It'd really help?

Not if you're going to find it upsetting.

It would be weird right now but in like a week or something not so much. If you'd actually be getting something out of it that wasn't "having successfully formed the attitude 'eh, whatever, as long as it's not literally Thauron'".

Noted. Squeeze.

Okay, now they can get back to kissing.

Yeah, they wouldn't get much kissing done if they couldn't bounce back from horrible trauma conversations pretty well.

So true.

He goes home briefly for hugs but then he goes back to Cube where he can be a useful! demon! He spends most of his time on the Moon because Butterfly and Matirin are still figuring out in what order to make all the announcements on Earth. The Moon has a lot of new residents! And needs him! Sometimes he goes to the basement-dweller-hosted Yeerk planet and makes them more food and things as well.

This is very much appreciated. Can Tide get him anything for his trouble?

...no, because he is a demon and has all the things. (He likes attention, though, and he'd like if they'd teach him their languages, which he'd have automatically if they'd summoned him.)

He is assigned a Yeerk linguist (Yeerks have linguists, who knew) to teach him languages.

Of course Yeerks have linguistics, how could anyone not have linguists! He likes his Yeerk linguist. He would let his Yeerk linguist do the Yeerk thing and get all his languages except even if the Yeerk is very trustworthy 'demon with a teleport' is a disaster scenario and it would not be wise to do that.

The Yeerk linguist is okay with that. Linguistics was not the sort of profession that used to get you promoted to hosted status for longer than it takes to pick up a language in the Empire, so the basement dweller it is in is already more than it is used to.

If he'd phrased his wish better he might've been able to make not-basement-dweller people but then again if he could do that they wouldn't be suitable Yeerk hosts on account of being people who might not like that. There's no reason his wish should have given him all the demon limitations except that he wanted to be a demon.

...anyway. He would like all the languages in exchange for all the arbitrary material objects.

Then he can learn Hork-Bajir and Taxxon and Gedd and other alien languages too and he can learn the pulse code Yeerks use to talk to each other in-pool, although he will only be able to pronounce many of them if he morphs (a few can be approximated by humanoid mouths).

He will totally morph! Morphing is great! 

Pulse code is deeply unlike most languages! It's made of weak electrical signals, almost like what Yeerks pick up off of and send to brains they're wrapped around.

This is fascinating.

The linguist thinks so too!

It takes him a while to pick up, since he can only do it in two hour increments and is also extremely distracted by morph instincts.

Yeerk morph instincts include how to go into ears, Kandrona-flooded pools being ohsocozy, and subtle but deeply penetrating loneliness!

Yeah that last one is going to really fuck with his head! He already feels that way! It's terrible and terrifying and poor poor Yeerks they should move faster on getting them cleared to have hosts and things...they could at least give the ones on the planet full of surrendered basement-dweller hosts morph so then they can double up?

It's on the list of things to have happen. Inconveniently it does turn out to be sort of a raw deal for the one who's being the host, although better than occupying a basement dweller.

Really? Elves don't like it but it seems like Yeerks might like it fine, considering. Or are they just mostly pretty hypocritical.

Oh, most Yeerks don't mind being hosts per se, it just doesn't address the loneliness problem because infestation is only unidirectionally mentally-snuggly.