Resistances & Dalliances

Chapter 1: Stormy Skies

"You did what?" Evfra demanded, leaning fists onto his table as he loomed over it towards Ryder. Aya's peaceful, bright sky seemed entirely out of place behind that dark expression, just a hair's breath away from throttling her, she was sure. He had sent everyone out reluctantly at her request, but seeing his face she wasn't sure if it had been prudent after all. Private matter or no, she wanted witnesses around her suddenly with him in that mood.

Ryder let out a slow breath, determined not to break eye contact. "I found evidence about your family," she repeated.

"Is it your usual form to look where your eyes are not wanted?" he asked coldly. "Or is this your idea of diplomacy, finding any loose thread you can to gain my trust, even though I made it clear I do not want you in my business?" His desk actually creaked from the pressure he was placing on it and she was sure that had she been another angara, he would not have held himself back as much as he did. Was that 'cultural sensitivity' or disdain on his part?

Ryder knew she should have resisted the temptation to follow up on Evfra's family and this reaction was exactly how she pictured this conversation before mustering the courage to walk through the Resistance base doors not ten minutes ago; but the man's every word was a grating, burning challenge that she couldn't let go of and before she realized it, she had stumbled head first into an investigation that could cost her and the Initiative everything. The problem was, the moment he shut her down when she inquired about his past, it nested in the back of her mind like a splinter, a puzzle that made her itch inside. That wasn't all, of course; he himself began to fascinate her in ways she found quite distracting.

Pull yourself together! Ryder chided herself, desperately trying to suppress the embarrassed blush creeping up her neck. "I did not go out of my way," she replied somewhat stiffly. "But I thought that since I did find something, you should know about it. You have a right to know about it."

Curse the intoxicating glow that blossomed in her chest the first time he had approved of her actions; she blamed that feeling for this hot mess she was in now, unable to let things lie where he was concerned. Somehow that unexpected, grudging compliment made her keenly aware of how little she knew about him beyond what was obvious to the eye. Or nose, she thought, nostrils flaring slightly to catch his curious scent. The best she could do to describe it would have been a moonlit night over a blanket of snow: clean and fresh, but with a flowery twist that… Ryder groaned softly, feeling a fool for standing around admiring the block of ice that was Evfra when her news was so grim. The number of ways it was inappropriate was mortifying.

"I do not trust your motivations, human," Evfra pushed himself away from the desk and turned away from her, arms tight across his chest. "I told you I'm not going to share my life's history with you. You should have accepted that and left this alone. I buried their memories a long time ago and I have no wish to revisit events that happened ten years ago to satisfy your curiosity's whims."

"I can't believe that," Ryder retorted, crossing her own arms in frustration. The man was nothing if not difficult. Maybe she was becoming too accustomed to angaran openness, but it was especially irritating how little the Resistance leader divulged about himself, the one walnut that just wouldn't crack no matter how she positioned it. You're just avoiding admitting that he is right about you, she thought, not liking the burn of shame his words caused at all. But she was also right, no matter if her motivations had been driven by an irreverent curiosity."Family is everything to your people and I might have just found hope for you. Isn't that worth something?"

"Did you learn that about us from a datapad conveniently left on Paraan Shie's desk?" Evfra asked, glancing over a shoulder, nebulous gray eyes bleak with a void that seemed somehow more infinite each time she looked into them.

Ryder breathed out slowly again, trying to ignore the sting of that comment. "I know I am an outsider," she began, but Evfra cut her off before she could finish her sentence.

"I'm not interested in your excuses. If that is all you came to tell me, then leave. We are finished."

"Can't you just hear me out?" Ryder shouted at him and to her surprise, Evfra cocked his head and seemed to reassess her with what seemed like an unconscious curiosity. He turned back around fully, leaned back on one heel and waited. It wasn't all she hoped for, but at least he wasn't objecting anymore or trying to send her away. "I might have something, it may be nothing, but you don't lose anything if you just listen to what I found," she went on, moderating her tone as much as she could. "I was tracking a group of kett on Voeld and I came across ruins…" She faltered, words dying on her lips as her empathy demanded respectful silence. The ruins of his home, she had been about to say.

