Chapter Five: Ask The Stars / Exile Vilify - The National

The cold almost made Kolyat wish for the heavy warmth of Kahje.

Almost.

Smoke rose in peppery-smelling plumes from the blast sites, tainting the air with a dry, choking sourness that made his lungs feel like they were lined with sand. The nearest blast had been only a couple of blocks away, amidst the sprawl of warehouses and housing commissions home to Tayseri's poorer residents and blue-collar workers. The class divide in the wards was like nothing Kolyat had ever seen on Kahje, the poor left to fend for themselves while the Council and C-Sec prioritised the more affluent areas for repairs, gaining political sway with each paycheck from the rich. Under the station's bright, shiny facade as the hub of civilisation lay a seedy underbelly of unrest and crime, desperate people scrambling for any sense of security—a purpose, a profit, a foothold—where the authorities had failed them.

("The galaxy is a dark place, Kolyat." Sad, knowing eyes - that hated face, lined with ten years of loneliness and grief. "You have a brightness in you, something to be nurtured. It pains me to see your soul in such turmoil."

"Shut up." The words are shards of glass, cutting and splintered. "Just shut up—")

Kolyat curled his lip, grimacing at the memory of his bastard father's patronising platitudes as he tried to save his drifting soul. Now was not the time for his mind to fall into the constant tug-of-war between past and present. He needed to focus.

Another C-Sec shuttle passed overhead towards the nearest blast zone, presumably dispatching more crisis response teams. Kolyat had counted five explosions in total, small explosives judging by the sound and size of the blasts, but ("-another one," Indigo whispers. Her wrist slips free of his grasp, his palm empty. The alien whites of her eyes gleam in the dark as she peers out the window, and he puts a hand on her shoulder, a wordless reminder to stay down. "That one sounded closer." A strange sound escapes her throat; one strangled, panicked breath. "Oh, Christ, I can't just sit here, this is horrible -")

Kolyat shook off the memory of her hunched next to him behind the art shop counter. It had taken a few minutes for her to calm down after the fighting stopped, and trying to help her work through her rising panic had staved off his own. Right now, he just needed information. He needed to figure out what to do.

His shoulders and back ached, stiff from shivering, and he reached up to tug the collar of his jacket. The thin, soft leather was a welcome familiarity he wore over his uniform, but it wasn't made for the cold. Captain Bailey didn't care that he wore it; it didn't break protocol as long as his I.D. tag and C-Sec insignia were clearly visible on his chest.

(- "Nice jacket, Krios." An armoured talon taps the hard pauldron at his arm, a tkk-tkk-tkk that makes his frill twitch—

"Fuck off, Haron-")

Godsdamned Haron.

Straightening his posture, Kolyat approached the turian C-Sec officer Indigo had spotted across the market square. Only half-realising he was doing it, he glanced over his shoulder, seeking her telltale flash of red hair amongst the crowd, but found only a sea of anxious, unfamiliar alien faces. A wave of disorientation swept over him and he rubbed at his cold-numbed frill. Focus, Krios. Stay calm. He hoped he hadn't lost her; apart from anything, she'd offered to guard his art supplies while he investigated.

"What's the situation?" he asked the officer, coming to a stop in front of her. The insignia on her jacket identified her as Detective Sergeant Casha. She ignored him, intent on scrolling through her datapad. "Excuse me, Detective?"

D.S. Casha glanced up, blinked at Kolyat, then returned to her reading with a dismissive chuff. "What, you missed the explosions?"

"I'm C-Sec, too," Kolyat explained, frowning. Surely the uniform would have made that obvious, and he moved the sides of his jacket back to draw attention to the C-Sec insignia on his chest and belt.

She looked at him properly this time, lowering the datapad. Her eyes were a brighter green than Indigo's, rippled through with yellow. "I don't know you."

Something about her sent an uneasy prickling feeling up the back of Kolyat's neck, and he could already tell this conversation was just going to be a waste of time, but he opened his omni-tool and showed her his full I.D. anyway. "I'm Krios. Reserve officer stationed at Zakera's Doz Tor District under Captain Bailey and Lieutenant T'Vashne."

A strange expression passed over her face when he introduced himself, a shadow of recognition. He knew the look of someone caught in a memory, imperfect as it was, but the moment passed a second later and the disdainful look returned in full force. Kolyat almost asked if the name meant something to her, but something in his mind told him to keep quiet. The detective gave his I.D. a perfunctory once-over and flicked her mandibles as she frowned, an irritated gesture Kolyat had seen Haron do countless times as he pored over Citadel NewsNet's crosswords and puzzles during his break.

("That five should be a three," he says after eyeing Haron's sudoku on his way past.

The Sergeant glares at him and closes his omni-tool with a huff. "Haven't you got a toilet to clean somewhere, Kr-")

"—Zakera."

