the circle

[instar]

Trouble and Charlie fly to Las Vegas to get their collections of drunks. Ax, newly empigeoned, and Ethan loosely follow Renée's car back to Phoenix, so that Ax will not be stranded in an unfamiliar city obliged to demorph into Andalite form with no garage to hide in.

Renée makes a very large grocery trip. Ax deems alfalfa hay intended for consumption by guinea pigs and rabbits to be the hoof-eating equivalent of palatable; it also turns out he can eat a few other things, like carrot tops and turnip greens. He still doesn't like living in the garage, even though it's a different one. Andi finds him a little planetarium gadget that throws star-patterns onto the ceiling.

Renée installs a cot in the basement for Charlie. (His generic human morph is a man about ten years younger than him, plausibly Latino but just as plausibly not, plain and unremarkable. He also picks up a Renée morph. He will be able to drive the girls places, publicly know their names. They can tell he appreciates the opportunity, however weird it is.) Trouble is allowed to sleep on the couch, when Renée learns that he would prefer not to share the basement with Charlie.

Bella sews weights onto all the curtain hems so they won't be easily nudged aside.

The twins also collect generic-human-morphs. Both of theirs are college-age women, samples collected from going on premature college tours and shaking a lot of hands - Bella's looks maybe half Asian when she's done tweaking it, Andi winds up with a complexion much like her usual one but a surprisingly Hawaiian set of features.

Renée never asks to be enabled to morph. Bella eventually offers, "for emergencies", and Renée aggregates a number of her co-workers into the most stereotypical teacher-lady it is possible to Frolis into without requiring vision correction.

Renée makes the arrangements well in advance to homeschool the twins.

Bella quizzes Ax about all sorts of things, for large parts of each day.

Comments

[megale]

The girl, whose name is plausibly Rhea, dispenses crackers. "I guess telling him I thought he was gay implies that I gave the question thought? Is that flattering? Maybe it's flattering if you think about it but I dunno if he'd do that, basically all I know about him is he's hot and likes paintball and is probably gay, and given he's probably gay I should probably not dwell on what I'd do if he did something even most straight dudes do not do. Actually, literally no straight guys have ever decided to spontaneously kiss me unless you count elementary school. What do you think, pigeons, does Valentine's day in third grade count?" She shakes her head. "Nah. And I had a boyfriend for like a month last year but that doesn't count as spontaneous even if it counts as kissing, y'know?"

[aeskhyne]

Trouble coos agreeably. She's adorable.

[megale]

"Chatterbox," she accuses. "Chatterbird. What kind of box chatters? I've never seen one do it. Maybe it's a metaphor for television. Saturday Night Live was pretty good the other day. Poor pigeons, you probably can't watch TV, even if you sat on the right windowsills people would change the channel without ever offering you the remote and it'd just be frustrating."

[aeskhyne]

He can't resist; he bobs his head, very pigeonly. And then eats a cracker.

[megale]

Rhea laughs. "Man, if I ever get a puppy I'll take it to the park with me, and then I'll miss you guys. Still want the puppy, though. Priorities. I mean, talking to your dog, little wacko. Talking to the pigeons, a little more, you know?"

[aeskhyne]

Coo coo. Yeah, she's totally wacko, but it's a good kind of wacko and Trouble approves.

[megale]

"I wonder if dogs actually would chase pigeons? I know they go after squirrels. Dunno if a puppy would actually harass you. I bet you wouldn't give it a chance to make friends though."

[aeskhyne]

Trouble checks for stray bits of cracker on the ground. Ooh, there's one!

[megale]

Rhea upends the sleeve of crackers. Crumbs go flying. "That's all I've got for today, featherdusters. After this I flunk out of vending school and go learn to be an electrician."

[aeskhyne]

This time, Trouble actually manages to catch a flying crumb in midair. He gulps it down and struts in a proud circle.

[megale]

"You're a cutie, chatterbird. If I thought I could catch you I'd put a string around your leg. It'd be very fashionable and I'd know which one you were later."

[aeskhyne]

He coos.

[megale]

Rhea crumples up the cracker wrapper. "Soooo tempted to be a litterbug, they need to put more trash cans in this park," she sighs, "but probably some little birdy would choke on it looking for more crackers and then I would feel bad and also dead birds attract flies and flies are not at all cute and feathery. Tomorrow's menu is day-old bagels," she adds.

[aeskhyne]

Volunteering to throw out her trash for her would not be appropriate pigeonly behaviour, he's pretty sure. Even though he is immensely cute. Trouble wanders in aimless circles instead, keeping close to Rhea, because his pigeon brain thinks that hanging around where there has just been food is an awesome idea. And, really, he can't argue with it.

[megale]

Rhea walks aaaaall the way to a trash can, and throws out the cracker wrapper, and heads out of the park.

[aeskhyne]

Trouble's morph is pretty close to fresh.

What the hell. He follows her. With reasonable stealth, for a pigeon.

[megale]

She doesn't seem to be on the lookout for pigeon stalkers. She has a mile and a half walk home, which she spends humming, kicking small rocks, picking at a ragged spot on her pants pocket, and stopping for an ice cream cone from a passing truck, which she pays for entirely in dimes. She lives in a small apartment building; Trouble will not have a problem learning the code to get in the gate, if he wants it, though flying over would also be pretty easy.

[aeskhyne]

He notes the code just for the hell of it, then decides that he would rather head back to the Swans' place and bake some cookies than try to figure out which window belongs to the adorable pigeon-feeder.

The next day, though, he's back at the appropriate time for those day-old bagels.

[megale]

She shows up a little later on this day, with day-old bagels in sesame and pumpernickel, methodically shredding them as she approaches her bench. "Hey, guys, the auditions for Les Miserables are a few blocks west, all I have is bread," she says when she sits down and starts scattering. "Bread and my charming conversation, but we all know what you're really here for, right? So guys, what is the consensus among pigeons about how long teenage girls should be allowed to spend on the phone, because an hour is not a lot of time if you have, you know, friends."

[aeskhyne]

Trouble coos sympathetically and pecks up some fragments of bagel.

[megale]

"So my dad made me hang up on Lauren. Midsentence. I was wrapping up, but two minutes isn't a lot of warning. And I wasn't allowed to call her this morning so I bet she's mad at me."

[aeskhyne]

Rhea's dad sounds like kind of a dick! Trouble eats bagel parts and listens.

[megale]

"Which'd be one thing if he was ever like 'Rhea, you have a job now, chip in for the phone bill' but he never even asked me, just thinks it's bad for me to spend so much time on the phone. He completely approves of me walking to the park and conversing with birds, that's fine, that's getting fresh air, but actual socializing with humans is going to turn me into a pumpkin because there's electronics involved?"

[aeskhyne]

Coo coo. Not cool, Rhea's dad.

[megale]

"And I don't think Mom cares as much but she's all, present a united front, so that's the rule even when he's out at work. He's better about it during the school year at least because then I could be calling about homework or something."