onthewillowsthere | open post -- a little white kitten

After way, way too much research and overthinking, the kind of research and overthinking that had Janet feeling uncomfortably like Quentin and Alice's ill-gotten love child, she's been ready for a while. So, yes, maybe she wanted the dramatic gesture of giving this to Galahad as a wedding gift. Can you blame her? Nothing says “I hope you're really happy in all your marital bliss with that guy who always seems like he's trying to sell me a protection plan” like the promise of turning someone into a cat.

Whatever. It's also kind of anticlimactic at this point. Janet has a bowl of white paste and a whole lot of gumption, but as far as supplies go, that's it. She eyes Galahad. “You ready?”

“Yes,” Galahad says, in his usual too-serious way. He's excited, but that only means his affect is flatter and blanker than usual. He told Mothwing that he would come to her for a lesson this afternoon, but not what shape he'd be in.

“Okay. You're going to have cat-brain, and herding cats is famously impossible, so where do you want to do this?” Maybe Janet should have made the mansion generate a cat carrier. But it seems rude to show up to a meeting with a human person with one of those, and not her preferred brand of rude.

“In the garden. I want to go to Mothwing afterwards.”

“Sure thing.” She lets Galahad lead the way. She has a bowl of weird white gunk to manage.

Once they’re in the garden, surrounded by the riotous summer flowers, Galahad stops. “Will my clothes transform with me?”

“Nope.” Janet raises her eyebrows at him. “You'll be naked when I turn you back. I won't let your tiny cat body suffocate or anything, if you're worried about that.”

“When you have transformed me, will you please put my watch around my neck?”

That is… so cute. He's so cute. Every time Janet has mentally compared Galahad to an adorable talking woodland creature feels completely justified. “Yep,” she says, instead of oh my God, you're adorable. “Any other last requests before you can't talk anymore?”

“No. Thank you.”

Okay, sure. Janet scoops some of the chalky shit onto her fingers and invades Galahad's personal space. She swipes it onto his forehead, under his shock of marshmallow-fluff hair, then onto his bare shoulders. She steps back, looks him over like he's a used Chevy Malibu and she's about to try and talk him up to a family of four, then says a single harsh syllable out loud.

It's not a pretty transformation. Galahad kind of… crunches forward, folding up like a piece of paper crumpling in someone's hands. Cats are a lot smaller than humans. Fur is sprouting, his collarbones are melting away, a tail is crackling out from the other end of him. It's really, really not cute. But it does work, and Janet feels like the world's coolest magician when there's a little white cat with blue eyes staring at her from under his sundress.

It feels like falling down a cliffside – a whirling, disorienting feeling, but not the freefall in air of being thrown from a horse. When the world around Galahad comes to a halt, he looks up, and up, and up, to see Janet’s distant, blurry face.

He takes a careful step forward on his paws, getting used to his new center of gravity. His whiskers feel as though they’re constantly brushing against things, picking up every vibration in the air, and the world’s colors have changed into shades of yellow and blue. His ears twitch and swivel towards sounds.

He takes a practice run, and finds his stiff, awkward body has become graceful, fluid, as he bounds in a circle around the garden. He can’t tell how, but he knows his tail is important, as much a part of his balance as his four paws.

Finally he comes back and sits on his hindquarters in front of Janet. He knows he’s not supposed to be able to talk, but he tries anyway, and meows, “Thank you.”

“Holy shit!” Janet stares down at him. That doesn't make any sense. She remembers being a goose. All she could do was honk. She honked for days on end. It was actually really fucking tedious. “Whoa. I'm good.” She told him she would, so she kneels in the grass and swipes his watch from the pile of his clothes. “Here, kitty.”

Galahad pads over to her on his soft, silent paws and puts out his head for the watch-collar.

Feeling a sudden sense of portentous responsibility, Janet buckles it around his neck. She's careful not to make it too tight or too loose. He's so, so cute. “Okay.” She gives him a little scritch under the chin, like Regina likes. “Do whatever you want, but I'm gonna keep an eye on you.”

“I understand. Thank you, Queen Janet,” he meows again. Then a butterfly passes in the corner of his eye, and he springs after it, unable to stop himself.

Current Mood: excited

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

Susan Pevensie is in her PDA era. Between the attention she got in the outfit Kade selected for her and tipsily allowing Lancelot to feed her in the beach restaurant, she's decided it's not the worst thing in the world to be demonstrative in public spaces.

So when she sees Janet in the garden, she walks up, curls a hand around Janet's cheek, and draws her in for an immediate kiss. (She does not, it must be said, notice the cat off chasing the butterfly.) It's only as she's pulling back that she notices the stuff all over Janet's hands.

