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Entry tags:

bran stark,
tobias

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CHARACTERS: tobias & bran stark & summer
LOCATION: O2 gardens
WARNINGS: n/a?
SUMMARY: tobias is looking for a battle morph and dem direwolves sure look good

He'd only been up here a month but already Tobias' world had been turned upside down. Battling aliens he could deal with. Hell, being trapped on a space ship he could deal with. He'd been in worse situations, and really, this place was fairly luxurious as far as getting trapped went. Keeping his morphing ability hidden was easy when people were more concerned with their own problems.

But now Tobias had a problem, and it was that this ship wasn't as safe a it first looked. There were dangers up here that he hadn't been prepared to deal with, and that's why he's perched high on a limb of a tree, fierce gaze angled down into the tangled thickets of the oxygen gardens. The Starks and their direwolves were up here frequently, and though they were nearly attached at the hip, they were the best thing he'd spotted so far that he could use to fight those things out there. And he wasn't foolish enough to think he wouldn't fight them, sometime. But his default, the hawk, was useless against an enemy that was already blind.

Feathers slicked back, his golden eyes catch every twitch of a branch as good as any sniper rifle. She comes through a break in the foliage, head lowered and preoccuiped with something. Her owner was probably close behind, so he had to make this quick and hope that whomever it was was at least a minute away. < Please don't look up, > He thinks, launching from his branch and angling down toward the direwolf, swooping from up high with talons raked forward.

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It is customary now for Bran to take Summer to the gardens at least once every day, to let his direwolf run among the trees. The gardens are large--too large to be called gardens, it sometimes seems--but they seem small to a direwolf.

And Bran knows this because the garden is a good place to practice warging--not for very long; the risk is too great. If anyone should come upon his body as he slips into his direwolf's skin--they will think the worst. He will be helpless to any threat. So instead, he's taken to sitting beneath a tree that he's chosen as his favorite, and wearing Summer's skin only briefly--long enough to get the feeling of running, to take in the smells of the trees and the earth and the other animals that roam the garden--and then back into his boy's skin again.

But first they must reach the tree--and so here they are today, with Summer running ahead, sniffing at trees and leaves and roots and anything he can find--and Bran behind, moving a little slower. Two legs are always slower than four, and two robotic legs mean he is a little clumsier--though of course they are far better than being carried.

Summer lifts his head, his attention caught by something--and then he takes off ahead, nose pressed to the earth, and disappears behind a screen of bushes. "Summer!" Bran calls the direwolf's name, but it is not likely that the direwolf will turn around and return to him, and so he hurries after, shouldering aside a branch and coming into the clearing--

Just in time to see the hawk diving for Summer, talons outstretched, wings angled in a dive--he recognizes the attack from hawking with his brothers--but why would a hawk attack a direwolf? It must be mad, it must be ill--but he will not see it hurt Summer--or Summer hurt the hawk--the direwolf is just looking up when Bran breaks into his clumsy run--

"No!"--and he hopes that the shout is loud enough to startle the hawk out of its dive, to get it to retreat, as Summer's ears sink back against his head and he crouches--

It's loud enough to startle him and Tobias curses internally (with enough vehemence that he likes to think it'd make even Marco blush), but he needs to pull up. He has both the wolf's attention and that of his owner, though he can see the boy staggering toward him. He has false legs, Tobias has to assume, because his run is more akin to a stumble. If he'd taken the direwolf's attention a moment later, he could have finished his plan, but the great beast's ears are back and he's crouching.

Tobias curses again and tries to kill his momentum, tail fanning and wings flaring out. Flying isn't easy in here, and if he turns wrong he'll hit one of the trees bracketing the wolf. It looks like the finish of a strike, the way his feathers stretch, his talons still in front of him, but Tobias can feel his muscles straining as he fights to redirect, beating the air hard as he tries to gain altitude again.

Bran knows hawks well--he's watched them, and he's used them--and once, on the road to the Wall, he borrowed the skin of a hawk, but only briefly. He does not know hawks so well as to be able to read their movement.

So when he sees the hawk move, sees its talons out, a dull gleam--and Summer turns tightly, crouched low--the hawk will not kill Summer, but he will hurt him, and there are doctors here that know medicines, and cures, but they do not know direwolves. He cannot take the chance.

