#LOOK I JUST REALLY WANTED MORE AX AND ELFANGOR INTERACTION OKAY

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

An Animorphs AU, just because.  The idea hit me and I rolled with it.

The black hole looms on every side, swallowing the horizon.  Elfangor presses cold-numb fingertips against the Time Matrix.  Loren’s floating beside him, the thing inside Alloran watching them both with terrible intent.  He thinks get me out of here.  Thinks I want to go home.  His last thought, before consciousness closes away from him in a black void, is of his family.  His scoop.  A wish flower.  A hologram.  Hope.

A being like nothing Elfangor has ever imagined sees the andalite aristh.  It sees inside his mind.

And it laughs.

Elfangor comes awake on the med table of an andalite fighter.  Not what he had expected, or intended.  There’s no sign of the humans, or of Alloran.  Instead, three andalite warriors stand over him.

«Vitals are normal.  Heartbeats are synchronized, but elevated,» the female warrior says.  She has a kit of medical supplies slung over her shoulder, and she’s watching Elfangor with the kind of naked curiosity that directs all four of her eyes his way.

«Thank you,» the captain says.  «That’ll be all for now.  I’ll let you know if anything changes.»

There’s no doubt that he’s the captain.  Nor that the other male warrior is the Tactical Officer.  It’s clear from the way that the medic salutes with her tail blade as she walks out the door, and from the slight tilt that the T.O. gives in return.

That’s all Elfangor knows.  How he got here... Where here is...

«Please identify yourself,» the T.O. says.  The use of please doesn’t disguise the sharpness of his tone.

«Aristh Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul,» Elfangor says.  «Formerly of the StarSword, although my most recent posting was aboard the Jahar.  Sir, where are the aliens who were with me?»

The captain and the T.O. exchange a glance, just a single stalk eye each.  «What was the nature of this mission, P— Aristh Elfangor?» the T.O. asks.

There’s something they’re not telling him.  It’s obvious there’s an entire conversation happening in thought-speak right now, one to which he is not privy.

«We found two aliens that had been kidnapped by skrit na,» Elfangor says, because he can’t exactly refuse an officer’s direct request.  «Arbron — my fellow aristh — and I were supposed to help Prince Alloran return the aliens to their home planet.»

«Then the Time Matrix was on Earth when you found it?» the captain asks.

Elfangor freezes.  He didn’t mention the name of the planet the aliens had come from, and he definitely didn’t mention the Time Matrix.

Several other details hit all at once.  The captain — if he even is a captain — looks barely older than Elfangor himself.  The T.O.’s posture is too close, too casual, and the captain is allowing it.  Neither one of them has introduced himself yet.

Elfangor has been trusting the captain automatically so far because — he loathes admitting it — because the captain has the same accent as Elfangor’s hometown and the same cowlick in his fur as Elfangor’s own mother, and Elfangor is so desperately homesick that he seized upon these hints of familiarity without ever thinking about why.

«Just answer the question,» the T.O. says.  The captain places a gentle hand on the T.O.’s arm.

«Sir. I...»  Elfangor rolls to stand, taking several steps away.  He salutes with his tail blade by way of apology, and then quickly drops it in submission.  His hearts are pounding.  He could be anywhere.  Anywhere.  «The humans who were with me...»

«They’re both safe on Earth,» the captain says.  «As is Alloran.»

Elfangor’s main eyes shut in shame.  «Sir.  There’s something you should know about Prince Alloran.»

Again, the captain and the T.O. exchange a glance, definitely whispering to each other in thought-speak.  «Yes?» the captain says at last.

«I failed my prince,» Elfangor says, opening his eyes, «and I failed my entire people.  Alloran has been infested by a yeerk called Esplin nine-four-six-six.»

«Oh, good,» the captain says.  «We were hoping you’d say that.»

