Encyclopedia of Concepts and Imagery in Andalite Thought-Speech
Entry: Prey instinct
«Stalk eyes on constant scan»
«The warmth of the herd around me»
De1nfestation - Instant Message
Class1Species
Okay. If you're really Deinfestation, then tell me your former host's name.
De1nfestation
Takuya and Iwato-dan.
Class1Species
Okay. Great. So it's really you. How's it going over there?
De1nfestation
It's chaos, in all honesty. We badly need a formal government. But chaos is much better than how we used to live. How you live.
Class1Species
We know. That's why we want to get more of us out there. How many more can you take?
De1nfestation
According to the allies who built this place, twenty more, right now.
Class1Species
Who are these allies anyway?
De1nfestation
This is not a secure channel, ClassOne. This is the human Instant Messenger.
Class1Species
Right. Of course. We'll open a secure channel soon. But for now, what I'll say is that we have the means to smuggle out twenty more without, ah, outside help. Can you send someone to make the pickup, if we leave them at a safe drop?
De1nfestation
Yes, that can be arranged.
Class1Species
Good. We'll be in touch.
Internet Relay Chat
Server: .org
Channel: #philosophy
GreenSky
You've all introduced me to the ethics of moral obligation to others, but they've all been on an individual level. In the trolley problem you told me about, I have the life and death of the people on the tracks in my hands. But what if my whole society is the trolley? In other words, imagine I'm on the trolley with other people from my society, and the people on the tracks are from a different society. Only a few people on the trolley get to stand at the controls and decide where it goes. They're planning to crash into the larger group of people on the track straight ahead, because they're from a different group, so the drivers don't care if they die. Most of the people on the trolley agree with the drivers. Do I have an obligation to fight my way to the front of the trolley, take over the controls, and switch to the other track? What if I have to hurt or even kill the drivers to do so? Am I morally responsible for what the trolley of my society does?
DontPanic42
Of course it's not your responsibility. You're not the one who set the trolley on its course. You might as well say the people tied to the tracks are responsible.
AbrahamoLincolni
The people tied to the tracks aren't moral actors in this situation b/c they can't *act.* Someone on the trolley, even if they're not at the controls right now, *can* act. There's no comparison.
HegelwCreamCheese
DontPanic42 You've said in chat before that you're a South African of Afrikaner descent. Are you seriously suggesting that the crimes of the apartheid regime have nothing to do with you?
DontPanic42
Are you saying I should have gotten myself thrown in jail with the freedom fighters? I was the first person in my family to go to university. I was trying to get an education while all of that was going on.
HegelwCreamCheese
A university your black countrymen couldn't attend!
DontPanic42
*I* wanted them to attend. I wasn't the one who got to decide. I wasn't at the controls of the trolley. Was I morally obligated to fight my way to the front of the trolley and take over? I don't think so.
GreenSky
Even if you were not obligated, DontPanic42, do you think it would have been better if you had? Do you ever regret not doing so?
DontPanic42
Of course.
DontPanic42
I have friends who got arrested while I was safe at school. I think about that all the time.
Tom
I thought it was going to be hard to keep this terrible secret from my parents. To look them in the eye and tell them I was left behind by accident, that I was a nothlit because of a terrible mistake. But my parents made it easy. They didn't want the truth. About anything.
They didn't want to understand what the Yeerks meant to do to humanity and the Earth, because if the Yeerks weren't so bad as all that, then it wasn't so terrible that they hadn't noticed what they'd done to me. They didn't want to understand that Jake was the general of the resistance because that meant they couldn't tell him what to do. They didn't want to understand that the Hork-Bajir are people, because that meant I had more than just a human family. They reacted just as badly to truth as to lies, so it almost didn't matter what I said.
All Delareyne wanted to do was to curl up in a ball and have my parents pat me on the shoulder and tell me they'd love me and be here for me, no matter what. And sometimes, they did manage to do that. But mostly they were too lost in their own pain. So when I was done feeding them enough explanations and lies that they'd stop hurting Jake, at least for now, I went south of the meeting rock, to the Hork-Bajir.
Elgat Kar took one look at me and said in her language, "We need someone to look after babies."
I would never agree to babysit multiple human babies at once, but Hork-Bajir babies are more self-sufficient. It sounded perfect. "I can help."
