Wives and Mothers

by alikat522

Their loved ones go out and fight. They stay home and wait.

Disclaimer: The Animorphs and all related things belong to K.A. Applegate and Scholastic, not me. I just want to hang out in their world.

Author's Note: This story is intended as a companion to "Princes, Soldiers, Fathers", but can be read alone.

If he was dead, they would have sent an honor guard, not a message. This thought, and this thought alone, gave Jahar comfort. The message she received this morning had been short and curt, giving nothing past the necessary facts.

"This message is for Jahar-Denbre-Indirat. Your presence is requested later today at the Endolas Space Port, for a meeting with select members of the military. This meeting concerns your husband, War-Prince Alloran-Semitur-Corrass. We desire to see you there at five units past sun-high. Please respond concerning your availability at this time. Sincerely,

Arbat-Elivat-Estoni"

She had stared at the console for the longest time, not even noticing the stirrings of her waking daughters behind her. What did it mean? Why had Arbat sent the message? It was clearly a formal letter, so why send it with the name of a family member? Arbat was not concerned with normal military matters; they only needed him for the most delicate of intelligence issues. And since his…reorganization of power and authority…Alloran was not concerned with matters such as that. What could be the reason for this? Had he done something wrong? Was he being reprimanded again? What was-

{Mother. Mother.} Jahar spared a stalk eye to look down at her eldest daughter. Tarabet gazed up at her mother, somewhat impatiently; Andalite children were not fond of being ignored.

{Mother, I need to feed and perform the morning ritual, and I do not want to be late for school.} Jahar looked at the rising sun, realizing that they were already behind on schedule. She should have woken them up earlier.

{Go feed. I will be along to the creek shortly with your sister.}

{I thought we were supposed to do the ritual and then feed.} Tarabet had only recently become old enough for rituals, so she took great pride in performing them precisely and correctly.

{One day out of order will not hurt.}

{But I thought that-}

{Tarabet, just GO!} The young Andalite stood stock still for a moment, shocked to hear her mother raising her voice. She then turned and hurried away from the scoop to feed, stalk eyes watching her mother turn back to the console.

Jahar did not often yell, and always felt bad when she had to. But there were larger issues to deal with just now. Five units past sun-high. Tarabet would still be in school, but what would she do with Mendaheen? The young one was still waking up behind her. She was nestled into a patch of longer grass, thin, knobby, legs folded beneath her and head lowered, all of her eyes closed. Jahar sometimes envied infants the ability to sleep with such innocence and trust that their parents would protect them. It would not be too long before she began to sleep standing up and with one stalk always searching, ready for whatever might try to get her while she rested. But this quiet and stillness would be short lived anyway. Hours after her birth, Mendaheen was standing, and by the end of the day she had been running; it seemed like she had not stopped since. Four eyes were nowhere near enough to keep track of this little one.

Jahar ticked down a listen of options in her mind. Her mother lived too far away; she could not get there and to Endolas fast enough. Arbat was clearly not an option, and besides, he had watched Mendaheen recently as it was. When she had married Alloran, they had moved to his home, so most of her friends lived in different areas; again, too far to travel. There were other Andalites that lived closer, but she shot down the idea as soon as it presented itself in her head. I do not need to ask those females for help.

On the whole, she did not mind military folk. She had met and married Alloran when he was already a soldier; she had met many of his comrades and superiors. Even when he had been going through the tribunals, the males had made an effort to be respectful and courteous to her, even if they could not always keep the pity out of their eyes.

It was military wives that she could not tolerate. Their sneers, their glares, their gossip. Jahar was proud of her husband, but she had never worn his status like a commendation on her own chest, looking down on the family of warriors while cozying up to the wives of superiors. When Alloran had been promoted, they were everywhere, trying to force friendships and connections where there was nothing more than thinly veiled dislike. When he had been disgraced, they disappeared overnight. When she walked past groups, they did not even bother to keep their thought-speak between themselves.

