the animorphs

[instar]

Renée is gone in the morning, a pot of maple oatmeal for the girls and Trouble cooling on the stove and a note on the fridge, she's going to be gone all day on a day trip to Tucson with her friends.

Andi wakes up first. Bella's not far behind.

Comments

[palmofyourhand]

Ethan runs a hand thoughtfully down Trouble's left arm, most recently broken of his limbs.

Then, smirking, he takes the hammer to it.

[aeskhyne]

Trouble is exquisitely cooperative.

[palmofyourhand]

It makes some lovely sounds. Well, lovely to Ethan.

He glances at Bella and asks, "How much damage should I do before he morphs again?"

[instar]

"Morphing's tiring and we don't want him stuck - see if this makes it any harder, I think, then work up from there?"

[aeskhyne]

"It's sure as hell distracting," says Trouble, beginning to morph. "Not that much harder, though..."

[instar]

Bella watches his arm as he changes. "Note when during the morph it stops hurting, and if there are intermediate stages."

[aeskhyne]

"Still hurts," he observes, although in fact the morph has yet to touch his damaged arm; it's going for the hair first, and Robin's brilliant green eyes. Then he shrinks, all of the barely-an-inch height difference, and his face begins to shift...

[hold_infinity]

...and paleness spreads patchily over his skin, and the broken arm fixes itself all at once— "Stopped hurting now," he reports wryly— and his chest grows and his waist shrinks and certain other details rearrange themselves.

Trouble - to all appearances Robin - shrugs.

[instar]

Bella writes this down, checks her timer, writes that down. "Takes longer than me morphing Andi. Seems relatively proportional to how big the changes you're making are."

[hold_infinity]

<And I can thought-speak now,> he (or she) says cheerfully.

[instar]

"...Ooh. Me and Andi did not come across that particular feature morphing each other, although we can do it when we're butterflies - how do you do it?"

[hold_infinity]

"I - just do?" he says, in Trouble's accent from Robin's mouth. "It's not any different than doing it as an Andalite."

[instar]

"Huh." Bella turns into Andi -

[pandion]

"Tes"<ting?>

[hold_infinity]

<You got it!>

[pandion]

<Wow, we might have to spend a lot of time morphed as each other just to get this advantage.>

[instar]

She morphs back. She writes.

[hold_infinity]

Trouble-Robin giggles.

"Hey," she says to Ethan, "wanna break me some more before I turn back?"

[palmofyourhand]

"Mm, pass," he says.

[hold_infinity]

Shrug. "Suit yourself, buddy."

He demorphs noticeably faster than he morphed.

[aeskhyne]

And shows no sign of injury to that arm. He checks.

[instar]

"It could be different, injuries to morphs versus injuries to baseline shapes," Bella says, "is there some reason we can't do that experiment?"

[aeskhyne]

"We can if you wanna hold the hammer," says Trouble. "Ethan doesn't feel like fucking up his best friend even when she's actually me."

[instar]

"I'll think about it. You were faster demoprhing than morphing, any idea why?"

[aeskhyne]

"'Cause I wasn't trying to figure out when the pain stopped, I think."