joysweeper replied to your post “hey, I’ve had an eye infection for a few days and I’m egregiously...”
A Yeerk enthusing to a friend about something that thrills them about having a host - senses, size, speed, mind contact, anything. Any degree of host angst.
@acavatica replied to your post “hey, I’ve had an eye infection for a few days and I’m egregiously...”
I could really go for some Caftran.
Here’s something for both of you. To be clear, I “wrote” this by speaking it one sentence at a time into my phone with my eyes closed, then later now that my eye infection is clearing up, I’ve edited out all the pauses as I thought of the next sentence to say, and I transcribed the fic below. Call it a reverse pod.
This is a Caftran Dæmorphing Divergence set in a post-war scenario where everything and everyone is just fine, goddamnit.
(Please don’t expect it to go this way in Dæmorphing canon.)
forged you like a gun
“To survive, I forged you like a gun,
like an arrow in my bow, like a stone in my sling.”
– Poema 1, Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada, Pablo Neruda (my translation)
For the first time in well over a year, human skin touches Aftran that is not Eva’s.
She knows in advance that it’s Cassie. It was announced in Yeerkish in the Pool. She feels like she should know by touch somehow. But she doesn’t. She knows Cassie best from the inside, not the outside.
Everything inside Cassie quakes with tearful relief. There is so much grief here, too, but Aftran doesn’t want to take anything Cassie doesn’t want to give.
Through Cassie’s eyes, she sees what she already knows: that the Pool is inside a human military base. “Let’s get out of here,” Quincy says, and Cassie walks out, and somehow, none of the military men dare to stop her.
Outside in California sunlight, golden and heavy, an endless plisam. You’re free, Cassie says inside the boundaries of her own head, and it’s such an irony Aftran wants to laugh, but it doesn’t feel right to use Cassie’s mouth for that. What do you want to do with your freedom?
Everything is wrong. Why is it so wrong, why does– the inside of Cassie’s skin feel wrong, it shouldn’t be like that–
Morph osprey, Aftran says. I’ve worked so hard to save this planet, and I’ve been watching it from so far away, up in that Pool ship.
“Okay,” Cassie says, and morphs right out in the open, like it’s nothing.
Morphing is supposed to be horrifying, she knows– or that’s the normal reaction. But Cassie isn’t horrified by morphing, so how can Aftran be? It feels like fluid grace, this deep extension of herself, part of her that knows every animal so intimately, the way Aftran knows Cassie. The way Aftran should know Cassie. But maybe she doesn’t anymore, after so long apart.
Seeing Santa Barbara from above as an osprey isn’t the comfort Aftran thought it might be, the reassurance that she did the right thing. There’s holes blasted in the landscape; everything is a ruin. There’s National Guard units around the city. The forest is a total mess.
You’re very quiet, Cassie says. I’m sorry, I should have warned you.
It’s not your fault, Aftran says. It’s mine. I just... I couldn’t be in your human body, Cassie, I’ve spent... so long with Eva, I just... it doesn’t feel right somehow– Eva didn’t want me there, so I shouldn’t say this, but– she has this way of looking at the world. This way of understanding everything on four different levels. Not having that, it– feels like a missing limb somehow. Not that I’m saying you’re not clever, but Eva, she–
No, I know what you mean. I’m trying to imagine what it would be like inside Marco’s head, that paranoid way he sees the possible danger in everything. It’s kind of amazing, but I can’t be like that.
You’ve gotten to know Marco a lot better since the last time I was in your head, haven’t you?
Yes, I have, Cassie says, and opens up her mind, just a little bit, showing stolen kisses in the woods, holding hands with both – him and Jake? Do humans do these things? There was something very– Hork-Bajir about it. Maybe they’d learned something in the woods.
I’m sorry, Cassie says. Does that bother you?
No, of course not, why would it? Aftran says.
Cassie laughs inside. I guess I thought you might be jealous for some reason.
She starts to circle downward, away from the blasted view of Santa Barbara. Down to what’s left of the meadow behind what’s left of the barn.
I could get you used to my body again, Cassie says.
You don’t have to, Aftran says. I’ll get over missing Eva eventually. I know I can never go back. I think I just have to– find the traces of her that are left in me. That’s the way it always goes with Yeerks.
I know I don’t have to, Cassie says. I want to.
What does that mean? Aftran asks, as Cassie’s talons curl into feet in the grass, trapping wildflowers between her toes.
It could mean– all sorts of things, Cassie says. We could...
When Quincy appears, she launches him in the air, watches him fly in circles all around in wild fluttering joy. It could mean petting Quincy, watching him. It could mean...
Cassie brings up memories, beautiful ones: the ceremony to commemorate Quincy’s settling with her parents, the first time she was allowed to feed milk to a baby animal in the barn.
It could mean...
Cassie runs her now human fingers through her now human hair, in a beautiful free puff around her head, her coils rough and wild between her fingers.
She presses her mouth to her own fingers, kisses them, bends her knees and jumps around.
Eva didn’t want you there. I want you here. Be here, with me, Cassie says.
Aftran reaches for those stolen kisses, holding hands in the woods, and they melt away with a stab of pain. Jake and Marco couldn’t accept that Cassie wanted Aftran back. She’d given that up, for Aftran. How could she possibly replace that? She can’t possibly give her that.
No, Cassie says. But we can find something else. Something that’s ours.