((It's the center of their lives. Almost a religion. No, not the Yeerk pool, really. The Kandrona. That is the center for them.))

Nerlan Two-One-Four paced the rim of the pool, occasionally glancing down to watch her unhosted peers swimming beneath the surface.

The pools here weren't like on the homeworld; rather than lakes, they were artificially constructed out of the massive trees that grew on this planet. Efficient, certainly, but Nerlan didn't like it. It was unnatural. It emphasized the fact that this wasn't where they belonged.

This pool didn't even have a name—just some designation, "Pool 4-13" or something. Nerlan was from Sulp Niar, one of the great pools on the homeworld. She had been both pleased and annoyed to learn that children were being named from where their ancestors had been born. A grub from Pool 4-13 could claim to be "of the Sulp Niar pool," but everyone would know that he was putting on airs.

It was like this new host species, the Hork-Bajir. It was superior to a Gedd in every way, but Nerlan missed her old body. Gedds were designed to be hosts for Yeerks; their species had been bound together since the first generation. Her new form was strong and exquisite and utterly wrong.

Nerlan craned her sinuous neck, pointing her amazing eyes up at the planet's sky. Here you could have a sky without clouds, revealing the sun in all its massive, red glory.

But it was not their sun. It was not the Kandrona, sending life-giving energy down into the pools.

They had machines for that now. One of them was hidden in this valley, probably on one of the ships. They even dared to call them "Kandronas," as if even that, their holiest source, could be mass-produced and carried off for this insane venture.

Nerlan scoffed, then resumed her walk around the pool. A waste of her time, she thought. Controllers had always been tasked with guard duty, but why do it now? There was no Vanarx or Jarap to threaten the unhosted, and the Hork-Bajir were too stupid to see them as a threat. They were perfectly safe, and Nerlan hated it. She wished that she had been left behind on the homeworld, with their pitiable brethren who still lived like Yeerks.

Things were so much better, and yet everything seemed pointless.

Author's notes: I like coming up with unconventional interpretations for these prompts, so you can imagine my "eureka!" moment when I connected these to the Yeerks.