A/N: Thanks so much to Faith360, emi07. and Zack-Cody-Dylan-Cole for your reviews and suggestions. I appreciate them!
Oh, and I don't own the Animorphs, so don't sue me, ok?
-Marco-
I looked over at Rachel after hearing the thoughtspeak. "Did you hear that?" She asked in a whisper.
I nodded. "It has to be some sort of trick, right?" I whispered so the Andalites wouldn't hear, if they even were Andalites and not controllers.
She shook her head, thinking.
I thought about it for a minute. I couldn't come up with a way it could be a trick. Ganlor thought we were infested and he'd just finished calling us. The Andalites thought we were here on our honeymoon, so they wouldn't be suspicious either.
"There's no reason it would be a trick." Rachel said, looking at me. "Let's talk to them – maybe they'll be helpful."
I was still a little wary. Andalites didn't usually just walk up to humans to chat, did they? Still, I couldn't come up with a reason not to open the door, so I walked over, glanced back worriedly at Rachel, and pulled the door open.
There, standing outside our door, were two very young Andalites. One looked pretty familiar – I think it was the same one who carried our bags. The other I didn't recognize, but it appeared to be a female – she was smaller, her frame slightly more delicate and her tailblade much smaller than the first. I glanced back at Rachel. She looked confused. I was too. Why were these Andalites standing at our door?
-Humans!- The male Andalite said, -I am Kyger and this is Melea.- At this point he gestured toward the female Andalite.
I reached up and scratched my head. "Um, do you want to come in?" I asked, unsure how to continue.
The Andalites looked at one another and Melea said -Yes.- so I opened the door wider and backed into the room to let them in. I closed the door behind them and Rachel got right to the point. "So what do you want to know? I won't guarantee we'll have an answer, but we can try to help you out."
I grinned at Rachel. She must have been thinking the same thing as me - might as well get this over with, right?
-Well,- Kyger began, -I am supposed to be learning about humans and that is why I am working for this alien hotel. Ganlor-falo suggested it when he started working here, but he didn't want to answer my question. I would like to know, you have a slit in the bottom of your face that is called a ... um ... -
-Mouth- Melea gently filled in the word for him, smiling at Kyger in that strange way they seem to do with just their eyes. She seemed to be slightly older than him, despite her small size.
-Mouth, right, I forgot.- Kyger said, sounding embarrassed. –Why do you press your mouths together? Melea said you use them for feeding, so are you exchanging food?-
Rachel turned a little red, but I just smiled and tried to politely explain. "No, we weren't exchanging food. It's called kissing..." I began.
-Kissing!- Melea interrupted suddenly, -That is what Aximili said it was called!-
Rachel and I both stared at her. "Ax?" Rachel said. "You know Ax?"
-Ax?- Melea said confused.
"Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill." I said. "He was our friend on Earth during the Yeerk war there."
-Yes, of course I know him.- Melea said confusedly. –He is my brother.-
I was pretty surprised at our luck. Well, hello opportunity. Maybe Melea knew how to contact Ax! I looked over at Rachel and she looked like she was thinking the same thing. Before either of us could say anything, though, Kyger broke in.
-What is kissing for? Why do you do it?-
"Um, well ... " I said, trying to decide how to explain it. I looked down at the ground, trying to decide how to explain kissing to the two very young Andalites who probably hadn't even heard of the Andalite version of kissing before, well, maybe they had. "Have you ever seen two Andalites stroking each others faces with their hands?" I asked Kyger.
-Yeah.- Melea said. –My parents do it sometimes.-
-Mine do not.- Kyger replied. –Why do your parents do that, Melea?-
-Because they are mates.- She said matter-of-factly.
-But my parents are mates too, why do they not stroke each other's faces?- Kyger complained. –That can not be the only reason they do it!-
Oops, this wasn't really going how I had planned, but at least they had the basic idea. "Humans kiss by pressing their mouths together, like Andalites kiss by stroking each others faces. The reason for it varies depending on the humans doing it."
-Why were you kissing? Are you mates?- Kyger asking innocently.
I looked at Rachel, who'd just been listening up until now. I didn't know what to say. If I said it was just fun, Rachel would be hurt. If I said it was because I care about her, I could be setting myself up to get hurt.
Finally, Rachel decided to answer. "Some humans kiss for fun, others because they love each other, and others because they want to show they care but don't know how to say it out loud."
-You did not answer my question.- Kyger said pointedly.
"I know." Rachel said. "That is a very personal question and you shouldn't be asking it." Then she turned away from Kyger toward Melea. "So Melea, Ax is your brother. Do you know how we can contact him?"
I watched Kyger turn his head toward the ground, looking sad. I think she'd hurt his feelings. Oops. Maybe I could make it up to him later. In the meantime, we needed to contact Ax. I looked over at Melea who was obviously thinking hard.
–Yes, but there is a problem. You see, he was sent on a mission just today and we do not know when he will be back.- Melea finally responded.
"Yeah, we know." I said, eager to get this over with. "But can you contact him anyway? Or do you know where he was sent? It's urgent that we talk to him very soon!"
