She had come to Aya because of bioelectrics. She had been kicked off the Tempest because of bioelectrics. She was just that good, and the Moshae had seen it. During the battle for Meridian, the Moshae had been in the sky attacking the kett ships with bioelectrics. She had been doing the same with biotics. Their eyes had met. The Moshae had given her a conspiratorial nod and a smile, and Cora's fate had been sealed. She had been 'requested' by the Moshae for a deployment on Aya to train the Resistance in biotic technique. Cora had argued that any asari huntress could have done the job, but Sara had been all too eager to cement their relationship with the angara after the battle.

She had crossed her arms and said, "Sharing knowledge with our allies will make us stronger, and I trust no one else to do that better than you, Cora."

And how could she have argued? She graciously backed out of the room and proceeded to strike a deal with Lexi for room accommodation in return for caring for her roses. She was going to have an anatomically correct angaran skeleton residing in her space, but her roses would be alive when she returned. Now she was boarding in the bunks of an Ayan domicile. The privacy that had been so precious in the Milky Way was looked at with disdain on Aya. Everyone needed to be with someone, and it was killing her. The personal boundaries were nonexistent, and she had already been propositioned three times this week. Apparently, tension relief was not a taboo either. She had afterwards strived to create an aire of unapproachable superiority. It had not worked very well. She had been here a week and still was receiving concerned comments about her 'emptiness' without a field. This constant questioning had led her to seek refuge in the only place she felt respected: the training field.

She would drill, scold, yell, and punch to her heart's content, and nobody would speak ill of her. At the end of the week, she would wipe sweat off her brow and spar for her own pleasure. It kept her from being questioned in the curious innocent way that the angara had in the domicile, in the baths, and in any place that the crew on the Tempest would never have spoken to her. Oddly enough, the only place that she could escape this vexation was in the training arena and in public. The angara would be too busy entertaining one another to bother looking too closely at her. She simply blended with the few other humans on the planet: a curiosity that didn't produce a field therefore didn't require attention.

This is how she first noticed him. She started taking lunches on the tavetaan terrace siting with her back to the rail, because she felt safer with nobody behind her, and she enjoyed watching the others interact inventing suppositions and stories and generally casing the joint. She had proceeded to her table only to find it occupied by a slight scarred angara holding a datapad. She frowned and slid into another table with the back against a concrete wall and only 75% of her normal view to her displeasure. She knew the man, of course. Evfra de Tershaav was a man to be feared and respected. He was arrogant, hard to please, and a general asinine pain. And he had taken her table – which made him worse than all the other things.

He took no notice of her, so she turned her nose away, ate her food in silence, and paid. She thought that would be the end of it. He was there the next day and the next and the next. It made her a little angrier inside with each smug sip of coffee. She assumed he drank it black like his soul. She knew he was a leader and a remarkable one, but she liked her solitary place that she had found in this city of gossips and was not keen on being shuffled through the tavetaan dining space. Angara would not always allow one to remain seated alone, but their desire to be surrounded left the solitary table unfilled. She had been usurped, and her haven had quickly turned into a game of Russian roulette. Sometimes she had privacy, and sometimes she had naught. But always Evfra sat alone at her table drinking a steaming coffee and reading a datapad. Alone.

When all the other angara were so bent on spending time together, he was alone. This observation became somewhat of a hobby for her during the next weeks. When another angara would approach her in the domicile proposing they find a private double room, she would decline and leave. Hopefully, she wouldn't see the stranger in the morning. These sorts of propositions were always given by the young and the untrained. When she mentioned this to the Moshae, she had simply shrugged and commented on how all must learn to live with rejection. Cora simply did not want to teach that lesson. When this chain of events would occur, she would find herself walking the streets in the evening her feet carrying her unbidden to the tavetaan. She looked up at a window above the street one day when a flash of light caught her eye, and he was there the screen of the datapad reflecting the flash of a streetlight for a brief moment. She would walk out the showers sometimes to see him striding down the hall alone. She knew rationally that this was improbably and nigh impossible. A general and a diplomat cannot simply be solitary. There were functions – unbearable crushing functions but functions all the same.

