Chapter Two: Miss Translation / 1812 Overture - Tchaikovsky

Revised March 2019.

Of all feelings Indigo had experienced in her twenty years, one of her favourites—right up there with orgasms, sinking into a hot bath, and stroking a dog's ears—was that charged, electric moment of anticipation when a conductor lifted their baton and the orchestra prepared to play. Instruments raised, fingers on strings, breaths taken: a second of synchronised silence, of expectant tension, before that first slash of the baton and the music began. The orchestra played the instruments, but the conductor played the orchestra.

She was too busy yawning to appreciate it this time, however, as to nobody's surprise, she'd only managed about two hours of sleep. Even after a month on the station, the relentless constancy of the wards still overwhelmed her. Streaks of neon, flashing holos, scrolling ads, people and places always going and going… each minute was a headache-inducing wash of sensation, with skycars zooming through the cityscape at all hours and a restless, determined movement in every nook of every building. Yet despite the perpetual motion of raw, unbridled life, the Citadel felt so natureless—everything filtered and processed, scheduled and maintained. Even the many-worlded flora blossoming within confines of glass and metal felt artificial, flowering in a perpetual spring sustained by sun lamps and aeroponics.

Foregoing the Presidium's simulation of day and night, the wards instead governed time with a 27-hour cycle. Citizens worked and lived according to their own schedules, an independence Indigo found exciting, but it meant there was no lull, no reprieve; just the same frenetic energy under the same nebulous sky. Although she'd adapted somewhat to her new day-to-day, the oppressive too-muchness of everything around her kept her brain from switching off as she lay in bed trying to count sheep. And when she did sleep, she had weird anxiety dreams: standing somewhere very high up with no barricades; being back in church, feeling uncomfortable and unsettled, with atonal brass music bleeding into her waking moments; being lost in an Escheresque city, a patchwork of Adelaide and Tayseri, with her family telling her things in a language she couldn't understand.

Fighting a heaviness in her eyelids, Indigo slumped a little in her chair and blinked away the bright spots of reflected light dancing on the bell of her instrument. Cellos and violas opened Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture with a solemn melody from the Eastern Orthodox hymn, 'O Lord, Save Thy People,' rich string chords inspiring a wave of bittersweet nostalgia. Damn, she missed playing cello sometimes—it was her main instrument before she took up trombone. Sometimes she thought about taking it up again, but she'd sold her cello years ago.

Her friend Cuilam caught her eye across the stage as the plaintive woodwind chords joined the strings in a call-and-response. Sitting amidst his half-circle of timpani, he flared his dark mandibles in a knowing grin and mimed a yawn, waving his hand in front of his mouth. Indigo poked her tongue out at him and received an odd look from the salarian percussionist on the snare. She straightened up in her seat, uncrossing her legs, and smoothed her skirt, holding her trombone upright, eyes on the conductor.

Despite her best efforts to remain focussed on the music, Indigo began to zone out again, playing on autopilot—one of the first things she always did with any piece or part was memorise the music as quickly as she could, but she missed a few cues. She snapped out of her tired stupour at the first of the infamous cannon blasts during the finale, or the lack thereof. For some strange reason, the university campus lacked a supply of artilleries, so Cuilam settled for shouting, "Boom!" when Saenz cued him.

"Thank you for that, Cuilam," said Saenz, giving a rare, closed-lipped smile as the orchestra came to a staggering stop and everyone laughed. "It's good to know we have a back-up plan in case the cannons fall through at the concert." Her no-nonsense expression returned as she flipped the page and cleared her throat. "Okay, let's turn that one over. I know the 1812 is old hat to many of you—familiar to the point of tedium, for those of you unfamiliar with human idioms—but I will not tolerate tedium in my performances, and nor should you. Right, we've got time for a run-through of the concerto, with our good friend Rimsky-Korsakov. Indigo, are you ready?"

"Yep," Indigo lied, gathering her sheet music and trombone. She knew the concerto off by heart, but she liked having the score there in case her brain went wandering again. Where did the phrase 'old hat' come from, anyway? What kind of hat was it? She'd have to look it up on the extranet when she had a moment. Because that was a sound priority to have when she should be eyeballs deep in notes on ancient salarian history for a test tomorrow.

God, how had she ever managed high school? Oh, right, she hadn't.

"Indigo?" Saenz's expression was, as ever, a mask of patient professionalism, but her dark eyebrows raised a fraction.

Right. Concerto.

Steeling herself, Indigo hurried to take her place at the front beside Saenz. She gave the rest of the orchestra a smile that felt more shy than confident and hid another yawn behind her hand. "Sorry," she said. "Late night." The familiar pit of anxiety opened in her stomach as she looked around the stage, and she took a deep breath to quell the nerves. Just rehearsal, she reminded herself. It would be fine. She liked performing and was good at it, but she still felt sick every time she stepped onstage.

Playing such a bright, energetic piece as Rimsky-Korsakov's trombone concerto required all of Indigo's mental facilities to stop her brain's transformation into overcooked cauliflower. She managed to keep her thoughts firmly between her ears and played reasonably well, even receiving a round of applause from the orchestra and a few cheers from her friends. Sighing in relief, she grinned and ducked her head in a bow.

