Richard's Animorphs Forum

Well, it's been a while since I posted here. I'm alive, and I've moved from Memoirs to a series I call Compendium Cycles.

I am alive! Anyone else still kickin'?

Magic and druids and time travel. Also all from the mouth of a big talking bird.

Still not the weirdest thing Sam had experienced in the past.. How long had it been since earth? A year or two? Cas tended to be a smartass and just referred to 'standard rotations'. She watched curiously as Pluck enthusiastically showed off the instrument or whatever the thing actually was to Dekket, who analyzed it with apparent puzzlement before turning to her. She listened closely to the explanation, and furrowed her eyes.

"Well, you're right that doesn't make sense." She looked around the bar and shrugged. "But frankly, none of this makes sense. And from my perspective nothing has made sense for a long time." She peered back at Dekket, something popping in her head.

"So your host is in there - not to be too rude, but he's OK with the arrangement?" She waved a hand in front of Dekket's face. "Heyoo, buddy. You alright in there?" She laughed then. "Ah, not like I'd be able to tell the difference anyway if you were letting him speak or not. Tell me though, I'm curious. Brain-dwelling alien - what's your deal? I mean are you part of some, government or something? Or you just on your own doing your own thing out here?"

Dekket checks the pipes thoroughly in his hands, but for the life of him the Yeerk can't see anything unusual about them. They were a bit small, but other than that they looked like every musical instrument his van had ever seen. <It doesn't make sense...>

<Sure it does. Means you're gonna have to tell your boss what you found once you figure out where this little lady came from, doesn't it? Another world for the Empire's collection,> spat Andrew irritably.

<I don't think that will work,> Dekket shot back. <I don't think we can get to ->

He turned suddenly when he heard the soldier woman speak. "Ah, right." He nodded. "Yes, he's in there. Though as I said, he doesn't seem to be the person he's supposed to be. I'm...I believe I'm supposed to have a different host. Believe me, I know it doesn't make sense. Also..."

He sighed a little. "...yes, 'brain slug' is mostly accurate, for a human. I am roughly slug-shaped, after all. But there are significant differences. Our primary source of sustenance is sunlight, and we're aquatic. Most of the typical species people expect brain slugs to look like are not."

Dekket takes a sip of his redin as the bizarre little corvid natters on. He frowns. "Forty years? How? Feywild? Is that...a faerie space, then?" He didn't exactly want to bring up that the bird looked near exactly like some kind of faery herself to Andrew, anyway.

"Of course!" Pluck says, her enthusiasm nearly matching Dekket's. She passes her birdpipes over to him, allowing him to inspect them; curiously, there seems to be nothing out of the ordinary about them. They appear in every way to be a normal musical instrument. "I don't really know how I can do it. I learned how to cast spells with music during my trip to the Feywild, and that whole trip is really blurry." She pauses, seemingly trying to remember something, but quickly shakes off whatever thought she was pondering.

"I've always known how to talk to plants, though, or as long as I can remember. I grew up near a Druid Grove, so that kind of magic is really common where I'm from. I really wish I could remember how I learned the rest though; a lot of things were fuzzy after I came back home - I had been gone for forty years!" She's nearly shouting at this point, as if she can't believe it herself. "And let me tell you, I'm hardly a day over eighteen! For me, I was gone for only two weeks, but forty years had passed at my home! My younger brother, Flick, is so much older than me now! And bigger, too!" Pluck gestures with her wings, trying to convey how much her brother had grown.

"Anyway, he and his husband Del helped me get settled back in, and Del helped me figure out how to get more consistent with my magic. It's a good thing they were there to help, because Papa and Mama..." Pluck suddenly trails off, falling into an uncomfortable silence, as she stares almost blankly into her drink.