[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

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji is just as quiet, but it is not a tranquil quiet. He does know this face. He knows it from leading Thursday and Claudius around the mansion grounds, accompanied by a jar of beads. He knew already that Thursday, apparently, has Aornis' face, or the icy jolt of the imagery would be more sickening. Still: he curls his fingers into his own robes, a controlled release of tension. There is something about how incontrovertible this is: she was here. She moved among them. She was real, and then she erased herself.

[summerdude]

Magnus, meanwhile, is remembering being Aornis on bodyswap day. He shifts, uncomfortably, then closes his eyes and leans his head against Galahad's shoulder.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad immediately wraps his arm around Magnus, pulling him close against his side, where he can rub a little of Magnus' t-shirt between his thumb and forefinger.

[lightbearinglord]

"Thank you for telling me," Lan Wangji says, once it becomes obvious that the television is fixed on Aornis' face and that there is no more to see. He studies it as closely as he can, committing it to memory. The image is not as clear as he would like it to be, but it is clearer than anything that was ever available to him during any night-hunt investigation throughout his life. It is clearer than memory.

[summerdude]

"You know what to do with this?" Magnus asks, face mashed against Galahad's shoulder. He was her, and then when he was himself again she tried to kill him and then actually killed Shen Yuan.

[onthewillowsthere]

He'd been about to ask a similar question, but instead he begins to pet Magnus' hair, watching Lan Wangji closely for his answer.

[lightbearinglord]

He needs to speak with Claudius, but surely that goes without saying. Whatever moves they make will need to be undertaken carefully, but there must be a reason that Shen Yuan's spirit is so insistent on showing them this imagery, on the still portrait of Aornis herself and all the details of her face. "Thursday looks just like her. Only the hair is different." He glances to the side to see Magnus curled against Galahad. "We need to be certain, and we need to be cautious. We can't forget this."

[summerdude]

Magnus peeks one eye out and squints. "She does look like -- her."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Do you remember her?"

[lightbearinglord]

For once impatient, Lan Wangji is in the midst of unleashing a small amount of sword qi to knock a side table closer to him from across the game room. At the question, though, he stops and looks at Magnus. He is curious, too, knowing how Magnus was targeted and why.

[summerdude]

"I met Thursday. I was -- her. The day we all traded bodies."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad's arms tighten around Magnus protectively. "What did it feel like?"

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji still can't remember, as if the memories of seeing Magnus that day are accessible only through a haze of smoke, but it doesn't matter. For the time being, he abandons his task, turns where he is sitting, and sets a hand at Magnus' shoulder, heavy enough that he'll be certain to feel his presence.

[summerdude]

Magnus shrugs. "I dunno. I think it was maybe fine at the time?" He can't reach the back of his neck to scratch it like this.

[onthewillowsthere]

"You're itching."

[lightbearinglord]

"Her name," Lan Wangji says, and slides his hand to the back of Magnus' neck, remembering what Claudius wrote. "You felt it that day. That's how we know."

[summerdude]

"Yeah," says Magnus, blinking. "Yeah, that's right. You warned me about her, too."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Do you remember her because you're dead?"

[lightbearinglord]

"Did I?" He remembers warning Magnus about Luo Binghe, not for the first time, but of course nothing about Aornis.

[summerdude]

"And Sagramore. And -- I think maybe other people too." To Galahad, he shrugs. He has no idea why he can remember.

[onthewillowsthere]

He can't offer to protect Magnus, who is already stronger than he is. He can't do anything except tighten his arms around Magnus and hold onto him as if he could anchor him to safety.

[lightbearinglord]

For a breath, and then another, Lan Wangji has to sit with how much he hates that he can't remember. He inhales, exhales, and does it all again. "We knew there was something dangerous about her."

[summerdude]

"I think maybe it was just that she was... a mystery?" Magnus says, lifting his face a quarter-centimeter as he dredges his limited memory.

[onthewillowsthere]

"A mystery?"

[lightbearinglord]

Aornis is still a mystery now, but trying to recall how he once felt about her is impossible, like scrabbling at the smooth walls of a bottomless pit with no escape. Lan Wangji waits for Magnus' answer.