[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

[onthewillowsthere]

"I tried, because God told me to. Percival didn't need anyone to tell him."

[kadewest]

"Was his faith inborn, or did he learn it somewhere?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"His mother taught him about Christ, but his faith is his. He believes."

[kadewest]

Kade nods a couple of times, slowly, fitting the pieces together, trying to think about what he wants out of this conversation. He leans against the table. "I grew up in the church, you know," he says. "Different church. Same God. My neck of the woods, you accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior and get baptized and keep on believing and following the Bible, on paper? You're ostensibly golden. Now, in practice... In practice, it gets a little hairy. People have opinions they dress up as truths, and if you happen to have a different opinion... well then, you're acting against truth; that must mean you aren't a very good Christian." He shakes his head, as slow as his nods. "That how things were in the church you grew up with?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't know," truthfully. "God spoke to me and I obeyed Him. No one told me to do differently."

[kadewest]

"Ah," Kade laughs. "The dubious honor of a direct connection to the man Himself." He pauses. Squints. Tilts his head. "Do you think it's cheating, somehow? That you got your marching orders straight from the source instead of getting the chance to develop 'em on your own?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. I obeyed because I was told to. I didn't have to have faith in Him. I didn't have to wait for signs or look for miracles. He was always there."

[kadewest]

"For sure, for sure," says Kade. He tilts his head the other way. "If Percival was the one with a direct line to God, would you have thought he was cheating?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I didn't say cheating." He frowns. "Faith is about belief without proof. I didn't have to have proof."

[kadewest]

Kade thought Galahad was agreeing with his cheating guess! "And so," he says, trying a different angle, "you think he deserves good things... greater rewards? because he did more with less, faithwise?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. If God is just, He should reward him. He should be kind. But in the vision He sent me He punished him, and my Evil Twin said he wasn't allowed to see the Grail."

[kadewest]

"Do you think the vision was reflective of the truth?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. God never lied to me."

[kadewest]

"And God can reach into this world?" Kade tugs the end of one curl, thoughtful. The Christian God never really touched other Worlds. The only gods he knows of that held a strong sway beyond the boundary of a door was the Drowned Gods, with Cora.

[onthewillowsthere]

"He can't speak to me here. Or He doesn't."

[kadewest]

"But He gave you the vision."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods and falls silent, turning that over in his mind like a seed of wheat. Finally he says, "I think it might be like a letter."

[kadewest]

Kade nods. He thinks he understands Galahad a little better now--he'd been alarmed at the speed with which Galahad had positioned himself opposite a person he deemed good, and better, but his alarm has abated a little with Galahad's careful explanations.

"I'm sorry God was capricious with your friend," he says, and adds a point of clarification of his own: "I think faith might just be a little less disconnected from proof in my time. Even the most self-avowed faithful seek evidence they can share, or hold as proof."

[onthewillowsthere]

"They want to see His hand at work in the world."

[kadewest]

"Yeah, probably," Kade allows. "I get the impression a bunch of 'em want clout, too."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Clout?"

[kadewest]

"Attention. Prestige. The knowledge of the people that they were good enough to be chosen."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Why would God grant His favor to people who want it for that reason?"

[kadewest]

"Between you and me, I don't know about anyone from my time who's been granted favor by the Christian God. Just a bunch of folks who claim He does, for the power it grants them. And so on the one hand you get your Jesus toasts, and on the other hand you get a good chunk of evangelicals."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad frowns. "That would displease God. Why do people think it’s right?"