[ Chapter 14: Neural Misfires ]

Two weeks later

.

Aria was seated in front of the councilor's desk again, posture lax and slanted with complacency for being in a familiar location even after a fortnight's time. One hand was lain comfortably over the chair's armrest, while the other was held aloft near her face as she absently examined her nails in the morning light. Every so often she stole brief glimpses of the asari councilor, unbeknownst to her, for Tevos was immersed in deep concentration. Tablets filled with information littered the surface of her desk for her assiduous review and comparison. Unfortunately for Aria's dwindling reserves of patience, the extremely particulate councilor was spending an excessive amount of time pouring over it all, and with every successful glance Aria directed toward her, she began to notice Tevos's normally cool expression subtly darkening into foreboding displeasure. It was a very faint aspect, no more than the smallest of creases in her brow that could've easily been confused with intense preoccupation with the data before her eyes, but Aria knew better. She knew the value of being able to read people, and so Aria had been extremely deliberate in learning her unique facial language, putting together a sizable catalog of the asari councilor's fleeting semblances which occasionally escaped her censure. That tiny rivet of stress appearing directly above the bridge of her nose revealed Tevos's current temperament: she was very unhappy, and Aria, coincidentally, knew exactly why. She remained silent however, calmly attending to her fingernails while pretending not to have the slightest inkling in the universe about why the councilor was upset.

Without diverting her gaze from the desk, Tevos's voice broke through the wordless air. "The numbers on your shipping manifests are inconsistent with mine. I had another checkpoint installed on Illium—besides the main port where you obviously installed a hireling—to tally cargo a second time, for I feared this would happen." There was curtness imbued in her tone, and after a pause she spoke again, still neglecting to meet Aria's eyes, "Your manifests are forged in your favor to avoid the tariffs." Her final statement came more phlegmatically than the first, but retained every ounce of implied conviction. At last, following the action of setting her held datapad down, she neatly folded her hands together and lifted her eyes to find Aria's.

The Omegan canted her head a few degrees, no longer entranced by her fingernails, and lowered her hand to await the councilor's next string of words. Her features remained stony and devoid of emotion. Aria had been caught red-handed, but she'd never been the sort of person to apologize. The councilor was just going to have to live with that.

"Not only is this a breach of contract," Tevos continued in her mild voice, "but I also interpret this as a personal insult."

Aria sat up in her chair, now becoming completely attentive. Tevos ceasing to speak after that note revealed her expectation of Aria to ask why she felt insulted, which she wouldn't have under most circumstances. But she wanted to hear what the councilor had to say, what cleverly-worded castigation lied on her tongue, waiting to be thrown at Aria like a multitude of verbal knives. With a challenging upward tilt of her chin, she humored her. "And why is that?"

"Well, given the fact that we both worked tremendously hard for this treaty, overcoming the daunting achievement of cooperation and miraculously avoiding many points of potential catastrophic failure, I must admit that I did not expect you to violate our terms on the first available chance."

Tevos was giving Aria masterful stoicism, dappled only by the injurious purpose of her words. She was becoming incredibly good at that, Aria noted, and fast. Probably from constantly dealing with petitioners, the press, and other dignitaries, and all that experience funneling into the discovery that if she did not find a way to suppress visible emotions, anyone could easily use them against her.

Aria pulled her chair forward enough so that her knees brushed against the front of the desk, and leaned over its surface to address the councilor more personally, more coldly. "I lost twenty percent of the alliances I amassed for my operation, thanks to the lack of gains I made from the treaty. They deserted my forces. One-fifth of them. I need compensation for that. I need to make up for lost ground, and the easiest way to do that is through extra credits."

Councilor Tevos stared at her, apparent bemusement flashing across her face for an instant. "If you lost twenty percent of what you gained for your smuggling operation," she began to reason, "that means your net gain was still eighty percent of the original number, which you did not have at all until a few months ago."

Aria said nothing, perhaps failing to see the significance of her observation.

When Tevos realized that Aria did not have a rebuttal, she shook her head in amazement, in stupor at the impudence. "You, Aria T'Loak," she said, "are the most selfish, greedy, and arrogant person I have ever met."

Curiously enough, Aria seemed somewhat amused by the comment that was originally meant as an insult. "I like to use the term persistent, but those are also appropriate, yes."

"Well, your persistence is concerning, detrimental, and it has to stop," Tevos said, not reflecting mutual amusement in the least bit. "As you once said yourself, contractual agreements hold up in the Terminus Systems as they do here. If you break one, consequences are liable to follow."

"You know, you are very authoritative when it serves yourself. I remember you breaking a lot of rules to get our treaty. Objectively, that's quite the double standard."

"I'm glad you have such a reliable memory, however it seems you've forgotten a highly important point. I live in a subjective world, filled with conditions, special circumstances, semantics, context…" Tevos shook her head again, gathering her words in forming exasperation. "This isn't Omega, Aria. I'm not going to bend these terms for you. I've already given you an incredible amount of leniency in the treaty and it ends here."

