[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

[onthewillowsthere]

Without thinking, he links his hands behind him. "All insects are arthropods, but not all arthropods are insects. Insects have six legs, three body segments, and an exoskeleton. Spiders, scorpions, crabs, and isopods are all arthropods. Arthropods have exoskeletons, segmented bodies, and jointed legs."

[kadewest]

"Fascinating," Kade says. "Spiders have exoskeletons?" He'd never really thought about it.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Although they appear soft-bodied, spiders have a hard, protective outer layer made of overlapping layers of chitin and protein," promptly.

[kadewest]

"That's fuckin' wild," Kade says, appreciation warring with revulsion in his tone.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Do you dislike spiders?" curiously.

[kadewest]

"I like spiders fine," Kade says. "A friend of mine went to a webworld and was adopted by the Queen of Dust, who as far as I can tell is basically the queen of all spiders. I like spiders best when they're not hanging out super close to me, though."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Why?"

[kadewest]

"Too many legs. I'm a squeamish man, Galahad."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad blinks. "Why does that bother you?" The legs and their number are not something that he thinks about very much.

[kadewest]

"Great question! I've never really thought about it. Just keep a healthy distance, me."

[onthewillowsthere]

He's struggling a bit because this simply does not make sense to him, and Kade's vibes-based answer doesn't give him the data he thinks would make it make sense, but he doesn't want to press Kade and bother him.

"Do you dislike everything with more than six legs?" he can't stop himself from asking.

[kadewest]

"Dislike is a strong word," Kade protests. "I'm a little squeamish about most creepy-crawlies."

[onthewillowsthere]

"They make you uncomfortable."

[kadewest]

"Yeah! Yeah, that's it." Kade grins. "Not bad-uncomfortable. Just not, you know, my idea of great Friday night company."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I like their company," he says. "They're quiet. And they do their work."

[kadewest]

"They are industrious critters," Kade agrees.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad looks at him for a few moments, and then asks, "Did you have an Evil Twin?"

[kadewest]

Kade blinks, and then his eyebrows climb. "An Evil Twin?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. I had one, and so did Magnus and Claudius and Susan and Shen Yuan."

[kadewest]

"...explain?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Mine was from a world where he attained the Grail and God did not reward him with death. He was in despair. Magnus's was from a world where he never came here, and he had lived hundreds of years, and Ragnarok was coming."

[kadewest]

Kade squints suspiciously. "I didn't encounter anyone or anything like that," he says. "I did take a surprise day trip to the Moors. Jack--my friend--mentioned something about a placeholder."

[onthewillowsthere]

"You should ask whether anyone met them and thought they were your Evil Twin."

[kadewest]

"Yeah, okay," Kade says, thoughtful. "I will."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Mine was sad. And older."