trans_9 | [Closed convo for Eva and Dani]

Dani looked up at the woman curiously. "Yeah? Who are you?"

"I'm Eva. I'd like you to take a walk with me," she says in that manner that implies she doesn't think Dani has much of a choice in the matter, though Dani undoubtedly does. "Can I tell you a secret?"

Dani blinked. "...don't you usually tell secrets to people you know?" She asked, but willing to take the walk with her.

"I don't usually tell secrets," Eva says plainly. "But I feel like we need to have a talk, and you have to know where I'm coming from. Because from what I've heard, you're the only thing standing between a boy and his freedom. Is that right?"

She stared for a few moments, the connections obviously being made in her head. "..." She sighed. "So there's another one from that world."

"Yes, there is 'another one' from that world. I saw Tom for most of his childhood. And if you don't mind not telling this to anyone else, I spent seven years as a Controller, so if anyone's capable of telling you what the experience is like, it's me."

She's using clear, cold terms because it's the only way to keep the fury in her voice from spilling over. Her words are clipped and she doesn't look at Dani, instead blinking and fidgeting her hands, as is her habit since being freed. "I know you're just trying to do the right thing, and I appreciate that, but what you're doing is inhumane."

Dani closed her eyes. "...so you were one. You can see from one side," she said.

Then she opened her eyes and while there was guilt on her face, there was conviction. "You're assuming I'm a little girl who got tricked and doesn't know what she's doing. That I just 'pity' Iniss the poor Yeerk, right?" She asked.

"The side of the victim, yes," she says and she could spit that word out. But her face softens a bit. She knows talking down to children never really works. "No, I don't think that. I'm not going to belittle you because you're young. I think you're trying to navigate a complicated issue and you really can't imagine what it's like to be a Controller until you are one. So I want to do my best to tell you."

Dani's face softened, looking more thoughtful. "...maybe you could have before to give me an idea, but from what I saw, words can't describe it. Just like words can't describe what a Yeerk feels without a host," she said softly.

"Nothing but living it can describe it. There aren't enough words harsher than 'slave' and 'torture' and 'hell'. And having lived with another Yeerk as my sole company for years, I can tell you that her feelings about hostlessness don't even come close to being infested." The anger's back in her voice, her neck and mouth tight, looking past Dani as if she can picture Edriss just behind her.

"Hostlessness is utter helplessness. It's blindness and fear and uncertainty, but it's not the same as spending your every waking moment having to wait for someone else to sneeze and see and breathe for you, having one of those things treat your most sacred memories as playthings, having to beg and plead and watch as horrible things are done to your family and friends. It's not the same as helplessness. They can speak and move on their own accord. They can communicate their own opinions and desires. Controllerdom is knowing that you are nothing except a warm corpse, that you might as well not even exist."

There are tears in her eyes that she blinks back, and her knuckles shine white on her clenched hands.

Dani stared at her blankly, almost seeming as if she didn't register the words. Of course, she did and at the moment, there were just so many conflicting emotions and feelings and memories in her head as a result. What she saw, what she herself has experienced, and just things she's learned.

"...yet Iniss isn't like that," she said. "Not that I'm saying he hasn't done bad things, but there's never been a point he has done harm for no reason as Tom's first host did and maybe your Yeerk did, without needing to protect himself. Maybe he does further in your timeline, but people can change. Can be changed and I won't hold a crime he hasn't committed against him, so please don't bring up the reasons Rachel was sent to kill him." Her voice is soft, sad, and quite honestly, tired.

"And the thing is, had I seen any evidence of Iniss lying to me, using me, if any of his change was not sincere, I would have ripped him out of Tom without a second thought," she said. "But I didn't. And now it's gotten to the point where he has agreed to leave Tom for several days simply because I asked. Because he's changing. And even though I offered a few times, he's insisted that I never take him into my head."

"It doesn't matter if Iniss hasn't done anything horrible yet. His very presence in Tom's head is damaging. He's a child, like you. But he's a child who hasn't known in years what it's like to have privacy or independence or to explore the world. Even the actions that are his own are granted to him by the higher power in his head. He's spent the last few years afraid or controlled or angry or hopeless. I'm not blaming Iniss for any crime besides being in Tom's head."

