"Meanwhile," says Bella, "today while Ax was hanging around in the garage being bored, I talked to him about it, and - well, it took a while to get his entire perspective because he kept framing it in terms of what kind of organizational structure are we working with here, do humans have a concept of 'pride', etcetera, but as far as he can tell you insulted him for no reason, and for the sake of inter-Animorph unity he refrained from challenging you to a duel and just asked you not to do that, instead, and then you said you could do whatever you wanted and flew away and for some reason the resident princess didn't reprimand you or him so he was wondering if humans just prefer to exist in environments of social hostility or something. I guess the difference might just boil down to that if I tell Ax he needs to fix this interpersonal conflict on his end, he might do something other than metaphorically flipping me off. I told him you were an unusual human, but - well, I understand you well enough to do some things, but 'explain you to an alien' isn't one of them."

"I'm not confident, but I have the impression that the general Andalite dueling setup ends with somebody dead or permanently maimed," says Bella.

Trouble shrugs. "Okay, no, then."

Bella drops her forehead into her hand. "So, I go tell him that you're going to be insulting him whenever you like and he is to ignore it and see if I can still get a 'yes Princess' to that, is that where we are, here?"

Trouble sighs. "I'll talk to him if you want. I just don't promise he's gonna come out of it any happier than he would if you did that."

"What would you say?"

"I have no idea."

Bella is silent, staring into space, for a long moment of thought.

Trouble waits with infinite patience.

"Do you think you'd make anything worse?"

"Again, no idea. I wouldn't try to. Pissing him off is not a fun hobby."

Bella opens her mouth, then closes it.

"Something to say?"

"I do not think that saying what I was about to say would get me anything I want to have."

"Well, I'm curious."

"I don't know how to fix this, but that doesn't mean I can't make it worse by saying everything that pops into my head."

"And you're worried you'll, what... piss me off?"

"Or something. I don't allow myself the luxury of hurting any feelings that happen to wander by on the grounds of whim."

"Uh-huh. So what were you gonna say?"

"You met a friendly, helpful, stranded, frightened alien who had just discovered that his brother was dead and placed himself under the protection of someone who's supposedly your friend, and then you upset him, and he politely told you that the thing you said upset him, and I have seen no indication that you give a fraction of a shit. You aren't curious what constitutes an insult to an Andalite so you can avoid any portion of the possible ways to ruin his day, you haven't apologized or given any noticeable thought to what apologizing would look like, I don't think you're even acting like this on the grounds that it offends you that Ax is racist against Yeerks. I don't think there is a way to be in the wrong in this situation that you haven't at least flirted with except that I believe that you didn't intentionally set out to hurt his feelings, which means precious little when you demonstrate no interest in the fact that they exist. And I'm still probably going to have to tell Ax to suck it up even though his worst crime here is not liking a species that has been fighting his people since before he was born, since he has done me the great courtesy of presenting leverage for me to apply and you haven't. And that's how I get to reward him, I guess, I get to tell him that on this particular team of humans sometimes people are going to trespass on his sacred values and that's his problem."

"So I guess I'll go do that, then, shall I." Bella gets up.

"...Can I talk to him first? I mean - instead, hopefully?"

"And say what?"