{So do you know if they actually stripped his title?}

{I heard that they still call him War-Prince, but it does not really mean anything anymore.}

{That is just not right. Why do they allow him to keep disgracing the title? My husband will be promoted soon, and I cannot imagine the feeling of sharing a rank with someone like Alloran.}

{I heard he went mad after the tribunal. Did you see him on his last leave? I do not trust anyone with eyes like those.}

{Poor Jahar, it must be so difficult to raise daughters alone.}

Jahar knew her husband had a few defenders scattered throughout the groups, often wives of males who had served with him, but these females tended to stay quiet, lest they themselves lose status in the eyes of others. All she could do was walk past them, not allowing her stalks to linger; they were not worthy of her attention. She had even gotten used to the comments. Or she would have, if not for the way they hurt Tarabet.

There seemed to be no other option than to take Mendaheen with her to the meeting. If it was just with Arbat, then he would not mind his brother's daughter's presence. If the meeting was actually with someone else, she could ask Arbat to watch her. With that decided, she turned her focus back to the small female who was now occupying herself by running tight circles around her mother's legs.

{Come, Mendaheen-kala. If you want to maintain any of that energy, or give me the energy to keep up with you, we both need to feed. And your sister is impatient enough without us testing her.}

Mendaheen squeaked once, a tiny telepathic noise in her mother's head, before she bolted across the field towards the creek, absorbing nutrients as she went. Jahar trotted lightly to keep up with her, feeding a bit, but not terribly hungry. Apprehension had always sapped away her appetite.

{Mother, please, we need to do the ritual soon, or I will be late!} Tarabet already had her hoof in the water when they arrived, so Jahar stepped into place beside her while Mendaheen wandered around the creek-bed, splashing occasionally in the water. Together, they recited the words of the morning ritual.

{From the water that gave birth to us.} They dipped their hooves into the water, Tarabet taking great care not to lose her balance.

{From the grass that feeds us.}

{For the freedom that unites us, we rise to the stars.} After the opening, the ritual branched off in different directions. Whenever he was home, Alloran's ritual launched into a speech about military honor and defeating opponents. Jahar and Tarabet kept to the words of the civilian ritual.

{We work to keep our people strong. We endeavor to keep our families healthy. We strive to keep our culture pure. We grow and prosper, succeed and bring honor to our own names, all to bring honor to our people, our families, and our culture. We offer all that we are, so that the people may thrive.} They bowed their heads, chins touching lightly to their chests, and stayed that way for the moment of meditation. She did not know what thoughts ran through her eldest's head, but Jahar's thoughts dwelled on one line: To keep our families healthy. What if they are in space? How are we supposed to keep them healthy then?

The meditative silence was broken when Mendaheen started hitting rocks with her tail. Tarabet had to go to school, but Jahar stopped her before she rushed off across the field.

{Tarabet, I am going to the Endolas Space Port today. I am taking your sister with me, and while I should be back before you finish school, if I am not, please stay near the scoop.}

{Why do you have to go to the space port?}

Jahar hesitated. She knew if she mentioned Alloran, Tarabet would not pay a bit of attention in her lessons. She had only met him a few times, but the young female was fascinated by her father. His disgrace had come about when she was quite young, but Alloran could never be anything but a hero in her eyes. He was not distant to his daughter; he was actually quite warm around her, but that did not stop Tarabet from making him a figure for worship. Her mind would be elsewhere all day. Besides, Jahar was hesitant to bring up the issue when she did not actually know what the meeting concerned. She settled for something suitably vague.

{I need to meet with Arbat to discuss something.} The questioning look in Tarabet's eyes quickly dulled. Maybe it was because he was readily available when her father was light-years away, but her father's brother had never held much interest to the child. Without any more questions or fuss, Tarabet bid her mother well and ran off to school.

