[open post -- winged and once-winged insects]

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad has collected every insect guide he could find in the mansion's library, and now he is camped out in a laboratory it seems to have created particularly for him and Susan -- the room has its own microscope, so that he can stop borrowing Claudius', and every single shelf is filled with glass habitats or mesh tents for keeping insects.

With his single-minded determination, he has filled many of them -- the tents house carefully potted foot-high milkweeds with tiny butterfly eggs affixed to their leaves, or potato plants he hopes will soon harbor potato beetles, or butterflies resting on the mesh. In the glass habitats there are millipedes, gleaming tenebrionid beetles, huge and bumbling scarabs, the dogbane leaf beetle Lancelot helped him capture, shiny blister beetles, leafhoppers in every shade of green, a pair of picasso bugs, an mantis he found in the greenhouse pretending to be an orchid flower.

Many of these insects stay only long enough to be identified and documented. Galahad and Susan between them take careful notes, make drawings, take pictures. When possible, they identify to species; more often, they identify genera or family, country of origin if they're lucky. Then they let their subjects go again. Neither of them has the time nor the inclination to feed and care for the immense diversity of insects living on the mansion's grounds. Potato beetles are one thing, but catching other tiny insects for the tiger beetles every morning is unsustainable. Galahad doesn't mind. Once he has a picture and the notes, the insect is saved, even if they don't see it again.

In the morning he trains with Lan Wangji, so it's an afternoon now when he's perched on a stool in front of the microscope, inspecting a chlaenius beetle to see whether it's possible to confirm a species. Unfortunately, these beetles are too fast and squirmy to put on a slide alive, so he's ethered it first. Now he's working diligently on his sketch, his pale head bowed as he studies the tiny body.

[Open especially to anyone who needs to be reassured that Galahad is back after the mod event and he's just fine now]

Comments

[summerdude]

"Oh, thank the gods," Magnus mumbles as he pokes his head into the room. "Dro, baby, wait out there," he tells her, and slips inside, wrapping his arms around Galahad from behind. "Missed you, buddy."

[onthewillowsthere]

He startles, and then smiles, relaxing back into the hug. "Hi. Are you okay?"

[summerdude]

"Me? I'm great. Peachy keen." Magnus gives him a squeeze. "I'm just really glad the Evil Twin Event is over."

[onthewillowsthere]

"What was the evil twin event? Was that why Lan Wangji was an android?"

[vineleaves]

His first stop this morning was, of course, to make sure Mercutio was back. Everything was fine, Riff is gone (...which, he has to admit, is sad for Riff, but surely nobody will blame him for wanting Mercutio back), and now he's feeling much better than yesterday.

There's a door he hasn't opened before, and cautiously he tries it today, to find... a laboratory? Bug land? Something? More importantly, there's, "Galahad!"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad looks up from the microscope. Are you okay?

[vineleaves]

He has never been so happy to see someone using ASL. I am! Just glad to see you. How are you today?

[onthewillowsthere]

Good. He tilts his head slightly. Do you want to look?

[untamedantinous]

Enjolras is presumably returning from helping Laertes and Sagramore with work on their house, but pauses when he sees yet another room he hasn't explored before. He pauses when he sees Galahad at work, clearing his throat as he comes in to stand nearby. "You've quite a lot in here."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Susan and I. Do you want to see?"

[untamedantinous]

"Yes. Tell me about them?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad reaches for his hand and leads him over to one of the mesh tents, where a number of chubby orange grubs dotted with black are peacefully munching nightshade leaves. "We think this is a swamp milkweed beetle. We're waiting for it to finish growing up first, but the color and pattern and host plant are right."

[kadewest]

"What do you have here?" Kade asks, strolling by.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad looks up and immediately flushes. "A metallic ground beetle."

[kadewest]

Kade, as it turns out, is nearly as squeamish about bugs as he is about death! "More experiments?" he asks, drawing back, steeling himself, and then taking a step into the room.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Susan and I are keeping track, so we know what insects are here."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Woah, hey," says Gideon, passing by and then backing her way into the room. "That's a lotta bugs. Also, welcome back. You're you, again, right? Young, happily engaged, don't think I'm a demon?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"You're not a demon," Galahad says, somewhat bewildered.

[ninth_cavalier]

"Thank fuck," says Gideon sincerely. "I, uh, met the other guy. The you who was king."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Good afternoon," warmly, slipping into her preferred seat. Today Susan has an actual satchel; from it, she pulls out her field notebook and six labeled jars of soil collected from varying points around the grounds. It's a relief to get back to something so straightforward as science after the back-to-back weeks of the Mansion's latest nonsense, and with a little sigh, she immediately starts preparing a slide from each of sample of dirt so that they might search for microscopic organisms.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Good afternoon," Galahad says, casting her his warmest non-smile. "Lan Zhan took readings of the soil composition while he was here."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh! How lovely," Susan says, carefully labeling each slide as she finishes it. "Was that one of the exchanges, then?"

[mothwingofriverclan]

Galahad, uncharacteristically, has missed a session of medicine cat training, so Mothwing heads into the twoleg den to find him. His scent leads her to an odd room filled with bugs in cages.

"Hello," she meows, bumping her head against his legs to get his attention.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Hello." He moves away from the microscope. "I'm sorry."

[mothwingofriverclan]

"It's quite alright. What happened? I couldn't find you anywhere you usually go."