A\N: After re-reading the last few paragraphs I decided I was really unhappy with them and cleaned them up a bit. Serves me right for rushing to get the chapter up before I went to work. In short, you will learn nothing new from this re-posting, it`s just for my pride and because I left the `r`out of shirt a couple times and couldn`t let that lie.
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"Commander, new information has been found in relation to the pirates you were planning on targeting in the adjacent systems." EDI's monotonous synthetic voice was actually a welcome break to the circling conversation she had been having with the governor of the turian Gathras colony. She held up a hand and excused herself for a moment so she could retreat into a corner and speak more freely.
"What is it?" She asked, smiling in what she hoped was a comforting way as the mayor continued to squint suspiciously at her. She had gotten used to it, since it was the first reaction most people had upon learning who she was. People in the Terminus Systems hated the Alliance on principle, but none more so than turians. She had brought Garrus along as a show of diversity, but the governor had thus far gone to almost every length to ignore his presence entirely.
"It seems the group we disbanded had managed to pinpoint their base of operations. They were enroute to attack them when we boarded their ship." EDI informed her patiently.
"That was their invasion force?" Shepard asked, laughing quietly. "Amateurs."
"Quite. It is the location of the base that is of concern, Shepard." EDI paused, maybe even hesitated, for the briefest of moments. "It is located on Mindoir."
The world froze for a second, and then she was back, purposeful. She shifted her weight, her entire body suddenly tense and she could hear a distant melody in the back of her thoughts, shifting when she tried to focus on it. The sound of her armour grinding as she moved sent a tremor of frustration shooting through the centre of her brain.
"Commander?" EDI asked.
"Prepare to chart a course after we return on the shuttle." She ordered. Pirates were pirates, no matter where they happened to make buff. She would have to kill them sooner or later. She would have to face that planet even, eventually, since it was the most strategically advantageous system in the surrounding area. But she would have preferred later. Much, much later. Tapping her radio to signal the end of the conversation she strode back to governor Vysery, who was currently staring out the picture windows of his office at the main road of his colony.
"Tell me what your game is, Shepard." He said, not turning around. "If you're straight with me maybe we can work something out."
"I'm being straight with you, Vysery." She replied, leaning against his desk and crossing her legs at the ankles. "No game. All I want to do is help."
"An Alliance veteran human Spectre wants to help colonies in the fringes of Terminus space expand out of the goodness of her heart? You expect me to believe that?" His mandibles flared in his anger and he glared over his shoulder at her. "Do you think I'm a fool?"
"Look at what I'm offering you." Shepard replied, standing up and moving around to the opposite side of his desk, running her hand over the smooth polish of its wood. It was something native to the planet, almost navy blue in color with bold, elaborate black grain. He turned away from the window and placed both hands on his desk as she faced him, hands folded behind her back. "A sizable freighter, quick and clean with plenty of hull space. Your colony is over-producing because your planet is so damn bountiful, and this ship could expand your ability to trade over enormous distances. You could make a lot of money." She saw his mandibles twitch visibly. "And I'm also going to give you enough weapons and armour to outfit a garrison to defend this new wealth. You must have some people on this world who know how to fight, or at least some that could learn to. I'm offering you money and security, with no strings attached."
"See, that's the part where you lose me. I can't believe you want to just give this to me and walk away." He said, his intense interest once more overshadowed by his suspicion. "Nothing is ever free."
"I don't want to just walk away though. I want to give you this handy communicator." She presented it in one hand. "That provides a secure channel to the Normandy. If a new group of pirates moves into the neighborhood and thinks they can pick up where the last bunch left off, I want you to call me. Then I'll come back and kill them for you. You should also be aware that I've already given similar communicators to neighboring colonies in these systems. Should this ship be seen pirating again for some reason, I've assured them I'll take care of the problem."
He continued to glare at her and slammed one hand on the desk after a tense moment. "Just tell me WHY damn you!" His poker face was gone, he was truly angry now. Garrus and Jack tensed, hands going to weapons. Shepard waved them off and they relaxed, if only slightly, and turned away again.