Kolyat blinked as his eyes and brain refocussed on the turian in front of him. Gods and seas, this was no time to zone out. "What?"

Casha chuffed, a harsh rush of air through her subvocals. "I said, 'This isn't Zakera.' Plus, you don't look like C-Sec."

Kolyat's mounting impatience manifested itself in a full-blown scowl. "What, is the uniform the wrong shade of blue?"

Casha let out a bark of a laugh, harsh like stone. "Piss off, kid. Reserve officer. Give me a break. Shouldn't you be doing someone's paperwork or fetching coffee?"

Insubordination be damned, this detective was either incompetent or just an idiot. Kolyat opened his mouth to retort, only to jump as a hand touched his shoulder. "Gods, what?" he snapped, turning, and immediately regretted it when Indigo frowned at him, her gaze turning hard. She must have seen how rattled he was, for her expression softened a moment later, but before she could speak the detective cut her off.

"You know this one, miss?" Casha asked.

Indigo glanced at the detective, giving nothing away. "I do. Why?"

"He's suspicious if you ask me. No I.D., no rank."

"You saw my I.D.," Kolyat snapped.

"Yeah, like that thing's real. He's not even armed."

"I'm auxiliary," Kolyat growled, trying and failing to even his tone. "I don't carry."

Indigo narrowed her eyes at the turian. "You don't trust him because he doesn't have a gun?"

"He could be anybody, human."

"Well, he's not just anybody," Indigo argued. "He's with C-Sec, too."

Casha scoffed. "Like I believe that. Drell hardly leave their planet of jellies. You two are probably part of whatever lowlife gang scum caused all this shit. How do I know you're not just making more trouble?"

Indigo stared at her. "Are you serious? Do we really look like we're in a gang?" She gestured to herself, slim and bony where Kolyat was broad and strong, limbs held stiff with cold.

"I think you look like a waste of my time, human."

"Yeah? Well, you're a waste of—"

"Indi," Kolyat cut her off, keeping his voice low. She pressed her lips together and glared at him, but relented. He'd quickly learned that blatant antagonism wouldn't do him any favours in his current position—though Bailey might say that didn't stop him from being a sullen asshole who regarded the chain of command with as much reverence as the shit he scrubbed from the bathrooms of the Dark Star during his community service. Gods knew the last thing he needed right now was Indigo getting in trouble for bad-mouthing a detective.

Indigo sighed, so softly he almost didn't hear it. "Please, ma'am—" she paused on this attempt at diplomacy, letting it rest, and Kolyat suppressed a chuff, "we're just worried about what's going on. I live here, I just want to know—"

"Look, I don't have time to explain procedure to a green rookie and a civilian."

"I thought I was lowlife scum," Kolyat retorted, folding his arms and raising a brow ridge. "Now I'm a rookie?"

"Whatever. Same difference in this district of scrappy gangs and petty criminals. More work for me, and more shit for Tayseri."

("This varrenshit dump of a ward," the art store owner hisses, blue energy surrounding her in fiery waves, "why did I think it was a good idea to come here? So stupid-")

"Just wait 'til the hacks cover it and be glad you're not dead in a ditch somewhere," Casha was saying as Kolyat shut his eyes, cursing his slip in focus. "In the meantime, you're keeping me from doing my job."

"But you're just standing there!" Indigo protested. "You have been for a while!"

"And now I'm walking over there."

They watched as she did so. Kolyat glanced up at the smoke in the sky and indulged in a brief moment to wish he hadn't gotten out of bed that morning.

"That was weird," said Indigo. She hugged herself for warmth, the odd sound of her teeth clicking together making Kolyat's frill prickle. Standing round-shouldered, green eyes pensive, she looked as small as he felt in the near-dark. "I thought C-Sec was supposed to help the public, not piss them off. What did she say to you?"

She knows something about me, about my father. He filed the thought away to ponder later. "Nothing useful. Give me my stuff back. You're carrying enough as it is."

She handed him the bag of art supplies. "I've only got a bag and a trombone. I'm fine. Anyway, while you were having fun with her, I found a much more helpful officer who told me we'll have to evacuate for the night." Indigo looked out at the district, towards the smouldering blast zones, a thoughtful frown creasing the scaleless skin between her brows. So unlike a drell, but there was a familiarity there—or maybe he was just used to humans by now. Or used to her.

"God, this is bizarre," she continued, beginning to pace up and down in front of him and fiddling with the end of her plaits. "I mean, I know Tayseri had some pretty gnarly shit going on, but it's different when it's actually happening around you. I tried calling my friends again, but the comms are still down. Hopefully they're okay. My friends, not the comms."

"They won't be up again for a while," Kolyat told her.