She takes a long, deep breath. None of this is information she especially likes to disclose. "I was lucky. I was thirty-five when I was infested. I already knew who I was and did my self-discovery and made my own mistakes. And even then, being an adult, knowing who I was, it's still taken years to learn who I was and who I've become."

It took a long time to accept that her matter-of-factness had turned to harshness, pragmatism into ruthlessness, pride into a defensive shell. There are days she still doesn't accept it. She still doesn't know if it was her or Edriss who liked Prokofiev, or orange-scented shampoo, or sleeping with one ankle looped behind the other. She doesn't know why she still uses bookmarks when before Edriss she dog-eared pages. The boundaries between Yeerks and hosts get blurrier the longer they stay together.

"It's nice that he left Tom for some time to recover. But are you going to be able to put him back into Tom's head? Knowing that he cares too much about you to inflict that on you? You'll inflict that on a boy barely older than you?"

"Tom agreed," Dani said. "And it's only Tom I am going to listen to in regards to this."

She looked away, silent for several moments. "Tom is a lot older than me, when it comes to years lived. I'm two years old," she said and looked up. She was young, of that there was no doubt, but there was also a part of her that was older, from a boy who had to go up to fast, that made her seem detached and tired. "I'm a clone. And I was never given a chance to live before I arrived on Stacy. Stacy is the only place that was 'home' that wasn't a lie. Always running, always on the verge of dying, never being able to go to anyone except that person I didn't wish to cause anymore trouble for because I didn't want to ruin his life or put him in danger."

"I volunteered to take Iniss because I know there is nothing he can do to me that would ever be worse than what my 'father' has done to me in a place I'm helping to try and save for my original's sake. And because I know what I ask Iniss to do to when he leaves Tom because the day I die, that is where I'm going. A dark room of nothingness that no words can describe the horror of. Something I know courtesy of my father."

"Do I like asking it of Tom? No. Do I think it's fair? No. Can I ask Iniss to stay in that horror or to be treated as a prisoner and think that's fair? Again, no. But I believe Tom can take it because he agreed. Because I can see that he's not completely broken. And I saw what he went through when I pulled him out of a pain that no one should have gone through. It's all horrible, but I'm doing the best I can with what I got. Because I know that if it was up to the rest of you to decide for Iniss, he'd already be dead and that is absolutely unacceptable."

"In terms of years lived, maybe. You don't act like a two year-old, so I'm not going to treat you like one. I meant in terms of maturity." As angry as she is at Dani, as much as she thinks Dani's wrong about Iniss and Tom, she can't help but feel sympathy for the girl. "And I'm so sorry your father did that to you. That must have been terrible."

But the sympathy washes away with the next influx of frustration and anger. Her face hardens again. "Yes. He would be dead. I took my Yeerk in my hands and made a fist and squeezed because I couldn't stand the idea of her infecting another head." She clenches her hand to illustrate, her face cold and violent. "But that doesn't preclude compromise. Iniss is not my Yeerk, and since there are those here on the ship who value him, we can't just go around killing him. It doesn't have to be either or. Let him at least give Tom total control, if it's that horrible to stick him in a jar until you find a voluntary substitute, and it isn't. Or have Stacy find a way to put him to sleep until we find someone to take him. But not that child."

"Terrible is barely a drop in the bucket of it," Dani said. Vlad had been her world, plain and simple.

Dani pointed at her, looking at her seriously. "And that's why I can't talk to any of you," she said. "You all know one side. Control, being controlled, I've experienced both, now even seeing it with my own eyes when I was helping Tom," she said and lowered her arm. "None of you are able to step back and LOOK. None of you are willing to believe Iniss is changing, even though he tries to prove it. I've had to fight for any one of you to even PONDER another solution besides killing him or treating him like a prisoner, it seems."

She crossed her arms. "As far as I'm concerned, the only ones I have to listen to is Tom and Iniss. I've talked to them both and Iniss has given half the time to Tom and I make sure he does. The only time that's been breached is when Iniss had to take over so Tom didn't get killed by a bear. If Iniss HADN'T, Tom would have been killed by his own cousin and she wouldn't have even hit the objective of her mission had Iniss not been allowed to stay."

