malduoni learns about some suspicious otherworldly visitors
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He thinks that he would not have accepted this job if he knew that it was run by these incompetents! Smooth presentation and everything but fundamentally you have to not walk into traps constantly, come on. It does not exactly make sense to accuse a Yeerk of thinking with its dick what with how they don't have one but that is totally his interpretation of Mhalir's decisionmaking about Carissa, who is, to be fair, hot. 

He plans to plead that he has been involved with this operation for like one day. 

He's not upset about the Yeerk and the Yeerk is in fact letting him do what he wants, which is mostly pace having these opinions.

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Malduoni is going to focus on Mhalir, then. 

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Who's on his feet, having taken a couple of steps back and edged up against a bookshelf. His posture is deliberately relaxed, his expression neutral. 

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"Why did you come back for her." 

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Mhalir is thinking that he's sort of wondering that himself right now. He feels like he tried each step expecting to find some reason to abort, and then there wasn't, and then he - could sort of feel the stretching his mind was doing, his decision-making here wasn't neutral. 

He wants Carissa to be safe and he wants to be in her head again where their thoughts together are so gloriously clear and he wants to watch her keep growing, and probably being kidnapped again will just make her want to shrink to nothing again and he hates it... 

He wishes he knew what this deadly-calm old man wants from him. 

"She is my voluntary host and I wanted her back. You will notice that she agreed on this." 

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"I have been told you are neither stupid, nor generally rash or impulsive, and yet I observe you keep making choices that do not match that." 

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Mhalir has no idea what he's supposed to say to that! Now, in addition to scared, he feels dizzy and like the world is falling away under him again. And sad and confused and so so tired. 

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"You seem to find some features of our world perplexing. What is it that is new information to you?" 

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"I am not sure." Mhalir doesn't have any words for it, only feelings, vague and sliding away when he grasps for them. The bizarre local conceptions of Good and Evil, Law and Chaos, which would have seemed metaphysically incoherent to him before, but - here they're real, they bear weight, and he can't help but poke at the new framework for everything. The feeling that he could afford to explore here, maybe, in a place the Andalites knew nothing of and hadn't yet poisoned. 

Alloran, talking to Carissa and the cleric, impassioned, thinking new thoughts. Suddenly realizing that the reasoning behind keeping Alloran as a host no longer applied, and only then recognizing the sheer relief, how desperately he wants, suddenly needs, to be anywhere other than Alloran's head listening to his mental screams. 

The feeling that researching spells with Carissa is the dream he's been reaching toward all this time, the someday future once he has enough power to hold his own against the Andalites and demand they accept his terms, because otherwise his people's future will never ever ever be under their control... 

Carissa, thinking that his reasoning about the Andalites is naive and childish. 

The cleric of Sarenrae, who thinks Good is so simple. Just stop hurting each other. 

And, of course, it was impossible all along, he was deluding himself with hope that he could operate in a world not full of alien powers determined to destroy him. It hurts. He wants - not that. 

(Something else that he deliberately isn't thinking about.) 

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"I am not determined to destroy you," Malduoni says quietly. "I realize you are a person too, and so are all of the others. I suspect you were wrong about the Andalites - at least about what is possible, if not about what you personally could achieve with them. I think there is hope for your people's future, if you stop enslaving people on my planet." 

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He sounds so possessive. Presumably it isn't personally his planet, even ninth-circle wizards aren't gods, who can claim territory in that sort of way.

Still, Mhalir supposes he might choose the same phrase in defending his homeworld, if it ever came up. 

He says nothing, because the man's words add very little clarity, and don't give him much reason to believe anything different than he did before. 

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Malduoni sighs. 

"I can, and will, demand by force that you stop it. I would rather you did not threats, though, and instead - saw that you have better paths, now, and can set aside all these horrifically costly tradeoffs that you were choosing to make - in full knowledge of how monstrous they are, I think - and build that more cooperative future you wanted to have someday, now, here." 

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Mhalir blinks, that's - surprising, somehow, but not in a way that makes any of the whirling puzzle pieces slip together. 

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"Are the Yeerks in command back home going to pursue you here, if you do not return or send messages?"  

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Wow change of topic. "Eventually. I gave them coordinates but not the ship design, it will take them time to re-engineer it."

Which might have been a mistake or it might've been a mistake to send word home at all and his entire mind is locking up with the effort of not screaming about it. 

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"Why." 

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"...I wanted to have breathing space. There was a great deal of new information here to orient to." 

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"And you thought you might change your mind about the correct strategies to pursue in your war?" 

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"I - hoped so." 

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"Can you believe me when I say that I also hope so." 

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....Apparently not, no. 

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Malduoni sighs. 

"I am not angry or planning to harm you. I do not have Carissa; she escaped. I will look for her but I am sure she can take care of herself for a little while." 

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Mhalir winces, surprised at the sudden ache. He wants to be back in Carissa's head; it feels like the world will be a little more right and okay if he has that. 

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"I am sure she will manage to find you again. She seems quite motivated to." 

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...Really? It'd be stupid of her, it was one thing when he was winning and could give her wealth beyond imagining but he's been captured by a powerful enemy now and if she's smart, which she is, she'll want to be far far away, not get caught up in the collateral damage. Of course, the wizard can probably find her anyway, though it sounds like he's taking his time about it for some reason. 

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