onthewillowsthere | [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]

Current Mood: curious

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

onthewillowsthere

"She's a scientist. She studied ethology in London."

From:

kadewest

"Susan Pevensie from Narnia is a scientist." Kade's mind is blown! He would not have called this from the books.

From:

onthewillowsthere

"Do you know her?"

From:

kadewest

"I know of her," Kade says. "We haven't formally met yet."

From:

onthewillowsthere

"We talked about the animals here. How they're from different places, and no one was keeping track of them, so we don't know whether they come like we do, or whether they come and go. So we're taking a survey."

From:

kadewest

"A survey that includes bugs."

From:

onthewillowsthere

"Yes. Insects are part of soil health."

From:

kadewest

Kade shakes his head, amused despite his squeamishness. "Can't dispute that."

From:

onthewillowsthere

"Claudius and I found a fungus-eating beetle last week. It was important to know, so Magnus could ask it not to eat Shen Yuan."

From:

kadewest

Even though Kade has been spending some time with Luo Binghe, he doesn't know all the details of Shen Yuan's return. This raises any number of questions. He settles on, "Magnus talks to bugs?"

From:

onthewillowsthere

"Magnus talks to all animals. He ate a dragon's heart."

From:

kadewest

Kade's eyebrows climb, but this, at least, makes sense. "In another World, I imagine?"

From:

onthewillowsthere

"Yes. In Boston, I think."

From:

kadewest

Kade laughs. "Boston's not too far from my school. I'm not counting it out, but I've never seen a dragon there."

From:

onthewillowsthere

"His name was Mr. Alderman."

From:

kadewest

"So in Magnus's World, eating a dragon's heart lets you talk to animals," Kade says, thoughtfully, then shivers. It sounds profoundly unappetizing. "In my personal opinion? Not worth it."