes a very careful mental snapshot of that so he can describe it to Alex later.

Next, his dreams show him Annabeth, chewing on the end of a ballpoint pen in one of her graduate classes. He can make out a slide about tensile strength of... something or another; in the corner of her notes, she's doodling blueprints for what looks like a truly awesome tree house.

Violet and Klaus, he thinks sternly. His dream slides past Hearthstone and TJ at the Chase Space helping some kid in the kitchen, past Mallory and Halfborn on what seems to be a date in Jotunheim, past Freya scratching the scruff of one of her cats...

...and then it slots into a scene he doesn't recognize.

Outside of a rather large hotel stand three figures. Two of them are Violet and Klaus Baudelaire, who Magnus will undoubtedly recognize, but the third is an unknown man wearing a suit with the word ‘MANAGER’ embroidered over the pocket of the jacket. A taxi pulls up, and two adults step out.

“Justice Strauss!” Violet calls at the same time that Klaus says, “Jerome Squalor!”

“I’m so happy to find you, I was afraid I’d never see you again,” Justice Strauss says as she hugs the two Baudelaires in turn. “I’ll never forgive myself for letting that idiotic banker take you away from me.”

“And I’ll never forgive myself for walking away from you children,” Jerome says, wrapping the two Baudelaires up in one singular large bear hug. “I’m afraid I wasn’t a very good guardian. As soon as I heard all about what happened to poor Sunny – Well. I began my own Baudelaire research.”

Justice Strauss and Jerome Squalor explain to Violet and Klaus how they both were researching everything that had happened to the Baudelaires, both before and after Sunny mysteriously vanished. How they ended up learning about a secret organization known as V.F.D., and that volunteers from that organization had been leaving both of them letters and notes.

“Wherever I looked for you, Baudelaires, and wherever I looked for Sunny, I found selfish plots to steal your fortune. I read books on injustice in all the libraries you left behind and eventually wrote a book myself. Odious Lusting After Finance chronicles the history of greedy villains, treacherous girlfriends, bungling bankers, and all the other people responsible for injustice.”

“No matter what we do, however, we can’t erase the wrongs we did you, Baudelaires,” Justice Strauss says, regret evident in her voice.

“She’s right. We should have been as noble as you are.”

“You’re noble enough,” Violet tells them as Klaus nods in agreement, and all four hug again.

The four, as well as the man wearing the MANAGER jacket, talk more, about V.F.D, something about a sugar bowl, about how Count Olaf has something called the Medusoid Mycelium, but most notably, they talk about how the next morning Count Olaf and his associates are going to stand trial, that Jerome and Justice Strauss and other members of the mysterious organization have compiled evidence against him, and how hopefully all of the Baudelaire orphans’ worries will be over.

“You’ll never have to hide from Olaf again, or worry that anyone will steal your fortune,” Jerome tells them, and they hug once more as a large clock in the top of the hotel chimes out.

The world starts to go dark around Magnus's field of vision.

No, no, he insists. I need to see more—

But the world is fading around the edges. Magnus gets a good look at Violet and Klaus's faces — they're healthy, though they look worried — and then all he sees is a regular dream about Drosera wearing a judge wig that looks kind of like the one Justice Strauss sometimes puts on and acting as arbiter of animal justice among the deer and squirrels and occasional goats of this world.

When he wakes up, he's worn out. He kisses Alex good morning (...well. Good evening) and says, with a great deal of relief and a small amount of consternation, "It worked... but I don't really understand what I saw."

Then he kisses Alex some more, and after a good few moments of getting carried tiredly away, says, "We should probably eat dinner at the cottage tonight. I have a lot to talk to Sunny about."

