A gravelly voice yelps "What the fuck!" in what is recognizably a Hork-Bajir dialect, and, indeed, the body attached to the voice is a female Hork-Bajir, standing in the doorway looking flabbergasted.

Asthirin startles. His stalks swivel towards the voice, and then his head turns sharply, and his tail stands on end. <What the fuck!> he agrees.

"Somebody thinks they're playing a very funny joke and I am going to find them and—" She cuts herself off abruptly, or perhaps is cut off abruptly. "Yes, all right, fine, no making graphic threats of violence in front of the Andalite, fair and reasonable." She cocks her head at the Andalite. "Hi there. Pel Tarjet. Absolutely terrible to meet you. I heard the same line you presumably did about it being impossible to permanently damage a fellow student but I'm not sure I believed it so if you start a fight I guarantee you we will both have a very bad time whether or not the school's medical facilities manage to rescue us afterward."

This is... altogether considerably more articulate than your average Hork-Bajir-Controller. Also, that was a Hork-Bajir name.

Asthirin boggles! That was indeed very articulate, and that was indeed a Hork-Bajir name, and -

not important. He is being rude. With the control over his natural reactions afforded him by long years of training and morph, he withdraws his tail from its locked and upright position and sets his stalks to swiveling more appropriately.

 <I have no intention of harming a fellow student,> he says only a little bit stiffly. <Given the nature of this institution, I imagine I had best get used to... things that do not accord with my cultural mores. My name is Asthirin-Tinviar-Lirill. What about your - friend?>

He does his best to keep connotations of slavery and horror out of the thought-particle <friend>, with limited success. One of his stalks twitches. <Sorry.>

She laughs. "Oh, did you want to meet Tillin? I'm getting the sense that you don't want to meet Tillin." A brief pause. "I'm not saying hi for you like this is an interstellar comm call, if you want to talk to the Andalite come out here and do it your own damn self."

Asthirin's eyestalks twitch again. <I - did not mean to cause offense. It is difficult to avoid imparting undue connotations over Thoughtspeech.>

Suddenly, his flesh begins to boil - there's a horrible sound, which looks much worse -

- and a naked human kneels, slightly damp, where Asthirin sat.

"There. Now we can speak like civilized -"

"What the fuck was that?!" squeaks a tiny voice from the doorway.

The speaker is a three-foot-tall chitin-skinned manikin, wearing a large ivory mask and a pleated skirt.

"Oh you're so soft and squishy," says Pel, slightly dismayed. "That's a human, right? No wonder they wear so many unnecessary clothes if that's what it's like underneath. I almost want to ask if you want to acquire me just so you don't have to be so," she waves a bladed hand, "grublike, but I feel like it would if anything be even weirder to talk to a clone of myself." She glances over at the teeny bug person. "Hello, who are you? I like your face."

"Thank you I made it myself what the fuck was that?"

Asthirin sighs. "I morphed from my native form into a human, which is by all accounts an unpleasant process to witness, because I imagined my companion had seen worse, and did not consider that the door was open. I apologize. And I rather like this form, actually - though possibly I should find some clothing, in case the next person to enter is human and easily scandalized."

The next person to enter is (seemingly) human, and the first words out of her mouth are, "Oh! Is that a penis? It's so charmingly peculiar!"

"Isn't it just," Asthirin sighs. "-now that we all appear to be here, shall we introduce ourselves? Perhaps with an icebreaker - some kind of fun fact - I'm Asthirin-Tinviar-Lirill, any of you can feel free to call me Asthirin, and she's going to be tense around me because my species attempted to wipe hers out several decades ago, and probably for other reasons too, what fun. That's not my fun fact, my fun fact is that I'm a morph-dancer."

He grows a pair of cat ears, then ungrows them. This is significantly less disgusting than the full morph was.

"...I'm Hornet. I don't think any of the species my father attempted to wipe out are present in this room, thankfully. I... um. I'm not sure what categorizes a fact as 'fun'."

"I'm Pel Tarjet and the parasitic brain slug in my head is Tillin," Pel says cheerfully. "Say hi, Tillin."

Her body language shifts fairly dramatically, from an easy open stance to something more drawn-in and closed-off and careful and deliberate. "Hello, everyone. I... don't know that there are any fun facts about me."

