Fic: Animorphs: Sing the Azures: Chapter 5 - Toomin
Toomin
I had just finished my last lesson of the day and was considering checking on the Time Matrix before I returning home when Aguella crashed through the leaves above me.
“Toomin! Toomin! TOOMIN!”
“What in Mother Sky--” I began before I was forced to take flight to prevent a collision. Aguella adjusted her dorsal intakes and barely avoided plowing into the floor of the nest.
“Menno’s sent out a team of Enforcers to capture you!” she shouted as I collected myself. “They’re on their way now! You need to-“
“Wait! Stop! What?”
“Menno thinks you’ve been training juvies to fight, that you’re going to overthrow him or something. You need to flee!”
I was almost stunned out of the air. “What-Why?”
“I don’t know, but he’s not going through the approved channels and-“
“Then how do you know this?”
“I’ve been tracking the uninet for your name. Our ‘net’s so small, it was easy.”
She never ceased to amaze me. “Paranoid, much? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think you’d approve. Menno was about a week away from overthrowing you before you made the announcement to settle. He had enough support to do it, too. I couldn’t risk him deciding you were a threat. It became a habit, I guess. Why aren’t you flying?”
“Won’t that make me look guilty?” I said with a nervous laugh.
“Didn’t you hear me? It doesn’t matter! He’s not taking this to the council. He can do whatever he wants to you and pretend you disappeared wherever you go to when you fly off for hours. Now fly!”
As she spoke, six Ketrans burst through the canopy of the next tree. “Too late.” They were all females, holding a fine mesh net between them. I had no chance of out-flying them at this distance. I was caught.
“No!” Aguella shouted, moving between me and the Enforcers. “You can’t do this!”
The leader of the Enforcer team was Salva, once of the Tropical Orbit Low Crystal. Her cerulean eyes looked troubled. Aguella wasn’t supposed to be there.
“Get out of our way, Aguella, please,” she said.
“I will send memms out regarding this, and the whole settlement will know what Menno is doing.”
Salva paused, sizing Aguella up, considering. Which would hurt Menno more, letting me go free or letting everyone know how quickly his democracy was discarded if he felt threatened?
“I’ll come with you,” I said quietly. “Willingly, if Menno will allow me to be tried by the Council.”
“Toomin--!”
“It’s okay.” Aguella turned to look at me. Our eyes met and I willed her to understand. Send your memms, no one will let me be hurt. “Menno is shrewd. He won’t let this get out of hand.”
I flew past her. Without looking back I said, “Let’s go.”
*
I was in the center of the amphitheater in a cage made of vines, swinging slightly in the breeze. Menno was docked beside me, just out of my reach. He had called the Council. The people would decide my fate. One by one, the citizens of our settlement trickled in, docking and chatting with each other in low voices. Some gave me reassuring looks. Some watched me closely, glancing away when they noticed that I saw them. Nearly all of them looked confused. Lackofa gave me a slow nod.
“We weren’t fighting! It was a game!” A male juvie fluttered down to the platform out of the open sky. It was Halof. Word had gotten out. I breathed a little easier.
“What kind of game looks like a fight?” Someone from the first row asked.
“We were just--!” he started, but Menno interrupted him.
“We’ll hear everything you have to say shortly, once the rest of you are gathered.” He gave Compta a look that said I hope you’re not making me look like a fool.
A half dozen more of the accused juvies drifted in, some with their own pairs of Enforcer escorts. My own Forsa was the last. Some looked angry. Forsa looked terrified. He looked at me with clouded, unreadable eyes. One of the last pair of Enforcers broke off to speak to Menno in a hushed voice. Menno listened, nodded and looked over the assembled crowd. Their mutterings quieted as his orbs fell on them, and he opened his mouth to speak.
“One of the accused cannot be found, but we cannot delay these proceedings any longer. One of our Wise Ones,” he glanced at me with two eyes. “Has been accused of corrupting juvies. Training them to perform combat maneuvers for an unknown purpose-“
“My sire wasn’t teaching us to fight!” Forsa apparently couldn’t take staying silent any longer. He had Aguella’s temper, bless him. “He encouraged us to make dances, but it was our idea to-“
Menno cut him off. “We have not set forth a punishment in our laws for such a crime because it is so unthinkable. We will first hear the evidence against Zone Twelve, Four Hundred Spans, Tree Thirty-One, given name Toomin, and determine guilt. Or innocence.” He gave Forsa a pointed look, but Forsa didn’t take the hint.
“It was our idea to try to knock each other into freefall. It was a game!”