"Okay, we'll stop there," Saenz said, raising her voice to be heard over the commotion as everyone began to pack up. "We'll polish the Dvorak symphony next rehearsal, and yes Cuilam, we will definitely have the cannons ready for the 1812, so you can stop looking at me with those expectant puppy eyes."

Cuilam frowned. "What's a puppy?"

A strange mix of excitement, nerves, and homesickness slithered through Indigo's stomach as she gathered her things and made her way off-stage. This concert would be her first solo performance unattended by any member of her family. She didn't like that it bothered her, even a little, but she supposed it made sense. Sometimes empty nest syndrome went both ways, no matter how far you flew. She'd entertained the idea that maybe her mother might visit the Citadel on one of her many work trips off-world, but Esther gently dismissed the vague suggestion in her last email.

She spotted her friend Dan, a tall, thin human and a fellow student at Auxua, hefting his double bass towards the tiered rows of seats where people left their instrument cases and bags. Indigo had been a week into semester when he'd dropped into the seat beside her before an Introduction to Xenomusicology lecture and said without any preamble whatsoever, "Hey, you wanna be in my jazz band? We're called Blues Shift."

She'd responded with a yelp. "Jesus fuck, you scared me! Sorry. Um… sure?"

They weren't actually called Blues Shift anymore. At the first rehearsal Indigo went to, Dan's girlfriend Tula had protested the name, saying it was a bit on the nose considering she was an asari, a point Dan contested by saying it was a pun on the style of music they were playing. Indigo pointed out that the piece they were working on was more swing jazz than blues, and Dan had grumbled his defeat. Cuilam, who also studied at Auxua and played drums for them, had offered up the truly awful name Thulium Lubricant, effectively ending the argument against Dan.

"Good playing in the solo, Red Rum," he said as she came up to him. "Bit shaky during the second movement, but all in all it sounded solid."

Indigo suppressed a flash of annoyance at the criticism—it was true, after all. "Thanks. I played an excerpt from the first movement as one of my audition pieces to get into the orchestra in the first place, and I must have wowed Saenz because she told me afterwards that she'd been thinking of doing this concerto and offered to consider me as the soloist."

"Glad you got it." Dan put his bass into his gig bag and zipped it up. "She had Tula play Bartók's viola concerto last year."

"Oh, man, that's a great piece!" Indigo smiled, a little wistful. Leukaemia carried him off before he finished it. So many composers and artists died leaving works unfinished—lives spent creating to the end. Her grandfather had loved Bartók. He'd been a conductor and a composer, and as soon as she'd been old enough to waddle over to his piano and serenade him with a toddler's unique brand of cacophony, he'd been determined to foster any musical inclination. Indigo's formative years were filled with orchestral concerts and chamber ensembles, operas and musicals. He hadn't been too impressed with her batarian heavy metal phase, but even through that he'd been her own personal Yoda of music.

"Where is Tula, by the way?" she asked Dan, glancing over to where the viola players sat. "It's not like her to miss rehearsal."

"She had to leave early for an exam. She told you before we started, remember?"

"Oh." Indigo frowned, her memory offering only vague hints. "I thought that was yesterday."

"Wow. You really must be tired." Dan raised a conspiratorial eyebrow. "Partying hard as usual, huh?"

"Hell yeah, I have.… if a party can be defined as 'binge watching the history channel and playing Galaxy of Fantasy all night.'" After a few weeks of server crashes and infinite loading screens, it seemed the good folks at Neuroware had finally sorted out most of the kinks in Waters of Kolono, so beta-testing was proceeding as planned: at the expense of Indigo's study time.

Dan shrugged and scratched at his undercut. "Sounds like a party to me. Cuilam and I have been watching Thousand Year Honeymoon reruns from three hundred years ago."

"I'd never have guessed you guys were into asari soapies."

"Everyone has their quirks." He dragged his gig bag out from under a row of seats and packed up his bass. "I mean, not gonna lie, I watch partially for the, er, assets—don't tell Tula—but I think he genuinely enjoys the plot. Illium housewife dramatics and all."

"Well, like you said, everyone has their quirks. I myself dabble in ritual sacrifice." Indigo found her bag where she'd left it on a seat and slid her sheet music back into her folder. She nudged her trombone case closer with her foot, but paused before unzipping it as another yawn threatened to split her head in two.

"Human mouths are so weird," said Cuilam, making Indigo jump and wonder how someone seven feet tall could sneak up on her. Maybe she was just that tired. She stepped back a little, looking up at him. He had a habit, to which he remained oblivious, of standing too close, and his imposing height compared with her lack thereof made for some strained necks.

"So are yours, Cuil," said Dan. "Check out those teeth."

Cuilam bared them in a grin. "The better to eat you out, my dear."

Dan blanched, while Indigo hid her face in her hand. "Eat with, eat with!"

"I know what I said. Anyway, it's really the hands that get me," Cuilam admitted, the small plates of his nose twitching as he spoke. Indigo fought a smile. She would never tell him out loud, but she found the sight strangely adorable. "Yours and the asari. Too many fingers," he said, wiggling his own.

"Either that or you got too few," Dan said.

"I guess we're all weird," Indigo concluded as she put her trombone away. "Such is the wonder of the universe."

"So, Puppy Eyes, too bad we didn't have the cannons today, huh?"

