[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]

"He must think you already mastered Marth," Magnus teases, grinning at any Shen Yuan ghosts in the room.

[onthewillowsthere]

"He likes deciding where things go. Categories. Like Pokemon. Maybe he thinks they are better for you."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji sincerely doubts that. Or, if it is the case, he presumes it is some flippant commentary on his demeanor. He knows how Shen Yuan considers him an arrogant hypocrite. But he is with Shen Yuan's friends, so he refrains from saying so.

Regrettably, whatever progress he had made at this game while playing as Marth has vanished almost entirely with these so-called Ice Climbers. It does not go well. He can't quite understand how to control the two characters, either together or separately. The attacks he had mostly memorized are now irrelevant.

[summerdude]

Magnus laughs, delighted. "I'm sorry," he says. "I have zero advice here."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad also has no idea how these characters play. "I will kill you honorably," he tells Lan Wangji, after several moments of watching him flail -- metaphorically, as Lan Wangji himself is perfectly poised as always. "Then it will be finished."

[lightbearinglord]

"Thank you, Jigglypuff," he says gravely. He awaits the Ice Climbers' impending deaths with dignity.

[summerdude]

"You should at least pull a Magnus and mash all the buttons at once over and over again," Magnus says, wisely. He knows all about honorable deaths! "So that you go out with honor."

[onthewillowsthere]

"You may."

[lightbearinglord]

"If you say so." With as much solemnity as possible, Lan Wangji presses every button in quick succession -- admittedly, this is very quick, and the Ice Climbers onscreen undergo an entire series of rapid contortions that include throwing each other, wielding hammers, and throwing miniature glaciers at Jigglypuff.

[summerdude]

"Cool," says Magnus, when the glaciers appear. He's trying to be as funny as these guys.

[onthewillowsthere]

Jigglypuff leaps and floats, gracefully evading the Ice Climbers' attacks. Then, with up and B, she begins to sing, and when she bops an Ice Climber they both fall asleep. At that point she efficiently combos them both to death.

[lightbearinglord]

As false deaths go, it could be a worse one. They were not even awake for the end. "Your mercy is appreciated," Lan Wangji says to Galahad.

[summerdude]

Magnus sighs happily -- he's relieved that things have taken a turn in the Aornis situation, and he's always loved watching his friends play video games, far more even than he likes playing them, himself. "So, Hanguang-jun," he says, leaning against him. "What do you think?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"It was an honor to fight you."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji gives Galahad a solemn nod, then takes advantage of his freed-up hands to tuck his arm around Magnus' shoulders, wanting to remind him that he belongs where he is, with both of them. "I prefer pinball."