[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]

Shen Yuan is an uncommonly cooperative spirit. Lan Wangji's gaze snaps to -- whatever it is that the ghost is attempting to manipulate. Every scrap of understanding he has about this technology came from SecUnit, who was helpful but who, reasonably, went into very little detail. "What is that?"

[summerdude]

"Got it," Magnus says. He sets his controller to the side and goes to eject the memory card. He passes this to Lan Wangji. "Maybe you should hold onto this too, so no one can, like, erase it or whatever. I can put it back in when you need to watch it."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods. Lan Wangji seems like the safest person to hold the movie of Aornis.

[lightbearinglord]

Dutiful, Lan Wangji takes it. It looks like nothing more than a black rectangle. He turns it over in his hand, as if that will help him understand how it works or how this can save that stretch of moving images, but this reveals nothing. Accepting defeat, he slips it into his qiankun pouch.

[summerdude]

Magnus goes back to the couch and slumps. Everything happens so much... he's really ready to have this entire Aornis situation behind him.

[onthewillowsthere]

Immediately he settles his arms back around Magnus, snuggling against his shoulder. He leans in and whispers, "Would you like to ask Lan Wangji for a lesson?"

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji is not ignoring them. He is perfectly aware of their presence. But because Galahad is speaking so quietly, he opts to leave them be, in the event that they are sharing something private, for only the two of them. He finishes copying his note about the existence of this piece of evidence. He will keep one and give the other to Claudius as soon as possible.

[summerdude]

"Should we teach him how to play Smash?" Magnus whispers back. Shen Yuan might get a kick out of watching that.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. He played pinball," says Galahad, who has seen the painting. If Lan Wangji can enjoy one sort of game, he can probably enjoy another. He also likes the idea of the two of them being able to teach Lan Wangji something.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji, in the meantime, is tidying up his writing materials as he waits for the ink to dry on those final two notes.

[summerdude]

"Hanguang-jun," Magnus says, more loudly this time. "Wanna learn how to play Smash?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"We can teach you."

[lightbearinglord]

At Magnus' voice on his title, Lan Wangji does look up. Context makes it reasonably obvious what they mean. He has seen Shen Yuan sitting on this couch, playing this game, before. He hesitates. "This is Shen Yuan's game." What he means by that is that Shen Yuan does not like him whatsoever. Although the feeling is mutual, it might be disrespectful to the dead to allow a man he hates to toy with his belongings.

[summerdude]

"This is the people's game," Magnus says, peaceably. He doesn't see Shen Yuan, who art in the room with them, trying to get in the way of Hanguang-jun playing!

[onthewillowsthere]

"If he doesn't like it, he can tell us," Galahad says practically. He puts his bottle of Mountain Dew down on the floor, balanced upside down on its cap. It should be easy for Shen Yuan's spirit to push over.

[lightbearinglord]

An extended moment passes. Galahad's bottle does not move.

"Very well," Lan Wangji says, mildly wary.

[summerdude]

"Okay," Magnus says. "Come here, take this controller." He hold his out to Hanguang-jun. "Galahad, can you explain the buttons?" It's probably easier for an older-timey guy to explain that to another older-timey guy.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. Each of the buttons does something you need to be able to do to play the game." He touches the joystick with this fingers. "This one allows you to move around."

[lightbearinglord]

Almost visibly dubious, Lan Wangji accepts the object Magnus has offered him. The controller. In his hands, it looks and feels small and flimsy. He has several questions already, but he keeps them to himself for now and only nods, copying Galahad.

[summerdude]

"Okay," says Magnus. "Basically you just mash everything until it does what you want it to do." This is his method and it almost sometimes works! "But first you gotta pick a character to play as."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I always pick Jigglypuff. At first it was because I liked the way she looks, but her powers are good too."

[lightbearinglord]

"What characters are these?" Slightly suspicious, he presses a button, the one that is labelled with the letter A.

[summerdude]

"They're varied," Magnus says, as if this is a complete explanation. "I usually play Peach, but sometimes I pick Pichu to mess with Shen Yuan."

[onthewillowsthere]

"The characters have their own strengths and weaknesses. In the game, you have to consider your own strengths and weaknesses as well," very seriously.

[lightbearinglord]

This is very much the blank expression of someone whose greatest weakness at this moment is that he barely understands half of what is being said to him. He frowns down at the controller. Hoping that if he is patient, one of them will explain this in a way that makes any sense, he says nothing and waits.