EZURIN

My father did not mind having Lilah and Carralis aboard the MeadowRunner. It was dangerous - we were a potential target now - but he had fought in the war against the horrible Yeerks. Danger and duty were the same thing to him.

I used to have nightmares that he would be infested. Sometimes I still did. Occasionally I found myself looking for signs that he was already infested. I never found anything. It was a bad habit of mine, after hearing what happened to Alloran. It was silly.

The Yeerk war was over. Now our greatest threat was being attacked by Kelbrids. It was why we were hiding away in Lilah's cabin, away from the other Andalites. Carralis and Lilah had a tendency to attract disapproving glares from them.

It wasn't fair. It was not their fault that they were abducted.

The threat of a Kelbrid attack was still a hard thing to believe. One of them was sat next to me, trying to learn the rules of Go Fish from a human.

"Lilah, I don't get it," he said. He was holding cards in at least three of his hands and glancing between them in confusion. "What's a six? Why does everyone get a different number of cards if there are more people?"

"Maybe we should play a different game," Lilah replied with a sigh. She'd been extremely patient up to now.

It was my first time learning the human card game too, but for an odd reason Carralis couldn't understand the counting and turn orders needed to play the game.

"Yeah… This is too difficult for me," he admitted. "I never had to do anything this hard for my teachers."

/You do not play number games or take maths tests on your planet, Carralis?/

"What's a maths test? You get tested on numbers?"

Lilah giggled. "I think that's a no. I'm kinda jealous. I want to live on the planet where there are no maths tests," she said, placing her cards onto the deck floor and sweeping them up into a pile. "It must be easy."

/It does sound nice,/ I added. /Although I never struggled with mathematics./

Lilah smiled. "I'd expect nothing less of an Andalite, to be honest," she said.

Carralis sulked, looking hurt.

/It's okay not to be good at some things,/ I said, passing him a sympathetic look. We had only known each other for a week now, but he could act very adorable sometimes.

Secretly, I was glad that he would be staying for a little longer after we planned to drop Lilah off on Earth. It could get lonely on the MeadowRunner. I was too young, and female, to get along well with most of the Andalites already on board.

"You know what, why don't we build a House of Cards instead?" Lilah suggested, shuffling cards between her hands.

"Does that game have maths in it too?" Carralis asked worriedly.

"Not at all!" Lilah replied with a grin. "We literally just build a house by stacking cards on the floor. Here, I'll show you..."

A few minutes later, and Lilah had perfectly stacked the cards so that they stood precariously in a leaning vertical position, supporting more cards that laid horizontally across them. The structure wasn't anywhere near finished, but I could see the slight resemblance to a 'house'.

/It indeed looks like it could be a typical human dwelling,/ I complimented the structure. /Although to me it resembles what you call an Egyptian pyramid more than a typical house. You are talented, Lilah./

"Oh, it's nothing," she said, blushing pink. A sign of embarrassment. "I play this game with a friend all the time. He's way better than me."

Carralis leant forward on his arms to delicately add another card. His hand shook, and the House fell down.

"… sorry," he apologised, looking disappointed in himself. "I don't think I'm so great at this one either."

/It is okay. We will start again,/ I said. /I will try this time./

It took us a few false starts, but carefully, precariously, our House was nearing completion. Each of us took turns adding the next card, Lilah being the fastest, most talented of us, and Carralis who was the slowest, but the most careful.

Suddenly, I heard my father's voice ring out in my mind.

/Attention all Andalites and guests. We will be landing on Earth in 1 hour, otherwise 1 hour and 25 Earth minutes. There is currently a storm in the docking location. Expect turbulence./

At the announcement, each of us stopped. Lilah had a look of concern on her face, Carralis' feather-like protrusions drooped sadly, and I felt the joy of building our House together silently fall away. None of us wanted to say goodbye.

"Alcazer just told me privately that he wants me to gather up my belongings and wait at the ship door to disembark," Lilah said to us. "Essential that I'm returned to my family as soon as possible, he says." Her eyes looked a little teary. She must've missed them, I guessed.