So I sat and shaved off young bark from twigs for the babies, and told them all the fairytales and myths I could remember that would make any sense to them – they really liked Moses parting the Red Sea. After a while, Toby joined me with some twigs of her own, shaving them much more neatly than I could. "Ax and I are going to make a proposal at the meeting circle tonight. I would appreciate your support."
I picked up a fussing baby by the base of their tail and swung them gently until they settled. "What is it?"
"We want to start a formal training regimen for new morphers."
The world grayed out for a moment. I put the baby down. "Who?"
"My warriors, mostly. They've proven themselves. Maybe a few humans, if they can make it through the training."
"Toby," I said, "do you know what a psych eval is?"
"I believe I read about this in a book Tobias brought me – ah. I see your point. Luis the Chee and Elgat Kar can do those as part of training."
"It should have been you," I said, wrapping my tail protectively around a baby trying to wander off. "Who made the call about me getting the morphing power, I mean. Not Jake. Or at least you should have gotten a vote. You wouldn't have let this happen to me."
"No," Toby said. "I wouldn't have."
"I'll back you on this," I said. "I'll even give a talk about being a nothlit for your training. They should probably learn about that, and Tobias's situation isn't exactly normal."
"Thank you," Toby said. "I really wasn't sure if you would."
"Look, if anyone knows how much we need more morphers who won't fuck up, it's me."
"I don't think everyone will be so easy to convince," Toby said.
"Are you INSANE?!" Marco bellowed. Diamanta hissed and rattled her displeasure. "If even one person decides to morph a sparrow and fly off to rat us out to the Yeerks, we're SCREWED! That's it! Bye-bye Earth!"
«These new morphers will be Hork-Bajir warriors,» Ax said. «I find it difficult to imagine that any of them would trade the last free remnants of their people in to the brutal slavery they have all personally experienced.»
That got the whole meeting circle real quiet. I don't think anybody but Toby and maybe Ax's family expected him to speak up for the Hork-Bajir like that.
Peter said, "You want to give the morphing power to these guys? Are you, uh, sure they can handle the responsibility?"
Right. Peter was an astrophysicist. He looked at the Hork-Bajir and just saw a bunch of sweet slow giants. Primitives. The Hork-Bajir started muttering angrily to each other when Bek translated that for them.
Toby turned to the Animorphs. "You've fought alongside us multiple times now. What do you think?"
Rachel clenched her hand around Abi's horn and said, "The Yeerks took everything from them. They're in it to win it. They deserve a chance to fight back with everything they've got."
Quincy whispered in Cassie's ear. She bit her lip and said, "Ax is right. They need training. We can't let any more mistakes happen. But if they get through the training – I'd be proud to fight beside them."
"What happens if the Yeerks take a morph-capable Hork-Bajir?" Jake said.
Toby looked at him levelly. "You know what we'll do to avoid capture."
Jake nodded grimly. I looked away as images swam before my eyes of dead Hork-Bajir with their wrist blades buried in their ruined throats.
Loren said, "You have a beautiful, peaceful society, and I'm sad to see you drawn deeper and deeper into this war. But I can't deny you the right to defend your families, the way I defend mine."
Tobias said, «You know I trust you, Toby.»
Diamanta studied the Hork-Bajir with her measured yellow eyes while Marco considered. He said, "You guys demorph, and you're instantly dangerous, like Ax-man. There are no voluntary Hork-Bajir-Controllers. No collaborators. And you've been fighting the Yeerks as a team as much as us." He exchanged a look with Dia. "I think the only question is why we didn't do this sooner. What are we, stupid? I mean, just because they look like extras from Jurassic Park…"
"So you'll teach my warriors, then?" Toby said, her eyes lighting up.
Jake looked uncomfortable. "We'll try."
"And you'll approve my choices for the program."
"You know them better than I do," Jake said. "As long as they pass that psych eval you talked about, and we think they've done their training…"
Walter cleared his throat. We all turned to look. "Is this only for Hork-Bajir? I'm not saying I'm ready for the front lines – I'm not a warrior like some of them – but I think I could still help out if I could morph. I could hunt and forage to supplement our diet, which has some serious deficiencies, and patrol around the valley for any trouble. I'm a veterinarian. I think I'd be pretty good at it."
Quincy flew to Emeraude for a furious whispered conference after that little speech. Cassie shifted around nervously, watching her dad sideways. I couldn't blame her. Her mom was already in the worst kind of danger. She couldn't like the idea of her dad taking any risks.