Elfangor has jumped back, clear across the room and crouched with his tail blade snapping at the ready, faster than conscious thought.  He’d thought that Alloran’s paranoid mutterings about traitor andalites were just that, but now—

«Hey, hey, sorry, there’s no need for that.»  The captain holds up both hands in placation, a strangely humanlike gesture.  «It’s cool, Elfangor, it’s all cool.»  Now he even sounds like a human.  «I only meant that we’re glad you told us.  It means we can trust you.»

The captain takes a step forward.  Elfangor tenses to strike, and he stops moving.

«When I said Alloran’s safe, I meant that he’s no longer a controller,» the captain says.  «The yeerk inside him has been neutralized.»

«Who are you?» Elfangor demands, not lowering his tail.  «How do you know all this?»

Again, the captain and T.O. look at each other.

«Stop doing that!» Elfangor snaps, too overwhelmed to care about etiquette anymore.

«We were just deciding whether it would distress you less, or more, if we were to answer your question,» the T.O. says.  «And also debating the merits of calling Prince Estrid back in here so that she can sedate you for your own well-being.»

«Menderash is telling the truth,» the captain says.  «You taught me everything I know about tail-fighting, and half the Academy besides.  So if you chose to fight your way out of here, I doubt either one of us would be able to stop you.»

«What...»  Elfangor feels his tail lower slightly from sheer confusion.  «What...»

«You’re on board the Dome ship Intrepid,» the captain says.  «Twenty-three standard years have passed since the mission you just described.  Our Tactical Officer is Prince Menderash-Postill-Fastill.  My name is Prince Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill.»

Menderash leaves them alone.  Before he does, he presses the palm of his hand very briefly against Aximili’s cheek, an andalite kiss between lovers.  Elfangor gets his third or fourth shock of the past five minutes.  Normally a warrior, even the significant other of a captain, wouldn’t dare to show affection so openly.

Aximili registers him staring, of course, and tenses.

«You’re... not like other captains,» Elfangor comments awkwardly.

That gets Aximili to smile, eyes crinkling in a way that strengthens the resemblance to their mother.  «I served under two war-princes, both of whom taught me well.  One was considered wildly unconventional by andalite standards.»  He tilts a stalk at Elfangor.  «The other one wasn’t an andalite at all.»

Elfangor blinks.  «Things really have changed while I was gone.»

«Not that much, it would seem.  Prince Jake is...»  Ax makes a see-saw gesture with one hand, still strangely human in his mannerisms.  «The War Council does not officially recognize his position.  Any warrior who has ever seen him lead tends to hold a different opinion.  Alloran himself risked a challenge against a superior officer on Prince Jake’s behalf.»

«Alloran.»  Elfangor’s head is going to fall clean off if things get any more confusing.  «Challenged an officer.  For an alien.»

«In a way, it’s all your fault.»  Aximili’s smile turns fond.  «You’re the one who gave Prince Jake — and four other humans — the ability to morph.»

«I... why?»

«The yeerks were on Earth,» Aximili says simply.

And yes, that really does explain it all.

«The Electorate officials were angry at first,» he continues.  «But you did so much good for the war effort, it wasn’t long before they were putting up statues and naming Dome ships in your honor.»

Elfangor laughs, but stops abruptly.  «I’m dead, then.»  They don’t name Dome ships after living warriors.

Aximili goes still, realizing his error too late.  «Not before ensuring victory over the yeerks,» he says at last.  «You died honorably, doing battle to your last—»

A shudder wracks Elfangor’s body.  Of course there’s no escaping the war.  Of course not.  Of course they’ll make him fight and keep fighting, down to the very last heartbeat.  No end point.  No reprieve.  No other way.  Just a killer.  Just a tail blade and a trigger finger, and nothing in between.

Even after death, they wouldn’t let him be.  Named their war machines after him.  Taught their children to kill and die in his name.

«Elfangor...?»

«I’d like to be alone, if that’s all right,» he says.

Aximili nods.  He salutes briefly — one war-prince to another, this time — and leaves.

