Chapter Notes
Lexicon:
torin/tarin - Turian adult male/female (Credit: Mizdirected)
mari/pari - Turian for mother/father (Credit: Mizdirected)
nais - Asari pronoun (Credit: Mizdirected)
Cântir - originally bastardized Welsh, translates roughly as landsong
Useless author prattling:
So fun fact, the Turian people have 15,000+ years of recorded history, compared to Humanity's roughly 5200 years at the start of ME1. Uh. Hot damn! They're in their 151st century, while we're in the 52nd. Good gravy, they would have muuuuurdered us if the First Contact 'War' hadn't been interrupted. I wonder what their population levels are? Anyone know? I apologize in advance, this chapter has me nerding alllll over the place, and then making shit up as I went along. You'll see what I mean.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
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Saren set the box down on his kitchen table, slowly and with an echo of reverence. The ship's radio was turned to a mellow Opera score, piping the humming vocals of a tarin from the 113th century singing a remake of a love story from the 53rd. He flipped the catches keeping the box closed one by one, two along each side, and lifted the top off, setting it aside.
Inside the box, held very carefully in place by mass effect fields, was a multi-faceted sphere of prismatic glass. There were flat panels that made up each facet, the colors all some variation of milky pink, though the shapes varied between squares, triangles, and pentagons. One of the panels was missing. A small container attached to the side opened to reveal shards of a triangle now broken.
Saren removed the shards for a closer look, held gently between talons. The edges showed signs of stress fractures that had likely led to the now shattered condition. Setting the shards down on the immaculate surface, he ran a scanning program to gauge the composition of the material. Results in hand, he returned everything to the box, closed and secured it, and moved to the navigational console.
If he wanted to repair the artifact, he needed base material from the original source.
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"-ay, reports are streaming in. The so called 'Baron of the West Canal' is confirmed dead, our sources say a human female was seen fleeing from the sc-."
Nihlus continued nonchalantly walking down the street, past the news feed, resisting the urge to yell 'I'm not a human, nais! Not that there is anything wrong with that, damnit! Also not female!' He did roll his eyes though, but really, who was he to complain if they got their story entirely wrong? No chips off his crest.
The hoodie pulled up over his head was doing a poor job of blocking the rain fall coming down in a dull and relentless drizzle, but again he had no room to complain as that same rain drenched his clothes and darkened the sky, effectively washing away the blood spatter and masking the numerous small tears from grappling.
None of the blood was his.
Nihlus glanced around casually, looking for the tale-tell ripple in the crowd to see if he was being followed, or for the eyes of anyone watching him closely, particularly Drell. Nothing. He continued forward, slowly, slouching and bland. The only things to note his passage were the security cameras scattered about, and the standard Spectre-grade selective image scrubbing program he'd released into the city's mainframe days ago would take care of that. Viral, self-spreading audio/video scrubbers were very, very illegal. It was a good thing that meant less than nothing to him.
His stomach growled, but he kept walking. Slow and steady. Out past the canal district, into a clothing store. New shirt, new pants, new jacket, a bloody umbrella, thank-you-very-much; all purchased on a disposable credit chit. Out the back door, down an alleyway, into someone's house, a quick scan showing no one home. He slipped inside, showered, and changed clothes. It felt good to wash the grit from his plates, but he left the false bio-mask on his face, hiding his markings. Once more under the rainfall, and backtracking to the shopping district again, different walking pace, different carriage of body. No slouch. Nihlus strode forward like a well to do individual, making for the space port as if he had places to be.
A few switched rapid transit rides, an extra loop past a different shopping mall, another set of clothes, and he finally made it to the space port, back to the rented shuttle that he'd ride to his real ship, data wipe, and set to return on auto pilot.
Nihlus 1, Idiot mob boss who though sentient trafficking was a good idea? 0.
Well to be fair, by this point, it was probably more like Nihlus two hundred something, enemies of the Council 0. It would be that way till the day he died.