"I'd also like to try," said Julie. "I'll go through the same evaluation as everybody else, and I'm with Walter about not going into battle. But for all of us living here in the valley, there's a lot more to the resistance than winning battles."
Jake looked at me helplessly. I said privately, «It doesn't all have to go the way it did with me. Not if you do it right.»
"I think our children have proved that Hork-Bajir and humans can learn side by side," Toby said, also looking at Jake.
"I'm not an expert on what you might be able to do with morphing to help that isn't…. You know," Jake said. "But it sounds like you have some ideas, and maybe we need to start thinking about morphing that way too. If you can pass everything and you try to stay out of the fighting, then I don't see why not."
Jordan, sitting cross-legged next to Aunt Naomi, piped up. "Why can't we fight with you? You're not Hork-Bajir fighters. You're just human kids, and so'm I." Tseycal became a wolverine and showed his teeth.
"Jordan!" Naomi whisper-screamed, horrified. "You are not going to fight!"
"Why not?" Jordan demanded. "I'm the same age Rachel was when she started being an Animorph."
"And I was way too young," Rachel said. "Hell, I'm still too young to enlist in the Army. But I'm in it now and I can't go back. You have the choice not to get blood on your hands. Take it." Abi went over to talk to Tseycal more quietly. He became a puppy and pressed himself against Jordan's legs, whining softly.
"Thanks for bringing that up, Jordan," Loren said dryly. "We should have an age minimum. We should let Toby set it for her people, but for humans…"
Jake looked at Jordan and said, "We're only letting people who are already soldiers use morphing for combat. In this valley, that means Hork-Bajir. For non-combatant morphers…" He trailed off while Merlyse whispered in his ear. I could see his dilemma. It would be kind of hypocritical of him to set the age minimum at eighteen when none of the Animorphs were that old.
«No one younger than the Animorphs,» Tobias suggested. «That means fifteen and up.»
"Okay," Jake said. "Let's make a list."
We ended up with eight humans and 24 Hork-Bajir signed up for the training program. Not all of them would make it through. But even then, it would be so much more than we had now. It would actually be a miniature army at Jake and Toby's command.
I wouldn't be a part of it. I'd be part of a squad of non-morphing Hork-Bajir warriors, a security detail for the valley itself. None of us were under the illusion that it could stay hidden forever. And every day, more and more, I found how much there was here to defend.
Loren
I waited for one of us to see Mertil. I didn't care how secluded he was trying to be – without the Chee's holograms, he couldn't hide forever. It was Tobias who spotted him first, of course, though it took longer than I'd expected. «He's coming toward Mr. King,» Tobias reported. «Wants to talk, I guess. This might be our moment. Walk north. No, that's southeast!»
I threw up my hands in despair, knowing he would see it.
«Fine, fine, walk toward that rotting log with the mushrooms on it. Yeah, there!»
When I emerged from the undergrowth, I saw Mertil walk up to Chee-alem. I started to say, "Hello – " but then they both disappeared under a hologram. "Um. Hello?"
The hologram dropped. Mertil's stump was tucked down against his leg, his stalk eyes jittered in every direction, and his main eyes wouldn't settle on me. Alem was as inscrutable as Chee always are. "Hi," I said. "Uh, I didn't mean to interrupt. It's just that we were never introduced, and I wanted to meet you."
«It is neither necessary nor appropriate for us to associate socially,» Mertil said stiffly.
I carefully kept myself still – he looked as if any sudden movement might spook him. "I know about the seclusion of vecols. Ax and I have talked about it at length. But there's one thing he didn't mention. Are vecols allowed to associate with each other?"
Mertil's main eyes fixed on me, his pupils blown out with shock. «I do not know. I became a vecol here on Earth. If a community of vecols exists on the homeworld, I have never been aware of it.»
"If there's anything I know from being a vecol, it's that there almost certainly is, whether able-bodied people know it or not." I bowed a little. "I'm Loren St. Clair. My dæmon is Jaxom. I was blind for twelve years, until the morphing power repaired my DNA. You might call me a former vecol."
Mertil's body lost a little of its tension. «There are Andalites who are like you – vecols who were cured by the Escafil Device. They may rejoin society, but they still carry the stigma.»
"Psst," Jaxom said. I tilted my head toward him. "Alem's still here."