Cuilam shrugged, a very human gesture that Indigo thought looked quite odd considering his species' wide carapace and long arms. "It's not like the school's going to wheel them out."

"Yeah, it sucks we gotta rehearse on campus," said Dan. "We used to use the Dilinaga Concert Hall over in the upper wards, but that got blown to shit by the geth."

"Were you here when all that happened?" Indigo asked, relieved when both of her friends shook their heads.

"I was visiting family in Seoul," said Dan. "Tula was, though."

"Jesus. I can't even imagine… that ship looked terrifying. Not even like a ship, you know?" Even just seeing holos and vids of that turned Indigo's stomach, sending a wave of clammy goosebumps over her skin. She could hardly imagine what it had been like to be there in person. "Something about it… It seemed wrong, on a kind of visceral level. Like something from a Lovecraft novel."

"Yeah, it was like a big cuttlefish or something," said Dan. "I guess the geth build them weird."

Indigo glanced at him, wondering if he really bought the idea that it was a geth creation. There were rumours that it had been something else—some kind of new alien species—but the mainstream media had quashed those in the aftermath, painting the theory as the mutterings of the tinfoil hat crew. Even the new Risa Urvasen vid, Citadel, had a disappointing lack of conspiracy. "Well, I always thought the little ships looked like prawns, so maybe the geth have a crustacean fixation." Cuilam opened his mouth and Indigo cut him off with a raised finger. "No, no, no. Even I will admit that's a terrible band name!"

"Fine. Speaking of being blown to shit, I'm so excited about having actual cannons," Cuilam enthused, amber eyes gleaming with what Indigo feared might be actual bloodlust. He bounced on his toes a little, dark mandibles flaring wide in a sharp-toothed grin that she still found mildly unnerving even after nearly three weeks sitting with him in class. "Fire in the hole! Have I ever told you how much I love human music?"

Indigo and Dan exchanged a look. "Yup, that settles it," said Dan. "We're all dead come concert night."

"This week on Citadel NewsNet," Indigo announced, "the Tayseri Philharmonic suffers major casualties after overenthusiastic percussionist is left unsupervised."

Dan clapped her on the shoulder. "Okay, it's been nice knowing you, Red. At least we'll die doing what we love."

"Come on, have a little faith. I'll at least make it quick and painless," Cuilam offered.

Indigo snorted. "How reassuring."

"Well, since we're all kicking the bucket, how about a last meal? I'm meeting Tula at the Noodle House if you guys want to come."

"You just want to laugh at me trying to use chopping sticks again," said Cuilam.

"Guilty. It's hilarious."

Indigo opened her mouth to say she was tempted, only to reply with another yawn.

"I can go get the cymbals if you want," Cuilam suggested.

"Please, no," she groaned. Her head hurt just thinking about it.

"Don't think Sellis will let me, anyway," said Cuilam, referring to one of the other percussionists. "He's weird about the equipment. It's annoying having him as a section leader, too—always grilling us about parts. Salarians remember everything. 'Make sure you remember the meter change at bar 78,'" he said, flattening his subvocals and taking his voice up in pitch. He sounded like he had a hamster stuck in his throat.

"We hear everything, too," said Sellis as he passed.

Cuilam jumped, his mandibles twitching. Indigo tried to hide her smile at just deserts. "Oh, ah, sorry, Sel, I didn't—er, no hard feelings?"

Sellis turned and blinked at him, eyelids moving upwards in that odd way. "The meter change you're referring to is at bar 77, just so you know," he said, and continued on.

Dan snorted. "Classy, Cuil. All right, I'll see your awkward bony ass at the Noodle House. I have to drop my bass off, first. Red, you coming for lunch?"

Indigo shook her head and picked up her bag. "I need to be a studious student and... stuudy. I have a test tomorrow, and I need to choose a case study for that Xenomusicology essay." Just thinking about it made her tired, and she longed to wrap herself in blankets like a vaguely disgruntled burrito and avoid everything after eating her weight in last night's leftovers.

"I found the coolest case study," said Dan. "Elcor beshka ensemble, and there's a local group who'll be performing in a few weeks for Dekuuna's new year. It's like Balinese gamelan, all those metal instruments and gongs and stuff."

"Every species likes hitting loud things," said Indigo. She nudged Cuilam's arm with her elbow. "Case in point."

"I'd like to think I'm a little more sophisticated than you make it sound," said Cuilam.

"I was thinking of choosing hanar for mine," Indigo mused. "Or maybe vorcha. Something a bit obscure."

"How do hanar even make music, anyway?" asked Dan. "They're just big jellyfish. And they don't even talk."

"Well, look to this one for answers come due date," said Indigo, lowering her voice in an attempt to mimic a hanar's smooth diction, "for it will be your humble guide to enlightenment."

"Enkindle me good, Red. Okay, I'd better get going. I'll meet you at lunch, Cuil. Bring your best bewildered expression." Dan pulled a face, eyes wide and mouth open, before cracking a grin and leaving.

Cuilam sighed. "He's always so flattering."

"Mm, he's a charmer. I'd better vamoose as well. Have good noodles." Indigo picked up her trombone case and started making her way out. "If Dan laughs at you, throw a dumpling at him for me."

Cuilam laughed. "I'll aim for the head."

