Culture Shock
"Tali lady, are you poor?"
The innocence of childhood is a true marvel. Children haven't yet learned about things like what is or is not appropriate to say or ask. They just do as they please, which out any filters in place to stop them. And so questions get asked that under normal circumstances wouldn't be asked. Such as Camilla's very innocent question the next morning.
"No sweetie. Why do you ask?" Tali wasn't sure how to exactly respond to the girl's question until the words fell out of her mouth seemingly on their own. Quarians were a very communal society. Individuals and families had very few personal goods. There was no need and no room on ships for more than a few small odds and ends. Most everything belonged to the ship and or Flotilla in general and every effort was put towards keeping those going. At most quarians had their suits which they got as adults and there was every chance that the suit was refurbished and sterilized. New environmental suits were expensive so it wasn't uncommon for a suit to see two or three quarian lifetimes of service before finally being stripped down for spare parts. Especially since internally, the quarians had a barter economy. Any galactic credits brought to individual ships or the Flotilla as part of a Pilgrimage were jealously guarded by captains and used extremely sparingly as possible. On some of the smaller ships, the crews were even allowed to weigh in or even vote on how those credits would be spent for the betterment of the ship.
But Tali never thought of herself as poor. She always had food to eat, a place to sleep and a wrench in her pocket. What more could a girl ask for? Her suit was a refurbished one as not a lot of quarians were as big as she was. At 5' 5" and redacted pounds, Tali was a little bigger than your average quarian female. Thankfully, most of that was in her lower body and turians, though only Garrus' opinion really mattered, were generally thighs and not breasts sort of people. Though with the ones jumping the species barrier it could be why they jumped in the first place.
Since the peace between the geth and quarians a few months ago the resettlement of Rannoch was moving forward at full speed. But that didn't mean the economy nor communal values developed over hundreds of years of ship board living had magically gone away. Families lived in small spaces tightly packed together in clusters, often unofficially arranged by the ship they came from. The economy was still barter based and it's not like the geth had kept the shopping centers of 300 years ago stocked and up to date. People just didn't have stuff in their new homes because there was no stuff to gather and furthermore no need.
So when young Camilla asked her question Tali just spoke honestly.
"You have no stuff in your house. And if you're poor Leto and I don't want to eat all your food. Mommy," Camilla paused and Tali watched the little girl visibly shudder as she tried to keep her voice steady. "Mommy said it's not nice to eat up someone's food when you're a guest."
"Oh sweetie, come here." Tali drew the child into a warm embrace. "It's okay to be sad and miss your mother. I miss my mother too. Maybe someday we can talk our mommies if you want."
"Leto at all the cookies at one of Mommy's friends once." Camilla mumbled into Tali's chest.
Tali couldn't help but smile as she drew back a little to look at the girl. "Well, we aren't poor Camilla. Like I told you and your brother last night there will always be plenty of food so I want you to stop worrying that. Okay, sweetie?"
The youngling just nodded.
"Now, let's get ready for the day. I have a lot of things to do today and could use you and your brother's help."
It turns out that just suddenly declaring yourself a family doesn't actually make you one instantly. Nor does declaring that you are going to be a mother two young children make you an expert mother either.
Tali didn't exactly have a plan for what to do with the children. She took them to work, and together with Legion and the small staff of other geth, kept an eye on the kids as they got their work done. At lunch she tuned out the hushed whispers and inquisitive stares of others at the cafeteria while she took the children and the same gaggle of geth quietly in tow. The same occurred at dinner and on the walk home, though Tali was grateful for the help in carrying the children.
After the children were put to bed Tali noticed the same geth were gathered in a little circle in the living room all facing each other. After a few moments the geth broke the circle and formed a perfectly straight line, five in back with Legion standing directly in front of the group, precisely in the middle.
"Tali-creator. We wish to know if we have failed Garrus-friend." Legion spoke. After a very pregnant pause he turned to gesture to the geth gather behind him.
"I'm sorry what?"
"Garrus-friend had explained that the Vakarian-subunits were to be taken care of by us as a 'favor'." Legion said even using air quotes when he said the word favor. "Your entering into the primary care of the subunits was not part of the original equation. We wish to know if we had done something wrong which forced you to enter the equation."
Tali took a moment to figure out what exactly Legion was saying and could only bury her face in both her palms. Everything was such a blur the past day and a half since Garrus had showed up with the children in tow planning to end things with her. It also explained a lot of the geth extranet traffic and why Legion suddenly had a small gaggle of them with him everywhere the children were. Granted, a day is not enough to establish a pattern of behavior but leave it to Legion to hop to a conclusion so quickly.
Tali had to spend the next five minutes explaining that the marriage between Garrus and herself wasn't exactly planned and that she promised to incorporate the geth more into the children's routines. Once that was established, of course. Mostly, she spent her time reinforcing the idea that no, the geth had not screwed up doing a favor for Garrus.
Why, they fixated so much on him was beyond her. Maybe because Legion did, and he was sort of their unofficial representative. At least to the quarians. However, she made the crucial error of not exactly defining nor asking just what exactly the geth would be helping with in regards to Leto and Camilla. And she paid for it the next day.
