[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]

"Good afternoon," Galahad says, casting her his warmest non-smile. "Lan Zhan took readings of the soil composition while he was here."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh! How lovely," Susan says, carefully labeling each slide as she finishes it. "Was that one of the exchanges, then?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. He's Lan Wangji's Evil Twin."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan looks up. "Evil Twin? Is that what you're calling - the latest nonsense?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"That's what Magnus called it." He does feel a touch embarrassed now thinking about how unscientific it is.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

It's the sort of thing Lucy might say, too, and for once - perhaps because she's been feeling particularly nostalgic since that queer dream she had when the other Susan was here - the thought makes Susan feel fond, rather than resentful. "It does have a certain ring to it, doesn't it?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Lancelot said your Evil Twin was here too, but I didn't meet her."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"So I've heard. I didn't meet yours, either, but Lancelot told me about him." She labels another slide. "I met several. I believe I must have missed the entire first wave, but there were quite a few yesterday."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad frowns. "Yes. Magnus's and Shen Yuan's and Claudius's."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She blinks. "I didn't see any of them. I met Lancelot--" she shakes her head, and corrects to, "Lanse. And Laertes, and Sagramore, and... I'm not certain who the fourth replaced. Some shy woman."

[onthewillowsthere]

"What was he like? Lancelot." The unknown shy woman he puts on the backburner for now.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Quite similar in some ways. Wildly different in others. I believe he came from a world like Gideon's or SecUnit's."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Did you like him?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I don't know," honestly. "He didn't even look the same." Also, by the time she met Lanse, she had been so tired from meeting the alternate versions of all his friends and other lovers.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I liked the other Claudius. He was--" He casts around for a word to describe Claudius' arresting presence, and finally says, "Tall," even though he knows that's not helpful.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

With the faintest hint of teasing to her tone, she asks, "Handsome?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad flushes, his pale cheeks turning feverish. "Yes."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Did he look terribly different?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. His eyes weren't brown. They were silver." He can't picture Claudius' features, but he remembers that. "And his ears were shaped like this," making the wide tapered shape with his fingers.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Fascinating," says Susan eagerly, trying to picture it. "I wonder if everyone had physical changes?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Evil Twin Magnus had longer hair." If Galahad talks about him dispassionately, like the scientist he is, he feels less sick to his stomach.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Did he?" Susan purses her lips, thoughtful. "From what Lancelot has said, I looked as I did in Narnia. And you were... older."

[onthewillowsthere]

He tries to remember the other differences of the people he met. "Lan Zhan was an android. And Shen Yuan had spectacles."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan flips to a blank page in her field notebook and starts jotting down their observations. "Grantaire seemed rather the same," she says, thoughtfully.

[onthewillowsthere]

He blinks at her, surprised. "Were you able to tell how he was an Evil Twin?"