Indigo savoured the cooler air outside as she wandered through Auxua's busy campus, aiming for one of the main gates and the street beyond. She'd only just reached the gate leading off-campus when her omni-tool pinged with an incoming commcall from Shayila. They met up once a week for coffee or lunch whenever their schedules aligned—Shay worked at a bar on Zakera and dedicated a lot of her remaining time to her studies, but she always made time for Indigo.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Shay greeted as soon as the call connected. Indigo winced and turned the volume down a tad. "How are you, my absolute favourite human and fearless adventuring monster-slaying partner?"

"I'm tired and hungry but otherwise fine," said Indigo. She narrowed her eyes at the interface even though Shay couldn't see her, sure she was buttering her up for something. "What's up?"

"Hungry, you say?" Shay's voice took on a conspiratorial tone. "Hmm. I do believe I may be able to help with that. Tell me, do you like pizza?"

"Who doesn't? Well, I suppose plenty of people don't, because everyone has different tastes, but I'm not one of them."

"What?"

"Yes, I like pizza. Why?"

"I'm thinking of bribing you with it, but I want to ensure its effectiveness first."

"As bribes go, it's a pretty good choice," Indigo told her, smiling.

"I thought so, too!" said Shay. "Which leads me to my next question. How do you feel about moving furniture?"

Whatever Indigo thought she might have been expecting, this was not it. "Er… Hesitantly ambivalent, I guess?"

"Good, good, good. Query the third: how do you feel about coming over to my place and helping me and a few friends move a couch? And then having pizza?"

"Um. A bit less ambivalent. I've never moved a couch before."

"First time for everything! What kind of pizza do you like?"

Indigo couldn't help but laugh. "You're really pushing the bribery, aren't you?"

"Caught me with red hands," came the relentlessly cheerful reply. "So, what do you think? Are you free?"

Indigo paused, thinking, then said, "I like Mediterranean." Burritodom would be a lonely, pizza-less existence.

"Excellent! I live in the 800 blocks in the mid-wards, apartment #B-52."

"Okay, I'll be there soon."

"You're a gem. Hey, we should call each other more often. I like not having to put up with your horrible typing and ridiculous emojis. Okay, see ya!"

Indigo closed the call and paused to send a slew of random emojis to Shay's email before going on her way.

There were a few situations in which having someone's face close to your crotch was acceptable—desirable, even—but barrelling into a volus in the middle of a crowded boulevard was not one of them. Mortified, Indigo leapt back, her heart pounding into her sternum. "Shit! I'm so sorry—I didn't see you! Are you okay?"

He merely blinked up at her as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Perhaps being walked into was a daily occurrence for the volus people. He took a deep, mechanical breath. Ksshk. "I hope you will consider Thessia-clan Tanis Oteni as Auxua's representative in the upcoming City Council election, Earth-clan." Brandishing a holo in his stubby fingers, he pressed it into Indigo's palm before she could think. An asari's face in unblinking miniature smiled up at her.

"Uh, sure." Not the most impassioned response, but he was probably used to it. She'd planned on voting for Oteni, anyway. Her opposition, Sonul Beresh, was far too aggressively humans-first for her tastes.

The volus took another wheezing breath—ksshk—and Indigo blinked and met the gaze of his yellow eyelights. "Her doctrine: repair, rebuild, reach out," he said. Ksshk. "Repair the damage, rebuild the ward, and reach out to the people." Ksshk. "Her latest project, the Reyanommond Auditorium, has just been completed under her rebuilding effort."

"Right! Yeah! I'm actually performing there in a couple of weeks—I'm a trombonist with the Tayseri Philharmonic. Um, I'm really sorry, but I have to catch a tram." The image of Oteni's face flickered as Indigo waved the datapad through the air. "But I am voting for her! Have a good day!"

"We can make Tayseri Ward into the bright star it used to be!" piped the datapad in a feminine voice.

Ksshk. "Good day, Earth-clan." The volus sighed, a motion which involved most of his body slumping, as Indigo hurried away, feeling a little guilty.

It hadn't taken her long to realise that Tayseri was a portrait of the hidden struggles of the station: rich and poor alike treading the infrastructural scar tissue, labourers holed up in prefab housing, glitchy power grids and half-repaired buildings. Signs throughout the ward reminded citizens to report suspicious activity, warned against carrying firearms, and promoted the kind of anti-criminal vigilance that Indigo was half-tempted to call paranoia. Still, she heard unsettling stories of racial violence and gang activity—apparently there'd been a shootout in 2184 where two C-Sec officers had been killed.

After a short tram ride, Indigo arrived at the inter-ward rapid transit station much later than she'd expected, but that was unsurprising considering her life-long lack of punctuality. For once, there was no crushing crowd, only a turian immersed in a holonovela and a salarian in construction gear eating a violently purple salad while watching Dynasty of Stars on his omni-tool. Indigo set her trombone on the floor and plopped herself down onto one of the benches to await a shuttle to Zakera.

"No matter who you are, you can make a difference! Vote Oteni!" chirped the muffled voice from inside her bag. Wishy-washy soundbites wouldn't sway Indigo's vote, but she wished Oteni's marketing team hadn't chosen such an annoying way of getting her messages across.