He's done it before--he's worn the skin of other beasts, if only for a moment--he can do it now, he has practice at it--he can turn the hawk away, and save it, and Summer--it must belong to someone; someone must love it as he loves Summer. And so Bran stops, and drops to his knees--and it is with force that he stares at the hawk, that he shoves himself out of his weak thin boy's skin and rushes toward the hawk, flooding into it--

There is a moment, of soaring, and then he feels it: something wrong, and his stomach pitches, sickly, there is someone else--like the time that he warged into Summer when Arya wore the direwolf's skin--there is the hawk, but the hawk is someone, and for a moment he is falling again, falling, he will fall and break again--

His eyes snap open with a gasp, his boy's eyes, and his skin is already clammy with sweat, and his arms feel loose, uncertain--but he shoves himself up, searching wildly for the hawk, the hawk that is something else--

He sees the boy fall out of the corner of his eye, feels his wings straining- and all at once feels like he isn't alone in his own head. Tobias has never had a Yeerk inside him, but he's seen what it does, has heard what it's like, and he's sure this is what it feels like. He feels disconnected, feels like his body is moving but he isn't moving it.

< NO! > He shouts it before he can stop himself, thrashing internally against the hold on him. When it breaks, he's disoriented, isn't sure where he is or where he's going and collides with a branch, feathers snagging as he crashes into a bush. He lands cockeyed, feels the bone in his wing snap and he cries out, pure hawk, in pain.

Was the fall he felt something imagined, or was it his fall back into his boy's body--or did he feel something of the hawk's fall? But none of it matters, because that no rang out so clearly it was as if it was shouted--and nearly at once he sees the hawk's flight finish in that fall, hears its shriek--

Guilt chokes him immediately, and he shoves his hands against the ground, shoves himself to his feet--Summer is tensed, staring to where the hawk fell, and he takes off running all at once, going to see it out--

"Summer, to me!" His direwolf is usually mindful, but this is a pursuit that interests him--and so Bran can only crash after him, into the underbrush. Summer finds the hawk first, but hangs back, sniffing at the broken branches of the bush--which leaves Bran to push past him, and fall to his knees beside the hawk.

"I'm sorry--" Only a boy would apologize and speak to a bird as if it understands, but the fall was surely his fault. Who shouted no? The question comes second to his worry--the bird looks broken, and it is his fault, and though he knows better (it is a wild animal, and even a trained hawk must be handled with thick gloves), he reaches for the bird, to try to help it--

Crap, crap, crap, he half expects the direwolf to sink it's teeth into him as soon as it comes through the brush because he's no better than a fish out of water without his wing. He tries to move it, but it shoots searing pain up into his shoulder and internally, he winces. His crest comes up, uninjured wing coming away from his body in an instinctual reflex to intimidate-- but the wolf doesn't go for him. His heart beats hard against his ribs, flight flight flight! screaming at him from the inside.

His head jerks, because the boy is on him all at once, reaching for him, and it's sheer willpower that stops him from lifting his talons and lashing out at him.

< Don't touch me, > He warns, because a kid trying to help him might just do more damage, and while all he needs to do is morph to fix it, he'd rather avoid the pain.

Bran's hand jerks back at that thought--and it was a thought, one as clear as if it had been spoken aloud. He sits frozen like that for a moment, staring at the hawk--its proud bright eyes, its fierce talons--and the odd ridge of its wing, so clearly broken. Summer is staring now, too, stopped still, not in a way that looks as if he will attack, but just a stare, his ears pricked and his tail curled high.

Even after something so direct, there are those that might try to deny what they had heard, or pretend that it wasn't real--but Bran is thinking of the three-eyed crow, and the way he'd heard its voice--not from its beak, but just like this, gentler, more murmur. That was a dream. This seems more than that, and he drops his hand to his side, staring breathlessly at the hawk.

"I won't," he answers, "I won't touch you-- you can understand me?" It seems a less stupid thing to say than to ask if the hawk can talk--because this is not talking; this is something else. It's still a slightly stupid question, and Bran frowns, biting at his lip.

Tobias sighs, and it comes across in thoughtspeak. There's nothing for it, he's already blown his cover. So uuch for staying as a harmless hawk in the gardens; though, since this was jut a boy, it might not be as bad as it could have been.

