[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," Galahad says as well. He tries to say it as Lan Wangji himself does, when Galahad improves in training.

[lightbearinglord]

Their twinned encouragement is too charming to resist. Lan Wangji lightly nudges Magnus' shoulder with his own. "Thank you." He gazes grimly at the screen again. "Can this game be won? Or do you only play again and again?"

[summerdude]

"You go until you lose and then you can play again. With different characters, if you want."

[onthewillowsthere]

"We can stop after this."

[lightbearinglord]

He thinks about whether he wants to stop. He does, but he also hates to give up on anything at all. "Once more after this."

[summerdude]

As Magnus watches them go at it for another minute or two, something occurs to him. "We should try and make a backup," he says. "Of the videos."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad looks up. "SecUnit," he says immediately, thinking of its drones and its pledge to protect Claudius.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji, who is not close to skilled enough at this for multitasking, promptly loses the current round as he looks at Magnus. He's silent; he certainly doesn't know how to make additional copies of videos, but he does believe that SecUnit must know.

[summerdude]

"You guys keep playing," Magnus says. This -- asking another friend(?) for help with a situation -- is something he can do and be happy about doing. "Hanguang-jun, can I see the memory card? I'll bring it back."

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." In barely a moment, he has set aside the controller entirely in pursuit of taking the memory card back from his qiankun pouch and passing it to Magnus.

[summerdude]

"Cool, thanks," says Magnus, taking it and rising from the couch. "When I come back, I expect a full accounting of just how much Hanguang-jun has learned." Then, 40% teasing, 60% earnest, he circles around the couch, dropping a kiss on the crown of each of their heads as he walks behind them.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad smiles, tipping his head back. "I will teach him everything."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji, startled -- but certainly not unhappy -- looks after Magnus as he goes, fondness warming his expression for a tiny moment. Reflexively, he touches one hand to the top of his head to ascertain whether his hair is still in place.

[onthewillowsthere]

"It's still neat," Galahad says. He looks after Magnus as well, worrying at his lip with his teeth, thinking about the conversation he had with Magnus outside, under the birch trees, the day they tried to make falafel together, and comes to a decision. "He's jealous of us."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji, already still, manages to still further. Regardless of whatever is happening on the screen, he sets the controller to the side as he looks at Galahad. "Of us?" he asks, flat with the absence of understanding.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Because he loves you. And loves spending time with you. And we have been training almost every day."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji understands jealousy well, or thought he did. He has felt it like ice burning coldly inside of him as he watched Wei Ying flirt with every woman in Caiyi. This, he evidently understands less well. "He could join us. He knows I like to teach him. He doesn't want to wield a weapon anymore."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I know. I want you to teach us together. Calligraphy and painting." He pauses. "He said he was also jealous of me for spending time with you."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji would like to teach the two of them together very much, and he would say as much if he weren't so puzzled by the rest of it. He glances toward the game room door, in the direction where Magnus disappeared, and then returns his gaze to Galahad's face. "It is not the same," he says, and then he has to rifle through a series of thoughts to come to what he wants to say. "You both matter to me. But it isn't the same."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I know. I am your student, and he is something more." He says it matter of factly; it doesn't bother him. Lan Wangji also means something more to Magnus.

[lightbearinglord]

That isn't quite right, either. "You are not only my student," he says, and whether that is true for Galahad or not, it's true for him. "But the things Magnus needs from me are different." Magnus craves his approval and his attention. Magnus is a child who needs a father.

[onthewillowsthere]

A soft warmth flows through Galahad at this revelation, but he puts it aside so it doesn't become overwhelming. "Yes. I understand."

[lightbearinglord]

Grappling with his confusion and concern has Lan Wangji mired in silence for another tentative moment. "He said nothing about it to me."

[onthewillowsthere]

"He didn't want to tell me. I think he is... overwhelmed,"
and there's that word again; he signs it automatically. "He is used to quests being his responsibility. It's hard for him to let anyone else take care of something he can help with. Like letting Claudius take care of Shen Yuan's body."

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." Lan Wangji knows that. It was not easy even to coax Magnus into admitting that he was overwhelmed in the first place. "He promised to tell me when he is not okay." He doesn't like thinking that he has been missing something despite that promise.