The rest of the morning slogged by, with Jahar constantly checking the time. She did not need to leave until ten units before sun-high to get there on time, and she did not want to appear anxious by coming too early. So she organized some of her work, tried to keep Mendaheen occupied, and even got around to returning some messages to friends. Anything to stop from brooding, thinking about just what might have happened that required her presence. Even with an Andalite's optimism, she could not believe that something good awaited her in Endolas. Finally, at fifteen units before sun-high, she lost all patience, gathered her daughter, and headed to the space port.

She had to travel slowly enough for the child to keep up, and they only went as far as the station for the shuttle, a small craft that flew through atmosphere to transport civilians. With her nerves jumping, she would have preferred to run the whole way, but having a child in tow restricted things like that. At least the shuttle ride gave her time to compose herself; it would not do good to walk into a meeting with military personnel with emotions flying everywhere. Mendaheen fidgeted, clutching her Pakka doll in her arms, but she seemed fairly well-behaved today, a small but much-needed blessing.

The shuttle station where they landed was a fair distance outside of Endolas, by design. The denser urban setting was somewhat unsettling, and the walk from the station to the port itself gave people time to adjust to the crowds, walking past buildings that gradually got closer and closer together. Jahar took Mendaheen's hand in hers and guided the small child through the press of bodies, more shades of blue and purple then the little one had ever seen before. Mendaheen became more and more skittish, but fear kept her hand firmly in her mother's. Andalites do not look down nearly as often as they should, but most noticed the child and gave her and Jahar more space. They arrived at the Endolas Military Administrative Center without major conflict, although both breathed a sigh of relief when the doors closed behind them, separating the large entry hall from the streets outside.

A tall public console stood at one end of the hall. Jahar initiated a mind-link and searched for any notices about her meeting with Arbat. Her name popped up almost immediately, and the notice was marked as top priority. She tried not to dwell on what this meant, but failed. Even Alloran's tribunal had not been marked as top priority. What was going on?

She found the room assignment, and headed off without listening to the directions. She had spent more time in this building then she cared to remember, and the halls were all far too familiar. Even with their high ceilings and frequent windows and skylights, the metal structure always felt like a cage. She passed room after room, soldiers and administrative officers and the occasional civilian darting in and out of doorways. Mendaheen's stalk eyes flew in all directions, trying to take it all in, but she kept up with Jahar's quickened pace, until they reached their destination. She did not need the clock set into the wall by the door to tell her she was early; a glance out the window showed that it was still sun-high. The room was fairly large, but empty, so Jahar released Mendaheen's hand.

{We are going to stay in this room, so you may play for a few units. But when the other adults arrive, you will have to stay still and be quiet. Do you understand?} Mendaheen's main eyes looked up at her mother, and Jahar felt the flow of emotions coming off of her daughter. She was still unnerved from their walk through the city, and the building did not make her any more comfortable; her stalk eyes kept sweeping over the ceiling, wondering why it blocked off so much of the sky.

Jahar ran her palm over Mendaheen's forehead to comfort her, teasing her fingers between the child's stalk eyes until a slight purr resonated in her head. It would still be quite some time before Mendaheen organized her mind enough to thought-speak coherently, but the purrs and squeaks had begun before she was even born. One of the great joys of an Andalite pregnancy was the first time when the mother could hear her child's thought-speak voice, the soft sounds and emotions that resonated from the womb. Not long after, it became loud enough for others to hear it, including the father, but that first moment was so quiet that it belonged only to the mother and child.

Mendaheen settled into a corner to play with her doll, and Jahar slowly walked the length and width of the room, trying to convince herself that she was not pacing. She kept herself from jumping when the door opened again, but just barely. She turned to face Arbat or whatever military official arrived, and was surprised to instead find herself looking at a female. She was older than Jahar, but not by much, and followed by a male of around the same age. The male looked like a civilian, but with just enough strength in his stance to suggest a military background. They seemed just as surprised to see her, and they edged into the room awkwardly, as if they were not sure if they were supposed to be here.

