I loathed you but yet I wanted you as well. I couldn't stand seeing you but yet I looked forward to seeing you on the battlefield. Your mind is just as disgustingly beautiful as I had imagined. Oh how I wanted it all to myself. You were my first taste of what an andalite body would be like!

How could I have been so foolish to allow you the chance to escape me? How could that be?

That beautiful mind, that beautiful body… you tossed it all away to be one of those simpleminded hork-bajir that we had enslaved. To be with that seer you loved so much. How foolish were you to give up all you had for a life that was less? How I both mourned and loathed the news that you were now nothing but a hork-bajir nothlit now.

Now I could never take you! I refused to take a body that is not your andalite body! You were useless to me now! Absolutely useless!

You should've been mine! You filthy, hedonistic little andalite; You should've been mine!

I wouldn't have had to hurt you if you had chosen to be my host! No, no my precious little andala I would take incredibly good care of you. I would allow you to delve into your good memories while I take control of your body. You'll never have to know what happens on the outside. Not the horrors of battle nor the horrors of my own actions.

I wanted to keep your precious, horrifyingly beautiful mind intact after all. What fun would've it had been to speak to a broken shell with a consciousness? I wanted you to be fully intact, able to fight me and debate me. I wanted you to continue on fighting me until the day we both die.

But you threw it all away! We both could've been more! But now… that will never be possible.

What was so special about that seer that you would want to be trapped in a form similar to his? Was it the fact that he was so naively intelligent? Or perhaps it was because of how malleable his mind was for you. To be able to twist his will to your own needs and fill his mind with thoughts similar to your own...

Oh dear Aldrea, I have been in your mind. I know now how you act, how you think, how you see him.

He was nothing but a tool to you wasn't he? You used him until he finally snapped at you after realizing his place in your world. He saw that you thought nothing of his people beyond just being tools for your revenge. Your own private war with me, the killer of your precious family.

How could someone like you ever fall for a creature like him? He was too gentle! He could never match your fire, your intensity! You deserved so much better than weak filth such as him. He was never worthy of you, Aldrea.

Did you really think for a moment that you loved him? You are like me Aldrea, you only care for those who are useful to you. We could've been perfect together! You and I are one in the same Aldrea.

Cold.

Hateful.

And intelligent .

We could've been the strongest pairing in the whole Yeerk Empire! You and I, we could understand each other! I knew it from the very tip of my palps to the very end of my tail. I knew you and I were both born to be with one another. Born to be master and pet.

You were too stupid, too naive, too foolish to see it as I had seen it! You were too wrapped up in your thoughts of revenge to realize that the death of your family could've just been a new beginning. A new beginning for us.

Why couldn't you have chosen me?

Even as I had bled you of every last drop of your blood during our final encounter so many years ago, I could feel nothing but regret. I knew I should've felt joy at your death. I was killing my first true rival finally after all! But my victory wasn't as sweet as it should've been. I felt nothing but disgust and hollowness.

Even as I had stared at your empty, crimson eyes that stared towards the sky, I felt that hollowness intensified. I had destroyed something that was once so beautiful, something that I had wanted for so long. But you laid dead at my hooves in a form that would never be fitting of you.

Why couldn't you have chosen to be mine?

I loathed you but yet... I believe I may have loved you as well Aldrea. Something about you always forged a fire within my mind and body. Something different from what I had felt for many of my other rivals. Though it may be that I was simply obsessed with you from the first time we met in battle.

Now that you are gone, I have nothing but my memories of you. Regrets of what had happened between us. Wistful thoughts of what could've been if you had simply given in. Feelings still lingering deep inside of me.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I still am obsessed with you, my dear.

Something that isn't the usual romantic story. Then again, Esplin in anything romantic is probably not going to be normal period.