onthewillowsthere: (look down)
Galahad son of Lancelot ([personal profile] onthewillowsthere) wrote2024-07-07 11:17 pm

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

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]
mothwingofriverclan: (Default)

[personal profile] mothwingofriverclan 2024-08-10 06:05 pm (UTC)(link)
"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."
mothwingofriverclan: (Default)

[personal profile] mothwingofriverclan 2024-08-10 08:41 pm (UTC)(link)
"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."
mothwingofriverclan: (Default)

[personal profile] mothwingofriverclan 2024-08-11 04:47 am (UTC)(link)
"I didn't want to leave them without a medicine cat, and now they only have poor Frostpaw."
mothwingofriverclan: (Default)

[personal profile] mothwingofriverclan 2024-08-11 02:45 pm (UTC)(link)
"So, you know. I have to make sure you're fully trained up."
mothwingofriverclan: (Default)

[personal profile] mothwingofriverclan 2024-08-13 12:24 am (UTC)(link)
"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.
mothwingofriverclan: (Default)

[personal profile] mothwingofriverclan 2024-08-15 01:39 am (UTC)(link)
"Sure. This is your biota project, right?" Mothwing turns so that she can see onto the table. "Susan told me a little about it."
mothwingofriverclan: (Default)

[personal profile] mothwingofriverclan 2024-08-15 02:53 am (UTC)(link)
"That you're studying all the living things in the garden to help grow some twoleg food. I think it goes very well with medicine cat training," she says approvingly.
mothwingofriverclan: (Default)

[personal profile] mothwingofriverclan 2024-08-15 03:24 am (UTC)(link)
"Invertebrates? What does that mean?"
mothwingofriverclan: (Default)

[personal profile] mothwingofriverclan 2024-08-15 01:29 pm (UTC)(link)
"So... not true prey, but also not plants, or larger animals. I'm afraid all I know about that is how to get rid of fleas and ticks."
mothwingofriverclan: (Default)

[personal profile] mothwingofriverclan 2024-08-15 02:56 pm (UTC)(link)
"Using moss soaked in mouse bile. At home it's a chore for apprentices to get the ticks off the elders. They always complain." Mothwing mrrows a little laugh. "I'm sure I did, too, when I was a warrior apprentice."
mothwingofriverclan: (Default)

[personal profile] mothwingofriverclan 2024-08-15 03:25 pm (UTC)(link)
"Thank you, Galahad. I'm sure those twoleg paws will be a great help. I haven't gotten any yet, though, since I'm not quite at the age where I need to retire and lie around in the elder's den all day." Mothwing's sure she'll never retire, actually, but she likes threatening to. "You could add the ticks to your collection, though I'm not sure they're helpful to anything but themselves."

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