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Trouble and Charlie fly to Las Vegas to get their collections of drunks. Ax, newly empigeoned, and Ethan loosely follow Renée's car back to Phoenix, so that Ax will not be stranded in an unfamiliar city obliged to demorph into Andalite form with no garage to hide in.
Renée makes a very large grocery trip. Ax deems alfalfa hay intended for consumption by guinea pigs and rabbits to be the hoof-eating equivalent of palatable; it also turns out he can eat a few other things, like carrot tops and turnip greens. He still doesn't like living in the garage, even though it's a different one. Andi finds him a little planetarium gadget that throws star-patterns onto the ceiling.
Renée installs a cot in the basement for Charlie. (His generic human morph is a man about ten years younger than him, plausibly Latino but just as plausibly not, plain and unremarkable. He also picks up a Renée morph. He will be able to drive the girls places, publicly know their names. They can tell he appreciates the opportunity, however weird it is.) Trouble is allowed to sleep on the couch, when Renée learns that he would prefer not to share the basement with Charlie.
Bella sews weights onto all the curtain hems so they won't be easily nudged aside.
The twins also collect generic-human-morphs. Both of theirs are college-age women, samples collected from going on premature college tours and shaking a lot of hands - Bella's looks maybe half Asian when she's done tweaking it, Andi winds up with a complexion much like her usual one but a surprisingly Hawaiian set of features.
Renée never asks to be enabled to morph. Bella eventually offers, "for emergencies", and Renée aggregates a number of her co-workers into the most stereotypical teacher-lady it is possible to Frolis into without requiring vision correction.
Renée makes the arrangements well in advance to homeschool the twins.
Bella quizzes Ax about all sorts of things, for large parts of each day.
aeskhyne
Trouble's favourite generic human is a woman in her mid-twenties of highly ambiguous background, with wildly curly black hair, light skin, and hazel eyes. But he has about five of them, all different, and rarely uses any.
As much as he appreciates getting to sleep on the Swans' couch - and he appreciates it a lot; he can handle tucking himself into corners every night, but it's not what he'd call fun - he still spends most of most days out and about as a pigeon.
As much as he appreciates getting to sleep on the Swans' couch - and he appreciates it a lot; he can handle tucking himself into corners every night, but it's not what he'd call fun - he still spends most of most days out and about as a pigeon.
megale
And he can get fed as a pigeon, pretty damn reliably, if he knows where to go in the early afternoons.
aeskhyne
Parks are frequently a good shot, but it takes him a few days to observe that this particular girl keeps coming back to this particular one.
She's cute, and she has tasty crackers. Trouble starts dropping by more often.
She's cute, and she has tasty crackers. Trouble starts dropping by more often.
megale
She talks to the birds, sometimes.
"Hey pidgies. Ooh, lookit you, brown and white, aren't you fancy, have a cracker. So I could've sworn Mom 'n Dad'd let me get a dog, this summer finally, a puppy, I'd have all July and August to train it to do dog things. You know, just the usual, housebreaking, sit stay speak roll over write the Great American Novel eat my homework and leave video evidence. But noooo."
"Hey pidgies. Ooh, lookit you, brown and white, aren't you fancy, have a cracker. So I could've sworn Mom 'n Dad'd let me get a dog, this summer finally, a puppy, I'd have all July and August to train it to do dog things. You know, just the usual, housebreaking, sit stay speak roll over write the Great American Novel eat my homework and leave video evidence. But noooo."
aeskhyne
Trouble steals half of the brown-and-white pigeon's cracker, hops closer, and coos.
megale
"Hi theeeeere, little chatty one, coo to you too, share with your friends, huh? And I can't take one of you guys home, for one thing you'd never let me catch you, I'm the pigeon equivalent of a scary walking talking vending machine, right, for another Dad thinks you carry diseases, which, if you do, guys, stop, make sure you're getting regular checkups at the vet, take your meds, wash your feet before you have dinner, get your flu shots. And so Mom says I can get a cat. I bet you guys don't like cats, huh? I bet cats are way scarier than the walking talking vending machine. They do no vending. Cats all flunk out of vending school."
aeskhyne
...She's amazing, how is she so amazing?
Trouble coos again. And eats a cracker. Peck peck. Totally normal pigeon behaviour.
