Notes:
--Whoo…just my little rant; I didn't really think that the Hork-Bajir would do well in Yosemite. O.o;;
Chapter 5
Cassie
By Aura Kage
I sighed and flopped down on the bed belly-first, my head burying into the darkness of my over-fluffy pillow. For a moment I just laid there and allowed my thoughts wander in incoherent circles, worrying, wondering, worrying, whining, and worrying. And more worrying.
Where was Jake? Where was Marco? Where were Tobias and Ax? I mean, okay…so Jake had said that I could stay behind. I admit that maybe I thought that was the right thing to do. That what I was doing right now had been what I was born to do.
No, wait, scratch that. That what I had been doing back then had been what I had been born to do. You know…taking care of the Hork-Bajir. Making sure that I played the part of the President's Assistant to Resident Aliens or whatever.
Ha! What a joke. What the President had meant by assigning my that long name was that he wouldn't take any part in anything that happened to any aliens, and that all responsibility towards them fell on me. Me, Cassie the Animorph. Tree-hugger, let-dogs-vote, save-the-slugs Cassie the Animorph.
Cassie the Animorph who took care of all alien issues all over the country, whether they were Anti-Alien or protests demanding an advancement in technology to the magnitude that the Andalites and Yeerks had them. Nevermind the fact that I have enough to deal with – I also get to worry about Jake and the others on the mission. Mostly Jake. Wishing I could have helped and knowing that I couldn't.
Frankly, I was sick of it all. But I wasn't about to give it up. I would be letting down Toby and the Hork-Bajir…and they needed so much help. They were being over-harassed by vandalizing tourists that decided to sneak in after visiting hours and lay waste to their beloved trees, and there had been one Anti-Hork-Bajir crime where a murdered body lay blade-less and beak-less on the ground, mangled and ridden with bullet holes…
The image of the corpse recalled in my mind made my stomach heave with disgust, though I had seen worse in the war against the Yeerks. (Had it really been that long ago? The memories were still so vivid…). I stood up quickly, holding my mouth, and ran to the bathroom.
Just as I was throwing water on my face and washing away the rancid taste in my mouth, I heard the phone in my room ring. I groaned and stood up, walking, disoriented, towards the phone. I let it ring a few more times while I regained my composure and inhaled deeply, then picked it up, knowing with absolute certainty who it was.
"Hey, Cass," said the deep voice on the other end of the phone, only slightly messed up by the lines.
"Hello, Ronnie," I replied wearily, laying my head down on the pillow and closing my eyes.
"You sound tired," he said, sounding concerned. "Anything the matter? You want to talk about it?"
"No…it's just…I'm just tired," I replied, trying to sound confident though I knew that my voice was wavering. I could almost see a face that smiled sadly at me from the other end of the phone…but it wasn't Ronnie's face that smiled. It was Jake's. I bit my lip and suppressed another groan at the exasperation of my renewed anxiety.
"Oh," he said sorrowfully. "So then I guess you won't be able to…"
Oh, no! I had made plans to meet him at Marie Calendars! I sat straight up in the bed, nearly hitting my forehead on the head of the bed.
"Oh, Ronnie…" I started, and he cut me off with a wordless sound.
"It's alright," he said hastily. Too hastily. "I know you have commitments. I can't ask anymore of you than the Hork-Bajir can."
"No, it's not that, it's just –"
"No, really, Cass. It's fine," Ronnie said at the other end of the line. In my mind I made up the image of him slumped depressed-ly against the couch in his room, playing unenthusiastically at the beads that hung from his exotic lamp. "I know you have your job. I know you can't put that aside for me."
There was something wrong about his voice…it was insulting, sad, depressed, and angry at the same time. Ronnie wasn't one of those guys that just went and blew everything at you when he was upset – he kind of said it in a sad sort of way, as if he had been betrayed, or as if his best friend hadn't shown up for the most important event of his life.
But he knew what I had to put through – he worked with the Hork-Bajir too, afterall! But not with anything else…he didn't know the extend of Anti-Andalite and the hatred of some of the groups against aliens. Sometimes I felt as if another civil war was just about to brew up. "Alienism" was something hated, but common. Like racism…except both more visible and less visible. There weren't, afterall, shops that hung "No Alien Need Apply" in their windows.
"Ronnie, no, I didn't –"
"Really, it's alright. Bye, Cass."
"Bye," I said bleakly into the phone, though I don't think he heard me, as the phone clicked off as soon as I said it. I groaned again and slammed the stupid phone into itself, shutting it. It was uncharacteristic of me to be so angry but…the day just hadn't agreed with me.
I wondered if Ronnie's, "Bye, Cass" had been the goodbye. I mean, THE goodbye. As in, "Bye, Cass, you don't have enough time to include me into your agenda, and I frankly can't stand that."
One part of me hoped that wasn't it. I really didn't have anyone to talk to except for the Hork-Bajir and occasional Andalite, and they really couldn't communicate on "my" level…except maybe Toby, but she was always interested in the welfare of her people, and just didn't understand the importance of "small talk."
