lanselos_du_lac

Lancelot's brow furrows -- he should be used to the dizzying turns of conversation that are typical of Magnus, but this conversation has gone so far from what he initially intended that it's getting increasingly difficult to be sure he's following.

"I-- yes. I am with Susan." He pauses, trying to sort out the answer to the real question. "I think this will be different for anyone you might ask. For me, in Britain-- or, rather, all of my life up until I found myself here, what was seemly and proper¹ was for a man to be bound to one woman, and she to him. I..." He lets out a breath; this is difficult, but Magnus' question seems sincere. "I bound myself to the woman I loved, and her alone without question, though she could not really share that same binding with me. I did not look to any other desires. I know now that that did not serve me well, and I came to harm, eventually."

He clears his throat. "Here, there is a freedom that I did not have before. And I would know myself, and those other desires I set aside. And I've learned that, if it is agreeable to everyone, one can do this without causing hurt to someone they love. Different partners offer different ways of seeing things, or different experiences, or being with them is simply different in some way that shows one oneself. Susan is different from Laertes, and they are both different from Grantaire."

Then, as an afterthought, "I do not know what a 'jigsaw puzzle' is, nor how scheduling is central."

^{1: And, he thinks, what was the literal law of the land, amounting to high treason should one break it, in certain specific cases.}