If Forsa were an adult, he could be held in contempt of the council and disbarred from voting for a period of time-or for life. Since he was a juvie, there was nothing Menno could do to prevent his disruption, though I could practically see him formulating the rules and laws he could bring to vote to prevent this from happening again. I crossed my lower arms and tried not to smile. I’d speak with Forsa about playing dangerous games later. For now I was proud of him
“You will be allowed to speak, soon,” Menno said with forced patience. “First, we will hear the evidence against. I call forward Siltz…”
A male Ketran a little older than myself fluttered forward to speak his piece. He told those assembled how he had seen, for several days running, a number of youths flying in formations above the trees in the sparsely populated northern segments of the settlement. Others came forward with corroborating evidence, adding that it they thought it looked like fighting, but Forsa’s explanation sounded just as plausible in retrospect.
And so it went. The whole situation was looking more and more farcical with each witness. I glanced at Menno. He was twitching his wings in agitation.
“Very well,” he said after dismissing yet another witness. “We have one more who must be heard.” He nodded toward Compta, who flew to the center. As she opened her mouth to speak, a murmur went up through the crowd. Heads were turning upward and to the east. I followed their gaze to see a small knot of approaching Ketrans. Aguella I recognized immediately, but there were several others with here. They flew weirdly. I squinted to see more clearly. They carried something between them in a net, flapping hard, flying as fast as they could with their burden. I felt my quills bristle as I saw the shape in the net. If I had had the freedom of flight I would have hurried to them, told them to take it elsewhere, that we couldn’t afford the sort of panic this would bring, but I could do nothing trapped in the cage. A smaller figure, one I recognized, flew beside them, pulling back every now and then to stay with the slow pace of the others. There was nothing I could do to stop Aguella, four more enforcers, and Halof from landing in the center of the amphitheater, right underneath me, and spilling the contents of their net for all to see.
It was a Ketran, clearly one of our young ones by her shape. She was still, pliant to the rough handling because she was dead. The crowd stirred as realization dawned. A few hopped from their perches in a start, flying briefly about our heads in a swirl before landing again to dare to look at the corpse. A darkened line of charred quills ran across her back, the work of an energy weapon of some sort, I guessed. Death in the amphitheater was bad enough, but one of the enforcers nudged her, turning her face up so that all would know her identity. Compta. But that couldn’t be, she was…
The other Compta turned her head skyward and laughed, long and low and unnaturally loud. The amphitheater fell into silence save for her voice.
“My master Crayak wanted to destroy you subtly, but I suppose he was out of practice! But never fear, you will die, and…” She turned to me in my cage. “He will have whatever it is you’re hiding. Is it a weapon? That would be so deliciously ironic.”
> Chapter 6 - The Ellimist
I had just finished my last lesson of the day and was considering checking on the Time Matrix before I returning home when Aguella crashed through the leaves above me.
“Toomin! Toomin! TOOMIN!”
“What in Mother Sky--” I began before I was forced to take flight to prevent a collision. Aguella adjusted her dorsal intakes and barely avoided plowing into the floor of the nest.
“Menno’s sent out a team of Enforcers to capture you!” she shouted as I collected myself. “They’re on their way now! You need to-“
“Wait! Stop! What?”
“Menno thinks you’ve been training juvies to fight, that you’re going to overthrow him or something. You need to flee!”
I was almost stunned out of the air. “What-Why?”
“I don’t know, but he’s not going through the approved channels and-“
“Then how do you know this?”
“I’ve been tracking the uninet for your name. Our ‘net’s so small, it was easy.”
She never ceased to amaze me. “Paranoid, much? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think you’d approve. Menno was about a week away from overthrowing you before you made the announcement to settle. He had enough support to do it, too. I couldn’t risk him deciding you were a threat. It became a habit, I guess. Why aren’t you flying?”
“Won’t that make me look guilty?” I said with a nervous laugh.
“Didn’t you hear me? It doesn’t matter! He’s not taking this to the council. He can do whatever he wants to you and pretend you disappeared wherever you go to when you fly off for hours. Now fly!”
As she spoke, six Ketrans burst through the canopy of the next tree. “Too late.” They were all females, holding a fine mesh net between them. I had no chance of out-flying them at this distance. I was caught.
“No!” Aguella shouted, moving between me and the Enforcers. “You can’t do this!”
The leader of the Enforcer team was Salva, once of the Tropical Orbit Low Crystal. Her cerulean eyes looked troubled. Aguella wasn’t supposed to be there.
“Get out of our way, Aguella, please,” she said.
“I will send memms out regarding this, and the whole settlement will know what Menno is doing.”
Salva paused, sizing Aguella up, considering. Which would hurt Menno more, letting me go free or letting everyone know how quickly his democracy was discarded if he felt threatened?
“I’ll come with you,” I said quietly. “Willingly, if Menno will allow me to be tried by the Council.”
“Toomin--!”
“It’s okay.” Aguella turned to look at me. Our eyes met and I willed her to understand. Send your memms, no one will let me be hurt. “Menno is shrewd. He won’t let this get out of hand.”
