CROSSROADS

My name is Ariel.

No last name, no address, no phone number, nothing. Why? Several reasons. First off, the Yeerks. If you're reading this, you've probably heard of them, so I won't bother with descriptions. Second reason, stalkers. I know, insignificant compared to the Yeerks. But, hey, they are out there, and they are dangerous. I definitely don't want to be raped, murdered, stalked, whatever. Those are just not activities in which I like to participate. And the third and final reason I refuse to give you any information about myself is this: I don't belong here.

I'm sure your thinking, What do you mean, you don't belong here? Are you an alien or something? Well, lets just say that I am, in a way, an alien. Hey, the word alien means different, and I am definitely different.

Well, lets start off with a description of myself. I have long, wavy black hair, and grey, almond shaped eyes. I know, sounds perfectly normal, right? Well, here's the thing: My eyes. And I guess my ears, if you ever see them, which I take a lot of precautions against. All right, you wanna know why my eyes and ears are so strange, right? Okay. My eyes are grey. But they seem to light up when I'm thinking of certain things, or when I'm feeling certain emotions. Like love, hate, pity. They sorta look like I have fires raging behind them, which I think I do, but I'm not sure. It doesn't show up on x-rays, and I never feel a burning sensation, so I can't really be sure.

And why exactly are my ears so strange? Why, because their pointy! Yeah, that's right. Pointy. I'm half-elven. So shouldn't I be short and ugly? NO! Elves are creatures of grace and beauty. And, yeah, their shorter than the average human, only about five and a half feet tall, but they aren't tiny! They aren't really made that tough, like humans are, so I'm stronger than the average elf maid, but weaker than the average human woman. Get the picture? That's why I wear my hair long. It's really thick, so it covers up my ears.

Anyway, your probably thinking, Wow, this lady's nuts, right? I'm not. No. I'm just from another....What do scientists call it? I guess it would either from a different timeline, a different dimensional world.

See, I'm from a timeline where the Chaos Wars never happened. Magic stayed, the gods stayed, and so forth. And we don't have to worry about Yeerks and all that. The gods have pretty much kept us in the Medieval age. I mean, sure, we have a few inventions, but mostly the majority of the world's population hasn't a clue there's even other planets out there, much less life. And the gods keep anything from coming into the atmosphere. So most of us are safe and happy in our oblivion. But a few of us, we call ourselves the Knights of a New Age, want progress, and we believe that if we had progress we wouldn't need magic. Of course, we don't allow mages into our order (they probably wouldn't want in even if we let them). They disapprove of our dreams, hopes, and ambitions because we seek to undermine magic and magic-users. We don't, really. We just don't think it's at all necessary.

Well, I am a Knight of a New Age, and I've found that new age. I think I prefer oblivion and safety to what's here. Hideous. But I'm stuck here. Magic doesn't work. Only science, and your people have not found a way to make dimensional portals. But I can wait a few centuries. My elven blood allows that.

Now that you know all about me, you want to know how I know about a parasitic species of evil outer space slugs, right? And how I know about the Animorphs and all that good stuff? Fine, I’ll tell you.

I was hiking through the forested mountain range that’s past the outskirts of the town I was currently living. I try to live in towns near forests because when I hike, I feel like I’m back home.

I was moving almost silently (elves are excellent in woodcraft. We move almost as silently as kender do in any forest.). That’s how I came upon them by surprise. Neither of them heard me.

When I saw this half-human, half-eagle thing I nearly fainted, but knights from either order, Solomnic or New Age, are big on courage, and used to the sight of supernatural things. I just wasn’t expecting them on this world.

Finally they noticed me. The monster thing gave an inhuman shriek of surprise, as did the hawk perched in a tree nearby. The hawk’s wasn’t as bad as the half-human thing growing at my feet’s was. (But who am I to make being half-human sound bad?) Then I heard something really amazing.

< Woah, lady! You gave us a fright! Oops. > This seemed to come from the hawk in the tree. And that wasn’t the only odd thing. I heard this in my head! The monster thing was now seemingly fully formed as a pretty (for a human) girl.

My almond shaped eyes narrowed. “I thought I knew of all the people from my world that were here. Who are you?”

The girl looked at me suspiciously. “What do you mean, from your world? Are you from a different planet?”

I looked closely at the girls eyes. Hers were not like mine. No, she belonged here. She was not from my world.

I grinned rather sheepishly. “Uh....Slip of the tongue. Anyway, you haven’t answered my question. Who are you?”

“I’m Rachel. I bet it was a slip of the tongue. Now, what. Are. You?”

“Hah. You think I’ll tell you what I am if I haven’t a clue as to what you are?” The girl was looking at me oddly, strait at my eyes. I guess I was getting a little mad and she noticed the fires burning in my eyes. I can’t quite quench it when I most need to.

“‘When I haven’t a clue as to what you are?’” she mimicked. “Who talks like that?”

I was getting pretty ticked when suddenly she got this look in her eyes (Which I’ve found I can notice easily now, but before, when I first got to this world, I wouldn’t have been able to notice it if my entire existence depended on it), like she was looking strait past me and listening to something I couldn’t hear. She nodded slightly, and the hawk flew off.

“If you think your going to get me off track you can forget it. I saw you as a half-bird thing right at my feet! And do not try and tell me it was a dream, okay? I have never ever dreamt of a monster sitting practically on my foot and birds that talk, and I never will!”

“Monster?! Who do you think you are, calling me a monster? I’m no monster!” This girl had one hell of a temper, even for a human. She looked about ready to pounce me with her bare hands. I fingered the hilt of the dagger I always carry nervously. I really didn’t want to use -especially since it was poison-coated- but if she made me, I’d kill her.

We just eyed each other angrily for a few minutes. I got tired of it and soon I just started to walk around looking for tinder and fire-wood for it was getting dark.

After I’d gathered enough I started a fair-sized blaze. I had decided I’d camp here tonight and keep an eye on this thing of a non-magical world with magical capabilities.

Soon after I’d gotten the fire started I saw a handful of large birds silhouetted against the full moon. At first I didn’t think much of it, but then I noticed the girl staring intently upon them.

“Friends of yours?” I asked sarcastically, breaking the silence of at least a half hour.

“Yeah.” And that was it.

All the birds but one, and by the light of the fire I noticed it as the same hawk that talked earlier, lighted on the ground. I finally realized that they were owls, and beautiful ones at that.

They all started to grow and change, and as they did so I couldn’t suppress a shudder of disgust. I could hear the sloshing and gurgling of guts churning and reforming, and the scrape of bone against bone as they reshaped along with the rest of the bodies. Sometimes I just have to curse my superior elven hearing and sight.

It took but a few moments, and suddenly a group of children stood in front of me. One was a responsible looking youth with dark brown eyes. Another was a short, African-American girl with this open and thoughtful face. Another was a olive-skinned boy with grim, determined, and humorous expression on his face.

The last was the strangest. He looked like a mad wizard, who’s favorite color was greenish-blue and who didn’t like mouths, had gotten it into his head to create a mix between a giant scorpion, a centaur, and a beholder. This thing had the main body of a centaur, except with cloven hooves, a scorpion-like tail, and four eyes. Two large ones that looked like mine but they were green, where eyes should be, but with two on swiveling stalks on top of its head. It had no mouth, an ugly nose mainly consisting of three vertical slits in the middle of its face, and it was covered in bluish-green fur.

I was standing there, gaping at them for a few moments. Especially the odd centaur-creature. They all looked surprised, it seems, when I didn’t run screaming.

When I got over the initial shock of seeing something I hadn’t seen in a decade or more, I had a few questions to ask.

“All right. Wow. Okay...What the heck are you guys? How do you do that shape-shifting thing? And why doesn’t he change, too?” I waved my hand at the hawk.

The olive-skinned boy smirked. The centaur thing looked at me in what seemed to be a curious manner, the responsible-looking youth looked gravely at the pretty girl with hot temper, while she, in turn, was looking gravely at my garb.

< You ask us what, and not who, we are. Do you have experence with episodes such as these? > I think this came from the blue-furred centaur, but I couldn’t be sure since I heard it in my head.

“Lets just say I’ve seen many...odd sights in my long, long lifetime,” I said, still half-expected any one of them to jump me and silence me forever. I got the feeling that theirs was a secret organization.

“We’re humans. What else would we be?” the olive-skinned youth asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. One of these in disguise; odd, mutated birds; anything!” I waved my hand at the centaur.

< Hey, I take offense at being called a ‘mutated’ bird, thank you. > the hawk said.

The old-looking young man grinned a little. “Huddle!” he called in a somewhat joking manner.

The odd group moved off a little and I easily heard them conversing a whispers. I figured that even if they were talking about me, they obviously didn’t want me hearing it, so I didn’t listen.