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Nihlus sighed, a smidgen bored but mostly content. The PSV Widmanstat was an ugly heap of cobbled together turrets and armor plating, but the ship was his ugly, messy, dextro-pizza-box-ridden heap. It was more or less home, and a considerable upgrade from the slums he'd been in all of last week. Named for the curiously geometric ribbon patterns that naturally formed in the iron mined near the merc base where he grew up. His pari had shown them to him, and they had shared a fascination with the tiny natural wonder. His mari had found it unimpressive, and asked them politely not to bring rocks in the house. He'd still sneaked a few in, and stashed them in a young torin's 'treasure box' under his bed.
The Widmanstat was in geosynchronous orbit with a moon in the absolute middle of nowhere. At the moment he was stuck being, off all things, a secure relay point for intelligence from behind Batarian embargo lines. Not a big deal, really. He'd only been here two days, and might be waiting another week for the agent to get a chance to safely send the data packet without risking their cover.
He was in range of a com buoy, albeit an old one with a slow up/down speed, and so had access to the infinite amusements of the extra net. 'What to do... what to do.' He thought, considering his options for the day. He'd probably run through some calisthenics at some point, if for no reason other then to burn off some energy, and stay in good shape. 'Wellllll. I spent... most of yesterday playing Galaxy of Fantasy, and that was fun. Ehhhh, I don't really feel like fighting the latency again though. I disconnected so many times.' Nihlus let out a long, considering hum. There was always porn to watch, he could find a live stream and pause it to let it buffer a bit if need be. Of course, thinking of sex immediately brought to mind Saren, who... probably wouldn't willingly touch him with a three meter pole. Okay, that was an exaggeration. The torin had literally carried him off the battlefield before, treated his wounds countless times, and even patted him on the shoulder a time or two. He'd managed to steal a hug one time when drunk.
Nihlus smiled fondly in remembrance of that hug. He'd gotten away with it too, which was even better. Oh, there had been a lecture about drinking, mixing uppers with alcohol, and several other things Nihlus now had no memory of, but it had been entirely worth it. Spirits, his mentor smelled good. Edible. Nihlus just wanted to lick him. Just once. Okay, maybe more then once.
Aaaaand now he was aroused.
Plates loose but not open, he browsed for a live stream, vids, or a picture spread even, looking around to see if anything caught his attention. A muscled torin scrolled by, vaguely of Garrus' build and colors, and Nihlus grinned mischievously. Oh, the things he'd like to do to that cop. Too bad the chances of a Palaven-born high tier golden boy sleeping with him were... oh wow, also near zero. He was starting to wonder if he had a fetish for unavailable partners.
He continued to scroll for a while, finding nothing particularly interesting.
'Okay, so... now I've got an itch... and none of this is scratching it.' Sighing he gave up the search, and decided to call the topic of his usual fantasies instead. He missed Saren, bladed charm and all, but if he could get him to answer a vid-call, he'd at least get to see and speak to him. He'd settle for that much.
He sent out a vid-call request, and set it to chime if it answered, then dozed in the pilot's chair patiently.
Half an hour later, it chimed. He smiled and lifted his Omni-tool, Saren's upper torso filling the screen.
"Nihlus."
"Hey Saren. How're ya?" Saren was on screen, and appeared to be sitting at his kitchen table, working on something. Some old sounding music came through the speakers, quiet but melodic. He glanced up at the question, but returned to looking at what he was doing.
"I am well. Is there something you need?" Nihlus leaned to the side, trying to will the camera to show him what was being worked on.
"Oh no, I'm good. I mean, I'm bored out of my mind, sitting in the middle of nowhere, waiting for an intel drop, but other then that good. Just... called to say hi. Missed ya. So what're you doing?" Saren half smiled at the long string of jabber spoken rapidly. So very Nihlus.
"I am attempting to repair a Cântir, almost finished. I was... distracted laying the inset when you first called, hence the delay."
"No problem, I didn't mark the call send as urgent or anything. Soooo... what's a Cântir, and why was it broken?" Saren leaned back from his work, eyes assessing something off screen. The sharp eyed look had Nihlus' talons skimming his waist absent mindedly.
"Truly Nihlus, whoever taught you history should be shot. The gaps in your knowledge base are atrocious."
