Alexia groans as she flips her textbook closed with a finality that speaks volumes towards how much more productivity Cassia will be getting out of her young friend. She had hoped for more than the bare minimum of the assignments done, but her weakness was in being a better friend than tutor. That, and she knew nothing short of bribery would get Alexia to finish the extra portion of her Earthen-North American history assignments.

When Alexia pushes the heavy textbook across her dining room table, Cassia rumbles in amusement. The sound attracts Alexia's attention and looks over, seeing Cassia's knowing smile.

"What?" Alexia's brow furrows as she narrows her eyes. "You can't really expect me to sit here and enjoy learning all about the presidents of the United States. There's, like, a hundred of them!"

"Ninety-one, actually," Cassia corrects, giggling when Alexia gives her a deadly glare. "Okay, okay. We don't have to keep going with them. What about working on the Second World War?"

The girl gives a stern shake of her head, holding a hand up between herself and the assignment Cassia tries to hand over. "No way …. That's extra credit, so I'm not doing it." She shakes her head again when Cassia gives her a glare of her own, mandibles pulled tightly to her jaw. "No. What use will Earth history even be to me? No," she reinstates, "I'm fine with xenobiology, mathematics, and xenolinguistics. I don't need to remember history or geography when I'm out there patching you and your brother up after battle."

Cassia rolls her eyes and sets the pamphlet of extra work that'll give Alexia a greater overall score for the subject in school. "Fine. But," she says, holding up a finger to get her point across, "If your class average drops, you're doing extra credit assignments from now on."

She leaves no room for protest as she tightens her mandibles and thrums with authority, and Alexia sighs, nodding. "Alright, alright. Jeez, I have a solid B."

"It could always be an A," Cassia sing songs, closing the textbook they were using to quizz Alexia on her sciences earlier.

"Yeah, yeah." Still, Alexia smiles and pushes her seat back from the table. "Come on, it's time to do something that's actually fun."

Snorting, Cassia follows behind Alexia into the kitchen to grab something to drink, maybe even a snack in reward for getting through this tutoring session. As much as she loves her friend, Alexia can be quite difficult to work with and get to pay attention when working on subjects she despises. She's very much like Damocles in that aspect, but, with her brother, Cassia often has to practically wrestle him back into paying attention. That, or he'll just tone her out. He's way too good at that and not even mom and dad can make him stop. It's pretty annoying at times can he can make himself so dense, but she isn't too surprised with how distant he's becoming. Mom likes to joke that he's 'going through the rebellious teenager stage,' but Cassia knows him better. More things are starting to upset him, and his way of dealing with it is shutting down and closing off.

"Hey," Alexia says, pulling Cassia out of her thoughts as she hands over a bottle of tupari. "Want to see what I'm working on with mom?"

Taking a drink, Cassia nods before swallowing some of the slightly sour, fruit juice. "Sure. What is it?"

Instead of explaining, the girl shakes her head and jerks her head for Cassia to follow. Wearing a devious grin, Alexia leads Cassia into aunt Miranda's lab beneath the home. The large space is kept colder than the rest of the house, the lack of windows to let in the sun and insulating ground encasing it making the lab slightly uncomfortable, but apparently the perfect condition for many of Miranda's experiments and work. While not necessarily locked, Cassia knows the lab isn't a place for visitors without her aunt's guidance and watchful eye, but curiosity powers her legs as she happily follows her friend down the steps.

"Are you going to tell me, or just surprise me?" Cassia chuckles when the smaller girl looks over her shoulder and shakes her head. "You're such a tease."

Alexia snorts. "You know it." Pulling Cassia into one of the lab's rooms - one Cassia has come to realize is Alexia's designated work space - Alexia stops at a cage with a little bird within, it's feathers a mix of blues and greens and long tail that curls beneath the perch as it rests.

Cassia stops and looks at the bird with a confused rumble before dropping her eyes to Alexia, a brow plate lifted in question. "It's a bird, Alexia. There's tons of them outside."