{Excuse me} said the male. {Do you know if this is where Arbat-Elivat-Estoni is going to be holding a meeting? I believe this is the room the console said, but if you have some other business here, we might be mistaken.}

{No, you are correct, Arbat is going to be here at five units past sun-high.}

{Oh, it seems we are a bit early.} said the female, shifting uncomfortably on her hind legs. Her eyes scanned the room, both stalk and main, but she smiled when one landed on Mendaheen.

{Is that your daughter?}

{Yes, her name is Mendaheen-Denbre-Salawar. My youngest.}

The male and female shared a quick, warm smile between the two of them.

{We are trying for another child. Our eldest…} she broke off for a moment, as if her emotions had caught up with her thoughts. He, presumably her husband, gently placed a hand on her arm, and she seemed to notice that she had trailed off. {My apologies. Our eldest is a male, an aristh. He resents having to go through the wish-flower rituals, but I know he will appreciate having a brother or sister. It is so good of the Electorate to allow bigger families again.}

{Not that we did not understand the previous prohibition} interjected her husband. {I am sorry; I just realized we did not properly introduce ourselves. My name is Noorlin-Sirinial-Cooraf, and this is my wife, Forlay-Esgarrouth-Maheen.}

{Greetings. I am Jahar-Denbre-Indirat.} A few moments passed in silence, as though none of them knew where to go from there. It was Forlay who finally said what they all wanted to ask.

{Do you know what this meeting is about? We received a message this morning that we should come here, and that it was something concerning our son, Elfangor, but it did not offer any more details than that.}

Before Jahar could tell her that she was as un-informed as they, the door opened, and in walked another pair, again a male and a female. They were clearly civilians, both with hands strong enough to imply craftsman's work. They evidently knew Forlay and Noorlin, as the female's first remake was:

{What are you two doing here? Did you get a message too?}

{We had wondered if perhaps Arbron had offended someone too grievously this time} remarked the new male {But I cannot imagine Elfangor being called in for something like that as well. I love my son dearly, but it often seems like yours has the better head on his shoulders.}

Forlay turned to angle herself between the newcomers and Jahar. {Melloret, Riyad, this is Jahar-Denbre-Indirat. Jahar, this is Melloret-Bantec-Carpian and his wife, Riyad-Aribem-Garsen.} They all bobbed their eye-stalks in greeting to each other. {Their son Arbron is an aristh alongside ours.}

{Do you have an aristh for a son as well?} asked Riyad.

{No, my children are both female. The youngest, Mendaheen, is actually just over there.} She gestured over to the child, who was playing with her doll so dedicatedly that she had barely noticed the new arrivals. Jahar paused for a moment before continuing. {My husband is a war-prince, though.}

Noorlin automatically straightened, taking any slouch out of his stance. Riyad and Melloret bowed their heads a bit in respect. Forlay, though, just looked concerned.

{Did you receive any details about what this meeting concerns?}

{No.}

{Well, what could possibly involve both a war-prince and arisths?}

Jahar could only wave her stalk eyes, admitting her equal level of ignorance. The introductions had briefly distracted her from the matters at hand, but she was now faced with the same question as before. What was this about? What could have happened? And, perhaps the most delicate and dangerous question, who's fault was it?

The group did not have to wait for long. At precisely five units past sun-high, the door opened and in walked a line of older males, led by Arbat. All were members of the military, but not just soldiers; they walked like officers, despite the fact that none of them seemed full of the normal officer-level confidence at the moment. Jahar spotted Feyorn, an old friend of Alloran's and hers, but he did not make eye contact with her, instead looking straight ahead. The tension in the room rose quickly, even drawing Mendaheen's eyes away from her games. Arbat stepped forward out front. He bobbed his eye stalks toward Jahar, although she could not read the expression in his face. He turned to the civilian couples.

{Are you the families of Arisths Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul and Arbron-Bantec-Deromar?} The four stumbled through their affirmations. All of them were clearly intimidated by the sudden strong military presence. Riyad's eyes darted up and down the line of officers, while Melloret tried to stand at attention, the same as Noorlin, although anyone who had spent time around soldiers could see he was untrained. Arbat ignored their awkwardness, and instead indicated Jahar to the rest of the officers.

