towerofanimus | the journey of a thousand miles;

Characters: Tobias and anyone who runs across him.
Setting: Floor 22 (art gallery), floor 25 (meadow), floor 81 (lounge)
Format: Whichever.
Summary: Tobias does some exploring, some eating, and some thinking.
Warnings: Mentions of child abuse/neglect and death. Animorphs is a kid's series, you guys! 8D

[Floor 22]

[He had thought this was going to be a decent idea.]

[At first, he doesn't really see anything too off about the art here. Some of it is strange… or gory… or just plain unsettling. But as he pads around the corner in his human morph, he stops dead in his tracks.]

[Well, it's like an honor. I mean, the committee picked my drawing out from hundreds of entries. Just something I sketched during art class. I had no idea it would make the state show.

Do you get prize money?

No.

No? So then what's it worth? If it won't help pay the bills, what good is it?]

[He shakes as he stares at the drawing on the wall. He digs his nails into his palms as he remembers how the rest of that conversation went - and the conversations after, and the yelling about how he wasn't doing anything to help support them. The things thrown, and how he'd left the house to try to find somewhere, anywhere to hang out that wasn't that house.]

It's not my fault…

[He turns and goes to try to find his way out, but the blood all runs out of his face as he sees another one. His legs shake, and he collapses, hands and knees on the floor. He tries to hold the noises back, but he can't. He lets out a sob, dragging himself to at least a sitting position so he can press his face into his knees. He should have come to terms with this by now, right? But he can't help but let out whimpering sobs at the thought of it.]

[Floor 25]

[Once he's gotten himself back together, Tobias heads to the meadow. Once there, he morphs, allowing himself to slip into a form he hasn't used in a while. He allows himself to bask in the feeling of the sun for a moment before he rears up and then starts galloping along. While grass isn't his usual kind of meal, right now he'll take it. It feels good to have legs that he can stretch like this.]

[… Of course, it's probably a pretty odd sight to anyone just stumbling across it.]

[Floor 81]

[After a while, Tobias heads upstairs. He can't help but like the lounges - even if they can't really be outside, the open space is nice. And it's the space outside the tower that draws him - or at least the suggestion of it. Tobias perches on the back of a chair near one of the windows, staring out at the stars.]

[That doesn't mean he's not paying attention to the rest of the room, though. A hawk is hard to sneak up on.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[From a different... Holy shit.

...In retrospect this is probably how Xion felt when he explained continents.]

That... makes sense, I suppose.

[Give him a minute here, birdbro.]

<For most people at home they'd say that kind of stuff is impossible. People from our planet have only been to the moon.>

[But yeah he'll give Asch a minute. ... Okay really he's full now how does he stop eating - okay there.]

On Auldrant, the idea of even leaving the ground is insane to most people. Even in the Dawn Age, they never broke atmosphere.

[Then again they also lifted the entire crust off the planet and suspended it in the sky, so you know. Different directions for development.]

<Yeah but you guys have a different system of talking about the world around you and using it with Fonic Artes and stuff like that. That might have something to do with it, since we can't do that.>

[He tilts his head down, though keeps his eyestalks on Asch.]

<The grass here tastes pretty good. Not like home, but still pretty good.>

[He's going to reply, really, but then Tobias' last comment derails his train of thought completely. It squeals and crashes into the port and all he can do is sit there looking stupid.

Rebooting in three... two... ]

...On that note, it's odd that so many worlds leave recognizable humans here.

<That's true. There's a lot of humanoid aliens I've seen, but humans are kind of in the minority.>

[Don't think he didn't see that confusion, Asch.]

<And Andalites eat with their hooves. I thought it was weird at first, too. ... It's still weird.>

Tch, what isn't.

[Yes, he's huffing, more at himself for being surprised by it than at Tobias.]

Even most of the people who aren't quite human look very similar. I wonder if it's favoritism from the administrators.

[After all, they too considered themselves human - it's perfectly normal to watch out more for your species than any other, at least to someone from Auldrant.]

<It might be. I'm not sure what kind of humans they are. But then again I really don't have any room to talk about what counts as 'human' or not.>

[And Rachel always thought of him as human, even if he's still never sure.]

<... You looked like you were trying to find something earlier. Need help?>

They call themselves humans, it's probably the closest we're going to get to actual information.

[Truthfully, he doesn't much care. Humans are as capable of being awful as anything else.]

Don't bother, I don't think they're in bloom yet. These short years throw me off.

<That's right, your years are different.>

[Wait. That means...]

<So you're like in your thirties compared to me...>

[Closer to forty, really.]

And I'm not going to have another birthday before the power runs out.

[Still one year farther than he was "supposed" to get, though, he'll take it.]

<You'll get some more by the time we're done with everything.>

the journey of a thousand miles;

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god I neglected tags this week

It happens

it does

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