"So what's my penalty?" asked Aria. "You're going to declare war on me after working so hard for all this?"

"I have many alternative options at my disposal. Take care not to underestimate the extent of my capabilities."

"Are you trying to scare me?"

Tevos unfolded her hands for a moment in a matter-of-fact motion before bringing them together again. "I'm the asari councilor. You know how we operate. If you had an ounce of sense you'd be terrified of me."

Aria's eyes lit up with something indiscernible. "Really?" she said, expressing a peculiarly intense—and probably trenchant—interest. "Why?"

"Because it would be a shame to see some of your shipments disappear. A cargo ship here and there, coincidentally enough to make up for the taxes you evaded."

Aria was truly impressed. Not only was Tevos keeping herself completely calm despite the Omegan's near-backstab of trust, but she had learned the art of threatening well. Recalling that the councilor mentioned the removal of the cameras in her office, Aria motioned to her with a beckoning gesture, now able to address Tevos in close proximity without intervention. Though they were alone, and though the necessity to speak quietly was nonexistent, Aria had things to say that would be best heard on the medium of bloodcurdling whispers. To her slight surprise, Tevos complied. She leaned forward, feasibly to assert to Aria that she was unafraid of anything she had to say.

"I have a… secret to tell you," Aria began, choosing her words with precision as she uttered them beside Tevos's head. "I'm a very high-risk, high-reward sort of person. But that's not much of a secret, come to think of it. It's fairly well-known, isn't it? So understand that this is what I do. And I know you don't want a war. And I don't want a war either. Nobody's going to fight each other, so I'm just going to keep doing this… thing you don't like. Okay, Councilor?"

"Oh, I understand," Tevos responded, speaking to Aria in the same fraudulent, warm fashion as she had to her while maintaining that dreadfully small distance between them. There was a nondescript professional quality about the new style of discussion, but at the same time, also an exceedingly surreptitious one. "I only hope you monitor your cargo ships with utmost vigilance," Tevos said. "And Omega as well, as a matter of fact. It would be rather tragic if unrest erupted from within your own home."

For moment, Aria processed the thought, turning her head ever so slightly as if unconsciously intending to find Tevos's gaze, but only saw the curving outline of her crest and the few shallow folds wrapping around her neck that remained unobscured by her dress' high collar. She noticed the scent of an expensive perfume on her skin, a modest amount. "You have people on Omega?" Aria inquired, too interested in the answer to be particularly angered—yet.

"I have many people in many places, Aria," Tevos replied, vaguely feeling the edge of Aria's collar brushing against her jawline. "But unfortunately, the answer to that specific question is classified."

There was something about the way the councilor delivered her answer, something about the softness of the threat, the falsely-benign, misleading, almost bewitching tone that ignited quite a strong reaction within Aria. It was such a simple threat, not even a confirmation that Omega could have been infected with Council agents, but it was so very domineering over her thoughts. It made her reevaluate Omega's current security measures, made her search her memory for any suspicious people and activities she may have encountered over the past weeks. And in actuality, there could be no agents at all. Despite uncertainty, Aria still anticipated them, not because the possibility happened to be presented to her, but because the possibility was issued by Councilor Tevos, whom Aria recognized as powerful enough to be capable of anything she said. Anything. But that did not make Aria afraid, or even worried—rather, all she felt was an anticipatory surge of fire in her blood. Fire, like the heated currents of battle that often carried her into euphoria. An eager fire, painful to bear, yet equally as painful to douse. A divine, confused fire that coaxed Aria's fingers to involuntarily curl on the desk.

"What is this?" she asked Tevos in another dangerous whisper, hiding the inferno raging about in her head and stomach. "Is this another round of showing off our strength, firepower, trying to make the other back off? By now we have a pretty good sense of how that usually turns out. A stalemate, and someone gets hurt. So how about you stop trying to scare me with ambiguity and start making promises instead of threats?"

"I'm not trying to intimidate you," the councilor calmly denied the accusation. Aided by their nearness, Tevos detected a sudden tension growing in Aria. She wondered if she was becoming angered, or if she felt threatened, and her body was reacting with rigidity. Tevos considered backing off, not wanting to provoke any sort of altercation, as that would only further dissuade Aria from voluntarily adhering to their treaty's conditions. She would probably refuse just to spite Tevos, to make her disdain for rules even more known than it already was.

Tevos felt another offhand sense of fondness. Although Aria was determined to get her way—even if it required causing a lot of trouble for the councilor—that trouble would be slightly reduced because Tevos now possessed an improved understanding of how Aria worked; what she actually wanted beneath what she said, and how to give it to her with cleverly hidden attachments that she might not detect for quite a while, all of which, of course, would be to the Citadel's ultimate advantage.

