In the years after Esplin took Alloran, he began vaguely to wish that he had found some way to take Elfangor instead. This desire only surfaced after said Andalite did as well, from his twenty solid years of anonymity, and even then it was an almost-intangible, wishful thing as Esplin watched Elfangor explode into a mad and slapdash genius. It would have been a pleasure to take that twitchy, adaptable mind and snap it in two or eat it alive. Although he didn't believe in fate, or psychic phenomena he knew that the young Andalite prince was probably the truest enemy he would ever face in his life. He was sure of it when Elfangor balked him at Tuner Port, and he that he was up to the challenge when his own forces swarmed in a crushing victory over the moon base around Manda. They hadn't set eyes on each other for three years.

And the hunger never stopped, the urge to consume and immolate Elfangor, make him a part of Esplin because he was that worthy. That dangerous. He was too good, too noble, too strong, and still too kind under it all to be allowed to live. Esplin strained and ached and nearly went mad with the hunger in him, the hunger to possess, to know. He had studied Andalites all his life- it was how he had won his position, how he had won so many battles against them. It was what gave him his edge. And he wanted to know Elfangor.

He felt it when the prince fell: he watched the small fighter ship tumble out from space and spiral towards earth's surface. He watched avidly as it disappeared against a large land mass and ordered it followed. Nobody really knew how the mental contact necessary for Andalite thought-speech could bond people; it wasn't of much interest to the race and if someone had been interested, all able scientists had been commandeered to help with the war effort. Esplin thought a bond had been made, though; you couldn't hate someone that much without knowing them, and a healthy Yeerk didn't forget much. Didn't forget much at all.

By the time he got to the planet's surface and looked down at the suffering Andalite, Esplin thought he knew him enough.