< Yes, I can understand you, > His crest doesn't come down, and his head jerks, looking at the direwolf, keeping it in his sights. It might be a tame wolf, but even those could let their instincts get the better of them. < Was that you in my head? > It comes out a demand, his attention jerking back around to the young Stark.

As the hawk speaks to him--or, really, thinks at him--Bran gingerly touches his fingertips against his forehead. This bird is not the three-eyed crow--it is something very different--but the similarity is still too strange. How does it think to him? How does it think a sigh? And can it read thoughts as well as give them?

"It was me," he confesses, with a small stab of guilt. There is no point in lying. "But I did not mean to cause you harm, I only wanted to stop you from attacking Summer. He would have hurt you."

The direwolf flicks an ear at his name, as he settles down on his haunches. His eyes are still fixed on the hawk, silently tracking the movements of its head with intense focus--but it is a quiet intensity, more of interest than any real hunger--for now. Bran looks back at the hawk, studying it.

"I'm sorry," he says, and means it. Summer never minds having Bran in his skin--but Summer is different--and this hawk is different than the other animals he has tried. There is something sharp about him. "You are hurt now--let me free you from the bush, and we can-- we can find someone to set your wing--"

It soothes him, however slightly, to know that it was the boy and not something else. Like the ship, or god only knows what else. He doesn't explain that he wasn't attacking Summer, because that would open a whole slew of other questions that Tobias definitely does not want to entertain. The less people knew about him, the better. If he spent all his time here between people thinking he was a talking bird and keeping his human half separate, then that's how he would have to live.

Not like he hadn't adapted to stranger things in the past.

< It's fine, > His tone isn't quite as harsh, but it's still standoffish, firm. He just needs to morph, but he can't do it here and now, and he's not sure how he'll convince a kid who is clearly upset for his welfare not to. Instead, he tries to distract him. < How did you do that? >

He pulls his hand back again, warily. He will do as he is told, of course--the hawk knows better than he the extent of its injuries--but he wants to protest. There is nothing fine about the angle that the hawk has fallen into this bush, or the angle of its body. Something must surely be broken--and there is nothing fine in Bran's part in this. I should be more careful, he thinks, for this place is not like Westeros. There are strange people and strange animals everywhere.

And just as there is little point in lying about what he has done, there is still less a point in lying about how he did it. It is a secret, but he has let the hawk in on it by mistake. He owes an explanation at least. So he bites at his lip a second before he answers: "I am a warg."

And it feels strange to say it aloud, and he bunches his hands into loose fists, trying not to feel stupid and childish. "It means I can borrow the skin of animals, and be them, for a time. It is a secret, and a gift--I was practicing it at home, before I came aboard this ship, and I thought to use it with you--just to turn you away from Summer, so there was no fight. I didn't know."

It does not lift his guilt--if anything, it makes him feel slightly worse. It sounds like excuses, and a man of the north does not make excuses. But instead, Bran shakes his head, trying to clear himself of these thoughts. "How do you talk, like this?"

So he was like a telepath, in a way. Tobias was pretty sure he'd read something like this in a fantasy book once, sorcerers who could borrow the eyes of birds and other animals. He blinks, head cocking at the boy, and he an feel his heartrate slowly coming down from the adrenalin. It also meant his body was starting to throb as the pain caught up with him.

 He responds tightly, because it's the easiest thing to say, and he's heard others up here use the term. The girl, Jaye, who works with the animals comes to mind. His small bird chest heaves as he takes a breath. Now that the initial panic has worn off, he— does need some help. < Listen, I'm stuck in this branch, can you help me without jostling my wing too much? >

At the word shapeshifter Bran thinks of Jaye, too--she who was sworn to Sansa, who offered advice when he asked of warging. So there were more like her, which means that this hawk has a human face that he is not using. It is interesting, and as different from warging as it is similar.

"I can try," he says, and carefully moves forward, examining the way that the shapeshifter bird is caught in the branch. It will be no easy task to free him without causing him some pain, but if he is careful, he can do it. "Is there anyone aboard that can mend your wing for you?" And he thinks, then, of when he wears Summer's skin, and how the pain of being hurt as Summer lingers-- "Will your arm be broken when you are yourself again?"

And even as he asks the question, he tentatively reaches for the branch, moving it just a little, wary of making the shapeshifter cry out.

