Thursday, November 19, 2020

Beyond Honor Chapter 2: To the Sky

This is an Animorphs/Game of Thrones fic. All rights belong to the copyright holders. 

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Fear began to tear through my body. For a moment I thought about killing myself with my tail-blade. At least there was one honorable thing that was still possible for me. No, I couldn't do that no matter how much I wanted to. Suicide was a coward's way out.

Should I fight these strange humans? It would be exhilarating. Maybe I'd even survive. The real trick would be getting up without dying from the humans around me. Then I'd have to continually dodge the arrows that would rain down upon me. After that it would be easy to kill the remaining humans.

But something told me not to. Something begged me to stay with the humans. The thought didn't come from me but a...I didn't know. My stalk eyes looked over the humans to see who could be speaking to me in such a way. Humans did not have the ability to communicate in any form of thought-speak.

Though that applied to Earth humans, it might not apply to these humans. Those holding the spear-like weapons were growing nervous and I had to make my decision on what to do very soon. One wrong move could make me react by pure instinct instinct and start a short lived fight.

The only humans that were remaining calm were the two white skinned humans. The woman with the three dragons looked at me with the curiosity of a child. And why should she look at me with fear? She didn't know what an Andalite was and the primitive humans seemed very capable of killing me.

The man that sounded like Elfangor had his hand tight on his sword. There was no doubt in my mind that he was the woman's personal guard. So if I got close enough he would die defending her. While I could see the curiosity in the woman's eyes, I couldn't read any emotion in the man's.

Finally my translator started working and I understood my position a little better. The woman was Khaleesi, a rough translation for queen, and the man was Ser Jorah. The strange humans around me were called Dothraki. They were primitive even to the other two humans.

So what should I do? I didn't want to kill them as the stranger wanted them alive. But I also didn't want to stay with them. I was an Andalite and shouldn't lower myself to serve humans. Which only left the option to escape them. Maybe later I would join them or I'd seek out a way home.

If I were to flee instead of fighting, I had to look for the easiest way out. That goal couldn't be achieved if I killed everyone and angered the stranger. If he were powerful then I could die on this foreign planet. I could die before my journey home could even begin.

I looked over the Dothraki and saw the easiest path out. Though I would most likely get wounded, that wouldn't matter as morphing healed all wounds. The only three morphs I had were djabala, kafit bird, and Hork-Bajir which didn't give me many options.

Andalites had created the morphing technology and yet we didn't use it as much as we should. If our ways had been different I would have many morphs to choose from for my escape. As is, the only creature fit for my escape was the kafit bird.

I had originally morphed a kafit bird to impress a beautiful estreen dancer and she taught me a few tricks. Hopefully I still remembered them.

Without truly thinking I used my tail to knock away a few of the Dothraki nearest me and that motion helped me stand upright. There was only time for my instincts to react to what happened next. My tail was quick enough to defend myself against the humans. My four hooves were quick enough to move me through the group before the humans could come up with an actual plan.

While my hooves and tail-blade weren't failing me, there was only so much I could do about the archers. I didn't want to get any humans harmed, but there was no choice. The Dothraki became very useful as shields. The archers would shoot and I'd move so that a human would be hurt instead. Various curses were thrown my way.

Escape was close but I would need to morph before the Dothraki were far behind me. Or else they would kill me in mid-morph. It was one thing to die far from home. It was an entirely different thing to die as a twisted mix of kafit and Andalite.

Even as I ran I focused on morphing as my blood changed the color of my fur. The process never made any sense and was beyond horrific. It was only estreens who could make morphing appealing. With the dancer's teachings, I focused on making my bones hollow and the twelve wings appear. It was hard to concentrate so much while defending myself against the Dothraki. But the only other option was to die or be captured.

The first change to occur was the twelve wings shooting out from my sides, six on each side. This gave the archers new targets and they took advantage of it. One wing became damaged which hopefully wouldn't matter. A problem with the wings was my tail couldn't move like before and so the Dothraki became harder to defend against. Especially when my bones became lighter which made my tail-blade less deadly.

I let out a sigh of relief as I shrank. This new development seemed to make it harder for the Dothraki to attack me. At least for the moment.

As two arrows and a few blades shaped like my tail-blade came towards me, I found myself light enough to fly. As my wings beat furiously at the air, I began to rise. Slower than that I became more of a kafit bird.

I now focused only on the kafit bird and didn't try and force the morph to happen a certain way. There was no need as the humans became smaller and smaller beneath me. When my morph was finished I started to circle the group.

The stranger called for me to come back down. But should I trust something I didn't understand?

DECIDE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT BY JOINING HERE WE STAND

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