The next time they talk, there are a million questions.  Elfangor doesn’t know how he got here, or why he showed up without the Time Matrix.  Aximili can’t explain anything Elfangor saw before losing consciousness, but he does have more firsthand experience with time travel than Elfangor himself.  Haltingly, in fits and tangents, Aximili does his best to catch Elfangor up on everything that has happened in the years he missed.  Some of it makes no sense — Elfangor was a nothlit, and then he wasn’t — and some of it, like Arbron’s rebellion against the Yeerk Empire, fits perfectly.

Aximili gives Elfangor the free run of the Intrepid, and finds him a spare room to get him out of the med bay.  Warriors salute as they pass and call him “Prince Elfangor,” or “sir.”  The official story as recorded in the ship’s log is that he’s a castaway aristh rescued from a damaged fighter.  But the other warriors figured out Elfangor’s identity the moment he appeared unconscious in the middle of their dome, and now gossip follows him everywhere: he’s a war-prince.  A relic.  Most importantly: he’s Aximili’s little brother.  Yeah, the Aximili.

«Am I a prince?» he asks Menderash once, in a moment of weakness.

Menderash has been teaching Elfangor how to pilot.  Ten years ago, Menderash learned how to pilot by watching Elfangor.  They both try not to think about this too hard.

«Why would you ever think that you are not?» Menderash says, and then, «Eyes, Prince Elfangor.»

Elfangor sighs.  He has once again allowed his eyes to drift away from their proper position — one on the altitude, one on the engine lights, two on the viewscreen — to look down at his hands on the controls.  «I barely have any flight experience, for one,» he says.  «And the person who killed all those yeerks, won all those battles... He’s not me.  Not yet, and now not ever.  I think not, anyway.»

Menderash considers.  «You’re asking if our experiences make us who we are, or if we are born the way we will always be.»

«Um, yes.»

«I have no idea,» he says immediately, «but if you don’t stop accelerating into every takeoff like you’re being chased, then I will throw you out of the airlock.»

Elfangor flushes.  «Are you this mean to Aximili?»

«You mean when we’re alone together?»

And now Elfangor is flushing even more, half-hoping the floor will open and swallow him.

Menderash laughs.  «If I am, then I suppose you’ll have to throw me out of the airlock.»

«I’m a powerful war-prince, I guess.»  Elfangor dares to glance over at him.  «So you had better treat him right.»

«Eyes, Prince Elfangor.»  Menderash is still smiling, though.  «I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.»

There are a lot of long conversations with various authorities.  The Andalite War Council’s official opinion is that Elfangor might be the real deal but that they still refuse to acknowledge his existence, and will consider anyone attempting to use Elfangor’s identity an act of treason.  The Electorate defers to the War Council’s insistence on Elfangor’s death, but the representative they get on the phone asks for Elfangor’s autograph anyway.  The Galactic Union of Sentient Species has entirely too much interest in time travel, and also in pretending that time travel doesn’t exist and therefore Elfangor doesn’t exist.

«What are they so afraid of?» Elfangor asks Aximili, after their seventh or eighth attempt at contacting a real authority meets a dead end.  «I swore I wouldn’t tell anyone about the Time Matrix, and I mean it.  If I just said it was a sario rip from the Jahar’s engine exploding, no one would ever have to know.»

Aximili looks Elfangor over, clearly deciding how to explain something he worries Elfangor is too young to understand.  «I believe they’re most afraid of you being yourself,» he says at last.

«What?»

«You are a person,» Aximili says.  «You love human rock music.  You have more tells than a ten-day aristh when you tail-fight, and nevertheless manage to win every fight in spite of, or perhaps because of, your unconventional technique.  You almost whacked your own stalks on a low branch yesterday while feeding in the dome.  You fell in love with a human.  You snore.»  He looks out the viewscreen, sighing.  «Elfangor... War-Prince Elfangor... is a legend.  A Dome ship.  An inspiration.  A statue in our shipyard.  Prince Elfangor isn’t clumsy, or nerdy, or anything.  Because he’s not really a person at all.»

Elfangor digests that for several minutes, staring out at the stars.  He thinks he’s a little afraid of this legend.  That he’s afraid of the implications, if the legend really was just a guy like him.