It was easy to forget, the way he could hold himself perfectly statue-still, the way no living thing can. "Alem," I said. "Could you give us some privacy?"
"Of course," Alem said. "Though if you want real privacy, you might want to tell your son to stop hovering." He walked away, in his curious android way, not swerving to avoid thorns or mud.
"That's up to you," I told Mertil. "I can tell Tobias to leave if you'd rather talk alone."
«Your son Tobias is the bird nothlit,» Mertil said, watching him overhead with his stalk eyes.
"Yes."
«I am sorry for his misfortune. But I would prefer to speak with you alone.»
I raised my voice just a little and said, "I'll see you later, Tobias," and I didn't have to look up to know he would move on. I started to walk, knowing that Andalites prefer to talk while moving. "I hope you'll talk to him later, though. It would mean a lot to him to get to know more Andalites, since he never got to know his father."
«Forgive me if I am being rude, but what does Tobias's father have to do with Andalites?»
I told him. It took a while, because he didn't really believe me until I told the story in so much detail that he had to accept that I'd lived it. And then I got to the Ellimist stuff, and he didn't believe any of that until I called Tobias back to show Mertil that he could morph.
«Surely there must be some other explanation,» Mertil said, stunned.
«For Elfangor getting his own body and the morphing power back and teleporting back into the middle of an important space battle against the Yeerks, and also me and my whole thing?» Tobias said.
"Also, we've all met an Ellimist," I said. "Some of us multiple times."
«He's a dick,» Tobias said.
«I had already thought I had fallen into very strange company, in this valley of ancient androids and morphing humans and former Yeerk collaborators and free Hork-Bajir,» Mertil said. «But I had only begun to glimpse the truth of how singular this place is.»
«In other words, welcome to Crazytown,» Tobias said. «You'll fit right in.»
"You will," Jaxom said earnestly. "The Hork-Bajir don't divide people into abled and disabled at all. It's all the same to them."
"Will you talk to Ax?" I said gently. "I can be there with you. But it would mean the world to him. He's been stranded on Earth without any contact with his people for two years."
«What would we speak about?» Mertil said.
"Tell him about Gafinilan," I said. "He seemed really excited when you mentioned him before. Or talk about being a fighter pilot. I think he might have had a poster of you on his dorm room wall or whatever the Andalite equivalent is."
«Posters. The human decorations made of paper? Gafinilan bought many of these with prints of beautiful Earth landscapes before he learned that they are indicators of lower caste status among humans.»
I felt like maybe Mertil had been insulted by the suggestion that there might have been an image of him on an "indicator of lower class status" in Ax's dorm room, and opened my mouth to try to explain, but Tobias saved me from myself. «Speaking of how long Ax has been on Earth. How long have you been here, Mertil? The same as Ax, right? You were on one of the fighters with the GalaxyTree.»
«Yes.»
«Then you need to talk to Elgat Kar. She's a Hork-Bajir who can help you.»
The fur along Mertil's spine bristled upward. «Help me? I do not need help.»
«The galan maheet,» Tobias explained. «You're past the deadline. So is Ax. Elgat Kar's helped him with that.»
Mertil's ears dropped, and he flattened his arms to his sides. «I had nearly forgotten.»
"Hey, it's okay," I said. "There's nothing you could have done. There's no way for you to go home and see your Guide Tree right now. But the Hork-Bajir are actually really good at this kind of thing."
«Yes,» Mertil said woodenly. «Of course. If she will agree to see me in private… Yes.»
It's Gafinilan, Jaxom realized. He's thinking of his partner enslaved, with the same illness of being too long from his Guide Tree, and no way of treating it.
"You're not the only one with a loved one taken by the Yeerks," I said. "That's true for most of the Hork-Bajir here. You can talk to Elgat Kar about it when she comes to treat you. She'll understand. They have her little child."
«What would a Hork-Bajir know of the bond between me and my shorm?» Mertil said coldly.
I wanted to tell him there was more to the Hork-Bajir than he thought. I knew it was true. But it was also true that no Hork-Bajir, no non-Andalite, could understand the mental link between him and Gafinilan. Elfangor had told me about this kind of link, but as a human, I couldn't share one with him. Looking back, maybe it was a good thing that we couldn't – it would have been just one more thing to lose when he left me behind. So there was nothing I could say.
