[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]

"Oh, yes. She lived in RiverClan with my brother and I until were about your age," Mothwing meows. "Her name was Sasha. She never really fit into Clan life, though. She just wanted to make sure we had a chance to be in one, since our father was a Clan cat."

[onthewillowsthere]

"What does it mean, not to be in a Clan?"

[mothwingofriverclan]

Mothwing snorts. "Oh, now that's a question. There are only five Clans, so most cats in the world probably aren't in one. We have a specific way of life. We live by the Warrior Code, and provide for our Clanmates." Mothwing realizes she's answered the question backwards. "Cats who aren't in Clans might live on their own, or with twolegs, or in different groups with different rules and traditions."

[onthewillowsthere]

From having listened to her in the past, he'd thought that all cats that weren't kittypets were Warrior Cats, realizing that isn't true is a bit like realizing other gods are real; it requires an abrupt recategorization of the world. He's silent for a long moment before he asks, "Could you have been a Medicine Cat without a Clan?"

[mothwingofriverclan]

"No. I could have been a healer, maybe, but they're hard to find, so I'm not sure if I could have gotten the same training elsewhere. It's a big reason I stayed. We can't write like you twolegs can, so a Clan is the only place knowledge of herbs and remedies is reliably passed down, from mentor to apprentice."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Like you taught Willowshine and Frostpaw. And me."

[mothwingofriverclan]

"Yes. It's the most important thing to me."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Then I'm glad you had the Clan."

[mothwingofriverclan]

"I'm glad I have you, too, or I'd be very bored here."

[onthewillowsthere]

He looks surprised, then pleased, although both expressions are subtle. "Was Squirrelflight rescued?"

[mothwingofriverclan]

"Oh, yes, of course. I forget no one here knows who she is. She's deputy of ThunderClan, so she's well known. She's fine, and we defeated Ashfur and got my brother his body back."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Is he all right?" Galahad asks, thinking of how it felt to return to his own mind after being Laurel -- all the lost memories he leaves carefully alone, unless they spring out without warning like tongues of flame.

[mothwingofriverclan]

"To be honest, I'm not sure. We're not in the same clan, so I only see him at our monthly Gatherings, and honestly... he's been pretty quiet. Squirrelflight does most of the talking for their clan, even though he's the leader." Mothwing flexes her claws nervously.

[onthewillowsthere]

"It would be hard to know that you hurt someone while you weren't yourself."

[mothwingofriverclan]

"Yes. Ashfur caused a lot of harm, not only to Squirrelflight, but to all the clans. As Bramblestar, he exiled anyone who had broken the warrior code, even if what they had done was years ago. He had cut off everyone's access to StarClan, and acted like the loss of contact was because we weren't following the code closely enough. It was about power, more than anything else. He convinced several other clans to do it, too. Even mine. I was banished because my parents weren't in the same clan."

[onthewillowsthere]

So he hadn't just hurt his mate. The things he did hurt everyone. "Were you allowed back into the Clan after?"

[mothwingofriverclan]

"Yes. Though, really, it was up to me whether I gave the Clan my trust again. I almost didn't go back, since my leader, Mistystar, hadn't been possessed. She was just convinced to be cruel by the impostor, and too easily, in my opinion. That's much worse than poor Bramblestar, whose body was just used without his permission. Mistystar went along with him knowingly."

[onthewillowsthere]

"That is worse," Galahad agrees quietly.

[mothwingofriverclan]

"I didn't want to leave them without a medicine cat, and now they only have poor Frostpaw."

[onthewillowsthere]

A part of Galahad would like to tell her that Frostpaw is probably fine -- she's a good teacher, she'll have given Frostpaw enough -- but that would be a lie. He has no idea. So instead he stays quiet with her, so that she isn't worrying about RiverClan alone. He knows too, and he can share the worry.

[mothwingofriverclan]

"So, you know. I have to make sure you're fully trained up."

[onthewillowsthere]

"May I have a lesson today?"

[mothwingofriverclan]

"Aren't you busy?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I can stop." Being Magnus' best friend has made Galahad significantly better at task-switching than he used to be. Of course part of him would like to continue doing what he has already planned to spend the afternoon doing, but it feels possible, for Mothwing, to choose something else.

[mothwingofriverclan]

"Finish what you were doing, and then maybe we can do something simple." Mothwing's not sure she's up to a long lesson today, but she can't deny Galahad what he wants, not when he's been such a patient listener.