Trouble coos again. And eats a cracker. Peck peck. Totally normal pigeon behaviour.
megale
"I mean cats are pretty and soft and all but they aren't lovey, they won't act like the whole world is brighter and better and more full of rainbows just 'cause you came home, you know? Dogs are friendly, I want a puppy who'll love me and not just - well, no offense, but just think I'm a vending machine. A mutt'd be fine. With two different colored ears. Something from the shelter, pay them for its shots, name it, I dunno, Kendall? I like Kendall for a puppy. I think it works for a girl or a boy."
megale
"You are super chatty, you," she says, tossing a cracker at him in particular. "Trying to convince me to try to pick you up being all fluffy and coo-y and cute. I know better, if I lunge at one of you nobody else'll get close enough to take the crackers for like half an hour."
aeskhyne
Trouble endeavours to catch the cracker in his beak, misses, and pecks it off the ground.
megale
The girl giggles. "Ain't nothing in the rules that says a pigeon can't play fetch," she chuckles to herself and to the congregated pigeons.
aeskhyne
Trouble coos again, since pigeons are not famed for their ability to snicker.
Something startles the rest of the congregation, and he joins them in scattering and then joins them in recentering on the talkative food distributor a few seconds later.
Something startles the rest of the congregation, and he joins them in scattering and then joins them in recentering on the talkative food distributor a few seconds later.
megale
She has waited patiently for them. "Anyway, enough about me and my wanting a dog, you're probably all super bored by, um, the fact that my gibberish has the same syllable in it a whole lot, in which case you're probably having more trouble with the fact that I say pronouns and 'the' and whatnot most sentences, but I'm going to just ignore that since I don't actually have anything else to say about wanting a dog. Pretty simple. Rhea wants a puppy, what else is new. Well, what else is new is I work at the paintball place now, which pays for crap but I get to play free rounds of paintball now and then so that's excellent, yeah. If that hot guy who's probably gay and has the membership ever randomly kisses me I can be all smooth and tell him 'taste the rainbow'. Except no, that's incredibly stupid and also implies that I don't shower after games, thank you for steering me away from that stupid line, helpful pigeons, I will not refer to Skittles advertisements if the probably gay guy kisses me. I'll say something more like, 'I totally thought you were gay'. Is that offensive? I feel like it might be. Man, what is the appropriate thing to say, though?"
aeskhyne
Well, Trouble would just say it. He's tempted to give her advice. He coos and wanders hopefully closer instead. He is a chatty pigeon. Also hungry.
megale
The girl, whose name is plausibly Rhea, dispenses crackers. "I guess telling him I thought he was gay implies that I gave the question thought? Is that flattering? Maybe it's flattering if you think about it but I dunno if he'd do that, basically all I know about him is he's hot and likes paintball and is probably gay, and given he's probably gay I should probably not dwell on what I'd do if he did something even most straight dudes do not do. Actually, literally no straight guys have ever decided to spontaneously kiss me unless you count elementary school. What do you think, pigeons, does Valentine's day in third grade count?" She shakes her head. "Nah. And I had a boyfriend for like a month last year but that doesn't count as spontaneous even if it counts as kissing, y'know?"
megale
"Chatterbox," she accuses. "Chatterbird. What kind of box chatters? I've never seen one do it. Maybe it's a metaphor for television. Saturday Night Live was pretty good the other day. Poor pigeons, you probably can't watch TV, even if you sat on the right windowsills people would change the channel without ever offering you the remote and it'd just be frustrating."
megale
Rhea laughs. "Man, if I ever get a puppy I'll take it to the park with me, and then I'll miss you guys. Still want the puppy, though. Priorities. I mean, talking to your dog, little wacko. Talking to the pigeons, a little more, you know?"
aeskhyne
Coo coo. Yeah, she's totally wacko, but it's a good kind of wacko and Trouble approves.
megale
"I wonder if dogs actually would chase pigeons? I know they go after squirrels. Dunno if a puppy would actually harass you. I bet you wouldn't give it a chance to make friends though."
megale
Rhea upends the sleeve of crackers. Crumbs go flying. "That's all I've got for today, featherdusters. After this I flunk out of vending school and go learn to be an electrician."
aeskhyne
This time, Trouble actually manages to catch a flying crumb in midair. He gulps it down and struts in a proud circle.