If he was being totally honest, Magnus had no frickin' idea what to make of the curly-haired little shrimp of a girl that Ellie had taken to dragging about with her.

It looked like she felt the same way about him and the others, to be fair. The kid followed Ellie around the place like a sheeple and yabbered on to her about...stuff (which, as Ellie liked to remind him, he was 'just too dense to understand', as if crap like that had ever bothered him) at the dinner table, but she barely made eye contact with Magnus, let alone strung more than a few words together whenever he saw fit to try and talk to her.

It only made sense that his presence had that kind of effect on her, he figured. He practically radiated awesomeness, after all.

Until, of course, Magnus got a little too careless when he and Ellie were butting heads for what had to be the third time that day - 'had to be' being the main words there. It wasn't like Magnus actually counted. Not like it mattered to him or, God forbid, like he enjoyed seeing the proof that the Nerd Queen had some fire in her or anything.

There the two of them were, scoring points off each other left, right and centre, and of course Magnus was too busy appreciating the way Ellie's cheeks were flushing to notice that 'Olivia' kid hovering nearby, trying to block out the sound of their bickering by occupying herself with the...redstone-ish thingy she was holding. Hell if Magnus knew what set the shrimp off, but she suddenly got right in his face, doing a pretty good job of cutting him off in the middle of something involving a curse word or two.

"Don't talk to her like that!" Olivia snapped, eyes hard as she looked him full in the face for once.

Magnus blinked, mind hitting the brakes. Part of him wanted to make some comeback sour enough to strip the paint off the walls. The other part kind of wanted to get up and slap the kid on the back for finally growing a spine. Even if it was now, of all times.

The sight of Ellie's surprised face settling into a proud smirk over the girl's shoulder slammed Magnus's brain back into gear.

"It speaks," he drawled at last, rolling a cigarette and striking up without looking at what he was doing. His eyes flickered from Olivia to Ellie.

The kid's flinty glare wobbled a little at his words as she bit her lip hard. Ellie's smug smile fell.

"You don't need to trouble yourself with him, Olivia. Come on." Ellie reached out, all nicey-nicey as she led her- the kid away but making sure to look back at Magnus and treat him to her nastiest scowl.

Magnus leaned back in his chair with his hands folded behind his head, lit cigarette still held between his fingers, and gave a snort.

We-e-e-ell, looks like Ellie's found herself a live one. Knew there was a reason she keeps that kid around.

All they ever did was hang around like a pair of geeky spiders in that 'lab' of Ellie's anyway, playing about with God-only-knew-what, rubbing it in everyone else's faces that the two of them knew stuff that they didn't and acting like they were just soooo smart and important, as though they were on the brink of some huge world-shattering discovery 24/7. They called it progress.

Magnus called it pointless. And a waste of Ellie's time and attention when both of those things could be better spent elsewhere.

Maybe, prodded an annoying kind of 'inner voice' that sounded suspiciously like Soren's, if you found something new to do with yourself, you wouldn't mind so much that Ellegaard is busier lately because of Olivia.

"Shaddap," he grumbled to nobody in particular, groaning as he pushed himself to his feet. Damn, he was getting old.

(He could almost hear the light, mocking "getting?" Ellie would retort with if he ever said that out loud.)

He snorted again and took a deep drag of his cigarette, heading for the door. Maybe if he got some air, it'd stop Ivor from nagging him when the guy eventually showed his face after whatever 'expedition' he'd set off on this time. Who knew, the extra sunlight might end up giving Ivor a long-overdue cheerfulness boost.

Heh. Magnus was a fine one to talk, wasn't he?

He wandered out into the biome, not really aiming for anywhere, just going wherever his feet chose to take him until he found himself in a tiny clearing, cigarette smoke swirling up through the air. If he chose to ignore the nagging feeling that he'd be getting a few lectures about smoking in the forest later on, then the sight was kind of weirdly mesmerising. That is, until a loud rustling noise snapped him out of whatever trance-y state he was in.

Magnus turned his head so fast, he had to rub at his cricked neck with a grimace. Wait...what the Hell was that, sticking out from behind that tree? Griefers had always liked to challenge him to battles and tournaments and dares and whatnot, but none of them would be dumb enough to try and ambush him.

Would they?

But that was definitely half of a (annoyingly tall) person, jutting out as plain as day. The half shifted a little, one dark eye peeking at him, whoever-it-was obviously thinking that the tree trunk was somehow enough to hide them from Magnus's view. Well, he was gonna burst that bubble right away.

"Ya don't know nothin' about bein' a griefer, do you?" he grumped, crushing his cigarette underneath his heel in what he liked to think was his most intimidating way.

The person jumped about a foot in the air, stumbling backwards from the tree a little. Now Magnus could see them properly. It was a boy, staring at him from under a mess of black hair. He had one of those round, smooth faces that looked like it couldn't grow a beard even if you fertilised it, a kid face, but he loomed over Magnus like some kind of frickin' tower. Which just bent Magnus out of shape even more. He had to admit, the guy looked too young to be a griefer. Even griefers had enough responsibility not to let little kids join them...ehhh, mostly. But it had been a while. Maybe that'd changed since Magnus last checked.

That was the way a lot of stuff went, after all.

The boy's mouth moved silently for a second before he found his voice. "I'm not a griefer. Aren't you a griefer?"

Magnus's lip curled. "Then what're you doing lurking behind that tree, huh? Sure as Hell doesn't look like it's for the fun of it," he pointed out, deciding not to answer the boy's question.

(Yet.)

"I saw you and I thought you were a griefer." the kid explained (even though it wasn't really any kind of explanation at all by normal standards), tapping his fingers together nervously. He leaned closer and added, in a sort of stage whisper, "Griefers are awesome."

For the second time in less than an hour, Magnus blinked blankly, knocked for six by something that had come out of a kid's mouth. "Ya think?"

Man, why did he suddenly sound so unsure of himself? That was not like him.

The kid, on the other hand, nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah. They run around wearing those really cool masks, like yours, and they hold lit TNT in their hands and then they throw it like-" He made a whistling sound that ended with a noise similar to the average explosion, talking with his hands in a way that would've caused a taller person than Magnus to get smacked in the face. "But I've never seen one. You know, in real life. And I thought you were one, 'cause of your mask and stuff. And 'cause you look like you're awesome too."

Magnus puffed out his chest at those last words, looking at the boy with a new approval. Kid knew coolness when he saw it.

(He ignored the warm feeling that came with noticing that the kid really seemed to actually mean it and wasn't just trying to suck up to him for whatever reason.)

"I gotta say, you have good taste...uh, whatever your name is."

The boy offered a big ol' goofy smile as his hands relaxed and fell back to his sides. "Axel and, ah, how do you do?"

The rogue nodded in return. "Some call me the king of awesome, some call me a bit of a griefer myself..."

Axel's black eyes lit up, giving Magnus a crazy urge to chuckle.

"But you, kid..." He smiled slowly, remembering in the back of his mind (yeah, Ellie, I have got one...) how long it'd been since he'd given anyone a proper smile. "I guess you can just call me Magnus."

This bloody chapter gave me no end of trouble and I think it shows T^T Turns out writing Magnus was more enjoyable than I expected, though. I don't know why, but I always imagined him to be a tad more self-aware than people give him credit for ;-;

(*awkwardly tips hat*)

~ Rainy