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It's Parent-Teacher Midafternoon At The Ol' Secret Training Grounds [closed]

2024-12-12T23:27:42Z

Magnus, who now definitely knows that many mansion residents keep specific daily schedules (thanks Galahad!), can reliably find Hanguang-jun whenever he needs him. (Unless it's the part of the schedule when Hanguang-jun is alone with Wei Wuxian, in which case Magnus can find him but, for the sake of his own mental peace, elects to never ever do that unless it's a genuine emergency.) He can also reliably find Galahad, Sunny, at least one of their shared fathers, Tress, and sometimes Claudius, except Claudius's unpredictability is genuinely unpredictable, as opposed to, say, Tally's unpredictability, which is predictably unpredictable.

Lancelot is definitely a regular schedule kind of guy, but outside of their training sessions, Magnus has no idea what it is. Magnus asks Galahad since Galahad is his go-to calendar and schedules guy; Galahad's brow wrinkles infinitesimally in the way that, on someone else, would be an incredulous, laughing 'what are you up to?' and his lips quirk when Magnus clarifies that he has really reasonable regular normal reasons for wanting to know. (Then Galahad tells him Susan's schedule, which is helpful, because Magnus is generally interested in avoiding her.)

All of this to say that Magnus doesn't actually manage to track Lancelot down and give him a heads up on the same morning he non-randomly encounters Hanguang-jun after dropping Sunny back with their dads, and impulsively asks "So, wanna do parent-teacher conference day? Me and Lancelot train after lunch in that clearing way out past Dads' house."

Whatever. He'd cleared that it was okay with Lancelot at, like, some point, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

So in the end, Lancelot gets about thirty seconds' warning that Hanguang-jun will be joining, between when Magnus rocks up, practice sword in one hand, shield in the other, and Jack flying around behind him, calling, "How's it going, Swordmaster Dickface^*? We've got company today," and when Hanguang-jun alights from Bichen.

*He's still workshopping appropriate nicknames

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It's Turning Into A Real P.D. Eastman Book Over Here [closed]

2024-11-21T22:18:16Z

Right! Okay. So the thing is that Magnus has a father (Frey), and he also has a father (Sagramore), and he also has a father figure (Hanguang-jun), and one of his fathers (Sagramore) has a husband (Laertes) who apparently wants to be a father, too, even though he brother-coded himself in the past???

(Alex teases Magnus sometimes for the full-on Father Web he's creating on one of the pages in his sketchbook back at camp. He's using red ink to draw out the lines, for the verisimilitude.)

He's sought insight from Father Figure Hanguang-jun and Father Haver Sunny Baudelaire. He's sought insight from Father Hater Alex Fierro. He hasn't sought insight from Original Father Frey, because that seemed like the wrong vibe for Frey's short little visit -- better not mention any dads at all, really -- but Adoptive Father Sagramore did have a few things to say, here and there.

It's time to go straight to the source! Luckily Laertes is a guy with a lot of interests, so Magnus has an easy list of places to look for him. Magnus tracks him down at the easiest one (read: returns Sunny to her house for lunch), and after he helps himself to some of the meal, too, he turns to Laertes and says, "Hey. Can we, like, go for a walk?"

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YOU Get A Big Banana, and YOU Get A Big Banana, and YOU Get A Big Banana! [closed post]

2024-11-19T20:26:36Z

"Okay, just another minute," Magnus says.

It's a hot day out, so holding Galahad's hand is a sweaty affair... and Magnus's current use of his alf seidr isn't making matters any more comfortable. The grass is tickling at Magnus's back -- his shirt has ridden up while he lies, spread-eagle, in the middle of the lawn. Galahad is always so smart about his clothes, Magnus bets he's not getting the grass itches at all.

But he can put all that aside. Grass tickles are good tickles, and the heat of the sun is -- to Magnus -- always more refreshing than it is annoying. There's a trickle of sweat at the side of his neck, but even though it's hot out it's not really a temperature extreme, so as usual he feels regular about it.