Snorting as she rolls her eyes, Alexia turns to the cage and opens it, making Cassia tense with experience of the little things and how they love to fly extremely close to people when surprised and scared. One too many times, Cassia had one fly into her because the poor little things seem to panic so much they lose control of themselves before quickly righting themselves and flying away. As much as she hates to admit it when looking back, it was a fun game to sneak up on a flock and scare them just to watch the little birds scramble in all directions, and they often tried to catch one or two. Sure, they'd always let the birds go, but she still felt guilty for stressing the innocent little things for her own enjoyment.

"Don't freak out," Alexia says, obviously aware of Cassia's readiness to be assaulted by a confused little bird. Reaching in, she cups her hands around the now chirping bird and gently pulls it out. "Mom and I found it outside. Someone's stupid cat had gotten it and it had a broken wing." She smiles as she holds the bird in one hand, it's head supported between her index and middle fingers, and gently spreads out one of the delicate wings to reveal an unnatural shimmering along the upper section where the bones of the limb are. "See? We used a cybernetic weave as a flexible cast. It can still fly even with a broken wing." She offers the little creature in a way that doesn't really give Cassia any opportunity to refuse. "Sure, you can still break it if you try to bend it unnaturally."

Cassia hums as she lets the bird hop around in her palm, smiling as she glances up to her friend. "Can you use this stuff on people?"

Alexia twists her lips to the side and shakes her head. "No. Mom had to start from pretty much scratch since she said the last stuff used to come from Cerberus before your mom and dad found their big base, but she still has some of the information. She hasn't found a way to make it where it can support the weight a person can put bones, but she's trying." She smiles and looks down to the bird. "I can't wait to see how it is when we can finally take off the weave."

"Cool." Cassia hands over the tiny bird before looking around the lab. "Your mom always seems to be working on something or another."

"Yeah." The sound of chirping and a door closing is heard behind Cassia as she walks around the room, curiously looking over papers and datapads set in orderly table top files. "Hey, you wanna see something really cool?"

That definitely sounds like something interesting and Cassia trills, turning back to her grinning friend. "Yes!"

Alexia's eyes glint with excited mischief and she waves her hand in 'come on,' leading the way out and into another room. This one is filled wall to wall with computers and tech, monitors actively charting out readings Cassia has no idea of the meaning. She doesn't really care to ask when what really has her attention is standing right there in the middle of the room.

Aunt Miranda has a actual live tank and, even more exciting, a real turian asleep within.

"Holy crap," she whispers as she walks to it, eyes searching the blank features of the male within. "Is he a clone?" She kind of knows the answer, recognizing the source of the genetics immediately in the white coloring and long lateral fringes.

"Uh huh." Alexia's presence steps beside Cassia. "He's a clone of Arcanus. Can't you tell?" she asks, incredulousness in her voice.

Cassia nods. "Yeah, I could, but just wanted to be sure." Tilting her head to get a better look, she rumbles. "He looks different too, though."

Alexia scoffs. "He's a clone, Cassia. So, yes, he is the same."

Cassia hums at the slightly arrogant tone to her friend's voice, but just shakes her head before saying, "I know Kunkle, and he's different."

"Besides being older than the clone?"

"Besides that," Cassia states, glaring down at Alexia.

"Oh yeah?" Alexia lifts a black brown and crosses her arms. "Tell them how, then? And not the obvious age stuff."

Looking back to the tank's occupant, Cassia steps closer with a rumble in thought. "He's paler. And his face is slightly thinner. His waist too-"

Alexia laughs and shoves Cassia, making her catch herself on the tank. "You and waists!" Seeing Cassia's narrowed eyes, she rolls her eyes. "There's no difference, Cassia. Hence 'clone.'" She smirks. "You just don't want to imagine your uncle being young … and naked," she adds with a point to the turian in the tank.

Straightening herself up off the tank, Cassia frowns at the tank interface now being in the way of seeing the whole of the turian. He really does look different, even if he's just a clone. "Turians don't show anything unless unplated, Alexia." She snorts and looks down to her friend. "Besides, you're the one looking at him down there. I wasn't even looking."

Alexia rolls her eyes, obviously unconvinced. "Right, just because there isn't anything to see." She smirks and points a finger at Cassia. "I bet you would be looking if he was 'unplated.' Tell me I'm wrong."