She knew about Aria more than Aria probably liked her to, from the extensive research before their first meeting, from the notorious shouting match and incident on Thessia, from being forced to work together, and from simple chats about whatever topics they could scrounge up for the purpose of fooling C-Sec into thinking they were actually getting something accomplished. A certain disembodied intimacy came with all that knowledge, the same sort of chronic intimacy that could have been felt between longtime friends or foes (and Tevos was not completely sure which they were at this point, maybe a bit of both), but undeniable either way. And so, that physical nearness, the almost-touching sides of their faces, was the manifestation of that intangible intimacy into a distinguishable, quantifiable distance, which was nearly nothing, and it did not feel strange. Rather, it reminded Tevos of the way they had stood abreast in that elevator a few weeks previously. They were two leaders guided by an exquisite singleness of purpose, united by congruence, by equity, which defied all remaining, glaring divergences. There was an aspect of fine beauty in that moment and in this one as well, something sacred and marvelous about their coexistence at this level of immediacy. They should have destroyed each other from sheer antithesis, and yet here they remained, so very close and conscious of the other's presence without instinctively seeking to annihilate it.

Tevos found her voice and began again, "No, this is not an intimidation. I'm warning you of what will come to pass if you continue to challenge our treaty. Warnings are usually issued with concern for another's health in mind. Intimidation, however, generally doesn't contain that same sympathy."

Aria briefly grinned, only allowing herself to do so because Tevos could not see it, and realized that she had almost missed the councilor's wit. It was refreshing to speak to her again, even if all they'd done was quarrel over Aria's forged manifests. The conversations Aria had on Omega with her thugs, even with her highest-ranking allies, suddenly seemed lackluster in comparison. Their words were oafish, clumsy, unlike the councilor's with her clever tongue. It was simply exciting and challenging to debate with Councilor Tevos. It made the fire in her veins burn brighter. It made her increasingly aware that the source of the councilor's power was through her mind, her words, because her body was fragile, delicate, and defenseless in nearly every respect, with only her elegant aristocratic mien to compensate for it. But when Tevos spoke, people listened, for her voice was one of the most powerful ones in the entire galaxy, the one that nearly defeated the great Aria T'Loak. And Aria burned from that fact. She burned with frustration, with respect, with a peculiar, almost violent desire to possess or experience for herself the source of that power, the source of those words. When Aria finally spoke, she did so in reference to the councilor's adept performance. "You're getting comfortable with your new job pretty quickly. Already settling into the power trip phase?"

"I don't believe so. But I can see that you still haven't outgrown yours."

In an unpremeditated action, Aria drew away, just enough so that she could directly face Tevos, who watched her cautiously. The councilor wondered if Aria was trying to frighten her, perhaps in revenge because Tevos had continued to redirect her comments back at her with almost no discretion. But Aria was quiet, giving her that sharp and severe expression with her eyes, alluding to active thoughts far beneath. Their blue pigmentation was like ice, harsh and unforgiving like the rest of her, but at once, bursting with the vigor of a new leader, potent, dangerous, and willing to do anything for the betterment of Omega.

Tevos remembered the vids of Aria she had watched in her office. She remembered how Aria had roared when fighting, how she moved, perfectly adapting to the ever-changing tides of combat, of survival, always unpredictable and raw like pure energy. She remembered how her supporters carried her when a battle was won, how Aria raised her arms with regal ostentation while being paraded around, for she was the leader of a conquest, the harbinger of Omega's next era, beautiful in the way fire was beautiful, and revered like a demigod. The same look was in her eyes now as it had been then. The same ferocity. The same sense of being painfully awake, like the emission of glaring sunlight whose origin was not dared looked upon for fear of blindness.

Aria was unaware of what the councilor thought of her, for she was consumed by thoughts of her own. She was studying Tevos's white facial tattoos, the markings of the councilor, an archaic tradition dating back millennia to a time when Thessia was still alone in the void. And Tevos wore them in such a way that gave the winding lines modern class without sacrificing their ancient context. No one else in the galaxy had the privilege of wearing them. They were reserved exclusively for Tevos, to let all know of her position, her authority that no other asari had. Not even Aria, as egotistical as she was, could ever dream of telling Citadel space what to do. Her eyes drifted downward, to view the line that ran down the center of the councilor's bottom lip, and instantly interpreted it as a reference to her skillful speech, that mode of power that Aria so strongly desired to possess, understand, or even steal. Aria owned a similar line, but its meaning was different. They both meant authority, influence, and a subtle portent of danger—but as Aria donned hers like an aversion to all who dared challenge her, Tevos wore hers because it was her right, because it was only proper for the asari to endow their beloved councilor with all the symbols of things they had found in her and selected her for.

And so she leaned forward, taking that white line between her lips, trying to discern the taste of speech, trying to assimilate it into herself, but those surreal ambitions were beyond her grasp. In her failure, Aria pulled Tevos's lip between her teeth and spitefully, despondently, and malevolently, began to bite down. The entire gesture, from beginning to end, was a delirious conveyance of everything she felt toward the councilor, everything she could possibly communicate to her. The liking she felt for her, the desire to fraternize their power for her own interests, and finally twisting into her hatred of being defeated in any respect, hatred of what Tevos was able to do to her. And she savored it, reveling in her own flurry of disconcerted emotions, and they fueled her to bite down harder until she heard Tevos make a small sound, a mixture of a sharp exhale and a whimper of acute discomfort.

