On Weirdness and Wishes (G; Tobias, Ax) for fanfic100
Title: On Weirdness and Wishes
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: Tobias, Ax
Prompt: 001 “Beginnings”
Word Count: 1,081
Rating: G
Summary: Tobias muses about what he learned from the attorney’s letter, and has a conversation with Ax.
Author's Notes: Spoilers up to #23 The Pretender (including The Andalite Chronicles).
I wonder if Ax finds it weird.
Then, I realize that I’m pondering this while perched on a shady beech, in the middle of waiting for either an early dinner to go speeding across my meadow or my friends to come out of school, whichever happens first, and figure that I really have no business going around deciding what is ‘normal’.
But still, surely it’s not something that happens a lot? Even among aliens advanced enough to develop technology that allowed a person to temporarily change their biological make-up, to turn into another organism. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for Ax, finding out. Here he is, on a planet dozens of freaking light years away from home, a planet his brother and fellow warriors had died trying to rescue, friends with the human kids who’d had to rescue him off the bottom of the ocean, and he finds out that one of said kids, a freak of nature to both humans and Andalites because he’s got a human mind and a hawk’s body, is actually his dead brother’s son.
I mean, it’s got to be bothering him just a little bit.
I haven’t really talked to him since I told the others about the letter. I mean, we exchange our usual pleasantries whenever I find myself flying over him, but we’re both still processing it, I guess. At least I was.
Rachel’s waiting for me to talk to her about it. But I feel, for this, that it has to be between Ax and I, first.
A flash of blue and green between the trees on the far end of the meadow. I straighten up, waiting for Ax to reach me. For once, it really doesn’t matter that he’s scaring away the prey, or which of us spotted the other first.
< Tobias. > he begins with uncharacteristic hesitance, ignoring the rat that practically runs into one hoof in its mad dash across the grass. < As a warrior, I have been trained to receive the most disturbing of news or information without loss of composure or clarity of mind. But I think of you as my shorm, and between shorm the usual rules of conduct do not apply. So I hope you do not mind me revealing that I have been most... affected, by what was revealed in my brother’s letter. >
< Az-man, I don’t think anyone, no matter what their species, is trained to get this kind of news, > I reply. < If it makes you feel any better, I’m sort of freaking out about it, too. >
He smiles in that special Andalite way- with only his eyes. It strikes me, even more strongly than it ever had before, how much he resembles Elfangor. I mean, I haven’t really seen enough Andalites to be able to differentiate between them, and I only saw Elfangor- my father!- that one fateful time, but I can still tell. Besides, I’ve spent more time with Ax than all the others combined. And I don’t think I’ll ever forget Elfangor- my freaking father, who can believe it?- even if I survive to a 100 years old and am lying on my deathbed.
< Strangely, it does, > he admits, his stalk eyes absently waving about. < It is childish, but.. there have been times when I wished that I had family here with me. And now, I do. > He appears to be looking at me shyly, if a centaur-like creature with a tail ending in a gleaming, sharp scythe blade can be thought of as shy.
On the other hand, it’s really difficult to make a hawk face look anything but fierce. < Wow. You know, I’ve spent many years wishing for family, too. > It’s my turn to hesitate. < I mean, a family who cared about me. Maybe somebody finally heard us. >
< The Ellimist certainly did, > he remarks, though his thought-speak is missing its usual distaste when talking about him.
I guess, despite the circumstance in which it took place, it’s kind of hard to be completely angry about what we’ve learned. I mean, I was bitter for a while, thinking of the father I could have had, but I could never be that selfish. No, my father- hey, I’m getting used to this- needed to be the great warrior that he was, needed to go and inspire his younger brother, needed to die on Earth in front of his son.
All right, I’m still kind of angry about it.
< There is a great deal of my brother that he kept to himself, > Ax interrupted my thoughts. < But the small portion of him whom I knew… He would have been very proud of you, Tobias. >
I don’t remember consciously doing it. I don’t even remember flying down from the tree. But there are times to be a hawk, and there are times when the human boy needs to come out. For his part, Ax only looks slightly alarmed when I awkwardly embrace him. I don’t cry, except for a few runaway tears, but I am shaking.
I have a mouth to speak with, but being in morph lets me thought-speak, too. It feels more appropriate. < I guess this makes you my uncle. > It’s less weird than it should have been, communicating without a mouth when I had a mouth to use. Rachel would hate me doing it. But I’ve been thought-speaking for so long, it feels more natural now than spoken speech.
< Uncle? >
< That’s what we call a brother of either of our parents, > I explain. < But I don’t have to call you that if we’re both kids. > I didn’t want to explain that ‘Uncle’ brings me memories of beer bottles littering the floor, being alone in my room, loud voices raised in anger.
< That is good to know. It would have been strange to be called another name. >
We instinctively start walking, side by side, my eyes and his stalk eyes looking up at the stars. Reminds me of how I was walking through that construction site. “Can you tell me a little bit about him?”
I don’t know what makes me ask. But I think Ax has been waiting for it. He smiles at me, and something inside, something long dormant beneath the brain of the hawk, pushes up and pulls my face into an expression that feels strange, alien to me. A smile.