All his attention is on the plants around them. Feverfew and milkweed, black-eyed susan and queen anne's lace, aster and boneset and flowering spurge and yarrow and tickseed and teasel and wild thyme and forget-me-nots and poppies and and and -- well. He's not sure what else is in the mix. He's been trying to get better at plant identification with Claudius's guidance, but the package he found earlier that morning only said FIELD SEEDS. He's doing his best! Right now, his 'best' is less focused on identification and more focused on growing them to flower, high enough that some of them are providing shade to both him and Galahad, in a very neat outline of the grass they've politely crushed between the two of them.

Eventually, he's done all he can without overtaxing the plants. "There," he tells Galahad. "Summer snow angels, check."

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What's The Optimal Number Of Dads? My New Double Little Sister Weighs In On The Matter! [closed]

2024-11-13T05:32:13Z

Magnus has a huge agenda planned for his Magnus-and-Sunny time today. Not riding Drosera, sadly, but he thinks probably the dads should be there at least at the beginning. And maybe Galahad too, since they found it for her together, even though that's maybe a little awkward, socially. But there's plenty of other big plans!

After lunch (with Sagramore and Laertes, too, of course), he takes Sunny exploring in some new rooms he and Galahad recently discovered in the basement, because they're (literally, temperature-wise) cool and he's noticed she can get overheated on hotter summer days. Then, he takes her deep into the woods to show her the secret garden he and Claudius have almost finished from Hanguang-jun, since she's great at keeping secrets and has unparalleled excellence of opinion. Finally, and with her consent, he puts her in a baby-backpack he found, and starts climbing the tallest tree in the entire forest, as high up as he can trust will hold them both. It's no Yggdrasil, but it is tall enough that they can look out over the tops of a lot of the other trees and see pretty much their entire world - the lake and her house stretching out to the left, the leaf-obscured path to his and Alex's camp in front of them, and the shining endless sea to the right.

"The deal is either I hold you or you're attached to the branch with a harness," Magnus warns, once he gets a sense of just how far down the ground is. "Just to be safe. Or else we climb down halfway. Okay?"

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Perhaps Instead Of A Homeless Teen I Shoulda Been A 19th Century Newsboy, Given All These Headlines

2024-11-03T00:18:47Z

It's been a big few days in general, and this day, specifically, has also been pretty big, and so Magnus does the number two thing that reliably lets him reach a place where he feels more grounded: he goes to Hanguang-jun's parlor at a time when Hanguang-jun is also there playing music. (Number one, of course, is burying his face against Alex's belly and groaning. Number three, embarrassingly, is still finding a summery spot outside and praying to his dad.)

This time, he has a stack of comic books to go through -- he wants to start making tailored recommendation lists, for Tally and Lancelot (who he's made general recommendations to), but also for Galahad and Sagramore and Sunny and Hanguang-jun and Gideon and Shen Yuan and Gu Xiang and Tress and Nina. So he lays on the ground for a while, paging through issues while Hanguang-jun quietly picks out a tune on his qin and Danding nibbles his hair.

But after about half an hour, he's still got excitement and overstimulation brimming through his veins, so he sets Sensational She-Hulk #39 to one side (it's definitely going on Lancelot's list, probably also Tally's, possibly also Gideon's), twists his head, and waits for a lull in the music. When it comes, he says, "Hanguang-jun? I have... stuff. Not crisisy stuff. Mostly good stuff, and also... some questionsy stuff."

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In The Immortal Words Of The Svartalf Hilary Duff, Let The Rain Fall Down

2024-09-15T00:42:13Z

After everything is over -- Aornis's death and funeral, the final preparation for and delivery of the wedding, and 90% of Magnus's task list for the week (checking to make sure the plant bodies are unaffected by any potential Aornis-ghost and still growing normally, getting Sunny formally adopted by her new dads, showing up bright and early in the morning to steal breakfast and establish that just because they're officially her dads doesn't mean he's going to stop being her brother, talking through the Charlie stuff with Tress, spending time in Uncle D's garden just feeling the sun soak into his skin, some cathartic cliff-jumps with Alex and Gu Xiang, trying to teach Drosera to fly before giving up and asking Alex to tag in, staring into the middle distance worrying that his and Galahad's relationship might change now that Galahad is married, and hardcore early-summer kitchen gardening) -- Magnus takes a deep breath. It's time.

