Disclaimer: The Animorphs belong to K.A. Applegate. This belongs to me.

I felt a little bit uncomfortable morphing to human for the first time. Many Andalites would be able to do so without compunction, but I had completed a rudimentary study of human culture and history, and knew them to be a formidable and intelligent, if slightly primitive, race. It somehow seemed unethical to assume the DNA of another sentient being. But I needed to do it. And so I did my first human morph in the meadow outside my buried ship, as practice.

During my exploratory missions around the immediate area in the previous weeks I had acquired four different human morphs. Each had been alone and unaware when I rendered them unconscious, but I figured that they would attribute their situation to a falling branch, or the heat, upon waking. I was really trying not to attract attention to my presence.

Armed with a good selection of human DNA, I was able to combine it all into a single morph, which would be a completely unique DNA strand. I would have my own human identity, and it would be anonymous.

I initiated the morph in the shadows at the edge of the woods. The most obvious changes were the loss of my fur and forelegs, and the facial alterations. I lost my eyestalks, and gained the human's strangely shaped body parts on my lower face. One of these body parts is a nose, but a very unattractively shaped and relatively useless one. The other is what looks like a hole, and is what humans use to eat. I really don't think I've encountered any animal that has a head quite like a human's.

Despite all these strange features, the human has relatively weak senses. Smell and hearing are nearly useless. Eyesight is fairly useful in the middle of the day, when it is bright, but when you're an Andalite, and used to four eyes, it takes a while to learn how to focus.

As soon as I completed the morph, I took a step forward into the brightness of my meadow.

And I fell over.

It took me a few tries to determine how to balance myself in this body, with only two legs. It really is a strange biological design. I've never heard of a bipedal species without a tail.

I began to walk around my meadow, which seemed so much bigger now that I was a human. I was so slow compared to my own body. I tried to increase the speed of my human body by moving the two legs faster and I fell over again. I made myself practice running as a human until I could run the width of the field without tripping or losing my balance.

The human morph had instincts just like every other animal I've become. They're very subtle though. For one thing, humans have a tendency to think about things. I've always been told that I'm too pensive. But really, it's nothing compared to a human. After I had expended most of my energy running through the grass, I collapsed in it, and the sun began to warm me, and I realized that it felt very good.

The last thing I tried to practice was using my mouth parts to speak. Humans do not have the capacity to use thoughtspeak, but they have developed a complex system of communication using sound. It is fairly ingenuous, when you consider the multitude of codes, or "languages" that have sprung from this practice of "mouthspeaking." I had uploaded several different languages into my translation chip, but unfortunately they were the ones spoken on the island continent that had been my original destination. I could only hope that in this part of the planet someone would be able to understand at least one of the languages I was able to speak.

Speaking with the mouth is interesting. A human uses several different parts of it's throat and head to produce a variety of different sounds. It would have been very easy for me to spend the entire two hours in morph experimenting with different human mouth sounds.

I would need to remember not to play with my mouth sounds when trying to communicate.

-----

"You see…. ssssseeeeee… sir, I am not from this city. SSsit-Eee." I've decided I really like the "s" noise that the human mouth makes. It's fascinating. But the expression on the other human's face told me that he did not find it to be so.

"Well, son, that was a little bit obvious by what you're wearing." He laughed haltingly. He was referring to the covering that human's typically wear over their bodies. I had learned that it was very inappropriate to appear in front of others without them. However, I could tell that the man was making a joke by the laughter sound that he was making. I laughed too.

"Hahahahahahahahahah!" I said, trying to inject it with as much enthusiasm as possible.

He stared at me for a minute before pulling up his sleeve to glance at a metal device strapped to his wrist. "Well, what do you know… It's time for my meeting already. It was nice meeting you…"

"Alco-" I began.

"…Whatever your name is. Have a nice day." He strode off so stiffly that I thought he might fall over. What a nice human.

I stood there for a minute, trying to decide what to do next. I had thought I had chosen a leisure spot, where humans would be spending their free time. It was a large building surrounded on all sides by the flat surfaces upon which humans keep their four-wheeled vehicles. Inside the building were many, many, units where the exchange of currency for goods took place. These commercial destinations filled long hallways and multiple levels. It was filled with humans. I had gotten some familiarity with their written language, so I knew that the sign on the front said "North Bay Mall."

I was really lucky, because one of the languages I knew was the one predominantly spoken here. The accent was a bit different, but after multiple conversations with random humans here I had begun to adjust to the local way of speaking.