"So we weren't followed," Carralis stated, head tilted slightly, almost in a bewildered fashion.

"Looks like we worried loads for nothing," Lilah said with a shrug. "Oh well, I'm not complaining about not being attacked by aliens." She raised her hands in a surrender position. "No offence, Carra. Or you, Ez."

Carralis shook his head.

/None taken,/ I said.

A moment of silence passed between us.

Lilah pulled an odd face. "Kind of typical that the one day we land in the UK, it's raining."

/Is that unusual?/ I asked Lilah, having never been to that part of Earth before.

She smiled wryly.

A thought struck me. /Lilah, may I suggest that we come with you to say goodbye?/

She nodded, eyes lighting up. "Yeah, yeah, that'd be great. I was thinking of asking, but, well… It's not too big of a deal if you didn't want to," she said, shrugging.

Carralis suddenly shifted. "I'd like to see you off," he said. "Yes. I'll miss you. Ezurin will too."

Was I really that obvious?

Lilah laughed. "Hey, we're not saying goodbye yet! We've still got over an hour together.

"Anyway, let's finish our house first. We're almost done," she chimed, putting our future farewell behind her to focus on the present.

"Um… whose turn was it?" Carralis asked.

/I went last, so it should be yours, Lilah./

"So you get the last two cards, Carra," Lilah said, nodding.

She took a deep breath. "Alright, here I go," she said, steeling herself. With deft movement, she slid two cards into her hands and leaned forward to put them in position, where they would lean against another card for structural support.

Just as she was adjusting the way the cards rested, a heavy slam sounded from the starboard side of the ship and reverberated up my hooves. /The House!/ I cried.

I looked at Lilah. She was paused in time, hands held over the House, looking like she was about to faint from oxygen deprivation. The house was, somehow, fine.

"Was that the turbulence Alcazer mentioned?" Carralis asked, hackles raised.

"We get pretty bad storms in the UK these days, but that sounded like an actual elephant flying into the side of the ship." Lilah frowned, glancing between the House of Cards and the door to the cabin room.

/Elephants can fly?/

"I don't think so," Carralis said.

"Well… it's probably nothing," Lilah reassured us.

Another slamming sound rang out against the hull.

"Yeah, it's probably just the ship hitting a few seagulls on the way down or something," Lilah said. "That would have to be insanely bad luck for us to get attacked by Kelbrids JUST as we finished our House of Cards.

"Anyway, speaking of Kelbrids: it's your turn, Carra."

Carralis looked unsure. "I don't know, maybe Lilah should finish it. I don't want to ruin it."

Lilah shook her head. "No way! We follow the turn order. Otherwise it's just cheating. I might as well have just built the House by myself if we were going to do that. We do it together as a team."

"But what if I shake and topple it?"

Lilah placed a hand on Carralis' body. "No, you won't. You didn't the last few times, so why should you this time? It's no different."

/I would offer to do it for you, but I believe in you, Carralis,/ I said to him with a nod. /Just take it carefully./

"Okay..."

Carefully, with one card in each of his two front arms, while using his hind arms to balance on the floor, Carralis held his breath and carefully, carefully…

Balanced the cards perfectly together.

Lilah screamed. "YES! WE DID IT! WE PUT THE LAST -"

The sound of an explosion deafened my eardrums and I blinked shut my eyes. A blinding light engulfed the room, then faded.

I opened my eyes to a horrific sight. The cabin room's wall was blasted open.

A fire had engulfed the House, incinerating it. Only ashes and half-burnt cards remained.

Oddly, the shot had completely missed all of us.

We were speechless.

The House was gone.

/Attention everyone. We are under fire from an unknown attacker. Suspected Kelbrid pursuers. They have pierced the shields and power generator. I will attempt an emergency landing. Brace yourselves./

"NOOOOOOO! THE HOUSE!" To my shock, it was Carralis who cried out. "I'LL NEVER FORGIVE MY PEOPLE."

"The house… Our efforts, all wasted," Lilah weeped. "I didn't even get to take a picture of it!"

/My disappointment is truly immeasurable,/ I added sadly. /And my day far worse than it was before now./

"So they are attacking us, then," Lilah said, worriedly.