She had ten minutes until the next shuttle came. She should email her Mum—she'd left her on read three days ago—but every time she opened the email and started typing responses to her mother's many questions, she just ended up closing it without even saving the draft. It wasn't that she didn't miss her parents, she just liked finally being on her own, having her own space, having her own life. Her family didn't smother her, but there had always been unspoken expectations that she'd never quite lived up to. When she'd dropped out of high school three years ago, Indigo decided she had no interest in anyone's expectations of her but her own.

The salarian on the bench beside her threw his salad container into a nearby bin. "Yeah, hi," he said into his comm. "I'm just on my way home. Please tell me the water's back on. Oh, thank the stars, I can't wait to take a shower. I've had the most exhausting day, fixing powerlines in Lamiea District. And there were keepers everywhere, crawling all over the warehouses. C-Sec was called in because Nguyen kept shooting at them. Did you know they can melt? Put me right off my soup."

"Poor keepers," Indigo murmured to no-one. It seemed that drell hadn't been bullshitting her after all. She still couldn't look at ice-cream the same way—especially the pistachio gelato they sold in the markets down Tarusk Parade, the same shade of green as the keepers' chitinous exoskeleton.

During the shuttle ride, she managed to stay awake long enough to look through her notes on ancient Sur'Kesian society, so she felt reasonably confident that she could wing the test tomorrow. Her productivity ended there, though, as she ended up dozing, lulled into restless half-sleep by the quiet hum of the cab and the soft whoosh of passing traffic. As she jolted awake on arrival at Zakera's mid-wards, woozy and heavy-headed, it dawned on her that this furniture-moving extravaganza might not have been the best idea. Oh, well. At least she'd get a pizza out of it, plus the warm fuzzies of helping a friend in need.

After a blessedly quick security scan, Indigo stopped by a vending machine and weighed up her options, tapping her credit chit against her fingers. None of the energy drinks looked particularly appetising, with stupid names, obnoxious logos, and all-artificial flavouring, but she didn't much fancy falling asleep and dropping a couch on her foot. Narrowing her eyes at the Lime and Blueberry Paragade, she settled for a "pine"apple "flavor" Tupari, amused and slightly concerned by the dubious quotation marks.

"Tupari!" the vending machine crowed as she walked away. "So good, you will kill for it!"

Murderously inclined drink in hand, Indigo set off towards a lift to the pedways, which would lead her to Shay's place. She made a face at the 'out of order' sign on one of the lifts, and went over to stand behind two asari who were waiting for the other.

"Did you hear about Ferris Fields?" one of the asari asked her friend.

"Oh, it's awful," answered her companion. She turned to look at Indigo, eyes shining with pity. Indigo averted her gaze. "Those poor humans."

"Ten thousand gone. That's twice as many as were on Cyrene."

"Goddess."

"I've heard rumours… people think it might be Collectors."

The taller asari laughed, the sound more of a disbelieving huff. "That's just silly. It's probably slavers or pirates. You know how the Terminus Systems are. Everyone's just out to make a profit."

"It can't be that bad. Ferris Fields was a lovely planet."

"I grew up on Illium, honey, you can't escape the rot, no matter how well-kept your garden world is." She sighed, long and pitying, then nudged her friend with her elbow. "So, I heard you and Nockrick got up to some debauchery at I-Nova the other night."

"Elenya!"

"Relax, I'm not asking for the gory details. Although, part of me wonders what elcor would be like in the sack. Especially him."

"Elly, there's someone. Right. There!" the mortified asari hissed. She looked over her shoulder at Indigo, who avoided looking at her.

"What do you care? Besides, I'd be surprised if she could hear us with that bush growing out of her head," the other asari whispered, oblivious to Indigo's affronted scowl.

Her friend whacked her on the arm. "By the Goddess, Elenya, you're so rude! And anyway, we didn't... there was no action of any kind. We just had a few drinks, and he monologued about some new art piece he's been working on."

"Sounds boring. Are you still having problems with neural itching?"

"Will you keep it down? You're as loud as a krogan! Louder, even."

"And you're as prim and proper as a hanar! Did you try that cream?"

"The Eterni-Gel? I did, but it's a horrible consistency and it smells like a… a vorcha's ass." She cut Elenya off with a raised index finger. "And don't ask me how I know what a vorcha's ass smells like, or I'll put you in stasis and leave without you."

A lift arrived, doors opening with a soft chime to reveal a crowded interior, and the two asari squeezed in. Indigo wouldn't fit with her trombone, so she hung back. Elenya's friend gave Indigo an apologetic smile, and she reassured her with a nod, glad to avoid being squished like a sardine in a tin… and overhearing more about her personal life.

Grateful for the relative quiet, Indigo raked a hand through her hair—sorry, her bush—and sighed, her own thoughts turning sombre as she dwelled on what the asari had said of Ferris Fields. Another colony… just gone. How many was it now? The last she'd heard about was Horizon, when people were pushing for an official investigation. The Council just said it was an Alliance matter and therefore none of their concern, but the Alliance didn't seem to be doing anything about it either. Indigo could only imagine how betrayed and abandoned the families of the lost would feel.

When she was fifteen, she and her parents had nearly indulged in what her dad had liked to call their "inner frontiersmen" and moved off-world. Her mother, a software developer for the communications company UniCom, had been offered a pick of postings to a number of developing colonies a few years ago. It would have been a pretty easy move, logistically speaking—her dad could have found work while her mother settled straight into her contract—but Indigo's grandfather had fallen terminally ill so they'd stayed in Australia.

