It was a relief to morph the Dolphin again - that innate sense of overwhelming joy was enough to blot out both the terror I'd felt after the battle with the sharks, and my growing anxiety of being surrounded by deep water. Fears of a lonely death as I sank into the darkness evaporated, replaced with the comforting knowledge that I belonged in this environment. I could feel the warm, salty water caressing my body, sunlight shining on my head and back, and... there was something else, too. Something I hadn't felt before. Suddenly, I realized the Whale was speaking to us. It wasn't like when the Dolphins had spoken to us. Not words, but impressions.
The Whale had lived for dozens upon dozens of migrations. He had traveled from the ice floes at the top of the world to the ice at the bottom of the world, and back again. He had been to the far western side and even beyond. He had seen his kind hunted by land dwellers in wooden boats. He had witnessed fleets of iron ships torn apart by iron birds. And he had seen strange, indescribable creatures in the dark depths of the ocean. But never had he seen land dwellers turn into Dolphins.
We were not the only strange new thing he had seen recently. Two nights before the last full moon, a meteor had fallen from the sky. But when it settled on the seafloor, it did not look like anything the Whale had ever seen. There was a bubble as hard as stone. Inside the bubble was a field, trees, and a four-legged creature. It was not far away, by the Whale's standards - only a four-hour swim to the north.
(four hours...) Marco said. (That's too far out. I don't think I can stand another round of demorphing at sea today. Maybe if I didn't just have sharks to eat me, but... I can't do this anymore. Not today.)
(Yeah,) Jake agreed, (That's too much of a long haul. If we're going to rescue that Andalite, then we need to go home and think of a different plan.)
(Maybe we could ask the whale for a ride out there?) Rachel suggested.
(Bad idea,) Lee said, (If we do that, then we're going to be out in the sun for the entire trip. We'd all get sick from dehydration before we were halfway there. No, I say we find a boat, stock it up with water, and drive it out here.)
(Where are we going to get a boat?) Rachel wondered, (And who's going to drive it?)
(We can worry about that later,) Jake said, (Right now it's time to get home.)
Fortunately, the journey back to shore was nowhere near as eventful as the trip out had been. Since we were no longer searching for the Andalite ship, we ignored everything that turned up in our sonar pulses. We did not try to return to the island we'd stopped at earlier - Jake was sure that if we swam north, we would reach the mainland in the same amount of time. We'd be several miles away from home, but at least we wouldn't have to repeat the hazards of trying to demorph while exposed to the full fury of the ocean.
We were running low on time and beginning to worry when the sea finally became shallow again. We raced up to the shoreline, found a deserted stretch of beach, and demorphed. I didn't wait until I had completely returned to my own body before running out and onto the sand - I'd had enough of the ocean to last a lifetime, and was eager to leave it behind.
"Anybody know where we are?" Marco asked.
"I don't know," Jake said, "I don't think I've ever been here before. All I know is home is somewhere to the east. As long as we follow the coastline, we'll get there."
There was one more morph we needed to do. Fortunately, it wasn't the Dolphins again. We would fly back. Each of us had a bird-of-prey morph: Jake had chosen a peregrine falcon, Cassie and Marco had each acquired an osprey, and Lee had acquired a bald eagle. Rachel and I had the same red-tailed hawk morph as Tobias. None of these raptors normally gathered in groups, especially not with other species, so to avoid drawing unwanted attention, we spread out as far as we could as soon as we were airborne. One of the first rules of morphing the others had discovered was that Thought-Speech has a range of half a mile, so as long as we flew at staggered altitudes, we could occupy a rather large column of space, be close enough to see and hear each other, and have enough space to not look like we were travelling as a group.
We followed the highway that ran parallel to the coastline for over an hour before anybody recognized a familiar landmark. By Rachel's estimation, we had returned to shore almost sixty miles west of the river we had entered that morning. Twenty minutes after that, I, too, was finally able to recognize a few landmarks. There was the railway depot where we had confronted Visser Three almost two weeks ago. The Esplin building out by the waterfront. Some of the buildings Tobias and I had been watching for suspected Yeerk activity. Soon, we were directly over the city. Finally, back at the park we had set out from, we saw another red-tailed hawk flying over the river.
(We're back, Tobias,) Rachel said.
Tobias swooped down low over the water.
(Where are you guys? I can't see anything in there.)
(Right above you,) Lee said, as he passed over Tobias's head.
(Whoa! I wasn't expecting you to fly back.)
One by one, we descended through the trees, landed on top of the riverbank, and began demorphing. Tobias landed in a nearby tree to make sure nobody came too close.
(So how'd it go?)
"Very interesting day. We almost got killed by sharks, we met talking dolphins, and then a psychic whale told us how to find an Andalite ship, and we almost got killed by sharks," Lee said, counting off each encounter on his fingers. "Did I mention the sharks?"
(Yes. But what was that bit about a psychic whale?)
"Funny story," Marco said, "It turns out that whales and dolphins are smart enough to understand Thought-Speech. So we stopped and asked for directions, and a whale told us how to find the Andalite ship."
Tobias stared silently at us for a moment.
(You... you're joking, right?)
"Not this time," Lee said, "It's the truth. Even without the aliens, humans are not the only intelligent life on this planet. Toby actually talked to them, so she can give you all the fun details. But right now, I'm going to go stare at a wall while I rethink EVERYTHING."
Author's Note: I still haven't worked out exactly where the Animorphs' hometown is in this universe. All I know for sure is it's close to Los Angeles in the same way that I live close to Green Bay (less than an hour's drive on the highway).
I stole Lee's line about going home to rethink EVERYTHING from Gravity Falls (season 1 "The Inconveniencing"). And now I can't stop reading all of his dialogue in Wendy's voice. So that's my headcanon now - Lee sounds like Wendy, but he hates his voice and tries to speak in a lower pitch.
Is it still 'headcanon' when I'm talking about an original character?