I was disheartened by the lack of progress I was making. Most of the people I had spoken with had been unable to stay and speak with me for one reason or another. A lot of them had mentioned meetings they were attending. It was confusing, because I had assumed people were here on their free time, and everyone around me seemed in a hurry. Maybe I had been a fool to think that I would be able to integrate myself in human society so easily. I had not made a single contact, or seen any suspicious activity. I didn't even know what suspicious activity would look like. Everything that the humans did seemed strange.

My plan had been to morph human and speak with them- to try to blend in as much as possible. This in itself was proving quite difficult. I wished that I could approach someone and tell them my true identity. A nice human, who would help me in my mission. But I couldn't any one of the people walking past me as I stood there could be a Yeerk. So it was entirely up to me.

Still, scouting and spying is what I had been trained to do. Once I infiltrated human society, I could begin infiltrating Yeerk society. I could not do one without the other. Looking around, I spied an older female with a friendly face walking towards me, alone. I approached with a big human smile on my face.

"Hello! I was wondering if you could help me." This time I made a concerted effort to not play with the mouth sounds.

She stared at me. "Fuck off," she stated, and she spun and walked the other way.

I did not know the meaning of that word.

From behind me, I heard soft laughter noises. I turned around to see a young human female sitting on a bench near a potted tree. She stopped when she noticed that I had seen her. She flushed, but made a sign with her hand that seemed to beckon to me. I walked over hesitantly.

"I'm sorry for laughing, it's just that I was waiting for someone and couldn't help but see what you've been doing. You aren't from the States, are you?"

I didn't lie to her. "No, I am not from around here. He-yeer." That last bit was completely unintentional, and I realized that I would really have to stop becoming distracted by the sensations produced by making mouthspeak. No matter how intriguing they were.

She smiled shyly. "What's your name?"

"Alcolrec."

"Oh. Is that Greek?"

I thought about it. I did not know where Greek was. "Yes. I am from Greek. I came here to learn… about the people who live here."

"Oh, ok, an exchange student. I'm Iris."

"Hello Iris."

"Alright, whatever." She wrinkled her face. "Are you living on a farm or something?"

"No. I live in this city. SSSSit…" I stopped myself. The "s" sound was so marvelous, but I knew this was not the time.

"What? Anyway, I thought maybe you came from a farm because you're only wearing overalls. And also because you aren't wearing shoes."

"Shoes."

"Jesus," she exclaimed. She picked up one of her legs and pointed at the strange black device on her foot. It had a cumbersome heel-spike. I wondered if she had a deformity, since it would clearly be impossible to walk on such a thing. "This is a shoe, Alec. Mind if I call you Alec?"

"I…"

"Yeah, okay. What do they call shoes in your language?'

"Ummm…. hü." My translator told me that this was how to say the word in Maori, the only other language I knew. I still was unclear what the term meant. I hoped that Iris would not realize that I was lying.

"Okay, cool. You seem really nice, and you're really cute…I love foreigners. Do you want to go get a drink at the food court?"

I did not know what "cute" meant. I also did not know what Iris was trying to do with the mammary glands on her chest. She seemed to be pushing them outwards at me, but I wasn't sure what to do about it. She kept glancing downwards and then back at me, trying to get me to notice. Humans are very difficult to understand.

"I would like to get a drink. A drrr..ink. What is that?" It was so hard for me to stop myself from playing with the mouth sounds. I kept doing it unconsciously!

"Come on. I'll show you."

"I thought you were waiting for someone?" I reminded her.

"No, I don't think he's coming. Let's just go."

Surprisingly, Iris was able to walk effortlessly, even with her strange "shoes." We walked down the hallway, past all the other shoppers. I was a little elated to be walking with another human. Finally I was fitting in.

As we walked, I noticed that the pleasant smell in the air was getting stronger. Human noses are quite dull, but this scent pervaded the entire mall and was difficult to ignore. I had assumed that the nice smell was piped in to enhance the environment of this commercial center. But now I realized that it was emanating from one of the booths.

"What is that?" I asked, pointing.

"A Cinnabon. You want to go there? I'm like, so addicted to their coffee."

"Yes. It seems like a fine establishment." Actually it looked small and gaudy, but I was curious about the origin of that wonderful smell.

Iris and I had to wait in a line for a few human minutes, while other consumers conducted the transaction. Finally it was our turn. Iris ordered two "iced coffees" and two "large cinnamon buns." Then both she and the woman behind the counter looked at me expectantly.

"Yes. That is what we want." I clarified.

"Aren't you going to pay, Alec?" Iris asked.

"I do not possess any currency."