The councilor abruptly withdrew in fear as if she had sipped from a glass filled with poison, retreating until her back pressed against her chair's. Aria watched, still lingering in the same spot as Tevos lifted a hand to her mouth, covering her lips, and stared back at Aria with wide green eyes. When Tevos removed her hand from her mouth and looked down, she saw a smear of deep violet across her trembling fingers. "No, no, no," she said quietly while shaking her head, voice carrying undercurrents of panic. "No... I'm not doing this. I am not doing this. This is a scandal, an atrocious scandal that shall be the end of me…"

"The end of you?" Aria repeated. She did not seem to be particularly impacted by what she had just done, and so she spent the next moments carefully observing the councilor's behavior.

"The end of my career," came her dire, breathless response as she continued to stare at her fingers. "If something like this made it into public knowledge, that I allowed this, I'd be utterly ruined—possibly written down as the quickest removal of an asari councilor in thousands of years. No, no, this is not happening..."

Aria slowly assumed correct posture, never once taking her eyes off of Tevos, and issued to her the question of, "If you're set up for such a horrible scandal, why did you allow me to do it?"

"It was purely an accident and I'm hereby preventing anything that may follow it," Tevos's prompt reply came rather icily as she finally met Aria's gaze again. Something was lurking in the green of her irises. Troubled, frantic thoughts, and the suppression of a more drastic reaction to Aria's encroachment. "I will not destroy myself like this," she said, giving the other asari a look that carried the austerity of certain death.

Aria only rolled her eyes at the transition of their conversational climate into quite a dramatic one, folded her arms, and diverted her gaze. "That's another good reason why I hate the Citadel's culture," she muttered. "This would be a laughing matter on Omega. You can do whatever the hell you want there without public persecution, as it should be. My business has always been my business."

"It doesn't work that way here, Aria. I can't go around threatening the media like you probably can. No, there are too many things at stake. My image, my job, everything I've worked for. This incident cannot leave this room." Tevos, whose face was beginning to pale, also began sinking into a state of detachment, as if she were existing solely within her mind and any outward expression was but a brief glimpse at the grander entirety. During the long interlude spent inside the confines of her own thoughts, a perplexed crease gradually developed in her brow. She regarded Aria again. "...But you sound as though you're condoning this," she said, but the statement's purpose remained unclear until she rephrased it into an incredulous question. "Are you actually trying to encourage this beyond today?"

The Omegan shrugged. "Depends on my mood and convenience," she answered with ample faith in Tevos's ability to pick up on the multiple insinuations hidden in her vague response.

Tevos indeed detected the underlying messages, but she was not entertained by them. "I may be somewhat fond of you," she said, "but I am not that fond. And you are very presumptuous for thinking otherwise."

"You're fond of me?" Aria suddenly grew a wicked smirk at the confession. What Councilor Tevos thought of her wasn't of much consequence, but there was a tiny victory to be found in seeing someone so representative of the vile Citadel—that miserable pit of bureaucratic filth—actually taking a liking to Aria T'Loak. Maybe it pleased her because Aria knew she liked Tevos, and how embarrassing would it have been for that to remain unreciprocated?

"No." Tevos said on reflex to deny the connotation she must have accidentally sent to Aria, who appeared on the verge of donning a ravenous grin. All traces of it immediately vanished, however, upon her contradiction.

Aria had exchanged her smirk with a deep frown. "You just said—"

"I am fond of you in the sense that I no longer despise you," Tevos quickly elaborated, "and that I see potential in you as an allied leader. But you…" she trailed off for a moment in analysis of Aria's attitude toward her. It didn't make sense, the more she thought about it. In what universe did Aria T'Loak like the asari councilor enough to engage in physical expression? The end of the action was corrupted by that despicable breaking of her lip's skin, but if Aria had originally intended to harm her, there were easier, more direct ways of achieving that. Ways that did not involve the initiation of behavior usually reserved for intimacy. "You hated me not a month ago," Tevos resumed, still incredulous. "You pulled a gun on me."

"How is pulling a gun on someone any different than pulling the fucking Destiny Ascension on them?" Aria refuted, glowering while she adjusted her position in her chair out of pure irritation. "The intended result was the same. You can't fucking pick and choose these things, Tevos. You hated me just as much. At one point or another, you wished that I would've dropped dead too."

Councilor Tevos was taken aback by Aria's usage of her name, something that she had never heard from her before. Previously, she had always referred to her with a snide Councilor whenever a name was needed, but never her actual one. It was a gateway, an omen of the personal future they were heading into, and Tevos was not keen at all on allowing such events to come to pass. "I'm not talking about this anymore," she said, taking measures to shut down the discussion. "And you are not to do… that… ever again, do you understand me?"

"You've got quite the stick up your ass," Aria idly remarked, hardly listening anymore. She was watching the blood gathering on the councilor's lip and teetering on the verge of slipping down its curve to her chin. Aria was very pleased at the fact that it was there because of her, and was nearly riled when Tevos retrieved a white handkerchief from a compartment in her desk to help stop the bleeding.