"You know why. Don't tell me you haven't seen the vids. The Reapers are coming, the same as they've been coming for the past two years. The Terminus Systems are weak right now, they're being controlled by weak cowards because they have more bullets than everyone else. If the Reapers arrive tomorrow, we're all dead. I need the Terminus Systems to be strong, and I'm not going to find that strength in the slimy, greedy, back-stabbing criminal filth that thinks it can run this place." Her voice flared, going up an octave in passion. She was accustomed to giving speeches, when she thought they would be effective. Vysery, with his impassioned desk hitting and stoic window gazing obviously possessed a flair for the dramatic, and they stared each other in the eyes for a moment before Vysery eased himself slowly into his chair. After a moment, she took one of the pair that were pulled up facing him.
"Soverign and the Citadel? That was just a taste of what's coming. The first touches of a war that is going to be bigger and more brutal than anything this galaxy has ever seen before." She crossed her arms and adjusted her seat. "Unless we unite there's no way we can win this."
"Unite? The Terminus Systems?" Vysery's small eyes widened and he sat back, rubbing the space between his eyes so hard that it smeared the triangle of dark blue face paint he wore there. "It'll never work."
"What have you got to lose? Is the way things are now really all that great?" She lifted one hand and pointed through the window at the darkening sky. The setting sun shimmered orange and red, a few small clouds painted in dark maroon where they hugged the horizon. "At any moment pirates could drop from the sky and take everything you love or value, like they've been doing your entire life. What I'm offering, really offering, is a way out of this cycle."
The turian was silent for a long moment, staring at his talons where they lay, interlocked on his desk. After what seemed like a distant silence he looked up, meeting her eyes again. His stare was full of suspicion as it examined her stoic, unflinching face, met the backlit blackness of her unyielding eyes. Finally he nodded, only slightly.
"Let's say I believed you." He said. "What do we do next?"
She smiled.
Hours later, after much file sharing and helping the steadily relaxing governor with the basic schematics for setting up an effective garrison and even moderating the forging of a trade agreement with the nearest large colony Shepard dragged herself down the shuttle ramp and toward the elevator, waving to Jack and Garrus who were beginning to look equally as weary. Her brain was like putty, a jumble of trade language and gun drills and legal jargon, glowing with hope at how well everything had gone but incapable of forming complete thoughts. She almost dozed off as the elevator lifted them smoothly up a floor, jolting fully awake again as it stopped to let Garrus off on the crew deck. She had not been tired until the moment she sat down on the shuttle to make her way back up to the Normandy but now she could barely keep her eyes open. Maybe for the first time in days she could sleep without the help of those blasted blue pills that she resented so much.
"ETA 27 hours, 12 minutes, Commander." EDI's cool voice informed her. She looked up, as was her habit, red rimmed eyes blurry with confusion.
"ETA?" She asked, rubbing at the hump of her broken nose and squeezing her eyes shut.
"To Mindoir, Commander." Came the reply. She hissed a sharp intake of breath through her teeth and pounded one fist into the wall of the elevator. She had completely forgotten about that, been too focused on her talk with Vysery and filed it away in the back of her mind. It had been nicer to have it there, and she sighed heavily. All hopes of natural sleep were gone from her now, as the sound in the back of her head grew stronger, a distant tolling from the depths of her memory.
"Thanks, EDI. I'm going to try and get some sleep. Try not to wake me for anything less than the ship being on fire." She had found that it was impossible to do anything for at least ten hours after she popped those pills. Trying to grab a quick six hours and get back to work was impossible. Sometimes she slept so much that she just wound up being tired again, but the alternative was still a fresh blister of pain in her memories and she had no other options.
The small familiar room that awaited her seemed strangely sterile as she pushed her way into it. Over the years she had gotten used to living on ships, it seemed strange to her to walk around on land where the ceilings were so high and the layout of houses and apartments seemed so counterproductive. Today though, she felt like she needed to duck her head, the walls pressed uncomfortably close and as she collapsed onto her bed and began to strip out of her armor she realized her fish were dead. And she had been doing such a good job with these ones too.
Sighing, she leant up and got the net to scoop the tiny orange bodies out. She could not go back to that store and face that smug asari's depreciating looks when she admitted she had killed another batch. This was the end of Shepard's adventures into pet ownership. She had not been able to convince herself to buy a hamster, which actually felt like an animal rather than an ornament she had to feed occasionally when she could not even keep said ornaments alive. After a moment of silence over the toilet bowl, she bid adieu to her fish and popped her sleeping pill before changing into a clean t-shirt and underwear. By the time she made it back to the bed and lay down on her back she could already feel the heaviness of artificial sleep tugging on her eyelids. Here where it was so quiet, so still, in the last moments between darkness and light the sound that had haunted her since EDI first called down to the planet intensified, filling her mind.