Since they had obviously shown me one of their secrets, I decided to show them one of mine. I noticed that the alien-looking thing kept one of his eyes set on me, so I stepped over to my pack, digged through it, and came up holding my brush. I pulled my hair back from over my ears and started brushing it back in to a pony-tail.

I did notice the quick, meaning-to-look-nonchalant glances they cast my way, but they didn’t seem to want me to. I also noticed the quick double-check looks they gave me. I couldn’t help but smile.

See, no one but the few other Knights of a New Age know who and what I am. I’ve never been married, I’ve never even had the urge to let someone else know. I like keeping secrets.

They finally broke up their little meeting. They all looked rather puzzled, like they couldn’t decide on something.

The resposible youth sighed and looked closely at me. Especially my ears and my eyes. He sighed again and seemed to make a decision.

“All right. We’ll tel you our story if you tell us yours. If you don’t, I’ll have Ax here chop your head off with his tail.”

He proceeded to tell me everything you probably already know about them, from the crash of Elfangor’s ship to their present situation: me. He also did introductions.

“I’m sure you don’t believe me, right?” Jake asked.

I smiled. “Oh, I believe you. It’s my story you won’t believe.”

I told them everything. When I became a Knight of a New Age, I was trained in the art of storytelling, so I could infiltrate anywhere. I had them practically spellbound when I told them of how I and a few of my fellows destroyed a red dragon, how I, practically single-handedly, killed a raiding party of orges. I told them of an ambush of goblins I alone survived. I told them of my last adventure on my world, when I and a few of my fellows were battling a powerful wizard. He had cast a spell and we were suddenly in a very different place. That was how I came here. I also told them my age, which was well over a hundred.

They looked like they thought I was nuts. I guess I was a little crazy, seeing how I had been through a few very rough spots. These kids talked like they had seen aweful horrors, and they had. But they’ve never, ever, ever actually had a whole party of very close freinds wiped out, had they? Oh, sure, Ax’s brother had been killed, but my whole family had died a horrible death by plague. His brother had died almost painlessly compared to the months of agony my little sister went through before she died.

“Hah! I told you you wouldn’t believe me! And I do believe it’s time for you children,” I just had to snicker slightly, “to get home. It’s getting late, and I would like to set up camp.” “Almost ten thirty,” I told her. That got a few exclamations and curses of surprise. They were all probably late for dinner or something.

They all “morphed” birds again, as they called it, and flew off. All except the talking hawk and the centaur-thing. I guess theu stayed to keep an eye on me to make sure I didn’t try to leave, or to make sure I wasn’t a “Yeerk”.

I’ve never really been good at not talking to people, so I tried making conversation.

“So...What’s your favorite food?” I know, stupid. But I don’t know how to really spark up a conversation with a kids, okay?

< Mice, > Tobias said.

< Cinnamon buns, > the alien replied.

“Cool. Mine’s always been jerky, but the additives your people put them ruin them.”

< You really think so? I always thought they were rather good, > The boy in a bird’s body said.

“If you think they’re good, you should try the stuff the Plainsmen make. Oh, it’s spectacular,” I replied.

And so we talked about food for a while. The Andalite asked several questions about some foods, and add things in about others. Boy, did that guy like food.

Soon we got into talking about wars and military. There was this one question that had been bothering me about Ax, so I just had to ask it.

“So, Ax, how strong is that tail blade of yours? Do you think it could hold up against a direct hit from a steel sword?”

< I am certain it could, > he replied.

“And how fast are your reflexes?”

< Quite. >

I grinned. What I had in mind was probably rather dangerous, but so what?

“I just had a great idea. It’ll help with the monotony of life,” I said mischevously. They were both looking worridly at my eyes, again. I guess they had those same old fires blazing in them.

< What? > they asked in unision.

“Well, lets have a duel, Ax. Obviously not to the death, but to see who’s the better....fighter, I guess. Me with my sword, you with your tail. I won’t where armor, and you won’t use morphs. How’s about it?” I couldn’t help but to have a quiver of anticipation in my voice. This would be fun!

He agreed, and we set the time for the morrow at about noon in this little clearing. I explained that I didn’t need to be back in town for a week, so I’ll just make double-time the day after the duel.

And so the date was set.

Oddly, I slept more soundly that night than any other since I came to be in this world. I usually had terrible nightmares about my last, tragic adventure, where my mid always warped things to make everything that went wrong my fault. This night I had no dreams that I could remember.

It was like I’d finally found a place in this timeline that I actually belonged. Which was all the more weird because it was with a talking hawk, an alien centaur-thing, and a group of alien-fighting human children!

The first thing we had to do before the little duel between me and Ax was get the others there. Tobias said he’d do it. After that, I only had to change my clothes to something tighter so they wouldn’t get in my way.

We didn’t have that long to wait. Ax heard them about the same time I did, clomping as quickly as they could through the forest.

We had to hurry to get in position. The other Animorphs had to hear the sounds of battle before they came into the little clearing where I’d stayed that night.

We did a few practice hits and maneuvers. We had to be sure that the Animorphs heard the thudding sound of steel against solid, hard bone. I caught a glimpse of movement in the corner of my eye, and I knew that they were here, but I couldn’t look at them. I had to make it seem as if I were totally set on killing Ax, and he set on either killing, or subduing me.

I suddenly saw a flask of bone-white coming straight at me. I ducked low and Ax missed the top of my head my a millimeter at most. I thrust at him while still in my duck, jabbing upward at his chest. I nicked him, and I was the one with first blood! He came unexpectedly right at my throat, and I had to spin away a few steps to dodge having my head cut off. I felt a scar on my throat that I received under similar circumstances burn.

We glared at each other for a few heartbeats, then I came rushing at him, hoping to catch him by surprise.

It didn’t work.

He sliced down on me, cutting my arm. I chopped at him from many different angels in a mater of a few seconds. He blocked most of them, then he went to attacking me. I blocked nearly all of his cuts and slices, but not all. He got five out of fifteen hits in on me in those few moments.

We backed away from each other, mentally checking all of our wounds to make sure none of them were serious. I was hurt pretty badly, but I’d learned a long time ago to ignore pain and keep on fighting. The Andaite was already tiring, obviously not used to prolong battles.

I glanced other at the other Animorphs. I had been surprised when none of them had morphed right out and attack me, especially the blond girl. I saw them gaping at me and my slightly blue-bloodied sword. At first I was curious as to why these worrior-children would be surprised to see a bloodied sword, then it hit me that they’d probably never even seen a well-crafted hand-made sword before, and they had probably thought no one armed just with a long stick of sharpened metal could hold out this long against their Andalite friend.

I grinned, then I charged right back at the alien. To our spectators, we most likely looked like a whirlwind of blades and blood, but to be it was slow-motion precision, only slow-motion that I could just manage to match.

Then, suddenly, we stopped all movement. The Andalite had his tail-blade to my throat, and I had the tip of my sword nicking his.

He lowered his tail blade, but I don’t remember putting mine down by conscious will. I just glared at this...this freak of nature who had nearly bested me. I guess I looked ready to kill him, and I think I was about to, because suddenly I was grabbed by several hands and hauled to the ground. Not that I didn’t fight them all the way. I screamed and kicked, punched, clawed, and even bit.

Then I felt this agonizing pain slash my head, and all was blackness.

When I woke up, I was tied up in what seemed to be an old wooden shack. It had wooden, half-rotted floors, log walls, a hole in of them that must have been a door at some point, but the door was no where to be seen, and only half of the whole of the shack was covered with a roof. A sparrow’s nest was in the rafters, bushes had grown through another hole in the wall, and beer and soda cans were strewn everywhere.

My wounds had been bandaged, but on most of them the blood had soaked through. I couldn’t find my sword anywhere in the small, one-roomed building, but that wasn’t a big surprise. My poisoned dagger was gone too. There was a small, battery-powered light in one corner of the room, and by that was some food, mostly sandwiches but a few things from my pack, as well. When I spotted the food, my stomach growled. Loudly.

Tobias flew in then and landed in the rafters near the nest. < Hungry? > he asked.

“Yeah. how long have I been out?” I asked as he flew to the floor and morphed human.

< Not Long. Only a few-- > Just about then his thought-speak cut off as his mouth started to form from the deadly, wickedly beautiful beak.

“Sorry. Just a few hours. Here,” he said, untying my hands. Then he hand me a sandwich.

“Why’d you guys tie me up?” I asked.

“You don’t remember? You almost killed Ax! I knew that duel thing was a bad idea,” he said, sounding rather depressed.

“I what?! Your kidding, right? I wouldn’t have even thought about killing him!” I exclaimed in surprise. I couldn’t have almost killed him. He was just a kid!

“Definitely not kidding. We’re going to hold you for a few days to make sure your not a Yeerk, then we’ll probably let you go,” he said somberly.

