[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 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.

[onthewillowsthere]

He's silent for a few moments, picking through his thoughts and deciding what he wants to say. Finally, "Sometimes he doesn't talk about things. I don't like it because I don't know what to do. If I ask him to talk, and he doesn't. I don't know what to do when it's weird." He feels a little guilty telling Lan Wangji something he hasn't told Magnus, but at the same time it's a relief, especially when Lan Wangji understands him so well.

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn," he says again, and he manages to pack considerable understanding into that customary understated syllable. He barely even likes to directly ask Magnus to talk, or anyone else. It is almost always easier for him with the people in his life who volunteer information freely. Wei Ying kept everything inside once, but he doesn't anymore. Spurred to sudden honesty, he admits, "When it is like that, I want to leave. I would have, once."

[onthewillowsthere]

"You stay because you love him more than you hate feeling weird." He rubs his watchband. "He was upset that Claudius asked for a message from Shen Yuan for me and not him. "

[lightbearinglord]

"I know." He watches Galahad's fingers on the watchband, perfectly still himself. "I regret that I didn't think of asking." Most of his memories of that session of Inquiry are colored by the slow-rising tide of his own panicked horror, a tide that eventually broke on the shore of Claudius' kind understanding.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Claudius said you were weary." Claudius is more delicate with Lan Wangji's feelings than other people he tells Galahad about, so he's confident that weary shielded something more uncomfortable.

[lightbearinglord]

"I was." He told Magnus as much. He has to hope that it mitigated some of the hurt; he believes it did. "My memories were taken several times. I lost time. I was late with Wei Ying's dinner more than once."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad frowns. He knew that Lan Wangji had lost some memories, because they all have, because that is what Aornis does, but this is different: by Claudius' own telling admission, the lines Galahad can read behind because he knows their shape so well, this is significant. Lan Wangji doesn't like people to know this. It's a vulnerability he had to hear for himself from Lan Wangji.

He unhooks the clasp of his watch and holds it out to Lan Wangji. "Here. You will know if you lose time."

[lightbearinglord]

Startled, Lan Wangji looks down at the watch, frozen for a moment. His instinct is to refuse it. It would be the polite thing to do. This was a gift, and not one meant for him.

But Galahad would not have offered it if he didn't mean it. They don't need to rely on what etiquette dictates. He understands what this gesture means, and aches a little with the kindness of it. He takes the watch. "When she is gone, I'll return it to you."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods. He trusts this. Claudius and Lan Wangji will defeat Aornis, and then he will be able to wear his watch again, the blue and braided leather band around his wrist where it belongs. Until then he has many treasures from Claudius.

[lightbearinglord]

Carefully, Lan Wangji tucks the watch away, too. Later, he will detach the band, store that safely in one of their bedroom cabinets, and attach the face of the watch where his jade token once hung from his waist. For now, he turns to Galahad again. "I don't know how to help Magnus when he won't tell me what hurts him."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I know. I think you can't. But I didn't want it to be a secret." His thin mouth tucks. "Was that wrong?"

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji thinks about the question, sure that Galahad won't mind the wait. He imagines that Magnus wouldn't like this, that if he hasn't told Lan Wangji, then there is a reason for that. But he also knows how sour things can turn when feelings are kept secret, how well-meaning assumptions can threaten to break things that would have been whole otherwise. "No," he says finally. "I think not."

[onthewillowsthere]

A tension, bow-string tight, softens in his perfectly straight shoulders. "Okay," he says.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji's face softens in response, banked warmth in his eyes as he looks at Galahad. "I am glad you told me."

[onthewillowsthere]

He nods, reaching up to rub his fingertips against the smooth pearl drop of the earring he's wearing. Without the watch, it will do.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji picks up the game controller again, eyes flicking toward the screen and then back to Galahad, asking whether they should bother returning to this pursuit.