She was in her domicile one night when Amarek approached her. He was not one of the young idiots but a soldier in her class whose bioelectrics were very good while still falling short of excellent. It was not his skill that made him improve but endless hours of sweat and practice which she respected. After all, she had seen others more gifted than herself go farther, but with her diligence she had liked to think that she had caught up to them. She had no doubt he could do the same.

He sat on her bunk as she organized and chatted with her asking about the Milky Way and her past. She spoke short abrupt sentences. She was uncomfortable with the other angara listening around her as they readied for sleep – not with Amarek. While he was a soldier, he was one that she had thought with time could become a friend.

"You are nervous," he said with a tilt to his head giving his wide eyes a more innocent appearance.

"No. I'm crowded," she growled as she reached down to put her things back in their place.

A warmth covered her hand, and she looked up to see Amarek looking down at her. His seat on the bed at a higher vantage point than her crouch. Her eyes were wide, but she didn't pull away – more from shock than fear. Amarek was not one she had expected this from. She had never gotten the feeling that she was an oddity from him like the young men and women who simply wanted to experiment with an alien. His wide eyes shone out of his unusual green skin, and she could see no signs of the usual human shakiness. He was open and simple, not being coy or secretive. He removed his hand from hers.

"Is it that bad?"

She blinked at his casual air. "I like privacy, yes. I miss my single room on the Tempest."

She hoped that didn't sound too forward. It really wasn't what she had intended. She didn't know if she would consider Amarek for a lover or a partner, but she didn't want to outright refuse him at that moment. In truth, her usual blunt nature was not extended to her new friend. It was easy to speak harsh words to strangers but less so to a man she would see tomorrow regardless of what happened tonight.

"Is sharing not better than isolation? We are isolated at work, yes? Would it not benefit the society in regards to understanding to live with one another?"

"I… don't know." She glanced around the room uncertainly feeling a sheen of sweat ghost across her, and she wiped her hands on her trousers crossing them around her chest. She was the odd one. The skin tone, the body, the language, and the customs all singling her out for attention.

He shrugged and stood yawning, so she could see his canines. He glanced her way and seemed pleased to see her watching him with interest even if her posture said no. He didn't pry anymore nor show any other sign of his earlier lingering touch other than the faint upturned lips and the sharpening of his pupils as they trained on her.

"You are tough on us," he said rubbing one of his shoulders and smiling at her.

"Soldiers are not pets," she snapped. She was uncomfortable with this attention – his and her bunkmates who were now starting to stare perhaps noticing her biotics.

He laughed easily. She liked that about him. "Regardless, sleep is in short enough supply as it is. Perhaps you should as well."

It was a sentence, but his eyes asked a question, and his mouth smiled roguishly. She knew superiority was an issue here, but she was not protected by the angaran decorum. As an adjunct and an outsider, she was viewed as more of an equal – they to learn from her and she from them. Neither the young fools' nor Amarek's advances were considered scandalous. If she were to lean toward promiscuity, this would be an ideal situation.

"I prefer my soldiers well rested before their training."

"Maybe you should give us a day off every now and then," he rumbled before turning to leave.

She was glad that he was gone – in a way. The bunkmates were whispering amongst themselves seeming more disappointed than anything else. The gossip had died quickly as each posturing suitor came to her and was sent away. Amarek was not young – nearly thirty-five – and therefore not a boy. He had much more to offer her in terms of experience and according to angaran standards would have been an ideal partner and at the very least bedmate. She thought it might have happened had he been fiercer and she in private, but she did not want anything began like this.

She picked a light jacket off the shelf. It was in angaran colors. Her Initiative uniform quickly became dirty and more clothes were provided in dark purples and blues – typical recruit wear. When she had mentioned this, she had been informed of her status as an adjunct. If the Pathfinder had needed to be clothed – as an official, she would have been given Evfra's colors – light blues and white. Where everyone lived in an equally shared war, the only identification methods seemed to be in rank.

The Ayan night bit her exposed skin, and bugs hummed in the air. She hadn't encountered anything too awful in the night, since she had come. The Moshae had given her sprays in her pack for afflas – little stinging insects that winked in the night, but they seemed to favor the angara over her foreign blood. The spray hadn't been opened. She had forgotten it the first night and not needed it after that.

