UNSC Arkship-1. July 5th, 2547.

Deck forty was always a cacophony of noise. Being the center of all incoming and outgoing space traffic for the stranded Arkship-1, such chaos was to be expected. The deck was filled to the brim with various types of pelicans and phantoms. The latter were usually given a much wider birth by human maintenance workers. This was to be expected, however, as it was only five months ago that a chance collision forced them to work with a species formerly regarded as their enemy.

None of this crossed the mind of one Sangheili child sitting atop stacked purple crates observing all she saw below. Standing at a mere five feet two inches and wearing simple tan pants and a green T-shirt, twelve year old Rhea 'Kusoam was an unusual example of her people. She possessed striking orange eyes, light gray skin with spots of darker tones (which she would always insist was just a trick of the light), and a more triangular torso and less defined musculature as was typical for her gender; however, it wasn't her physical appearance which was unusual about her. No. It was her intense curiosity, fierce disposition, and intelligence which set her apart.

She quite liked deck forty. Whenever she had the opportunity to observe the deck she took it. It was nothing like the hangar on her equally stranded home ship, Light of the Ancestors. Here everything was less formal, and more hurried. Here she was free to watch without many people paying her mind. Here she had an opportunity to examine a rather fascinating species, humans. They were a bit of a conundrum to her.

She regarded them as walking seemed to have the ability to possess incompatible traits. Brave one moment and cowardly the next. Obnoxiously inconsistent is what her swordmaster called them. Her swordmaster was someone she regarded highly. He was why she had a chance to watch deck 40. He was a member of some important board, so he often had to travel to Arkship-1. Frustratingly, he refused to go into detail about what he did; moreover, he knew how curious she could get.

She knew he got some form of amusement out of her frustration, even if he never laughed. One time when he caught her snooping around trying to figure out his job, she thought she saw a slight upturn of his mandibles before he scolded her. Later, she decided it was her imagination when she was left cleaning her quarters with a human toothbrush as punishment for her indiscretion. Why he even owned such an implement was beyond her.

Rhea's attention was dragged away from an outbound phantom by an interaction she noticed out of the corner of her eye. A human boy, dressed in jeans and a black button up shirt, had just emerged from behind a military-green pelican. He was panting in exertion. With his hands on his knees, he bent down and took a moment to catch his breath before hurriedly looking up and checking his surroundings. What was he watching for? She thought he looked about her age and height, though it was hard to tell from such distance. She shifted her body to take a better look.

This caught his attention and the two locked eyes. He had blue eyes, she noted. He was caucasian and brown haired as well. Nothing was remarkable about him, that is until he grinned at her and waved. None of them had ever done that before. She tilted her head in curiousity and waved back. This had to be studied further. She gestured at him to come closer. With another glance at his surroundings, and with a hesitant first step, he was walking towards her.

He crossed the two dozen or so meters between them with an awkward clumsiness the likes of which Rhea had never seen. Dodging other humans and skittering around oil spills, he seemed very out of his element. Whatever his element was. She wasn't sure if he had one. When he finally arrived there was awkward silence, neither party knew how to proceed.

"Hi. I'm Ian." he mumbled. It would have been an unremarkable greeting to go with an unremarkable appearance if not for the fact it was in Sangheili. Rhea gaped for a few moments before replying.

"Rhea," she paused to consider her next few words. "You speak Sangheili?"

Ian scratched the back of his head. "A bit. It's...crude though." Even learning a bit of Sangheili was difficult for a human. Imitating the sounds, while possible, was very difficult and took a great deal of vocal control. Similarly Sangheili could imitate human sounds if they learned to manipulate their mandibles properly; however, most just resorted to moving their mandibles with their hands.

To think he spoke as well as he did...It had only been five months. Three since the compact. Surely he hadn't gotten the pronunciation down well enough that quickly?

"I'm a...I don't know the Sangheili word for it… a polyglot." He answered, her unasked question apparently clear on her face.

"I imagine that means you're good with languages?" Rhea replied. It was Ian's turn to gape at her display of English. She smugly answered the question on his face, as he had before her. "There is no Sangheili word for it, but I'm the same. I've been learning longer though."

"So you have," Ian replied, switching to English. It was then that Rhea noticed their odd speaking arrangement. She was seated much higher than him, so he was left straining his neck and staring up at her.

