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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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< 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?"

< I don't know yet, but I could be. > 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: < I wasn't going to attack your direwolf. >

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.

< I can only shift into the animals I touch, > This wasn't anything new, at least as far as knowledge about the morphing technology went. < I can't turn into anything that would be good for fighting up here, so I was hoping to borrow your direwolf. >

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