[closed post -- heraldry]

[onthewillowsthere]

It took another few meetings with Grantaire before Galahad was satisfied with the colors and able to reproduce them himself, especially now that his time is taken up with training with Lan Wangji. Every moment he's not with Magnus or Claudius he's in the parlor meditating, at the wood edge lifting stones, or watching Lan Wangji practice sword forms. His balance is improving steadily from pure repetition. He's assigned himself to every exercise with the kind of singular focus he always used to give to God's commandments, and if he's not exactly happy he at least has the comfort of knowing that, however slowly, he's getting stronger.

That evening he showed Claudius the finished heraldry, after they were back in their room together, and Claudius was silent for several long moments before he said, "Well," and the back of his neck flushed, and everything he had to say after that mattered, but by then Galahad already knew it was what he'd wanted.

So now he's looking for Janet. He's wearing his red velvet pinafore and his sword belted on as usual, and he has his sketchbook in his arms.

Comments

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet's in a kitchen, but absolutely not because she's cooking. She's leaning back in a chair, boots propped up under the table, and she's flipping through a doctored copy of the script for The Wizard of Oz, a highlighter in one hand and a pen behind her ear. A mug of coffee is steaming on the table.

"Hey, kid," she says when Galahad slips in.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Hello." He stops and just watches her for a little while before asking, "What are you doing?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

"I'm stage managing this thing, apparently," she says breezily, exactly like someone who's excited for the task but doesn't want to give herself away about it. "So I'm making notes on the script. Susan reworked it a little."

[onthewillowsthere]

A pause, while he tries to use all those context clues to figure out what she is actually working on -- he pieces through things from his books, things Claudius has told him, and finally says, "It's a play."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Yep." Janet lets the chair thunk back down to the floor. "You didn't see Susan's sign about the auditions?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I didn't understand. There aren't plays in Britain."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Oh my God." That is so sad. Janet's categorically not a theatre kid¹, but damn. "Got it. Well, yes, it's a play. I won't be on the stage, I'll just be in the background ordering people around."

¹Okay, girl who's annotating the script for the play she's stage-managing.

[onthewillowsthere]

That doesn't sound so bad. "What is the play about?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Basically, this girl gets caught in a tornado and ends up in a different world." Janet's dry tone reveals her mild amusement at putting on this specific story for the people who live here. "She goes on a series of wacky adventures to help a tin man find a heart, a scarecrow find a brain, and a lion find his courage. Obviously, the thing she's looking for is a way home."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Is it a Nonsense world or a Logic world?" he asks after another pause.

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Oh my God." Janet has to laugh. "He got to you, too. Shit, I don't know. A little from column A, a little from column B."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Did Susan choose it?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

"I guess it was a joint effort between her and Dionysus? And Nina, but I guarantee Nina didn't know The Wizard of Oz before they picked it."

[onthewillowsthere]

"She asked you to be the stage manager?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Yep. Why? You didn't want to do it, did you?" Janet swipes her coffee from the table.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Are you good friends?" He asks it with a directness he's learned from Claudius, who praises him for asking questions, who never tells him that he's being too bold or too rude. Claudius loves his curiosity as much as his imagination.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet breaks into a grin at the question. "You could say that."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad just looks at her. "Does that mean you're lovers?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

On cue, her eyebrows go up. Galahad is not the guy he used to be, clearly. Maybe it's an improvement? He seems less like a stiff breeze might give him an existential crisis. "We haven't exactly defined the relationship. Since when are you into gossip?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Claudius likes to know things," he answers truthfully.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Ugh, Claudius. Janet wrinkles her nose. She hasn't even talked to the guy in months, but still. "So you're his lead reporter."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I'm his beloved. And I will marry him."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Well, okay. At least Janet's not fucking either of them. She wonders what interdimensional mansion divorce proceedings would look like. "Mazel tov. You're still okay?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. Thank you. I would like to ask for your help."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet's genuinely surprised. "Me? Why?"