[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]

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."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji, recognizing the legitimate urgency in Magnus' voice, instantly stops what he is doing -- in this case, that entails setting aside the knob of ginger he is peeling, putting the knife in the sink so that no one is likely to inadvertently hurt themselves if he leaves it sitting out, and turning to Magnus. He doesn't see the need to say anything. He only nods and waits for Magnus to lead him wherever he needs to be.

[summerdude]

"It's this way," Magnus says, and starts trotting back -- not quite as fast, so that Hanguang-jun can easily keep up. "It's -- well, you'll see."

They make it back to the game room, and at the door, Magnus quickly explains, "So me and Galahad decided we'd play Smash for Shen Yuan, but when we plugged it in, we saw something weird. Galahad is guarding it, it's -- her, we think?"

They go inside the room.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad is still on the couch, holding his controller, but when Magnus and Lan Wangji enter he looks relieved -- which means his expression and posture don't change, but the two of them will be able to tell anyway that he's glad they're back.

[lightbearinglord]

Her is nonspecific, but not so nonspecific that Lan Wangji isn't certain of the person Magnus means. He is equally glad to see Galahad, and his face is equally unmoving. He sweeps inside the room, eyeing the television and silently grateful that he asked SecUnit for an explanation of the device so that he will not feel completely foolish here. "Show me."

[summerdude]

Magnus settles on the couch next to Galahad again, reaching for his own controller.

[onthewillowsthere]

He knows how to take the video off pause, but before he can move his fingers on the controller the buttons depress on their own -- the video rewinds to the beginning and begins to play again.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji's spiritual senses prickle, a light stirring at the back of his awareness. He is not Wei Ying; he cannot play with the energy of ghosts as if it is the sound of a dizi. Still, he is intimately familiar with the way it feels when the dead want to make themselves known.

He sits, cross-legged, and watches the moving images intently.

[summerdude]

It's the same intro as before, obviously. Laertes in the library, rapidly joined by Aornis. This time, Magnus doesn't stop the recording, he just watches it play out, listening intently, scratching the back of his neck.

[onthewillowsthere]

The conversation looks innocuous enough to an observer; Aornis and Laertes speak back and forth for a while, and then Laertes leaves. When the video ends, it rewinds again without anyone doing anything, and stops on the clearest possible image of Aornis. Galahad stares at her, trying to remember her face.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji is just as quiet, but it is not a tranquil quiet. He does know this face. He knows it from leading Thursday and Claudius around the mansion grounds, accompanied by a jar of beads. He knew already that Thursday, apparently, has Aornis' face, or the icy jolt of the imagery would be more sickening. Still: he curls his fingers into his own robes, a controlled release of tension. There is something about how incontrovertible this is: she was here. She moved among them. She was real, and then she erased herself.