the airplane

[instar]

Bella, Andi, and Robin all get on the plane. Bella and Robin have toothbrush caps in their pockets containing flies. Nothing in particular happens when they go through security. They fly for an hour, and then Bella, rather than risk crunch time due to turbulence or a line for the bathroom a little later on, gets up to take Trouble into privacy for demorphing and remorphing.

She takes the toothbrush cap out of her pocket and sets it on the tiny little counter, and then flattens herself against a wall to give him room.

Comments

[sundayfish]

Charlie shakes his head, but extends his hand in Trouble's direction.

[aeskhyne]

Trouble takes his hand and concentrates.

[sundayfish]

Charlie's eyelids droop and his posture slumps when he's acquired, and then he comes around. He sighs and starts handing over clothes. "You go behind a tree or something when you morph," he tells Trouble, "all right? And - I did that 'cause Bella has a plan, not necessarily okay with being turned into for... plan-unrelated things."

[instar]

"Bug-hunting time," Bella announces, and she starts looking for bugs.

[pandion]

So does Andi.

[aeskhyne]

Trouble snorts. "I'll be just as happy to never turn into you again," he says, accepting the clothes.

[sundayfish]

Eventually Charlie is standing in his underwear, looking for bugs with his daughters, muttering under his breath. "What's the plan for dealing with Esclan?" he asks.

[instar]

"Is that your Yeerk? We can bury it. You might want to acquire it first - the rest of us have a different one, we don't know when it'll come in handy but it's the sort of thing with better odds of doing so than, like, earthworms."

[aeskhyne]

Trouble goes behind a tree to put Charlie's clothes on and then morph him.

[sundayfish]

Charlie hikes back to where his Yeerk slipped out, manages to acquire it, and then gets a stick and digs a hole to dump it in and cover with leaves. Then it's back to bug-hunting.

[pandion]

Andi finds a tiny, unremarkable black beetle, which she presents to Charlie.

[sundayfish]

He acquires that too. "How many of these can I do?" he asks as he loads his gun up again.

[instar]

"At least eight, apparently. Trouble has the most and this is his eighth. We don't know, Elfangor didn't say - which suggests it's not a tiny limit, but we're trying to be conservative."

[aeskhyne]

Trouble wanders out from behind his tree and makes a face. "Being you is weird," he says to Charlie. And to Bella, "Can Ethan maul me already?"

[instar]

"Yeah. Have fun. Dad, don't shoot a tree until we're ready for rangers to come running."

[palmofyourhand]

Ethan grins, ruffles Trouble-Charlie's hair, and morphs the grizzly bear again.

Mauling time!

[aeskhyne]

He provides realistic fleeing and struggling, but declines to scream.

[instar]

Bella supervises.

[pandion]

Andi definitely does not.

[sundayfish]

And neither does Charlie.

[palmofyourhand]

Ethan makes sure that there will be plenty of gnawed-on Charlie parts for the park rangers to recover and identify.

[aeskhyne]

And then Trouble demorphs and remorphs to pigeon, leaving behind as much of Charlie's clothing as he still had on him.

[sundayfish]

Charlie shoots a tree. He leaves the gun near its roots.

He hugs Bella and Andi, gets a crash course on morphing, turns into a little beetle, and enters a toothbrush cap and thereafter Andi's pocket.

[instar]

"Okay," says Bella. "Time to go crashing heedlessly through the woods like we just saw our dad die."

[hold_infinity]

"I found you a park ranger," says Robin. "This way."