open post -- a little white kitten

[onthewillowsthere]

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.

Comments

[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.

[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.

[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."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[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.

[sorrowandsorrow]

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

[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.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Tathteth like fur, but I don't mind." The cricket, although not long for this world, isn't something he plans to taste.

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Did you ever taste fur as a human, though? Do you have a basis for comparison?" See, she's getting in the scientific spirit.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan directs a soft look up at Janet. "You shan't be eating the cricket?" she adds.

[onthewillowsthere]

"When I turn back, I'll athk Mothwing if I can lick her!" And then, with a whole-body stretch that makes his toes splay out, he stands. "I don't want it."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Why'd you kill it if you didn't want to eat it? Just for the thrill of it?" Janet asks this basically without judgment, genuinely curious.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan's got her pen poised to note Galahad's response! She is, in truth, a little surprised he isn't interested in trying the cricket.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't know. It was moving and I wanted to kill it." He blinks his wide blue eyes slowly. "It felt right."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet can't help her face cracking into a wide grin again. "You tiny little murderer. I told you you'd have the brain of a cat."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Well, we oughtn't let it go to waste," says Susan. It's possible, but not guaranteed, that she's teasing. She picks the insect's carcass off the ground and makes a show of dusting it off.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad has never been good at knowing when he's being teased. He sighs, staring morosely at the cricket: the nuns always told him not to waste food, too. And Susan knows scarcity.

"All right."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Oh, God, the sight of the tiny cat sighing with despair is too much. What is happening to Janet? She's going soft. "She didn't say you had to eat it."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Indeed not," says Susan. Ideally, from a scientific standpoint, Galahad ought to try half of it now and half when he's human again and report on change in tastes. But one needn't be all science, all the time. She and Galahad are partners, but they're also friends; one ought be playful with one's friends from time to time, and if there ever was an occasion for playfulness, it's when one of you is presently a cat.

Susan Pevensie, it must be said, never fails to proverbially place her money where her mouth is. She breaks the cricket in half and, after barely a half-second pause of wondering how on earth she came to this moment, pops half into her mouth. It's tremendously unpalatable. She crunches once and swallows quickly; for once, her generally-muted facial expressions are in her favor, because she is able to maintain a straight face throughout.

It is rather a distracting culinary experience, though. She holds the other half out and up. "Sweetheart," she starts, and very visibly has a moment where she realizes that she's used a pet name for the first time, and then determinedly decides not to linger on or otherwise draw attention to the fact. "Care for a snack?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad's slightly crossed blue eyes go huge as he watches.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Never let it be said that Janet, Queen of Fillory, is liable to back down from a dare. Especially not a dare issued by Susan, Queen of Narnia.

"Thanks, babe," she says, as if they've been trading pet names this whole time. She snags the half-cricket and eats it with a straight face. It kind of brings to mind that old truism about how the only thing worse than a worm in your apple is half a worm in your apple, but it's not... the worst? At least it's not slimy. It wouldn't be bad breaded and fried.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It's got a truly, ah, striking texture," Susan tells Galahad solemnly. Since Janet is still standing, she curls a hand around her calf.

[onthewillowsthere]

"You ate it!!" Galahad clambers into Susan's lap. "You ate it! Write down observations!!"

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet grins down at Susan, bizarrely pleased with the two of them. "Pointy," she suggests.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan rests a hand on Galahad's warm little head and strokes the fur just above his nose. "I shall try," she says, solemnly. "Even though it is very difficult to write with you there." This is, notably, not a request for him to move.

In her fastidious penmanship, carefully curling her other arm so that it doesn't bump into Galahad, she writes, Pointy.