[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]

He nods. "I haven't had to kill anyone since I came."

[mothwingofriverclan]

"We're like one Clan here. I have to say, it's nice not to squabble over petty differences."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods again. It fits with Claudius' vision of this place as one community, and he's glad Mothwing sees it too.

[mothwingofriverclan]

"So what do you do besides look at the insects?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Once we identify them, we know what their purpose is. This beetle eats other insects. Some of the insects it eats are destructive to crops."

[mothwingofriverclan]

"A little warrior, then." Mothwing examines it more closely. "Do any of them live in clans, like cats or twolegs?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. Many beetles are lone hunters, but many wasps and ants live in hives and colonies together."

[mothwingofriverclan]

"Huh. It's funny to think they might be training apprentices in there."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Usually there is a queen and many workers with different tasks to do, like gathering food and caring for larvae."

[mothwingofriverclan]

"The queen has the bee kits?" Mothwing asks, confused. "Then why wouldn't she look after them?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I think there are too many. The queen's purpose is to lay eggs, and there are hundreds."

[mothwingofriverclan]

"Hmm," grumbles Mothwing. She understands that invertebrates aren't like cats or like twolegs, they don't have desires outside of their duties, but she still doesn't like the idea.

[onthewillowsthere]

"The workers are all her daughters," he says, in case that helps. "They are taking care of their sisters."

[mothwingofriverclan]

"I just mean, it seems hard for the queen to never get to go be a warrior. In the clans, most queens go back to their warrior duties as soon as their kits are apprenticed."

[onthewillowsthere]

"The queen chooses the temperament of the hive. If she is gentle, all the bees or wasps are more gentle, but if she is warlike they are also." Mothwing, Galahad has a lot of apocrita facts, so be careful.

[mothwingofriverclan]

"So she's the leader, in a way."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. The hive needs her."

[mothwingofriverclan]

"So she's the only one with mates, isn't she?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"It's not the same for all wasps and bees, but often the only purpose of males is to mate and die without using up too many resources."

[mothwingofriverclan]

"Well, let's be grateful we aren't male insects. I don't want kits at all."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I like what I am," he says, after a pause to consider the idea. "Do you?"

[mothwingofriverclan]

"I'm glad to hear you do," Mothwing meows, thinking about how he'd said he wanted to die earlier. "Yes, I think so. I mean... I wish there were more clan cats around, but that's not about who I am, it's about where I am."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods. "I hope another Clan cat comes. And I hope it's one you like," he adds, thinking of Sagramore.

[mothwingofriverclan]

"To be sure," Mothwing meows. "If I could, I'd wish for Leafpool. I know she's in StarClan, though."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Will you tell me about her?"