Like she had a thousand times in her life before the batarians came, Shepard fell asleep listening to the bells ringing in the high hills of Mindoir.
Hours later, she woke suddenly from the dark, senseless oblivion of medicated rest. She had felt, rather than heard the presence of another being in her quarters; a whisper that touched her mind and brought reality smashing through her blurry eyes as she sat up suddenly. The figure silhouetted by the dim light of the fish tanks turned suddenly to look at her.
"Siha, I'm sorry. I did not mean to wake you." Thane apologized, hesitating at the top of the flight of stairs that led down into her sleeping quarters. She squinted at him through the haze of recent sleep and pills and after a long moment gestured him down. She kept the sheets folded over the mostly naked lower half of her body as she sat straighter, folding one slender hand over her face and trying to pull her addled thoughts together into a working mind. She heard him descend the stairs and when she looked up he was standing beside the bed, looking down at her.
"Did you need something?" She asked, mimicking his regular greeting. He smiled and shook his head no, and she realized he was once again giving her his searching, all-knowing look, peeling away all her bluffs and false confidence to see her as she really was.
"I thought you might." He said, sitting down on the bed beside her. His dark eyes were intense and she looked away, not able to handle their scrutiny in her current state. He looked down, and covered her hand on the bed with his.
"Because of Mindoir?" She asked. She saw him nod out of the corner of her eye and sighed. "I can't really talk about it right now. I took some sleep aids," she glanced at her clock, "four hours ago, so I'm pretty much useless for another six. I can barely keep my eyes open as I speak." She emphasized her point with an enormous yawn.
"I see." Thane seemed to hesitate, unsure of what exactly to do. She supposed he was not anymore used to this awkward dance of concern and protocol then she was, and after a moment she gripped his hand and drew him further onto the bed.
"I could use some company though. Just until I fall asleep." In her scarcely lucid, doped state all her usual hesitations and doubts lagged far behind action. She folded herself against his side, under one of his arms, as he leant back against her pillow. She closed her eyes and eased into the gentle rhythm of his heart beat, the steady rise and fall of his chest. After a moment she felt him relax and his hand settled itself in her hair, stroking softly.
"Why did you cut all your hair off?" He asked, his fingers settling on the base of her spine and kneading at the tension bunched there. She sighed against the sweet-smelling leather covering his chest, her mind slipping steadily away. It took her quite a few seconds to assemble anything close to an intelligible response.
"I didn't want people to recognize me. It was... uncomfortable. Walking down the streets and having everyone think that they know me, either as the Savior of the Citadel or that other thing they call me. The Butcher of Torfan." She grit her teeth. "Mostly as the other thing. People thought... they thought a lot of... of things about me."
She wanted to elaborate on that thought but sleep was proving too powerful. Bathed in the warm, sweet scent of his skin she slipped into darkness again, feeling the strong, unfaltering rise and fall of his chest and the sensation of his fingers moving through her hair.
She woke, hours later though it felt like moments, and looked around her darkened room. The barren fish tanks bathed the sleek, emotionless furniture with soft shades of blue and the twinkling lights beyond her windows frosted the effect, making her shiver even in the comfortable warmth of her bed. She had spent much of her life on ships and had never really thought about getting spaced except during a few delirious and brutal ship-to-ship battles. What was out there was frozen and deadly, she had always known that. But now the knowledge combined with the reality of what she had experienced haunted her. She often wished for a drab, windowless room that did not do so much to remind her of what it had been like to hang suspended in all that space.
Thane was gone, of course, and she pulled herself out of bed with no mind to her state of undress. Sauntering into the bathroom she paused in front of the sink to gargle a glass of water and brush her teeth. The sleeping pills gave her the most awful dry mouth in the mornings, as well as itchy red blotches across the underside of her jaw. She scratched at them absently as she undressed and took a shower, turning the water hot then cold to try and shake off the last persistent memories of sleep. She turned off the water and shook the bulk of it from her hair as her thoughts began to wander back to the issue at hand.