It isn't easy, that's for sure, but after the initial break, Tobias thinks he has a better handle on his messed up wing. It didn't make the pain any less, especially not when the branches started moving, but he keeps his beak shut to stop from scaring the boy. He's a lot more dexterous than Tobias thought he would be, though.

< No, it won't. > He finally says, as he'd been concentarting on getting untangled. Between the two of them he's out soon enough, but the wing is still at an odd angle, throbbing up into his shoulder as he awkwardly steps away from the bush. < I'm guessing not a lot of people know you can do that. >

Bran frowns a little at the angled wing--but his worry lessens when he learns it is an injury that will not linger. But will it still be broken when he changes back? He wants to ask it, but the shapeshifter's statement distracts him--at least, for the moment.

"No," he confesses, biting at his lip, "it is a secret, and-- please, you must keep it secret for me. It is better that way. And I am not very good at it yet. There is much that I still have to learn." There is a little pause, as he observes the hawk, and then, tentatively, he guesses: "Yours is a secret too, isn't it?"

< If you keep my secret, I'll keep yours, > Tobias says, turning his fierce eyes up to the boy. < Almost nobody up here knows what I am, and I need to keep it that way. > The way he says it suggests something bigger and more terrible is at work. Tobias isn't an expert on kids, he's barely a teenager himself, but some things were pretty universal.

Well does Bran know secrets; well does he know the importance of keeping some information held back. Sometimes he hates how well he knows it--before, his only secrets were small and silly things, though they had seemed so important at the time: who ate Rickon's maple cake, who stained Sansa's white riding gloves, who trapped the sparrow in the kitchens. Now his secrets are more dire, and as he stares at the hawk, he feels that this must be dire, too.

"I will not tell. I swear it on my honor." It is a good promise--it might seem one too serious, or perhaps foolish to make when he does not know why the shapeshifter must keep himself secret--but Bran feels how important it is, and he cannot ignore that. Still, curiosity moves him to ask: "Are you in some danger?"

Which was as honest as Tobias felt he could be. It would be so easy for a Yeerk to show up on this ship and find out what he was. People went back all the time, he'd heard, and if there was a small chance that anyone who knew what he was told, or worse, was infested—

The Animorphs would be ruined, and so would Earth.

< There are people who would kill me if they knew, but I'm not sure if they're here. >

And at that, he thinks of Theon Greyjoy and his ironborn; he thinks of Winterfell, burnt and empty, and the mask of the dead boy's face. He thinks of the Lannisters and their armies, of Queen Cersei and King Joffrey, and the look Alayne had worn when she spoke of them. Well does he know danger, too, and so it is without any hesitation that Bran answers the shapeshifter's words with a solemn nod.

"If they are here, or should they come, then I will help you." For where would the Starks have been without those loyal to them, even here? If someone is alone and in need of help, then they must fast make allies. "My brothers and I, and our direwolves--we will all help you. I pledge it on my name as a Stark, and on my House."

It's almost strange, to hear how easily he can offer himself to a cause, but then Tobias thinks back on the beginning, when he'd been ready to throw himself into this fight that feasibly wasn't even his own. He's so used to trusting none but his own (and after David, could anyone blame him?) that to hear this boy decide with all seriousness he'd help.

< Uh, thanks, > He almost sounds embarrassed before he recovers:

Again he nods, seriously and without any embarrassment at all, sealing this vow. It is less common for people to speak so earnestly of such things, he knows that, but matters like this call for strong words. And perhaps he should tell Robb of his promise--later, when he has learned more of this shapeshifter. But Robb should know that their name has been sworn to this cause.

That claim makes Bran wrinkle his nose a little. "Then what were you doing?" It had looked exactly like an attack, the same way Winterfell's hawks might light upon prey--but no hawk was ever so mad as to attack a wolf.

The ache in his wing is becoming more pronounced, and though Tobias has been through plenty of battles with worse injuries, that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt any less when the adrenalin starts wearing off. He struggles not to shift, or to turn and start preening it, like that might help.

 This wasn't anything new, at least as far as knowledge about the morphing technology went. 

If there's a slight hopeful note in his tone there, he doesn't try to disguise it.

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sorry this is late!!!

not as late as me!!

LATE TOGETHER FOREVER c:

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