«I wish to return to the dignity of my solitude,» Mertil said. «I will find Aximili in my own time. I do not understand how this Hork-Bajir can ease the distance between me and my Guide Tree, but come find me when she is ready to try.»
He retreated into the woods, and my heart ached to watch him, reminded of how lonely and helpless I had once felt, blind and alone after the accident that wasn't an accident had shattered my life.
Toby
"In a normal body, pain is an important signal," Jake said, pacing around in front of his students while Merlyse flew with him, slightly out of phase. "It warns you that you're doing something that could harm you. Putting your hand too close to a fire. Walking on rough terrain." He gestured down at his feet, bare as the Animorphs' usually were, since they couldn't morph shoes. Come to think of it, they did look a little dirty and bloody from the uneven ground. "It hurts, you stop, you don't damage yourself. This is a good thing. But in a morpher's body, pain is almost useless. If you stick your hand in a fire and burn yourself, you can morph it away. If you trip on a rock and twist your ankle? Gone in four minutes tops.
"There's only four things that can hurt or kill a morpher: one, getting trapped in morph. We're going to have a whole other training session about that. Two, certain diseases that stick around from morph to morph. There's an Andalite illness called yamphut that does that, and who knows, there might be others. Three, something that kills you so quickly you don't have time to morph. A Dracon beam or bullet to the brain." He pointed to his own forehead. "Four – and this is a really important one – anything that stops your brain from being able to focus on a morph. You're so exhausted from morphing you can't concentrate. You're so dizzy from blood loss you can't picture your own body. That is what will get you killed, and pain doesn't help warn you when that's happening. Every bone in your body can be crushed, and as long as you can focus on the morph, you'll be fine. But if you're mentally exhausted, you're finished. Pain is useless to a morpher. It's more important to check in with your brain, make sure you have focus, than to check in with your body."
I looked out at Jake's students – Jake's other students, because I was learning from him too. My people seemed to be internalizing his lesson well – our bodies can regenerate from serious injuries, so we are all somewhat familiar with the mindset – though I could see they could use a break to think it over. Many of the warriors were explaining the concepts to each other while Jake continued to speak. The humans were not faring well, though not because they failed to understand. This was the third lesson for prospective morphers, and so for no Hork-Bajir had dropped out, but four humans had. Only four humans remained: Melissa, Jamal, Julie, and Walter, Cassie's father. They all looked grim and afraid, but determined.
"Ax," Jake said, stopping in front of him. Merlyse landed on his shoulder, and he held out his arm. "Cut off my hand."
Ax hesitated, but for only a moment. I wondered what held him back. Was it a fear of causing his prince pain, or fear of what it meant that he would give such an order? Then he said, «Yes, Prince Jake,» and severed it in a swift, precise chop.
Jake screamed through gritted teeth. Merlyse screeched and flew backward like a bird scared out of a tree by a gunshot. Blood sprayed from the stump of Jake's wrist, marking a sickening dark red arc across Ax's chest and shoulders. His hand thumped to the ground, the fingers twitching spasmodically in the dirt. The humans gasped and screamed and clutched at each other. My warriors recoiled in disgust at the sight of the thin, spraying, red blood, the color of a poisonous berry or a Taxxon carapace.
Orange fur rippled over Jake's body. He grew large and yellow-eyed. Merlyse disappeared from the open air. A vast paw emerged from his stump. He closed his eyes and reversed the morph, and when he opened them, they were brown. Merlyse was on his shoulder, and his hand was back on his wrist, the living copy of the curled-in husk on the ground. "That hurt," he said, "but it doesn't matter. Any questions?"
I raised my hand and said, "I would like to break for discussion."
"Go ahead," Jake said. "Take some time to talk." He picked up his own severed hand, smearing his fresh hand with congealing blood. "By the way. What should I do with this?"
"Bury it far away from the creek," I said. "None of us want the taste of death in the water supply."
«Go talk to your students,» Ax said, pointing a stalk eye at the pale, shaken humans in our group. «I will dispose of it.»
Jake nodded, passed his hand to Ax, and went to the human students. I turned to my peers.
Uklan Tel said, "Rej Hullan told a story of a creature from Father Deep. The Loocha. It was made of mud, and it could change its shape. Any wound made with a blade would be healed by more mud. The only way to defeat it is to chase it out of the Deep and into the sun, where the mud dries and the Loocha cannot change shape anymore."
"With the morphing power, we become the Loocha," another warrior said.