The tavetaan was crowded around the bar, but she was pleased to see her table empty. She slid into it and ordered a drink. She preferred to lose herself in anonymity than chance the queries of her domicile. A krogan sat drinking quietly. She saw the tilt of his head and the way he seemed to not taste the drink as it burned down his throat. The bartender refilled it and charged him without protest or acceptance. She thought that he had lost something or someone in the battle – a woman, perhaps, and his trade goods which he ferried between the Nexus and Aya were in quarantine. She figured he was a pilot, because his armor had streaks of black running down it – probably a fluid leak. He thought his time would be better spent drinking than waiting on his goods until morning. Of course, it was just a guess.

Two asari sat giggling at an angara in between them. He wore a recruit's underarmor and a veteran's rofjinn with a fallen warrior band ringing the tail– an heirloom she guessed. The man was too young and too alive to have earned it himself. The asari seemed to not know or not care. The smart one wore glasses and a maxi dress trying to show the curves her self-confidence said she did indeed possess. The pretty one dressed similarly though more drab – insecure she thought. The smart one was the alpha. They would both go home with him.

A guess again. It was her hobby. She judged – a survival skill that had helped her many times. She looked for clues and made rationalizations only to stay away from her own thoughts. It was Amarek this night and could easily be another tomorrow. She looked around the bar for a challenge. An angaran male reading with a group – sharp wit, asks too many questions, doesn't understand the difference between bragging and talking. A human sitting alone – angry, dislikes the planet, from Voeld due to lack of jacket. An angaran woman – pretty smiles but bored and polite. The man that approached her is an intruder to her discussion but nervous and untried. She pities him. They leave together.

A flash caught her eye, and she looked up. Evfra was leaning out his office window. The omni tool on his wrist had caught the light of the bar. He watched the patrons intently – the leaving couple, the krogan, and a new one. She followed his gaze. A human man sat with an angaran woman – their heads together laughing. She leaned to him. The man's dark skin contrasted beautifully with her light blue. They're in love. It was new she guessed. About a week. They hit it off. He brought her flowers. She baked him a gift in return. Now they had jokes – probably about culture shock. Knowing angara, probably about sex.

She looked back to Evfra. He looked stern – unlike the other angara. He neither smiled at the couple nor looked away. He only stared at them. She heard their voices grow louder. They stood up to leave. The man paid the bill and subtly slipped credits to the angaran woman. Her smile vanished. A curt nod took its place. The man stood staring at her before smiling sadly to himself and walking toward the docks. She was surprised. She looked incredulously up at Evfra wondering if he had known. How could he have seen something like that so far away? Why would that be the story he would find?

He took a long drink of his coffee – definitely black, and his eyes turned locking onto hers. He didn't start, and she was certain she could not have narrowed her eyes any more in suspicion than they were. She simply met his - steady, calm, and calculating. Neither looked away. Her drink grew cold in front of her.

Angara had been easy to read. Their open emotions were all around her, and while she had not used her biotics to unravel such clues before, she could feel the base emotions as well as any clumsy child – hate, lust, joy, and love. It was only when they were strong and not crowded together in the same space – something that was rare on Aya. But this inability to hide had never taught the angara to deceive. They would sometimes lure or trap as Amarek had demonstrated with his fangs and flexing, but they wouldn't outright lie. This man kept himself trapped in his office and confined to a life of a single organism – apart from the ebb and flow of the culture around him. She found herself wondering what he was thinking.

Her eyes didn't waver as the thoughts became more pronounced in her mind than the discomfort of staring. Aggressive? No. Calm? Not exactly. Collected? Yes, he was collected. Was he overworked or harried? The distance prevented her from telling. What did he worry about or desire? The end of the war? Peace? On the surface, it would seem so, but every angara desired peace. She was searching for something specific to him. She needed a clue.

He raised the coffee cup to take a drink leaning back into the shadows of his office. The windows shut, and she imagined him to still be standing behind the panes watching her as she paid her bill and meandered down the pavement to her domicile. That night she dreamed of him standing behind that window. His scar was pronounced against his face – a divet in his skin carved permanently. His pupils narrowed in the dim light like Amarek's had been during his display. The slit in the center of his shadowed blue glowing and staring into her. It made her feel that her secrets were not locked as tight as his own.