"Were you listening to anything I said?" The councilor looked at her with extreme disapproval while dabbing at her lip. "We are not in the same position here. Things are vastly different for you. You have much less to lose."

Aria rested one leg over her knee and proceeded to fold her hands neatly in her lap, perhaps in mocking emulation of Tevos's poise. "You know," she said, voice falsely casual, "it's rather interesting to me that what's putting you off the most are the repercussions of a scandal, and not the 'forbidden' actions themselves."

Silence reigned over them, and throughout it, Tevos was completely still. Aria patiently awaited her explanation for that point of interest, but Tevos refused to grace her with one. "I said I'm not talking about this anymore." Her reply was vapid and dry. "I'm stopping this here. Everything about this, completely stopped." Another uncomfortable span of silence passed. Aria simply stared hard at the councilor, who neglected to meet her eyes while tending to her lip. At last, with a small, almost sheepish gesture to the wound, Tevos asked her, "What do you expect me to do about this?"

"Tell everyone that you bit yourself at lunch."

Tevos felt the insolence of her words, the implied insult. But instead of making matters worse for herself by fighting Aria back, the councilor returned to the datapads, summoning all her composure to help her in the feat of pretending that nothing had happened at all. "Now, going back to the manifests," she said, "you seem very determined to avoid the levies and that is not permissible. I will enforce these terms by my own means if you continue to defy them. "

While Tevos patiently waited for Aria's compliance, she had sunken contemptuously back into her seat, satisfied with just glaring at the councilor. Not because she felt animosity toward her, but because Aria had possibly made a miscalculation. She felt as though she had opened some box and unleashed a cloud of ominous darkness into the room, which was now responsible for creating the captious tension suspending over the office's interior. Tevos had no more levity left for Aria. The thin coat of fondness over her previous threats had completely worn off. And since Aria got greedy and carried away with that little stunt, even going on to antagonize Tevos afterward, it was rather safe to say that she had effectively pissed the councilor off. More than usual, and that did not bode well for the future. The last thing Aria wanted was to start losing cargo ships, which could easily encourage more of her allies to desert when they picked up on what was happening. Spectres were certainly most unwelcome as well, no more desirable than widespread disease. In conclusion, Aria decided that fighting the councilor was no longer worth the trouble or the risks. She suddenly slapped her hands down on the chair's armrests, angrily muttered, "Fuck this," and rose from her seat.

"Where are you going?"

Aria did not answer her question. Alternatively, she stormed away toward the door, slamming her fist onto its panel when she reached it. "I'll stop the damn forging," she bitterly said over her shoulder, giving Tevos a final glare and granting her the view of her form in its entirety—a vessel of stiffness, of fury, clad in black and white leather anger—and was gone from the office.

:::

Honoring the promise Tevos had made to Irissa after the successful signing of the treaty, the councilor had generously reserved the evening to treat the other asari to an expensive dinner. She had attempted to find the time earlier, but work had ceaselessly piled up during all the weeks expended on the situation involving Aria T'Loak. Now that the mountains had receded to manageable levels, her friend could finally be repaid for all her loyalty, help, and support throughout the entire dreadful debacle. And so they sat among the other affluent diners in their dark evening gowns selected for such an occasion, whose cuts were both very conservative in neckline, albeit still made lavish by silky material and ornate designs.

"So did you actually find the time for this?" Irissa warmly inquired after they had finished their meal, and merely lingered at their table for the continuity of their conversation. "Or did you make time for this?"

"A bit of both, actually," Tevos replied. "My workload is currently at its temporal minimum. Which is… not precisely minimal in the commonly relative sense… But minimal nonetheless."

"You seem perturbed by something," remarked Irissa as she donned an inquisitive expression. It slowly morphed into suspicion, then soon again into realization. "Today was your appointment with T'Loak, wasn't it? That was today, correct?"

The councilor allowed her friend nothing at first save for blankness. In all honesty, Tevos had tried her very best to banish all thoughts about Aria from her mind, unwilling to let the haunt of their… contact… to prevent her from going about the rest of her day at optimal capacity. But at just the mention of Aria's name, like an invocation, brought back all the terror at once. Not terror of Aria, no, she was not afraid of her anymore; but sheer terror at what she had, more or less, explicitly suggested getting into. They had only recently escaped a nightmare, and Tevos was not about to enter another.

The whole ordeal was a painfully confusing one, especially when Tevos accounted for her own allowance and passiveness through the first few moments of the… osculation. Those moments were blurry, like the remnants of a dream in which she had automatically accepted the strangest caricatures of reality as completely valid. And she only awakened from that sharp pain on her lip, like a pinch rousing her from sleep. But of course, the councilor had been wide awake the entire time, free from hallucination, and her actions remained unexplained. Maybe her compliance was but the product of utter shock. It had to be. It was a fluke, an accident, a neural misfire—anything but a conscious decision. It could be nothing else. Tevos knew very well that any sort of attraction felt toward Aria would portend the signing of death warrants for both her career and her sanity. She had no choice but to bury it, to lock it safely away where it could quietly rot and die, sentenced to the oblivion of memories long forgotten. Unfortunately, Irissa's question threatened to unearth the thoughts again, and Tevos would have to take measures to prevent her from prying open the casket. "It was today," she calmly affirmed, "and the report will be available for you tomorrow morning."