"Why don't you join me up here?" she offered. He looked at the tower of crates a bit hesitantly. Rhea scoffed. "You'll be fine. I'll even help you. Look." She offered her hand down to him. With a huff, he grabbed her outstretched hand and was pulled up alongside her.

"So, what are you doing here?" Ian asked, after a brief pause. Rhea turned slightly to meet his gaze. She was pleased to note that he was slightly shorter than her.

"I like to watch this deck," she replied. She returned her eyes to the incoming and outgoing ships. "And you?"

"Well," he scratched the back of his head again."I'm sort of...avoiding a group." His careful wording wasn't lost on Rhea.

"Avoiding or hiding?" He cringed at her bluntness.

"Hiding," he replied meekly, secretly glad he wasn't looking at her. She would surely have noticed his slight blush.

"Why?" she asked simply.

"They're bullies."

"Bullies?" she replied, unfamiliar with the term. Her eyes didn't leave the ships.

"Bullies are, uh, well, they're hard to explain. They like making others feel bad with talking or fighting. They find it fun."

"So, why don't you stop them?" she said as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Then again, it probably would be for her.

"I don't like to fight."

"Because you're not good at it?"

Ian was getting angry now. "It's not like we can all be fighters!"

"Why not?" she said, glancing back at him. Her replies reminded Ian of a child constantly asking "why" of their parents, and it was just as infuriating.

"We don't all get the opportunity to be taught how to fight, do we?" He gestured at the training sword at her belt. "It's easier for an apprentice like you to say we should all be fighters."

Rhea felt a slight pang of guilt, but was more surprised that he knew what her sword meant. How did he know that? No human knew that. It added more mystery to the puzzle that was Ian.

"I guess it is," was all she said in reply. She looked away again. Ian crossed his arms and did the same. A few minutes went past without either speaking a word.

He sighed. "I'm sor-" he started, but was abruptly cut off when a loud bang echoed throughout the hangar.

"What are you stupid kids doing!" a shrill, distinctly feminine, voice cried out. Both Rhea and Ian looked around, thinking the comment was directed at them. Simultaneously, both their eyes caught the commotion below them. A group of three adolescent boys were guiltily surrounding a toppled box near the pelican where Ian came from. Spilling out of it was unrefined minerals. They must have been gathered from the asteroid field near the marooned ships.

"Uh, sorry," the biggest child of the three said. He was a beefy child for his age, with strength derived more from his weight than anything else. The voice from before, a visibly annoyed black woman in a marine uniform, came around the ship and eyed the boys. She sighed.

"Just scram, " she said before she started intelligibly grumbling as she stooped down to pick up the rocks. The boys backed up slowly, apparently under the impression that speed would change her mind about letting them go, and carefully walked away. In Ian and Rhea's direction.

Rhea looked away from the boys to Ian. "You were sayi-" she began before she noticed his expression. He was visibly worried and sweating a bit. He wasn't meeting her gaze either. Rhea turned around to see what he was looking at. It was the group of boys, and they were advancing on them now. The beefy one was leading the other two kids. They all looked about Ian's age, and the two trailing behind the leader were similar to Ian in appearance but with green and brown eyes respectively instead of blue.

Was this the group Ian was talking about before? She didn't have a chance to ask him before the three were upon them. The big one spoke up first.

"Hiding here again, huh, loser? And with a Sangheili too?" he spat "I guess you can't have human friends, so you talk with split lips instead?" Rhea growled at him, her mandibles threateningly opened up. Ian's eyes seemed to blaze in anger at the racial epithet.

"Fuck off, Chad," Ian said.

"Oh, brave now 'cause you think your friend can protect you? We outnumber you three to one since you don't even count as a figh-" he was cut off as Rhea jumped off the boxes and tackled Chad to the ground. Anyone could see the raw fear in his eyes before Rhea landed.

With a yelp he tried scrambling back, but Rhea grabbed his legs before he could flee. His two lackeys started hesitantly advancing on Rhea, but one was taken down as Ian copied Rhea's leap. Ian was less successful, however, as his victim managed to free himself after he landed two awkward punches. The third boy was unsure of what to do as the other backed up into him.

As this was going on, Rhea growled in the face of the beefy kid. He was shouting now, and fruitlessly failing his arms and legs in an attempt to escape Rhea's grip. With a yell the third boy charged forward, intent on dragging Rhea off his friend. He was stopped by Ian who dived, grabbed him by the legs, and brought him to the ground. Unlike the last boy Ian quickly let go, and let the boy scramble away.