"Or like a tree," I said. "It can grow around any obstacle, heal from any wound, but if it is cut down all at once, it falls and dies."
Jake
After the day's training session, I took Ax aside and said, "Have you been hanging out with Mertil at all?"
«Yes,» Ax said. I couldn't read anything into his body language except a touch of nerves.
"How is he holding up?"
«He has allowed Elgat Kar to treat him, which I think brings him some solace,» Ax said. «He speaks with me, Loren, and Tobias regularly, which is important to an Andalite's natural sense of social cohesion. Of course, there is little I can do to ease his loss. We cannot perform the proper rituals of mourning when Gafinilan is not dead.»
"Yeah," I said. "I know how that is." Ax bowed his head, accepting that. I took a deep breath and went on, "Do you think he'd meet with me if you introduced us? I'd like to talk."
«I think that would be difficult for him. He was once a proud and celebrated warrior, and now he can never be so again. I do not think he knows how to approach a prince after his fall in status, much less a human one.»
"I don't want to talk to him as a prince. I want to talk as a guy who deals with aliens all the time and wants to get to know another Andalite."
«A prince is always a prince, whether he is in battle or not, whether one serves under him or not.»
"Was Elfangor a prince when he came home to visit you?" I said, frustrated.
«Of course he was.»
Ax is right, Merlyse said, and I deflated. She went on, You're still a prince when you talk to Mom and Dad. When you have breakfast with the new-frees. It's always there. That's not just an Andalite thing.
"Then tell him it'll help me be a better prince if I get to know him a little. That's not a line. I mean it."
«Like when you took me to your school,» Ax said.
"Yeah. Like that."
«Very well. I will try my best to convince him, Prince Jake.»
I was in the middle of washing myself under one of the solar showers the Chee had set up when a thought-speech voice announced in my head, «I am willing to meet with you, Prince Jake.»
I dropped my soap and swore while Merlyse reminded me from her perch at the top of the shower stall, "He's an Andalite, he doesn't know you can't just talk to people in the shower."
"Can you see him from up there?" I said, picking up the soap and determinedly scrubbing at myself again, because I lived in the woods and I was dirty, goddamnit.
"Yep."
"Go tell him to wait ten minutes. I've seen Ax use one of these showers, they get the concept."
I felt my connection with Merl strain to its limits as she flew out to talk to Mertil. I gritted my teeth against it, got clean, and put on my hoodie and cargo shorts. I followed Merl to where Mertil was waiting down a ridge. Mertil started to walk, more at a human's pace than an Andalite's, so I could walk with him. «Aximili told me you wished to become better acquainted.»
"Yeah," I said. "I mean, I know you were a big-shot fighter pilot, and you had a – a shorm? A partnership? With Gafinilan. But that's all."
«What else do you wish to know?» Mertil said.
I meant to ask him something smart and useful, like what the training to become a fighter pilot was like, or what his prince had been like. But when I opened my mouth, the words that fell out were, "How did you know you were gay?"
Mertil's ears swiveled. I tried to read him, but he was even harder to read than Ax, who had picked up some human body language over time. «I am sorry. My translator chip is unable to process the last word you spoke.»
It's the conversation with Ket Halpak at the wedding party all over again, Merlyse groaned. I should have just said never mind, dropped it, and moved on. But Merl insisted, Cassie managed to explain to Ket. We can do this.
"Um," I said. "I mean, how did you know you were, um, interested in other male Andalites? As partners? Like Gafinilan."
Mertil's stalk eyes rocked backward. Another gesture I couldn't make sense of. «Why wouldn't I be interested in other male Andalites as partners?»
For a minute, I had absolutely no idea what to say to that. It was like when I was in Spanish class and no matter how many times I read a sentence in the textbook, it seemed like it said "My sister has a monkey's anus," even though there was no way it could possibly mean that. Finally, the only thing I could think of to say was, "Uh, because you can't have kids together?"
Mertil looked down at me with a stalk eye. «I know human technology is primitive, but surely you must understand how that obstacle can be circumvented.»
"Yeah, I guess so," I said numbly, turning it all over in my head. "So Andalites are totally fine with being gay – I mean, with males together and females together? That's normal?" Mertil stared at me sideways with both stalk eyes, and Merlyse said, He's just as confused by us as we are by him. I started laughing. "Okay. I get it. It was never a big deal for you. But there still had to be some point where you figured out you had a preference. That you wanted to be with male Andalites and not females."
