Chocolate milk and depressing chapters should not be mixed... well, it's supposed to be a depressing chapter. Semi depressing... it's slightly angsty, I think. It should be. We shall see. And since Tobias can speak the same language as Sarah, everything they say is in that language but translated. Fun, huh? And don't worry, Alay, Emily, and Sadie fans. They'll be back soon. I may get beaten up but... they'll be back soon.
The Difference
Chapter 4
Shorm
(Tobias)
I should have been prepared for it. She had warned me, after all, that things were going to go to hell... when you live in hell, you tend to disbelieve a warning that it's going to get worse. But seeing Sarah curled up and crying on the hay of Cassie's barn... it was hard to disregard what she had told me before.
The day had been nice and calm - no Yeerks, nothing. Sarah had skipped last period to hike up to the colony of free Hork-Bajir. She had been there a few hours, then came back to my territory and waited in her usual tree, watching the sunset, until I joined her.
Long day? I asked as I landed on the branch next to her head. She chuckled.
"There's an essay I have for English that I don't think I'll be able to finish." She sighed and tossed her ponytail over her shoulder. "Ia len ge inda kerai."
It has to be done, itala, I told her. You know that. I preened a wing feather as she sighed again. So what's so hard about this essay, anyway? English teacher picking on you again because you don't speak it? A strange smile crossed her face as she leaned against the trunk of the tree.
"It's not the essay," she said. "It's time... it's catching up to me. I thought I had more but... things are going to change, Tobias, and whatever happens, you have to trust that... I'm me..." She trailed off with a sudden frown at the setting sun. "I never liked watching the sun set, atala. It seems so final..."
You've said that before, Sarah.
"Well, it's still as true now as it ever was..."
You want to talk about it? I landed on the rafter above her head and settled myself in to listen. Sarah never cried, but she didn't exactly hide her feelings, especially not from me or Ax. But when she lifted her head and looked up at me, she looked so incredibly... lost. Sarah, what is it?
"All I wanted was to get them and bring them home," she whispered, not even bothering to attempt English. "I wasn't supposed to lose them here... I don't know where they are. I can't even sense her anymore..."
Sense who? She had no idea had insane she sounded, but that seemed to be the problem. She didn't know that was she was saying made no sense. Who's gone, Sarah?
"Oh what does it matter," she said, straightening and stretching her legs out in front of her. She still trembled from unshed tears and her face was stained wet. "You think I'm insane - or worse, a Controller. And, honestly, you wouldn't understand. I don't even understand." She stretched her arms above her head and I caught a glimpse of a strange scar on the back of her wrist - when she shouldn't have had a mark. It was an odd cross shape surrounded by a circle. I knew that mark, faintly, from way at the beginning, but she had morphed it off that first night. Something was strange...
Sarah, where did you get that mark? With hawk's eyes, I saw her shiver before she brought her arm back down and held it too her chest.
"What mark?" she asked shakily. "I have no mark."
It's the scar Hannah gave you, isn't it?
"Hannah?" she murmured, letting her arm fall to her lap. "Yes... it was Hannah. Hannah gave this to me... Tobi'as... where am I?" It came out full of fear and her eyes echoed that tone. "... who am I?"
You're Sarah, I answered slowly, watching her face with worry. You're one of us. An Animorph. I had known Sarah for a long time at that point, months, almost a year, and watching the shock cross her face was the strangest thing I had ever gone through with her. It was like... she hadn't known...
It's hard to define my relationship with Sarah - she's more of my sister then anything else, but sometimes, I wonder how much she really hides from me. She taught me her language as I taught her mine, because she knew hardly any English, though she said she had at one point in time, and through that, we had learned about each other. We spent hours in that certain tree in my territory, discussing everything from her school assignments - she goes to school with the others - to the difference between her religion that worshipped four Gods and the religions that believed in fewer or more. I knew she was from a foreign place but... when I really thought about it, I had never learned where, nor had I learned what had happened to her parents to make her an orphan. I knew that she had come to our city by way of being adopted, back before the Yeerks were even on Earth, back when I was still human... School and people had made me nervous... everyone seemed to know everyone and no one seemed to know me. But she was there from the first day just... her. Someone to talk to and someone to be my friend... and when I became a nothlit, she was the proverbial shoulder to cry on, so to speak. And since I couldn't cry, she talked me through depression and brought me food when I decided starving to death was better the following the instinct of the hawk and hunting myself. Sarah was... herself and so much else. Apparently more then even I had known...
"A-Animorph?" she repeated with wide eyes. "Me? A... morpher?"
Ax, I think you have better come back in here, I said in private thought speak as Sarah worked through what appeared to be new information to her. And Cassie, you too, unless you really can't get away without raising a scene.
All right, came her human to morph thought speak as Ax trotted in from just outside the door. Sarah stood as he entered and watched him closely, obviously trying to figure out just how dangerous he could be. I think that was really the last straw that had held up my belief that this Sarah was the Sarah we had known - the Sarah we had known would never have been afraid of Ax in the slightest and she never would have looked him over, sizing him up as enemy or ally the way this Sarah was. And from my vantage point, I could see other things about her that weren't the same - the way she held herself, proud and tall, the way her blue eyes were filled with so many emotions, yet seemed so blank unless you knew what to look for, and then, on top of that, the thin scars that were visible just above the back of her collar. Add that to the mark on her wrist and it wasn't hard to figure out that this girl had never morphed in her life.
