[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]

"So embarrassing," Magnus says, grabbing the controllers and coming over to sit next to Galahad. "Whaddya say, a normal friendly four?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Four kisses?" The Warhead on his tongue is ... bad, sourness and the fizziness together are a sensory unpleasantness that he finds strangely appealing. He scrunches his face up at Magnus.

[summerdude]

"On the scale." It's drawn out (three and a half minutes or more) but also closemouthed. That seems reasonable. Like, Magnus doesn't really have any intention on following through with this bluff, but it seems like a, like, reasonable bluff to make.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad laughs. "Okay. That's what we usually do," for Shen Yuan's benefit.

[summerdude]

Magnus slings an arm around Galahad's shoulder and makes a kissy face. He'll get close, but he's going to divert away to the cheek if Shen Yuan doesn't show up soon!!

[onthewillowsthere]

Dutifully, he leans in towards Magnus.

[summerdude]

Just when Magnus is about to swoop to the side and plant a silly kiss on Galahad's cheek -- there's no way he's going to actually kiss him -- he feels a weird sort of push. His forehead bonks against Galahad's.

"Ow," he says, sitting back and rubbing it, and then his eyes widen. "Ow!!!"

[onthewillowsthere]

It takes Galahad a second to process it, but then he grins at Magnus. "It worked."

[summerdude]

"Hey, buddy," Magnus says, to the Shen Yuan in the room. He disentangles from Galahad and immediately leans against him again. "Wanna play Smash?"

[onthewillowsthere]

He nestles against Magnus' shoulder, and picks up his controller, holding it loosely, as if Shen Yuan might somehow push his thumb around the joystick.

[summerdude]

Magnus tries to get the game started up, but --

"This isn't the loading screen, is it?" he asks, frowning.

[onthewillowsthere]

"No. Something's wrong." Galahad straightens up again.

[summerdude]

"Is that -- Laertes??"

[onthewillowsthere]

"It's Laertes." He's pretty sure. Laertes has helpfully not changed his hair or his manner of dress since Galahad first met him, which makes him easier to identify.

[summerdude]

Magnus leans forward. "Why is there a recording of Laertes on here?" If this is a sex tape he's definitely never going to be able to look Laertes or Sagramore (or whoever??) in the eye again.

[onthewillowsthere]

"That's the library," Galahad says, because that part he recognizes immediately.

[summerdude]

"Yeah," Magnus says. He's about to get up and turn it off, or switch over to the game, when someone else shows up. He pauses. "Okay, who is that?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't know." He frowns. "You don't know her?"

[summerdude]

"She looks really familiar," Magnus says, frowning, scratching the back of his neck. "Have you drawn her before?" Galahad draws, like, everyone.

[onthewillowsthere]

When Magnus asks, Galahad suddenly remembers that hair, blond and fashionably arranged. He doesn't recognize her face, but he remembers her hair from his drawing.

A-o-r-n-i-s he signs quickly.

[summerdude]

Magnus scratches the back of his neck again, suddenly feeling too big inside his own skin. Like he's shrunk down somehow, smaller than usual, into a body that's shorter and even scrawnier than his own. "We should, um," he says, frowning as he starts to pick up some sound. "We should tell someone, right?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Claudius or Lan Wangji," immediately.

[summerdude]

Magnus scrambles to pause the -- recording? "Okay," he says. "Yeah. Good. Okay. Let's, um. Let's go look?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Wait." He checks his watch. "Lan Wangji is always in the falafel kitchen now. There are seven places Claudius could be. You go find Lan Wangji and I'll stay to guard this. Just in case."

[summerdude]

"Shen Yuan, you stay here and help Galahad," Magnus tells the empty room, and runs off to the falafel kitchen at top speed.

Hanguang-jun is there, and Magnus speeds through the doorway and stops just a foot away from him. "Hanguang-jun," he says. If he wasn't an einherji, he'd be breathless right now. "We found something. You need to come look."