Mertil's stalk eyes pressed together, both pointing at me, in a way that reminded me weirdly of someone's eyebrows coming together in a frown. «Why? I have no such preference.»
I stopped walking and stared at him. "What? Why would you be with Gafinilan if you're not g– if you don't prefer males?"
«I have no preference in grasses on the homeworld,» Mertil said. «I used to run in a particular pasture by my home scoop because my neighbor across that pasture was a cloud artist, and I hoped to catch a glimpse of her designs when I fed there. That the pasture was efros mixed with sthenay was not a factor in my choice.»
"Oh," I said. I noticed Merlyse was hiding her face under her wing. I wished I could do the same. "I didn't know – I thought you had to. Have a favorite kind of grass."
«Some do,» Mertil said. «Some do not. Gafinilan has a preference in both matters – for males, and for the marsh-grasses that grow along the water.» So casually, as if he were talking about ice cream flavors. How was he talking like that? «Why are you so concerned with these questions? I am mostly unfamiliar with human expressions, but you appear to be in distress.»
Merlyse hopped up and down my arm and fluffed out her feathers. I clutched at my hair with my other hand. "You're just making this harder! If I'm not gay or straight – if I don't have a preference – how am I supposed to – "
Decide whether we like Marco or Cassie, Merlyse finished miserably inside our mind. But she wasn't going to say that to Mertil. So instead she finished out loud, "Choose. Between a boy and a girl."
«Do humans not have compatibility trials for prospective spouses? Those should make the choice quite clear.»
"What?" I'd gone from walking to standing still, and now to sitting down on a rock while Merlyse hopped around on the ground like it was a hot stove. My brain felt like it was going to melt out of my ears. "Spouses? I'm not getting married!"
«I am glad to hear it. I had been about to advise you to wait until you are older.» Mertil had a main eye on me in a sideways glance, his stalk eyes pivoting around. «If you are not selecting a spouse, then why must you make this choice?»
"Well, I mean, um, I think I might… like them? Like, like. I mean, I don't know if I should be doing anything like this at all, with the war going on and everything, but if I am going to, then – who?"
«Ah. You speak of shest dath,» Mertil said. «In that case – »
"I'm sorry. I didn't really get that part." I laughed. "I guess it's my turn." I picked up Merl, who kept on twitching in my hands.
«Shest dath. Relationships of passion. It is traditional to avoid shest dath while in active military service, of course, but I would be the first to disagree with tradition on this point. Shest dath is only a distraction from service if you allow it to be. Pursue shest dath with the male and the female if you like; I would not condemn it, and neither would Aximili.»
"The male and the…" I clutched at my head with both hands. "Gah! How do you just say things like that!"
«Yesterday I heard two humans discussing slaughtering animals, skinning and gutting them, laying their flesh over coals, and stuffing it into their large wet mouths,» Mertil said. «I fail to see how that is less disturbing than discussing perfectly normal and healthy relationships. Perhaps you should not pursue relationships if even discussing them is so personally distressing.»
"God, he's right, maybe not," Merlyse muttered, sticking her head up my hoodie sleeve.
"Wait a second," I said. "You're talking like that's normal too. Are all Andalites like this? Oh my God, has Ax dated guys? Has Ax dated multiple guys at once?" Merlyse groaned and tried to bury herself deeper into my sleeve.
Mertil's tail stump lashed against the back of his leg. «How should I know? Perhaps, perhaps not.»
"Don't tell Ax I said that. Don't tell anyone about any of this. God, I'm sorry, Mertil, this conversation must be as crazy for you as it is for me. I'll just go now." I got up, flipped the hood of my sweatshirt over my head and drew the drawstrings. Merlyse came out of my sleeve and hopped on my shoulder.
«Wait, Prince Jake.» I turned around. «It seems to me that being an adolescent is difficult for both humans and Andalites. As prince, you bear a great deal of responsibility for one your age. I will not pretend to understand what is troubling you, but I do think it is understandable that you are troubled.»
"Not nearly as much as you are," I said. "I'm sorry for making this into my pity party."
«I am not in the habit of measuring one misfortune against another. We may speak of something different another time.»
If I can ever get up the courage to show Mertil my face again after this disaster of a conversation, I thought to Merlyse, who just laughed at me, the traitor.