It's that dream again. The one with a strange patchwork world made of alternating segments of Earth and the Andalite planet. It isn't the only dream I've had lately, but it is the only one I consistently remember. Sometimes I'll dream about my old life, before I became trapped as a hawk. Those are never happy dreams. Not that they're nightmares, it's just that they remind me of how much my old life sucked. And they remind me of the few good things I had that I've lost.
In the dream, I'm human again. Probably. I don't have a mirror to look into, and I never actually look down at my own body, but I can tell that I've got arms and legs instead of wings and feathers. I'm at the bottom of a hill, climbing steadily towards the top. Sometimes I can see a silhouette at the top, sometimes not, but I always know that he's up at the top, waiting for me. I hurry to the top of the hill, right on the edge where the familiar green grass of Earth is suddenly replaced with the bizarre alien foliage of the Andalite world. This time, I find Elfangor examining something in the palm of his hand. He holds it up for me to see.
(An acorn. Truly remarkable. It begins as such a small seed, but it blossoms and grows into something so much larger.)
The acorn splits open in his hand, and a miniature sapling starts to rise out of the crack.
(I wonder, at what point does it cease to be an acorn? Is there a precise moment you can point to and say, "this was an acorn one second ago, but no longer"?)
"I don't know," I say, "I've never thought about it before."
He hands the acorn to me.
(You should ask your uncle about it.)
I want to tell Elfangor that I don't care about anything my deadbeat uncle has to say, but before I can, the dream ends. I open my eyes, and Elfangor is gone.