What would have happened if they had moved? Would their lives (and probable deaths) be yet another statistic in a galaxy-wide mystery? What if she'd been taken, and her parents left behind? Or the other way around? The thought sent a chill through her blood.

Another lift arrived and Indigo hastened in to join an elcor and a drell, doing a quick double-take when she recognised him as the keeper-melting, tech-fixing, sarcasm-fluent C-Sec officer. She saw him sometimes during her visits to Zakera, spotting him with other officers near the transit station as she arrived, or walking past him down a flight of stairs. They rarely spoke other than an occasional murmured greeting on her end, to which he'd reply with a nod. They'd exchange fleeting glances of recognition, and he'd sometimes return Indigo's smile with a small one of his own.

She sidled in beside him. "Hello, there." Damn it, she couldn't remember his name for the life of her. Keys? Kiosk? Kayak? He was out of uniform, so she didn't have the convenient luxury of a nametag to remind her.

"Hey." He moved aside to make room for her trombone, picking up a large, blank, old-school painting canvas he had by his side and leaning it against the wall.

"What kind of art do you do?" Indigo asked him.

The elevator lights caught his eyes as he met her gaze, highlighting the silver cut of his irises and revealing a hint of blue. "I—why are you asking?"

"Couldn't help but notice the big canvas."

He blinked, the corners of his mouth tightening. "I paint."

He obviously wasn't going to elaborate further, so Indigo nodded and turned her attention to her drink. The canister made a satisfying popping sound when she finally opened it, but the smell made her recoil. Did pineapple always smell so… petroly? She felt the drell's eyes on her, and glanced up at him only to see him look away.

Commuter arseholery transcended species and culture. Indigo spent her tram rides trying to block out loud comm. calls, stopping empty coffee cups rolling around on the floor, and suppressing her sighs as people put their feet on the seats. Even the lift wasn't a safe haven, as the bass-heavy thumpa-thumpa-thump of turian/volus hip-hop duo Bootyherax filled the lift from the elcor's wireless earbuds. Indigo listened with discomfort to the tonal clashes between the lift's inane muzak and the repetitive four-chord vocabulary of Under Your Exo-Suit in she'd-stomp-on-his-foot-and-it'd-B-flat major. It made her feel like her brain was splitting in two. The drell seemed just as annoyed as her, stifling a sigh as the beat dropped. He tugged at his stiff collar, and Indigo wondered if the protruding bits ever got in the way.

"Are we actually moving?" Indigo asked. "I know the lifts are slow, but this one seems seriously misnamed."

"You need to press the button," the drell reminded her. Krios, that was his name.

"Oh, oops." She laughed at herself and reached around him for the console. "Sorry. It's been a long day."

The lift began to live up to its name, the subtle vertigo making Indigo's head spin and sending her stomach slithering down to cower near her boots. She took a sip of Tupari and shuddered, her teeth tingling unpleasantly after she managed to swallow down what she imagined was a bag of sugar dumped into a cocktail of cold medicine and toilet cleaner. "Urgh, yuck," she whispered, grimacing down at the canister.

"What is that?" Krios asked, in a tone one might use for something slimy and grotesque found under a rock, rather than a… well, not really a drink. A drink-like substance. "It smells like shit."

"Tupari!" Indigo told him, in what she hoped was a passable imitation of the vending machine's exuberance. "With no nutrients whatsoever and twelve times the caffeine in an espresso, it's guaranteed to melt your bones."

He made a weird chuffing noise, deep in his chest and throat, sending a light prickling sensation across her scalp. "Just your bones? It looks like it would melt a hole in the floor if you spilled it."

"True." Indigo examined the electric-blue liquid, breathing through the fumes stinging the inside of her nose. "God knows what it's doing to my stomach. Maybe it'll just turn my whole body into goo, like the keepers."

"I'm not mopping you up if that happens," Krios told her, folding his arms and leaning back against the wall. His lips twitched. He scowled a lot, she'd noticed, his default expression on the sullen side of thoughtful, but that little smile that softened his face had stuck with Indigo the most. "I've already had melted keeper leak into my boots once."

"Oh, lovely." Ignoring the mental images of bug slime seeping between into her socks, Indigo leaned back against the wall beside Krios.

"Repair, rebuild, reach out!" the datapad in Indigo's bag chimed, startling her. "Vote Oteni, vote for the people!"

"What the hell was that?"

"I kidnapped a City Council intendant," Indigo deadpanned once her tongue unshrivelled from all the sugar, then realised that probably wasn't the best thing to say to a cop.

"I see. If only all criminals were as forthcoming as you."

"Glad I could help." Indigo raised her Tupari and took a sip. Christ, it was bad.

Bootyherax transitioned into into Lady Sweat's My Bitch Now as the lift reached level 27. The doors opened with a polite little ding, completely off-key with both the muzak and the song, and the elcor shuffled out. A box of Blast-Ohs fell out of one of his shopping bags, landing with a thump, strangely heavy-sounding for a box of cereal.

"Oh, hey, wait!" Indigo darted outside and bent to it up, sparing a puzzled frown at the weight of it before crossing to the elcor in three quick strides. "You dropped this," she told him, holding it out.