"My goodness," she says. "What have you got going on?"

From:

sorrowandsorrow

Janet's so into the kiss that she has to really coach herself not to put her gunky, pasty hands all over Susan's nice clothes. She grins as they part, a grin that only gets wider with the question. "Hi. I turned Galahad into a cat."

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

"Oh! My goodness. Today's the day, then?" Susan glances around until her eyes fall on the cat with the watch around its neck. She shan't be embarrassed about this. "Good day, Galahad."

From:

onthewillowsthere

Galahad skids to a halt, and the butterfly escapes. "Susan!" he meows.

From:

sorrowandsorrow

Janet's grin doesn't abate even a tiny bit. She decides against doing Vanna hands at Galahad, but it's a close call. "Today's the day."

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

"And you've done a marvelous job," Susan observes, kneeling down so that she might inspect Galahad more closely. Over his head, she shoots a glance at Janet that speaks volumes about precisely how appealing she finds this display of magical competence. To Galahad, she adds, "I see you've become a Talking Beast."

From:

onthewillowsthere

"I'm a Talking Beast! Are you taking notes? Will you please make observations? I can't write in my notebook!"

From:

sorrowandsorrow

"No opposable thumbs. Tough break." Janet's trying not to preen over the look on Susan's face -- wait, no. She's not trying at all. She preens. "I don't know why he can talk. I couldn't when I was a goose."

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

Naturally Susan has her own notebook in her skirt pocket, and she takes it out then. "Perhaps one of the Circumstances of this place," she says, thoughtfully. "The absence of Pleiades, for example? Galahad, what sort of observations should you like? I can be your scribe. Do please tell me of any unfamiliar instincts, though; I should like to compare them to Regina's behaviors later."

From:

onthewillowsthere

He sits and begins grooming himself, licking his paw and then swiping it over his face and ears. "I don't choose to purr. It just happens."

From:

sorrowandsorrow

"Huh. I guess that makes it more authentic." Feeling a little in the PDA spirit herself, Janet puts a hand at Susan's shoulder, just to be touching her while she makes her records.

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

"Purring is automatic," Susan repeats, twisting her head to press a little kiss against Janet's wrist - her own sort of grooming, if you will - before noting the observation down. "What's in that substance?" she asks, nodding at the white stuff on Janet's hands.

From:

onthewillowsthere

"I don't choose a lot of things. My body just knows what to do."

From:

sorrowandsorrow

Janet's smile flickers back into full force the second she feels that kiss from Susan. "Ground pearls, cornstarch, rose water, rice bran oil, and salt."

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

"What a fascinating assortment. It almost sounds like a cosmetics recipe." It sounds relatively easy to clean, too, so Susan leans into Janet's touch. "So you were transformed with a complete suite of instincts, Galahad?"

From:

onthewillowsthere

"Yes!" Galahad meows, right before those instincts make him pounce on a close by grasshopper. He places his paw over the grasshopper, then lifts it, and then, as his prey attempts to leap away, places his paw back down. "I don't want to eat this, but I can't stop hunting it."

From:

sorrowandsorrow

"It's all a conduit, I guess. Rose water is a popular spell ingredient, actually." Janet watches Galahad's helplessness with a little smile. "Why not eat it? It's probably got good protein."

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

"Does rose water have particular magical properties?" Susan notes down Galahad's hunting instincts, keeping one eye on him. The rest of her attention is all on Janet, who is glowing and gorgeous in her success.

From:

onthewillowsthere

Galahad continues batting the cricket, letting it get a few inches and then slapping it again with his paw. Then he starts biting at it. By now it's lost a leg and is beginning to look somewhat bedraggled.

From:

sorrowandsorrow

"Now you have to eat it," Janet points out, practically. "Waste of a good meal otherwise. There are starving kittens... somewhere." Careful not to get too much gunk on Susan, she lets a little weight rest on her. "It's not magical in itself. But it takes magic well."

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

"Fascinating," Susan breathes, referring both to Galahad's cat-mindedness and Janet's magical prowess.

From:

onthewillowsthere

Galahad ignores Janet completely, although he's obviously heard her, judging by the swivel of his ears. He bats at the cricket a few more times, until it's barely moving, and then begins grooming himself.

From:

sorrowandsorrow

"Gross," Janet says, not sounding wildly concerned about it.

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

"Does it taste the same as a cat as it might as a human?" Susan asks, and chooses not to specify between the cricket and the grooming; Galahad may answer whichever he's most able to address.