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

"Do you remember her?"

From:

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.

From:

summerdude

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

From:

onthewillowsthere

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

From:

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.

From:

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.

From:

onthewillowsthere

"You're itching."

From:

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."

From:

summerdude

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

From:

onthewillowsthere

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

From:

lightbearinglord

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

From:

summerdude

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

From:

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.

From:

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."

From:

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.

From:

onthewillowsthere

"A mystery?"

From:

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.

From:

summerdude

"Like, an unknown quantity? I think..." Magnus frees up a hand to scratch his head. "Claudius maybe couldn't get a read on her?"

From:

onthewillowsthere

"Claudius can read everyone."

From:

lightbearinglord

That much is true. He knows that he and Claudius discussed her before their conversation in the kitchen, from the way the notes name her and name their path to what they had deduced about her. Claudius had his private notes, the descriptions of her behavior and appearance. He can't remember. He pushes aside the frustration. "That was before we discovered that she could take memories."

From:

summerdude

"I think it was maybe a vibes thing still, right?" Magnus says. "And the stuff I found out that day, like, gave you extra pause or whatever, right?" He's really digging deep, trying as hard as he can to remember. "I think -- Galahad, I think you told me Claudius hadn't made up his mind about her yet because of the way he talked about her, and we thought that was maybe why Hanguang-jun and Sagramore and Shen Yuan kept warning me????"

From:

onthewillowsthere

"I don't remember," Galahad says. He hates it, but there's nothing there. However, "Claudius didn't tell me everything before. He was trying to protect me by keeping things about her secret."

From:

lightbearinglord

Lan Wangji frowns, just barely, but when he thinks of Claudius, for whom information can be powerful and dangerous at once, who tried with a smile to step neatly past the story of how Luo Binghe deceived him into a kiss, he's not so surprised. He can understand that desire to shield Galahad from everything, wrapping him in protective safety. "We know better now." The more people who know of Aornis and the more people who trust each other with it, the less power she can wield.