Iris looked really upset. She sighed loudly and muttered something unintelligible before unfolding a little square that she brought out of her dainty purse and withdrawing a couple pieces of paper. The woman behind the counter took them and handed her a handful of round pieces of metal. Then we received a tray with what I assumed were "iced coffees" and "cinnamon buns."

"Those papers, they are valuable?" I asked as we walked over to a table.

"Yeah," Iris rolled her eyes. "I'm out like fifteen bucks now. I can't believe I had to pay for this shit! If I had known you weren't going to buy I woulda only bought one cinnabon."

"I apologize."

"It's okay."

I watched how Iris sat down behind the table on the platform with a back. It made sense when you thought about it. I had always found human legs to be really bizarre in the way they bent. But now I saw that they were designed to fit on these devices so that the body is able to rest. It's probably because humans feel so unbalanced on only two legs.

We sat there. Iris took a long thin device from the tray and removed its thin outer covering. Then she used it to puncture the top of one of the brown cylinders on the tray. She put the tip of the device in her mouth.

I did the same thing.

"Alec. What are you doing?"

"I'm…" What was the phrase? "...having a drink."

She giggled. "No you're not. I can tell you're not sucking the straw. You just have it in your mouth."

"Oh… yeah. Hahahah!" I laughed so that she could tell I was using human humor.

"Don't do that," Iris hissed. "It's creepy. People are looking!" She glared at me.

I barely noticed. I had used my mouthparts to apply suction to the cylinder at her suggestion and something liquid filled my mouth. I resisted my original urge to purge this foreign substance from my orifice, and used my human instincts to figure out how to ingest it. I knew that this was how humans obtained nutrients, I had just never tried it before.

I have never in my entire life experienced any sensation more pleasurable than that first moment of discovering the human sense of taste. To an Andalite it is absolutely foreign, and so quite difficult to describe. First, my mouth parts began to tingle with the coldness and sweetness of all the flavors. I forgot all about where I was and what I was doing as I concentrated on the incredible "iced coffee." My brain was solely occupied with the wonders and pleasures produced by this new sense. Then I began to feel very satisfied, as if all the problems in the universe had disappeared. Then I felt extremely happy, as my mouth and brain were bombarded with amazing new feelings and sensations. I sucked determinedly at the cylinder until the liquid was gone, and the suction from my mouth made a loud gasping noise. Only then did I remember where I was.

Iris was staring at me. Her mouthparts gaped open. "That's so obnoxious. I can't believe you."

I stopped applying suction to the iced coffee. "Iris, I need to taste… more things. What else is there to taste?"

She wrinkled her nose at me. "Well, you could start with the cinnamon bun I bought you." She picked up one of the brown, gross looking discs on the tray and pulled off a piece, casually dropping it into her mouthparts.

I stripped a large piece from the remaining disc. It was very soft and warm, and stuck to my hands. As I brought it to my face I felt a tingle of excitement. I could smell it, and I immediately knew that this was the source of the heavenly smell that had been distracting me all afternoon. This… this cinnamon bun.

I placed it in my mouth and sucked furiously, allowing myself to drift away on it's mind-blowing taste. Eventually my human instincts came in and I realized that I would need to masticate the cinnamon bun in order to ingest it and absorb the nutrients. The chewing only enhanced the taste experience. I broke off another piece and stuffed it between my mouthparts. I let myself get lost in this new sensation I had discovered.

The next thing I knew, the tray in front of me was empty.

"More!" I said loudly, to no one in particular. "I'm taking this," I told Iris, as I leaned over and took her cinnamon bun.

"Go nuts," said Iris flatly, as she rolled her eyes.

It was probably a good thing that I was interrupted before I could completely finish the second cinnamon bun. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I completely lost control of myself. I'm almost afraid to imagine what might have happened if someone had not broken me away from the binge that was resulting from my first experience with a human sense of taste. But this was not exactly a good interruption.

"Who the hell is this, Alice?" a husky voice demanded.

I wondered who Alice was. The large young man, who had approached the table while I was distracted by eating, was addressing Iris but had mispronounced her name. When he slammed his fists down on the table I swallowed the large hunk of cinnamon roll in my mouth nervously. All my feelings of reverie vanished.

He turned to me. "What do you think you're doing with my girl," he looked me up and down, "you goddamned freak." He did not phrase this as a question.

I stood up, lost my balance, and had to sit down again. "We were just having a drink…" I began.

"Freakin' flower. I'll show you what happens to guys who hit on my girl."

He grabbed me roughly by the strap on my garment and dragged me towards the door. I was confused, and too scared to fight. I had no idea what was going on.