The dream did not help. It left her groggy and edgy as the domicile began to wake. Her bunkmate stepped on her hand as she climbed to the floor. Cora's squeak of protest only served to make the woman worry over her. Cora rose, and the dream was replaced by the task of assuring her that she was not actually harmed in any way. She dressed and put her old clothes in the bin. It was Liiva's rotation for domicile tasks today. Tomorrow it would be hers. Another thing the angara did differently. Communal housing meant task sharing. There wasn't any focusing on one thing. There was always a place and a job that could be occupied whether you had to switch or not.

She had been given a teacher's rofjinn – the only distinction between her and the others in the classroom. She had told the Moshae that it was not appropriate attire for combat, but it had been pressed to her anyway.

"Remember your time here fondly," she had said in that quiet assured way that made her hard to argue with.

So she wore the rofjinn on the way to class wishing to keep in functional and grateful for the lack of chill the dew heavy morning air brought with it. Evfra's window was still closed she noticed as she passed underneath it. A stray thought wondered if he had gone to bed after the strange scene. She hung the rofjinn in the women's showers on a hook and left her change of clothes. She liked the training room like this. The trainees were slowly arriving stretching and yawning letting their canines protrude this time not in a way that asked dangerous questions. She was free to look and watch. She wondered why the sight of the teeth made her shiver. Was she prey? A bump on her shoulder startled her, and though she could not sense it in his field, she could see a hint of displeasure in Amarek's brow.

"Did you sleep well?"

She grunted at the inquiry not answering in full. He nodded and stayed at her side for a beat his eyes staying on the other yawning trainee before the distaste flashed from his face, and he moved to join the others behind her for stretches. She sighed with relief. It was not something that she wanted to spend too much times thinking about today. When she pulled up, stretching her shoulders, she turned to face the trainees slowly scanning the faces and meeting each set of eyes, although hers lingered little on Amarek's. There were many that were new and many missing. The bioelectric specialists were free to attend her courses or another's so long as they attended. The only required attendees were those personally instructed by the Moshae which was more an honor than a choice. Communal life would scoff at one who threw away a gift or a talent. She had seen it done to a man down her hall. It was whispered that he had been selected for a mechanic based on his intense interest and aptitude. After the selection, he lost interest in it. After a week of the silence, he voluntarily elected to go to Voeld. There were many guesses as to why this had occurred: a lover had been moved, he had grown bored, his instructor and he had quarreled. Cora had her own theories on the subject, but she had found the lover situation closer to the truth. She had seen him hide cakes at dinner a few times and lingering at the garden on her way home from the tavetaan. Coincidentally, the mechanic master's young daughter often had the cake crumbs on her shirt. She thought the lover was younger than he, and when it was found, he was moved for propriety's sake. The lack of interest in his selection was more due to sadness than anything else. Not that she knew any of this for certain. Besides after last night, she had begun to question all assumptions she had made.

She ran through several biotics exercises before asking her recruits to demonstrate them. Shapes were her focus right now. The angara could project much better than she, but they had never tried to control the energy flow. It shot away in uneven surges rather than being kept tightly under control. Amarek smiled at her as she walked past and nodded at his orb. The man was working hard and sweat beaded his forehead. She busied herself in the others as she tried to balance her load. Others were gifted. A woman in her twenties was shaping other shapes: triangles and hexagons. She could not disconnect the field completely from her body. When Cora asked her to try, she only looked at her incredulously.

"It would be cold," she said, and Cora didn't know how to respond to that.

Another had difficulties projecting his shapes in three dimensions. And so the problems went. She went to each trying to smooth the edges or make the edges appear depending on the situation. While they were not the Moshae's students, they were gifted and hers. She had good teachers and tried to dole out the discipline in equal measures of assurance and praise. She had never sent one home even though the student biting his tongue in the third row had been here daily, since she had started and had yet to even kindle a field away from his body. With each defeat, he seemed to become heavier. Even Cora could feel the despair seeping through him.

She was trying to work with him when the door opened behind her. She didn't turn to look. She simply kept trying to offer the strangled encouragement that she could.

"Yedo."

