Chapter Text
"This is torture!"
The sound of my anguish was loud enough to scare birds out of their trees. Got a reaction from another bird, too. I saw Tobias' red tailfeathers twitch.
"Okay, bad phrasing." Somehow that got a twitch too. His talons adjusted on the perch. "But I'm not wrong! That's the third time they've played that commercial for The Gardens this week!"
<It also played once while you were not here,> Ax informed me.
"Fourth time!" I cried, throwing my hands up in the air. "Why couldn't they have advertised the Monster Coaster before my death certificate got written? Now nobody gets to see my cute face in the souvenir photo!"
<No loss,> said Tobias. <Besides, wouldn't the photo just be you screaming?>
"Me? No way! I got the coaster experience down to a science. Ice cool face the whole time. Really impresses the ladies. You pick up the pics, you pick up the chicks."
Ax seemed to be noting this for future reference. His stalk eyes were looking downwards, sincere and studious.
"Doesn't mean jack now," I said, lying back in my beanbag. "As soon as a chick-Controller sees my face, I won't just be fake dead. I'll be deader than that rat over there when Tobias sees it."
<Already seen it,> Tobias said. Of course he had. Those hawk eyes miss nothing. <I'm not hungry. Had a very full breakfast.>
He spared us the details of whatever rabbit or skunk or roadkill he'd eaten.
Still, my diet's not much nicer than his these days. Living in hiding really cuts down your options. The cuisine of the Hork-Bajir valley is more geared to people with a taste for bark. Sometimes the other Animorphs or the Chee bring food for me and my parents. Sometimes I go into the woods and catch something, in morph. Turns out my dad's not bad at campfire cooking.
But sometimes I haven't waited on him to turn my catch over a fire. There have been times when I've ripped off my own raw chunk of meat and filled my animal stomach then and there.
Not exactly the high life.
Still, I had a plan. Something that'd inject a little more normal back into my life living on the low. Problem was, it broke two rules at once and was risky as hell. I'd have to wait for the perfect moment to break it to these guys. But that was fine by me, it gave me some more time to figure out how to pull it off.
While Ax was enraptured by "These Messages" and Tobias explained the concept of a squeegee, I pulled my jacket a little closer around me. It was October, and it was beginning to turn kinda cold.
Huh. October. Late October...
That was another idea. Didn't break either of those rules, and way less complicated.
Yeah. Yeah, I could pull that off.
"Halloween's coming up," I mentioned casually.
<You gonna teach the Hork-Bajir how to trick-or-treat?> Tobias gave me some kind of look. But the red tailed hawk only has one kind of look: the fierce, staring, beaky one.
"They could probably carve a mean jack-o'-lantern," I conceded. "Nah, I'm thinking I could get a costume. One covering my face. Nobody's gonna recognise the living dead kid, and nobody's gonna get between me and the Monster Coaster."
<Your voice is still very distinctive,> Ax remarked. <Especially given how often you make use of it.>
"Says Mister Motormouth Owth Mauf. And the voice is easy, I'll get one of those voice changer masks. Marco? Who's Marco? Only Darth Vader here." I did the heavy breathing to demonstrate, and Ax squinted a stalk eye. "Flawless plan. You guys in?"
Tobias looked at the ground, staring at it as intensely as those eyes stared at everything. I could see him thinking it through, the boy's brain in the bird body. Sure, we'd be screwed if we got caught... but if anyone could understand me on wanting to live a normal human life for a bit, it would be Tobias.
<Alright, Darth Dead Kid, I'm in.>
"Ax?"
He nodded. <It seems relatively safe. And I know The Gardens has many types of delicious food on sale.>
<I guess we're doing this,> Tobias said. Kinda less motivating than his girlfriend's battle cry, but close enough. <Corpse kid on a coaster. Happy Halloween.>