The way he said “probably” didn’t reassure me much, but I didn’t press that point. Instead I asked, “Where are my weapons? Please be careful with them! They’re the only things I have from my world.” I couldn’t stand the thought of loosing my weapons permanently. There was a good possibility I’d never set foot on Krynn again.

“Hey, don’t worry. We got `em safe and sound. Just away from you.” Then he looked at me in surprise. “You didn’t get defensive when I accused of being a Yeerk!”

“Should have I? I don’t really care, as long as you feed me, how long you keep me here,” I said in a bit of confusion. Then it hit me.

“Oh! You told me Yeerks can only survive for three days without Kendragon rays!”

“Kandrona. Yeah, that’s right,” he said.

“Yeah, okay. Anyway, I’m not a Yeerk, but I’m sure you won’t believe me, so I won’t even try to plead my case. Just be very careful with my dagger. It’s poisoned-coated. Prick your finger and in about two minutes you’ll be dead,” I said nonchalantly.

“Oh. Okay,” he said, probably wondering where I’d gotten such a powerful poison.

“Hey, could you go and get Ax for me so I can apologize? Please?” I asked.

“Sure, just give me a minute to tie you back up.” He tied me up, and I even tested the knots for him so he’d be sure he’d gotten me good enough. Then he morphed back to hawk and flew off.

About ten minutes later, he came back with a slightly nervous Ax trotting after him.

“Hello, Aximili,” I said. I guess I caught him by surprise, using his whole first name. He must have started thinking that I actually relaxed my speech accidentally. I would actually much rather say “ we are” instead of “we’re” and all that, but I have to to fit in.

< Hello, Ariel, > He said back, rather coldly. Ah, well. You don’t forgive someone who almost killed you that easily.

“Ax, I am sorry about this morning. Though I don’t remember it for some reason, I apologize nonetheless. I would not hold it against you if you killed me right now. If it had been you trying to kill me, I would be angry as well. And I understand why you cannot trust me, either. I would no be too surprised if you just kept me here till I died, though that might take some time. I don’t expect you to forgive my actions, whatever they may have been, I just want you to know that I am sorry,” I said, then I just watched him for a moment to see his reaction.

His reaction seemed to be indifference. He just sorta stared at me with three eyes, while the other looked up at Tobias. Then he just turned toward the doorway of the shack and walked off. Not a word. To me, at least. Maybe he said something to Tobias.

I sighed and shrugged. “So...What am I supposed to do while you wait and see if I’m a Controller or not?”

< I dunno. Talk, sleep, and eat’s all you need to do. And you really don’t need to talk. Think. I’m stuck with my just my thoughts all the time. I’m alone most of the time, except when we have a mission or the Ax-man stops by my meadow. What do you usually do? > He sounded like he was rambling. Like he wanted to really say something to me, but couldn’t get it out.

“I’m usually reading, or watching that glorious invention of your people’s, television,” I said. “There’s no electricity in here, so that kills TV, and my hands are tied, so I can’t turn pages. So, I guess I try your suggestion, huh? Thinking. Haven’t needed to do that in a while...” I fell silent, and so did he. He started preening his feathers, and I thought of times gone, when I was with my little ten-year-old sister. I thought about all the games we played, all the things I bought her on my travels (I spoiled her rotten), and all the times we got in trouble, together. Boy, we were a pair of mischief makers.

My thoughts traveled that road awhile, until it came to that tragic day when I came home and found my whole family whithered, in pain, and dying. We had healers in our little vilage, but no clerics. No one came near my family because of the sickness; no one would, but the healers, and we hadn’t had enough money to pay them. They never excepted my gifts of money, not ever. No one would fetch a cleric of Palidine, or one of the other gods of Good. The whole vilage just let them die. Damnable racists. They did nothing because of my father’s heritage. We had lived on the outskirts of a human town, just barely being tolerated. When any of us went to the marketplace, we were insulted mercilessly.

I felt hot tears well up in my firey grey eyes. I blinked them back, and tried not to remember the look of sheer pain in sister’s eyes as she slowly drifted away from the world of the living.

I knew that Tobias would have surley noticed my rapid blinking away of tears, if not the tears themselves. But he said nothing, and may Chislev bless him for that. I realy didn’t want to lie so obviously about something being in my eyes.

I tried thinking about other, happier times, that didn’t end so tragically. Those were rare, but that had never really seemed to bother me much. Now it depressed me beyond imagination.

I soon realized it was dark, and that Tobias wasn’t there anymore. No one was, it seemed, but I knew better than to think I was left unguarded.

I saw an owl float by gently and land in the branches of a tree near the opening of the roof, where it could look down on me from above. I tried smiling at it, but I just couldn’t. Instead I stared steadily at the creature until it sort of shook it’s head and flew silently away.

I don’t remeber falling asleep, but I guess I did. I woke up at the brink of dawn, like a usually did. I saw Tobias in the rafters again, but he was still asleep, with his head tucked under one wing, like a baby bird I had once raised. I probably would had laughed during normal circumstances, but right then I felt absolutly down.

Cassie came rather early that morning, and she tried to talk to me. Right then, she really might as well have been trying to have a conversation with a rock. She tried asking me a few questions about who’d I left behind on my world. I either just stared at her blankly, or looked at the wall behind her. I’m not sure which, seeing as I didn’t really paid attention to her. She left after an hour or two, having tried every aproach she probably knew to even get a spark of any emotion at all in my eyes. She even tried insulting me about my heritige, my purity, and several other aspects of my personal life. I didn’t hear.

At about noon, I started humming. It was a song my father had written. He ahd taught it to my mother, and she had thought it was so peacful and beautiful that she sung it to me as a child when I was frightened, sad, lonely, or restless. I had sung it over and over again to my whole family in their final hours.

I just kept humming and humming. Marco came by late in the afternoon. He stared at me when I didn’t stop when he entered the cabin. He walked up to me stared me right in the eyes, but I just looked past him and kept humming.

Then Marco stated, in the most mater-of-factly voices I had ever heard from a child, that I was thouroughly insane, and I kept humming. He left then.

Tobias said nothing to me that day, and I was thankful. I hummed all that day, breaking only when I was to thirsty to go on. Tobias morphed human and gave me some water, but he didn’t untie my hands. I didn’t care. They couldn’t understand.

I guess I should have resented Tobias for the fact that he had made the sugestion that led me here, but I didn’t. I didn’t care. I hummed and hummed. That song will always be with me. I hummed for at least three days straight not eating anything, only drinking a little, and never sleeping. I just kept thinking over and over again about all the terrible and tragic things that had happened to me and that hadn’t really effected me until now. Why now, I wondered to myself silently. Why now?

These...these people started getting worried. The Animorphs new I was not a Yeerk. They had kept me in confinement for more that a week without even a single escape attempt. I guess they didn’t know what to do with me. They thought -- no, they knew that something was wrong. They kept on saying to themselves, thinking that I couldn’t hear, that the only reason they kept me confined was because they were afraid I would tell their secret. But I knew they just didn’t know what to do with me because I had snapped. They didn’t know why. They just knew it was something terrible that had gone through my mind, something infently sad, because they saw me cry and cry and cry while I hummed.

I didn’t try to hind my tears or what they believed to be complete insanity. I didn’t blick back my tears, or stop my humming.

They couldn’t know, nor could they understand. I wasn’t mad, just...terrible, terrible sad and angry. I knew I would eventually get over it, but I would never be the same.

I knew I looked terrible. I could see my reflection in the shiny broken glass beer bottles I was pale, thin, and haggard looking. I had this haunted, hollow look in my eyes. My eyes were more oftern than not glazed and unfocusing, I knew. They told me when they were trying to talk to me.

On the eighth day, I started singing the song I had previously hummed. Gods, I loved that song. It reminded me of my family during happier times.

The ninth day I stopped everything. My tear-streaked face dried, I stopped singing and humming, I actually ate that day, I slept through the afternoon, and I talked a little to Rachel.

She seemed really uncomfortable talking to me, especially after what I’d done....or hadn’t done, over the past several days. But she stayed, answered my questions, and asked a few of her own. It was nice to hear my voice again.

The next day or two after that they kept me tied up, but they all visited me more often, and for longer times, too. Except for the Andalite. He didn’t even come near the little log building.

I told them what the song was, what the words meant (it was writen Elvish), and what it meant to me. Even Marco didn’t disagree that it was a good thing to hum a familar song when your down. But of course he made remarks on how I must have really been down to hum that long. I just smiled a sad little smile and nodded.

The Animorphs untied me after the thirteenth day, but I stayed in the hut for a while longer. They never left me by myself, though.

“You plrobably know that I will never, ever tell anyone what I’ve seen,” I told Cassie on the day I was to go home. She nodded and I went on, “Well, you, and the others, have to swear that you will never even hint about my secrets. I would be put in a circus the minute anyone even caught a glimpse of my ears. Or they would use me for a stupid Star Trek movie or something. It could endanger the good lives of the others that were in my party that day. So, do you swear?” I towered over her by at least a head, but right then I felt like she was the adult and I was the child, and I was begging her not to tell my mommy that I’d done something bad.