Carralis muttered something unintelligible to himself. He looked devastated. It was either because the House was incinerated or because we were in mortal peril. Likely the former.

I too, was still upset.

/Everything will be okay,/ I said, trying my best to sound confident. The MeadowRunner was my people's ship. I had responsibility over Carralis and Lilah. /My father has control over this. He fought through the Andalite-Yeerk war. There is no chance we would be taken out by a random attack. Fate doesn't work like that. We'll live to build another House./

Lilah shielded her ears from the sound of another heavy blast. Somewhere in the ship, I imagined a giant hole sheared through metal. I tried my best not to imagine the injured Andalites that could've been caught in the blast.

"We are fucked," Lilah swore.

"Lilah. Ezurin." Carralis said sternly. It was strange, but he was more resolute than I'd ever seen him before. "If they are Kelbrids, then I can call them off."

/I can show you the way!/ I offered desperately, rising to my hooves.

"Let's go!" Carralis nodded, rising onto his haunches, ready to follow.

I turned and leapt ahead, pushing the door away from me. A long familiar corridor lay ahead of us, but at the end was a mass of grey smoke. Was a fire spreading through the ship?

"Clouds!?" Carralis cried, realising a moment before I did.

"Everyone hold onto something!" Lilah screamed, struggling to be heard over the roar.

It was the storm.

Wind and sleet slammed into us almost instantly. The storm howled through my fur and into my ears. We were no longer indoors. The outdoors had invited itself in. The cold ripped into me, instantly robbing me of my warmth and chilling me to the core.

In an instant, I was reminded of the fragility of artificial comfort. This was nature, pure, relentless and uncaring.

It was as if the planet Earth itself was raging at our intrusion. Like we weren't meant to be here and now we were going to pay.

"Well guys!" Lilah yelled above the howling wind. "Welcome to England! I promise you that we do have sunny days!"

"Is Earth usually this bad!?" Carralis cried.

As Lilah and Carralis were shouting, I saw the grey storm clouds give way to complete darkness and small, yellow lights. Earth, at night. We were going to land.

/By Crangar's Tails! Hold onto each other!/ I exclaimed.

Carralis took my advice and moved to wrap his body around us, like an Earth snake would around its prey. The feather-like protrusions on his body fanned out to cushion us as we were jostled.

In the next moment, we were hurled into the floor. Another blast rocked the ship.

/Are you okay, Carralis?/ I asked him through my thought-speak.

He nodded, all eyes sealed shut with thick, protective eyelids. Unable to see, he was clutching onto us tight. "I'm good," he said shakily.

The ground neared us.

"Oh, this is going to hurt," Lilah said, clutching onto both me and Carralis tight.

"It won't," Carralis said. "I'm going to jump."

Carralis didn't even give us time to object before he flared, wings spreading.

I say wings, because that's what they were, I realised. The leafy protrusions spreading along his body, in the right configuration, were giant wings. They overlapped and stretched to their full length.

He leapt forwards, out of the corridor, clutching us as best as he could in his arms.

"Aaaaaaaargh!" Lilah screamed.

I secretly hoped that someone, somewhere, was watching out for us.

I closed my eyes as we plummeted.

Suddenly, I was embraced by intense, fiery heat. Carra's mouth was open, his neck curling down beneath him and a jet of orange flame was bellowing down from it.

/The hot air is lifting us upwards!/ I said, fascinated. Ordinarily, I suspected that we would be too heavy for him to fly with us, but Carralis was using the fire to provide himself with extra lift, almost like an Earth hot-air balloon.

Lilah open one eye. "We're… not dying?" she said. "Oh my God! We're flying! Carralis, you're breathing fire!"

Carralis didn't reply. He could not, not with fire spewing from his mouth.

Lilah was actually smiling. I too, could not help but feel overjoyed. Perhaps it was because we were flying, or because we had just cheated death. We were riding the storm with only Carralis' flame to light the darkness. The sensation was terrifying yet amazing. Somehow it didn't matter that I was drenched.