The shift back is just as obvious. "Well my fun fact is that I'm the smartest member of my species because we were genetically engineered to be dumb as rocks, and if Tillin doesn't come up with a fun fact before we're done making the rounds I'm going to pick one for her and it's going to be hilarious. To me." (Her body language shifts back for a moment but only someone familiar with Hork-Bajir facial expressions would catch that Tillin was performing the equivalent of an affectionately long-suffering eyeroll.)

"My name is Bird! I picked it myself! Why is it called an icebreaker? My fun fact is that I used to need to eat sapient brains to survive and now I don't anymore! I think that's very fun!"

"Oh, you're a sage, that's fascinating - I really thought you were legendary! Um. I admit to being morbidly curious about your fun fact. Also that was very good, Bird, I think not having to eat sapient brains to survive is very fun."

"Despite my lack of personal stake in the matter, I think I agree," Hornet comments.

"Lack of personal stake? Do you not have a brain?" she wonders. "That's so interesting, how does that work?"

"I'm not entirely sure what a brain is, so I'm afraid I don't have much information for you."

"You look - a bit like some kind of bipedal insect? So it's possible that like your smaller cousins you never felt the need to evolve one, and get by with only your central and peripheral nervous systems. And possibly magic, I don't want to discount magic, a bug your size really should not be able to exist in this atmosphere."

Hornet shrugs. "I'm definitely a bug. ...almost certainly a bug. My mother was a spider, and if my father pulled some kind of horseshit then I'd expect to know about it."

"I cannot possibly be providing you with novel information when I tell you that you are not a spider."

"No. But I think I'm still a bug of some kind."

"You do look sort of buggy," Pel agrees. "Anyway, Tillin's fun fact is that she's a revolutionary."

Shift to Tillin. "I still don't think that's very fun."

Back to Pel, who just snorts with amusement.

Asthirin.exe has ceased responding.

Hornet shrugs. "If the monarch is worth deposing, her being a revolutionary is at least as fun a fact as Bird not needing to eat brains anymore."

"Try not to fall over," she advises Asthirin.

To Hornet, she says, "Technically not a monarch but the Council sure does need to go down. Even if I wasn't mad about all the brain slavery, and, to be clear, I am incredibly mad about all the brain slavery, they're also just fucking morons—yes, yes, I know it's cultural and makes sense in context, the fact remains that if you keep murdering your own people whenever they fuck up you're going to slowly destroy your own economy, which is exactly what's happening—sorry, I should explain all this instead of babbling, I'm not used to talking to people who can't read my mind."

"Yes, rampant murder is often strategically inefficient," Hornet says in an extremely bitter tone, almost as if she is already personally familiar with this class of problem.

"So the Yeerks, Tillin's species, are ruled by the Council of Thirteen, who are trying to take over the galaxy so they can enslave everyone and breed them as hosts, because they're brain parasites. In fairness to them, being a hostless Yeerk really does suck. In unfairness to them, so does being a host. —Speaking of which," she addresses Asthirin again, "we're gonna steal morph tech from you so that when Tillin crushes the Thirteen we can make half the Yeerks permanently morph something so the other half can get in their heads."

Aaaaaaaa? Aaaaaaaaa.

"Aaaaaaaa," he says neutrally.

"I mean, do you have a better solution? Hint: don't say genocide."

"What's morph?" says Bird curiously.

"I wasn't going to say genocide!!! I - morph is the most powerful and versatile technology the andalite race ever developed, it allows you to transform temporarily into a creature of another species, it's why I look like a human instead of like a large blue alien. I would like to try to think of a better solution to the Yeerk empire than handing out our only relatively uncompromised weapon against further Yeerk perfidy, given that the last time we gave the Yeerks technology they massacred the science team observing them and used that tech to found the Yeerk empire."

"Oh I want it!!!!" she says, bouncing excitedly. "I want to turn into creatures!!!!"

(Pel snickers, an interesting sound coming from a Hork-Bajir.)

"Andalite High Command frowns very intensely on the sharing of technology. Because last time we did that, the Yeerk Empire happened."

Hornet snorts. "That's an idiotic policy. It's like saying that because figs contain parasitic wasps, fruit should be banned."

"So I see what you're saying, but we're all here to learn mind control," Pel points out to Asthirin, "after which Tillin and I are going to go home and wreck the Council's shit, and then we're going to have to figure out something to do with however much of the Yeerk Empire is left at that point, and if we let Andalite High Command make that decision, the answer is definitely going to be genocide regardless of your personal opinion. Also, Bird is adorable and I think she should get to turn into creatures."