"Considering I learned most of what I know by doing education modules by myself when mari was too busy with her friends to spend time teaching me, I can only offer myself as target practice there. So ah, please don't shoot?" Saren's quietly aggrieved sigh tumbled into an almost chuckle.
"I suppose I can let it go this once."
"Oh, thanks so much."
"A Cântir," Began Saren, his voice taking on a lecture tone, "is an artifact from ancient Palaven, estimated to have been invented three to four hundred years before the beginning of recorded history. They create a small, unstable magnetosphere that interacts with and diffuses oncoming electrons, creating a wavering display of light that requires no energy and no tech." Saren stood, walking a short distance to a wall panel, and dimmed the lights. Nihlus was confused for a moment, before realizing he was about to get a demonstration. "Ancient Turians took advantage of our planet's excess of solar radiation, using these as light sources and decoration. The unique, multifaceted shape is called a cantellated dodecahedron, and while not necessary for function, is traditionally how they were made. This particular Cântir... is over nine thousand years old." Saren's subvocals, normally so bland, rolled past Nihlus like a lava flow; pride and passion spicing the words.
The overhead lights turned low with soft music still trailing in had created a quiet sense of anticipation. Nihlus leaned forward, watching as Saren turned his camera to include the Cântir in front of him. A soft click sounded as Saren tapped a device off screen. Something hummed to life and suddenly the air around it flickered. Once... twice, in a mellow green. It gradually flared to life, undulating in waves, occasionally flowing into blueish tones. Saren's talons reached out, palm up and fingers curled, running the back of his hand delicately down the side, swirling green fae-light playing against the silver of his hide and plates. "It's similar to the color of your eyes." He murmured.
"It's..." Nihlus began hesitantly, entranced, "It's an aurora? You have an ancient hand made aurora ball? That is... beyond cool." Saren chuffed.
"It isn't mine, it belongs to a museum. They required someone with the time and resources to repair it. A panel was damaged," -Saren pointed to a particular triangle that looked slightly less worn. "-this one, you see? It was practically non-functional without it."
"It's amazing. How'd you manage to repair it?"
"It required a visit to Palaven. I had to match the spectroanalysis of the striation and magnetism levels carefully. It was a bit of a dig to reach the material of the correct composition, but relatively easy to narrow down with the planetary deep scans available."
"How did you even find the time for that?"
"It's called multitasking Nihlus, perhaps you have heard of it?"
"Nah." Saren shook his head lightly at another of their familiar call and response phrases, not entirely hiding a minuscule smile.
"I will be back on the Citadel in two days, when do you expect to be?"
"Unsure, I have to wait for the intel to hit... you know, we should probably get to some of those two-man missions piling up, don't you think? Last I saw there were several queued to be handled. Wait for me?" It was probably the worst veiled attempt to finagle their schedules to match up for cooperative missions yet. Nihlus berated himself for his awkwardness.
Saren nodded though, still distracted by the Cântir lights. Nihlus suddenly recalled that Saren's lost brother was a major history buff. The idea made his throat tight, that Saren was... it was just like the patterns in the iron, the rocks he still had in the crappy storage box buried in his closet. This was... Saren's box of rocks. Nihlus scrubbed a palm over his face and tried to throw off the feeling.
"Good. Great. I'll ping you as soon as I'm on my way back." Saren turned to the camera again.
"Very well." He nodded, and the call was cut.
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Chapter End Notes
The patterns in iron are a real thing, called Widmanstatten patterns, if you care to google it. The really are very neat. I shortened the word a bit when I named the ship to make it sound vaguely more Turianish. Also, I hope no Welsh speaking people are offended by my utter murder of their words, I kinda 'pulled an English' on them; ate them up and made them mine without asking nicely first. Sooo... did I manage to scare anyone with a 'Omg did Saren just find a reaper artifact?!' moment? I hope so. :3
Fanfic Recommendation: Mass Effect - Future Imperfect (853060 words) by MizDirected (Garrus/FemShep & FemShep/Nihlus - a loving triangle in a tangled mess of plot.)