He finishes up in the garden, loading up all the fresh ripe produce into a basket. Then he swings by the stable, where he tells Lancelot that he might not make it to practice that afternoon because he needs to tell Hanguang-jun about what they've been doing.

Then he squares his shoulders and goes to find Hanguang-jun in his favorite kitchen, cooking for his husband.

"Brought you some veggies," Magnus says, putting the basket on the counter.

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I'm Not Actually An Elaborate Dominoes Enthusiast [closed post]

2024-09-01T20:10:17Z

Ever since Magnus learned that Hanguang-jun keeps a regular schedule, he's been doing his best to memorize it. Without asking Galahad to tell it to him, because that just seems like it's cheating.

It helps that Magnus already knows about Galahad's training time, which he does sometimes now crash... just to watch, not to participate; it's an inoculation against the jealousy that still clings at the edges of his vision whenever he watches them interact. But now he knows the times Hanguang-jun flies around to survey the grounds, and the times that he's in his room doing stuff Magnus doesn't need to know about, and the times he's in the kitchens cooking, and --

Well. Anyway. It's helpful, because now that the secret garden he and Claudius are growing for Hanguang-jun is getting big, he can, like, try to cover it so Hanguang-jun can't see it from the air.

It's also helpful on a day like today, when he's been worrying over his conversation with Luo Binghe and (admittedly) getting a little worked up over the thought of what needs to happen to bring Aornis down. He's sitting on a log just outside of tree cover, watching the skies for Hanguang-jun and Bichen, ruminating. When they fly into his field of vision, he leaps up, waving Hanguang-jun down.

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What's In An Unknowable Birthday? I Guess We'll Find Out!

2024-08-19T23:38:49Z

Magnus is a man on a mission. Actually, he's a man on several missions, but now that he's successfully pulled off the bachelorette part of Galahad's wedding, this one stands out as of particular import. As such, he has a pad of construction paper chock-full of notes tucked in his backpack and he's swinging briefly into every room he passes, on the lookout for Grantaire.

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I'm No Party-Throwing Expert But I Do Think This Is Gonna Be A Good One!

2024-08-16T17:26:39Z

The first day of summer dawns bright and warm, a steady breeze stirring through the trees. The day itself is a flurry of activity: Magnus and Tress meet up in the kitchen early in the morning to start throwing together refreshments for Galahad's party. They make three kinds of cookies, and also a tray of flat brownies — Magnus has it in his head that half of the cookies and all of the brownies should be turned into ice cream sandwiches and, accordingly, tracks down Susan (who seems to know everything about this place) to get her to produce a deep freezer for Legoland. (She has that look on her face like he smells bad the whole time, but when he mentions it's for the bachelorette, at least she seems slightly less cold and standoffish.)

While the baked goods cool, Magnus ransacks the pantry for chips and candy and stuff for sandwiches. He lets Tress handle ice cream selection; when they find boxes of Bagel Bites in the freezer, he cheers. Legoland definitely has a microwave; they plugged the freezer into the same outlet. (Is a bachelorette the same thing as a slumber party? Maybe!)

It's early evening by the time everything is done and set up, even with Alex and Tress's help. He decides that the substantial food and record player should both be reserved for Legoland, partly because it does have electricity. They lug a big old table up to the top of the tower for the taste tests, and then an easel with giant post-it notes for the 'naming Mansion constellations' portion of the evening, and then a bunch of the smaller easels, sketchpads, and a selection of different art supplies (markers, crayons, watercolors, pencils, acrylic paints) he and Sunny have been tracking down and hoarding, for the bestiality portion of the evening.

