On the willows there, we hung up our lyres

After way, way too much research and overthinking, the kind of research and overthinking that had Janet feeling uncomfortably like Quentin and Alice's ill-gotten love child, she's been ready for a while. So, yes, maybe she wanted the dramatic gesture of giving this to Galahad as a wedding gift. Can you blame her? Nothing says “I hope you're really happy in all your marital bliss with that guy who always seems like he's trying to sell me a protection plan” like the promise of turning someone into a cat.

Whatever. It's also kind of anticlimactic at this point. Janet has a bowl of white paste and a whole lot of gumption, but as far as supplies go, that's it. She eyes Galahad. “You ready?”

“Yes,” Galahad says, in his usual too-serious way. He's excited, but that only means his affect is flatter and blanker than usual. He told Mothwing that he would come to her for a lesson this afternoon, but not what shape he'd be in.

“Okay. You're going to have cat-brain, and herding cats is famously impossible, so where do you want to do this?” Maybe Janet should have made the mansion generate a cat carrier. But it seems rude to show up to a meeting with a human person with one of those, and not her preferred brand of rude.

“In the garden. I want to go to Mothwing afterwards.”

“Sure thing.” She lets Galahad lead the way. She has a bowl of weird white gunk to manage.

Once they’re in the garden, surrounded by the riotous summer flowers, Galahad stops. “Will my clothes transform with me?”

“Nope.” Janet raises her eyebrows at him. “You'll be naked when I turn you back. I won't let your tiny cat body suffocate or anything, if you're worried about that.”

“When you have transformed me, will you please put my watch around my neck?”

That is… so cute. He's so cute. Every time Janet has mentally compared Galahad to an adorable talking woodland creature feels completely justified. “Yep,” she says, instead of oh my God, you're adorable. “Any other last requests before you can't talk anymore?”

“No. Thank you.”

Okay, sure. Janet scoops some of the chalky shit onto her fingers and invades Galahad's personal space. She swipes it onto his forehead, under his shock of marshmallow-fluff hair, then onto his bare shoulders. She steps back, looks him over like he's a used Chevy Malibu and she's about to try and talk him up to a family of four, then says a single harsh syllable out loud.

It's not a pretty transformation. Galahad kind of… crunches forward, folding up like a piece of paper crumpling in someone's hands. Cats are a lot smaller than humans. Fur is sprouting, his collarbones are melting away, a tail is crackling out from the other end of him. It's really, really not cute. But it does work, and Janet feels like the world's coolest magician when there's a little white cat with blue eyes staring at her from under his sundress.

It feels like falling down a cliffside – a whirling, disorienting feeling, but not the freefall in air of being thrown from a horse. When the world around Galahad comes to a halt, he looks up, and up, and up, to see Janet’s distant, blurry face.

He takes a careful step forward on his paws, getting used to his new center of gravity. His whiskers feel as though they’re constantly brushing against things, picking up every vibration in the air, and the world’s colors have changed into shades of yellow and blue. His ears twitch and swivel towards sounds.

He takes a practice run, and finds his stiff, awkward body has become graceful, fluid, as he bounds in a circle around the garden. He can’t tell how, but he knows his tail is important, as much a part of his balance as his four paws.

Finally he comes back and sits on his hindquarters in front of Janet. He knows he’s not supposed to be able to talk, but he tries anyway, and meows, “Thank you.”

“Holy shit!” Janet stares down at him. That doesn't make any sense. She remembers being a goose. All she could do was honk. She honked for days on end. It was actually really fucking tedious. “Whoa. I'm good.” She told him she would, so she kneels in the grass and swipes his watch from the pile of his clothes. “Here, kitty.”

Galahad pads over to her on his soft, silent paws and puts out his head for the watch-collar.

Feeling a sudden sense of portentous responsibility, Janet buckles it around his neck. She's careful not to make it too tight or too loose. He's so, so cute. “Okay.” She gives him a little scritch under the chin, like Regina likes. “Do whatever you want, but I'm gonna keep an eye on you.”

