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]
summerdude: official art from rick riordan's webpage (Default)

[personal profile] summerdude 2024-07-22 07:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Magnus settles on the couch next to Galahad again, reaching for his own controller.
lightbearinglord: (profile)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-07-22 08:42 pm (UTC)(link)
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: official art from rick riordan's webpage (Default)

[personal profile] summerdude 2024-07-22 09:50 pm (UTC)(link)
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.
lightbearinglord: (little bitch moment)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-07-22 11:24 pm (UTC)(link)
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.
summerdude: official art from rick riordan's webpage (Default)

[personal profile] summerdude 2024-07-22 11:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Magnus, meanwhile, is remembering being Aornis on bodyswap day. He shifts, uncomfortably, then closes his eyes and leans his head against Galahad's shoulder.
lightbearinglord: (manga profile)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-07-22 11:39 pm (UTC)(link)
"Thank you for telling me," Lan Wangji says, once it becomes obvious that the television is fixed on Aornis' face and that there is no more to see. He studies it as closely as he can, committing it to memory. The image is not as clear as he would like it to be, but it is clearer than anything that was ever available to him during any night-hunt investigation throughout his life. It is clearer than memory.
Edited 2024-07-22 23:40 (UTC)
summerdude: official art from rick riordan's webpage (Default)

[personal profile] summerdude 2024-07-22 11:47 pm (UTC)(link)
"You know what to do with this?" Magnus asks, face mashed against Galahad's shoulder. He was her, and then when he was himself again she tried to kill him and then actually killed Shen Yuan.
lightbearinglord: (love interest)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-07-23 01:24 am (UTC)(link)
He needs to speak with Claudius, but surely that goes without saying. Whatever moves they make will need to be undertaken carefully, but there must be a reason that Shen Yuan's spirit is so insistent on showing them this imagery, on the still portrait of Aornis herself and all the details of her face. "Thursday looks just like her. Only the hair is different." He glances to the side to see Magnus curled against Galahad. "We need to be certain, and we need to be cautious. We can't forget this."
summerdude: official art from rick riordan's webpage (Default)

[personal profile] summerdude 2024-07-23 01:58 am (UTC)(link)
Magnus peeks one eye out and squints. "She does look like -- her."
lightbearinglord: (action hgj)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-07-23 02:15 am (UTC)(link)
For once impatient, Lan Wangji is in the midst of unleashing a small amount of sword qi to knock a side table closer to him from across the game room. At the question, though, he stops and looks at Magnus. He is curious, too, knowing how Magnus was targeted and why.
summerdude: official art from rick riordan's webpage (Default)

[personal profile] summerdude 2024-07-23 02:53 am (UTC)(link)
"I met Thursday. I was -- her. The day we all traded bodies."
lightbearinglord: (hanguang-jun)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-07-23 01:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Lan Wangji still can't remember, as if the memories of seeing Magnus that day are accessible only through a haze of smoke, but it doesn't matter. For the time being, he abandons his task, turns where he is sitting, and sets a hand at Magnus' shoulder, heavy enough that he'll be certain to feel his presence.
summerdude: official art from rick riordan's webpage (Default)

[personal profile] summerdude 2024-07-23 02:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Magnus shrugs. "I dunno. I think it was maybe fine at the time?" He can't reach the back of his neck to scratch it like this.
lightbearinglord: (twin jade)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-07-23 04:53 pm (UTC)(link)
"Her name," Lan Wangji says, and slides his hand to the back of Magnus' neck, remembering what Claudius wrote. "You felt it that day. That's how we know."
summerdude: official art from rick riordan's webpage (Default)

[personal profile] summerdude 2024-07-23 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah," says Magnus, blinking. "Yeah, that's right. You warned me about her, too."
lightbearinglord: (excuse me?)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-07-23 06:54 pm (UTC)(link)
"Did I?" He remembers warning Magnus about Luo Binghe, not for the first time, but of course nothing about Aornis.
summerdude: official art from rick riordan's webpage (Default)

[personal profile] summerdude 2024-07-23 11:54 pm (UTC)(link)
"And Sagramore. And -- I think maybe other people too." To Galahad, he shrugs. He has no idea why he can remember.

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