Elfangor doesn’t ask what are you going to do with me.  Doesn’t tell Aximili I want to go home.  Aximili knows, and he can’t do anything about it.  He has an entire ship to run, and almost a hundred warriors to look out for.  Babysitting an aristh is no job for a captain, especially not one on perhaps the most dangerous mission left to the entire Andalite Navy.  They’re hunting an entire ship’s worth of morph-capable controllers, dodging norshk pirates, skirting the hairy edge of kelbrid space.  The other warriors on the ship, even Aximili, seem to consider the whole thing a grand adventure, and everyone seems to expect that Elfangor will want a piece of the action.  Elfangor wants to be done with the war.  It already killed him once, destroyed his life a dozen times; he wants nothing to do with chasing the last of its ragged edges.

Almost a week later, Aximili drops a call invite to Elfangor’s quarters.  It’s a z-space comm link between the Intrepid and a distant planet.

Elfangor feels a chill of unease when the link lights up.  One holo shows Aximili, but the other shows a male human with dirty-blond hair and soft grey eyes.

He doesn’t need the identifier at the bottom of the screen.  He knows who Tobias is, and Tobias knows him.  They stare at each other, at a loss.

«Why don’t you explain what you were telling me,» Ax says at last, breaking the moment.

“Oh yeah, funny story.”  Tobias shifts, shoulders hunching.  Birdlike.  “Prince Elfangor’s still legally dead.  But Alan Fangor, Yale graduate, former Microsoft programmer, resident of the state of California?  We looked into it, and that guy’s still got a Social Security number, a bank account, and a slightly-expired driver’s license.  He owes some back taxes, but we could handle that.”

Elfangor looks at him and Aximili both.  «You’re suggesting...?»

“Only if you want to,” Tobias says quickly.  “And only for as long as you want.  And obviously there’s no reason you would want to.  It was just a suggestion.”

I want, Elfangor thinks, to be anywhere — anywhere at all — that isn’t a sunsforsaken battleship.

He looks at Aximili.  «How far are we from Earth?»

In the shuttle on the way down to the planet, Elfangor thinks he can see some of his own bad influence.  Aximili’s piloting technique is atrocious — he looks at the controls, ignores warning parameters, uses incorrect commands — and yet the inter-atmosphere transition and eventual landing are some of the smoothest Elfangor has ever experienced.  Aximili is talented, even more so for being halfway self-taught.

There are over a dozen humans standing on the landing pad when the ship sets down in the courtyard of the military base, but two step forward from the crowd.  Up close, Tobias looks to be about Elfangor’s own age in human years.  The woman beside him is familiar and yet not, wearing the middle-aged version of Loren’s features.  Elfangor feels his knees lock, and almost stumbles in the doorway.  He’s not sure he can do this.

“Ax-Man!” Tobias says.  “Only gonna be gone for six of our months, huh?”  He spreads strong human arms.  “You haven’t forgotten what an Earth month is, have you?”

Aximili steps past Elfangor, rushing to perform a human embrace with Tobias that involves briefly squeezing their arms around each other.  «You are at greater risk of such an error than I am, my friend.  You know perfectly well that the delay was unavoidable.»

“We’ll overlook it this time.”  Tobias smiles.  “Anyway, welcome to Zone 91, a place that you have definitely never been before under any circumstances.”

«Of course not.»  Aximili is smiling as well.  «Entering Zone 91 without the proper human authorization would have been illegal, and also ill-advised.»

Shorms, Elfangor thinks, watching them.  He’s surprised by a pang of envy.  They’re so clearly family to each other, his son and his brother, and he’s only just met them both.

Loren’s watching them both from across the way.  The longing on her face, he realizes, is just the same.

There’s paperwork.  A surprising amount.  The human authorities are apparently willing to tolerate his existence on Earth, but only after a frustrating amount of documentation. Tobias opts out of all of it, simply disappearing into the sky above during a moment of distraction.