Melea looked a little startled by my insistence. –I am not supposed to tell anyone where he was sent, that is top secret. But I suppose since it is important, we can contact him.- She scanned the room with her stalk eyes while meeting my gaze with her main eyes. –You have a view screen communicator over there, shall I attempt to send Aximili a message?-
I looked over at Rachel and grinned. Yup, we were thinking the same thing: Perfect! "Yes, of course." she said grinning back at me. "Let us know when he responds."
Melea walked up to the console and Kyger followed her. I think they were using private thoughtspeak – probably talking about us. Oh well, hopefully we'd be in contact with Ax soon to warn him about the impending Yeerk infiltration.
Back on Earth . . .
-Tobias-
After flying through a large number of open meadows and finding them already occupied, it was almost sundown and I was very hungry. I knew Cassie would have given me all the food I needed, but I had one more chance to look. I found the small apparently unoccupied meadow and peered down at the ground in search of prey. Just as a precaution, I made a wide circle around the small meadow, making sure no other hawks or birds of prey were already there. I saw none, so when a small field mouse poked its head out of its hole and then hopped out toward a seed on the ground, I dove at it.
What I didn't see was the peregrine falcon above me, watching me steal its prey. A second before I was about to hit the mouse, I noticed the shadow on the ground. The falcon was attacking me! I pulled up just in time to avoid the attack, losing my mouse in the process. The peregrine falcon followed me as I flew at top speed back toward Cassie's barn. He was right on my tail and I was getting tired – I hadn't eaten all day and that made it very hard to pump my wings against the cool dead air of the evening. Once I was out of his meadow, he stopped chasing me and left me alone and exhausted.
As I slowly made my way back toward Cassie's barn, I thought about the cold dead mice I would be eating for dinner. The hawk didn't like them much, but it had been living on them for several years. Why not continue? My meadow was occupied now and so were all the meadows in the area. There seemed to be no place for me, except as a pet in Cassie's barn. It was depressing. Maybe she and Jake would let me come in for a human dinner that night, just for a change.
After a half hour of difficult flying with no thermals, I reached Cassie's barn, thoroughly exhausted. She was still there, cleaning out the cage of a raccoon with a broken leg. I perched in the hayloft and thought-spoke to her. –Hi Cassie.-
She lifted her head and scanned the rafters, until her eyes settled on me. "Hey Tobias." She said. "Any luck with the hunting today?"
-No.- I said sadly. –There just doesn't seem to be a place for me to hunt. And I'm not really up to fighting another bird for a meadow. Do you mind...-
"Of course not." She said shaking her head. She went over and got two mice from the freezer and popped them into the microwave to thaw. "Just a couple minutes." She said as she went back to the raccoon's cage.
She always seemed to know when I didn't feel like talking. It was embarrassing what had happened today. And it wasn't my first failure. I had only managed to catch one small mouse since getting my wing back. I was just about ready to give up.
I watched her work since I had nothing else to do, wondering what I should be doing with my life, if you could even call it that. I was a human living as a very old hawk. Some life.
Rachel would have said I should morph human permanently, and I would have, but that was before, when she and I were planning on being together after the war. What now? I couldn't change what had happened. She'd moved on when she thought I was dead. I guess I had to do the same, right? I knew I didn't want to move on as she had – date other people or anything like that. But maybe I could help Cassie with the animals for a few hours a day or go help out at the Raptor Rehab Center where I was a pet for so long. I knew a lot about birds after being one for so long – maybe ...
I heard the microwave beep, so I flew down to the floor to eat my dinner. Cassie pulled them out and sat them on the floor; nodding at me before returning to the cages she'd been cleaning. –Thanks.- I said as I began to eat the mice. When I was finished, I flew back up to the hayloft to clean up. While I was preening, I started talking to Cassie again.
-So, I was wondering, could I join you and Jake for dinner tonight? I'd like to talk to you, if that's ok- I hoped I wasn't intruding, but she'd always been nice to me before.
She didn't look up from the squirrel's cage she was cleaning as she answered me: "Well, we're just having macaroni and cheese, but if you want to come, you know you're always welcome, Tobias."
-Thanks.- I said, continuing to preen. When I was finished, I flew down to the floor and began to morph to human. I almost wanted to find a mirror – the Ellimist had caused my human morph to age with time on Earth, so I was about ... 24, I guess. Wow. So much time passed. As a human in my old bike shorts and T-shirt, I walked over to the rack on the wall and pulled on a pair of overalls, rubber boots and a flannel shirt that Cassie kept there for Jake. They were a little too big, but oh well. It was better than nothing.
I picked up a broom and started to sweep the floor for Cassie. She turned to look at me in surprise.
"What?" I said, grinning, "I can't help out a little?"
"Fine with me!" She replied smiling back.
We worked in silence until I finished the floor and dumped the dustpan in trash. "Now what?" I asked.
"Well," Cassie paused, looking around at the very organized barn full of animals. "Just let me finish up with this cage and you can help me feed and water the animals before dinner."
"OK." I said, trying to be helpful. I was proud of my decision. I was going to help out – earn my keep at the very least. Maybe if I spent 2 hours at a time as a human, I would get used to it and be ready to make the change permanent. I knew I wasn't ready yet, but hopefully it wouldn't take too long to adjust...
A/N: That's it for now. More to come soon, I hope. I love reviews, so if you have time, please tell me what you think!