Cassia's mouth opens and closes a few times, mandibles fluttering in embarrassment - because that's exactly what she'd be doing because hey, he's pretty good looking. Snapping her mouth closed with a click, she looks at the male in the tank pointedly. "I don't know what you're talking about." She pouts when Alexia laughs, deciding to ignore her friend's amusement as she shakes her head and speaks, if only to herself in the noise. "Besides, I think we should go. I mean, we're staring at a guy whose name we don't even know."

Quieting down, Alexia flips her hand at the interface projected on the surface of the tank. "It's probably in there somewhere. I doubt mom would just have him named 'Arcanus' clone' or something."

"He could have a number, knowing your mom." Still, Cassia hesitates, hand held mere inches from the interface.

"Hey, who knows their mom more? No, he has a name in there because we both know Arcanus would have given him own." She scoffs. "Who would imprint a guy and not even give him a name?"

Cassia snorts and looks at Alexia in her peripheral. "The man who made Grunt?"

" … Doesn't count." She huffs when Cassia thrums, unconvinced by that argument. "Fine. If you won't do it, I will."

"Nono," Cassia interjects, grabbing her friend's hand before she can touch the commands. She should be the one to find the name since she's the one who brought up that they're standing here staring at someone without even knowing their name. "I'll do it …."

Alexia waits a few breaths before speaking. " … So? Are you going to do it or what?" When Cassia hesitates again, Alexia visibly shifts in the corner of Cassia's sight, "Alright. How about I dare you to."

Cassia clicks at the childishness of daring her to search through the tank's information, not willing to admit that it gives her enough confidence to move. She clicks open the information and searches for anything pertaining to the male's name, knowing it'll be a lot better when she no longer has to refer to him as such. She hums, not knowing Miranda's way of organizing her work, but soon finds a file within a subsection pertaining to personal information that needs to be imprinted labeled 'name designation.'

She snorts at how clinical that sounds, but maybe that's just how the tank works. That, or aunt Miranda needs to add some life to her work.

Cassia chuckles at the pun she unintentionally made and feels Alexia's dubious stare. "It's nothing, just had a funny thought."

"Uh huh. Believable …." She makes her own hum and nudges Cassia's side. "Still thinking about him naked, aren't you?"

"No," Cassia hisses as she glares sideways at her friend, but the ire falls flat in the face of Alexia's knowing smirk. "Oh, shut up." Huffing, she turns to the tank interface and opens the command for the name of the tank's occupant. "Huh," she says, looking down to her friend. "His name is Saren."

"'Saren' as in kill all humans Saren?"

Cassia scowls and playfully pushes Alexia. "Not all Sarens are evil Sarens, you dork."

"No, just the one that counts," Alexia argues, shrugging. "Not at all ominous."

Cassia rolls her eyes and turns to the tank, satisfied with knowing his - Saren's - name. She won't look into other things he's been imprinted with, not that rude and nosy. She's sure that, when the time comes, he'll tell of what he knows, and maybe even a bit about himself. She's willing to give him privacy and wait to be told.

She did see him naked before he was even woken up from his tank, after all. When the time comes, though, she won't be the one to admit to ogling. That's a bit of information she'll let slip, and Alexia isn't bound to tell given as she was doing enough of her own ogling.

"Crap!" Alexia startles Cassia into visibly jumping. "My mom's here."

"What?" Cassia trills in shock and spins onto her friend. "How do you know?"

"I have my tool alert me when she's within a certain distance." She looks up and sees Cassia's quizzical eye plate rise. "What? Would you just want your mom walking in and get into trouble?" Rolling her eyes at the understanding dawning in Cassia's eyes, she points to the tank. "Turn that interface off before she finds out!" Talking as Cassia scrambles to find a command to hide the interface and proof of them being here messing with it, Alexia sounds like she's planning out an explanation. "We can tell her I was showing you the bird. That'll only get us in a little trouble …."