She nodded, still pacing, then looked up at him, concern in her eyes. "You okay? You look a bit antsy. That's agitated, not covered in ants."

"I'm fine," Kolyat lied. "Are you okay?"

("- think I'm freaking out." She stares out the window, green eyes wide and scared. "What do we do? Kolyat—")

"Yeah," Indigo said, sounding like she was lying, too. "Just cold. I'm going to have stern words with whoever designs Varrencage's merch." She plucked at the hem of her thin shirt, face somber despite the joke. "And I'm worried, of course. I just hope no-one's died."

That was a silly thing to hope. "People probably have."

She shot him a cutting look, and he realised he could have been a bit less blunt, but then she nodded and sighed again. "Yeah, I know. It's just… I don't know what to do. I keep thinking I should be doing something. Moving, or helping." The expectant way she was looking at him, like he knew what to do, made his long-dead pride curl in on itself. Resourceless, useless, pointless.

I don't know what I'm doing, he wanted to say to her. Lately it feels like I never know what I'm doing. "Can you stop pacing?" he asked instead. "It's annoying."

Indigo glared at him, but came to a stop, fingers still twirling her hair. She began to undo the plaits, and Kolyat watched the strands slip against each other, distracted. Hair was so strange. He wondered what it felt like, and promptly shoved the thought away. She met his eyes and smiled at his expression. "What?"

Kolyat glanced away, heat blossoming at the ribbing of his jaw. "You... have a lot of hair."

She snorted, ruffling her curls. "How flattering. I'm not Chewbacca. Anyway, it's useful in times like this. Natural insulation. I'd offer to make you a wig, but I'm literally too attached to it."

"I appreciate the very disgusting offer. You should get out of here," he told her. "C-Sec will be evacuating."

"Oh, that's bound to go smoothly."

His omni-tool beeped with an incoming comm. call from Bailey. A cold sense of dread doused his stomach like a mouthful of salt water. "I have to take this," he said, and she nodded. He walked away a few steps for a modicum of privacy. "Captain."

"Just got word something went pear-shaped down Tayseri way," said Bailey. The man really didn't waste breath on greetings.

"There was some kind of attack," Kolyat told him. "Apparently gang-related. They let off demolition charges throughout the ward and took out the power."

"Shit. You injured?"

"No. The nearest blast was a few blocks away, at the border of Lamiea District."

"Did you make the pickup?"

"No. I already told T'Vashne. Powell never showed. He went back on the deal. He could be involved in this."

"What are you saying, Krios?" Bailey pressed, a warning in his voice. Stay out of this. Keep your nose clean.

Fuck that.

"Powell lives in the area and fits the profile for someone who'd get mixed up in gang feuds. And I know he's a smuggler," he added, lowering his voice and glancing over his shoulder at Indigo. Gang infighting in the district right next to hers… but there had been explosives seeded all throughout Tayseri Ward, detonated within minutes of each other, so the gangs clearly didn't keep things within districts.

"I didn't tell you anything about Powell." Bailey's suspicious tone yanked Kolyat from his musings.

Kolyat hesitated. "I read his files," he admitted. There was no point in lying.

"Did you, now?" Bailey expected something like this, judging by the drawl to his tone. "How'd you get access to the databases?"

"I logged in with Haron's password," said Kolyat. "It was easy to guess." He'd actually watched Haron log in and memorised the keystrokes, figuring it out in three tries. If Bailey and T'Vashne were going to keep pulling yarn over his eyes, he'd find answers another way.

"For Christ's sa—of course you did." Bailey sighed, the sound all-too-familiar. "Look, I'm not happy, but I don't have time to deal with your shit right now. We'll be having words about this, Krios. Report to Haron when you get back, and T'Vashne and I will debrief you tomorrow. And better make tracks soon—they'll be locking down the Auxua, Lamiea, and Dilinaga districts within the hour."

"Three whole districts?" Indigo squawked. Kolyat caught her eye and raised his brows; she pressed her fingers to her mouth.

"You got company, Krios?"

"No, sir."

Bailey made that hmph noise Kolyat hated so much, a strange human chuff. "At any rate, I'm glad someone around here listens to me," he said, and Kolyat heard Indigo stifling a laugh. "All right, Krios. Get it done."

Kolyat stabbed the 'end' button on his omni-tool's comm system and went back over to his "company." The amusement still lingered in her expression, but she mostly looked worried, past the closest buildings to the pillars of smoke on the skyline. There was no wind on the Citadel, but the smoke drifted, acid on the tongue. He tasted it and swallowed, throat dry.

"So, what now?" Indigo asked. She picked at her nail polish, anxiety creasing her brow.

"Do you have somewhere to go?" he asked.

Indigo frowned, hands cupping her elbows. "Well... I just assumed I'd just go where everyone else does."

