"How?" Leareth says, thinking. "Just - break - split it off as a condition- does that work?"

<We don't have the means to do it at all. But it seems less complicated than a bunch of the things you were just doing.>

Leareth watches the rabbit behave like a normal, nonsentient but moderately intelligent rabbit. "Than what? What things I was doing?"

<The interactions with the morphing construct in z-space necessary to pull off the magically forced demorph> he clarifies.

Nod. “I will - see what happens if I attempt to separate it from the z-space pocket. It is via my artifact so I should just be able to shut that down, I think.”

Leareth tries this.

The tether is brittle and happy enough to snap. 

The rabbit seems unaffected.

Leareth isn’t sure how to check for subtler effects on it, but this is promising, anyway. “I think that part worked,” he tells Cayaldwin.

Tail-swish. <Very well done.>

It’s starting to sink in, now, that it’s actually worked. “I...should tell Matirin.” Leareth hesitates for a moment, and then starts searching for Matirin with Mindspeech.

Matirin is reviewing Earth media.

:Matirin. I think we solved the nothlit demorphing problem:

< - wow! Congratulations.> He trots over.

There is a demorphed rabbit eating lettuce in its cage.

“We should test it more times, I think,” Leareth says. “It is harder to check for side effects because, well, it is a rabbit.”

<Yes, that makes sense. And it would be good to know how reliably you can do it. I think people would want it even if the chances were small, if a better discovery weren't just around the corner but - hopefully the chances are not small.>

"Hopefully. There is still more guesswork than I would prefer in the process, in terms of linking up the replacement morph components to the damaged ones. Cayaldwin suggested I try to use short-range Foresight for that, and I am optimistic that if I do more trials, that will give me a more reliable sense." 

Swish swish. <Thank you. I am very impressed.>

"I am glad. I had hoped I would be able to solve this before going off-planet again." Leareth shifts his weight. "...If you have time, you could indulge me with some celebratory sparring before I go try to replicate it with more rabbits." 

<Could I? All right. Don't think I'll let you win.>

"Of course not, that would be no fun." And he morphs and gets himself ready. 

Sparring with Leareth feels oddly like being only barely a young man, back on his home world, when the war seemed to be going a bit better and he was optimistic about someday winning it and his parents weren't fighting. Leareth - feels the same way, he suspects, approximately, but in fact they are not young cadets without a worry in the world, and it is probably better not to spend too much time pretending.

(Empathy picks up on something vaguely wistful.)

Leareth notices the wistfulness. He doesn't comment on it. His own feelings, on the surface at least, are the closest he ever gets to uncomplicated satisfaction and enjoyment. For just a little while, he can stop thinking about the problems he's trying to solve and the challenges where he might still fail and the costs already paid that he can't ever recoup, and instead be in his body, in the moment, with a friend. 

He loses, but it's pretty close.

<...All right, I had better go back to the rabbits and see if I can pull this off reliably.> 

<That makes sense. Good luck.>

Leareth obtains ten more rabbits and several dozen more worms, and gets Cayaldwin's help in giving them morph, and then morphs Yeerk so he can make the rabbits morph into each other and trap them that way.

Then he tries to repeat the process. It's still pretty time-consuming, so he can only squeeze in two attempts before the end of the day. 

If he manages to get everything exactly the same as the first time, it works consistently.