goneawaycomms | Stacia Novik

You can be allergic to -- okay, not the point. Do you want help with that?

[She points at the comb. Alloran can obviously take care of it himself, but social grooming is a thing and it might be easier for Stacia and her blunt fingers to get at knots more easily than Alloran's very sharp tailblade.]

If you want to tell me, I'm sure I'd appreciate the information. But I'm generally reluctant to ask anyone to do something that they feel is repugnant.

[Alloran considers.]

<If you're not put off by my just noting that I can copy DNA by touch, I wouldn't mind.>

<Allergic reaction is an imperfect analogy. By the way, what actually happens is that my emotions are heightened for a few days, I morph uncontrollably when upset enough, and it ends in the morph budding off of me. Meaning there's a fresh copy of whatever I acquired fighting free of my body and then being extremely confused. It's quite rare, but it's happened to me a few times, including the first human I acquired. Unfortunately, Esplin has a habit of acquiring anything that catches his interest. He had to develop a whole procedure for it, but the first time almost got him killed.>

[He's stalling, not actually wanting to say the more upsetting thing. Morph allergies are a very distracting topic anyway.]

[Stacia makes a grabby gesture in the direction of the comb. She's not about to just grab it herself, she likes having her fingers attached and that tail blade looks sharp.]

If you were going to copy my DNA for nefarious purposes, you've already had ample opportunity to do so. Besides, all you'd get is a cute human - the werewolf stuff is magic.

[She listens to the description of a DNA allergy with fascination.]

That sounds wild. Also deeply alarming. Do you get hungry and bloated until the morph buds off?

<Hah. All right then. It’s actually been a good way to be sure that Esplin isn’t here - I’ve not acquired anything in a year.>

[He gives it over. The last foot or so of his tail, past the blade, has a hairless pad on one side for grasping with. That blade is still close enough that not grabbing is a wise move.]

<No, the final sign is an uncontrolled morph into a large creature without particular emotional impetus. I don’t think Escafil described the hereth illint process adequately when my cohort and I were presented with the technology. She brought it up in passing as a “discharge of the offending DNA.” The first time it actually happened to me was after Esplin acquired an animal that ejects near-boiling water from holes in its shell. It was... dramatic.>

[Stacia promptly goes to work on Alloran's fur. It's clear that she has experience dealing with wet fur, which probably doesn't surprise him.]

I imagine it was. Anything that shoots hot water out as a defense mechanism probably wasn't delighted to find itself on dry land.

[She considers asking a question to lead them back to the topic of whatever he warned her was repulsive to him, but decides to let the silence do it for her. He's probably gearing himself up to it, and it's not like she doesn't have something to do with her hands while she waits.]

[Alloran had allowed himself to be attended by stylists for that calendar shoot, and they had done some hair-pulling in the process. Stacia does seem to know what she's doing, though his fur has a rather different consistency than a wolf's. The metallic guard hairs aren't as soft, the shedding under layer thinner, and the very long hairs of his undermane are almost more like human hair, but... not.

He watches her at it with a stalk eye, allowing his main eyes to close. The other eye stands sentinel.]

<Let alone to find itself half embedded in a bioweapon shaped like a tree. One of the worse choices of morph for that moment, I have to say. The lerdethak is an impressive monster, but its main body is vulnerable to scalding.>

[He could go on about this for a long time. It had been a very dramatic and troubling incident that had done significant damage to Esplin's standing in the Yeerk Empire. He really probably shouldn't, though. Alloran's not built to sigh quite the way humans do, it's much more a visual sign with only a faint sound of escaping air.]

<I have... I have a morph that allows me to use someone's body as my own, and read their minds without restriction. I acquired Esplin decades ago in some fruitless ploy, and so I have a Yeerk morph. It's not the sort of thing I could make much use of on my own, you understand.>

[He shares a very non-explicit, stylized image like a diagram - a hand carrying a large sluglike mass to a head with ears and a floating shape representing the brain. The mass vanishing, the brain outlined in slug-color with tendrils reaching in. The mass reappearing outside of the head and being carried away again. It is colored with a stomach-churning slice of nausea and self-loathing.]

[Alloran's fur is an interesting texture under her hands, and Stacia is rather pleased to have found an opportunity to touch it without treating Alloran like a resident of a petting zoo. He's less greasy than most of the wolves she's petted, though some of that may be his freshly-showered state. She hums in response to the rest of the story about his morphing allergies, because she's going to pull them further off-topic if she opens her mouth. A bio-weapon shaped like a tree, huh?

Then he sighs and explains what he's been dancing around and oh. That certainly explains why the idea horrifies him. She almost drops the brush.]

