"Mordin."

The salarian glanced at the clock before looking at the commander. "Shepard. Late."

"I know it's late," she muttered, swinging the desk chair over to his worktable again and sitting on it backwards. "It would be nice if it wasn't, so then I would have something to do."

"Can't sleep again?" he said knowingly, and tapped his keyboard a few times. "Weird dream?"

"No, just can't sleep." She sighed. "Joker's still up, but he told me off for bothering him."

"Ah," Mordin said. "Need distraction again, or - ?"

She grimaced. "I don't know."

"Chess?"

"Don't know if I'm feeling in a very 'chess' mood," she answered honestly. "It was a bit hard to pay attention."

"Were tired," he pointed out, and she shrugged.

"Yeah, and I'm tired now," she replied.

"Play a different game?" Mordin's hand hovered near his display, ready to pull it down onto the table, but she shook her head.

"Can you teach me some Drelleian?" she asked.

He blinked slowly at her. "Tired, therefore want to learn a language," he said, amused, and she snorted.

"Just a few words. Come on."

"Very well." He twisted the display onto the worktable, popping out a stylus and starting to write.

"What's different about Drelleian than English?" she wanted to know, and his lips quirked in a smile.

"Past and future," he said simply. "Much more complicated topic for drell than humans - or salarians." He straightened back up - he'd drawn a timeline chart on the display. "Many forms for past - one for near past, far past, past perfect, past imperfect, modifier if talking about memory, another modifier if talking about negative." He pointed to different areas of the timeline.

"All for just past tense?"

He leaned forward and pinched her translator off. "Äksi," he said. "Means yes ."

"Aksi," she repeated.

"No." He shook his head. "Äksi, like 'ey-ksi.'"

"Äksi. "

"Perfect." He pointed to the timeline. "Want to learn language, or just phrases and words?" he asked.

"Bit of both?" she told him. "Thane sometimes tries to say things in Drelleian that don't translate well." She shrugged. "Something like… 'nayu sikik… sikikiru nu-' something. He didn't explain it very clearly."

"Näyu sikyyhökiru nuuskyk," Mordin said, and smiled. "Complex grammar there."

She frowned at him. "How did you know?"

"Phrase of endearment," Mordin explained. "Uses memory as form of affection."

She sat silent for a moment, then leaned forward. "How do you say it?"

"'Ney-u sik-eek-hoh-kiru noo-skik.'" He led her through the pronunciation. "Näyu meaning future memory form of you - not as verb, but as a future state of you which will be remembered. Sikyyhökiru - sikyyhö means, ah… transcend? Close enough." He shrugged. "Kiru is suffix for progressive - ongoing action, indefinite memory, akin to saying 'will always remember you.'"

"That's… really sweet."

Mordin smiled gently. "Nuuskyk translates as 'own memory.' Altogether - 'you will always be remembered by me in a way that transcends my memory.'" He nodded. "Very sweet thing to say to a lover."

Shepard blanched. "We're not - I mean, we aren't - lovers , really, I just - "

Mordin held his hands up. "Didn't mean to say such," he said, though his eyes twinkled in amusement.

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah," she muttered, hunching over the table.

"Really didn't," Mordin insisted, and tugged the display out from under her elbows. "Drelleian language truly complex. Quite interesting."

"Didn't think you'd have such an interest in language," Shepard commented, eyeing the timeline chart as he began to write again.

"Why not? Surprised at interest in art, too," he noted, and she shrugged.

"Honestly, because I assumed your main interest would be in just genetics."

"Just genetics," he chuckled. "More to life than pure DNA."

"So it would seem," she agreed. "What are you doing?"

"Writing tense chart."

She shook her head. "I know there's a whole theory behind it, right? I'm not sure I'll be able to learn enough for that to matter."

He paused, then resumed writing. "Might as well learn theory of it," he told her. "May help you with relationship with Thane."

"Relationship ," she muttered rebelliously, and he grinned and thrust the display at her.

"Timeline chart. Wrote down meaning of tense with relation to general timeline." He tapped the display. "May want Thane to double-check it. Some aspects cultural; and, well." He gestured to himself. "Salarian, not drell."

"You'd make an interesting drell," she told him, and he laughed.

"Doubt it," he said wryly. "Next time, teach you Covus."

"Yeah? What's so special about Covus?"

"Native language," he said cheerfully. "Benkeru thathibemna. "

"What?"

"Means 'it has lots of tenses,'" he said with a chuckle. "Beh-hn-ker-uh tha-thi-beh-hmn-ah. Very efficient language."

"Benkero tha-thith… thithemna." She stumbled over the words. "Yeah, I don't think that will happen."

"Bachi," he told her matter-of-factly, corners of his eyelids twitching upward to give him a thoroughly amused look. "Maybe."

"Sure thing," she snorted, copying the display's timeline information to her omnitool. "You staying up?"

"Sehk," he said. "Yes."

"Was that also Covus?"

He nodded.

"All right. I'll talk to you later, 'kay?"

"Next time, play chess," he said absentmindedly, already positioning the display upright to keep working.

"All right, all right. You just want to beat me."

"Not true!" he said indignantly, adjusting the display. "Just like playing. Good distraction for us both."

"All right, all right. 'Night, Solus."

"Good night, Commander."

Author's Notes: As I mentioned in the first chapter, there's an entire developed language behind the bits and pieces you see here. It's a hobby of mine, okay? Anyway, point being, au ötäsla aaks e paiksui - the language is its own thing, in Drelleian.

A few fun facts:

-The Drelleian language sound is based loosely off of Finnish!
-In Covus, the letter "h" is not a letter, it's an accent mark.
-Following the above, this makes translating to and from Covus a spelling nightmare. It either looks like a spelling nightmare, or loses some of its pronunciation detail. I opted for "loses some pronunciation," since that follows with the game's sparse phrases and names and etc. from salarian culture a bit better.
-Also following the two above fun facts: the pronunciation of "benkeru thathibemna" would be as Mordin spells it out to Shepard, but with each "b" pronounced halfway between a "b" and a "v," and each singular "h" pronounced fully, not silently - and would be spelled like "behnkeruh thathihbhehmna." (Spelling nightmare.)