It didn't feel right, the idea of just leaving her behind. Kolyat hesitated, then waded into uncertain waters. "You could come with me," he offered. "I can give you a lift to Zakera, and you could stay at your friend's place. The asari who floated you."

She rolled her eyes, smiling. "Of course you'd bring that up again."

("-just lifting it," the asari says. "Like this, see?" She moves - a blue flare of energy hits the human and she chokes out a strangled gasp, eyes wide with shock and anger as she is hoisted into the air -) Kolyat didn't bother to hide his smirk as he looked down at Indigo's exasperated face. "It was funny."

"And it wasn't Shay, by the way, it was her friend Nyxie, not that it matters. But wait, are you serious?"

"I'm going back there anyway."

Her brow crinkled as she eyed him. Human faces were odd in their expressiveness, smooth skin giving so easily compared to his own species' scaled brow plates. "You'd do that?"

Kolyat shrugged. He'd offered, hadn't he? "They'll be shutting down commercial rapid transit. Would you rather wait?"

"I would not. Okay, wow, thank you! That would be amazing. I'll call her, give me a sec. I hope she says yes. You can stay and eavesdrop if you like."

"Why would I do that?"

Typing on her omni-tool, Indigo looked up at him. "Because I did it to you?" she countered. "Oh, damn, no signal." She shook her left hand, rattling the wristband. "Stupid thing."

"Shaking it won't help," Kolyat said, annoyed, and she ignored him and poked at the keyboard, the holographic interface glitching into pixels and orange flickers. "C-Sec would have jammed all extranet signals and comms if they found the explosives to stop remote detonation."

"Or the power cut shut it down. Did C-Sec do that, or was it the bombers?"

"Special Response might have cut the power as a diversion, but I don't know. You can use my comm pad," he offered, pulling it out of one of the pockets at his thigh. He held the PDA out to her. "It should work. I have a signal booster."

"Thank you," she said warmly, smiling at him before patching into the extranet. "Courtesy of C-Sec?"

"Yeah."

"Nice." Indigo pressed a few keys then looked up from the PDA. "Oh, it's working! I'll call her now. Hey, Shay? Are you free?"

"Indi! How are you, my darling? I'm just on my way to work, but I can chat for a bit. Do you need something?"

"Boy, do I. So, I don't know whether you've heard, but there was a scuffle on Tayseri and—"

"A scuffle?"

"With explosives."

"Goddess! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, but they're evacuating for the night and—"

"Come stay with me, then! I have a spare room, or you can have the new couch. I know just how much you love the new couch."

"Yes, it brings back such treasured memories." Indigo glanced at Kolyat and smiled; an impish, shared-joke smile that he couldn't help but return. "Anyway, I should go—I'm using a friend's comm and he's looking at me rather expectantly."

"No, I'm not," said Kolyat.

"Oh, hello, Indigo's friend! Do you need a place to stay as well?"

"Ah, no, I live on Zakera. Thank you, though."

"Oh! Wait, I recognise your voice! You're the drell from the third floor! Indi, do you need me to come and pick you up?"

Indigo looked at Kolyat. "Um, I don't—"

"I'll drop her off," he said.

"Oh, that's so nice of you! I won't be in when you get here, but feel free to let yourself in. I'll send you the passcode."

"Excellent. I will use this knowledge to your disadvantage."

"I expect nothing less. See you tonight. Drive safe!" The call disconnected with a beep, leaving Indigo and Kolyat in silence.

"Okay, well, that's that, I suppose." Indigo handed back the PDA, and Kolyat slipped it back into his pocket. "Thank you. For everything, I mean."

Again with the thank-yous. "It's nothing," he said.

"It's not nothing. Okay, so now I'll just go get my stuff. Would you like to come with me?"

"Lead the way."

Indigo walked fast, her red curls bouncing with every determined stride, and though she was a foot shorter than him, Kolyat almost had to work to keep up.

He kept going over what he knew of Matthew Powell in his head. The man lived in the Lamiea District's housing commissions, having moved from Eden Prime to the Citadel in 2183. He'd made the best of his time as a dock worker on the colony by operating a smuggling ring, a habit which had apparently followed him to Tayseri.

The question wasn't why Powell hadn't turned up, but where he had gone instead. The why would be solved with the where. Kolyat didn't buy T'Vashne's reasoning—if he'd gone so far as to involve C-Sec with this contraband, he wouldn't have cancelled the handover on a whim, because unless he had a good way of avoiding pursuit, C-Sec's follow-up would have brought him in anyway. Either something had gone wrong and he'd been caught up with the blasts, or he'd gone back on the deal for a compelling reason.