Oh! Oh, oh no, we have a way to dig the information we need out of his head already! I mean, thank you for volunteering the information, I can see why you wouldn't want to, but we're not so desperate that we'd need you to do that.

[Not so desperate yet, at any rate. And the very fact that she's even thinking that absolutely means that she's a bad person; but...someone has to be. Someone already has that capacity, and it may as well be her.]

[A surge of relief just kinda shades the air between them. Alloran's tail actually slackens, not going limp but letting a coil of it rest on his back, though it's quickly raised again.]

<The need didn't seem quite grave enough but I'm glad to hear it. All the same, I know we are not in a good situation. The Rig's mission is necessary for human civilization to continue, but the company that controls it has gone far past understandable degrees of harshness and precaution.>

[He doesn't like the whole shock collar forced recruitment angle, but he gets it. It's something he would have done in moments of desperation, if he had the means and a collection of strange, resourceful aliens with unknown loyalties.]

<Sometimes terrible actions are truly called for, and Stacia, I am not a good person. I have done things for which there is no forgiveness.> [The certainty in his tone is solid. He's opened his main eyes and is actually making eye contact with them, which is... intense this close. Alloran's main eyes are so huge and green, with broad horizontal pupils.] <I would like to imagine I have learned some little wisdom. Some boundaries I will not cross again, and I can't be trusted to make ethical calls. But I can do this if I must. I can violate someone's mental and physical autonomy, if I must.>

[At least Alloran understands the "yet", for all that she hadn't voiced it. It will still hurt him to do the thing -- to transform into a Yeerk and inflict on another person what had been done to him for years -- but as long as she has good reason, it won't hurt him that she asked him to do it. Stacia holds his gaze, as disconcerting as it is, and nods solemnly. She understands how much trust Alloran is placing in her by sharing all of this information with her. The least she can do is acknowledge it. Hopefully she can prove herself worthy of it.]

I understand. And, perhaps unfortunately, I agree. I won't pretend to know the things you bear responsibility for, but I've learned a great deal about what I'm capable of asking of myself and others. I still trust in my ability to make ethical calls; but if you would prefer I do so, I'm willing to verify my conclusions with someone else before asking this of you.

<I'm glad to hear it. I'd rather this was not widely known, though I am also telling Saturday. You are young, but it seems that you see more clearly than this old man.>

[Gaze is such a thing for him. While in Andalite shape he looks people in the eyes with his stalk eyes quite readily. Main eye contact that lasts more than a few seconds is reserved for important things; otherwise, he tends to look over someone's shoulder if he's facing them, which still lets him see facial expressions clearly. When he's in human morph he makes more eye contact, but his gaze tends to drift or become fixed. It all contributes to the general impression that he's not entirely present in the moment.

Now he lets the lids of his main eyes drift mostly closed. Those are some fabulous eyelashes.]

<So tell me about this other method you have. Is it Kerrigan?>

Saturday and I work well together. We'll be able to check each other when necessary.

[Stacia's relieved when she doesn't have to hold his gaze anymore -- less because of how alien his eyes are and more because staring each other down is a regular dominance game among Garou. There's a fine line between respectful eye contact and a challenge, and she's very much not going for the latter.

Alloran really does have great eyelashes though. Stacia's jealous.]

It's not. I acquired a device that allows me to freeze someone in place and look at their memories. I just need to have a quiet place to do it, because if someone disturbs the person while I'm looking at their memories, I could get...stuck.

[They're thick and dark, and with the blue-black skin visible on his eyelids it's certainly an effect.

Alloran draws in a deep breath, touching his many fingertips together and making the effort to stay on-task and not lose focus. Even after a year of freedom, he hasn't lost all tendency to lose the plot, to just sort of give up and drift for a while. It was a great adaptation to being infested, but he wants to be present now.]

<One of those sudden appearances I've heard about? Interesting. Have you tested it? How do you know this, about being stuck?>

Yes and no. I found a key in my bunk, and when I touched it, I learned that it went to a box the Jorg has in their little museum of oddities. It dissolved after I used it to unlock the box, but I still got the head-invasion tool. Which also filled me in on how to use it and what could happen if it was disturbed while in use. [Stacia wrinkles her nose.] Have I mentioned that I find it unsettling with inanimate objects info-dump directly into my brain? Because it's spooky, and that's me saying it.

Bunny let me test it out on him. He froze in place, and a ghost version of him appeared along with a door. I went through the door and ended up in a place where I could access his memories, but I didn't shuffle around too much. I'm not a big fan of doing that sort of thing without a really good reason.

Stacia Novik

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