"I'm not unwilling to believe Iniss has some good in him," she says softly, like it's hard to have those words leave her mouth. Even Edriss had good in her, small as it was. Maybe if things had turned out differently, if Edriss hadn't been so involved in the military, maybe if she hadn't faked Eva's death, maybe, maybe Edriss could have become a tolerable specimen of Yeerks. Eva doesn't know anymore. "But nurturing that good in him will never be worth enough to justify making a slave of a child."

Eva shakes her head. "I don't have any idea about the bear. I wasn't involved." Even back in her world, the Animorphs had kept that whole mission pretty secret from any of the parents.

"Further in the timeline that Tom and apparently Jake from his reaction, Jake ordered Rachel to kill Tom. She came on the ship with those orders," Dani said, her tone soft and on the bridge of being upset. "Tom went into shock at the idea. Now imagine if Iniss hadn't been there to get him to move. His cousin and his brother would have killed him and only him. Do you realize what that would have done to them? At the very least, Jake would have been destroyed. All because of this paranoia you all have."

She needed to switch topics. "More than that, there was the whole issue with the bombs. It was BECAUSE Iniss was a Yeerk he was able to get an in so those bombs could have been dealt with so a bunch of people didn't die. The moment it was just Tom, we wouldn't have had that and a lot more people would be dead."

"The crew and Tom's own life. Jake and Rachel's sanity. All are safe because Iniss was there. And he and Tom are sharing time, and I won't let Tom be a slave. But so far, if I hadn't decided to deal with it that way, a lot more harm would have been done to everyone, including Tom."

"You're going to base your rationale on contingencies? Because Edriss lied, murdered and enslaved her way through the universe, Earth was involved in the Yeerk conflict and the war was won, freeing millions. Does that mean she was right to kill in cold blood the mother of her children? Does that mean she was right to enslave me, because at least everything turned out alright in the long run? And furthermore, does that mean doing more evil things guarantees a good future?"

She's barely, barely keeping back from yelling. Instead it just gives her voice a sickly sweet condescension. She wants to grab Dani by the shoulders and shake her. "There's a difference between doing evil things that are for the best in the long run, and doing evil things because in the past they've sometimes turned out alright. For all you know, if Iniss were dead Tom and Jake would have been spending time together when Rachel arrived and she wouldn't have attacked. There's no possible way for you to deduce the what-ifs. If you really think that this action will clearly lead to a better long-run outcome, I respect that. But if you're going on past events and hoping for the best tomorrow, you best keep in mind that you've got a teenage boy tethered within his own mind."

She closes her eyes and composes herself again, trying to let the rage manifest in her tense muscles and grinding teeth instead of in her words and voice. "He'll never not be a slave as long as Iniss is inside his skull. He's always chained to asking Iniss' - or your - permission."

"That is completely different," Dani said. "And if you're supposed to 'know better' than me, you should see that too!"

She flew up, glaring at Eva on a more even plane. "That was Tom's time. He was doing what HE wanted then. There could have been a million things he'd been doing when Rachel saw him and it would have been that way. If I can't use past stuff, then you can't use 'what ifs' and act like it would have been that way!"

"I asked Tom. When he had no one else in his head. If he said no, I wouldn't have forced him. That's why I ASKED. Jake saw it, Loren saw it, even their DOG saw it," she said, clenching her fists at her side. "I asked for HIS permission as soon as I knew I could without ruining all of my work with Iniss. I made a promise to help them both and that's what I'm doing. I'm helping them BOTH. Tom has more freedom than he did, and soon as the project is done, he will be completely free and we don't have to condemn someone to a living hell when it would be wrong to do so."

"I'm saying that if you take a chain of events back a few too many steps, you can no longer use it as a rationale for doing things. You can't say what would have happened because you can always find a counter that it might not have. And is it different? Do we have a sliding scale for cruelty that has a little line marked on it where suddenly it becomes okay? Because that would be handy."

But then she stops. "Project? What project?"

"That wasn't my original rationale, and honestly? I don't trust ANY of you enough to explain it all to you, because I doubt any of you would even keep an open mind about it," Dani said. "But that does show that, so far, it hasn't been the wrong choice. Maybe not exactly right, but it's not wrong because a lot of good has come out of it."

"...are they not even explaining that now?!" Now she looked really mad. "That is...agh! The project to make artificial bodies for the Yeerks! For the ones we have now and the one who might be pod popped later! No hosts, no reason to fight, and no making a species live in a hell! I've been working with Allen from the very beginning to do that as soon as I met Iniss and Tom."

