"You'd be right, then," Slade nodded. "The morphing power has it's own set of limitations, the most important of which is that you can never stay in one morph for more than two hours. Any longer than that, and you'll end up trapped as whatever animal you morphed for the rest of your life. Or at least, however long that animal lives."
"I see," Shara said, folding her arms over her chest again. This wasn't the defensive reaction that it had been earlier, Slade could sense, it was a thinking pose. "Well, how long have you been at this? You seem to know a lot about it."
Slade scratched the side of his head, suddenly noticing that he had an itch there. "Two weeks, but I learned most of what I know from the other Animorphs. Cassie in particular."
"Animorphs? That's an interesting name. Who are the others, anyway?" Shara asked.
"Well, there's Jake; he's our leader. Then there's Marco; who's in charge of security for the army. He's kind of strange though, I don't know whether to like him or not, but I do trust him. Then there's Rachel; she's one of the strongest warriors I know. She does get a little overzealous sometimes, though. Then there's Cassie; she's Jake's Second, and she seems to be really good at reading people. The last Animorph, other than me, is Aximili. I don't really know what his position in the army is, but he seems so far to be just another warrior."
Shara nodded. "So, what do we do now?"
Slade thought for a moment, remembering what Cassie had said and done when he had first joined up with the Animorphs. "We have to find you some kind of bird morph," Slade said. Looking around at all the cages on the tables in front of him. "Which one would you like?"
….
Shara, too, looked around at the cages on the tables. Walking past Slade, Shara came to the same cage that she had been standing in front of when Slade had first made himself known to her. Turning right, Shara stepped over to the next cage. So far, all she had found were a bunch of woodland animals. Not that there was anything wrong with woodland animals in general, but there were no birds for her to choose from.
Shara sighed, wondering just what she was getting herself into. It's not like I'm being presented with a lot of other choices here, though, she thought to herself sadly. She couldn't go back home, because there was no one there to help make it a home again; the house would just feel too empty without the others. There was the option of going back to where she had been earlier this morning, but that wasn't something that Shara was going to let herself consider for very long.
What, just go back to Darkon? Forget about the way he completely destroyed not only my life, but the lives of everyone I loved? Forget the way he just murdered the people he couldn't use? As she thought this, Shara began to shake with suppressed rage and sadness. …Dad… Shara held on to the rage; rage was good. Other emotions would hold her back, but rage would give her the energy to press forward, even without the people who had meant so much to her.
Darkon. That ancient bastard is going to pay for what he did to me, and to the others. Now that her mind was made up, Shara concentrated on finding what she needed. Walking past all of the cages on the table to her right, Shara came across a seagull. The thick bandages wrapped around its right wing made it pretty well obvious to her why this particular seagull was in here.
Okay, so now I know this is some kind of wild animal hospital, looking at the gull, Shara realized that she didn't really know what to do now that she had found what she had been looking for.
"Okay, I found one. What now?"
Slade came walking up, looking at Shara first and then at the bird she had found. "Oh, you found a seagull? Great, I think I'll get that one, too. After you acquire it first, of course."
"You're going to have to tell me how to do that. You do know that, right?" Shara raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah," Slade looked a bit chagrinned. "I guess I got ahead of myself there. First you have to open the cage," Slade said, pointing out the lock for her.
"Right, opening the cage," Shara nodded, and quickly undid the cage's latch. "What now?"
"I'll show you," reaching for the seagull, Slade suddenly became uncertain again. "Unless you'd still like to go first, then I can just tell you what you have to do."
"No, I think I'd like you to show me, if you don't mind," Shara said. Watching as Slade reached into the cage and laid his hand on the gull's unbandaged wing, Shara wondered what he was doing. As Slade pulled his hand back out of the cage, he motioned for Shara to do the same.
Shara stepped forward, having backstepped so that Slade could have better access to the cage and the gull inside. Putting her hand inside the cage, Shara rested her fingertips on the gull's wing. Then, realizing that she still didn't really know what to do, Shara turned back to Slade.
"Okay, so what do I do now?"
Slade at first looked confused, then seemed to remember at last that he hadn't really explained anything to her. "Oh! Sorry Shara, what you do is you concentrate on the gull. Close your eyes, and form a picture of it in your mind."
Shara did so, feeling a little strange and silly. But as she focussed on the bird, Shara began to feel a strange tingling moving up her arm from her hand. Not unlike when she had first received the morphing power, but this sensation was different somehow. Once she opened her eyes, Shara felt the same as she always had, and yet different in some undeniable way.