[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

[mothwingofriverclan]

"No, I think it does me good to... talk about it." Mothwing sighs. "Apparently, there really is a whole other realm, where dead cats go. Both StarClan and the Dark Forest are there. I've never been able to reach it, despite trying when I was a young cat. I didn't believe it existed for a long time, but several things have since proved its existence to me. One was the impostor, Ashfur, a spirit who came out of StarClan and possessed my brother Bramblestar's body. Once we knew he wasn't really Bramblestar, he took my brother's mate Squirrelflight into the Dark Forest with him. She had rejected him as a mate, and he was still upset, even after death."

[onthewillowsthere]

As he watches, a smile pulls at the corners of his thin mouth. He glances up at Susan.

[onthewillowsthere]

Do you want to reach it? he almost asks, but then she begins her story, and he listens intently.

"Is she the cat your apprentice tried to save?"

[mothwingofriverclan]

"Yes. We knew someone had to go into the Dark Forest and get her back. I wanted to go, but since I have no connection with that realm... Willowshine volunteered. She was very brave."

[onthewillowsthere]

Her bravery makes the abruptness of her death even more unfair. Someone who volunteers to go on a dangerous quest to save an innocent shouldn't die immediately: Galahad has heard so many stories of quests during his time in Camelot, and there's a pattern to them. Even when they end in death, something is accomplished first. But Willowshine just died, and Mothwing was witness.

He has even more questions, but it doesn't seem right to ask them right away. He waits, in case Mothwing has more to say.

[mothwingofriverclan]

"I have a new apprentice back home. Frostpaw. But I'd only just started training her before I came here. I hate to think of her trying to heal the Clan alone. And I hate to think of Willowshine in StarClan, where I may never see her again."

[summerdude]

"Good one, Hanguang-jun!" says Magnus. Maybe he can be a good cheerleader? Maybe that's his role here?

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan smiles back at him. "She's quite fierce, isn't she?" she asks, proudly.

[kadewest]

"And by acted rightly, you mean...?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Good," Galahad says as well. He tries to say it as Lan Wangji himself does, when Galahad improves in training.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Will you never go to StarClan?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"She's a good hunter."

[onthewillowsthere]

"He didn't sin. He was kind and faithful and a good person. He kept the commandments. When he obeyed God, I wanted to be like him."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Regina, who has snapped the neck of the little cloth mouse, comes trotting over with her tail held high, meowing around the toy in her mouth, and then drops the mouse at Galahad's knee.

"Oh, well done, fierce girl."

[mothwingofriverclan]

Mothwing stiffens. "I don't know." No one's ever asked her directly before. "I spent many years not believing in them, and I still don't approve of how they run things. Besides, who knows if my spirit can get there from here?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Well done," Galahad says as well, scratching her chin again to reward her. There's a good chance he will just sit here and play this game with her until she gets bored.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't want to go to Heaven either."

[mothwingofriverclan]

Mothwing nods, taking this in. "Is there anyone in Heaven you'd miss?" she asks, not to try to convince him to go, but just curious.

[lightbearinglord]

Their twinned encouragement is too charming to resist. Lan Wangji lightly nudges Magnus' shoulder with his own. "Thank you." He gazes grimly at the screen again. "Can this game be won? Or do you only play again and again?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Regina is thrilled. She loves to hunt (toys and the occasional bug) and here's a person directing their full attention her way! She'll kill the cloth mouse four and a half more times, and then abandon it, stride her way onto Galahad's lap like he's so much furniture, and then curl up there, purring.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon takes her defensive stance, absolutely ready to be hit repeatedly with sticks. "Alright. Come at me, bro."

[onthewillowsthere]

"He's not there yet. But my friend Percival will be."

[onthewillowsthere]

When she curls up, Galahad can't help looking to Susan in rapture (an expression not significantly different from any of his other expressions). He pets Regina's body with long slow strokes of his hand, all but holding his breath.

[onthewillowsthere]

She does indeed get hit repeatedly: Galahad is intently focused as he brings the butt of the stick down on her elbow over and over, changing the angle or placement ever so slightly, until he begins to hit the same spot consistently.

[mothwingofriverclan]

"I'm sorry. I know Willowshine will be in StarClan, and my friend Leafpool too," Mothwing meows. "My mother... she wasn't a Clan cat and didn't believe, so I think she goes somewhere else, somewhere not ruled by StarClan but not as evil as the Dark Forest. I guess I hope I end up there, too. Maybe you will, as well."