Cassia tries to concentrate, ignoring Alexia's rambling as she tries to dig herself out of the millions of data files about what seems like way too much any one person should know. When she gets into the main console, she looks around for anything to turn off the projection of information and turns to Alexia to ask, but that idea quickly disintegrates when she's only waved at to hurry up. Flicking her mandibles anxiously, she turns back to the tank, scans over the commands, and finds a 'deactivate' command. She immediately realizes that command wasn't for what she thought it was for when the tank beeps a long note before the interface does, in fact, turn off.

Only, the tank doesn't stop there as large bubbles begin to erupt, sending the once still fluids around Saren into a frenzy. Trilling in sudden understanding of the mess she's just made.

"Oh, crap," she says, jaw dropping as she waves her hands over the tank, trying to make the interface come back on and stop the process.

"What'd you do?" Alexia runs over and skids to a stop just behind Cassia as the level of the slightly blue tinted liquid begins to drop. "You activated the release sequence?!"

"Who uses 'deactivate' as the release code?!" Cassia responds, raising her voice at the accusatory sound to her friend's voice. "What do I do?!"

"How should I know?!" Alexia is frozen in place, string wide-eyed at the increasingly emptying tank.

Growling at the absolute lack of any useful aid, Cassia turns back to the tank. "Nono. Reactivate. Turn back on." When none of her pleas seem to work, she whines softly and rushes back a step as the tank's lid releases, sliding up. Her mandibles fall slack at everything really becoming real now that she's face to face with Saren, no longer having glass and liquid between them.

Suddenly, Saren's body begins to collapse, no longer suspended within the tank. Chirping loudly in shock, Cassia shouts out a 'shit!' before rushes forward to grab him and keep the newly woken turian from falling face first into the hard lab floor. He turns out to be heavier than she expected - which, given that she's never lifted up a grown turian before, isn't too surprising - and the momentum of his fall landing directly on her sends them both to the ground. She lands with a pained grunt as the full weight of the still unconscious Saren lands solely on her.

Flicking her mandibles in worry that she really messed him up by releasing him before Miranda had planned, Cassia looks to Alexia in worry. Their wide, frantic eyes connect just as Saren jolts to life, coughing and spitting up that blue fluid across Cassia's chest and neck, soaking her shirt in the medicinal scented stuff. She freezes, unsure what to do as he shifts, slowly coming to enough to move his hands under him, slowly pushing himself up enough to look down at Cassia, his eyes still slightly dazed from the sudden awakening.

"Uh … hi," Cassia says, smiling weakly and purring reassuringly. Last thing she wants is to freak him out. She's doing enough of that for the both of them.

His rumble is thick with some of the fluid still in his throat as his eyes flick over her face, taking her in. She doesn't really see any confusion or upset in his eyes, and it soothes some of her worry. When he drops his head, coughing slightly as he pulls himself to his feet, Cassia sits up and watches him.

"Do you know where you are?" she asks, but Alexia snorts.

"Do you even know who you are?" When the words come out of the girl, Cassia glares at her. "What? He wasn't really supposed to be out so soon-"

"Saren," he says, interrupting them as he looks around the lab. "I'm in Miranda Lawson's lab." He turns to look behind him at the tank, humming. "I wasn't supposed to be released yet."

Cassia huffs a weak laugh, still sitting below him with his naked form still very close to her. "Yeah. Sorry …."

Rumbling, he drops his eyes to her and steps back from standing over her before offering a hand up. She takes it with a smile, happy that he at least doesn't seem to have any hard feelings for the abrupt awakening, and clears her throat once standing.

"I guess we should get you some clothes or something to dry off," she says, wiping some sort of vicious goop off his shoulder. Perhaps the tank fluid had difference consistencies, but she doesn't really want to ask him. She could just imagine how the conversation of 'hey, do you know what that stuff you were floating in was made out of? Because it doesn't have the most pleasant look' would go.

"I'd appreciate that." Saren releases her hand and flicks his eyes over her face.

"Do you know who I am?"

He nods and steps out of her personal space, giving her a chance to take a breath and look Alexia's way, wondering if his intensity is just because of being woken up or if it's a genetic thing from kunkle. She can't really think on it for too long as she hears the hurried footsteps coming down the hall, heels clicking on the pristine tiles.