After sending Tress and Alex off so they can get ready, he sets up for the taste tests: bowls full of different candies (white rabbit, hopjes, strawberry-flavored fizzing warheads, Reeses's cluster bites, Haribo gummy goldbears, hundred grand bars, red vines, salmiak licorice, candied verdant vines (Tress made them), and nerd ropes), bowls full of chips (Takis in the flavors angry burger, blue heat, and dragon sweet chili; Lays in the flavors Wasabi Octopus, All Dressed, Cappuccino, White Rabbit Rich Toffee (to compare with the actual white rabbit candy), and Pimento Cheese), and several cloth bags covering different red-flavored sodas, with wine tasting note cards so people can try to guess which is Code Red, which is Big Red, which is Cheerwine, and (in a fond nod to Alex), which is Tizer. He completes the array with a stack of paper for general ranking notes for the candy and chips. (There are also a couple child-sized easels and ranking sheets, for Mothwing and Sunny, but Magnus did also bring regular water for her and Sunny, a fish supplied by Drosera for Mothwing, and some carrots and apple slices for Sunny. There is also an easel and notepad for Shen Yuan, even though he's just a ghost and probably can't manipulate it, but he knocked once for yes when Magnus asked his growing body if he was going to make it.)

Finally, after convincing Drosera that she should absolutely wear a cute little bolo tie and party hat for this, he darts into the mansion for a quick shower, a change into one of the outfits Galahad picked for him when they tried on clothes, and to collect the groom himself. He presents Galahad with a white sash embroidered in gold; it reads GROOM TO BE. There's also a little tiara that he found in their bedroom. He assumes it's a cheap gimmicky one, but it's actually filigree red and white gold with real sapphires, diamonds, and pearls — he just picked it because it's delicate and will blend in with Galahad's hair in a way that will let the sapphires really pop.

Stages of the night will be posted in parent comments; everyone is welcome to thread with whoever in response to those! Awkward social interactions between people who aren't necessarily friendly are encouraged.

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I May Not Be Best Man But I'm Still Best Man, If You Know What I Mean [interlude]

2024-07-26T22:00:06Z

Across the next two days, the following individuals will have the following invitation hand-delivered to them whenever Magnus happens to run across them: Enjolras, Gideon, Gu Xiang, Laertes, Lan Wangji, Mothwing, SecUnit, Sunny, Susan, Tress, and Shen Yuan's growing plant body. Alex, who is a good chunk of the entertainment on deck, also gets one; Magnus gives himself one for good measure, too. The final invitation, of course, goes to Galahad.

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Look, It's Been A Really Weird Week [closed post]

2024-07-25T21:10:54Z

Magnus's day is already pretty thrown off, between surprise Hanguang-jun morning hangs (definitely positive) and coming clean to Alex about training with Lancelot (mostly positive), which led directly to Alex coming along to afternoon training (weird, but ultimately extremely good), so that he can... vet Lancelot??? Have a fun little spar with Magnus???? Tease them both mercilessly??? Anyway, it's fun! It feels kind of like the best part of old times, except Magnus is actually kind of good now that he's had formal training, and even though he knows Alex, like, super well, Alex is always a wildcard with fighting, and it's nice to have things shaken up in training now that Magnus is also getting used to how Lancelot fights.

All this to say that he somehow hasn't seen Galahad yet, even though usually by now he's spent several hours with Galahad. So after dinner, he heads back up to the Mansion with the dual purposes of finding (1) Galahad and (2) art supplies for his next time-sensitive project.

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New Plan, Step One: Provide For My Community [open]

2024-06-12T15:27:51Z

Magnus needs something to change, so when a Mansion calendar helpfully informs him that it's International Falafel Day back on Earth, he goes to the library for some cookbooks, and then to the kitchen.

He lays out ten different falafel recipes. He gathers the ingredients they list, as best as he can understand them. He has canned chickpeas and fresh chickpeas and dried chickpeas and chickpea flour and box mixes of falafel that say 'just add water!'

Cripes.

"I can do this," he says, peering at the assorted recipes intently for a good ten minutes, and then takes the dried chickpeas over to the sink to rinse and soak.

