trans_9 | Watching and Waiting [open]

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Watching and Waiting [open]

Paranoia was a perfectly reasonable reaction to waking up in a strange place covered in slime, having a fight with tentacles that put some kind of throbbing...thing on him, and then being forced to run through mazes that shot fire, a cruel voice passive-aggressively taunting him the entire time.

Tarzan didn't know where he was, didn't know what was going on, and didn't know what happened to the people--and gorillas---he cared about most. His entire world had been turned upside down. He'd found himself in a strange place completely full of people, more people than he'd even imagined existed. It was full of lots of strange people, and some of them walked on two legs but didn't look human; others were clearly animals but they conversed with humans with apparently no difficulty.

They all were strange to him. Frightening, even to one that had faced Sabor. It was all so confusing. Even terrifying, all the more so because he couldn't find Jane or his mother anywhere, even when he searched during the times other slept.

So he'd hidden in Hydroponics, and taken to the trees, wary of every living being on the ship.

Anyone that entered Hydroponics and stayed there for long might find themselves having the unmistakable feeling that they were being watched.

But he was just as curious as he was frightened and cautious. As much as he was holding back from the people on the ship, he had a burning desire to speak to them, to figure out what they were all about.

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Far more agile than he was expecting. This human and his crawling prompted Esplin into his own moving around, keeping sight of him before darting up into slightly higher branches. Just how fast could a human go? He vocalized again, calculating.

Oh a race, is it? He'd give you a race, little weird monkey thing. Tarzan skittered through the branches after the little creature, and for good measure he mimicked the noises it made right back.

What! He was doing a pretty darn good job keeping up, if the noise he's replicating would be more impressive if Esplin cared about second rate imitation. (He was snobbish about these things.) Narrowing his eyes, the currently chadoo controller took off at top speed for the nearest opening in the foliage -- and leapt out, aiming precisely for another near-by tree. The flaps of skin that looked so odd when he moved on the tree itself turned into gliding, feathered wings as his elongated arms shot out to slow and guide him to his goal.

Tree touchdown! Esplin scurried inward, listening for his human pursuer.

So desperate for company you're engaging in play, Yeerk? Snide as Aldrea's tone was, Esplin's was even more so.

< Judging capacity, Aldrea. Something of a habit of mine. > One they shared, when it came down to it, and he knew she knew that -- and she hated it.

Amazingly, Tarzan ran along a branch and jumped. He had no wings himself, but he soon demonstrated that didn't matter by grabbing a vine as he fell and using his forward momentum to swing with it, up into the trees where the chadoo disappeared.

The wild man laughed to himself while he did it, because he was having a grand ol' time playing tag-a-long.

Hmm. Not as fast, but fast. Willing and able to use tools to make up for physical lacks.

Aldrea's knowledge provided some answer. < Your species came out of the trees at some point, > he observed, making mental contact with Tarzan for the first time. His thought-speak carried Aldrea's 'tone,' more feminine in a general, hard to grasp manner.

As a chadoo, however, he raced upward, twisting around to vocalize at the human and watch for signs of confusion.

Holy rhino doody, someone was talking in his head again. It made him nearly fall off his branch.

There was nothing around though, and it wasn't the Stacy-voice, so eventually he settled on looking at the chadoo suspiciously.

Since he understood what it said, he assumed it was in gorilla, so he made some strange grunting noises at the other creature, to start with, to see if it understood.

Look, a whole set of sounds Esplin wasn't hearing translate! That was an oddity in and of itself. The chadoo narrowed its eyes at Tarzan, then adjusted its longer two arms. < If you're trying to talk to me, > he said after a long, scrutinizing glare, < I don't understand what you said. >

Huh.

"Tarzan asking if you were one that talked.'"

He pointed to the chadoo.

It was in his head. That made it hard to tell where it was coming from.

Interesting though that he'd been smart enough to figure out it had to come from something, and guessed the closest animal was the most likely source.

Highly interesting. If this were an individual's characteristic, or a species trait...

Nodding wasn't a common communication means between anything he'd yet controlled, so Esplin's response, mirroring what Aldrea would have done, was to blink. Then politely respond.

< Yes, I am. What language were you asking in? >

"Gorilla. In my head. I understand. Like gorilla."

The reference made no sense to Esplin. Was it a subset of a human language?

< These gorillas, do they look like you? >

"No," was the somewhat guarded answer. "Tarzan is--I am human."

Pronouns. Had to try to work in those pronouns more. He and Jane had been working on them.

"They raised me."

Raised by another species? Funny how that was relevant to both minds present, in different ways. Considering the humans they'd observed so far... < They're a different species. Were they tree-dwelling? >

Would that explain his odd arboreal tendencies?

"Yes."

That explained several things. For one, why he wasn't as awkwardly clumsy looking as the rest. For another, humans did apparently have learned potential.

< I've spent a lot of time around tree-dwelling species myself. >

Adjusting those arms, and the feathers, as he changed his grip on the branches. Little wonder why, in this form, he could say something like that, if it was also true in a general sense. The Hork-Bajir were tree-dwelling as well.

< Have you spent much time in contact with other humans? >

"Jane. The Professor. From England. They teach many things."

That was it, though. Two people.

"Jane is my mate."

Of course, that contact was pretty extensive.

< Sound familiar, Andalite? >

Aldrea offered disgust and resentment, anger as well, but no verbal reply.

< Being around so many humans when you're not used to them can be overwhelming. > So he imagined. < It's nicer in here, with the trees. What're you called? By the gorillas. > He shifted again, listening for movement around them. There were predators in hydroponics that probably would think his current form appetizing.

"Tarzan."

It was grunted out somewhat in gorilla, but Jane pronounced it a bit more mellifluously, so he went with that pronunciation.

"You have name?"

< Aldrea. > He didn't bother with clarifying species, nor was he all that inclined to demorphing at the moment.

"How you speak in head?"

He wanted to know how Aldrea seemed to bypass sounds entirely.

< My species calls it thought-speech. It's how all of us speak to each other, mind to mind. >

Very useful, too, since it worked in morph.

Okay then.

"What are you?"

< Right now, a chadoo. >

"Right...now?"

Sharp one here.

Sharp indeed. Esplin watched this Tarzan, languidly blinking. How much (or little) to say? Aldrea was an Andalite -- if the human bothered to pick up a communication device, or was around long enough, they'd eventually know. < Right now. >

Of course, aping back a reply was not the most mature way to go about anything, but tinged with the hint of deep-seated arrogance... < This isn't my natural form. > Oh no, no, Aldrea's natural form was a thing of elegant, deadly beauty.

In is opinion, at least.

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pantsr4pansies.livejournal.com - 2011-07-26 06:22 (UTC) - Expand

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