{Some of you already know Jahar-Denbre-Indirat. She is the wife of my brother, War-Prince Alloran-Semitur-Corrass.} On Alloran's name, Arbat's voice took on a sharpness Jahar had never heard in it before. The dry intellectual she had long known was replaced by the sharp Intelligence Advisor he had once been. His main eyes went down the line, stopping to lock gazes with Feyorn. The stares were so hard they almost felt tangible. They stared at each other until Feyorn looked away.

The moment passed, and Arbat turned back to look at the civilians, his back to the officers. He took a deep breath, seemingly to both calm and brace himself. What could possibly need this much preparation?

{Approximately one month ago, a small group was assigned a mission outside of the Dome ship StarSword. This group was made up of Arisths Elfangor and Arbron, War-Prince Alloran, and two sentient aliens. The aliens had been kidnapped by Skrit-Na, and the mission was to return the aliens to their home planet and wipe their memories. The mission was supposed to be a short trip, followed by a quick return to the Dome. They were travelling in War-Prince Alloran's personal ship, the Jahar.}

Jahar held back her comments, although many came to mind. This was just the sort of thing the military loved to put her husband through, giving him busy work to show how much control they had over him. At least he got to fly in his own ship. He had put so much time and work into its design and construction. While some wives would not think it terribly romantic to have a ship named after them, she knew how much it meant, and had been incredibly flattered. Arbat continued.

{All fighters attached to the Dome have tracking devices on them, but personal ships do not fall under the same rules. This means that when the Jahar went out of communicator range, the Dome did not have an easy way of tracking them. Under the given circumstances, this seemed to be acceptable…Unfortunately, an incident seems to have arisen.}

Arbat's main eyes closed for a moment, but opened slowly when his stalk eyes landed on something over Jahar's shoulder. Jahar twisted a stalk eye to see that Mendaheen had crept closer, all eyes trained forward on her father's brother. Arbat looked at Jahar.

{Jahar,} he said, in private thought-speak. {Perhaps Mendaheen should be elsewhere at the moment.}

Jahar could only stare at him. An incident, he had said. An incident. An incident that apparently required the presence of an Intelligence Advisor, a Dome ship captain, and a number more military officials. An incident surrounding her husband. She was not moving until he told her more. Arbat looked at her for a moment, then back to Mendaheen, and finally back to the entire group, including the parents. Forlay seemed to be holding her breath.

{We do not have definitive proof of the sequence of events, or of the reasons associated with these events. What we have been able to conclude is that, for some reason, the Jahar left its intended course, and traveled to the Taxxon home world.} He paused when Riyad gasped slightly. She looked embarrassed at her reaction, but no one was about to blame her for it. There could be no good reason for a ship to go to such a nightmarish place.

{The information we have been able to receive after that point has come mostly from out intelligence unit. They have found evidence that the arisths, the war-prince and the aliens did indeed land on the planet…after that, I am very sorry to say, we have been unable to find any more information on Aristh Elfangor and Aristh Arbron. The two of them, and the aliens they were travelling with, have gone missing.}

The silence stretched on and on.

{Are you saying that my son is dead?} asked Melloret, all previous humor and levity gone from his face.

{At this point, we can neither confirm nor deny any possible outcome for the arisths. I assure you, many resources are being spent trying to locate your sons. We do not take the disappearance of youths lightly. But you must also understand the danger involved in sending troops into Yeerk controlled territory. We can only hope they made it off of the planet, and are simply out of communication range. We are making every effort we can to find them.}