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Just Call Me Interiority Guy [interlude]

2024-06-11T21:57:16Z

cw: nondescript references to Shen Yuan's death

It's different now.

Magnus isn't ignorant of the facts. He knows his own M.O. when the stuff hits the fan: run, focusing just on the next step he needs to take at every turn to keep from tripping and falling flat on his face, with a great and amorphous fear of what the future might hold looming above it all. When he was homeless, he focused on what he needed to do for his next meal, for his next park bench, to dodge the next cop who would like nothing better than to be a dick to a homeless kid with a record. He wanted to survive, but what life would look like in five, ten, fifteen years... that was never something he had the time or wherewithal to consider. His first three years in Valhalla were just battle after battle, quest after quest, an exercise in learning to trust other people again, in learning to let himself rely on them. In learning to actually live for the moment, instead of being laser-focused on each small next step forward. In not just running away to save his own skin, but to also know when to knuckle down and stand his ground and fight.

He hadn't had the time to process his mom's death until he got to Valhalla and had to process his own at the same time, and even then, the processing was curtailed by the fact that he was thrust immediately into escalating and desperate attempts to prevent Ragnarok. And even after they managed to circumvent it for at least a good few decades, there were still daily Battle Practice, and strange little smaller quests, and managing the Chase Space. Life in Valhalla -- at least for an einherji who also ran a shelter for homeless youth -- wasn't exactly slow.

That's one thing Magnus has had to adapt to, here: the slowness and openness of time. He can spend a week just teaching himself how to fix up busted old bikes. He can use his powers, not just for survival, but to grow vegetables and fruits and bodies. He's really, really enjoying learning to grow things even without alf seidr -- to just let them do their thing naturally while he tends to them the way that regular gardeners do. But with all that unstructured time, there's so much space for processing. He knows he's had grumpier spells here than he would back in Valhalla, that he's been more emotionally volatile and clingy than has typically been usual for him, or at least not since - well. Not since middle school at least. He's not ignorant of that. It's weird. It's nothing like the panic attacks that would intersperse his asthma as a kid, but it's still like something burbling up and breaking through: an off-gassing of feelings he thought he knew what to deal with.

In a way -- just like after he, himself, almost died, in those weeks when he was in the greenhouse every day just growing, growing, growing -- it's been a relief lately to have so many next steps to focus on. It's allowed him to tighten up, to keep focused and busy. There's Uncle D's garden, there's Hanguang-jun's garden, there's his own secret training with Lancelot, there's babysitting. And then, of course, there's Shen Yuan's mushroom-fruit-herb-thing body, where he spends every moment of free time, meditating and trying to share the 'summer qi' Shen Yuan had talked about as being particularly good for the bodies. He's also, honestly, been leaning a lot on Alex, spending significantly more time with him every day than they really have since he recovered from that falling sword, feeling a little guilty that he's eating into the time that Alex (and Magnus, too) likes to have to bop around and do his own thing, even though he knows Alex is more than willing to be there for him, with him. And, like, he knows that if Alex never showed up here, he could handle all of this, but...

It's one of the things that are different here, actually. Magnus doesn't have to handle it all on his own. Back in Valhalla, he had friends, and he had people he decided were family, like Hearth and Blitz and Sam. Here, too, he has friends, and people he's decided are family, like Galahad and Hanguang-jun and... well. It's a long list. He's known for years that his strength is his community, and that the best thing he can do for the world is make friends and enable those friends to shine in what they do best. The best way to save the world is as a team, working in concert.

But back in Valhalla, everyone had the same frame of reference, even if they had different attitudes and experiences and beliefs. It was normal to die and to have the trajectory of your life arcing toward the knowledge of your final death. The point was to get to a place of accepting it without letting it -- or the passage of time -- overwhelm you enough that you faded into Ginnungagap. The gods were a necessary and predictable annoyance, like Battle Practice and making sure the Chase Space didn't run out of toilet paper. Magnus knew where he stood in that world. He knew what was expected of him, and he didn't particularly care if he met or exceeded or even fell short of those expectations, as long as Ragnarok was kept at bay and he was true to himself and his people.

