As he ran through the night, under a light rain – light by Earth standards, at least – his hooves picking up worms that would only serve to keep him awake later than Aximili would have otherwise wished to stay conscious, he found himself unable to stop thinking about what had happened when he'd encountered the Abomination: he'd backed down, run away. Yes, he could say that Prince Jake had ordered him to fall back, he could hide behind obedience to anyone who might have asked, but Aximili couldn't manage to convince himself. He didn't truly believe that he'd had no choice, and the memory of how honestly relieved he'd felt when he'd broken away from the Visser still remained in his mind.
Finding himself looking up toward the sky, searching for the stars even as he knew that they would be hidden behind the thick, rainy clouds, Ax sighed.
At the moment, given the memory that chased him as relentlessly as the falling rain, Aximili simply wished to feel some kind of a connection to the world he knew. A connection to the place where he had been born and raised. The place where Elfangor had been such a close presence, if not always a physical one.
Still, the fact that he had stayed so long among the Animorphs, on Earth with the humans, weighed on him as well. Aximili didn't know just how he would be able to fit in with the rest of Andalite society, once he was able to return. The question remained, however, if he would ever have the chance to return.
Gaining speed as he continued on through the wet night, more interested in speed than eating, as so many thoughts pursued each other within his mind, Aximili felt the raindrops splattering against his face and chest rather than simply falling down on his back and tail.
Spotting a wooden rail fence, a fence that looked almost too high for him to clear, Aximili simply ran all the faster. He both heard and felt the thump as his left, back hoof nicked the top railing. Landing as easily as he ever had, Aximili only noticed his own heaving breaths once he'd spent a long moment standing still.
The thoughts of his abortive duel with the Abomination – the single strike that the both of them had been able to made at the other – pursued him, no matter how fast Aximili forced himself to run. I could have beaten him, I could have forced the fight. I could have struck again, before he had a chance to run away, Aximili kept running. No, you would have lost; he's taller, bigger. He's more experienced. The Andalite body that Visser Three controls used to belong to a great warrior; Visser Three has all of that warrior's skill and experience.
Still, the thought that he'd personally faced the Abomination and all but allowed him to walk away stayed lodged firmly in his mind, like a thorn in his haunch.
Looking up, Aximili found himself standing under a familiar pine tree, in a very familiar meadow.
(What's up, Ax-man?) Tobias asked, and Aximili found himself curious.
(Are you awake?) he asked, wondering if his shorm had had something on his mind, even as Aximili himself had had for so long.
(Yeah,) Tobias said, seeming rather unimpressed. (I have this tendency to wake up when big, blue, scorpion-tailed, alien centaurs go crashing around in the woods like a herd of panicked elephants.)
Ah, so he was attempting to sleep when I arrived, Aximili found himself thinking. (I apologize for waking you. What could panic an elephant?)
(You're stewing, aren't you?) Tobias asked, gliding down to a lower branch, and then fluttering down to perch on a fallen log in lieu of answering.
(What?)
(Stewing,) Tobias reiterated, flapping his wings and fluffing out his feathers. (Going over things again and again in your head. Around and around in circles, asking yourself the same questions over and over again, then doing the whole thing over again.)
(How did you know that?) Aximili found himself asking, though the closeness that he and Tobias shared might well be the true answer.
(Look, Ax, the first time I saw Visser Three,) Tobias paused for a moment, as if gathering his composure for whatever he was going to say. (And, you know when that was… I cried, I was so scared.)
(He was an alien,) Aximili said, wishing to comfort his shorm as well as anyone could. (He was unfamiliar to you.)
(Elfangor was an alien,) Tobias said, jerking his head sharply. (He was unfamiliar, but he wasn't the one who scared me. Visser Three did. Not because of what he looked like, but… because there was something about him. Something like… I don't know how to describe it, but when I first saw Visser Three, it was like I was looking at something that needed to be destroyed. But, I also felt like, there was something about his evil, what he was, that was going to touch me and change me. Somehow. I couldn't have told anyone right then, though, so I just cried.)
(I have met Visser Three before,) Aximili said, wishing more than anything for his shorm to understand where he was coming from. (I should not have been afraid.)
