[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]

"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.

[onthewillowsthere]

"We should finish the round."

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." It will be slightly more difficult to concentrate with thoughts of Magnus' unspoken jealousy circling, but not so difficult that he can't do it.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad, on the other hand, is happy to have an object of focus. "Practice Dancing Blade again."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji nods, accepting the instruction, and begins to do so. On the screen, Marth proceeds to change color through the phases of the attack -- an absurd conceit, but one that makes it easy to follow.

[summerdude]

Magnus swings back into the room then. "Hey," he say, coming to stand behind the couch, watching both of them play. "SecUnit has the thing. It's going to try to make copies and then it'll get you the memory card again, Hanguang-jun."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad lets his head fall backward to look at Magnus, since he's just letting Jigglypuff get hit for illustration purposes right now. "How does it make copies?"

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji, too, is much more interested in Magnus' update than he is in continuing to direct incorporeal tiny people to fight one another. He shifts enough to look at him and awaits the answer.

[summerdude]

"It's going to use this," Magnus says. "The GameCube. In a little bit. To, um, record the recording for internal storage. There's some kind of adapter it has?" He shrugs. "Look, I think it's from way far in my future; I don't entirely, like. Get the process. But, Hanguang-jun, it'll give you the memory card when it's done and it's going to try and put the file in different places so if something gets messed with, there are, like, backups."

[lightbearinglord]

If it is too far in Magnus' future for him to understand, then Lan Wangji likely has no chance, at least not without an absolutely unfathomable amount of further reading. He does, however, tuck away that small piece of information about SecUnit, who is so sparing with personal details. For now, he nods. "Good. Thank you."

[summerdude]

"It also wants us to ask it to help out more," Magnus adds, dutifully.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Help out with what?"

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji awaits Magnus' answer again, but he does feel an additional spike of tenderness toward SecUnit at the request. He might like to try and speak with it at more length once this situation has come back under control.

[summerdude]

"Um. Situations. Risk assessment and emergency response? I think it didn't like the Wanderers Gather fire."