He was probably smuggling for Tayseri's blue-collar criminals and gangs. Judging by what he knew, the package was likely contraband, a security risk C-Sec was concerned with—something across wards, perhaps even across the entire station. But he'd gone back on whatever deal he'd made as a smuggler and instead notified C-Sec, leading to T'Vashne appointing Kolyat his contact… but why? Fear? Whatever was happening, it might be bigger than some misplaced black market mods. A low, rumbling growl of frustration escaped his throat, followed by a thin sigh through his nose. Damn it, there was more to this, he was sure, and gods knew he didn't believe in coincidences. And yet he remained ignorant of—what was that human phrase? The bigger picture.

He didn't realise Indigo had spoken until she turned to look at him. Her green eyes were dark in the half-light, her pale skin and bright red of her hair dimmed by the shadows. She looked so alien in that moment, scaleless and smooth-faced. "What?" Kolyat rasped, disoriented.

"I said, 'It's weird,'" she said. She'd slowed her pace as if remembering she wasn't walking alone, lingering within a foot of him. "All these empty holoframes and dark alcoves... It's like we're seeing the bones of everything, or dead tree branches."

Of course she'd wax poetic about a power-outage. She had a point, though. The place looked dead. Gone were the holobanners and advertisements, the bright swathes of neon shining on the alloyed walls and floors, the streaks of vivid colour and tinted shadow bleeding into one another. The soft glow of Widow, reflected in shades of purple by the Serpent Nebula, only added to the gloom. "I know what you mean."

"Makes me think of how spooky this place might have looked when the asari first discovered it." She sighed, then glanced sideways at him. "But hey, on the plus side, no advertisements. I'm sure you've had enough of fixing those."

Kolyat chuffed. "You don't even know the half of it."

Seeing where someone lived could tell you a lot about them. Kolyat wasn't particularly surprised at the amount of mess in Indigo's dorm, but gods damn, it was a lot. Aside from her wild hair, she always seemed relatively put-together in her clothes and posture, but she also struck him as someone who didn't place a lot of emphasis on neatness. As he took in the variety of clothes strewn on the floor or spilling out of the drawers in an explosion of colours, the desk piled with countless papers, books, OSDs, and datapads, and the unmade bed… yeah, he couldn't have expected anything other than chaos. He counted at least four coffee cups sitting around, including one under the bed. It was obvious now that Indigo was the sort of person who viewed tidiness as something to be kept to her person, not her dwelling. He wondered if she'd always been this messy back on Earth, or whether it was a result of living alone.

"So, um, welcome to my shoebox," she said, gesturing around with a sweep of one hand. "As you can see, I really cleaned the place up for you."

"Shoebox?"

"Yeah, you know. Tiny, cramped, no legroom. Smells like feet."

"It doesn't smell like feet."

"Well, there's a small blessing. Or a smell blessing." Indigo crossed the room, a feat which took three paces, and began rifling through the chest of drawers. "You don't need to guard the door, by the way," she told him, draping items of clothing over one arm. She had no apparent system to her wardrobe—it seemed that stored was as good as sorted in her eyes. Kolyat's aunt would hate it. "Or do you need an invitation to come in, like a vampire?"

A vampire? "What's that?" Kolyat stepped over a pair of shoes left on the floor and let the door shut behind him. He leaned against the wall, the metal cold against his head fins.

"An invitation? It's like when someone asks if you want to do something." She grinned when he rolled his eyes. "You can sit down, if you like. Or, you know, keep lurking in the shadows like a creepy gargoyle."

"I don't lurk." If he asked what a gargoyle was, he'd probably get another joke. He pushed off the wall and stepped forward, treading on an empty crisp packet.

Indigo glanced over at the sound, caught his gaze, and immediately kept going through her clothes, a human blush reddening her otherwise pale face. "God, I am sorry about the mess. It's embarrassing."

"I've seen worse," said Kolyat, toeing the packet to the side. He'd completed his 300 hours of community service three months ago, his memories staled by a countless avalanche of rubbish: half-crushed drink cans, food wrappers, stale remains of fast food, countless cigarette butts, syringes, even a used condom. Gods, he'd stunk of garbage for the months it took for him to complete his hours, an exhausting ten weeks of scrubbing bathrooms, clearing rubbish, removing graffiti, fixing and installing holos all over Zakera. Even the tech work Bailey had given him proved tedious.

(The bag splits, thin plastic tearing to spill rubbish all over his boots, the stench wafting up to burn his nostrils -)

Grimacing at the memory, Kolyat sat on Indigo's bed and traced the swirling patterns on her blankets with a finger. A sudden weariness sank into his bones and he leaned forward to rest his forearms on his knees. "How do you sleep in this bed?" he complained. "It feels like a rock."

"I don't, really," she said. "I miss my double bed back home."

"I have one." The apartment he lived in belonged to Thane, comfortable enough to guess how well murder paid.

"Ooh, careful," she said, a dangerous glint in her eye. "I know where you live."