(What could you have done?) Tobias asked, clearly attempting to be reasonable.
(I could have forced the fight.)
(What if you'd lost?) Tobias asked, and though Aximili knew that his shorm was only trying to be practical, he wasn't truly in a mood to hear it.
(What if I'd won? It would have been a terrible blow to the Yeerks. I would have avenged Elfangor. I would have done a great service for both you and my people.)
(Look, Ax, when you went up against him, he was the one who backed down,) Tobias said firmly. (Not you.)
(He was surrounded and outnumbered,) Aximili said, not certain of the thrust of Tobias' argument, but feeling the need to make his own, all the same. (He must have thought that each of you was another Andalite warrior, prepared to demorph and attack. He retreated with honor.)
(Honor,) Tobias all but snarled. (He's a cold-blooded killer. He's an invader on someone else's land. He's just another gangster. Murderers don't have honor.)
(I truly should let you go back to sleep,) he said, realizing how late it was, and how long he'd been speaking.
(Ookay. You want to drop it, it's dropped,) Tobias said, and for a moment Aximili wondered if he'd said the wrong thing. His shorm looked around, blinking in the darkness. (Hard to sleep when it's raining, anyway.)
(Yes,) Aximili said, considering bringing up the other thing that had been troubling him, before deciding that he would likely be better served speaking with Shara. (Try to get what sleep you can.)
His shorm was clearly tired after such a long day, and Shara was the only one he had told about the kafit bird's presence in the first place. So, saying his farewells for the night, Aximili morphed into the rattlesnake he had acquired some time ago, then set off closer to the barn where Slade and Shara had slept ever since Prince Jake had recovered them from whatever strange place had drawn his attention so completely. Aximili was rather curious about that, as well, and so he made up his mind to ask Shara if she knew anything about that, as well.
(Shara?) he called out, testing to see if he had at last come into range where his thought-speak would be able to connect with her.
(Ax?) Shara asked, clearly curious as to just what he wanted from her, but also worried about how he might be feeling; it was disconcerting, knowing exactly how she felt as she was speaking to him. (Is something wrong?)
(I… have been thinking about the suggestion you made, when the Visser and I fought each other,) he said, still feeling as uneasy as he had when he'd come to the end of the abortive duel between himself and the Abomination. (Were you simply attempting to comfort me, when you suggested that the Visser could have simply inherited the kafit bird he morphed from Alloran?)
(It made sense to me. Depending on how long Alloran had the morphing power, he'd have had time to acquire any kind of morph he wanted.)
(I suppose that is rather logical,) he said, pausing for a moment. (There is also another thing I am rather curious about.)
(What would that be, Ax?)
(When Prince Jake recovered the pair of you, what was that underground pit where you were being…? Kept, I suppose.)
(That was Darkon's stronghold,) Shara responded, and Aximili could feel a twisted combination of hatred and apprehension that was more than a bit familiar to him; it was the same way that Aximili had found himself feeling when he had faced the Abomination just that very afternoon. (It's where… They all come from.)
(Who are they, Shara?) Aximili asked, wondering for a moment if Shara had truly intended to say "we" while she had been speaking.
(They're the Radam Empire,) Shara paused for a long moment, and Aximili could only wonder if Andalite High Command was aware of the existence of another group of creatures that might very well be more dangerous than the Yeerks as a whole. (Darkon is one of their Warlords. I don't know how he actually made it to Earth in the first place, but now that he's here, he's going to be trying to take it for himself.)
(Is it possible that the Yeerk forces might be able to delay their advance?) he asked, curious even in the face of Shara's obvious pessimism.
(Not for long,) Shara said, and Aximili throttled his remaining curiosity as he felt a wave of sheer weariness over the mental link that Shara seemed to establish with anyone she spoke to.
(I should allow you to get back to sleep,) he said, even though there were still matters that troubled him about the Radam's presence on Earth.
(Thanks.)
Clearly, there were also matters that troubled Shara about their presence, and the fact that she felt the same way about Darkon as Aximili himself felt about Visser Three gave him at least some kind of a connection to her, strange and hard as such a thing would have been to explain to another Andalite. There were no other Andalites to explain himself to, however, and so Aximili tried not to think about it.