Sometimes he thought it was like someone pulled a switch, and they had switched. Aximili. Elfangor. Aximili. Elfangor. What was the difference?
One hadn't hidden on Earth with the humans. Yet.
This was the thought that kept him awake in the night, once he'd banished the war from his brain.
Somehow, some way, they switched.
He could pass for Elfangor's twin now, his shorm had once told him. He'd only meant in appearance, nothing more, but the implication terrified him.
Unconsciously, his fingers drifted to where -- if he had one -- his mouth would be.
At first, he refused to believe it, even though he had suspected it in his hearts. His shorm was more than shorm, he was salitawa. Nephew. Family.
Accepting that hadn't been difficult, it was the why and the how that gave him trouble. Why did Elfangor abandon his people and adopt another? How? Why did he fall in love with a human? How?
"These are my people," he'd told her. Besides, they made a mean cinnamon bun.
But he knew it before that, knew it before he knew she was willing to kill them all.
He knew it the moment he kissed her. No matter how he rationalized it -- they were outside, in sight of Yeerks, it was an impulse, he had no control over mouths -- he knew the truth.
It was a human kiss and he'd wanted it that way. Wanted lips on lips, flesh against flesh. Not fingers against a cheek, nor fur on flesh.
He'd wanted it for a long time.
I look like him, he told himself during the sleepless nights, but I am not him. His choice is not my choice, it will not be my choice.
Until she had arrived, with her shining fur, red hair, green eyes and freckles, he could delude himself.
When his dreams were of the fields, not mouth sounds and the strange warmth of a human touch, he could believe it.
He had understanding now. He had more of it than he could stand.
"You beautiful, you are brilliant. But I do not think I like you very much," he'd said. It was true then, it was true now.
He could even convince himself that was the reason why he hadn't told his shorm what happened between them, about the choice he had made in that moment. Human, not Andalite.
He'd pulled the switch.