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

[onthewillowsthere]

"No. Lan Wangji says my qi is strong, but it's not as strong as his."

[scrap_collector]

"I see," says Xie Lian, who doesn't. "I'm sorry--I'm having trouble visualizing how you might wield a blade. In your mouth, perhaps?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad blinks those big, blue, slightly crossed eyes at him. "In my hands."

[scrap_collector]

Xie Lian holds both his hands up, palms out, eyebrows questioning. "Your hands?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes! My hands!"

[scrap_collector]

"I mean no offense, Galahad-gongzi, but--I believe you have paws."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I'm not a cat while we're training!"

[scrap_collector]

"Oh!" Xie Lian blinks. "That makes much more sense."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Cats can be Warriors, but not with swords," he meows patiently. "And anyway, Mothwing is teaching me how to be a Medicine Cat."

[scrap_collector]

So... half the time Galahad is a person, and learning to be a cultivator with Lan Wangji, and the other half he is a cat, and learning medicine from someone named Mothwing. Xie Lian has met several people who live in ways entirely outside of his experience, while he's been here, but this is perhaps the strangest. "How is it that you change between a cat and a human? Have you always been able to do so?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"No! Queen Janet changed me because I asked. She's very powerful." He squints back towards the garden -- like all cats, he's quite nearsighted. "I think she's over there."

[scrap_collector]

A very powerful Queen? This complicates Xie Lian's read on the Mansion immediately. What a strange day.

He stands up, dusting off his knees. "If you will help me gather up my coral, perhaps we might go meet her?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes! I can help!" Galahad rolls over and leaps to his feet, disentangling from Ruoye, and dashes over to a piece of coral. "Did you get it from the beach? Are you collecting it?"

[scrap_collector]

Xie Lian nods, and begins making a little pile of the coral branches. "I hope to cut and polish them into beads for jewelry."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Like earrings?? I like earrings!" as he drags his piece of coral back to the pile.

[scrap_collector]

Ruoye curls up from the ground and goes back to shuffling pieces of coral into Xie Lian's neat pile, keeping a respectful distance from Galahad.

"So do I, though it's been a long time since I wore any." If Galahad was human, he might notice the empty holes in Xie Lian's ears, but as established his eyesight is likely not good enough in this form.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Why?"

[scrap_collector]

Xie Lian begins gathering the corals back up into the cloth he'd been carrying before. "I have had none to wear."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Do you want some? You can have a pair of mine. I have a lot!"

[scrap_collector]

"Oh," says Xie Lian, touched. "Perhaps. And perhaps I will make you a pair of coral. Would you like that?"

Not having any idea what Galahad's human form looks like, it's impossible not to imagine earrings dangling from his wide, tapered ears. It's impossibly charming.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes! I like being beautiful," happily. He drags over another piece of coral.

[scrap_collector]

Xie Lian accepts it from him, and wonders quietly, as they gather up the rest, if he would still enjoy being beautiful. He had, once.

He straightens up, Ruoye settling back around his throat. "Thank you for your help, young master Galahad. Will you take me to see the Queen?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes!" he meows. "She's over here," and then he begins pelting back towards the spot in the garden where he'd been transformed.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet's trying to split the difference between keeping an eye on Galahad and not being a total helicopter magician. He definitely has cat-brain, so if something spooks him, she might never find him again, which would be a massive pain in the ass to explain to Claudius. He can talk, though, so he's not as totally gone as she was when she was a goose.

She's leaning against a tree and pretending to examine her nails, like she's definitely not worried or interested, when Galahad comes beelining back for her. "Hey!" She straightens.

[scrap_collector]

Xie Lian has no idea what to expect from a queen who is also a magician; maybe someone like Yushi Huang, who wears her crown as a scar around her throat, unfailingly noble despite having adapted to another way of life entirely. The last true queen he'd known was his own mother; she had not been able to adapt at all. He follows Galahad at a slight distance, curious, and stops at the edge of the clearing in case he needs her permission to enter it.

This woman has an undeniable presence to her, but she is much more casually—and revealingly—dressed than any queen Xie Lian has seen. He has grown somewhat accustomed to how few layers the residents here wear, especially on the beach, but it still surprises him how little correlation there seems to be between manner of dress and role in their small society. He gives her a polite bow, and waits to be introduced.