desperatefans | [Re-Introduction: Sir Dinadan]

Dinadan awakens, which is already several positive steps ahead of where he thought he'd be this morning (viz. in the void from which there is no awakening, or in the hereafter that he has done nothing particularly to avoid). A giddy thrill of relief washes through him. He cautiously cracks one eye open, and then the other. For a moment, the sunlight's brightness overwhelms him--an aching reminder that he is, somehow, alive.

But as the sunlight becomes bearable, he realizes that he is somehow, impossibly, once again, in Sagramore's cabbages.

"Christ, do you really only have one joke?" he calls to the sky--but he's grinning all the same. A life condemned to cabbages is better than a death condemned to Hell or the void, and given those are the only two options, he'll gladly take the cabbages.

Friends and strangers may find a tall, blond ~~knight~~ minstrel wandering around in Sagramore's borrowed clothes, occasionally strumming his rebec, definitely not touching anything he shouldn't.

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"Oh, well. It started with family squabbles, from what I can tell. Hortense got mad that her sister Henrietta kept eating her raisins and that their brother Hubert took up with Bessie Bushy-Tails, and then their mom Hildegarde found her mate Horatio bringing extra nuts to Hubert, and Hortense heard, and now Henrietta has gone off to live with Hubert and the Bushy-Tails and Hortense is maaaaaaad. If you hear a scolding when you're walking through the woods it's probably her. But she got a bunch of their friends to start burying caches of winter food in new spots that the rest of her family didn't know about, and now it's this whole big thing. I'm not allowed to play favorites or give one side more nuts than the other." He pauses, scratches his head. "I mean, I could, but then I wouldn't get my, like, daily squirrel soap opera slash spy network, so. I won't."

"Do they tell thee other people's secrets, or only other squirrels' secrets?"

"So, get this," Magnus says, grinning. "They find humans too incomprehensibly boring to pay attention to us, so I couldn't ask about people's secrets even if I wanted to." Which, generally, he doesn't; if they're secrets they're secrets. "I do hear a lot about other animals, though; they're how I learned about the sometimes-goat who shows up once a week for an hour or two in the middle of the woods. I figure it's, like Schrodinger's goat, and if I can catch it, it'll stay."

"Who's Schrodinger? Shouldst thou not return his goat to him, instead of trying to tempt it to thy father's menagerie?"

"He's this old philosopher. He had, like, cats or something? And boxes? I don't know. I do think probably he went to Folkvanger when he died. My aunt likes cat people." The implication here, not that Dinadan would know it, is that if Magnus had access to the Nine Worlds, he could ask Schrodinger about his deal.

Aha, more nonsense! Dinadan nods along as though any of that made the slightest sense. "So his goat's free for the taking, is what I'm hearing."

"Yeah. If and when it exists." Magnus's understanding of Schrodinger and what he's done is weak at best. His understanding of when he's saying things with no context is slightly better. "My aunt is Freya. You... probably haven't heard about her. Wait, where do you come from?"

"Cornwall." Helpfully, "It's technically British now, I think."

"That's near Wales, right? Where, um, uhhhhhhh, um, the fabulous Heilyn Gwyn opened a door? And not, like, close to Jorvik."

"Wales is at least a day's journey from Cornwall, if you're not pushing your horse--and you shouldn't," says Dinadan. "As for Jorvik ... hmm, doesn't ring a bell."

"Viking York?" Magnus tries.

"Ohh, York, why didst thou not say that in the first place? York's even further from Cornwall than Wales is."

"Cuz I know it as Jorvik. When are you from?"

"Cornwall; I just told thee."

Magnus is, it's safe to say, growing confused. "Cornwall is a when? I thought it was a where."

"Wait--what?"

"Everyone comes from a time and a place. Right? I came here from Valhalla in 2023, by way of Boston, in America. And I'd only been there eight years, so I'm, like, fairly modern, by the standards here. My best friend came here from, like... a different part of Britain. Camelot? If you've heard of that? In the year... ummm..." Has Galahad ever actually told him when he came from? "Twelve-something, maybe. And Hanguang-jun came from China in the 400s. For example."

"Wait, wait, wait," says Dinadan. "If thou art from my future, why dost thou call York by a name from my past?"

"Valhalla reasons?" Magnus says, and then snaps his fingers. "Oh. It might be helpful to know that I'm from a Viking afterlife. The only time I've been to Jo-- to York was when my girlfriend and our buddy TJ were fighting Hrungnir the stone giant. Plus our other friend Halfborn died when Ivar the Boneless invaded the area. So when you hear one name all the time... you tend to use that name."

"I see. It's all coming together now."

"So when are you from?"

"Roughly the same time as Sagramore, give or take a year or so."

"Roughly the same time as -- oh," Magnus says, snapping his fingers as he finally makes the connection. "Dinadan.... You're Dindin."

"I see Sunny talks about me more than Sagramore does."

"Yeah, well, Sunny tells me everything. And she liked you best of all the visitors, so there was a lot to say."

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