Kolyat chuffed. He hated his apartment—not that it was really his. Five months ago, the abandoned home of his presumed-dead father served a suitable base for an aspiring hitman, but now... well, it was better than prison.

According to the documents in that damn package he'd been sent, Thane bought it in 2170, likely as a base while he took contracts in Citadel space. Before he'd tracked down Mouse and taken Kelham's contract, Kolyat had gone there, wondering what vestiges of the man remained, what clues to his absent father's life might be found.

Of course, it was empty. Kolyat hadn't really known what to expect, but upon seeing there was nothing save for plain furniture, he'd realised he shouldn't have expected anything else. Thane lived anonymously, like a ghost, leaving only dust and silence in his wake.

Indigo strode around the tiny room, a whirlwind. She threw her clothes into a bag she'd dumped on the bed beside him, grabbed books and OSDs from her bookcase, and rifled through the pile of shit on her desk.

"Do you want me to help?" he asked, observing the chaos.

"No, I just have to look for a few things. I won't be a minute," she said in apology. She pulled a scarf from the pile of clothes on her chair, sending a dress and some datapads tumbling to the floor, and wrapped it around her neck. Freeing her hair from the scarf with a flip of her hands, she bent to pick the datapads up.

Kolyat's butt began to feel numb from the thin mattress, so he stood and wandered over to her bookshelf. She had a pretty extensive collection—poetry, crime novels, romance, fantasy, music theory, history texts. "You have real books," he said, pleased at the sight of them among the usual holonovelas and datapads. He recognised some human authors—Austen, Shakespeare, Tolkien, Homer.

"I'm fortunate to come from a long line of bookworms. Hey, there's another weird human phrase." She'd pulled on a rugged leather jacket as well as a snug woollen hat that hugged the alien roundness of her skull. She looked kind of… cute in the hat, in an odd human way, her hair puffing out from the bottom, the tip of her nose still red with cold.

It was nice to see books, real books, though Kolyat had never been endeared to reading history—to know the past informed the future, he supposed, but the exploits of long-dead rulers and ancient societies always bored him in school. He'd been a voracious reader all his life; he craved knowledge, reasons, answers. Living in a house of secrets did that to a child.

(-"Where does the sea water come from?" He looks up at Mama, her hand warm around his. "Does the ocean come from the sky, like the rain?")

A copy of Criminal Negligence: The Citadel Council and the True Story of the Geth Threat caught his eye, and he slid it free of the shelf to look at it. "You weren't here during Saren's attack, correct?"

"No, I'm just interested in it. The Council just kind of brushed over a lot of things, and the stuff Shepard said before she apparently died was pretty freaky. Also, I like a good conspiracy theory. Especially the weird ones."

"You think what Shepard said is a conspiracy?"

"No, no. I mean, it's scary and insane to think that there might be a chance we'll be wiped out by giant sentient cuttlefish ships, but... I don't know, the galaxy is scary and insane anyway. I mean, I don't think she's crazy, but..." Indigo shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know what to think."

("I cannot tell you the specifics of Shepard's mission," his father says.

He rolls his eyes. "Of course you can't. You don't tell me anything. You never have.")

"I forgot her name today, you know," Indigo said, looking amused at herself. "Total brain-fart. I bet you never have that problem."

"Perfect memory has its benefits," Kolyat said, though Commander Shepard was one human he would be happy to forget. Being punched in the face by the first human Spectre wasn't high on his list of cherished moments.

"But the Reapers are kind of fascinating, you know?" Indigo continued, her back to him as she continued to pack. "If you look in the right places, you see them in mythology from all different species, all different histories. It's like a Lovecraft novel, these unknowable monsters lurking in the dark."

"Lovecraft is a human writer?" he asked, finding the name embossed on the spine of an old book.

She nodded. "I went through a phase as a teenager—I was right into horror vids and books, a lot of science fiction—old sci-fi, centuries before first contact. It's funny seeing what people thought aliens were like before. Anyway, Lovecraft was more cosmic horror. Old gods, forbidden knowledge, terrible fates. He was also very racist, but people tend to ignore that."

Forbidden knowledge and terrible fates. Both had plagued Kolyat's childhood, the awareness that there were things he didn't know about his mother and father had been like a constant itch under his scales. Yet he'd found the truth, taken the title of hitman as a twisted manifestation of his father's legacy. Krios, the name of a killer, murder in his blood and bones.

He hadn't even been surprised to discover he was a pretty good shot. It all seemed so simple at the time.

("It is no easy thing, to take a life," his father says softly, hands clasped as if in prayer.

"You managed. And you were just a kid."

