#then I’ll do tj halfborn and Gunilla | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mallorykeen · 4 years ago

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Magnus thought that now he was dead he at least wouldn’t have to go to school. It wasn’t like he hated school and learning but he had had some unpleasant teachers in the past - his 1st grade teacher didn’t like that he was left handed and tied his hand to the desk until he told his mom and she brought hell down on the school for allowing her to do that.

She could be really scary when provoked.

Magnus had visited his mom a couple of times after he got the sword. She was clingier than he remembered and always cried when Gunilla came to pick him up but he liked being close with her too.

He’d even seen Randolph a couple of times too, although his uncle wasn’t exactly the definition of warm and loving.

His mom took him out on hikes and asked him questions about Valhalla. She was happy he had Hall Nineteen and Gunilla but hated hearing about the battles, even if she asked specifically about them.

She never voiced that but Magnus could see how her lips curled unpleasantly and her eyes turned glassy when he recounted how he’d died or killed someone the day before.

It was understandable in Magnus’ opinion, no one wanted to hear about their child dying even if they did come back, or how they’d killed someone and been in those kinds of situations.

Magnus didn’t like killing people though. He didn’t hate it anymore - they weren’t really dead, were they? But it was disgusting seeing blood spurt from wounds and gurgling noises from being choked and the sickening crunch of bones breaking, skulls cracking, ribs shattering.

He was going to need a stronger stomach to survive Ragnarok.

There was more to do in Valhalla than sneaking out to visit his mom and dying. There was… school.

TJ had discovered that Magnus wasn’t the most educated when they were talking about their lives.

“I could barely read before I came to Valhalla, just enough to get by and into the army. Not that they really care if you could read or not - there were three guys in my battalion who could read properly. Apparently that’s quite a big problem in Valhalla so they offer basic reading and writing languages in all sorts of languages, less so now though, did you know only fourteen percent of the world is illiterate? It’s pretty cool.”

“Cool. I like reading but I hate maths. I’m so glad I left before we had to do the three times table it looked really difficult.” TJ stared at him.

“Wait, can you not do your times tables? What can you do?”

“I can read and write. That’s pretty much all we had to do in school though other than the maths. I hate maths.”

“I just assumed you were up to date with your education, you seemed so smart for your age.”

“Thanks?”

“I’ll talk to Halfborn, he has a PHD and knows all the best teachers in Valhalla.” And with that TJ left Magnus on his couch.

Magnus groaned, he really didn’t want to do maths. What was the point in being dead if he still had school?

A minute later TJ came back, with Halfborn in tow. Halfborn was surprisingly kempt for once, he’d had his beard brushed and was wearing an actual shirt - a blue button down with trousers. He was wearing lime green crocs though, which kind of ruined the look.

“Magnus,” thankfully his voice was still the same. It was unnerving to see Halfborn as someone who didn’t look like they’d never heard of a stylist or barber. “TJ just told me you never finished school.”

“I’m six.” Halfborn looked embarrassed, like he should have realised that earlier - in Magnus’ opinion he should have - but went on anyway.

“Right. So if you’re going to be here for eternity or at least until Ragnarok, you ought to complete even a basic level otherwise it might be hard. And by hard I mean downright difficult - you’re going to need to be able to multiply and subtract at the very least.”

Magnus decided to take the plunge. If it would make his afterlife easier in the long term (very long term) he should get it over and done with, right? “Sure.”

“Excellent,” Halfborn clapped his hands excitedly, “I’ve been looking for a student so I can get my teaching licence for ages. This is going to be fun!”

‘Wait… you-”

“Come on! Lot’s to get started on. We can go to my room.” As Magnus left, passing by TJ, he kicked him in the shins. TJ just smirked down at him. Dick.

Spoilers: It was not fun.

At least not for Magnus.

“If you kill ten einherjar and three resurrect, how many are left dead?”

“Uhh.” Magnus checked his notes, “Seven?”

“Correct. Oh, hi Gunilla.”

His Valkyrie popped her head into the room in Halfborn’s suite. The hotel had been so kind as to turn it into a torture chamber, otherwise known as a classroom. It had one desk, a table for Halfborn and a blackboard with chalk. Originally it had supplied a wax tablet with a stylus for Magnus but he threw it into the fire and it was replaced with a notebook and pen.

