[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]

Since Regina is dozing now in his lap, Galahad is stroking her as he listens. Her soft fur feels good to touch, and it seems as if it grounds him, too.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan smooths out her skirts. "Perhaps Mr Tumnus," she says, slowly. "But he was always Lucy's special friend. Cor and Corin, the princes of Archenland? They were such dear boys." She had, in retrospect, felt rather maternally toward them, which is ever so queer to think about now, given that she feels maternal about absolutely nothing at all and prefers it that way.

She presses her lips together. "Perhaps no one."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I think that's all right."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Do you?" She flicks her gaze over to him. "I feel terribly guilty now that I'm thinking about it."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad presses his lips together as he thinks, and finally says, "It was a parable. Narnia. And you were used as an example."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan blinks three times, and then slumps as much as her rigorous attention to her posture allows. What Galahad has said - it seems plausible. "How perfectly dreadful," she says.

[onthewillowsthere]

"It wasn't fair. And it was cruel."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I wonder what sort of example I'm meant to serve," says Susan, somewhat grimly.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Wanting more than God wanted for you," he says, thinking of everything he knows about Susan. Asking too many questions. Striving.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She presses her lips together again. This doesn't explain Edmund, who also had aspirations, but - it does make a terrible sort of sense nonetheless.

[onthewillowsthere]

He could be wrong. He can't exactly tell what Susan thinks or what her expression means. But he doesn't think it would be helpful to say so; Susan is someone who draws her own conclusions regardless. He waits.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Do you know," decides Susan, after another moment. "I believe I shall set this aside and think about it later." It does seem best understood in pieces.

Her tone is confident, but the glance she flicks towards Galahad is uncertain. "Do you mind terribly if I speak to you about this again, eventually?" She shouldn't want to assume - it is, after all, rather a heavy topic.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't mind." It is a heavy topic, but it's meaningful to him, too.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Thank you."

[onthewillowsthere]

He nods. If she were Magnus he'd hug her without even thinking about it, but now he looks at her a bit uncertainly. Is an embrace good? Is it overly familiar? Does it not matter, really? Instead, he just looks at her intently.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

If Galahad were to hug her, Susan would welcome the embrace; as it stands, she doesn't think to suggest one. Instead, she reaches over to give Regina's head a little stroke. "I should like to discuss something different now."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods again, and after a moment of silence he says, "I've asked Queen Janet to turn me into a cat for a day."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"She mentioned! She's been working rather hard on sorting it all out." Susan thinks over his survey responses from months ago. "You've wanted this for some time, haven't you?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. I want to visit Mothwing's den with her."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Mothwing shall be terribly pleased to have you," says Susan, with immense confidence.

[onthewillowsthere]

"It's where she stores the medicinal plants we gather. She wanted to show me, but I can't fit.'

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I do hope you'll report back in detail about the experience," says Susan earnestly.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I will," Galahad says, with absolute sincerity. "I will keep notes."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I've never thought to seek animal transformation," says Susan then, thoughtfully. "I suppose it was never really an option. Aslan did turn the Calormene prince into an ass, once - Rabadash, after he tried to invade Narnia and..." she trails off, frowning, and then shakes herself. "But that was the only time I've heard it done."

[onthewillowsthere]

"What happened to Rabadash?"