I paused our conversation and looked around. If you looked
at Ryan’s apartment you would think there was no way he was originally an
Andalite. No way could an alien have fishing photos or a photo of him just
having one slice of pizza in his mouth. Andalites don’t have mouths and Ax had
showed me how excited one of his species can get with one.
“Too human?” Ryan asked, a small smile on his face.
“Yeah, just…creepy.” I replied, taking another sip of beer.
“I’ve had a long time to adapt to this world. I’ve been here
for so long that it is home. Wasn’t easy, I can tell you that.”
“Don’t think it would be.” I said, taking a big chug of the
beer. “I mean…I know Ax was always complaining about the two legs thing and
being surprised us humans could get anything done with them. Oh, and then there
was having a mouth. If he wasn’t playing around with sounds he was sticking
something in his mouth that was dangerous.”
“I can imagine.” Ryan said and shook his head. “Mouths are
amazing things and I didn’t really know how to deal with mine at first. I wish
I had someone who knew what I was when I first arrived.”
“I wonder if you were more easy to manage than Ax. If so, I
would’ve been happy to help. If not…one more crazed Andalite is not worth it.”
“I’d like to think that I was more controlled than an Aristh
would be.”
“Ax was very brave and kept things together when he was away
from his people. I don’t know if I’d call him a normal Aristh or not. I don’t
have much experience with them.”
“Do you want more experience with them?”
“I don’t want to lead. It might be nice and peaceful right
now, but if there’s a war I’m not leading ever again.”
“I can understand,” Ryan said with a sigh and I grimaced.
“Being a leader is hard work. Everyone expects so much of you and when you
can’t deliver…horrible. They just don’t understand how hard things can be.”
“I’m sorr-“ I started.
“Don’t be. I did a bad thing when I left my own men to fight
in the war while I ran away like a scared little Aristh. Hell, the Aristh who
did land on Earth did a better job than me. If I ever get the ability to
contact him I’ll tell him that. Or maybe not.”
“Don’t worry, Ax won’t mind.”
Ryan was silent for a few minutes and seemed to gather
himself. I let him wait until he felt like the time was right to ask whatever
he was going to ask.
“What do you know about Crayak?” He finally asked. “Nothing
much has been written about him. None of you Animorphs ever really said
anything about him. And your book basically skipped over him for the most
part.”
“Crayak.” I said and decided to tell Ryan more than I had
told anyone before. “As long as you give this information on a need to know
basis I don’t mind telling you.”
Ryan nodded, eager to learn.
“You know of the Ellimist?” I started and Ryan nodded. “Well
Crayak is his enemy. He’s the thing that the Ellimist fights against. They’ve
been fighting a war for a very long time. Crayak destroyed the Pemalites which
were a species of peace that the Ellimist created to fight Crayak’s violence.
Crayak defeated the Pemalites, and many other species, with his own troops
called the Howlers. But…that’s a story for another time.”
I was suddenly brought back to the moment I had learned the
truth about the Howlers. I, and the others, had heard Erek King talk about the
species like they were demons. Like they were devils. But the Howlers were just
children who had been fooled into killing people they didn’t know were alive.
“Crayak has a creature called Drode which is his right hand
man.” I continued. “I don’t know how he came into being involved with Crayak,
but that’s where he is now. If things haven’t changed. When a Yeerk dies they
can see a glimpse of Crayak which is how I first saw him though I didn’t know
what he was that first time.”
“So the stories are true?” Ryan asked.
“That I was a Controller, yes.” I said and got another
bottle of beer. “But all the stories about how Temrash was able to fool the
others into nearly letting him get to Visser One was all a lie. They had
trouble stopping him from escaping, but it wasn’t like he was about to feed from
the Yeerk pool or anything.”
“And Marco didn’t dramatically save the group, I take it?”
“Nah, he decided to make a summer blockbuster about the
event and I allowed him. If I don’t allow him to make his films every now and
again, I don’t want to know what ideas he’ll come up with and how he'll find ways around
me so that he can do them.”
We laughed a little at that and clanged our beer bottles
together. Then we were silent. What if Esplin was really in league with Crayak?
I had told Ryan about how dangerous Crayak was and now he must be feeling my
fear.
I then chugged the beer down in one gulp.
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