I flew past her. Without looking back I said, “Let’s go.”
*
I was in the center of the amphitheater in a cage made of vines, swinging slightly in the breeze. Menno was docked beside me, just out of my reach. He had called the Council. The people would decide my fate. One by one, the citizens of our settlement trickled in, docking and chatting with each other in low voices. Some gave me reassuring looks. Some watched me closely, glancing away when they noticed that I saw them. Nearly all of them looked confused. Lackofa gave me a slow nod.
“We weren’t fighting! It was a game!” A male juvie fluttered down to the platform out of the open sky. It was Halof. Word had gotten out. I breathed a little easier.
“What kind of game looks like a fight?” Someone from the first row asked.
“We were just--!” he started, but Menno interrupted him.
“We’ll hear everything you have to say shortly, once the rest of you are gathered.” He gave Compta a look that said I hope you’re not making me look like a fool.
A half dozen more of the accused juvies drifted in, some with their own pairs of Enforcer escorts. My own Forsa was the last. Some looked angry. Forsa looked terrified. He looked at me with clouded, unreadable eyes. One of the last pair of Enforcers broke off to speak to Menno in a hushed voice. Menno listened, nodded and looked over the assembled crowd. Their mutterings quieted as his orbs fell on them, and he opened his mouth to speak.
“One of the accused cannot be found, but we cannot delay these proceedings any longer. One of our Wise Ones,” he glanced at me with two eyes. “Has been accused of corrupting juvies. Training them to perform combat maneuvers for an unknown purpose-“
“My sire wasn’t teaching us to fight!” Forsa apparently couldn’t take staying silent any longer. He had Aguella’s temper, bless him. “He encouraged us to make dances, but it was our idea to-“
Menno cut him off. “We have not set forth a punishment in our laws for such a crime because it is so unthinkable. We will first hear the evidence against Zone Twelve, Four Hundred Spans, Tree Thirty-One, given name Toomin, and determine guilt. Or innocence.” He gave Forsa a pointed look, but Forsa didn’t take the hint.
“It was our idea to try to knock each other into freefall. It was a game!”
If Forsa were an adult, he could be held in contempt of the council and disbarred from voting for a period of time-or for life. Since he was a juvie, there was nothing Menno could do to prevent his disruption, though I could practically see him formulating the rules and laws he could bring to vote to prevent this from happening again. I crossed my lower arms and tried not to smile. I’d speak with Forsa about playing dangerous games later. For now I was proud of him
“You will be allowed to speak, soon,” Menno said with forced patience. “First, we will hear the evidence against. I call forward Siltz…”
A male Ketran a little older than myself fluttered forward to speak his piece. He told those assembled how he had seen, for several days running, a number of youths flying in formations above the trees in the sparsely populated northern segments of the settlement. Others came forward with corroborating evidence, adding that it they thought it looked like fighting, but Forsa’s explanation sounded just as plausible in retrospect.
And so it went. The whole situation was looking more and more farcical with each witness. I glanced at Menno. He was twitching his wings in agitation.
“Very well,” he said after dismissing yet another witness. “We have one more who must be heard.” He nodded toward Compta, who flew to the center. As she opened her mouth to speak, a murmur went up through the crowd. Heads were turning upward and to the east. I followed their gaze to see a small knot of approaching Ketrans. Aguella I recognized immediately, but there were several others with here. They flew weirdly. I squinted to see more clearly. They carried something between them in a net, flapping hard, flying as fast as they could with their burden. I felt my quills bristle as I saw the shape in the net. If I had had the freedom of flight I would have hurried to them, told them to take it elsewhere, that we couldn’t afford the sort of panic this would bring, but I could do nothing trapped in the cage. A smaller figure, one I recognized, flew beside them, pulling back every now and then to stay with the slow pace of the others. There was nothing I could do to stop Aguella, four more enforcers, and Halof from landing in the center of the amphitheater, right underneath me, and spilling the contents of their net for all to see.
It was a Ketran, clearly one of our young ones by her shape. She was still, pliant to the rough handling because she was dead. The crowd stirred as realization dawned. A few hopped from their perches in a start, flying briefly about our heads in a swirl before landing again to dare to look at the corpse. A darkened line of charred quills ran across her back, the work of an energy weapon of some sort, I guessed. Death in the amphitheater was bad enough, but one of the enforcers nudged her, turning her face up so that all would know her identity. Compta. But that couldn’t be, she was…
The other Compta turned her head skyward and laughed, long and low and unnaturally loud. The amphitheater fell into silence save for her voice.
“My master Crayak wanted to destroy you subtly, but I suppose he was out of practice! But never fear, you will die, and…” She turned to me in my cage. “He will have whatever it is you’re hiding. Is it a weapon? That would be so deliciously ironic.”
> Chapter 6 - The Ellimist