"As I said, I didn't know any better-")

To take a life, such a strange phrase, like another's life is something you can possess after their body lies cold and motionless. Those batarians had not taken his mother's life, they had ripped it from her with brutal cruelty, bloodying up his childhood home and leaving nothing behind. But while they'd laughed and jeered at her defiance and her pain, Kolyat had felt nothing but cold resolve while holding that gun to Talid's head, not until ( - pale light cuts the shadow as the door opens and his heart drops, his stomach turns - how is he here, they said he was dead - "This—this is a joke. Now? Now you show up?")

No easy thing to take a life, Thane had said, but Kolyat knew it would have been the simplest thing in the world. And like hell Thane didn't know any better. All the metaphysical rhetoric he spouted, the separation of mind and body... he hid his morals behind the old gods, ignored his agency, refused to take responsibility for the blood he spilled. At least Kolyat acknowledged his involvement in his own hit attempt. He didn't hide behind excuses of Disconnection or battlesleep.

He'd fucked up, pure and simple.

He put Criminal Negligence back and picked up a copy of And Love Fell, a book of free verse by asari poet Techllis Bel.

"Have you read that one?" Indigo asked.

"At school, yes." ("Who wants to read the 14th tranto? Krios, how about you?"

He wants to either die on the spot or walk out of the room, but detention wouldn't get him anywhere. "Stained in thick violet/Our hands make fists/Ask the stars/For righteous meaning/And find no answer." Across the classroom, Reina smiles at him and he looks away, his frill burning.)

"Hey, it was one of my school texts as well. I've always found it interesting, the question of whether violence is an endemic part of society."

"Of course it is," Kolyat said. "Every history is steeped in war. Surely all these books say as much."

"I know that," she said, sounding annoyed. "But most wars are started over resources, or ideologies, or to rebel against dictatorships. Either way, they're all a reaction to some kind of perceived political or social issue."

"So?"

"So, that's different to the idea of an inherent violent streak in sapient life," Indigo argued. "Animals murder other animals to eat or defend their territory. We murder other people for profit, or sadism, or for our beliefs." She paused, mid-way through folding a dress, her eyes locked on the violet material draped over her arm. "You know, Shay told me she used to be a merc."

Kolyat watched her, waiting, not daring to speak. A chill settled into him, not from the lack of power, and he swallowed, feeling sick.

("- Put the gun down, son.")

...Gods. He could never tell her. But since when had her opinion of him come to matter?

"She said it like it was nothing," Indigo continued, folding her dress. "And I know lots of asari do it—I guess you would if you're born with biotics—but it just seems insane to me. The idea that violence—killing—is just a fun little past-time you pick up for spare credits."

"You don't know that she killed anyone," he said, not believing it himself.

Indigo gave a derisive snort. "Come on, man, of course she did. You don't limit yourself to kneecapping people if you're a merc on Illium. But still, she's my friend, you know? I don't think she's a bad person... I don't know. I guess she just made some interesting decisions."

(- "Some say that violence is a means to an end," his father says. "It's a choice. A choice you make to hurt others, to take yourself down that dark path. I never wanted this for you, Kolyat."

Rage tightens his chest, hot and dry. He clenches his teeth, ignoring the pain lancing through his jaw where he'd been struck. "I don't care what you want, you bastard. Since when do you give a shit? You left—")

Kolyat's back went stiff with the memory and he forced out the breath he'd been holding. Indigo was watching him, and he had no idea what she was thinking. "It's a dark galaxy we live in," he said after a moment.

"Well, it is now," she said, gesturing to the shadowy cityscape outside.

Kolyat rolled his eyes and put the book back. "Are you almost done?"

"Almost. Are you having fun snooping through my things? I keep my red sand in my underwear drawer, if you're interested."

He chuffed. "I'm not snooping."

"You so are snooping. And you're lurking. You're Snoopy the Lurker, C-Sec's finest." She threw another shirt into the bag. "There aren't any other drell in C-Sec, are there?"

"There's one officer over on Bachjret Ward. She works in E-Crimes."

("—came here in the 70s. Good woman. Have you met her?"

He gives Haron an annoyed look. "How the hell would I have met her? I've never even been to Bachjret—")

As it had multiple times before, the urge arose to tell Indigo that he wasn't really a C-Sec officer, not really, not the way she thought. Kolyat turned his attention to the dozens of pictures decorating the wall to distract himself. An elderly human man sitting at a piano—her grandfather, he assumed. A much younger, scrawnier Indigo, beaming for the camera with a cat in her arms. The same cat, caught in the process of walking across the piano keys. Another cat covered in dirt and leaves, the detritus of a pot plant scattered across the floor. Two older humans, a brown-haired man with Indigo's green eyes and a red-haired woman with her large nose, both looking off to the side and smiling at something. A sick, nervous feeling uncoiled in his stomach, snaking up to his throat, and he swallowed, feeling invasive and invaded at the same time.