"Lack of detail means it didn't go well. What did she do now?"

Sharp as ever, and just as willing to enter fiery spirits at the mere idea of Aria causing more trouble, Irissa could not be denied an explanation. Tevos decided not to lie, but to only tell her the half-truth, for Aria had been so generous as to provide not one, but two transgressions that morning for the councilor's accessibility. "I can only be vague at this point, as only the Council technically has access to my report at this time. She violated a term of the treaty, but by our meeting's closure, she gave her word to abide by the conditions again. I still retain doubts about her sincerity, so we will have to meet again in another half-month to confirm."

Irissa reclined in her chair with her glass of water in hand, leering morosely at Tevos. "You know, you're such a naturally gentle and mild person. But ever since T'Loak showed up, you've been… angry. You brood, you…" She pensively swirled her water around in its glass while searching for an appropriate word. "…withdraw into yourself. I can't remember the last time you lost your temper until Thessia happened. I had nearly forgotten what your shouts sounded like. That was not a good day, Tevos. Nor were any others where T'Loak was involved."

"We've had civil moments amongst the bad ones," Tevos optimistically pointed out in an effort to reroute what Irissa was getting to.

"I think she's driving you crazy. You're changing, Tevos. You're becoming colder, more distant, more private than you already were. You're a mystery now. An enigma. I never know what's going on with you anymore, not like how it used to be."

A wave of guilt flooded Tevos's chest. Guilt and mourning for the fact that things would never be the same again. As councilor, Tevos had been recently exposed to a menagerie of government secrets that would make a conspiracy theorist swoon in delight. Secrecy and silence came with the territory, an area that Irissa did not have access to, and never would, so long as Tevos lived. In a way, they were suffering a small death within their friendship. The death of openness, of veracity shared between them. The glory days of their relationship were over, only to be briefly resurrected through ephemeral moments of nostalgia.

"Well, although the ordeal with Aria did not ultimately alleviate my stress amounts," Tevos said, trying not to dwell on the many facets of change occurring in their lives, "I do not believe that she is the sole cause of this… metamorphosis you're detecting in me, if it is truly there. I've dealt with many other things simultaneously, things that encourage my 'withdrawal', as you say. I'm settling into my job, Irissa, and it is not a comfortable task. It is tiresome, often taxing, and requires my adaptation."

Now that was a coincidentally relevant concept. Adaptation, one of Aria's greatest strengths was being able to quickly adapt to change. Could that have been an adequate explanation for her sudden propensity for Tevos, that she had realized over their separation, or even prior, that she liked the councilor, and easily proceeded to acceptance and action upon her revelation? Or again, was that simply part of Omega's culture, to shamelessly pursue their impulses as they came because they didn't have to fear the idea of a looming scandal unlike in Citadel space? If it was an effect of Omega's culture, it also fit seamlessly into Aria's personality. She was greedy, self-centered, and arrogant, just like Tevos had told her, taking whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it.

But something about that incident earlier that day alluded to an aspect beyond just visceral greed. When Aria's eyes had flitted about her features, studying her, Tevos had found intrigue in her gaze, a certain intellectual activity leaking through her stare, as if she were processing something increasingly profound—something meaningful, something unique to the circumstance and those involved. Then she had appeared hungry and angered at once. It was the sort of passionate mental and emotional dissonance that accompanied desiring something unobtainable, and Aria's persona only amplified that turmoil into a cruel bite which followed what would have been, comparatively, a normal move. But of course, Aria wasn't that simple, and most definitely not that conventional.

Tevos stared dolefully into her own glass of water, watching the light gleam off its crystal interior into beams of color and shadow. Oh, what would Irissa think if she knew that Tevos still dwelt on the technicalities of the event instead of simply ostracizing it from her mind, or responsibly reporting it to someone? Was she truly afraid of what would happen to the treaty if Aria faced the wrath of Asari High Command, or was she just protecting Aria out of fondness? She lifted her glass to her lips to drown out the merciless thoughts, but recalled something that she had been meaning to tell Irissa. "Mm," the delicate sound left her throat to signal that she was about to speak again, and she lowered her glass back to the table. "I recommended to have my successor—should I leave office or perish before Aria T'Loak—to replace my role in overseeing the treaty. Which will likely be you."

"Well you'd better take measures to stay in office for many terms, Tevos," Irissa shook her head disapprovingly at her, "and you had better live a long life as well. Because if you expect me to maintain good relations with T'Loak, you'll be rolling in your grave the entire time. The day you die an early death or aren't reelected will probably be the day we end up going to war with Omega."