{So what you are telling us} said Forlay, in a quiet voice, barely a whisper in the heads of those gathered. {Is that we have entrusted our sons to you. We have given our sons to you for training. Training so that they can go out and fight in wars for you. And the way that you look after and guide them-} Her voice was steadily gaining in volume, although her pitch stayed low and heavy. {-is to send them out alone on missions, to send them out into the very depths of space, and to allow them to get lost on a planet full of insane, flesh-eating, Yeerk-infested, cannibalistic, WORMS!} She was shrieking now, her voice full of a potent mix of fear and rage. She stepped forward, looking up from her lower height directly into Arbat's face. {YOU LOST MY SON! YOU CAN NOT EVEN TELL ME IF MY SON IS ALIVE OR DEAD! HE IS A CHILD! YOU HAVE HIM OFF PLAYING SOLDIER FOR YOU, AND YOU LOST HIM! HOW CAN YOU, ANY OF YOU, STAND THERE WITH ANY SORT OF HONOR WHEN YOU ARE THE TYPE OF PEOPLE WHO ALLOW CHILDREN TO BE LOST IN SPACE? HOW!}

She stood there, trembling with rage, far too close to Arbat. Her husband stood in shock behind her. The other aristh's parents seemed utterly lost. Mendaheen pressed herself close to her mother. Arbat stood his ground.

{I am sorry for your loss.} he said, voice formal and measured.

No six words could have deflated Forlay's energy faster. She backed up as if he had hit her across the face with his blade. She turned away completely, facing the empty room rather than Arbat and the line of officers. Noorlin turned towards her and placed a hand on her shoulder. They needed time for their anger, their fear, their confusion, and their grief. And Jahar still needed answers.

{I do not mean to be disrespectful, but I must point out that no one has yet to say what has happened to my husband. Is he missing as well?} She looked at Arbat. She did not know what she wanted him to say. But she had to ask. {Is Alloran dead?}

The line of males stirred. Private thought-speak clearly flew between them. Feyorn had lowered his eyes when Arbat described the fate of the arisths, but now he looked directly at Jahar. She could feel all of the pain in those eyes. All of the guilt. Arbat kept on his solid, blank face. Jahar could not help but notice that he did not look at Mendaheen, even though Alloran's daughter could not take her eyes off of him.

{Our information on War-Prince Alloran extends further. This news comes from spies engaged in other Yeerk-controlled areas. At some point while on the Taxxon home world, it seems that Alloran was apprehended by Yeerk forces. He was taken prisoner…Alloran-Semitur-Corrass was infested and made into a Controller.}

Time stopped. Or it might as well have, for all that Jahar could notice. Her brain stopped functioning. She was no longer processing input. She was not noticing the way they all looked at her, or looked away from her. She could not feel her daughter's hand in hers, gently squeezing, wanting to know what had made her mother go so stiff. Nothing new had entered her brain after the word "Controller".

She had been prepared to be a widow. She had always hoped and wished against it, but still, she had married a soldier; she knew what she had gotten herself into. He had been gone so long in the Hork-Bajir wars. At the same time that she had performed rituals for his safety, she had prepared herself to see an honor guard running over the hills towards their scoop. She would have watched as the five males ran towards the home she and Alloran had built together, all of their tails blades wrapped in soft, white cloth. She would have accepted the potted mourning flower the leader gave to her, and she would have recited the words of the ritual of death. She would have told her family, comforted her daughter as she wailed over a father she barely knew. She would have gone into mourning. She would have missed him every day, longed to touch him again, hear his voice again, sleep next to him again and awake the next morning to find him still there. She would have done all of this and more. And then she would have moved on. It would have hurt a bit less every day, until she could have managed. As her daughters grew, she would have told them stories about how their father had died a hero, defending freedom. Yes, at all costs. Yes, all for them. He had been prepared to die. She had been prepared to let him.

She was not prepared for this.

Her legs gave out beneath her; she fell straight down and barely felt when her stomach slammed against the floor. Mendaheen jumped back, startled, then jumped again as Jahar's tail flopped limply to the ground, the hard blade clattering against the smooth floor. Her stalk eyes continued to look around, purely out of habit, but she did not really see anything they focused on, any more than her main eyes saw what was right in front of her. Her body was acting of its own volition. Just as Alloran's body was now acting by someone else's.

