Prompt by straydog733 on the livejournal community comment_fic for today's Kink Challenge: Animorphs, Rachel, "Getting off on violence" is becoming less and less of a saying. She should be disturbed by this...she should be.
A/N: Ahem. Well. This is different for me. o_O;;; Hell of a in-character prompt, though.
Blood Rage, or Reasons They Would Turn Away
Looking back on it, Rachel isn't sure exactly when she changes. In the beginning, it's the rush of charging forward the action that makes her blood dance in ways she's never experienced before, and this is okay. There's nothing wrong with that, right?
The next time she stops long enough to measure her reactions, it's in how much the blood in the air around her and the wielding flesh parting under her claws brings an electric charge of heat to her veins. Except, this time, the battle isn't real. Or, it was real several days ago, but now she's sitting in the palest light of the early dawn in her morphing suit alone remembering every detail she can, and it's so much better than sleeping- for it's the dead who do nothing but sleep, and Rachel's body and the blood beneath her skin sing with the joy of action and victory.
The fingers of one hand- clawless now but with pitiful human nails extended in mimic of what was- clench against her thigh while the other slyly ventures elsewhere, encouraging her glow of reminiscence.
Cassie would be appalled- if Rachel could explain enough for her to understand, but then again, Cassie already left once when she felt a tiny fraction of Rachel's undisciplined high and didn't know how to handle it.
Tobias has instincts that love the hunt out of necessity, but he doesn't know the onslaught of joy she feels in anything but his wings- and the sky that embodies his precious freedom from his human life.
Ax is too disciplined, Marco keeps himself too emotionally removed by empty jokes and jaded cynicism to feel the rush of battle instead of the blinded justice of trying to salvage his mother from the Yeerk's clutches, but Jake… Jake just might know the rage- she's seen it when his emotions are particularly raw about Tom (for all no one's allowed to talk about it)- but his heart is too stoic tame and focused for her level of enjoyment.
But for her… Rachel reclines fully against her sheets, cool against her heated flesh and stretches luxuriously in the aftermath of her latest high, halfway between pampered princess and victorious wild cat.