He still hasn't figured out where, exactly, he fits into this world. It's not a bad thing — it might even be a good one — but it is different. And not just because there's actual adults here who don't all suck, and who genuinely seem interested in making sure Magnus doesn't have everything on his plate for the first time since his mom died. There are also so many different perspectives and frames of reference and attitudes, enough that it's not really clear to Magnus what people are bent toward here. If there is a shared goal, or if everyone here is also just taking each next small step. There's no Ragnarok here to prevent, no definitive conclusion to work toward or to try and move away from, no concrete clear enemy to fight. It's destabilizing for a guy used to worrying about the future, even if most of his attention is focused on carefully making sure that the ground is solid for each next step forward but not being able to attend to whether it's taking you closer to or further from your final destination. Something is happening, but why? How do they stop it? How does Magnus hype up his community so they can save the day? What is there even to do to save the day? He can help bring Shen Yuan back, but what if more people get attacked? Magnus really, really doesn't want to be right about being the only person who can survive that kind of thing.

Also, it's too small to effectively just run from the danger and keep running. Not that he wants to. He likes the community he has here, likes that — even though sometimes he forgets — there are people here he trusts completely. But sitting with it,with the uncertainty and danger, is hard. And the more people challenge his assumptions — about what he's responsible for, about how the world works, about when he should set down his own load and trust himself to rely on others — the harder it is to know which next step to take.

It was like that when he first got here, too, when he kept trying to pray to Frey. He can't remember when he stopped doing that. Since Easter, maybe? And even before that he was praying less and less, and turning to the people here more and more. Things here are different. He's known that for months as he's tried to search for meaning, some endpoint, in the wake of deliberately giving up on Valhalla, but he's really feeling it lately. Running, one step at a time, might not work anymore.

He doesn't know the right play, though. And so he leans on Alex. He grits his teeth and grimly trains, harder than he ever has before, with Lancelot. He ripens Shen Yuan's body, sometimes with Luo Binghe there (usually in silence), sometimes alone. He works in the greenhouses with Claudius and the garden with Uncle D. He hangs out with Sunny. He watches Galahad and Hanguang-jun train as he takes Drosera out to try and teach her how to hunt. It's still the cool part of spring, but the best part is teaching Dro to fish — he can stick his feet in the frigid water and calm down enough to catch his breath, and laugh at the way she splashes in the shallows of the lake. He tries to picture what the future might look like.

It's different here. So many people are mortal; so few people look at him as a final bulwark against the crumbling of the world. The strength of Alex's sensitive clay-working fingers is the same; so is the sparkling, teasing light in her eyes as she ribs Magnus into getting out of his own head. The belief he has in the strength of his community hasn't changed — his greatest talent is, he thinks, still being a good friend to his friends.

"So maybe that's the next step," he tells Drosera as she stumbles out of the lake, beak dripping, a squirming fish caught tight in one talon. "Maybe I work on being a better friend."

baby kill!!! she tells him, proudly, utterly unconcerned with his inner turmoil as she bites the head off of the fish.

Magnus takes a deep breath and lets it go slowly. The amorphous fear that swirls around him and inside him loosens for just a moment, and he stands in place, watching Drosera eat the fish, watching Galahad and Hanguang-jun train up the hill, watching Laertes and Sagramore make their way into the woods and Mothwing come out of the foliage on the other side of the lake and Susan bustle past with her bow and quiver and the flash of color in Grantaire's window that means he's setting up his easel. It's a chilly morning, but the sunlight is getting warmer and warmer. He can feel it on his hair, trimmed again by Alex just that morning.

He wraps his hand around Jack and Hanguang-jun's jade token alike, closes his eyes, and breathes.

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