He recognised some of the holoprints of famous artworks she'd put up; an ocean wave looming over a tiny boat, a vase of sunflowers, clouds reflected in a pond of water lilies.

"So, do you have anything planned for all these supplies you bought?" Indigo asked. She'd noticed him looking.

"No. Yes. I don't know." Kolyat sighed. "I'm... trying some things."

"Very descriptive," she teased, smiling, and he chuffed.

After his mother's death, he'd never shown anyone his art. Reina had seen sketches and half-finished drawings, but she'd never really understood his secrecy. It was ("- private, I get it," the human says, an apologetic smile on her alien face -)

Well, Indigo had seen it, by accident.

Beside the paintings hung a huge holoposter for an exhibition at the Adelaide Museum, showing a herd of long-necked dinosaurs traipsing through fronded trees. Indigo saw him looking and smiled. "I used to want to be a palaeontologist. Just to have a bit of a dig—forgive the pun—at my dad, because of all the times he's been asked by his class if he'd ever dug up a dinosaur. He was an archaeologist before he started teaching history. Also, I was a big dinosaur nerd as a kid."

"What changed?"

"Well, they eventually learned there's a difference between the two fields, and—"

"I meant what changed for you?"

"Oh! Er, I watched an old B-grade vid called Rise of the Prehistoric Lich—"

"The Prehistoric what?"

"Lich. It's like an undead king. Tyrannosaurus rex is like the king of the dinosaurs, so calling a zombie t-rex a lich kind of made it into a whole big thing," she explained. "Anyway, it scared the shit out of me when I was a kid. Had nightmares about zombie t-rexes chasing me for weeks." She made a face.

Kolyat didn't smile. The sick feeling returned, like he'd swallowed a mouthful of oil, as he looked around her room. Seeing all her stuff, her family, everything she liked and lived with… it made him uncomfortable, and he realised he was jealous of her. She'd set out to get herself a place in the galaxy, to forge her own path, while he'd spent the first nineteen years of his life mouldering on an ocean planet with a dead-end future. His version of trying to take control of his life involved holding a gun to a crooked politician's head.

And now? His dodged prison sentence only made him the precinct lackey in a borrowed uniform, an afterthought with no credentials except a failed hit attempt and a Spectre's promise that he'd keep out of trouble.

It was weird, this something he had with Indigo. Whatever it was. Nothing about it was deliberate. They'd just been seeing each other by chance, and now… well, it seemed like he could push it further, if he wanted to. But if he said too much, she'd probably not want anything to do with him.

He'd known Indigo for almost two months now, and it still felt like they knew nothing about each other. He just didn't know how to bridge that gap, or if he even wanted to. Maybe it was because they were alone now, really alone, with nothing to distract his focus from her, that he realised how curious he was about her. He'd never met anyone like her before - curious but shy, honest yet evasive, casual yet intense. She was ... intriguing to him. Her presence had become meaningful since those shared glances and stifled smiles in the transit hub months ago. It had been a long time since he'd let anyone into his life, but he felt there was something between them, deeper than the surface of their tentative conversations; an unspoken kinship that he couldn't deny, no matter how much he told himself he wanted to. He'd even mentioned her to his therapist, for fuck's sake. Not that he could tell her that.

("There's a human girl, around my age, I think. Indigo." His frill warms at his words, and he clears his throat. "She's new here. She talks to me sometimes. I think she wants to be my friend."

"And do you feel the same way?"

"I don't know. I fixed her translator after someone broke it. I don't know why -")

V'Sera encouraged him to try with other people, to 'be part of the galaxy,' as Indigo had put it. Alone and lonely were two different things, and solitude was a practised state for him; a decision to live in self-made silence.

And sure, he was trying, but alone was easier. Alone was what he knew.

He just didn't understand why Indigo wanted him around. Or if she even did. Why him? What was he to her? Just a ride to her friend's, just a casual conversation, a convenience—or, worse, just a drell, just another interesting part of the scenery of the wards? Reina had dropped him, not that he'd blamed her. He'd been her project, the troubled boy for the rich girl to fix, and she'd moved on once she'd gotten bored of not being able to mould him the way she wanted.

What did Indigo want?

What did he want?

He looked at Indigo, shadowed silhouette against the window, drinking from a cup left on her desk that he suspected held long-cold coffee.

"Okay, I'm ready," she said, pulling him from his thoughts. She set the cup back down. "Shall we?"

Kolyat looked at her, this tiny human with an instrument case on her back, a satchel slung over one shoulder and a large overnight bag over the other. "Do you want me to take something?"

"I'm fine, thank you." Indigo pulled her beanie further down her forehead and straightened her jacket, zipping it up tight. "All right, let's continue our daring escape mission and get the fuck out of here."

Glossary:

tranto - an asari word referring to a stanza