The second boy, still recovering, started backing up from the fight. The commotion was now getting the attention of others in the hangar. Ian, noticing the disgusted looks mainly aimed Rhea's way, got up and walked behind her. He grabbed her shoulder in order to get her attention.

"He's not worth it," he muttered. Rhea, with a huff, got up and started dusting off her pant legs.

"He said I wasn't able to fight him. I proved him wrong," she replied still staring at the terrified boy. He hadn't moved since Rhea got off of him. She looked away to meet Ian's eyes."I thought you said you weren't a fighter?" she asked.

"I'm not," he mumbled in reply. He stared down at his shoes to avoid her gaze. Choosing to ignore his shift in languages, she looked back down at the boy who was awkwardly trying to stand. He was looking around for his 'friends', but they were nowhere to be found. They had run off.

Rhea stepped forward and planted her feet on the boys chest, forcing him back to the ground. "Not so tough anymore, huh?" she mocked.

"Fuck you, you fucking spli-" he was cut off with a gasp as Rhea put more pressure on his chest.

"Hey!" a gruff voice called out. "What the hell are you doing!?" A male pelican pilot was jogging towards woman from earlier trailing behind him. It took Ian a few seconds to realize this was a bad situation, real bad. The pilot was Murphey, prejudice bastard extraordinaire who was responsible for several different diplomatic incidents. He was in his late 60s, and apparently served in the Human-Covenant war since the beginning. Old habits died hard it seemed.

"Get off him!" he shouted, angrily wrenching Rhea off the boy and throwing her back before she could react. Worse, Chad was his grandson..

"The hell are you doing to my boy!" Rhea's eyes widened in surprise as she too realized the gravity of the situation. She still chose the worst possible reply anyway.

"Your dumb kid wanted to fight me you stupid prick," she spat out, devolving to Sangheili near the end. Murphy started to reach towards the gun at his belt, eyes blazing, and cheeks red. I jumped in front of Rhea, who was frozen in indecision, with my arms raised.

"Stop!" I shouted. The surrounding deck was completely silent now, an antsy audience circled them now with worry etched on their collective faces. Murphy was still reaching for his gun, but the woman behind him finally caught up and grabbed his arm.

"Stop, Murph!" she angrily whispered.

Another voice joined the conflict. This one was deep, baritone, and distinctly Sangheili. "I would suggest following her advice." Murphy stopped struggling to pull the gun out of his holster. A low murmur could be heard from the crowd.

I looked to the voice. Where did he come from? The Sangheili was massive, at least eight feet tall. His hand was hovering over the energy sword at his hip, and his shields were flaring seemingly in anticipation of being shot at. He looked somewhat like Rhea, Ian realized. He had orange eyes too, and a similar skin tone but with more darker spots. He wore blood crimson armor, but was without a helmet. The armor was spotted with several blew lights along the torso, and a black undersuit sat beneath the red plates. He was also much more intimidating and muscular. A sword scar across one of his mandibles attested to his combat experience. His name was Voru 'Vadamai.

He was not someone Ian ever wanted to fight, and Ian pitied Murphy for a few brief seconds before deciding Murphy brought this on himself. Rhea stepped around Ian, and patted his shoulder in thanks. He lowered his arms.

"Swordmaster," she said tilting her head down slightly. The large Sangheili only looked at Rhea for a few seconds before turning back to woman still hadn't let go of his arm, and Murphy was now glaring daggers into the Sangheili.

"Your animosity is unwarranted, Human," Voru said softly.

"Unwarranted!?" Murphy shouted, spittle flying out of his mouth. "She attacked my grandson!"

"She would not do so without reason."

"Pfft! And what reason does your kind need? The words of some fucked up prophets?" Voru showed no visible response to the insults as Sangheili in the crowd growled walked up to Murphy.

"We never followed the Prophets, human," he replied before wrenching the pistol out of his grip. With an ease revealing practice he released the clip from the pistol, racked back the slide allowing an unfired round to pop out, and threw the gun to the ground. He turned around and started walking towards Rhea and Ian. Chad started whimpering and backed up, his back slamming into the crates behind him making them rattle slightly.