Cassie was the only one in the group that I trusted, for some reason. She smiled like she knew how I felt when I asked her to swear. Maybe she did, I don’t know.

“I promise,” was all she said. It was all she needed to say.

I felt wierd, talking to her on my level of actual wiseness. She’s just as smart as I am, but she’s also just as wise. It felt strange that she could be as wise as I am when she’s just in her teens and I’m in my hundreds.

I know she would tell the others to promise, too.

I turned and walked away from the clearing where I had met the Animorphs. They had led me there because I didn’t remember the trip to the shack from the clearing. I had thought this would be the last I heard of the Animorphs until one side or the other won this war.

It’s amazing how often people are wrong.

I was walking through the mall, window shopping. I was looking at a display at the Gap when someone bumbed into me.

“Hey, watch it, Blondie!,” I said irritably.

The girl looked up in anger, and looked like she was about ready to say something not-so-nice when her eyes widened in shock and she nearly dropped her bags.

“Ariel!” she exclaimed.

“Yeah, that’s me,” I said slowly, thinking that I should recognize this girl from somewhere but not really being able to place her face or her voice. I think I knew her from somewhere, somewhere important. I just can’t always tell what a human should look like at a certain age.

“Ariel, it’s me! Rachel! Remember?” Rachel...Oh, yes! The Animorph!

“Oh! I’m sorry, Rachel! I didn’t reconize you!” I felt a little mad at myself right then. Of course I should have known who she was. How could have I forgotten? I felt like a fool. It had only been a year or so!

“I didn’t realize I was in your town. How is everyone?” I could already tell things weren’t going that well by the sad look in her eyes, but I had to ask.

“We’re all alive, for what it matters. And free.” She didn’t seem to want to talk much to me.

“That’s good. Well, I’ll keep in touch.”

“Yeah, okay.” And I left.

I went into Gap, picked up an outfit I’d been eyeing, and went to try it on. It fit perfectly and looked great. But as I was admiring it in the mirror, I noticed it didn’t have any thingh holding it up from the outside. I studied it curiously, then I tried pulling it off the wall.

To my surprise, it opened easily. It swung open like a door. I looked inside. It was dark, but my infered elven vision allowed my to see several red-glowing forms all the way down. I changed back to my normal clothes. I stepped in, and found a flight of steep steps carved into the floor. I walked down these, looking around until the cavern lighted up enough that I couldn’t use my elven vision any longer. I started to hear the agonizing screams as I came down the steps.

I hesitated a moment, then I hurried along. This was exactly like what the Animorphs had said a Yeerk Pool was like. If I didn’t seem like I belonged there, I would be dragged to the infestation peir and become a Controller.

As it was, I’m a good storyteller, but a bad actress.

The Controllers realized instantly that I was not one of them. One shouted an alarm and a group of human- and Hork-Bajir-Controllers charged me. It caught me by surprise, so they easily grabbed me. As soon as the Hork-Bajir had even touched me, though, I was a fighting machine. I tore my dagger from it’s sheath and screamed a war cry. I slashed two humans in my first thrust, and a Hork-Bajir the second. All three were dead before I could even start to fight the others.

I back up against a wall with my dagger in front of me. And then one of the Controlers had an idea.

TSEEEEWWW!

I fell, completly stunned.

Two Hork-Bajir grabbed my arms while a human-Controler took my dagger. The Hork-Bajir dragged me to a cage and threw me in with several other human hosts. They were crying, moaning, screaming.

I saw and heard them, but I couldn’t make my body respond for a few minutes.

I groaned and rolled over into a more comfortable position. I blinked several times then I tryed to rise.

Bad idea.

The world spun several times right under my feet, and I colapsed again. One of the hosts, a man who looked like he was in his late fourties, came over to me. “Here, let me help you,” he said gently. He looked alot like my father did, without the elven features.

“No,” I growled. “Leave me alone.” Latley I’ve become the kind of person who refuses help at all times.

He shrugged and steped back a little. I was surprised that he’d even come over to help me. Most the other hosts seemed to be completly submerged in their self-pity. I shook my head slightly and tried to rise again.

I stood up, but I swayed a little. The young man steped up grabbed my elbow to hold me up. I was a few inches taller than he was, I noticed. That’s odd, I thought, I should be shorter than he is, not vice-versa. He reminds me of someone I knew once.

I shook off his gentle touch irritably. I didn’t need help standing! I was over one-hundred and four! Compared to me he was still a baby.

I swayed again and decided I should quit with the standing buissness and try sitting. I collapsed cross-legged, put my elbows on my knees palms up, and put my chin in my palms.

The man smiled sadly and nodded. “That’s probably much more comfortable, right?”

I just grunted at him.

He shrugged and sat down beside me. “Do join me,” I said sarcastically. He just laughed a little and shrugged.

I realized I had to act as if I didn’t know what was going on, even to the hosts. So I gestured at the moaning group across the cage and said, “So, whats up with them?”

“Their begging for help from anyone, anything,” he said sadly. “They don’t realize there’s no hope.”

“Begging for help? Why?” I already knew the answer. I knew. But I had to hear it from someone.

“We’re just slaves. You’ll be one too.” Then he told me what I already knew. He rivaled me as a storyteller.

I already knew I’d become a Controller. I knew that a Yeerk will force it’s slimy way into my head, wrap around my brain, open my thoughts, my memories, everything I knew like it was opening a book. I knew I’d have no control. Absolutly none. I wouldn’t even be able to blink by myself.

“No,” I gasped. “No.”

The man just smiled again and shook his head. He didn’t say anything when two Hork-Bajir came and tried to drag me to the pool. I shook them off and walked between them myself. I determined right then and there that I’d be defiant to the last.

I walked over to the peir farthest from the stairway I’d come down. I was shaking in fear, and I knew I had tears rolling down my face, but I stood strait and tall (or as tall as I could get), and shook my head defiantly.

There weren’t many people in front of me, only one or two, but I didn’t notice. All I cared about was not showing any emotion. I blinked back my tears and tryed to settle my trembling.

Soon, too soon, I was at the end of the pier. They dunked my head under the sludgy liguid, and I felt the Yeerk slithering into my ear, down my ear canal, to my brain. I felt it’s joy as it flattened out in my brain, taking control of my mind, opening my memories, my dreams.

You can’t even begin to imagine my horror.

< NNOOOOOOOOO!! >

The Hork-Bajir pulled my head out of the sludge. The Yeerk opened my eyes, and I could hear his mental ahh.

He kept on searching through my memories, from my most recent to my oldest. But he surprised me. When he got to my memories about the Animorphs, he didn’t scream out that he knew where the Andalite bandits were.

He just said, < You know about the Animorphs? But they don’t give their identities to any human. >

Then, < Oh! But you aren’t a human at all! Your...elven? My, that’s odd! >

I asked nervously. This Yeerk was definatly not like the ones the Animorphs described.

< I am Temrash four one three, of the Sulp Niar pool. I am part of the Yeerk peace movement, > he said. He sounded like he was trying to calm me down.

< Well good for you! Now, get. Out. Of. My. HEAD!!! > I screamed. While we were having this little conversation, he was making my body walk towards a stairway different than the one I came down. They had already given me...no, him my dagger back.

< I would, you know, except that I can’t. If I did, then I would really hurt the cover of the peace movement. > I think he was starting to get a little desperate. Like he couldn’t stand me not understand.

< What peace movement? > I asked. My hands started trembling. We were already out of the movie theater.

Wait a second, I thought, My hands? I’d moved my own hands! But what did that mean?

< Not all Yeerks think it’s perfectly fine to take involuntary hosts. Those in the peace movement don’t. And I’m letting you have control of your own body to prove to you that I mean you no harm. >

I suddenly stopped walking. Then I started again as I took control. I walked over to my beautiful dark-violet Yamaha motorcycle. I started it up and drove to the apartment building in which I was currently living.

I took my keys out of my pocket and unlocked my door. As I stepped into my small home I looked around everywhere to make sure no one was there. Then I walked into my bedroom.

I stepped over to a corner of my room farthest from the doorway. There was a rather small potted oak tree there. I kneeled by it and started to pray to Chislev, goddess of nature.

< What are you doing? > Temrash asked. It was the first time he’d actually spoken since we’d gotten out of the theater. I guess because he was of low rank he’d never had a host before, never experienced sight, and freedom of movement.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m praying for guidance!” I said aloud. “Hey, wait a second. How do I know that your of low rank? And that you’d never had experienced sight?” I asked.

< I opened my memories to you, > he said simply, then fell silent as I continued to pray. I think he understood what I was saying, but I wasn’t speaking English. I was speaking the Common tongue from my home.