Open with emotions or no, Ryder definitely did not want to get on Evfa's bad side, especially considering how unwelcoming his good side was, but it had always been compassion that drove her to share what she found with him; she did not want to rub salt in his wounds, no matter how he pretended he didn't feel it. Besides, she had to tread lightly here even had it not been about him personally. She was sure the Initiative would be in jeopardy without Resistance support and angering Evfra by meddling in his or any angaran's pain was a dangerous gamble at best; but more than that, she wanted just one acknowledging, admiring word out of him – just one. If she could do something for him, something significant to earn his trust, his respect…

Evfra did not seem at all phased by Ryder's stumble into such a sensitive subject, unless a slight narrowing of his eyes counted. "I've been to that ruin more times than you have seen anything at all in Andromeda," he said finally, obviously impatient with her to spit out the crux of her information. "I have seen every broken beam and scar on the rocks before Voeld reclaimed most of it. There is nothing there."

"I found a trail and followed it," Ryder said, numbed by his callous attitude; she was still just as driven to help him whether he liked it or not, but she found that her sympathy was inexorably drowning in a growing river of exasperation.

"A trail cold by ten years," Evfra scoffed, unimpressed.

Ryder shook her head. "This was new. The kett returned for some reason. That's why I followed it in the first place, there was nothing there for them to find anymore," she paused again, uncomfortable in skirting around such a personal tragedy. "It led me to a base. After I killed the kett I searched around to figure out why they were interested in the place. They kept records there, some of it valuable intel that I already forwarded to the Resistance, but… some of it was quite old information. I found your family. They were taken to a camp, but as far as I can tell they were never slated to be exalted."

"I have yet to see the ray of hope in any of this… or the sense," Evfra interrupted, frowning in a way that said his patience with her story was skating on thin ice.

"They realized who they were, Evfra. That they were your family members, so they kept them apart from the other angara they captured. There were notes added to those entries."

Evfra sighed, visibly irritated now. "Human, you may know your way around a weapon but your sense of tactics leaves something to be desired. If they held my family for ransom, they would have used that leverage long ago. And they know that any member of the Resistance would rather die than fall into their hands, and that extends to family as far as they are concerned. I would have gladly died to save them, but the Resistance is my family now; I will not let all the sacrifices of every angara who gave their lives for this cause to crumble for a mere rumor so obviously designed to draw me out."

Ryder chewed her lip, her frustration beginning to influence her mind towards shouting again; it seemed to be the only form of communication that actually helped this conversation along. "Evfra, I know it's a long shot. You're probably right, they may all be long gone. But if there's even a chance that they are still alive… you have to try to save them."

"It still sounds like a trap to me, not hope," Evfra replied, finally unwinding his arms.

"Evfra," Ryder said as sternly as she could, pouring as much emotion behind it as she could. Again, it seemed that Evfra sensed it and responded: he waited. "I will go with you if that's what it takes, but either way I cannot let a chance to save them pass me by. If you think it's too risky to drag your ass personally out from behind your desk, so be it, but I am going after this lead."

"Why do persist in this? They're not your family," he demanded, the fringes of anger coloring his voice, eyes like a blizzard that could have rivalled his homeworld for its stormy intensity.

"Do I need a better reason than liberating angara from the kett?"

Evfra made a noise of disgust, but his shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. Huff as he would, Ryder saw in that dusty infinity that was his gaze that he was convinced. "Very well," he said finally, grimacing. "I will accompany you to Voeld. Only you, it is bad enough that you pried against my wishes, I refuse to involve anyone else."

"But my team—"

"No," he repeated.

"Very well," Ryder acceded. It was good enough for now that she won her point, best not to push her luck, though at that moment she was tempted to slap him. She smiled for the first time since arriving. "This will be an interesting journey."

"If you call dragging up my past interesting," Evfra shrugged, his disapproval written in every line of his face.

Ryder cringed inside. "Oh, shut up, Evfra. Meet me in an hour on the Tempest," and without letting him get a word in edgeways, she stormed out of the Resistance headquarters, ignoring the curious, baffled and intrigued looks she gathered in her wake.