"I've only been here a few days. Unless someone decides to hand me data disc of everything that's ever happened in this place, I'm going to be missing a few details," she says, but it does make her pause for a moment. Why hadn't anyone told her about this? This is not only something very important, but something she'd have personal interest in learning more about. Perhaps she misjudged. "No. No one told me about that."

And Dani facepalmed at that, looking really, really annoyed. "That's what I've been trying to do from the beginning! The thing with Tom is just temporary! Stacy can grow organs, there's a ton of clones on board, a ton of super geniuses, some who've already MADE clones, you think I'm not gonna use that? The tricky part is making sure the bodies can't gain sentience, but can still work with the Yeerks and making sure the council approves!"

"Oh." Eva thinks through the last few days. To say they've been hectic might be an understatement. "Actually, I think Marco mentioned that to me. I must not have understood what he meant and been too caught up in the moment."

Eva's never one to leave a practical solution alone, even if she knows she'll never want to interact with another Yeerk peacefully, artificial body or not. "And I suppose asking you to leave Iniss in a jar until these bodies are made are just going to bring forth another outburst about how much he's changed and how Tom gets part-time autonomy, so that settles it, I guess. You hold all the power here. As long as you're not planning to leave that thing in the boy forever."

She feels exhausted. She doesn't like being angry at children, she doesn't like feeling helpless, and she doesn't like talking about being a host, and in the past hour she's felt all those things. She still doesn't feel wrong, though. The idea of Tom on Iniss' leash just so the Yeerk can be spared a few months in a jar turns her stomach.

Instead she just feels defeated. Rubbing her hands together to feel the motion, she sighs and slumps a bit.

Dani blinked. "...I hold all the power?"

Clearly, this idea had NEVER OCCURRED TO HER.

"I would never leave Tom like that forever. I feel bad enough just for the few months," Dani said, frowning, but definitely calming down. She was silent for several moments. "And it's more than just Iniss."

"I've never been part of a culture. So when I see 'cultural' stuff, a lot of it is pretty stupid to me. More than that, I can overshadow people, and when you have the power to take over someone's mind, I know how easy it can be to self justify. I chose to give Iniss a chance partly because of those factors. There are those who are evil...but there are those who sometimes simply don't understand what's been done and think it's all right because they've been told to. If Iniss had been a threat, I'd have taken him out in an instant, but I wanted to be sure that it's really possible for a Yeerk to be reasoned with without having to do that."

"Otherwise how else can anyone deal with Yeerks unless you just wipe them all out? It's impossible to keep an entire species isolated, you know."

"You know, back on my world, I was an advisor to Yeerk-human affairs. Ridiculous as you probably think that sounds." Every morning she would swallow down all that hatred and take her clinical, professional self to the office and be as objective as a human being could make themselves. She was actually very good at it, in the controlled setting of legislation and paperwork. "We gave the Yeerks morphing power so they could make their own host bodies. It wasn't a perfect solution; there was still a lot of violence between both groups."

"There had been talk about that, but we don't have the device and then there's the Andalites. Originally, we'd been hoping to keep them not involved because of that can of worms. That is, until the others tried to starve Iniss," Dani said. "And yes, it is hard to believe. Especially when you just assumed 'hate hate hate' before even finding out everything."

"I'm off the clock," she says sarcastically. "You'll understand how dealing with a stable environment where the Yeerks are no longer enslaving people brings up different emotions than a situation where a single person is allowing a Yeerk to enslave a boy who used to walk my son and his best friend to school. And on that note, how many other people from my world will you get to admit that Iniss might have some good in him? Cassie?"

"That would depend if you're telling the truth," Dani said. "After all, you've shown to have some manipulative tendencies yourself," she said, touching down on the ground. "And like I said, I have no reason to trust any of you."

"And you don't have to grant your trust if you don't want to. You're the one in charge of this situation. Everyone's going to want to sway you one way or another, and some people will lie to do it. I'm just giving my input, since I have more experience with Yeerks than I hope you ever will." She fidgets again, rubbing the back of her neck with her palm, shifting weight between her feet. She realizes the constant motion just makes her look nervous and like a liar, but can't seem to find it in her now to stop herself.