"Goddamned piece of crap. I'll teach you."

The sudden brightness of the sun blinded me. The male laid me out on the hard surface outside the exit and began pummeling me with his balled fists. I became as lost in pain as I had been lost in pleasure only moments before.

Faintly, I could hear Iris protesting. "I'm sorry Ray! You were so mean to me last night after we fought that I wanted to make you jealous. I invited him to the foodcourt. He didn't know! He's Greek! Don't hurt him! Please, Ray!"

The world around me faded.

-----

Some cold liquid was splashed across my face. I woke up angry.

"Hey, buddy, cool it. The cops are coming to take care of that psycho. You're okay now."

I looked around frantically. A crowd of people had exited the mall to watch me get beaten. I wondered how long I had been unconscious. I wondered how much time left I had in morph. My usually reliable internal clock was out of sync from both the cinnamon bun and the beating.

My human body was badly wounded, but this would not matter, if only I could escape and morph.

The man who had revived me helped me to my shaky feet. I guessed that this was one of the few times where it was normal for me to not be balanced. I stood there, not speaking and embarrassed as I shook off the pain and regained my bearings.

"Thank you," I told the man who had helped me. "But I cannot stay here."

I was glad I had practiced running, because now the crowd parted in front of me as I pumped my two human legs and effortlessly broke into a sprint, desperate to escape the situation.

From behind me someone yelled "Run, Forrest, run!" and I heard the sound of laughter. They were laughing at me, the stranger, and I had failed. How could I ever become one of them? It was clear that I did not, and could not ever learn to be like a human.

As I ran, a strange thing happened. My eyes burned, and then hot liquid spilled out. As I ran, I passed several people walking towards the building from their vehicles but their faces and expressions were blurred because of the water clouding my vision. I didn't care. What was strange is that it felt good to have this wetness on my face, to be able to express my shame and loneliness so outwardly.

By this time I had reached the outskirts of the lot, and no human was nearby. I ducked into the space between two human vehicles and let the water pour from my eyes, purifying me. This was a human expression of sadness, but it soothed the Andalite part of my mind as well. And when the sobs stopped wracking my body, and I could no longer summon the tears from my eyes, all the sadness and confusion was still there and I was still alone. It was a hard sadness. A fact. It would be there until my people came.

A few human minutes later, a large black bird rose from the parking spaces of the North Bay Mall and flew swiftly away.

-----

It took a while for me to return to my hidden home in the woodlands. The bird morph I used was adept at distance flying, but even so I had needed to stop and demorph once along the way. I was very careful with the time limit on morphing. By this time the sun had mostly set.

But it was still bright enough for me to see with my scavenger's eyes that someone was there in my meadow.

Author's note: Here is the compulsory "Andalite morphing human" scene. This was really fun for me to write. It's probably a good thing Alcorec had spent some time studying about humans, otherwise I don't think he would have lasted that long. Remember, Ax didn't even leave the Dome ship unassisted.

I know this contains some strong language, so I may have to change the rating to "R." I know that that will take it off the main page, but hopefully people will still be able to find it. I just know that I can't complete this story without including a few details, so that means it's mature audiences only. Sorry.

Questions:

Brutal2003: I hope you enjoyed it.

Wraithlord42: If I end up touching up Chapter 4, I'd be interested in knowing what you thought needed clarifying. Its always different when you read something that you've written yourself, and something that seems really obvious to the author can fly over the heads of the reader. Thanks for your continuing interest.

Korean Pearl: Thanks for your kind reviews. I always try to add a healthy dose of reality to my stories, so I'm glad you find my plots original. About the rating- I'm hoping that people will find my story anyway if I make it rated R. I have to change the rating at some point to do the things that I want to with this story.

Baranth: I know absolutely nothing about astronomy. I had no clue how many moons Mars had. I'll have to go back and change that bit at some point. There's also another mistake in the first chapter that no one's called me on yet. I had "Semitur" as Alcolrec's middle name, when it is supposed to be Feiranel who is related to Alloran, and thus shares a name with him. But yeah, thanks for calling me out on that one. I don't have a beta reader so these little discrepancies slip by easily.

About anthropomorphism- that is not really the direction I'm taking this series in… sorry. The whole thing about writing animal DNA onto human DNA is just to facilitate the morphing process, not to make any major changes. Otherwise I'd definitely jump on the title you've suggested.

Finally, the Animorphs will become involved in this story, somewhere far down along the line. At this point they don't even exist as such- the Andalite fleet has not yet come, and Elfangor has not yet broken Seerow's Kindness. Give me time.