I begged the goddess for guidance in this incident. I didn’t know if I should except this, this...thing, or if I should reject it and try to find a place to stay tied up for three days.

< You’d really kill me? > Temrash asked quietly in my mind.

< If the goddess wishes it, yes, > I told him as I kept praying aloud.

After I’d stood up and glanced around again, looking for intruders, I waited for a sign. I wasn’t too expectant; I don’t know I the gods can hear prayers from this dimension, but I was still hopeful.

There was absoulutly no sign that I could find.

“Damn,” I muttered under my breath. Now I had no clue as too what I’m supposed to do, and no clue as to how I’m supposed to find out what to do.

“You could just keep me,” Temrash said using my voice. I tried using my hand. It didn’t move. He’d taken control back!

< In your dreams, > I told him.

“Yes, it is in my dreams to have someone except me as a friend.” He made my voice sound sad.

< Friendship is earned after a period of time, not given to complete strangers. > I don’t know why I was being so stubborn. He had proven that he’d give me control of my body if I asked, and he sounded very friendly. I guess it was because he’d seen all my memories. All of them. My fleeting girlhood fantasies of love, the mischief my sisiter and I got into, the time of total depression I was in just a year or so ago. Everything.

< But I’m no stranger. You know everything about me, just as I know everything about you. > And, with a shock, I realized I did know everything about him. But that wasn’t much. He was rather young, so he didn’t have many memories to give me.

I thought about that for a moment, then said, < Fine, I’ll except you. And maybe we can be friends in time. But not this soon. > I said that last part with venom.

“Well, that’s a start,” he said with dissapointment. He started walking towards the door of my little apartment.

< Hey, where are you taking me? > I asked.

“We need to go see the Animorphs. There’s something I need to talk to them about.” He’d said I knew everything about him, but I didn’t. He wouldn’t tell me what it was he needed to talk to the Animorphs about.

The Yeerk made my body drive to Cassie's house. He gave me control over my body once we got up their driveway. I walked up to her door and knocked. Her father answered.

"Hi! Is Cassie here?"

He looked worried about an adult asking for his daughter. "Yeah, she's here. Why?"

"I need to talk to her. About her homework. I help her at school often, and I like to keep up." Told you I was a good storyteller.

Her dad still looked worried, but he told me, "She's in the barn. I'll go get her."

"No! No, that isn't necessary. I need to talk to her privately anyway."

"All right," he said slowly. "But if I find out she's missing, I got your face memorized."

I smiled. "Don't worry about that. I haven't kidnapped anyone for forty years of more." I turned and left before he could reply. See, I look about twenty-five or so.

< That was stupid, > Temrash told me.

you telling me how to keep my cover? > I asked angrily as I walked towards the barn.

< No, ma'am. >

"Good."

I opened the barn door. Temrash chose that time to take control. He paused a minute to let my eyes adjust to the dimness of the building.

< Hey! > I yelped.

< Hay's for horses, > He said jokingly, using my memory to find that come-back.

< Or straw is cheaper, grass is free, buy a farm and get all three, > I said back. Then I mentally formed a picture of me slapping a hand over my mouth with an expression of mixed horror and surprise on my face.

Temrash laughed and walked on in the barn.

There were birds and mammals in cages everywhere. We were hit by a cacophony of sounds, from the wailing of sick birds to the howling of hurt wolves.

"Hello?" I heard Cassie say from behind and to the side of me.

"Cassie!" Temrash chirped, using my voice, spinning around to face her. She'd changed some, but that wasn't something new to me when around humans. She was the same old Cassie, though. Just a little taller, with little lines surrounding her eyes and mouth.

"Ariel?" She didn't look as amazed as I thought she would be, seeing me again. "Rachel told me you were in town, I just didn't know you'd come see me." Oh.

"Uh....some special circumstances came up. And it's not Ariel your talking to, Cassie, it's Termrash four one six. No, don't!" he yelped as Cassie's face hardened and started to change. "I'm part of the peace movement!"

She stopped changing and reversed the morph. She still looked very suspicious, though.

Her eyes narrowed. "I'll believe you for now, but your coming with me. I'll take you to Tobias's territory and have him get the others. Come on. "

She led the way back to her house and went in, yelling "Mom, Dad? I'm going to Rachel's! Be back later!" Then she turned around and left. We followed after her.

She went over to my bike and got on the back seat. "Your driving me most of the way," she informed us.

Temrash shrugged and mounted the bike. He let me have control so he didn't have to take a minute to learn how to use it. I shook my head slightly , put on my helmet, then paused.

"You don't have one," I said to Cassie.

"One what?"

"A helmet. It's illeagle for you to be on any kind of bike without a helmet."

She thought for a minute. Then she snapped her fingers. "Would a bycycle helmet work?"

I shrugged. "We can try. But it's a...what? Seventy dolar fine I get caught?"

< Yes, > Temrash informed me, shuffling through my forgotten memories.

Cassie got off and ran into her house and came back a minute later with her helmet on. She got back on and I headed on to the state park center.

I parked my beauty in the parking lot and we both started up the trail that headed in the direction to Tobias's territory. Soon we had to get off the trail and follow Cassie's directions converted from air-use to land-use.

When she thought she was near enough for Tobais to hear, she started to call for him. Finally, he came swooping down to land on a branch just a little above and in front of us, saying < Sheesh. This had better be good. You scared off a mouse I was after. Oh, hi, Ariel. > He ruffled his feahers uncomfortably and Temrash narrowed my eyes. I think seeing Tobias again brought up the memory of him suggesting things for me to do, which inevitably came to my...change of heart towards the world.

Temrash obviously didn't like that memory.

< No, Temrash, don't even think about hurting Tobias! He couldn't have known that I had such tragic memories, okay? > I yelped in my mind.

"Hello, Tobias," Temrash and I both said, in my voice. Or I would have said it, if Temrash had let me talk for myself.

Cassie didn't look too pleased that my Yeerk had left it up to her for introductions. But she shrugged and said, "Tobias, meet Temrash....?"

"Four one three, of the Sulp Niar pool." He sounded quite proud as he said that, like it was such a big deal.

< It is a big deal, Ariel. Most of the higher-ranking Vissers and some of the Concil of Thirteen were born in the Sulp Niar pool, > he said to me, imagining a smile.

We saw Cassie nod, like answering an unspoken question. Then Tobias took of, flying to the south and the west. "You may as well get comfortable," Cassie told us, "it'll take awhile for all of them to get here."

I nodded, then slouched down by a tree. I stretched, crossed my legs, then put my hands behind my head, looking up at the sky.

"You know, the day sky of this world isn't so different from the one of my home," I told Cassie. "I always wished that someone who knew me there would be looking at the sky the same time I was, and wish I were home."

"You sound like Ax," she said a little nervously. I guess not being sure if your talking to an inter-galactic slug or an other-worldly half-elf does kind of set you on your heels.

< Who sounds like me? > Ax asked from the forest out of sight.

"Ariel does. Or her Yeerk. I'm not sure," Cassie replied.

"I'm not her Yeerk, and she's not my host, thank you," Temrash replied harshly.

< Yeerk!? > Ax screeched as he came into sight. Then I suddenly had his very sharp tailblade against my throat.

"Whoa! Hey, cool it! If you want to kill me, use my dagger. If you behead me I could possibly live in complete, torturous agony for eleven seconds!" But I stayed very, very, very still. I didn't want to die, and neither did Temrash. I wanted to get home, and he just wanted to help stop his people's evil empire.

"Ax, stop it. Please? And how would you know you would live for eleven seconds?" Cassie asked.

I shrugged when the immediate risk of my death was gone. "I've read the encyclopedia, the latest almanac, the dictionary, and several science and history magazines. You would have to to fit in at all in this world."

"Oh. Okay. Anyway, here come the others."

"Yeah, I know," I said nonchalantly. I had been watching every single visible animal that had come into sight since Tobias had left, so I had seen the bald eagle and red-tailed hawk And the two flies on Ax's shoulder, even though they tried to huddle close into his fur. "They've been here since Ax got here, or at least two of them had," I said as I glanced pointedly at the two flies. I shifted my gaze upward. "The other two could have taked a while longer, I'm not sure. I was too busy paying attention to a very sharp tail about to cut off my head."

"How do you do that? Not even the whole Yeerk force on Earth can see every animal all the time!" Cassie inquired.

"Oh, I'm sure I miss some animals, especially when I'm asleep, but you've gotta remember I don't necessarily have to follow all the rules in this dimension. Especially since not many people have spent most of their adult lives on the road without being equipped with some kind of artilary weapon. And their road isn't mostly through wilderness areas."

Her mouth formed the letter "O" as the flies on Ax's shoulder flew to the ground and started getting bigger. The two raptors above came down, the hawk landing on a branch and the eagle on the ground.

