[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 promise." He tips his head all the way back to look at Magnus. "What do you hope his deal is?"

[summerdude]

Magnus grins down at him. "No clue," he says, cheerfully. "I guess it would be pretty interesting to hear how things would be if I never died in the first place? I don't want it to be something I'd be jealous about."

[onthewillowsthere]

He nods. There is something reassuring in knowing that the Galahad who was here isn't one anyone wants to have stayed. He's not someone people liked better, and he's not someone Galahad himself envies at all, not from what he's heard.

[summerdude]

"What do you think a different me would be like?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I think you would still love Alex."

[summerdude]

"I better," Magnus says. "If I didn't, though, I guess there'd be no reason to be jealous."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Do you want me to give your evil twin a message?"

[summerdude]

"Well, if they're not in love with Alex, definitely ask why the Helheim not."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I will," solemnly.

[summerdude]

"Good man." Magnus gives one final squeeze, and then moves to Galahad's side. "Anything else?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"If he's from the future, like me, where something has gone wrong--"

[summerdude]

Magnus darts a glance over to Galahad. "Like. Ragnarok?"

[onthewillowsthere]

He nods.

[summerdude]

"That won't happen," Magnus says, confidently. "Unless he comes from, like, the very start. Nobody survives Ragnarok."

[onthewillowsthere]

"What happens at the start of Ragnarok?"

[summerdude]

"Surt takes Jack and helps free Fenris Wolf. Then there's three really long winters and the earth freezes over and most mortals die. I'm, um..." He pauses. "I'm not sure what comes next, actually? Sam is a lot more involved in watching for the lead-up, she knows the details. I just know that it ends in a massive battle where all the jotuns and all the gods kill each other, and the honorable dead -- like the einherjar -- die for good fighting the dishonorable dead. And vice versa."

[onthewillowsthere]

"You die for good."

[summerdude]

"Yeah. About an hour before dad, according to--" Magnus affects a disgusted tone, "prophecy."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods, and his fingers curl in Magnus' shirt. "And then the world ends."

[summerdude]

"Yep. Surt kills dad and then burns literally everything down including himself and the rest of the final battlefield, and then Yggdrasil gets... flooded, I think? Eventually a new world will form in the ashes. I'm pretty sure only five or six total, uh, beings survive it all, and they're going to, like, repopulate it and turn it into a world with no more fighting." He shrugs. He won't be there to see it!

[onthewillowsthere]

A world with no more fighting sounds in some ways perfect and in some ways as impossible and sterile, like Susan's Heaven. He isn't certain it's a good thing. His fingers clench.

[summerdude]

Magnus reaches down and squeezes his hand. "At least I don't have to worry about it," he says. "Sucks if my hypothetical evil twin does, though."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Will he be sad?"

[summerdude]

"If it's the start of Ragnarok? Probably," Magnus says. "I mean, I would be."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods, carefully tucking away all the things that would make Magnus feel better if he were sad. Falafel, being outside, the room full of dragonflies and summer downstairs, Alex, being quiet together.