"Girls," aunt Miranda says, her voice reaching the room before she even rounds the corner. "I got an alert -" She halts as her blue eyes stop on Saren. "That the tank was opened …."

Alexia visibly shrinks at her mother's stern look, but Cassia speaks up. "It was me. I was messing with the tank and, uh ..." she says before glancing to Saren and smiling weakly, "woke up Saren."

Miranda sighs loudly, ducking her head to rub her forehead as she curses under her breath. Cassia rumbles in apology, ready to say something when her aunt exhales heavily and lifts her head. "I'll have to let Arcanus know. He wanted to be here when we woke you up," she says to Saren, "but nothing critical has been interrupted in waking you so soon." She looks to Cassia with a scolding look, though it isn't as harsh as some glares she's seen her aunt wear. "I'll call Arcanus to bring over some clothes. Cassia? Can you show Saren where the bathroom is?"

Cassia swallows her nerves and nods, turning to Saren and smiling for him. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned off." She starts for the exit, suddenly stopping and jerking back to him. "Not 'let's' as in you and me, but you. Let's as in you. And I won't be in the bathroom with you." She has no idea why she's so flustered, not one to stumble over her words, but maybe walking around with a guy she practically woke up into life - who's also naked and covered in gross stuff - is throwing her off balance. "Just come on."

Turning quickly, she nearly runs up the stairs. She forces herself to slow when she remembers that she's supposed to be showing Saren the way and not running away from him, leading to the hallway bathroom meant for guests. Flipping on the lights, she lets him walk into the room and scan everything before clearing her throat. "You can use the shower to rinse off. And I'm sure Miranda won't mind if you use her towels."

Saren nods and heads for the shower, turning it on to get hot. "I only need to get rid of the remnants," he says over his shoulder and Cassia smiles, pulling the door closed.

Pressing her back to the wall beside the door, Cassia snorts at her own handle on the situation now that she finally has a moment to consider everything. First, she followed Alexia into the lab clearly off limits, then spent a good time ogling and arguing over staring at an unaware Saren before he was even technically born, then getting so flustered she started tripping over her own words. It wasn't like her to give such a bad impression to someone, but she feels like Saren forgives her for being a fool in front of him. Or, at least, he's polite enough not to show it.

She sighs to herself and looks down at her own shirt, picking at a blob of the stuff from the tank. The shirt is probably trash now because she knows full well that mom and dad would never let her wash it in the machine with the possibility that this goop could get all over other clothes. Seeing as how she also doesn't want to resort to hand washing it, Cassia figures the trash is the best place for it. She didn't really like the shirt all that much anyways and she at least got to catch Saren before he most likely broke his nose on the hard tile. She wouldn't have been able to live with herself after knowing the first experience the person she woke up has is breaking a body part falling down before they could even catch themselves. That alone would make her want to go back in the tank if she were in that position.

When she hears the sound of the door open, she's reminded of just how out of it she is that she didn't even pick up on the shower turning off. Pushing up off the wall, she nearly walks into Saren as he holds out a towel to her. She stares at it in confusion a moment before he chuckles, the sound making his subvocals give a thrumming sound of amusement.

"I guessed you'd want to at least wipe yourself off even if you won't have any clean clothes to change into." Saren steps back when she takes the towel and starts to wipe her shirt off.

"Yeah," she agrees, looking at the towel when she manages to wipe off as much as she thinks she's going to get off her. "I didn't really like this shirt all that much anyways." Tossing the towel into the hamper of the bathroom, she glances up just in time to see Saren examining her again and she smiles at him when his eyes meet hers again. "I guess we can go wait somewhere for your … dad? Is kunkle your dad?" She looks at his expectantly, seeing confusion flicker in his features before she chuckles at her forgetfulness. "Arcanus. Sorry, I'm used to calling him 'kunkle,'"

"Kunkle?" Saren lets the word stretch over his tongue as he hums in confusion, making her snort and laugh.

"Long story." Taking his hand, she pulls him towards the living room. "Come on. I can start showing you the best vids and shows while we wait for you him."