“I understand. Thank you, Queen Janet,” he meows again. Then a butterfly passes in the corner of his eye, and he springs after it, unable to stop himself.

It's a cold, clear day, and the sun streaming through the glass of the greenhouse makes it warm enough even for Galahad, as long as he wears a sweater; Magnus, meanwhile, is fine as he is. They've been arranging everything all afternoon, clearing off the long worktable by moving potted plants to the shelves along the walls or fitting them into the middle like a kind of centerpiece. There's a stack of plates and forks at one end, along with napkins and cups. There are also scorecards, with three-by-three grids, neatly labelled CAKE.

This is because, ultimately, they end up with all nine kinds of cake from Galahad's list (they run out of time to taste test in the handful of days between Ephiphany and the party, and Galahad suggests just making all nine as a group project with Laertes and Tress, especially since two of the entries on the list are cakes Laertes told them about in the first place. The absurd indulgence of having one cake, let alone nine, is the kind of sensuality Galahad wants to take for himself here. There's no reason not to. The day before and morning of the party are a wild flurry of baking, but it turns out Magnus and Laertes and Tress are a good mixture of people. Having Magnus there eases Galahad's awkwardness, and Tress and Laertes are both excited to be trying so many new recipes, and Galahad hardly has to talk at all -- he just has to be around people he likes. The kitchen smells wonderful, like chocolate and green tea and browned butter, ginger and cinnamon and cloves. It's hard to imagine the party itself being better). The cakes are laid out on the table with sprays of fresh flowers Magnus grew and little notecards to identify them, which Galahad lettered himself: Chocolate, Yellow, Almond, Sachertorte, Funfetti. Carrot, Strawberry Matcha, Brunsviger, Ice Cream. 

There are several pitchers of Mountain Dew, cherry Coke, and root beer (neither Magnus nor Galahad actually like alcoholic drinks very much). There's also a fancy bowl and a pitcher of milk intended for Mothwing, and a dish full of delicately flaked fish -- these are all cordoned off in their own little area of the table with a sign in Magnus' block capitals: TWOLEGS BACK OFF.

Magnus tapes blue and pink and green crepe paper around the door of the greenhouse, and uses his einherji jump to get up to the ceiling glass to hang the big paper stars Galahad folded and cut using a book from the library.

Galahad brings out and sets up an extra table for gifts -- it must be said that he somewhat misunderstood what Magnus meant about birthday gifts, and although it's taken him the better part of two weeks he has prepared a gift for every person they invited in addition to Magnus himself, all of which are wrapped and labelled and set on the table in question. All, that is, except the plate of Belgian waffles for Nina, which are on the table with their own notecard and a bowl of chilled whipped cream. When Magnus notices, he quickly encourages a random assortment of eleven greenhouse plants to grow their own flowers and adds them to each gift -- more flowers are always good! Especially this time of year(?? the mansion calendar is weird, but it's obviously winter).

Drosera is playing with an empty plant pot under one of the shelves, grabbing the plastic rim in her bill and shaking it as if it were a mouse she meant to kill. The sound of her paws and talons scrabbling on the ground is audible, as are her squeaky growls. She has a crepe paper bow stuck to her head, courtesy of Magnus, which doesn't seem to bother her at all.

Galahad listens to the noises and rubs his watchband. Now that guests are a few minutes from arriving, he's begun to feel anxious. It's one thing to be around one or two people at a time, or even their baking foursome -- twelve reminds him of the dance, or of feast days at Camelot, and he's worried Gu Xiang is going to be disappointed when she actually meets him, and he's worried he won't be able to understand people again, and he's worried that Claudius will think him childish for wanting this, and he's worried--

Magnus appears beside him and takes his hand, winding their fingers together and sending a pulse of summer into Galahad's body. It doesn't burn off the worries, but it makes them recede, like floodwaters, and Galahad squeezes Magnus' hand.

It's time.