Voru looked at Ian for a long moment, seeming to seize him up. Ian gulped slightly, and couldn't help but fidget under the Sangheili's gaze. He never looked away from his eyes though. Apparently satisfied, Voru shifted his gaze to Rhea. Unlike Ian she didn't fidget, instead she glared back fiercely. Voru sighed..

"You need to stop finding trouble," he said simply. He turned back to Ian. "I suppose I should commend you, human. What is your name?"

"Ian Dunn," Ian replied.

"Hmm. I shall remember that," is all Voru said in response. He turned around and started walking away. "Come, Rhea. We are done here." Ian seemed to consider something for a moment. He then decided to speak up.

"Wait, sir. What is your name?" Voru expressed no surprise at hearing his own language, but he stopped nevertheless.

"The correct form of address is Swordmaster. You would do well to remember that. Others of my rank would take it as an insult to be called otherwise." Ian gulped. Voru started walking away again, and Rhea trailed behind him.

"Voru 'Vadamai," he said, before disappearing into a Phantom. Rhea took one last glance at Ian, grinned (a slight upturn of the mandibles), before following her swordmaster. As the Phantom's door started to close, and it's engines flared, Ian was left with an overwhelming feeling of curiosity. He wanted to know more about Rhea and her guardian.

Ian walked away with a slight spring in his step as Murphy kneeled next to his scared grandson. Before taking the elevator he left Chad with a churlish grin and a middle finger. He didn't care about the inevitable reprisal.

[-O-O-O-]

Ian's quarters were unlike any other on the ship. It was surprisingly large for being on a space faring vessel, but with millions of square meters to spare Arkship-1 didn't need to make compromises in accommodating its relatively few passengers.

His allocated space, divided into a bedroom, living room, and bathroom wasspartan. Its walls were adorned with nothing but the bolts securing gunmetal gray panels to the walls, and the 'windows' (in reality high quality screens designed to prevent cabin fever) were turned off. The only remarkable feature of the room was the wooden desk, and chair, occupying the bedroom. Both were gifts from Arkship-1's resident Artificial Intelligence to his "incredibly gifted student."

Arkship-1's AI and Ian had an unusual relationship. Coming on four years of age, the AI ,named Helios after the greek sun god, insisted on teaching a select group of kids the Sangheili language since "he wasn't going to always be around to translate for them." It was the AI which greeted Ian when he entered his quarters.

"Hello, Ian! I see you had an interesting day." Helios had an incredibly bubbly personality, and was often described as bright as the sun as a result. Helios loved the description. It was how he decided on his name.

"You saw that then?" Ian asked. Helios didn't have cameras all over the ship. Most were disabled out of necessity, as humans weren't comfortable being monitored 24/7. They only covered vital parts of Arkship-1. The camera, microphone, and speakers which Helios had access to in Ians quarters could be disabled by unplugging them too.

"Of course! Deck forty is too important to leave unmonitored. Though I'm sure you knew that."

"What did you think?" Ian asked.

"I was worried! Murphy has been identified as an unstable personality for some time."

"Why is he always on deck forty then?"

"His engineering skills are too valuable to let go, " Helios' avatar, a fluctuating glowing star, shrank down slightly at this statement.

"Enough to overlook...that?"

"More then enough, I'm afraid," the avatar shrqnk down even further, then it suddenly burst back to its regular size. "I can make up for it though!"

"Can you?" Ian asked, skeptical.

"Yep! Rhea 'Kusoam is her full name! She's your age and apprenticed under Voru 'Vadamai" Helios's avatar was positively glowing now. "She's an interesting one, isn't she?"

Ian walked over to his bedroom, and tapped the panel to open his door. He shuffled inside and plopped down into his chair before replying. "Yeah. She is."

[-O-O-O-]

Author's Notes: I'd love any feedback, be it on grammar, syntax, word choice, etc. I really want to make this the best story it can be, and your guys's reviews is one way of doing that. I'm particularly concerned about the way I went about describing characters, so any words on that front would be appreciated.

I understand this story isn't everyones cup of tea, since it consists entirely of original characters. I was also a bit skeptical of how I went about introducing this story. I decided to plop the audience right into the setting without much explanation, since I feel it is more interesting to learn things along the way instead of being forced to plow through dull exposition. Though this may not be effective when the main characters aren't similarly ignorant. Feedback on the merits of this particular strategy are appreciated as well.

This was a blast to write, and I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I did creating it.