the ocean | Glowfic Constellation

"Awesome."

Everybody converges on Ethan to see if he got a nice seagull.

Ethan Rayne

palmofyourhand

It's a seagull. It's sleeping. Thoroughly sleeping, since he's acquiring it, and when he's done he passes it off to Robin.

Robin Merryweather

hold-infinity

Isabella Marie Swan ӝ "Butterfly"

Who holds it out for everyone.

instar

Alexandra Phyllis Swan | "Andi"

Seagull: acquired.

"Okay. Shall we take these critters for a spin?"

pandion

"I hope seagulls are a happy morph," says Andi, and she goes first, getting wings before everything and turning in place like an armless angel before shrinking and finishing the morph.

aeskhyne

"I think I'll just go pigeon," says Trouble. "I'm all comfy with how they navigate."

He enpigeons.

Robin Merryweather

hold-infinity

Robin and Ethan go seagull.

Seagulls all, the Swans and Ax.

<You want to lead the way, navigator-pigeon?> asks Bella of Trouble.

aeskhyne

<Sure!>

Off he goes.

Flyyyyying. <Ax, when we get to the house, we're going to duck in through a gap under a door, and demorph once we're inside and no one will see us. We'll be able to turn on lights there, and loan you some clothes for your human morph, although I don't know if we have anything spare that will be snug enough to morph with you.>

<What is a house?> inquires Ax.

<...Just follow us,> Bella says.

<Yes, Princess Bella.>

aeskhyne

<...Ooh. Do Andalites not like enclosed structures? I bet you don't,> says Trouble.

<Of course not. That is why we have the Dome on our large ships. Somewhere to run. A house is enclosed? Why? The planet is not enveloped in hard vacuum.>

<It rains,> says Bella. <The temperature fluctuates outside of our favorite ranges. There's wind and small unwelcome creatures. It's easier to control the environment in an enclosed house. Speaking of temperatures - how cold or hot do Andalites like it? It's cooler here than it is at the latitude where most of us usually live.>

 says Ax.

<Okay. Hopefully we can find someplace comfortable for you to sleep, even if you can spend most of your waking hours in this or that morph like Trouble does. We might have to tell Renée everything, but if you don't like to be enclosed I guess 'keep you in the basement' isn't a good long-term solution.>

aeskhyne

<I'm not sure the way I hide is gonna work for everybody, now that there's so many of us,> says Trouble. <Especially with one Andalite. I sleep in enclosed spaces a lot - outdoor ones, usually, but still.>

<You and Charlie, in a pinch, we can tell Renée what's going on and put you in the basement over nights,> says Bella. <If Phoenix were near woods like Forks is, maybe Ax could hide out in them relatively safely, but the desert's too open - maybe it's unlikely for someone to wander by, but if they do, they can see him from a mile away. I don't suppose there is any useful tech in the Dome that could be repurposed for this or anything else? For that matter, do you need those specific plants to live on? Techwise - cloaking abilities? That force field's generator? Weapons, long-distance communication, anything else cool.>

<...Andalites do not share technology.>

<Elfangor shared technology. Telling us how it works isn't going to get anybody anywhere, we aren't physicists or engineers, but something down there is generating a force field. If it would become convenient for us to have a force field somewhere other than off the coast of Washington, can that be arranged?>



<Okay. I'm not telling you 'do things likely to disable the force field while it's protecting you from a few hundred feet of water'. I'm just asking, what's there, what can we get, do you need anything from it, would any of it make it easier to hide you. How much sleep do you need? How bad is the claustrophobia?>

Ax hesitates.

aeskhyne

Trouble - decides not to poke him along. See if he gets there by himself, first.

<Well,> Ax says. 

<Elfangor said the limit on morph time was two hours, does that help?>

<Then when I'm adjusted for Earth's daylight cycle it will be about six hours a night, although in the long term I would do better with occasional midday naps because the Earth day is longer than I am used to. The claustrophobia is - bad but not unendurable. I will be able to tolerate any space with enough room for me to stand up and turn around if it's the only safe way for me to get sleep and demorph.>

<Okay. And?>

<...If I go back down in my sea creature morph - yours are too large to go through the airlock - I can collect two shredders, have a small chance of removing intact the thoughtspeak amplifier I used to call for help, and could collect a personal computer left in the Dome that doesn't belong to me that I might eventually be able to hack into, as its owner may be presumed dead, though I don't know what I'd do with it besides play pilot simulators, here. I don't specifically require any of the plants. I should be compatible with local flora.>

<A shredder is...?>

<A handheld beam weapon. It is intended for hands with the Andalite number of fingers, but it would be easier for a human to handle than a Dracon beam meant for a Hork-Bajir hand.>

aeskhyne

<Yeah,> says Trouble, <Aspret mentioned 'em.>

<Aspret?> asks Ax, faltering slightly in his flight.

aeskhyne

says Trouble. <She dumped a bunch of useful memories on me, trapped herself in a bird morph, and flew off. There was some more complicated shit, but that's the basics.>

<Bird morph?> exclaims Ax. <A Yeerk with the power to morph?>

<Not any more,> says Bella. <Trapped. Stayed two hours and then some.>

<But - but ->

<Is there some accepted Andalite protocol for dealing with live, helpless Yeerk prisoners? I had her in a bowl of water,> says Bella.

aeskhyne

<And, you know, she was in my head,> says Trouble. <You get to know a person pretty well that way. She's all right. Her own side played enough nasty tricks on her that she was pretty well fed up with them - I don't think she would've gone back even if she'd thought she was going to live through it, as long as there was another way to go.>

Ax is silent. (Well, actually, he makes a seagully noise, but he thoughtspeaks no words.)

<Ax,> says Bella, <I don't know what your personal history or the history of Andalites in general has been or where this anti-tech-sharing sentiment comes from, and even if I did, I wouldn't feel particularly attached to abide by comparable guidelines of anti-Yeerk warfare. I am absolutely, one hundred percent against letting them go on infesting people of any species, or for that matter disintegrate fleeing hosts or whatever other nefarious things they've been getting up to - but I do not go in for gratuitous slaughter of harmless prisoners because they belong to a species that has earned a bad name. Not when I have an alternative. The Andalite reluctance to share tech doesn't apply to me, especially when it let me turn a parasitic slug who was going to starve or otherwise die into a duck. Are we going to have a problem? Do you want to reconsider placing yourself under my command and negotiate as an independent agent or something?>

There is a long pause, and then Ax says, <No, Princess Bella.>

aeskhyne

Helpfully, Trouble interjects, <I'm pretty sure I could guess who's the last people Andalites shared technology with.>

<Wait,> Bella says, <the Yeerks? But they don't have morphing tech.>

<Of course they don't,> says Ax indignantly.

<Was it invented recently?>

<...Not that recently. No.>

<Someone met a race of friendly brain parasites, who - they have to have hosts on their home planet, right, there's no other way you get brain parasites like that, is there?>

<...The Gedds, yes,> supplies Ax.

<Someone meets a race of friendly brain parasites who prefer to spend most of their time controlling not-brain-parasite-shaped bodies. And decides to be nice to them. And gives them beam weapons and space travel and not morph tech and a few of those six-winged birds or something.>

Ax is silent again.

aeskhyne