But then, the other part of me hoped that that was it. I knew, deep down, that I still loved Jake, no matter how far we had grown apart during the years. I was just waiting for him to…return.
I heard a muffled reverberation against my pillow and sighed, turning around and unclipping the cell phone.
"'Lo, this is Cassie," I said automatically, making a point of my tiredness and hoping whoever the caller was would just leave me alone.
"Cassie," said a familiar voice on the other end of the phone, hushed, frantic, angry, and confused. "Cassie."
I knew that voice immediately.
"Toby?!" I cried, sitting straight up in bed again? "Toby, what's wrong? Is everything alright? And how are you able to use the phone?"
"Cas – sie," Toby began again, her voice breaking with what I was sure was Hork-Bajir sadness. I could almost see her – wherever she was – hunched over, holding the phone close as if it were a treasured item, her last possession in the world. "Cassie…Ket Halpak, my mother, is dead."
The six words said so bluntly, with such pure sadness, struck me like a blade through my heart. I listened, hardly breathing, staring and not seeing as Toby related to me the events of five-minutes-ago – how she had been spotted after-hours by Alienists wielding machine guns. How she had run, trying to lose them and lead them away from the rest of the Hork-Bajir. How she knew somehow that it was too late for her, but wanting her people to live on. And how Ket Halpak had suddenly come down from the skies, nailing an Alienist with one of her talons, instantly killing him. How a hopeless battle had then emerged, ending with Ket falling, her blades taken. And how Toby could only watch, watch as her mother was murdered and parts of her body were taken away as trophies, as she had told her not to help.
I felt sick inside. Both emotionally and physically, and felt Toby's helplessness as if it were my own, as if it I myself had witnessed my mother being murdered. It was…inhumane. I felt rage bubble up inside, like some vicious demon being awakened, and my hands trembled.
Toby's mother. Sentient beings being harassed, killed, murdered as if they were just…just animals…not that animals were allowed that kind of treatment either. It was sickening. Gross. Hork-Bajir were capable of thinking, of feeling…why couldn't some people just accept them? This was just like…like racism.
My vision was starting to blur; I covered up the receiver with my hands and sniffed deeply, wiping away my tears.
"I'll…I'll be right there, Toby," I said, trying to sound comforting. She muttered wordless acceptance and hung up, and I waited until the phone began beeping for me to hang up before I actually turned it off.
Stupid. It was all so stupid. So…saddening. Insane. Why were these people doing this?
I looked outside, where the moon was already starting to fall down from its zenith in the sky, and glanced at the red-glowing digital clock by the hotel bed. Two in the morning. I hadn't gotten any rest at all.
But Toby needed this. I opened the window.
I stood up and voided myself of loose clothing, then inhaled deeply and spread my arms ceremoniously, focusing on the image of an owl. A distant itching rippled throughout my whole body instantly, and the myriad tattoo-like images of feathers emerged onto my skin, three-dimensional. That untouchable section of my mind that controlled my morphing made my wings grow first, contour feathers large and glossy and soft, adapted to silent flight. My fingers and heavy-boned arms thinned and emptied, transforming into hollow wing bones.
My face came next; my eyes widened, and the minuscule details of the night as viewed through my window visible in awesome clarity. My lips hardened and pointed, then grew outward into a sharp, flesh-rending beak. My now plumed stomach shrank, insides contorting, and my legs thinned into scaled stilts ending in talons.
I was an owl with legs five times as long as my body.
Shrinking! Falling! The world blew past as my size dimmed down, and then the morph was completed.
I opened my powerful, quiet wings and soared into the night.
~
I spotted Toby easily. She was sitting in the ripped canopy of a tree, scanning the skies for me, though I knew that her night vision wasn't good enough to catch sight of me. I flew down to her, attempting to land on a branch that was conveniently (and possibly forcefully) stuck upwards and then bent in a ninety degree angle to provide me with an easy perch.
I shifted my talons and wings and eyed her with the fierce, all-seeing owl gaze.
Should I demorph? I asked. Toby looked down and around, surveying the intertwining branches that actually formed a sort of nest high up in the tree, then nodded.
"Yes. It is safe."
I flapped down onto the floor of the nest and focused on the image of myself, hoping that she was right. It was an awfully long drop if the branches weren't strong enough to accommodate my weight. The branches shifted with a crack as I grew to my full size and I tensed, expecting the worst, but from there the branches held firm and made no more complaints.
"Toby…" I started sadly, sitting down cross-legged on the ground, the branches pricking my bare legs with acute points of pain. "Toby, I'm sorry."
"Yes," Toby said in a strangely monotone voice. "I know." She looked down at the ground and ran her clawed fingers over leaves that were protruding from living branches nearby. "I want to bring her back to the valley and bury her there. It was the first home of the free Hork-Bajir, and she will be safe there."
Safe from having her grave desecrated by anyone who would take her bones and use them for some hideous relic of good luck and prosperity. Hork-Bajir parts for sale, everyone. One hundred dollars for the tibia, and one thousand for a blade. The skull's on lay-away, though, sorry.
I gave a much-pained sigh. "Toby…I don't know what to do anymore. Everything's just…I'm just carrying everything on my shoulders now. No one's helping me…and I really have no one here that I can really talk to."
