poetree

For the DIY Serial Poetry week, I'm going to do a series of poems in the shared Schrodinger's Heroes universe. Most of them, I think, will be crossovers with other fandoms, feel free to ask for background if anything's unclear or interesting.

Animorphs is a science-fiction book series about a team of five Earthling kids plus one alien who have to defend Earth from an invasion of another alien species. The (()) is replacing the angle brackets for thoughtspeak (if you know the fandom, if not, it's just some different notation to set off alien telepathy in dialogue).

Alex patches up the Teferact.
For a while, there stops being evil seeping out of it.
But that doesn't mean things were normal.
They never are.

Aximili panics when he is pulled through the Tef.
Because he does not know who these people are,
He passes as human,
Slowly balancing on a pair of legs,
And is distracted by Pat's cooking.
So distracted, he almost forgets to change back.

They are almost as scared of him
As he is of their machine.
But when they look at his Andalite body--
Four legs, blue skin, four eyes, one tail
(No mouth, alas)
And don't start shooting him,
He decides they're all right.

"Lasers?" says Kay, when he explains.
"No, good old Earth technology is enough for me."
When she shows him her collection of weapons,
He realizes how young his human friends are,
How limited their arsenal.
She had joined the military in peacetime,
Followed orders,
Stitched human bodies together
When humans couldn't change themselves,
And he begins to admire her.

Alex reassures him
He's more than allowed to stay in the ring,
Graze for grass when he wants.
It's tall, but then
Everything's bigger in Texas.
He can wait as long as he needs
And no one will mind,
Not them, not the cats,
Not Tim the Tentacle Monster.
They're already used to having each other,
Species doesn't have to matter.

Except when it does.
Tim has been waiting a long time, you see,
For someone else to have tentacles.
And even if it's just for two hours,
Ax figures it's the least he can do.
First, he has to acquire Tim;
Touching him and focusing
On the yellow--no, green--no, blue below
As Tim calms down,
Mind drifting back to the dark sky.

Then Ax begins to change.
His sharp weapon of a tail
Turns to ooze, his fur ripples and fades,
Another mouth grows. This hunger
Is not so overwhelming as the humans',
Tentacle monster food being harder to come by,
And is overtaken by the instinct
To cuddle with whatever's in sight.
(Schrodinger has to scurry out of the way.)

Just what Tim and Ax get up to
Is none of Alex's business,
Says Tim. Ax, being telepathic,
Makes a little more of an effort.
((But besides, I had exactly his DNA,
It wasn't like we had all
The possible phenotypes, between us.))
"That's enough," says Alex, "thank you."

((I should go back,)) he eventually admits.
He warns them what to fear;
The Hork-Bajir, tree-skinning slaves;
The Taxxons, insatiable cannibals;
The Visser, himself a shape-changer,
Who could fly on the kafit’s unearthly wings
Or balance in a weak, bipedal, human body.

Ash gives him a transponder
That they can use to contact each other.
((For a human machine,))
He says, ((it’s not bad.))

"There were stories," she shrugs,
"Chain letters, newsgroups.
All before my time.
Such inaccessible obfuscation
Of, nevertheless,
Elegant code,
It could only have been written by aliens."

((I’ll try and reverse-engineer it,
If I have time fending off this invasion.))

"It can’t take you that long, can it?"
Says Alex. "Primitive human technology?"

((This Tevatron of yours suggests
That you are more competent than we had imagined.
That, and the cinnamon buns.))

Ash shakes her head. “You and your priorities.”

In an instant he is back,
Not home,
But back with his comrades in arms
(And wings).
They’d been worried about him,
But no harm has been done,
And maybe, just maybe
The transponder will let him reach the homeworld.
Until then, he picks at it,
Hovering night after night over the tiny bits,
Weak fingers seeking out
The signature of family.