"I think," she said in slow, deliberate English. "That there is much I need to tell you. But, at the risk of you thinking me... thinking me... oh, what in the hells is that word?" She looked up at me with a frown to mirror her frustration. "Hasha."
Insane, I translated without thinking, then paused. I shouldn't have had to translate for her either. She spoke English as easily as I spoke her tongue... but, then, this wasn't her.
"Insane," she repeated with a short nod. "Hasha. Veraha, Tobi'as. At the risk of sounding insane-" She killed the pronunciation and it came out more like 'ihnsahnee' then what it was supposed to be. "-I cannot even begin to explain the problem."
I think you can try us, I said thoughtfully. Start with who you are and work from there. She nodded and tossed the long brunette ponytail over her shoulder. That was a very Sarah thing to do and it confused me, because she did as naturally as the other Sarah had.
"My name is Sarah," she said easily. "That is truly my name, but obviously, I am not the person you think I am. I came here through a Transgate, a portal of kinds that is only supposed to move things leagues at the most. I am not leagues from home or even light-years - I am a dimension away from everything I have ever known." She didn't pause let us think about that and continued straight on. Another of the other Sarah's personality traits that this one seemed to have. "The Transgate was formed by my sister, Emily, and friend, Sadie, and was a complete accident. The negative space that forms around it took them both in, then another friend - Alay - followed, to get them back. I followed after her, to retrieve them, and woke up here, in this barn. You obviously think me either a Controller, which is not true, or someone you have known, which is also not true." Cassie came in the barn about the middle of this little dialogue and the stunned look on Ax's face was all she had to go on that Sarah's statement was hard to believe. What was harder was how Sarah had labeled her three friends that she was searching for - itala, a very dear friend, so close that blood was the only thing keeping them from sisterhood, and itelan, a twin sister. A twin. That would explain what she had meant when she said she couldn't 'sense her' anymore - 'her' was obviously this Emily girl.
Ax translated it for Cassie while Sarah and I simply looked at each other. She wasn't lying, that wasn't the problem - nothing about her said anything of nervousness and her eyes were clear and unclouded. The problem was... well, a lot of things. For one, how did we deal with her? Would any of the others believe it like I did? None of them knew Sarah as well as Ax and I... how would they take such a far out thing?
I know what you're thinking, Tobi'as. She gave a small, familiar grin as I started at hearing her human thought speak. But you believe me, I know that too. You worry how your friends will take this and what they will do when they find out.
I believe you because you're telling the truth and nothing about you says you're lying, I told her, trying to regain my calm as I calmed the hawk instinct. But no one else trusted the other you - you weren't the most sociable person before.
If I am truly meant to join you and fight - as an Animorph or as myself - then I will fight with you and no one else. There was a conviction in her eyes that was unmatched by anything I had ever seen and I knew she meant it with all of her heart and soul.
"Can I make a suggestion?" asked Cassie hesitantly. "I think, in the scope of things now and where we are in the battle with the Yeerks, it wouldn't be a good idea to heap something else on top of it all. This is going to sound traitorous, but I vote we don't tell the others until it is necessary. Absolutely necessary."
"You... you believe me?" Sarah fidgeted and twisted her fingers together. "I... thank you, Cassie. Very much."
"You're not the Sarah we knew," said Cassie quietly. "That will be hard for them to understand, but you'll think of a reason for suddenly being a team player." Sarah grinned, then chuckled.
"Lying is one of my charms." A classic Sarah line, that. One more to the list of confusing things.
I agree with Cassie, I said. Though I hate hiding things from the rest of them, some things are better left between those who know.
I do not like lying, said Ax thoughtfully. Especially to Prince Jake. But, as Cassie said, in the scope of things, more pressure would harm before it would help. Sarah looked between us three and nodded.
"You are... truly good people," she said. "And there is something else I should share with you. As I have ended up with you, on the side of good, I have a distinct feeling that those who came before me... did not." There was a flash of pain in her eyes and she shuddered as she wrapped her arms around herself. "I am sorry but the thought of them as the enemy... it is a bad thing, if they truly are."
"Bad... how?" asked Cassie. Sarah sighed.
"My world, where I come from, is different greatly from yours. In the first part, Emily, Sadie, and Alay know things that would be... bad... in the hands of the enemy. In the second, Emily, Sadie, and Alay themselves are..." She frowned and looked up at me again. "Can you translate, please?" she asked in her own language. "It's hard to do this with my limited skills."
Yeah, I can. Go ahead.
"Thank you, Tobi'as. Where I come from, some people are gifted with a special power. We call it Casting and it is the ability to controls the four elements - fire, water, earth, and air." She paused and I translated this to Cassie, who was the only one present who understood little to nothing of what Sarah said. "Emily and Sadie are both Caster trainees and, in the hands of the Yeerks, will be hard to defeat. I have a small amount of Caster in me - very very little, so no hopes of me defeating them with their own power. And Alay is what we call a Weapon, a trained human that is just what the name means - a Weapon. Everything about a weapon is death, from barehanded blows, to blows with steal or wood." She hesitated again, then shook her head. "Alay I can defeat, because she has been my sparing partner for five years. I know exactly how she fights and a Yeerk in her mind will have no choice but to follow what her body knows. To a Weapon, fighting is instinct over mind and when a Weapon is in a fight, it is instinct that takes over for the large part of it." She sighed. "I cannot sense Emily, nor where she is, so I can only assume the worst."
If they truly are Controllers now, then...
"Then I will handle them," she said firmly, voice cold and hard as ice. "I came here to bring them home and nothing will stop that."
Depressing, no? ... No. That's okay. It works. :)