"I already turned into a human and it was the best thing that ever happened to me! I want to turn into all the things," she says dreamily.

"...Can I make this decision slightly later than fourteen minutes after I met you, please."

"I mean, like I said, I was planning to steal it," shrugs Pel. (A Hork-Bajir shrug is a mildly intimidating sight.) "Or did you mean Bird, or was it sort of a general protest?"

"I am not good at time," says Bird. "There are too many rules and no one will explain what they all are."

"I don't have a damn morphbox on me, so you'll have a time of it. I could retrieve one from my 'neighborhood', and might actually do so if you really impress me on the 'no perfidy' front. You could not, because there is significant anti-Yeerk security around that box and also if you want any cooperation out of me ever then you will not betray me."

"I am not a Yeerk," says Pel, "and, again, am here to learn mind control. If it's in your neighbourhood I can get it. I was planning to steal it because I assumed you would be an asshole about it if I asked nicely, and, to be fair, you sound like you might actually be less of an asshole than that. Are you? Or are you just stringing me along?"

Bird walks up to Pel, reaches up with both hands, grabs her by the beak, and holds it firmly shut.

"Stop being a grump," she says seriously, "or the nice penis boy will not let me turn into creatures."

"Allow me to answer your question with another question," Asthirin says quietly. "Are you really under the impression that the atrocities that have been committed over the course of our war would permit anyone with a brain to give up the one thing keeping us in détente because someone asked nicely? I'm not stringing you along by not giving you everything you ask for on the off-chance that you're actually as competent as you say. If it really looks, after a week or a month or a semester, like you could actually dismantle the Empire from the inside, then I will give you the cube and I will personally mind-control as many Andalite politicians as I have to to keep my people from committing another atrocity. If you turn out to be an overconfident moron who would despite her best intentions give the Council of Thirteen a cube to make as many morph-capable agents as their sluggy little hearts desired, then I swear before the Elimist I will shove you in a locker and go on with my original plan to dismantle the Empire myself."

"Mrph fmph gnr hnnn," says Pel, because Bird is still holding her beak shut.

"No grumping," Bird reminds her. She gives the beak a little shake and then lets go.

Pel stands there for a few seconds, trying to come up with something to say and failing, and finally gives up and lets Tillin have a try.

"I apologize for Pel," Tillin says quietly. "We don't... have much practice with this kind of interaction. She's arguing with you the way she'd argue with me, and it's not working because there's too much missing context. Please try to be patient with us? I promise we won't try to steal morph from you except as a final resort after all other options are exhausted. Bird apparently turned into a human, and seems to have implied the transformation was permanent; we can look into replicating that."

"Much better," says Bird, satisfied. "Nice brain parasite. What's it like being a brain parasite? I want to try it. —I don't know how to turn anyone else into a human, sorry, it was an accident. But lots of people from my world probably do and you could find them and make them tell you!"

Asthirin shrinks in on himself a little now that the fight seems to be over. "Bird - um, I want to let you know that I hope I'll be able to give you morph. I want to give morph to just about anybody who wants it. But - it's so, so important that I not give it to anyone who would use it for the wrong reasons, or who could be manipulated by someone who had the wrong reasons." His eyes start leaking mysteriously. "It's... really important."

"You're being very nice to me and it's good and I'm happy about it. Oh! You're crying! I should do human actions about that!"

The action she chooses is Hug.

Asthirin sniffles into Bird's shoulder for a while.

Hornet turns to Pel. "I'm also fighting against a polity of widespread mind control. Which is a fun coincidence."

"Oh? What's yours like?"

"There's an... entity... called the Radiance. She's halfway between a goddess and a disease and a state of mind. My father conquered her territory centuries ago, and her people went from worshipping her to following him. And she withered. But... somehow, she came back. And she infected his people, making them hers, making them puppets. So - he tried a lot of things. Ultimately, he locked her within a pure vessel imprisoned in a sealed temple, and barred her from the realm of dreams using the dreams of three great bugs, who are currently comatose."

She sighs. "The pure vessel is my half-sibling. One of the dreamers is my birth mother. And Father... locked himself away in his palace, after, and no one's heard from him since. So. If I want to have a family at the end of all this, I'd better get very good, very fast."

"Yikes," says Pel, sympathetically.

(Meanwhile Bird is explaining to Asthirin, "Hugging is a good human action. It makes the feelings cozy. Like blankets! Do you know about blankets? Blankets are important.")

("Blankets are very good.")