The elcor blinked. Even his eyelids moved slowly, making Indigo feel a little sleepy. "Ah, human, relieved request: Would you please put it in my bag?"

"Sure." She put it into the bag, debating asking him why it was so heavy, but he was preoccupied with his omni-tool.

"With sincere, purely innocent gratitude: Thank you, human," the elcor said. Something about his expression—what little of it she could interpret—struck Indigo as a litle bit sly. He switched off his omni-tool and disappeared into the crowd with a stealthiness she didn't expect, taking Lady Sweat with him.

A strange sound, like the fizzle of electricity after a blown fuse, made her flinch, feeling as if her ears had popped. For a moment she stood bewildered, her tired brain wondering if she'd had a stroke or something, until she realised the ever-present crowd chatter had shifted into a soundscape of unrecognisable words with alien inflections and unfamiliar emphases. Dread washed over her like icy water, and she reached up to run her thumbnail against the translator-aid microcomputer that doubled as an earring. She flicked the tiny switch a few times, trying the ancient IT doctrine, Have you tried turning it off and on again?

Nothing. Still a sea of strange words; a jumbled symphony of language from all corners of the galaxy. Dazed, a wave of loneliness washing over her, she wandered back to the lift, only half-aware of Krios asking her something.

The lift doors slid shut, and Indigo looked up at him, lost. "Um... so... my translator is broken. I think that elcor hacked it or something."

Krios just stared at her, looking as confused as she felt. He began to say something else, then stopped, cutting himself off with an annoyed expression.

"Can you understand me?" Indigo pressed, hoping they wouldn't have to start an impromptu game of charades—although the idea of getting Shay to mime everything was tempting...

He nodded, still frowning.

"Okay, good. That's something." She sighed, the confidence she'd gained after rehearsing the concerto withering away. "Okay. Well. I'd better try to fix it." Easier said than done, in her case.

Chewing her lip, she tucked the Tupari canister under her arm and opened her omni-tool's standard-issue translation software. A page of code stared back at her, and not for the first time, she wished she hadn't dropped out of high school right in the middle of her coding elective. Krios was watching her, which only made her feel more insecure about her floundering.

For a moment she paused, frowning, fingers hovering over the interface, then glanced up at at him. "Hey. Um. Do you mind—Can you say something? I'm going to try calibrating it," she explained when he just looked at her with slightly narrowed eyes. "So, if you can just, you know, talk? So I know if it's working? Please? Just, I don't know, ramble about the first thing that comes to mind."

The drell's shoulders slumped with his sigh as he shifted his weight to one foot and crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall. He paused long enough for Indigo to frown at him impatiently, but then he started to speak; softly at first, then louder. He began with random words and phrases—she knew they were completely off the top of his finned head because he listed them off with no order to his inflections—but after a few minutes his words flowed with a learned rhythm, an easy cadence that came with familiarity. He was obviously reciting something by memory, but there was a hesitance between each phrase, like he was shy about whatever he was saying. He didn't look at her, just kept his eyes fixed on the opposite wall.

He really did have a nice voice, a little bit raspy and pleasantly deep in a way that made her want to shiver a little. His native language was growly and fluid, rolling from one word to the next like waves. It was only when he faltered and glanced at her that she realised she'd been listening for half a minute without even trying to translate, lost in his language.

Caught in the act, she set about wading through troubleshooters and diagnostics. Invalid command, invalid command, could not parse this line… what the hell was she doing wrong? She scratched at her hairline and grimaced when a few strands of hair caught on a hangnail—or, as her grandfather used to say, a 'stepmother's blessing'. She had never quite been able to figure out why. The translator wavered like a cheap violin constantly slipping out of tune, but Indigo caught some of Krios' words. Something about mothers, water, the moon, and, weirdly, shoes. Poetry, maybe?

Vaelan dialect, her omni-tool read. Origin: Rahkhana. Spoken by 34% of the population. Well, at least it was detecting the language, though the program crashed a moment later. Indigo groaned, cursing her old tech. She'd used the same omni-tool for four years, an old Sirta Foundation Chameleon model built into a simple silver bracelet, gifted to her by her parents for her sixteenth birthday. She rebooted the program and glanced up at Krios when she realised he'd stopped his recitation. "What?"

Krios said something else—a suggestion for him to try fixing it, by the tone of his voice and the expectant look on his face—and held out his hand. Those big dark eyes were so intense, the secondary eyelids a pale flicker as he blinked. His teal scales shone under the glow of her omni-tool, revealing a faint iridescence like tiny sequins.

Stop ogling the pretty boy, you useless lump. "Okay, give it a shot, by all means." Indigo held out her arm so he could type on her omni-tool.

He stepped closer and reached out to take her hand so as to better angle the screen in front of him, gloved fingertips brushing the inside of her palm with a surprising gentleness. The pad of his thumb brushed against the back of her hand for an accidental moment before he let go and started typing. A blush heated her cheeks, spreading down her neck, and she resisted the urge to pull away, annoyed at herself for acting like an awkward teenager.

For all his apparent technical prowess, Krios typed slowly. Slower than Indigo, who admittedly favoured speed over accuracy and had to spend more time correcting her mistakes if she cared to. He seemed to relax a little, no longer having to talk. She wondered what he'd been reciting. Her gaze fell to the blank canvas against the lift wall. A snarky, surly, yet weirdly reserved young C-Sec officer with an artistic streak? Strange company to have, especially in bizarre situations like getting your fucking translator overloaded by a grocery shopper in a lift. Whatever. Weird stuff happened to people every day.