Tevos smiled gently at the her friend's sense of humor. Though it brought her a diminutive amount of discomfort, as usual, the familiarity served as its redemption. "I'd ask you to maintain good relations in my memory. Surely you could not refuse me that, could you?"

"Luckily for you, probably not. But please, let's not talk about that animal anymore. I fear it'll give me indigestion..."

Again, Tevos reflexively wanted to defend Aria, perhaps merely by pointing to Irissa that the term 'animal' was too vicious and politically incorrect. But she stopped herself as the probable results of the intervention began playing out in her head. Irissa would look at her as if she had a second head, demand to know why the perceivably accurate term was being banned by her own friend, and for Aria T'Loak's sake. And what would Tevos say? That Aria T'Loak, though divergent from Citadel standards of morals and social codes, was a fellow intelligent, sentient being capable of brilliant designs and machinations, that her abominable personality was nothing but an intriguing reflection of the universe's indifference, like some sort of paradox of atoms looking at itself and rejecting its own organic assembly, with thoughts only variegated by the ambitions of a thinking creature striving to perpetuate itself? She reprimanded herself for even considering saying those things aloud, and furthermore for believing that finding someone interesting was a substantial justification for being fond of them.

Many other things are interesting, she thought to herself. Viral infections. Deadly radiation. Alpha varren. But I don't see you permitting your mouth anywhere near those.

Fortunately for Tevos, Irissa had taken it upon herself to change their discussion's topic. "I've seen the way the other councilors are treating you. The cold shoulder from Tarconis, and outright hatred from Delran. You shouldn't have to take shit from anyone, Tevos. Especially them."

"We will make amends. Eventually, I'm sure."

"At least the Matriarchy is pleased with you."

"Yes, I spoke to some of them a few days ago," Tevos said pleasantly, grateful to be reminded of some good news. "I'm glad for their support. I believe they're happy with the results not because any of them feel sympathy for Omega, but because the treaty safeguards them from a lot of Terminus-originating crime in the future."

"Absolutely, that's what I've deduced as well. Did you hear about what happened between Matriarch Benezia and Matriarch Aethyta the other day?"

Tevos furrowed her brow with caution, immediately beginning to speculate about what possibly occurred between the two bondmates. "No, I haven't heard anything. What happened?"

"Well," Irissa began, lowering her voice to decrease the chance of any successful eavesdropping, "During a panel, they had another row. Benezia shouted at Aethyta. Benezia. Shouted. In front of other matriarchs as well. And then, as Matriarch Alaias tells me, they left the room to continue their fight, but in whispers. You know, aggressively whispering back and forth. Alaias said Aethyta kept raising her voice, going quiet again, then raising her voice again..."

The councilor nodded somberly.

"And then," Irissa's eyes suddenly lit up with incredulity, "Alaias goes out to make sure no biotics are flaring up, and she sees them holding each other. Just standing there in some corner, arms around each other, totally silent. They've been together for half a century now, and still no one understands how they're together at all. They're such a deviation, those two. I never know what to make of them. Do you think they'll last?"

"Oh, I couldn't answer that," Tevos admitted. "But you mean 'last' as in for the remainder of their lives?"

"Yes."

"There's really no way to tell, Irissa. But it's completely possible, I think, so long as they're both willing to endure these altercations." During a span of silence that suspended between them, Tevos thought of a remark to lighten the mood a bit. "We should recommend Dilinaga to Benezia."

Irissa allowed a small laugh to escape her. "Oh, we should. However, Benezia's an incredibly well-read person. She's likely already thought of that by now."

At the recollection of Dilinaga, Tevos indulged in bringing back many fond memories of her maiden days, when she and Irissa went to university together on Thessia. She remembered their sociology class, and the certain lecture leading to the assignment of Dilinaga's early works. That day, their professor had addressed the historical events which had given birth to the theories in question: incidents from long ago when, like the present day, Thessia was divided into many independent provinces with free trade flourishing between territories, mostly left unhindered while enjoying the benefits of a generally peaceful and compromising people. However, like all races, the asari also had their dissidents; rising warlords at the helm of zealous crusades threatening to besiege neighboring provinces. But wars were still rare, as negotiations were common and often successful. And, as their professor had pointed out, the remarkable success rate of compromising was no accident. She then brought up the small list of names of ancient asari who once nearly instigated massive wars, giving the class access to their historical profiles whose data revealed what sort of people they were. As expected, the incendiaries were aggressive and idealistic individuals who used their natural charisma and ambition to inspire thousands to follow them into what they believed to be holy wars, or ones that they were somehow entitled to win.

After the students had made their highly predicted quips about the 'barbaric' asari, the professor presented to them another series of names and descriptions of a different group of leaders. These ones received a much better reaction—they were benevolent mediators. Gentle, wise, and kind women. When a student asked the professor about the relevancy of these new people, she revealed to them the startling fact that they had been the ones who made peace between their homes and the ones of the 'barbaric' asari, and many ended up romantically fraternizing with their opposing leader.