The eagle hesitated a moment, then it shook it's beaked head and started to demorph as well.

When they were all human...no, not human. When they were all in their natural forms Temrash explained everything. Then he did something that amazed even me, who knew him so very well, even if I'd known him only a few hours.

He started to crawl out of my head.

I felt a shudder go up and down my spine. I held my hand under my right ear to catch him. He landed with a plop!

"Is he lying?" Jake asked me.

I shook my head. "No," I assured them. "Except that part about us being friends. We are not friends. I just accept his presence."

"Well, at least we're sure about it being you saying it," he said. Then paused. "We are sure it's her, aren't we, Ax? Two Yeerks can't fit in one head, can they?"

< No, Prince Jake, > Ax replied.

"Have I ever told don't call me prince?" Jake asked immediately.

< Yes, Prince Jake. > Ax told him with absolutely no humor in his voice.

I smiled, shook my head, and started to throw the Yeerk away. Then I hesitated. I could be of use to the Animorphs if I were a Controller. I held the slug back up to my ear.

I felt him go through my ear canal, pushing through bones and tissue to get to my brain.

< What took you so long? > Temrash asked. < I nearly dried up! > Then, < Oh. You were actually going to just toss me away like a rag? I trusted you! >

< Yeah, well, I didn't, okay? But I have an idea. >

< The same one I've had for a while. I just wanted to see how fast you'd pick up on it. >

< Oh. Okay. Well, tell them. >

"I can help you, you know," Temrash said. "Oh, and it's Temrash speaking. Anyway, I can help you better than the Chee can. I can rise up in the ranks quickly, and still keep Ariel as a host. She's very strong, and good with almost any bladed weapon. Very valuable. I can actually get information using violence, as well, and help you with fights. So, how about it?"

For some reason, they all agreed. And we formed a new alliance.

Two days after that, we went back to the Yeerk pool. I went to the peir farthest from the entrance I took. There was only one person in front of me. He dipped his head into the gray sludge. He twitched just ever so slightly, then stood up. He thanked the Hork-bajir, then walked off to the underground restaurant, muttering about being hungry.

Then it was my turn. I kneeled down with a little help from the Hork-Bajir, dipped my head into the iron-grey gloop, and felt Temrash let go of my mind and drop into the pool.

I stood up calmly, stared daggers at all the near-by Controllers, then was led away by another Hork-Bajir armed with a Dracon beam.

It led me to the same cage I was thrown in three days ago. With the same inmates.

The oddly familar man was there again. He came up to me again, frowning a little.

"The Ariel I knew twenty years ago would have put up a fight till the day she died," he said in dissapointment.

"What do you mean, the Ariel you knew? Who are you?" I asked nervously. If this man knew me from twenty years ago, then he wasn't from this world either.

"Ariel, you've never been a very good actress. Put down the facade of belonging here and talk to your old friend. I'm sure I look much older, but you look as young and beautiful as ever," He said rather mockingly.

I groaned. The only man that I knew from that long ago that would even consider commenting on my beauty at a time like this was Kenneth.

"Kenneth, this isn't quite the time to be mentioning how young I look," I said in the Common tongue, a language I haven't spoken to another person in nearly twenty years. Then I grinned. "How are you, my friend? It's been quite awhile, has it not?"

"Not so long. Only a few days. But then, you elves don't reconize us humans after a long time, do you?"

"Yadda, yadda, yadda. I meant before the other day. Anyway, I age as well. My own father wouldn't reconize me, if he were here and alive."

"Yes, you do age. But so slowly as to be impossible to notice. But you've changed in another way as well, friend."

I sighed. I knew he would mention this sooner or later. But maybe I could stall telling him why I've changed.

"Me change? Look at you! Your no worrior anymore. Look at that belly! And specticles?" I mocked. "I could take you down in one hit. And, hey, wait a second! Is that what I think it is, Kenneth? Gray hair!" I grinned. "Gray doesn't look good with your once thick brown hair."

His old, medium-blue eyes narrowed in mock warning. "One hit? Just one? Don't you have any respect for your elders? And betters? It would at least take you five good, hard punches to even hurt me, if you could even get those in. By the time you got one hit in you'd be down on your back, panting for breath."

"I'm quicker than you and always will be, old man. And now I'm much stronger. And always will be." Oh, how I loved sparing insults with my old friend, Kenneth Tidwell. I'd actually missed him very much.

"By the way, I'd heard from a friend of mine that you'd taked up teaching. I just never though of you as a teaching, nurturing type. What do you teach -- gym? I could see you doing that."

"Gym? With this big, ol' belly of mine? Hah! No, more like social studies. Much easier on the mind and body."

Just about then, a Hork-Bajir came into the cage. "Oh, shit. He's for me. Gotta go, friend," Kenneth said as the big brute grabbed him roughly by the arm. He just shook off the touch and walked to the reinfestation pier himself. I watched sadly as the Hork-Bajir thrust his head in the sludge. I watched as he lifted his head back out again, without any seeming difference. But I knew their was one. A Yeerk was now controlling the body of one of my closest friends.

I also knew that I would one day free him.

"I am no longer safely a part of the Yeerk Empire," Temrash told the Animorphs one afternoon at a meeting.

"What do you mean by that?" Cassie asked.

"The Yeerks know that someone is giving the 'Andalite bandits' some valuable and top-secret information. And they know it's not someone in the Sharing. Their aren't many Controllers who are not in some way a part of the Sharing. So their interogating every single Yeerk not of the Sharing. I'm next in line. And I'm not supposed to know it."

Temrash and I had become very close friends. I would die for him if I thought it would help. But we both know it wouldn't.

"This is one of those situiations, I think, that we just go 'uh-oh' to," Marco said.

"Yeah. A big 'uh-oh'," Temrash said seriously. "The visser wants to interogate me personally because I'm a sub-visser. He questions me, your all either dead or Controllers. 'Game over, man. Game over,'" Temrash said in my most nerdiest of voices.

That got a nervous little laugh from everyone. Temrash is making jokes almost as much as Marco.

"Alright. So what do we do?" Jake asked.

We shrugged. "I dunno. We kind of left that part up to you."

"Great. Ok. We can't let you get interogated for several reasons, and you can't just stop going to the Yeerk pool for mostly the same reasons," Jake said looking quizzically at everyone. "Anyone have any ideas?"

Marco raised his hand. "Yes, Marco?" Jake asked.

"How about we all just go home and watch TV. Star Trek V's on the Sci-Fi channel tonight."

"How about, no."

Marco shrugged. "It was just a suggestion."

< What about what we did for Aftran? > Tobias blurted suddenly.

"Let me morph?" Temrash asked in surprise.

"Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all. A vote?" Jake asked.

"Why not?" Cassie asked.

"Definatly," Rachel said.

"I don't see a problem," Marco stated.

"What about you, Ax-man?" Jake asked.

Ax had stood listening to the whole conversation without a word. I think he'd finally forgiven me about almost killing him.

< I do beleive we should, Prince Jake. >

Jake looked like he was going to give his customary reply, but then just shook his head and did this little "Why bother?" look.

"Let me morph?" Temrash repeated in a mixture of excitment and fear.

< Why fear? > I asked him.

< What if they make me morph some kind of blind, helpless animal? Make me take my true form without my true form? I want to be able to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. Like I do with you. >

< I'm sure they'll let you become human. I wouldn't be able to bear not being with you. >

Cassie went outside to where she hid the blue box. She came back into the barn carrying it. It was a beatiful object. Perfectly square, a shining, bright color blue. It had the beauty and symmetry of Andalites, it's creators.

"So what do you want to be when you grow up?" Marco asked laughingly.

Temrash looked the Andalite right in the eye.

"Human. I want to be human," he told them with unshed tears blurring his vision slightly. He quickly blinked them back and continued before the others could even react. "You," he said to Ax. "You did it. Can you show me how? You know I can't just copy another person and take their life. I need to mix DNA, and you can do it. How?"

The others all looked surprised, except Cassie. She knew that would be what Temrash wanted to spend the rest of his life being. Human.

< I...uh...Why, it's really rather simple, > Ax told Temrash and me. He continued on to explain how he had mixed the DNA of his human friends.

< Don't aquire me, > I told Temrash. And he understood why.

Temrash crawled out of my head and I touched him to the box, careful not to touch it myself. I didn't need the power.

I then touched him to all five of our purely human friends.

I then laid him on the floor of the barn and let him morph. We all turned our backs so he could get dressed in the extra set of clothes Cassie had stored in the barn.

When we turned around, the Animorphs all gasped, but I just smiled. In front of us stood a perfect copy of Ax's human morph only older.

He was very handsome. But that didn't matter. What mattered was that I was seeing what Temrash had always been in soul but not body. Perfectly, completly human. Every aspect of humanity. Except one.