"As a general rule I don't lie about my own experiences with Yeerks. My relationship with Edriss was...complicated." She chokes the last word out. It's not a way she wants to frame that time. It's easier to just hate and hate and hate and say hate. "I'm aware that some Yeerks have some good in them. Even Edriss was capable of affection."

Dani got a confused look at the idea of being 'in charge.' It's just...her? She just did what she thought she should.

"They could just need the opportunity for it," Dani said. "Iniss is proving that I was right in that fact. Sometimes people need a chance. And sometimes bad things happen, but sometimes it also turns out for the best. And that was my hope and will be my hope," Dani said.

"...so I'll say it. None of you have the power to change my mind. I know what I need to know. The only ones who can are Iniss and Tom and what they do and say."

She doesn't say anything to Dani's expression, but returns a look that sums up yes, it's all on you.

"We'll just have to disagree on what has to be given up to give people chances." Eva will try to swallow her distaste and exasperation while she's at it. It'll be impossible not to think of what will happen in three days when Tom is reinfested. She touches her ear self-consciously, pushes her hair back to try and disguise it. "I wouldn't presume any of us have the power to chance your mind. Just to inform you and hope you make whatever the right choice is."

"Then what was the attempt at a guilt trip?" Dani asked. "And it's surprising how much needs to be done, to undo what someone was raised with."

"Giving you information. If you're going to play God with man and Yeerk, you need to know what the actual consequences are. Being a Controller is hell on Earth and to convince yourself otherwise to help you sleep at night is a lie. That's all."

Dani frowned. "...and here I thought you thought I wasn't a little girl who didn't know what she was doing," she said. "I don't lie to myself. That ended badly any time I've done it. I know what I'm doing. I actually questioned what I was getting into and made my decision with as much information that was truly relevant to what I needed to know. And I'm sick and tired of all of you throwing the guilt I DO feel in my face, but either way, I'd feel it, no matter what I decided. So trying to guilt me is rather pointless."

"My decisions haven't proven to be wrong yet. Tom has more freedom than he would have ever had if he never came to Stacy. He deserves more, yes, and he'll get it. But the only time he's been truly hurt was because of decisions from YOUR world," Dani said, her voice getting quite cold as she got mad again. "And you know what? Iniss was willing to help with Tom after his break down. So before you condemn him, remember this; Iniss let me control him. Let me overshadow HIM because that was the only way Tom would listen to me. There's been a lot of harm, but he's also helped. Even when there was no real benefit to him."

Eva doesn't think Dani has any idea what she's doing, or truly understands it, because how could one compare isolation and blindness to the complete mental violation of being a host? Eva's done both. She knows which one she prefers. And she knows that even if Iniss were human, she'd choose Tom over him, because he's only a child, one who's already suffered too much. So she just raises her eyebrows and tries to keep calm.

"I'm not trying to guilt you. If I'm making you feel guilty, maybe you should take that into consideration, but I'm only trying to tell you what you're doing because I don't think you understand the severity of it. Because if you did you'd never think that putting Iniss back in Tom's head is more fair than putting Iniss in stasis."

She bites her lip. A Yeerk, giving up their bodily autonomy? Giving up what they so freely take from others? Edriss wouldn't even let Leeran Controllers live after a project finished because they might read her mind.

"And I'm not condemning him for anything he hasn't done. He's decided that his mobility is more important than Tom's well-being. That's a fact. That he let you help doesn't change that. It doesn't make Iniss purely evil either, but keeping Tom infested isn't humane. And that's all I have to say about that, and if your mind's made up, there isn't anything I can do about that. But there isn't enough guilt you can feel for keeping that boy infested, and there never will be."

"Thank you for the walk." She closes her hands into fists as she turns and leaves. By the time she's reached the other end of the hallway, her fingernails have bitten bloody trails into her palms.

"Either way I feel guilt," Dani said. "I've already said that. But the thing about making a difficult choice is you have to despite the guilt. As you've said, you had an easier time to look at Yeerks more objectively. So maybe you should think how you would have handle it had it been harder," Dani said flatly.

"You should also get rid of the sweet act when you don't mean it. Dad did that a lot," she shot back and turned, flying away.

[Closed convo for Eva and Dani]

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