[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]

"We haven't trained her. That would be rude." She's like a person, one with bad manners who speaks a different language.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Rude!" say Susan, with evident surprise.

[onthewillowsthere]

"She talks." He tilts his head. "Would you train a Talking Animal?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I suppose not," Susan allows. "She talks?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"To Magnus. I can't understand her."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Can Magnus speak to other animals?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Delicately, watching Regina make her tiny little snoring sounds, Susan says, "Do you reckon an animal that can only be understood by someone who specifically speaks to animals is still a Talking Beast?" It's a genuine question - she trusts Galahad's answer to be reasoned, regardless of what that answer is.

[onthewillowsthere]

"She talks to me too. I just don't speak her language. Did all the Talking Beasts speak English?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"They did." Susan looks thoughtful. "Mothwing would be considered a Talking Beast. As would Temeraire. Regina wouldn't."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't think that's fair. Not everyone speaks English."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Do you think all animals ought to be considered Talking Beasts?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"No. Most animals don't talk to us."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Even if Magnus can speak to all of them?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Most animals don't try. Magnus has to speak to them first. They don't think that we'll understand them. Drosera has always tried."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Ah," says Susan. "So it's about whether the animal is trying to initiate communication with the human.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. That's what I think."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan considers this. It does seem well-reasoned. "All right," she says. "I shall concede the point. Though while many of the Talking Beasts I knew called themselves wild things, they still comported themselves in a civilized manner."

[onthewillowsthere]

"What were they like?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh, I suppose it depended on the individual. I can say they were all rather different from the counterparts I made study of in university."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Who did you like best?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh, Mrs Beaver and I got on famously," says Susan, and then she pauses. "Though there was one talking beast I met, my second time in Narnia... Reepicheep was truly one of a kind. He was a mouse, you know. Only he was two feet tall and quite talented with a rapier."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad tries to imagine a two-foot tall mouse with a rapier. "What was he like?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Tremendously fierce," says Susan. "The bravest person I've ever met, save Lucy. Quite talented with his rapier, too. He was mortally wounded in battle, and Lucy used her healing drops to save him, but they did not save his tail... and the loyalty of his comrades convinced Aslan to grant him a new one."

[onthewillowsthere]

Privately, Galahad doesn't think much of the idea that God needed to see Reepicheep's friends prove themselves before He made him whole, but to say so now seems as if it would take away from Susan's reflections. He listens attentively.