He radiated innocence. Somehow, with all the horrors he'd witnissed in my mind and out of it, he was completly and totally innocent.

I made a little tsk, tsk sound and said, "You know, we're going to have to fix that one little aspect. No one but lunitics are that innocent."

"Who said I'm not a lunitic?" Temrash asked with a sparkle in his eye. He said it, in his own customized voice. I shivered in delight at the sound.

"Haven't you noticed, Ariel? We're all lunitics here! And now we have a new member to our crazy club!" Marco joked.

"Yeah, well, we're two people who are leaving the 'crazy club,'" I told Marco.

"Leaving? Why?" Rachel asked.

"We're no longer a part of this war. Good-bye, my friends." With that I took Temrash by the hand, by his own hand, and walked out the door. By my bike, in full veiw of the barn, I grasped his head in my hands and kissed him, full on the lips.

It lasted for only a moment, but to me at least it lasted an eternity. When we finally broke away from each other, we were both smiling and panting a bit.

I took the extra helmet I knew we would need from one of the mirrors and handed it to Temrash. I strapped my own on and mounted my beauty after my friend. We drove off into the evening.

Once again, I was sure I'd never hear about the Animorphs or Yeerks until the war was over.

I was wrong again.

My husband, John, and I were at the beach with our little girl, Lauren, playing around. Yes, that's right. John. Hey, he couldn't keep the name Temrash, okay?

Suddenly, there came from the sky a horrible flash of red. It hit a patch of trees a little off the beach, and they exploded. People started to panic suddenly. I tried to find Lauren before she got trampled.

Somehow John and I got seperated. The red flashes started to come more and more quickly.

I was the only one on the beach except for Lauren. She was about twenty yards away. I started to run towards her, and as I was just a few feet away, another blinding flash of red.

When I could see again, in Lauren's place was just a little skeleton.

"No," I whispered. "No!" I grabbed up the little skeleton and held it close to me.

"NOOO!!!" I yelled into the wind that was wipping my hair around my face.

I woke up and looked around frantically. My husband stirred and woke as well.

I got up, opened the door to our bedroom, and ran to Lauren's door. I opened it and looked at her, sleeping peacefully and unharmed.

"Another nightmare?" John asked as I came back to the room.. I nodded then came back to bed.

As I was snuggling close to him, he told me, "Try and remebmer and describe it to me. I think it'll help."

"Well, there was Dracon fire. We were on the beach, just like we were earlier today. And...And Lauren..."

"Got hit by a Dracon beam. Oh, God, I'm sorry, Ariel. But it's okay now. And that will never, ever happen while I'm here."

"You know, your getting pretty good at being a father," I told him as I looked into his eyes.

He laughed his deep, throaty, wonderful laugh. "Go back to sleep." I snuggled closer to him and tried to go back to sleep.

The next morning when I woke up I felt terribly ill. But I got up and got ready for the day, anyway. I've felt worse, I kept telling myself.

But after breakfast I ran to the bathroom and puked my guts out. John insisted that I stay in bed for the rest of the day.

"It's nothing, you ninny! Especially compared to that arrow I once had lodged in my arm! Come on, I have to go to work."

"No, you don't. We own the place! You can take off sick any day."

"But I'm not sick! I feel fine! Fit as a fiddle!"

"A fiddle that's turned green in the face and has a fever of at least a hundred and one."

"I've been greener."

"Yeah. When we took Lauren out on her first Holloween and you were a dragon."

"I looked nothing like a dragon."

John laughed and told me, "Only you would know. Now go back to sleep."

"But I'm not tired," I whined.

"You sound like Lauren."

"She does not!" I heard Lauren's high-pitched voice from the kitchen.

He laughed again. "Now, go back to sleep, or I won't speak to you for a week," He said self-righteously.

"Yes, sir," I said meekly.

I heard Lauren giggle in the kitchen as John left for work down the street at the little building we bought.

"Mom, you can't be so submissive," Lauren told me, using the big word proudly. "You have to stand up for yourself."

"Oh, really?" I asked, humoring her.

"Yeah. You can't just say 'yes, sir' every time he threatens to not talk to you." I felt proud. She was only six and a half, but she was already acting like an adult. No, not acting. That's the wrong word for it. She was actually being a playful adult.

"And why not? I like him talking to me! And this time I know he's right," I grinned mischievously.

"Then why'd you put up such a fuss?"

"Because I can't stand the thought of him being right, that's why! And I hate lying down all day when I could be at work, you being with you, or anything! Besides, I'm not that sick."

"Yes you are. I've never seen anyone puke like that, Mom! You were like the Niagra falls in there! It was pure disgusting." She started to look a little green herself.

"Oh, no you don't! You are going to school today, no matter what." I tried to make a stern mother voice, but it didn't work. We both laughed.

"Yeah, yeah. I know. No calling unless I'm spitting up blood. Okay. Bye, and love you, Mom."

"Bye, honey."

And she left. And I went back to sleep.

For the next few days I felt terrible. And scared. My temperature sky-rocketed and fell randomly, and sometimes I had delusions.

Some where scary, some nice. In one, my nightmare came true, and Lauren was incinerated by a Dracon beam. In one it was John, my dear Temrash, who got shot.

But one makes me think that this world isn't all that un-magical.

There was a blinding flash. I passed out. When I woke up, I was lying under a tree. John was next to me, just stirring, and Lauren was next to him, still unconscious.

I looked around, and gasped. I was home! I was sure of it. I saw the light of the two moons make double shadows of everything. Half tinged blood-red by Lunitari, half surrounded by silver from Solinari.

We were surrounded on three sides by pine forest, and one by slightly swaying grass plains. Far along the plains I saw a village.

I looked up into the sky and watched the constellations. I found the one of the goddess closest to my heart, Chislev.

I sighed in contentment, and looked over at John. But instead of John lying against a pine, I saw Lauren looking wide-eyed at me from the bed side.

"So all those stories you've told me are true? All my bed time stories and all? True, not fantasy?"

Her voice sounded far away. I smiled and nodded as I fell into a very peaceful sleep.

I think I slept all day the next day, but I can't really be sure. I didn't dream that I could remember. My fever broke while I slept, though, and when I woke up I could walk on my own without being helped by my husband.

I went to the bathrom and looked in the miror and cringed. I looked terrible. I was pale, thin, gaunt, and my hair was everywhere.

"Hey, Lauren? I didn't have any visitors while I was sick, did I?" I yelled as I walked to her room.

"Uh...yeah. Some kids older than me came about dinner time." She giggled. "One was so funny. He kept on playing with sounds and asking if we had anything else to eat."

I sighed in relief. She would be talking about the Animorphs. And Ax probably ate us out of house and home.

I went into the kitchen and found that he thankfully hadn't eaten everything. I was starved. I made myself a sandwich that was almost two feet tall and gobbled it down. I sighed and went back to the bathroom and took a nice, long, hot bath.

After I'd gotten dressed, I brushed my hair and got something else to eat. Then I drove over to Cassies home, and just went right over to the barn.

< Hey, Ariel! > Tobias called.

"Hi, Tobias," I said as I walked in. "Uh, is this a rather bad time?" I asked when I realized that they were having a meeting.

"Except for the fact that we're actually seriously thinking about going off into a total deathtrap, no, it isn't," Marco said. He looked much older. They all did. They had lines under their eyes, around their mouth, and on their foreheads. And they were starting to actually get gray hairs.

"Deathtrap?" I asked eagerly. Adventure! Finally I might be able to help. I'd led a rather boring life for eight years now. I needed something to do!

"Well, the Yeerks have definaitly set a trap for us. Once again, they know someone's giving us info we aren't supposed to know. We've been at the right place at the right time too often. So know their opening up a new Yeerk pool. Erek's told us that if we don't destory it, they'll keep on opening it so that they can infest hundreds of more people, and if we do try to destroy it that we'll more than likely get captured."

"And we definatly don't want to get captured," Marco said with a shudder.

"Well, niether do I, but I'll go with you. I'll be a huge help to you," I told them.

"No way. Nuh-uh. Absolutly no. Your still to sick," Jake said.

"Who are you to tell me how sick I am? See this scar right here?" I asked, showing off the jagged white line on my neck. "I was so weak with this one that I nearly died. But in three days I was up and fighting. I can do this," I argued. I need to do this, I said silently.

"Yadda, yadda. No." Jake had his stern perental look on that I just had to laugh at.

Marco grinned and said, "See, Jake? Even Ariel here doesn't take you seriously."

"Oh, I take him seriously, but it was just so funny seeing this little twenty-one year old kid acting like my father."

"Yeah, well, anyway. What about your family? If you get killed, what will they do?" Jake asked seriously.

I smirked. "They'll cry awhile, then laugh at the good old days. They can get along fine without me. One less paycheck, yeah, but also one less mouth to feed. And if I do make it out alive, I'll probably be a much better person to live with."

