Yeah, hi! It's me…again. I'm sorry if I confused you back there. Please read on and hopefully it'll clear up.

Birdie num num: Poor, poor Deodatus! I'm sorry but it had to happen…

Kharina: I know! Who's evil!

Yeas, real drama, I thought that Asculan was getting a bit cosy…

Trust me…the others, as Asculan calls them, will rear their heads shortly. I don't think this chapter, but, maybe the next.

Irish Rage And Love: I'm sorry if I confused you, let me clear it up.

Deodatus accidentally shot himself with the shredder that Asculan left behind in his scoop.

The other warriors didn't help them because…hmmm…actually you know what? I can't think why except that if they helped the story wouldn't work out the way I want it to. Sorry about that.

Captain Eoptis turned so hostile because he simply likes everyone to have free will, but they MUST serve him. Besides he was a bit ticked that indirectly Asculan caused his only grandchild's death.

The REAL Cheese Monkey: Yeah, I know. Asculan's life has gone so down hill he can practically see the core from where he is…

Elwing: I'm sorry I haven't posted for a while. FFN and I had a minor falling out, but we're past that now.

Don't worry about the Asculan thing, I didn't know either. AND Irish Rage And Love kept on reviewing with the name spelt Asculan but I didn't even realise!

I've actually never read any J.R.R Tolkein, ever. My second favourite book series is actually the Animals of Farting Wood by Colin Dunn. Have you ever heard of them? They were also made into a cartoon series. My favourite character is Scarface, a blue fox. What really annoys me is that I can't find the book with him in, there is one called Fox's Feud but I can't seem to buy it.

I love riding horses; it's really great and fun! Though to be honest I dislike the mucking out thing. Which is why I don't own a horse myself, I just go for lessons. Though I've 'been off' nine and a half times. It always hurts, trust me. You draw? Wow! I love drawing. You have to set up e-mail so that you can send me your fics and pics!

Oookay, this has been a long review response, now let's just read on…

Chapter Fourteen

Ice Planet

Pain. I felt nothing else as my mind slowly woke from its' agonizing slumber. I hurt everywhere. Worst of all my head. It felt almost as if I had run into a tree at full speed. Muscles I never even knew I had throbbed.

But all this was welcomed; the pain told me I was alive. For now at least. For a long while I simply lay there, refusing to believe how quickly my life had gone downhill. Eventually the cold forced me to open my eyes and move on.

(Ahhhh!) I couldn't see!

No!

Wait! I could see, but only on my right side. For an Andalite it was as good as being blind. I turned my working stalk eye to survey the damage done; I wished almost instantly that I hadn't.

My entire left stalk eye was gone, in its place it left a huge winding burn scar that went from my scalp to the base of my chin. I was thankful that at least the nerve endings were damaged and I couldn't feel the damage. My entire left side was numb, as far as I knew it needn't have existed.

I looked down at the rest of my body. I was covered is cuts and bruises. I could actually see the bone of my right leg. My tale was at least still there. It didn't matter now anyway.

I was blind.

I was a vecol.

(Great! Perfect! Thank you world!) The realisation hit me like a blade.

Even if I did ever get back to the Homeworld, which was unlikely, I would be thrown in a military prison for my 'mutiny', and if I wasn't kicked out of the military for that they would certainly kick me out as a vecol.

Whatever I might have been….gone now. It didn't matter.

I seriously thought about letting it end that first night. I honestly thought about simply letting the ice cold winds take me away. What did it matter anyway?

(Oh no, Asculan,) I said to myself. (I am not letting you get away that easily, oh no. You'll survive even if the only reason is so that I can hate you.)

I set to work getting out of the wreckage of the doomed Rebellious.

What I saw did not inspire me, as far as the eye could see was white snow. Dark grey clouds covered the sky blotting out any stars that might have been shining. I saw no vegetation, no animals. Simply white snow and grey sky.

The only think breaking this never ending image was the debris field that was once the proud ship Rebellious. I could do nothing more that night but collapse, I felt my legs buckle and simply let my mind float into darkness.

Two weeks later and my injury's had all but healed. My leg still acted up a little and my sight would never come back. By some sort of sheer luck I had found an abandoned fighter, it had been in for repairs and so not lunched into the battle with the Norshk.

No one came for me. No one bothered to look. Two possibilities came to mind.

One: Captain Eoptis knew I might be alive but wanted me dead and so sent no one.

Two: Captain Eoptis honestly thought I was dead and so there was no reason to come back here.

There was of course a third option, that Captain Eoptis had died and so my people would never know about me. I hoped that the second was true as I already hated myself so much I didn't think I had enough room to hate Captain Eoptis as well.

My poor sweet, young Deodatus. He never even lived long enough to enter school. He never even had a chance. I only ever saw him once in his entire life. No wonder Captain Eoptis was so angry, he had never even seen Deodatus in person.

I knew that Aylary would be angry too, how could she not be?

I, Prince Asculan, had killed my son. I was a fool to think that you could just a have a good life. Something would always come along to shatter whatever you have made for yourself.

Maybe I should just forget about caring. That would be good; if I didn't care I couldn't be hurt or hurt anyone else.

It took me months just to clear away the wreckage of the ship to reveal the damaged fighter it hid. At times I felt like giving up but then I would think about my son, about someone should pay for his death, and I realised that that someone was me.

And the best way to make me suffer was to live because if I stopped living then I could feel nothing and then I couldn't hurt. I wanted to hurt. I wanted, needed, to hurt.

When at last the little fighter was revealed I had to set about assessing the damage. I was no engineer and I knew very little about fixing fighters, but I knew that eventually, if I was lucky enough to find the components I needed from the Rebellious herself I could fix the craft I had dubbed the Deodatus.

It was very lonely working alone on that planet, there was nothing. I lived off the snow which sustained me, lucky enough. Eventually I became used to seeing through only my right eyes. The cold, frozen nights no longer bothered me.

Isolation ate at my heart and, as my loneliness grew, I began to realise that everything was my enemy and the enemy of everything else. My fur grew rough and unkempt. I thought about Aylary, safe on the Homeworld, and wondered if all I thought about happiness was just a foolish dream.

The lack of any other creature pushed me further in on myself. I began to talk to myself as I worked.

As the days went on I settled into this life, only stopping to think about the others. I grew thinner as the months went by and, having no one to speak to or share my pain, I began to complain and curse about the elements themselves. My conversations became more and more vociferous, and I even began to think that there was another on the planet with me.

One morning I was working on the fighter. It had begun to snow heavily, and I stood staring out over the land. The cold melted through my fur and made me shake furiously, but as I went back to work, I looked back. For one flickering moment, my hearts beat faster. There were two sets of hoof prints in the snow. With distress I suddenly realized that both sets were mine.

I felt worthless, I was growing so sick at hearts that I couldn't care less if I ate or slept, instead I would just work on fixing the fighter.

My mind was filled with shadows, dark questions that I could not answer. The world, my prison, was as bad as the brig. Where the force fields had kept me in, my mind became my jailer.

But I could not see what I had become; I had become obsessed with the fighter. I would talk loudly and try to fool myself into believing that someone else was there.

I had no one to tell me that my behaviour was wrong, or to look at me and hold my gaze and remind me of my life as an Andalite. I no longer knew myself or what I was or what I was becoming.

Then came the day, who knows how many months, even years later, that the Deodatus was ready. I was going home.

Something was calling me. The feeling that all creatures have. Beyond love, hate or honour. Freedom.

(Home,) I whispered. (I'm going home.)

Yeah, I know. It was short. And not in the least exciting, but please REVIEW!