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

[sorrowandsorrow]

"He's cute as hell," Janet agrees happily. "You're familiar with some spells, you said?"

[scrap_collector]

"I'm afraid I can no longer cast them with my own power. But I borrowed a bit of spiritual energy from Hanguang-jun when I arrived and attempted to perform a distance-shortening array." He shakes his head, amused. "It deposited us in a locked basement closet containing a beautiful but volatile sword."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad gasps. "Was it the Sword with the Red Hilt?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet, who doesn't know half of the words being said and doesn't love that feeling, narrows her eyes. "What's that?"

[scrap_collector]

"It was." Xie Lian puts two and two together. Galahad is the student Hanguang-jun had mentioned, the reason he had sealed the Sword with the Red Hilt away. He lets him explain, intrigued to know more.

[onthewillowsthere]

"That's my old sword," Galahad meows excitedly. "Lan Wangji had to seal it, because it's evil! I used to fight with it before I lost my power!"

[sorrowandsorrow]

Oh, evil swords, okay. That's pretty par for the course. "You lost your power? I'd have been pissed." As has been often recollected, Janet worked really, really fucking hard for all her magic.

[scrap_collector]

Xie Lian's first thought, foolish as it is, is to check Galahad's paws for cursed shackles, but of course they're snowy-white and unmarred. In this place where the rules of power are so alien, he doubts even his human form is so marked.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Because I had sex with Claudius!" Galahad meows; it seems not at all embarrassing to say now. "And wasn't a virgin any more. God took my strength at arms. That's why Lan Wangji is teaching me."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Oh my fucking God," Janet says. Not the sex with Claudius part. She's had to get over that, and she assumed they were fucking a long time ago. But the rest of it is nuts. "That's a horrible reason to steal someone's powers. God was mad you got laid? What an asshole."

[scrap_collector]

Xie Lian goes very still, a shiver passing up his spine.

The strangeness of it should blunt the blow, perhaps; this boy-turned-cat speaking casually, even cheerfully to this foreign queen, neither of them anything like anyone he's ever met. But—it feels like someone's dipped a hand into his chest and started speaking abstractly of what they found there, like uncovering little bits of stone amidst mud.

He realizes now that he's seen Galahad, marrying Claudius. They hadn't spoken; he'd have had nothing to say, then, except to compliment him on the lovely proceedings. But he recalls his serious face, now, his tangle of pale hair, and wonders at it. At the pure joy he'd seen, radiating from him. Neither there nor here is there any hint of regret about the bargain he'd made, nor even anger at its terms.

He takes a long breath, and lets it out. "Hanguang-jun is a generous teacher, to give you another path when yours was bound."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I was supposed to be chaste forever," he tells Janet. "That's why I wasn't allowed to touch any women. God said it was sinful." He purrs and rubs against her leg again, tangling around her ankles. "Lan Wangji thinks I can still learn to be an adequate cultivator, because I'm disciplined and my qi is strong. I might even be able to cultivate a golden core, even though I started so late."

[sorrowandsorrow]

It's hard to stay too pissed off on Galahad's behalf when he's being so cute, but Janet hangs onto a kernel of it anyway and saves it for later. Just in case. "God's a dick," she says, "and you should rub it in his face if you end up flying on a sword anyway. See, asshole? I can have sex and have powers."

[scrap_collector]

Xie Lian's heart is plucking a strange song against his ribs, and he's not sure he can or should be listening to this anymore. "It was lovely to meet you both," he says, and bows.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Are you leaving? You don't have your earrings yet!"

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Whoa," Janet says, turning back to Xie Lian. He doesn't look like he'd get offended on behalf of Christianity, if you catch her drift. "Too much swearing?"

[scrap_collector]

"Swearing? Ah, no—I have a cousin who could swear you into an early grave, language doesn't offend me." Is Xie Lian ever going to be used to people here noticing and objecting when he tries to leave conversations? "I just, ah—you seem like you're having a lovely day."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I like you! You should stay!"

[sorrowandsorrow]

"I don't know if I like you yet," Janet adds, "but how can you say no this adorable mug?" She jerks her chin down at Galahad.

[scrap_collector]

It is a particularly adorable feline face. "Alright," says Xie Lian, and comes further into the clearing, settling back down on the ground and holding out a hand to Galahad for him to sniff at and, if welcomed, be pet with.

[onthewillowsthere]

He immediately slinks over to touch his wet pink nose to Xie Lian's fingers. Then he begins to purr, rubbing his chin and neck against that proffered hand.

[sorrowandsorrow]

"See?" Janet's trying to seem smug, and she is, but it comes across more like sincere pride in her work topped with some contentment. "We're not so bad."

[scrap_collector]

Xie Lian scratches Galahad's ears for a moment, then glances up at Janet. "I admit I'm curious, your majesty, about the political structure of this place. Or, I suppose, the lack thereof."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"There's not much of one," Janet admits. "I had big ideas about ruling the whole place when I got here, but..." She shrugs, refusing to be embarrassed. "What are there, forty of us? We haven't gone all Lord of the Flies yet."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Beelzebub?" with interest.