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

[instar]

"I'm fine."

[palmofyourhand]

"All right."

He goes back to turning Trouble into Trouble-shaped mush.

[aeskhyne]

Very happy mush.

[palmofyourhand]

"All right," he says eventually, "go on, try morphing from here."

[aeskhyne]

He manages a dazed nod, and concentrates.

Morphing from this condition is... slow.

[hold_infinity]

And when he's finished, his breath still not quite caught, he says in half a gasp: "Get lost, Bella, we're taking that break now."

[instar]

Bella writes down the time. And she goes up the stairs, and closes the door.

[palmofyourhand]

They are not especially quiet down there.

[instar]

Bella and Andi will be up in their room on the top floor working on the clothes thing. Also they will - probably not coincidentally - have on loud music to see how this interacts with understanding thoughtspeech.

[palmofyourhand]

When next they venture downstairs, Ethan will be sitting on the couch drinking tea.

[aeskhyne]

And Trouble will be curled up with his head in Ethan's lap, sleeping peacefully.

[instar]

Bella comes down the stairs, with her hands behind her back. "Despite her protests, Andi has been practicing morphing-in-order and has learned an adorable trick. Does Trouble want to wake up and see, do you suppose?"

[palmofyourhand]

"Oh, probably," says Ethan.

[pandion]

<Trouble! Wake up and see what I can do!>

[aeskhyne]

Trouble wakes up. Not very quickly.

"Mmmmf?"

[instar]

Bella brings her hands around in front of her.

[pandion]

Standing on her hand, clinging to her thumb for balance, is a tiny Andi with butterfly wings, in some sort of improvised garment out of a fabric scrap and hairtie.

<I'm a fairy!>

[aeskhyne]

"Holy shit," says Trouble, "that's so adorable, I want to hug you but I'm afraid you'd squish. Can I hug you when you demorph?"

[palmofyourhand]

Even Ethan grins.

[pandion]

<Sure!> says Andi. <I'm not a perfect fairy. I can't fly like this and I'm pretty sure about half of me has an exoskeleton I couldn't postpone till after the wings and I can only do it one try in three. But I'm so cute!>

[aeskhyne]

"You are unbelievably cute. I don't believe how cute you are."

[pandion]

<Bella says photographic evidence of the cute is too dangerous. It's sad.>

[aeskhyne]

"That is sad," says Trouble. "I'm sad about it."

He snuggles closer to Ethan.

[palmofyourhand]

Ethan rather absently pets him.

[pandion]

<I wanna demorph now. And call it a day, I'm tired.>