“Hi, Magnus, Halfborn. TJ told me what was happening and I just had to come watch.”

Great. Another person to watch his humiliation. It wasn’t his fault he barely understood what was going on - he hadn’t been in school for months now!

“Hi Gunilla,” he grumbled, glaring at the paper where he was very tempted to draw a doodle of Halfborn being stupid. Well more stupid than usual.

Gunilla smiled at him before turning to Halfborn. “Why’re you so dressed up, Gunderson, going anywhere special?” Halfborn blushed.

“Maybe.”

“Yeah that’s weird because Mallory is also dressed up to go somewhere nice.”

“So weird. What a coincidence.”

“Yeah. A coincidence.” Magnus was very confused but this was more interesting than his practice sums so he tried to listen in.

“Just a heads up, Mallory’s wearing green.”

“Oh. OH, right I’ll go get changed so we don’t clash, um… accidentally.” Halfborn started packing up his things, “Magnus, class dismissed! I have to go pick a better outfit.”

Magnus practically jumped out of his seat. It was over! For today. “Thanks, Gunilla.”

“No problem, barn, I thought you’d worked hard enough today. I can’t believe it took these dungars so long to figure out you’d need to be taught something.”

“But not you?”

“I figured it would be funnier if I let them realise how stupid they are. Although, if it had taken them over a year I would’ve stepped in. I do have some faith in them, just not that much.”

“Fair enough. Can we go do knife fighting now?”

“Yeah, alright.”

They didn’t do knife fighting every day - Gunilla was busy a lot and Magnus often spent a while being dead or with his mom - but they did do it quite a lot.

On the 13th floor of the hotel was where they had the arenas for training. They were absolutely huge - nearly as big as the battlefields themselves - just miles of sandy floors and clashing weapons.

They put their stuff down at the side before getting in position.

“Magnus, you need to balance yourself out a bit more, it would be so easy to knock you over right now.”

“Like this?”

“Move your back foot a smidge to the left… yep that’s it. Okay, take a shot.”

Magnus moved towards her, trying to aim for the space just under her breastplate, where there was a gap in her armour. She’d taught him that it was good to try and get the spots of a person’s body where they were weakest - eyes, nose, pressure points, groin, stomach, et cetera.

Gunilla parried him with no effort but didn’t make any move to attack, giving him an advantage. He tried again, going for her thigh and actually succeeding, his grandfather’s knife hitting true.

“Ow! Fuck! Good shot, that really hurt. Let me get the first aid kit before we remove the knife.”

He’d actually done it! He’d gotten Gunilla. Nice. She was limping over to the side of the arena, hand held to just above her leg. He ran over to join her.

“Sorry Gunilla.”

“No, don’t apologise, that was really good. Now you get to learn how to treat a wound.”

“I could try and heal it?” Gunilla thought about it for a second.

“Okay. You can do that, let me just have the First Aid kit at the side in case it doesn’t work right.” She lay down on one of the benches, Magnus kneeling beside her, hands outstretched. She pulled out the knife, tossing it to the side and blood immediately went everywhere, like a burst pipe.

Magnus slammed his hands on the wound. He could feel her heartbeat and everything wrong with her body - there was a bruise on her left shoulder from slamming it into a door frame that was healing, a stubbed toe and of course, the stab wound.

He tried to condense all his energy and push it into that one area. His vision flickered. For a second he was flying above Half Blood Hill, four children climbing up it, pursued by monsters, then he was in one of the Valhalla cafe’s a handsome smirking boy with tawny hair staring at her, the next the same boy was standing across from her in a battlefield - but not the hotel one, a proper one with giants behind him.

Magnus could feel the skin closing up, cells knitting back together, blood replenishing and took a step back.

And immediately collapsed.

now i’m sitting here (before the fire)

Chapter One: this isn’t Elysium?!?

Dying hurt. It hurt like hell.

One second, Magnus was lying on the hill, weakened, dying, ready. The next - he wasn’t.

He felt like he was floating, like he was flying. Then he was dreaming.

Well, not dreaming exactly - more just seeing stuff. He’d heard from Luke that demigods tended to have dreams about important events. It was a bit late for him though. Just a bit.

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