Theme 11: Appearance

[regularamanda]

Today's theme:
Appearance 1. Submit your drabble that fits this theme as a comment to this post. It should be between 100-300 words, if you go over/under a bit that's fine! If it's longer than say 400 words, I ask that you post on your journal or fanfiction.net and then submit the link to this post. If you find that your story is going to be very

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[rattyjol]

Fandom: Animorphs
Claim: fandom
Rating: PG
Drabbles completed so far: 5/100

In truth, the morph hardly feels like much of a change. An Andalite's upper body is remarkably similar to that of a human's, and in my mind I was no longer fully Andalite anyway. I no longer wished to be.

But moments after the morph is completed, I begin to get an odd sort of feeling in my abdominal area. Loren tells me they are often referred to as butterflies. My internal clock reminds me exactly how much time is left, exactly how many seconds I have before I can no longer turn back. I have been in space battles and tailfights, and I have felt the hunger of a Taxxon as only my own will kept me from devouring living flesh, but I am nearly certain that I am not brave enough or strong enough to remain in morph for the full two hours. Even for Loren.

Before, I had restrained myself from ever looking at my human morph, but now I find that by examining all the small details of my chosen appearance in a reflective surface that humans refer to as a mirror, I can at least in part forget the deadline now creeping ever closer. From a distance the human's hair (my hair, I remind myself, but even in my own mind it sounds wrong) appears uniformly dark, almost black, but when viewed close up I discover that it is actually made up of many shades of brown and dark red. It's shorter than Loren's hair. Human males often keep their head hair shorter than human females.

The eyes are brown as well, a dark shade that reminds me of the human food that Loren calls chocolate. I understand more of human genetics now, and realize that the color of someone's eyes has nothing to do with age or procreation. The nose is broader than Loren's narrow one, and the skin slightly darker. I notice that the ears are shaped differently than Loren's, and the lips narrower, and the jawline squarer, and I marvel at the sheer number of subtle varieties in human appearance. Where just a few months ago I would hardly have been able to tell any two humans apart, I find that I know Loren's features so well that I can detect any sort of variation from them. I have not seen enough of the human population to know the full assortment of human characteristics, but I have seen enough in my attempts to come in contact with some I could acquire to notice many.

I know that Loren is nearby if I should need her, and though I asked her to leave so that I could spend these two hours alone I think that soon my nerve will fail me and I will have to search her out. I had the willpower to resist a Taxxon's hunger but this is something that I will not be able to complete alone.