< Well, my earliest memories of him were mostly through a communications screen. The first time I met him in the flesh was... >
See where this goes on The Sanity-Challenging Huge Table of Prompts
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: Tobias, Ax
Prompt: 001 “Beginnings”
Word Count: 1,081
Rating: G
Summary: Tobias muses about what he learned from the attorney’s letter, and has a conversation with Ax.
Author's Notes: Spoilers up to #23 The Pretender (including The Andalite Chronicles).
I wonder if Ax finds it weird.
Then, I realize that I’m pondering this while perched on a shady beech, in the middle of waiting for either an early dinner to go speeding across my meadow or my friends to come out of school, whichever happens first, and figure that I really have no business going around deciding what is ‘normal’.
But still, surely it’s not something that happens a lot? Even among aliens advanced enough to develop technology that allowed a person to temporarily change their biological make-up, to turn into another organism. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for Ax, finding out. Here he is, on a planet dozens of freaking light years away from home, a planet his brother and fellow warriors had died trying to rescue, friends with the human kids who’d had to rescue him off the bottom of the ocean, and he finds out that one of said kids, a freak of nature to both humans and Andalites because he’s got a human mind and a hawk’s body, is actually his dead brother’s son.
I mean, it’s got to be bothering him just a little bit.
I haven’t really talked to him since I told the others about the letter. I mean, we exchange our usual pleasantries whenever I find myself flying over him, but we’re both still processing it, I guess. At least I was.
Rachel’s waiting for me to talk to her about it. But I feel, for this, that it has to be between Ax and I, first.
A flash of blue and green between the trees on the far end of the meadow. I straighten up, waiting for Ax to reach me. For once, it really doesn’t matter that he’s scaring away the prey, or which of us spotted the other first.
< Tobias. > he begins with uncharacteristic hesitance, ignoring the rat that practically runs into one hoof in its mad dash across the grass. < As a warrior, I have been trained to receive the most disturbing of news or information without loss of composure or clarity of mind. But I think of you as my shorm, and between shorm the usual rules of conduct do not apply. So I hope you do not mind me revealing that I have been most... affected, by what was revealed in my brother’s letter. >
< Az-man, I don’t think anyone, no matter what their species, is trained to get this kind of news, > I reply. < If it makes you feel any better, I’m sort of freaking out about it, too. >
He smiles in that special Andalite way- with only his eyes. It strikes me, even more strongly than it ever had before, how much he resembles Elfangor. I mean, I haven’t really seen enough Andalites to be able to differentiate between them, and I only saw Elfangor- my father!- that one fateful time, but I can still tell. Besides, I’ve spent more time with Ax than all the others combined. And I don’t think I’ll ever forget Elfangor- my freaking father, who can believe it?- even if I survive to a 100 years old and am lying on my deathbed.
< Strangely, it does, > he admits, his stalk eyes absently waving about. < It is childish, but.. there have been times when I wished that I had family here with me. And now, I do. > He appears to be looking at me shyly, if a centaur-like creature with a tail ending in a gleaming, sharp scythe blade can be thought of as shy.
On the other hand, it’s really difficult to make a hawk face look anything but fierce. < Wow. You know, I’ve spent many years wishing for family, too. > It’s my turn to hesitate. < I mean, a family who cared about me. Maybe somebody finally heard us. >
< The Ellimist certainly did, > he remarks, though his thought-speak is missing its usual distaste when talking about him.
I guess, despite the circumstance in which it took place, it’s kind of hard to be completely angry about what we’ve learned. I mean, I was bitter for a while, thinking of the father I could have had, but I could never be that selfish. No, my father- hey, I’m getting used to this- needed to be the great warrior that he was, needed to go and inspire his younger brother, needed to die on Earth in front of his son.
All right, I’m still kind of angry about it.
< There is a great deal of my brother that he kept to himself, > Ax interrupted my thoughts. < But the small portion of him whom I knew… He would have been very proud of you, Tobias. >
I don’t remember consciously doing it. I don’t even remember flying down from the tree. But there are times to be a hawk, and there are times when the human boy needs to come out. For his part, Ax only looks slightly alarmed when I awkwardly embrace him. I don’t cry, except for a few runaway tears, but I am shaking.
I have a mouth to speak with, but being in morph lets me thought-speak, too. It feels more appropriate. < I guess this makes you my uncle. > It’s less weird than it should have been, communicating without a mouth when I had a mouth to use. Rachel would hate me doing it. But I’ve been thought-speaking for so long, it feels more natural now than spoken speech.
< Uncle? >
< That’s what we call a brother of either of our parents, > I explain. < But I don’t have to call you that if we’re both kids. > I didn’t want to explain that ‘Uncle’ brings me memories of beer bottles littering the floor, being alone in my room, loud voices raised in anger.
< That is good to know. It would have been strange to be called another name. >
We instinctively start walking, side by side, my eyes and his stalk eyes looking up at the stars. Reminds me of how I was walking through that construction site. “Can you tell me a little bit about him?”
I don’t know what makes me ask. But I think Ax has been waiting for it. He smiles at me, and something inside, something long dormant beneath the brain of the hawk, pushes up and pulls my face into an expression that feels strange, alien to me. A smile.
< Well, my earliest memories of him were mostly through a communications screen. The first time I met him in the flesh was... >
See where this goes on The Sanity-Challenging Huge Table of Prompts