I didn't know why I told her that. I guess I just needed to tell someone.
She looked up at me with her clever, avid eyes, tainted now with grief. "I am sorry for you as well, Cassie. You know you may speak with me if you wish."
"I know, Toby, I know."
"Or with Tobias," she continued, scanning the skies again as if to see his rusty tail just overhead. "Though I haven't seen him at all lately. I wonder if he found a new territory."
I couldn't tell Toby about the mission. I couldn't.
"Probably," I lied, shrugging. "Maybe there weren't enough mice in the meadow."
"Or maybe he was being threatened by something that kept bothering him," Toby suggested noncommittally, yet pointedly.
I was confused by the strange suggestion.
And then I understood.
"You don't want to live here anymore?" I said, stunned. Toby sighed – a human expression she picked up – and shook her head.
"This place is not safe anymore, Cassie," she said, avoiding my gaze and looking up and towards the stars, as if to locate her own home planet. "I don't want to have any more of my people murdered and used as…trophy animals." Her voice grew fierce with passion as she continued. "This place is good, but the valley was better. The valley was secluded – the valley was safe. This place…this place is a home, yes, but oftentimes I feel as if I am an animal in captivity, stared and gawked at by humans. Some humans, like you, Cassie – some humans care. But the others are fearful of us. They don't like us. They don't want us here – they want us away so that we can't hurt them. And in truth, I want them to be away so they can't hurt us."
Innocent Hork-Bajir, herbivores, shot and killed…
Toby turned to me, her eyes blazing, and in her I saw the soul of Aldrea – the soul of her grandmother, showing through the gaze of her granddaughter.
"Please understand. Two is two too many gone."
I avoided her eyes as well and looked down from the tree canopy, down at the natural Yosemite landscape. A land leased to the Hork-Bajir for their home and protection, yet they were still harmed in it. Harmed in the most brutal way imaginable. If they left, I doubted that the president would be happy about it. Same with the tourists that had been on the waiting list for years just to see the Hork-Bajir flitting through the trees.
A poacher had died tonight, along with a Hork-Bajir trying to defend her daughter. The president wouldn't be very happy, and chances were that the public would side with the poacher if not just because of the Hork-Bajirs' primal looks.
Why couldn't people just understand?!
Toby was right. This was a zoo of sorts. If this was supposed to be a "home," it wasn't a very good one.
"When do you plan to leave?" I asked. She smiled sadly at me, which for a Hork-Bajir was a slightly-opened beak.
"As soon as possible."
I nodded, accepting, and stood up, preparing to morph back to owl. Toby stood up and watched me morph, plumage rippling across my skin.
"Cassie…take it easy," she said after I finished my morph, clearly using a bit of human choice of words. "And thank you."
I nodded my owl head and spread my wings, again soaring off, surprised that I could fly with all the weight I bore on my shoulders.
~
I trusted to Toby that the Hork-Bajir would find their way safely towards the valley. At the moment, I really couldn't think of anything else to do, and I really wasn't in the mood to volunteer to help them. I needed rest. I needed sleep. The world rushed past be unseen as I flew back to my hotel room, wings powering against the dead air.
I would need to explain this to the president when the Hork-Bajir left. I would need to apologize to all those heartbroken tourists who didn't get to see the infamous Hork-Bajir of Yosemite. I would need to get back to work in about three hours. But honestly, I didn't care.
Leave me alone, world. I save you from a race of parasitic slugs, and this is what you do to repay me?
I was tired. I was angry. I was frustrated, sad, depressed, and wallowing in the mud of responsibility and worry.
So you an probably imagine exactly how tolerable I felt when I saw some blonde girl about my age in a sort of alley, a space between McDonald's and Denny's. I mean, I don't even know why I saw her in the first place – but I guess maybe it was the blonde hair. The impossible welling of dim sadness that came with remembering Rachel.
That wasn't it, though. See, she was cornered in that dead-end alley by a gang dressed in black, with a badge of coruscating and intertwining blue and green lines that I knew immediately to be Anti-Alien. They were all holding small pistols, and an SUV parked casually in front of the alleyway prevented anyone from seeing her.
There was also a dirty, discarded Krispy Kreme donuts box. The ultimate Andalite temptation, next to cinnamon buns and cigarette butts.
I knew that girl was an Andalite, and out of experience I also knew that those Alienists were going to do – either going to kill her right off, or make her become a nothlit, holding her at gunpoint until her two hours were up.
It was all out of hatred. All just because. And with my owl's keen ears, I could hear: "Please, let me demorph!"
It was all too much for tree-hugging pacifist Cassie the Animorph to take on a sleepless sad night like this. Without thinking at all, I swept my wings back, plummeting with my talons extended, just waiting to enclose on the face of the Alienist that seemed to be the leader.
Luckily enough, though, he was saved. Why?
Because, without any warning at all, the blonde girl sprouted amazingly HUGE dragonic wings with a speed that was almost shocking, each flying appendage twice the size of the parked SUV. And her body grew bigger…and bigger…and bigger…