It’s strange, doubly so, when Elfangor remembers that Tobias is demorphing rather than simply morphing to become a bird.  He’s heard what everyone says about nothlits on the homeworld — and he’d believed it, too.  Believed that Arbron was better off dead than taxxon.  And yet Arbron had outlived him by over five years.  Had done more to end the war than Elfangor himself had ever accomplished.

And Tobias is... Not what he’d expected, once he’d gotten over the triple surprise of you have a son — he’s an alien — he’s a nothlit.  Tobias acts as ambassador between the hork-bajir and human authorities.  Tobias has lives in two worlds — three?  Four?  He has a house in a human city, and a meadow out in the wilds.  He becomes an identical copy of Aximili and they race each other across the desert outside, arriving wild and breathless as children while Elfangor and Loren take the far more sedate ride back to civilization in the Army transport Jeep.

For the first time — or maybe the second — Elfangor thinks he can see the appeal in giving up andalite shape forever.

Tobias becomes human again once they’re dropped off, morphing with the same breathtaking speed that Aximili demonstrates.  He leads them through the downtown of a city that has skrit na hawking exotic wares on street corners, gedds shouldering through its crowds, hork-bajir hopping between the roofs of skyscrapers, andalite tourists clustered outside an establishment called Krispy Kreme.  Elfangor looks in all directions at once like a tourist himself, startled that such a place could exist.

“Alientown, California,” Loren comments, when she sees him looking.  “Not its real name, but that’s what everyone calls it.”

«We don’t have anything like this.  Anywhere in the galaxy,» Elfangor says.  «Not where — when — I come from.»

“Blame the Animorphs,” she says, raising her eyebrows at where Tobias and Ax push ahead.  “Although I guess Alloran was pretty instrumental in negotiating the treaties as well.”

Elfangor shakes his head.  He’s never going to stop being surprised, he’s concluded.  He’ll just have to get used to a state of perpetual shock, because this is his life now.  Or he’d like it to be.

When they reach the house, Tobias barely have time to pull the front door open before two different quadrupedal aliens rush outside.  Loren laughs as the larger one rears back and starts licking her face.  Tobias dives to catch the smaller one, scooping it into his arms.  “Dude, Dude, we’ve talked about this,” Tobias croons, cradling the creature.  “You eat birds, birds eat you, it’s a bad deal all around if you don’t stay inside.  You’re an invasive species, bud.  And also really easy to spot from overhead.”

“Down, Champ.”  Loren gently shoves the other animal back onto all four paws.  “You know, I had to have an entire mostly-civil conversation with my skeevy sister’s even skeevier ex to get you that cat,” she tells Tobias.  “And this is how you repay me, by teaching my dog bad manners.”

“He’s retired.”  Tobias buries his chin in the cat’s fur.  “Bad manners and lapsed training are his prerogative.”

“Sorry,” Loren tells Elfangor, shooing both him and the dog inside.  “It’s not normally this...”  She shrugs.  “Chaotic?”

“Since when?” a different human asks, as they step inside.  She’s female, if Elfangor reads her hair and clothing correctly, and moves around using a wheeled apparatus with a small motor.

“This is Kelly,” Loren says.  “And Erica —”  A different human waves from the next room over — “And Elena’s visiting her boyfriend last I heard, but she’ll be back soon, and she also has a dog.”

“I’m with Kelly on this one,” Tobias says.  “Never not chaotic.”  He smiles at Elfangor, still holding the furry cat-thing.  “We didn’t mean to start a collection of stray Animorphs and veteran pets, honestly.”

Loren brings Elfangor through to a room that has screened windows on three sides opening onto their backyard, most of the human furniture pushed to one side.  “The room’s yours for as long as you want,” she tells him.  “We put Ax out here, but he’s away a lot, so it’s yours.  Everyone else tends to go in and out, so I’m afraid there’s not much quiet, but...”  She shrugs.  “Welcome.”

He’s a long way away from the scoop where he grew up.  He’s half-forgotten already what he’d wished for, shaking palms pressed against the most powerful machine in the known galaxy.  He’s in a strange house, a strange city, surrounded by aliens.

«Thank you,» he says, and, «If it’s all right with you, I’d like to stay.»