[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

[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?"

[mothwingofriverclan]

"Yes. She and I were medicine cat apprentices at the same time, though she's a ThunderClan cat. Still, medicine cats are allowed to be closer with cats from other clans than warriors, so we spent a lot of time together. I liked her immediately. She's very kind and very passionate. She's always had this unshakeable faith in StarClan, and in everyone she loves. It was a terrible time for all the clans, though. Twolegs were completely destroying our old territory, and every clan besides RiverClan was starving. I gave Leafpool, Leafpaw at the time, lots of RiverClan fish. It was completely against the warrior code, but I couldn't see her starve, you know?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"You did what was right, even though it wasn't permitted."

[mothwingofriverclan]

"That's my specialty. Anyhow, she was a big reason the clans survived and found new territory. I didn't believe in StarClan at the time, so when she said she got signs from them leading us to the new place... I thought it was just her putting things together in her subconscious. I still believe her accomplishments are hers. Any cat can receive signs, but it takes courage and skill to act on them."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods. His own visions from God were messages, just as Mothwing is describing. He learned from them, but here he's chosen to disobey the instructions within them -- Leafpool could have ignored StarClan's messages, but she didn't. She led the clans to new territory.

[mothwingofriverclan]

"She did become the subject of scandal eventually, though." Mothwing has to sigh, just thinking about it. "Medicine cats are forbidden from taking mates, and all cats used to be forbidden from finding a mate in another clan. Leafpool did both. It was probably the most foolish thing she's ever done."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Was she in love?"

[mothwingofriverclan]

"Yes," Mothwing growls. "With that mousebrain." That mousebrain is currently deputy of WindClan, but she can't speak to Harestar's choice in deputies.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Why are they a mousebrain?"

[mothwingofriverclan]

"He's as disagreeable as a fox in a hole," Mothwing meows. "Crowfeather's his name. I never knew what she saw in him. Every cat knows he's unpleasant."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Unpleasant?" In truth he's a bit fascinated. It reminds him of listening to Claudius complain about people he doesn't like, people he's met in his travels.

[mothwingofriverclan]

"He argues about everything, never has anything nice to say, broods constantly, and he's disappointed two different she-cats as a mate."

[onthewillowsthere]

"How did he disappoint them?"

[mothwingofriverclan]

"Well, he and Leafpool ran away, but they came to their senses and came back and broke up," Mothwing explains. "Perhaps it's understandable that it was awkward between them, since every cat knew about what a disaster it was. But he took a mate in his own clan, Nightcloud, and anyone could see he didn't love her. It was all for show, so he seemed like a proper clan cat. In my opinion, he should have just kept his head down and worked hard at being a good warrior and everyone would have forgotten in time. Well, except that he got Leafpool with kits, so that always would have been a problem..."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Did she have to take care of them by herself?" Single parenthood is less obscure as a concept to Galahad since he started reading romance novels, but he isn't sure about how the Clans feel about unwed mothers.

[mothwingofriverclan]

"Actually, she gave them to Squirrelflight, and Squirrelflight passed them off as her own. Squirrelflight’s Leafpool's littermate. No one but the two of them knew the kits were half-Clan until they were all grown cats. It was a horrible shock to them, and to Bramblestar as Squirrelflight’s mate. I was raised knowing that my mother wasn't a Clan cat, and my father wasn't from RiverClan, so I never had a pure Clanborn identity like that, but I imagine it was hard to have that shattered." Mothwing speaks with some sympathy, but there's a skeptical edge in her lashing tail.

Poor Hollyleaf, Jayfeather and Lionblaze, who had Leafpool as their mother and two loving foster parents. Mothwing's father was one of the worst villains the clans had ever seen.