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:

aflashbastard

"I was doing fine until I found out who this cat w-- You know what, whatever." He gently tucks Galahad back into the crook of his arm where he was perfectly comfortable just a minute ago. "Good job to everyone involved."

From:

sorrowandsorrow

"Do you have something against Galahad?" The skepticism is unabated. Who could have something against Galahad?

From:

onthewillowsthere

Oh, that elbow corner is back. Perfect. He's going back in there.

From:

aflashbastard

"Well, he did set me on fire and k--" Galahad burrows a little deeper into the crook of his elbow. Crowley imagines it's out of embarrassment or something. "Er. Well. Kept-- He kept... the mansion warm... through Dark. I'm just so-- so flammable. You know."

From:

sorrowandsorrow

"Galahad lit you on fire?" Janet asks. She pauses, then breaks into a grin. Crowley doesn't look any worse for wear. "Yeah, you do seem flammable. Careful or I'll use you next time Sagramore and Laertes want to have a bonfire."

From:

aflashbastard

"Yeah, a bit of a long story." He looks down at Galahad again. "Maybe I should hand him over to you before he has a nervous breakdown. He's worried about my, er, flammability."

From:

sorrowandsorrow

"Well, shit, apparently we should be handing out cat handling tests and licenses before we let any old asshole pick him up, so sure. Galahad, would you rather I hold you?"

From:

onthewillowsthere

Galahad is still curled up in the smallest possible lump, but if Janet starts to take him he will scramble into her arms.

From:

aflashbastard

Crowley starts the process by shifting Galahad towards Janet. "I'm holding him just fine right now," he protests, but he looks mildly relieved himself as he scrambles away. There's clearly an entire year or more of history behind this whole cat holding fiasco.

From:

sorrowandsorrow

"You almost dropped him! Of course he's still scared." Janet nestles Galahad into her arms defensively, letting him hide his face in the crook of her elbow.

From:

onthewillowsthere

Janet is Safe. Galahad settles into the hiding place she's made for him and purrs to try and calm himself down.

From:

aflashbastard

"His feet never touched the ground. Anyway. He's fine now," Crowley says, defensively, before an awkward pause. He's not quite sure what to say now that that's all over. "...Er, wine? To cheers a successful transformation? Catnip?"

From:

sorrowandsorrow

Janet strokes Galahad's back, but her defensive posture eases a tiny bit. Crowley really doesn't seem dangerous, just... awkward. Like a stick bug put on a pair of sunglasses and raided a Hugo Boss store. "I'll take the wine. You want the catnip, Galahad?"

From:

onthewillowsthere

"No," a muffled meow. "I'm staying here!"

From:

aflashbastard

"Oh, he can talk," Crowley says, with only mild surprise. He hands Janet a very decent glass of red wine and keeps one for himself.

From:

sorrowandsorrow

"Thanks," Janet says. Galahad is so small it's pretty easy to keep him tucked into her arm while freeing another arm to snag the wine. "Yeah, I don't know why he can talk. I couldn't when my professor did this same spell to me."

From:

onthewillowsthere

"You're a better magician," he squeaks.

From:

aflashbastard

"Could also be that this place amplifies some of the magi-- Actually, better magician, yeah," Crowley says, changing tack as he remembers the Look that Janet gave him earlier. He takes a sip of his wine.

From:

sorrowandsorrow

Because she's not a moron, Janet says, "You're on thin fucking ice, pal." She sips the wine, though. "The ice gets thicker every time you do the sommelier thing, for the record."

From:

aflashbastard

"The new climate change indicator, The Ice Underneath Crowley," he says, dryly.

From:

sorrowandsorrow

"Now we're talking." Janet smirks at him. She can't really pet Galahad with a handful of wine, but at least he can still tuck his adorable little face away. "You know how they fixed the hole in the ozone? We can turn the whole thing around if you give me enough wine."

From:

onthewillowsthere

"What's ozone?" Galahad meows, in spite of himself.

From:

aflashbastard

"It's a layer in the atmosphere. If it didn't exist, humans would probably get burnt to a crisp-- Er. I mean. Get a terrible sunburn. Tons of skin cancer, probably." Why does everything come back to someone burning to a crisp?

From:

sorrowandsorrow

"Skin cancer is, uh..." How do you explain skin cancer to a kid from Camelot? "The sun is good for you, right? But it's also bad for you. It can make your cells turn against you. Shit, do you know what cells are?"¹

¹I, the typist, know that he definitely knows. But Janet doesn't, because she doesn't talk to Claudius.