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Bella assembles everyone (in the garage, out of politeness to Ax, who is standing in grass clippings that Andi took from two houses down for him) after she has organized her notes on Yeerking.
"I have tentatively concluded that the benefits of telling Renée outweigh the risks. We already use her house as a base of operations, and not having to work around her would be much easier, especially now that we have three people who don't officially exist to hide. She exists - and her official existence is an adult; she can drive us places and so on. She can excuse me and Andi from school, if Charlie morphs her he can be out in public as long as they coordinate and not have to pretend he's not our parent, she can make sure we have enough food in the house - and I guess for Ax we experiment with commercially available forms of hay, there aren't going to be grass clippings in Phoenix so readily available - to sustain extra people. She's flighty but not terrible with secrets. I do think we might want to avoid teaching her specialized vocabulary like 'Yeerk' or 'Escafil' or whatever, because that seems like the easier slip for her to make, but I think we should tell her what's going on. Charlie will be able to convince her that we can't just turn over the issue to the authorities."
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pandion
Andi, now demorphed except for some feathers on her cheeks and amongst her hair, adds, "Or see anybody else turn into anything? But it's grosser when they do it, and slower, I'm really good at it."
kindestgarden
"I think I'm fine, girls, thank you. Did you say Trouble was here?"
"Downstairs, with Ethan. They will probably reemerge sometime in the next fifteen to twenty minutes."
"Questions?" Bella asks Renée. "Further evidential requirements?"
kindestgarden
"I think I'm, er, convinced. But what are you doing - why can you turn into owls and such?"
"Ax's brother crash-landed conveniently near us not too long ago and gave us some garage alien technology that lets us do it. We have to touch the animals to get them. We raided a zoo, a while back. And we're trying to come up with ways to use that ability and anything else we can get ahold of to get rid of possessor aliens."
"Robin, d'you want to go see if Trouble and Ethan would like to come greet Mom?"
"It's a mix. You can do that, with closely related animals. Ax has a human morph that's all of us mixed up."
aeskhyne
<Part serval, part snow leopard,> says Trouble. <But I can pass for a weird domestic, can't I?>
He can! The fact that he is lounging in Robin's arms like a fluffy puddle contributes to the illusion.
He can! The fact that he is lounging in Robin's arms like a fluffy puddle contributes to the illusion.
kindestgarden
"I suppose you can. So do you all - turn into things for fun, a lot?"
"That and telepathy. It's a little tiring and we can't stay in other forms for more than a couple hours or we risk getting stuck that way, but there's recreational applications, yeah."
kindestgarden
"There's not room for all of you in the car," says Renée after a moment.
"We don't have to all fit in the car. Trouble and Charlie need generic human morphs and will be flying to some population center where they won't be recognized to acquire the component humans. It would be nice to stow Ax and Ethan away with us in small morphs, so we'd have to stop occasionally to let them change out and back again - Ethan might be able to do it in transit, Ax can't - but that doesn't seem like it should be that serious a problem if we drive at night and don't take crowded highways, and if it proves really complicated they can get out and fly."