Perhaps I could ask Carralis' permission to morph him later. It would be a fascinating experience.

The moment was ruined when I saw the MeadowRunner barrel towards the ground ahead of us. It was now falling much faster than we were. My father was in there, along with many innocent Andalites.

It crashed with a deafening groan, and split into two halves. The dome separated from the body. The sound of metal crushing into grass and mud left my ears numb.

"At least it didn't crash into the village..." Lilah voiced quietly to me.

I nodded solemnly, but it brought me little comfort. This should not have happened at all.

We were now less than a hundred feet away from the ground. We had drifted far enough away from the MeadowRunner that we were going to land in a different field.

Carralis started coughing. His flame spluttered out. "Out of fuel," he said, grinning sharp teeth in what I assumed was guilt or fear. It seemed that when he was under stress, he reverted back to Kelbrid body language.

I shuddered a little. When he grinned too widely, he reminded me of a hungry predator. It didn't help that he was holding me so tightly. The dark of the night and occasional flashes of lightning made him appear especially threatening.

His wings still caught the wind enough for us not to break any bones on the way down.

We rolled into a lump of mismatched species, moaning for our bruises in a ball of limbs and eyes.

"My arm, ouch," Lilah said loudly. "Carra, could you get off of it?"

/I would also appreciate it if you could stop sitting on my tail, Lilah, as I believe it would allow Carralis to untangle himself from me,/ I said.

"Oof, sorry. My fault." Lilah shifted so I could start untangling my legs from Carralis' arms.

Carralis carefully unwound himself from us, and after a few moments, we were up and standing.

"Wow, Carra, you really saved our arses," Lilah said. "Thank you. Seriously. Though I can't say much for the coming home party your friends held for us."

Despite the rain and the terror, her arms were crossed and a smile was on her face. Then she gasped. "The ship! We need to get help!"

/What do we do?/ I asked her, unsure of who could help us out here.

"Shit, my phone got wrecked by all the rain and water," she said, throwing the rectangular device onto the ground. "Damn, I know we were aimed for the nearest port, but we are so lucky that we landed here of all places."

"Why?" asked Carralis, who was enraptured by the distant yellow lights of the nearby village.

"Because I live here," Lilah said, grinning. "Ezurin, Carralis, you wait here while I go and get help. My friend should still be up at this hour. We can call the ambulance, the police, anyone who can help. But… I think it might be hard to explain why you two are with me. He's kind of antsy around Andalites."

I nodded. /I understand. I will wait here with Carralis./

Lilah took a deep breath, turned and ran for the village. A minute passed, and I watched as her figure melted into the darkness and disappeared through the brush.

/Carralis, I suggest that we find somewhere with shelter so that the rain -/

I realised, with a start, that he was no longer with me. Instinctual paranoia spiked at me. A creature that I could not see was in the dark.

/Carralis?/ I called out.

I glanced down at the grass, and to my shock, I saw the muddy footprints. He hadn't listened to Lilah at all.

I set off at a sprint. If a human saw him… That was a lot of explaining that neither Andalites nor humans wanted to be doing. And there was no knowing of what kind of danger an unaware Kelbrid could get himself into.

Slipping through the bushes, I found myself emerging onto a street. Lit yellow by sodium street-lamps, the glow was warm and welcome. A post-office, a place where humans queued to send and receive slips of paper as well as boxes, stood proudly across from me.

To the right, I could see Carralis bounding after Lilah. I chased after him. The Kelbrid was shockingly quick, his short legs must've hid powerful muscles.

We rounded street corners, an alien chasing an alien chasing a human. I hoped nobody would be up at this hour other than Lilah's friend.

Soon, we rounded into a street that went by the name 'Kestrel Crescent', according to the signpost. The houses were semi-detached, where each dwelling was split in half and shared by a single neighbour. Lilah bounded up to the front door of one of the houses, pushed against a plant pot, slipped out a key and fumbled it into the lock.

/Carralis, wait!/ I called out to him again.

He looked up, confused, but then proceeded to ignore me. He slipped inside after her.

I was starting to become incensed. What did he think he was doing?

I raced in right after him.