There were a lot of stories told beside Yeerk pools everywhere, and in the
two free valleys, too -- one on Earth, and one on the Hork-Bajir home world.
One of these stories was about the spells the old Tila Fashat used to cast.

For most of her life, these spells weren't anything interesting. Tila simply
wished good things for her valley and for the other valleys, and her wishes
usually came true. Just like the wishes of the other Hork-Bajir. They were
simple wishes, that the children should be healthy and happy, and grow old
and learn a lot, or that the old Hork-Bajir should live for a long time, and
stay strong, and have no pain. And smaller wishes, too. That the trees should
grow tall and have tasty bark, or that the snakes and lizards should stay in
the Outside, even at night. Simple, peaceful wishes.

Then the Yeerks came.

Tila Fashat wished good for them, too. That they should meet friendly people to
help them, to teach them and learn from them. That they should find voluntary
symbiotes. (Tila probably never said the words "voluntary symbiote", but she
made it very clear she did not want the Yeerks to be blind.) Tila also wished
that they should never see Kandrona starvation. She kept this wish even when
she was killing Yeerks herself.

Because she saw the innocent victims and the danger. She fought the Yeerks
along with everyone else, and she followed Dak Hamee and Aldrea faithfully.

And when she saw the evilness of one Yeerk or another, then she cursed it.
One Yeerk at a time, only when they deserved it, never the whole species.

She cursed Alahar so children and animals wouldn't trust him. She cursed
Arklan so he'd find no help from strangers. She cursed Carger so he'd be
swept aside when he turned old.

On Akdor 1154 she put a horrible curse. She knew that Akdor had abused the
gifts Seerow had given him, and had chosen to forcefully take things that
nobody had given him. Tila cursed Akdor to never receive a gift in his life
again.

This curse was fulfilled. The Hork-Bajir did not give Akdor the gift of his
life. They killed him with a captured Dracon beam.

Tila knew Esplin 9466, too, of course. She cursed him, so everyone should
see his evilness from far, far away. And even if there was or would be
something good in him, everyone should see the evilness very soon and very
clearly.

Tila Fashat survived very far into the war, always helping the innocent and
working against the harmful.

Then the great things that the Andalites had, they were called ships, they
flew up. And always just further up, and they disappeared in the Sky. And
what was going on?

Then Dak Hamee and Delf Hajool came running, but Delf quickly explained that
she was Aldrea, so Tila should listen to her, because she had been an
Andalite, wasn't anymore, but she knew what the Andalites had done. And Tila
should run, too, because it had taken Gah Fillat already!

Tila just stood there for a moment. Then she reached up to her head, and
swept her horns off. Just swept them right off her head.

Then she started running, swinging through the trees, with a speed she
hadn't been able to show in years. She kept calling back to Dak and Aldrea,
that they shouldn't try to help her, that they should stay far away from her!
(She didn't know they had natural immunity.)

Tila told Dak and Aldrea to save themselves and the other Hork-Bajir, and
that's what they did. They started running in the opposite direction, but
they could still see Tila, although there was becoming less and less of her.
And they heard what Tila was calling out to them, warnings and good-byes and
hopes and good wishes. And they also heard what else she was calling out.

"The one who could think of this, he should live to see peace!" Tila Fashat
said bitterly. "That's what I wish for him, that he should live to see peace
yet!"

That was all she said, and she quickly went back to talking to and about her
loved ones. But then she soon got out of hearing distance. And soon
afterwards, she disappeared from the eyes of Dak and Aldrea.

And then she disappeared completely.

Dak and Aldrea gave Tila's messages to the other Hork-Bajir. They also told
them about her strange wish for Alloran.

But they couldn't say why Tila had said it. Had she maybe thought peace
could make Alloran into a better person? Or back into a better person?

Or rather, had she meant for him to see the whole war before peace came?

Maybe. This was why this wish was also referred to as "Tila's *curse*."

But why would someone like Tila wish war on anyone? To make him see how
wrong he had been? Or just as punishment?

It could have been. But then again, Tila might have just pitied Alloran, and
wished peace for him. It would have been typical of her.



This story was told for years among Hork-Bajir and Yeerks. They all
remembered it and passed it on, because they found it important.

And then it became even more important, because then there was an
Andalite-Controller. And he just kept on being. Despite every effort from
Elfangor, and later from his brother Aximili.

Elfangor had tried his very best, and Aximili was still trying. So were many
other warriors, Andalites and humans and others.

But all in vain. The Abomination lived on to cause sadness to everyone.

Tila Fashat wouldn't have wished that. Not on the galaxy, but not even on
Alloran.

Tila had died a horrible death. And she knew how many Hork-Bajir -- adults,
children and babies -- would die the same way. But Tila didn't believe in
revenge. And though she did believe in punishment, she didn't think Esplin
9466 was the right way to punish anyone.

If Tila had still been alive, she'd have wished for things to be different.
For the galaxy's sake, but even for Alloran's.

But Tila was dead for the known reasons. And her spell lived on.

At least that's what they told beside Yeerk pools everywhere, and in the two
free valleys.