"Really? And why is that?" He sounded like he was just humoring a senile old lady.

"Because I get in a really bad mood when I'm bored out of my wits," I growled at him. "Hey, if you don't bring me with you, I'll just follow you, no matter what animal shape you take. I was tracker for a whole freaking army for ten years. I can track a flea's progress on the rumb of a deer I can't even get close to."

Jake glowered a little, not liking that his orders weren't being followed. Then his expression turned thoughtful, then he said, "Fine. You can come. If, and I mean if it's okay with everyone else. So, is it okay?" This he directed at the rest of the group. They were all there, including the Andalite. It amazed me a little that there numbers hadn't lost any in this secretive war.

< Definatley. We can always use an extra, > Tobias said from his perch in the rafters.

"I say we just do it," Rachel said.

Cassie sighed. "I don't like the idea of you going, Ariel. But I have to admit you can help."

< I go where Prince Jake goes, > the Andalite said predictably.

"Ax, on your homeworld, wouldn't you be a prince yourself by now? I mean, if you did all these couragous things there," Jake asked, exasperated.

< It depends greatly upon who my sponsors are, Prince Jake. >

Jake sighed and shook his head.

"I know I'm nuts in saying this, especially since you've been completly delerious that last few days, but I have to say you go with us," Marco said.

I grinned happily and said, "Good, then. I'd better be getting home and sharpen my sword."

When I got home, I grabbed my sword down off the mantle. I ran into the kitchen and looked at the whet-stone we used on the kitchen knives a little sadly.

"I guess this will have to do," I muttered to myself. I grabbed it and also got a rag. I went into the living room, sat down and started sharpening my sword.

"What are you doing?" Lauren asked as she walked into the living room.

"Sharpening my sword. Wanna learn how?" I asked her.

"Sure," she said, shrugging. I scooted over on the chair and she sat beside me. Afetr I'd shown her how, I let her sharpen it herself while I searched through the dining room closet for my cloak.

"Ah-hah! Here it is," I said, tugging the cloak free. It had been used as a wrapper for some Yule ornaments. I went into the bedroom to where the full-length mirror was. I looked at myself in the mirror. I was still pale and still thin, but I had a little color back in my cheeks. I put on the cloak and looked to see how I looked in it. I sighed in disgust and went over to the closet I shared with my husband.

I rummaged through my side and finally came out grasping the tunic and breeches I'd been wearing when I first came here. I put them on with the cloak and laughed to see that I looked just as I did the day I left my home on my first adventure.

Still laughing, I took off the outer clothes, put on the tight-fitting long underwear type of undergarments you need to wear under armor so you skin doesn't chafe. Then I tried on my supple chainmail to make sure I hadn't grown plumper in thirty years.

I sighed in relief. It fit perfectly. I slipped into my tunic and breeches, fitted my cloak around my neck, and fastened by weapons belt about my waist.

When I came back into the living room and walked up to Lauren, she looked up at me and gasped. She stood up suddenly, forgetting the sword in her lap. As it tumble to the ground, I caught hold of the hilt before hit sliced off her foot.

"Wow, Mom! You looked awesome!" she informed me.

I grinned. "Yeah, I know. I always do. But you have to be careful around this thing! I haven't taught you how to use it properly, have I? I need to."

She nodded her head enthusiastically. "So, where are you going, dressed like that? You look just like the adventurers from my story books! And when can you start teachng me?"

"When your strong enough to hold this sword like this," I held the sword in the palms of my out-stretched hands, arms locked strait, "for ten minutes. If you can do that, I'll start training you. Got it?"

She nodded and reached out for the blade.

"No, I can't let you try it now. I gotta get this thing all polished up and ready to use for tonight." I grinned like a little girl caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "I got an adventure tonight. Don't tell your father! He'll never let me go if he knew."

She looked at me wide-eyed and asked eagerly, "An adventure? With swords and dragons and magic?"

I laughed. "Not with dragons or magic, but with at least one sword, yes. But I can't tell you where, okay? It's secret. Got it? A secret. So do not, I repeat, do not tell your father."

She nodded a little sorrowfully. "Okay, good. Could you help me real quick? I can't find my old boots, and I'm in a hurry and I still have to polish this thing"

"Okay, Mom. Where should I look?"

"Probably in the dining room closet, covered up by something on the floor."

She ran to the dining room and I could here her rooting though the stuff on the floor. I sighed, sat down, and started to rub roughly at the scratches left by the whet-stone with the rag.

Only when all but the worse of the scratches were polished away did I look to see if Lauren had found my boots. There she was, standing in front of me, a boot in each ahnd, staring at them in wonder.

They were well-crafted. They had intricate disigns scrolled on the heel and from the toe up in a strait line, all the way to the top. They were knee-high.

I sheathed my sword and my daughter watched in wonderment my easy motion with it. I smiled at her and told her, "One day you'll be doing the same in front of your children." I slipped on my boots on, kissed her on the cheek, a kiss which she promptly wiped away, and walked to the door.

I stopped before I opened the door, turned to my daughter, and said, "Tell your father, if I don't return by morning, not to look for me, okay?"

She nodded and I stepped outside. I don't think she knew that she just possibly passed my death sentence.

My cloak fluttered behind me as I drove to Cassie's barn. When I got there, they were all waiting for me. They all looked at me and released a collective gasp.

"Sorry I'm late. Lauren couldn't find my boots." I grinned in spite of myself. I knew I looked like a legend just stepping out of the story-books.

"So come on! Lets go!" Rachel said, breaking the spell my startling apearance had cast.

"Rachel's right. We need to get going," Jake said, taking sudden command.

When we got to the edge of the woods, they all morphed wolves to get through the underbrush better.

< Hey, wait a second. Will you be able to keep up? > Marco asked.

I shrugged. "I've done it before," I said.

They stared at me for a second, then must have decided I was telling the truth, because they started running.

I kept up to them well, even prompting Rachel to race me. I won.

We stopped only once, and that was so we all could get a drink and they could demorph and remorph before time ran out. The rested a few moments between morphs and I got a quick, three-minute nap before we had to start again.

< How'd you do that? > I heard Jakes voice ask in my head.

I gave him a questioning glance, saving my breath for running.

< That little cat-nap back there, > he verified.

I shrugged then gave my full concetration on keeping up with the wolves' stamina.

When we got near the place we were going, They stopped and sniffed the air. So did I. Though their sence of smell was much supieor to mine, I could still smell it: The smell of sweating, unwashed humans, and an alien scent I immediatly labeled Hork-Bajir. (While I was a Controler I didn't pay attention to their scent, just their appearence.)

< Erek told us that they have heavy security around this place, but we didn't plan on how we were going to get in, > Jake told me.

"Just on ground level and in the sky?" I asked, thinking I had a rather good plan.

He nodded his sleek wolf head, looking at me questioningly.

"Yeah, I got a plan," I told them while reaching into my breeches poket for the bits of charcoal I always kept there.

I proceeded in telling them my plan as I put charcoal dust under my eyes and highlighted the lines of my cheekbones. When they agreed to it I started pulling back my hair into a braid. Then I scrabbled into a nearby tree and dissapeared from their sight.

I went the rest of the way to the new Yeerk pool in the branches of the trees.When I got into sight of the clearing I looked around. Yes, there on an island in the middle of the pool was a huge tree, a forest patriarch. It hid the pool from veiw by hellicopter and plane because it's outermost branches mingle with those of the surrounding trees.

Perfect, I thought in satisfaction. They were idiots. I lept into the branches of the giant patriarch and scramble to the center of the tree. There I looked around again, noticed that my friends were in position as various animals, and found a branch higher up in the tree that looked sturdy enough to hold my weight and with a clear path to the ground surrounding the smaller-than-average Yeerk pool. I climbed up to it, crouched down and got ready to jump. I made a sound like an owl hooting in the night, then leapt out from the branch, screaching a war cry.

I don't know how those poor Hork-Bajir thought of a deamon-elf weilding a flashing sword flying through the air, but I know I drew alot of startled looks. And those looks allowed my friends to breach security without being ripped to shreds. I saw some humans screaming and running from the sudden appearance of this half-elf from hell, and I pursued them until I saw them turn on me with Dracon beams in their hands. I glanced behind me in search of an escape, but just found another line of humans aiing at me with more Dracon beams.

"Shit," I said as I ducked to get away from the red beams of death. They all met right in the middle, where my chest had been just a second before, with a blinding flash..

When I could see again I was standing in the center of a meadow, bathed in silver and red moonlight.

I glanced up and couldn't believe my eyes. There, in perfect arrangment, were the eighteen star constelations of the various gods of somethings, and the two visible moons of the the god of good magic and the goddess of nuetral magic.

My home sky.

"Oh, man!" I muttered knowing that I was missing all the fighting.

But I was home!

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