"He's busy," she snapped taking the anger out on the new target rather than the young man.

"He has missed his assignment with the chemistry master."

"Chemistry master," she asked incredulously looking up at the man who had gone rigid and stiff wearing a look of a child who had been caught with something he knew he shouldn't have.

"Sir, I am researching, sir," Yedo barked.

Cora turned to see Evfra standing with his hands behind his back. His eyes met hers, and she thought that she saw a flash of surprise across his face before his stern demeanor reclaimed him.

"You have not explained that to your master."

Yedo's eyes drew together in a frown. "I have, sir. It was deemed unimportant."

"I hear that you are not particularly gifted in bioelectrics. Would you agree?"

Cora's brain held one part annoyance that she had not been named and one part anger that he would try to bring her into this. She looked at Yedo and then at Amarek. Neither had been that gifted, but with work, one had improved. The other had not. Yedo's hands clinched by his sides.

"Are you hard of hearing?" Evfra's growled question brought her back, and her anger took the better more reserved part of her mind.

"With work, he will become skilled," she replied pertly.

Evfra's eyes opened a bit at the unusual challenge to his authority, but he knew the codes of the angara much better than she and to refute an instructor over the competency of a desired attribute went against the angaran method, so he chose a different route. He looked to Yedo.

"Your human instructor seems to think you are competent. Your chemistry master thinks you are a genius. Where do you think you would better serve your people?"

"Here, sir," barked Yedo without hesitation, and Cora was fond of his mettle if nothing else. The scrawny chemist would-be bioelectric wonder could stand his ground against the unstoppable battle hardened general.

Evfra had apparently not expected this either. "Surely," he replied after a pause, "if a student is so willing to learn, anyone worthy of the title of instructor could teach him successfully. Otherwise, they would not be a competent instructor."

Cora felt her hair bristle at the arrogance and narrowed her eyes. The man wanted the human off his planet. That was clear. It irked her that his arrogance was still so telling after all the species had accomplished together. He turned his eyes on her.

"Wouldn't you agree?"

"Yes, sir." The words ground from her teeth leaving a streak of defiance in her eyes.

"Very well. I expect to see him show me something impressive in say… two weeks? I believe the chemistry master would be sorely disadvantaged to not have him back by then."

"He will be ready… sir." She left the space purposefully to gain his ire, but his face showed nothing. He wasn't angry nor proud of his clever challenge. He was impassive as always.

He nodded and left. The class collectively heaved a sigh of relief and worry ran through the room. Yedo looked at her in surprise, and she was angry at him for a moment. She was angry at herself for standing up for him even though he had not improved in the first week of being here. She didn't see what sort of leaps and bounds he could make with two more of the same. If nothing else, she supposed that she could look forward to a private room in two weeks time.

"Why…?" Yedo's eyes searched hers in confusion.

She shook her head at him and breathed out her nose. "Because you have been here every day trying."

"But I've done nothing." The bitterness in his voice felt solid.

She shrugged. She wouldn't fill the boy with false hope. "Isn't that what angara do? Teach those who want to learn."

"Well, yes. Until there is a preferred aptitude. They have set my course."

"Do you want to be here," she asked seriously. A part of her hoped the man would simply say no, and she could walk on the next shuttle off the planet.

"Yes," he replied with a firm nod.

"Then I will teach you," she said simply. "You will be here late and early, yes?"

He nodded, and her gaze slid from his face to catch Amarek staring at her with his arms crossed over his chest. She had thought that she would see disapproval on them. She thought that maybe her standing up for Yedo would incite jealousy and an unease in his advances, but he smiled at her when she caught his eye. She still wasn't certain what she wanted to do with it yet, so she broke the class for lunch and walked to the tavetaan. When she arrived, she looked to her seat, and he was there. She stopped and glared. She couldn't help it. The man wanted her gone, but he couldn't order her. She wanted to be gone, but she couldn't leave without abandoning a mission.

His head twitched, and his eyes rose from his datapad to meet hers. She crossed her arms refusing to break the gaze. A slight smile touched his lips, and he raised his coffee cup as if to toast her, but she knew it was to toast her untimely departure rather than the mission's full three months. And in that moment, she knew his coffee was black. It was the same color as his soul.