She did not know how long she lay like that. No one moved towards her. The parents of the arisths looked on in shock; or if they had moved past shock, they were probably in the depths of fear. Were their sons Controllers too? None of the officers could stand to look at her. Feyorn had actively turned his head away. To look away from her grief, to stop her from looking at his guilt, or perhaps some combination of the two. Arbat was in his own head. Somewhere, in the depths of her mind, she realized that he had lost a brother. Jahar had met Alloran when they were both adults; Arbat had looked on the day Alloran was born. But this did not resonate with her now. Nothing did. Not until she felt the weight in her hand.

She looked down. Resting in the middle of her palm was Mendaheen's Pakka doll. Mendaheen reached out again, and clumsily tried to close her mother's fingers around the woven grass body of the doll. Jahar looked at it numbly. Jahar had made it, of course, just like she had made one for Tarabet when she was an infant. Jahar had never been one for weaving, so the pattern was full of bumps and gaps where there should not have been any. But she had followed the traditions. The body was made of dried grass and shaped like an Andalite. And within its chest, were three seeds. One from a flower at Jahar's birthplace, one from a flower at Alloran's, and one from a flower at Mendaheen's. Three seeds, three hearts. Two parents, coming together to make something new. She looked down at the doll, then back at her daughter. She forced a smile into her eyes, for Mendaheen's sake. And she stood up, doll still in hand.

{Jahar.} His stiffness cracked as he looked at her. For the first time that day, Arbat seemed to be speaking from his hearts. {We will get him back. Those slugs are not going to have him. We are going to get him back.} She could see in his eyes that Arbat desperately wanted to believe that. He needed to believe it. She could not tell if he truly did. She was not sure it she did either.

Some more things were said. Plans were described, general strategies, for both freeing Alloran and finding the arisths. None of the five civilians really absorbed anything. They were all in their own minds. Later at night, when they were settling down to rest, it might hit them. It might wait until morning, taking them by force when they went to perform the morning ritual. It might take days, months, or years even, before they felt the full effects of what they had just been told. Right then, they all just wanted to go home.

Jahar walked back to the shuttle station holding Mendaheen's hand. The child had taken up the doll again, clutched to her chest as they weaved their way back through the crowds. People passed them, people who had no idea that the wife and one of the daughters of the first Andalite Controller were walking right by them. They took the shuttle back to their local station, and set foot again on familiar grass. Jahar ate as they walked home; time can stop and the world can shatter, but the body will still need to feed. Tarabet was back from school by the time they got back to the scoop.

Jahar settled Mendaheen back into her little nest of grass for a nap before she talked to Tarabet. The two of them went running together, across the hill and over the length and breadth of the family land. When Jahar told her, she started screaming. She screamed for a very long time. Jahar stood back as her daughter lashed out with her tail, slicing through grass and tree branches as if the blows would somehow travel through space and cut through the Yeerks who had done this to her hero. She threw all of her rage out into the stars, demanding to know why they had taken him away again. And why they were not giving him back this time. The child screamed and screamed and screamed, and with each shout she became far older than she should have been. Jahar watched her daughter grow before her very eyes; with each yell, a bit of her youth left her. But she was still plenty young when she stumbled towards her mother, exhausted beyond measure and needing as much comfort as anyone was willing to give. Jahar touched Tarabet's sweat-drenched forehead with her palm. She swore she heard her eldest daughter purr.

They performed the evening ritual together, gazing at the last bit of light from the setting sun. The longest day of their lives had just passed. The next day would be longer, and harder, as would the day after that, and every day until he came home. But this first day was over, so they performed the ritual. This ritual was the same no matter who the speaker was, military or civilian. Perhaps, somewhere, Alloran was looking at a setting sun as well, the last bit of light shining across alien landscapes. And in the depths of his entrapped mind, he would recite the words of the ritual as he always had, as his wife and daughter did then.

{From the rising of the sun, to the setting, to its rising again, we place what is hard to endure with what is sweet to remember and find peace.}

And they would, eventually. But for now, all they had was loss.