It was a painful experience to watch. It wasn't overly traumatic and the kids didn't seem bothered at all but it was cringe worthy. The geth had blocked out every waking moment of the kids day. From simple school lessons, to some physical exercise, to when they could have fun. Tali had actually heard one of the geth units declare the time and then state the children had exactly an hour to have fun. Most of that was spent with Camilla asking to do all sorts of activities that just didn't exist on Rannoch. Needless to say no fun was had that hour.
An then there was supper. By now rumors where swirling around the entire Flotilla. Gossip was extremely popular amongst the quarians as it was a cheap form of social entertainment. Aunty Rann had tracked Tali down and quietly reminded the young admiral that she was a public figure. And that when a public figure gets a very mysterious and quick visit from a turian cruiser, and suddenly has two turian children, people get curious.
So Tali told her aunt what had happened, explaining Garrus' visit and introducing the children. And the fact she was married now. There was some reprimanding about being rash and not notifying anyone on the quarian side about things. Especially about the marriage.
In addition to having to file a marriage notice in the morning, Tali was tasked with also releasing an official statement in regards to the children. Secrecy in the Flotilla, while it did exist, was something that was frowned upon culturally. When everyone depends on each other to survive, trust is paramount. That and denying anything often led to wilder and wilder rumors. Currently the rumors about Tali has shifted from her being brained washed and or held prisoner by the geth to her having built small disguises for geth infiltration units. Disguises that happened to look like turian children.
Tali's fourth day of motherhood went fairly smoothly. She filed the necessary paperwork, got the kids registered as her dependents, had her marriage to Garrus made known and set straight the silly rumors. And she managed to still a lot of her own work done. Things were looking up. That is until they stopped by the park on the way home.
Quarians don't spend their entire lives in suits. Children grow too fast for suits to be a practical so they are normally kept on special clean ships until they reach their early teen years. Then they get a suit so they can start getting hands on experience instead of just book instruction as their education. With the return to Rannoch, some parents have been adventurous enough to have their children live on the planet in protective sealed bubbles. Other more brazen parents have been letting their children run free without any sort of protection. Though it caused quite the stir, the reasoning was that Rannoch was their home and the planet wouldn't kill them.
And it hadn't, though there was a short period of time when it looked like it might. But thanks to those bold parents more and more children were growing up without environmental protection bubbles. This of course has encouraged adults to start experimenting with short amounts of exposure to their natural habitat. With lengthy amounts of sick days afterwards. While 300 years of shipboard living did weaken any already weak immune system, somewhere in the quarian genetic memory is Rannoch. And once the body remembers that this place isn't trying to kill it on purpose, things get better.
However one thing not natural to Rannoch is turians. So when two turian children show up at a location packed with quarian children playing on the geth build playground. Being the play ground the geth built as part of their mad scramble to make things ready for Leto and Camilla's arrival, it was a turian playground. The children of course didn't care. It was unlike anything they had ever seen and they all had a great time on it.
Being of turian design there were forts and trenches and all sorts of rooms in the forts where parents lost sight of their kids. But as long as the kids came when they were called, the parents took to visiting as they sat on benches around the perimeter of the playground area. Which is exactly what Tali did. She set her kids loose and they disappeared into the playground no one paid much attention to the fact there were two turian kids running around with a bunch of quarian kids.
Not until it was time to go. To say there was shock and outrage is an understatement. While gossip might move that the speed of light around the Flotilla, official announcements of a personal nature don't exactly make the rounds as quickly. And even then gossip moves at different speeds in different circles. Overtired parents don't gossip as much and as such it was news to them that Tali had kids. Turian kids. They had spent the better part of an hour playing with their virtually unprotected kids.
Tali would have to spend the next week making apologies though it helped that no one died. There were a few grave cases of illness but the kids all bounced back. And they all wanted to play together. So in the end no real harm was done.
Of course the children didn't understand what the big fuss was about. Their biggest concern was the language barrier though they managed through the universal language of youth.
"Tali lady how come I can understand the other kids but they can't understand me? You understand me. Legion, Lily, Larry, Lana, Leopold and Link all understand me. They even speak palevani to me."
Camilla had taken upon herself to name the gaggle of geth. If they had names before they were seemingly discarded for the new ones bestowed upon them by the turian girl.
Tali hadn't thought about it but what Camilla said was true. The geth, being geth, spoke whatever language was native to the organic they were addressing. And Tali could understand them because she had a translator built into her suit. The children it turned out had had military translators fitted on their way to Rannoch. It was a small implant fitted at the base of the skull and came with two very boring voices. One for males, and one for females. But it got the job done. Commercial translators tended to be tiny and disguised as jewelry and had much nicer voice software.
However, none of the quarian kids had translator. Why would they? And translators were expensive. A quarian got their translator right before they went on pilgrimage. Afterwards, they gave the translator back to the Flotilla so it could be reused by someone else. Tali was a special case in that she was an admiral. As she might have to meet and greet other species in the name of the Flotilla, Tali had been fitted with one of the nicest translators they had available.
So it came to pass that quarian language lessons were added to their list of daily activities. This would include Garrus when he showed back up on Rannoch looking worse for wear. Tali was most certainly not amused by how he spent his first few days of sick leave. But she put that matter to rest early and rather enjoyed having her family all together, even if it was for a short time.
A/N: GT Drabbles chapter 11 takes place after this chapter of GT RR.