Indigo's mind wandered as she tried to follow along with what he was doing. Her empty stomach hurt from the Tupari, and her mind kept wandering to her exam tomorrow. She remembered most of what she'd gone over in the car, but she kept drawing a blank when she tried to remember what year the Kuriel Dynasty began. Salarian matriarchy dated back to their prehistory, but the formal role of the dalatrass as the galaxy currently knew it began when they started formalised breeding contracts under dynastic rule in the year… Damn it, she'd always been awful at remembering dates. She glanced at Krios. He probably never had that problem, the bastard.

"It's done," he said half a minute later, closing the program.

"Wow, that was quick. Thank you." Indigo made to touch his arm in a gesture of gratitude, only to chicken out and wave her hand aimlessly through the air. His sharp eyes tracked the motion, and she slapped the top of her trombone case and drummed her fingers, irritated at the sound even as she did it. "Earlier on," she began, "did you say something about motherhood and... a shoe?"

Krios let out a laugh, apparently caught off-guard, and it shattered the tension. "No."

Indigo grinned despite still feeling a little rattled. "That's what it sounded like!"

"Arashu," he clarified, as if that explained everything.

When he didn't elaborate despite her prompting him with raised eyebrows, Indigo said, "Bless you."

He huffed. "She's a goddess, not a sneeze."

"Right. Hang on, were you praying? Is that what that was?" She couldn't stop the incredulous smile that spread across her face as he averted his gaze. "Why?"

Krios eyed her, something shifting in his expression. "You told me to talk. I talked." His voice was rough, measured, but something about him seemed naked. He cleared his throat. "So, it's working, then."

"I think so, yes. Arashu ex machina, I'm guessing? I never thought C-Sec would take the kumbahyah approach to tech support," Indigo teased.

He looked confused, possibly wondering if his translator was malfunctioning, then chuffed again and said, "It's a new endeavour."

Indigo smiled up at him, warm and honest. "Well, it did the trick. Thank you. I don't know what I would have done if you weren't here."

"It was just a localised jamming signal keyed to your omni-tool. An easy fix," he said, with an understated, matter-of-fact confidence.

"Easy for some. I'm not a techie. Why do you think he did that?" She wrinkled her nose.

"The elcor? Who knows. Maybe some kind of practical joke."

"A hand buzzer would have worked just fine," Indigo grumbled.

The doors opened, letting Zakera's filtered air waft into the lift like the cool breezes that heralded dusk back home. A tension eased in Indigo's chest and she took in a relaxed breath. She picked up her trombone and stepped out, turning to say a final goodbye to Krios, only to see he'd also exited the lift. "Oh, you get off here, too?"

"Obviously."

Indigo snorted. "All right, well, thanks again for the help."

"It's fine," said Krios. "Stop thanking me."

"Okay, then, fuck you for the help," Indigo joked, and he chuffed. "Anyway, well... bye."

He gave a nod. "See you."

Indigo set off down the pedway, listening to the zoom of skycars zipping past. She'd always been a fast walker, so it was only when she took a left turn towards the Zakera's mid-ward residential blocks and caught a glimpse of him in her periphery that she realised she and Krios were going the same way. "Oh." She laughed and slowed her pace. "Hello. I'm not following you or anything. I mean, I'm ahead of you, but still."

"Nor I you." He fell into step beside her.

"Maybe we're following each other."

Krios met her wry smile with a tiny smirk. It was such a subtle change to his expression, but his eyes were warm, and her anxiety about the translator melted away. "Looks like it. Do you live here?"

"No, I'm visiting a friend to help her move a couch," Indigo told him, amused at his expression—he obviously hadn't been expecting that. "But you do?"

"Yes."

"So, what's it like working for C-Sec?" The question popped out before she could think about it.

He blinked his double eyelids, giving nothing away. "Interesting."

"Gosh, you really painted a picture there."

He chuffed again, but the sound was sharper, less amused. "I don't need to answer your questions."

That was true, so Indigo mumbled an apology rather than bite back, despite the twinge of hurt that arose at his words. She decided to drown the awkward moment in the last of her Tupari, shuddering as it went down on a particularly unnaturally-sweetened note, and grimaced at the empty canister.

"Why do you keep drinking that if it's so bad?" Krios asked.

"I don't need to answer your questions," Indigo said without thinking, and he actually laughed, a short, deep sound. She smiled, liking that he had a bit of self-awareness. "It's a combination of masochism, caffeine addiction, and low blood sugar."

"It's turned your tongue blue."

"Oh, good. An extra perk."

They walked to the apartment building together. In the lobby, he made a beeline for the lift, and Indigo hung back. "I've had enough of those for one day," she said, smiling wryly. "Have fun with your painting. And thank you again for your help."

"Stop thanking me," he said again. Indigo opened her mouth to retort, but he continued, "But... you're welcome. I'll see you around." His fleeting, hesitant smile was the last she saw of him before the lift doors slid shut.

Indigo turned to throw her Tupari can into a nearby bin as she made her way to the stairs, still smiling.