And they, a room predominantly full of maidens, had giggled incessantly. Dilinaga's texts were introduced when the jokes died down, only to elicit more when the content was studied and discussed. The textbook was a long, meretricious collection of essays staggered by the occasional poem about the depths of that strange phenomenon recorded throughout history—the asari gravitation toward what differed from them, the seed of their capacity to avoid conflicts. Tevos remembered blushing throughout the entire lecture, for it contained many erotic subjects. She had always been far more prudent than Irissa, who on the other hand loved the lesson exclusively for the controversy it brought about. Regardless, Tevos had been inquisitive even back then, and still read the texts with pure curiosity and the eagerness to understand. After all, she had always harbored a strange fascination for things that made her uncomfortable, likely because there always seemed to be much to learn about them.

The sociological relevance of Dilinaga's works applied to their present era was perceived as a something of an eerie prophecy of the asari's ability to meld with other species. The natural desire to amalgamate with what differed from themselves extended into the stars, to other races who they discovered to be viable mates. And of course, these new peoples offered much more variation than what was found amongst just themselves. That marked the beginning of a new era, when the introduction of other races changed the asari culture, turning them away from themselves as they assimilated new social norms, standards, and unfortunately, the stigmas discriminating against purebloods.

As the councilor's thoughts wandered, she began to associate the lecture with her inexplicable relationship with Aria T'Loak. And of course, the association instantly made her feel ill because of how perfectly it fit. It explained her natural inclination to learn about her, to become her ally instead of her enemy without delay. It explained her developing closeness, how easily and without hesitation she had grasped her hands, and then earlier today, allowed her to—

Stop, she told herself. Stop right there, and do not go any further with that thought. A biological initiative does not compromise your free will to make respectable decisions, nor does it justify what may be happening. You need to stop thinking about it. Thinking about it just amplifies it, makes it much worse than it actually is. You are not those archaic asari. What happened today was a small incident, a misunderstanding or miscommunication, and you've put an end to it. You told Aria that, and you meant it. The more you think about this, the larger of a deal it's going to become. Just forget about it, and it shall disappear.

In silent desperation, Tevos substituted her thoughts of Aria T'Loak for more innocuous ones, expanding upon the remembrance her university days to include additional memories about her dear friend Irissa. They only met because of their common interest in law and an eventual career in politics, which resulted in many shared classes and the decision to study together on occasion. Occasion gradually became frequency, and Tevos, a naturally independent and solitary person, had obtained an irreplaceable friend. Her solitary nature clashed with Irissa's, of course. While Tevos's social etiquette was impeccable and led almost everyone to develop extremely high opinions of her, Irissa deliberately sought out social engagements more often, consequently acquiring many romantic partners during her maiden years. Tevos was rather reserved in that field, only seeming to find enjoyment in the company of the extremely well-read and well-equipped in an intellectual sense, and even then, relationships rarely went beyond peripheral intrigue. And as time went on those meager relationships dwindled into near-nonexistence, especially when her career began to flourish. Irissa had called her haughty more than once in light of that.

Overall, Irissa had been more of a sister than anything, especially since Tevos no longer had any living siblings. She was her mother's only daughter, who had her relatively late in life. And Tevos's father, a distinguished turian with a military background from his younger days and landowner as well as a proprietor of multiple business enterprises in his later ones, had two children from a previous marriage. Tevos hardly remembered them. The elder—a son—died in military service when she was only four, and the last time she saw the younger one—a daughter—alive was at an extensive family gathering when she was fifty-four. By then, her father was long gone, and her mother followed a few centuries later, shortly after Tevos began working the Embassies.

The memories felt distant from her, as if they were no longer part of her, or as if they belonged to a different version of her identity that she had shed upon becoming councilor. Perhaps the separation from the past was only the effect of time fading the images and feelings into abstractions that may or may not have occurred at all. Of course, they all had occurred, as she had record of her lineage and such, but the feeling of detachment was still pronounced. It was also in that moment when Tevos noticed a sense of loneliness seeping into her bones, brought about not only by the realization that she had essentially began to forget about her origins, but also because she was losing little pieces of the last fragments of it: Irissa's friendship. She wouldn't lose Irissa entirely, no, they were too close to ever let that happen, even through Tevos's necessary adoption of secrecy, but she ached over losing any parts of it at all.

"Are you all right, Tevos?" Irissa's voice roused her from her thoughts. "You look pale, and... what happened to your lip?"

Tevos froze, eyes slightly wider than what she would have normally permitted as she lifted a hand to her mouth, feeling the subtle irregularity of the cut. "...I bit myself," she meekly lied, still slightly flustered, "at lunch." When Irissa gave her an odd look, Tevos suddenly began to feel light-headed and ill all over again.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"I feel a bit faint," the councilor admitted, gently rubbing two fingers against one of her temples. "It's likely from stress, exhaustion..."

"I suppose we should leave then," Irissa said, rising from her seat with genuine concern for her friend's health. She offered her an arm, which Tevos took to steady herself. They left their table behind, and the asari councilor ardently wished that she could have left her worries and torments behind as well.