It was time to face the reality of this. It was another sixteen hours and four minutes until the Normandy would pass into orbit around the planet of Mindoir and she had to accept that. There would be no complications, she would go down there and kill some pirates, then raid their base, get EDI to perform a geographical scan for tactical files and sail away. She could handle that, it was something she had done a several times in the past six weeks alone. The way she felt about Mindoir was not rooted in the stone and trees, it was rooted in god, death, rebirth and enlightenment. Mindoir represented all of these things to her, but going there was not going to change the way she felt about them. Only she had the power to do that.
She knew all of this, understood all of it. So why was she standing stock still in the shower trembling like this? Why did the thought of distant mountains, blurring in the purple mists of dawn send a chill of pure terror down her spine? Why were these bells still pounding their rhythms in the back of her brain, filling her perfect clarity with obscuring vibrations? She was almost dry as she left the shower and walked, naked, into her quarters again. The woman she glimpsed in the mirror as she passed was not her reflection and it made her jump a little, as it always did.
She pulled on a featureless black shirt without bothering with a bra, and then a pair of black pants. They were the only clothes she owned outside her armor, and when she started counting that as an outfit she knew she was really in trouble. As she looked out at the wide expanse of the universe unrolling through her windows she wondered what would happen if she could not take this, if the stress and pressure finally got to her and she cracked. Would it really make a difference? She had accepted, within her dying thoughts, that she was not special. That nothing had determined what would happen, what she would and could become. This had both simplified and complicated her outlook on life. It suggested that she could do anything, but it also suggested that she could fail at anything just as readily.
She was not accustomed to confronting the possibility that she could actually fail at anything. As the people around her had heaped their hopes and dreams on her, convinced themselves that there was nothing she could not do, so had she come to expect those heroics of herself. She had let their confidence build her own. That confidence had led her here, to this impossible task that she was planning to undertake. And now they were beginning to doubt her, thinking that what she was doing was too big, too ambitious. She did not know how to feel about that.
And than there was Mindoir.
Sighing angrily, Shepard sat down on the edge of her bed and put her head in her hands. She remembered, vaguely, a time when everything had been clear. When she had understood her place in the universe with such absolute clarity it bordered on fanaticism. She could have used that intensity of purpose now, when everything seemed so unclear. She was still sitting there, staring at the floor between her feet when she heard the door whoosh open and the increasingly familiar figure of her drell... whatever he was entered the room.
"Siha. How did you sleep?" He asked, descending the little flight of stairs past her model ships without being beckoned or invited. She should have known he would be back up here, and even though she normally would have desperately wanted to be alone at a time when she felt so conflicted and unsure she found herself smiling and moving over slightly, patting the bed beside her.
"About as well as I ever do, now that I'm experiencing better living through chemistry." She commented wryly. The oblivion of prescribed sleep was unsettling, both for how empty it seemed and how easy it was. Pop a few tablets and all the nightmares melt away, even if those nightmares were the most vicious and ugly of truths dredged up from the past. "Too hard, too long and too deep. But it's better than my alternative, I suppose."
He nodded silently at her assessment, staring at her newly vacant fish tanks as he thought. After a moment he pulled her hand onto his lap, cupping it between both of his. His conjoined middle and ring finger traced the hills and valleys of her knuckles. "Do you want to talk now?" He asked quietly. She sighed and shook her head.
"Not really." She confessed. "I don't know what to say about it now anymore than I did before. I just want to get down there, kill all the pirates and get off."
"Are you still dreaming about the attack?" He asked quietly, continuing to trace the contours of her hand even though his wide black eyes were fixed on her. Rather than the usual intense scrutiny of such personal conversations, his expression was soft, caring. She could not remember the last time someone had looked at her like that, like she was the one that needed support, needed someone to understand. She did not remember the last time someone had worried about her in the fashion that Thane did, not just after her health or efficiency or happiness but after the state of her soul, the very deepest parts of her.
"I don't dream at all anymore." Shepard replied softly. "The pills took care of everything, it seems. Just like everyone promised they would." She could not keep the bitterness out of her voice, her disgust with herself for being so weak as to need to drug herself into contentment. Thane's grip tightened on her hand and she looked up at him.
"This is not like you." He said softly. She frowned, suddenly weary again. She could feel her eyes throbbing dully as though she had not spent the last several hours sleeping and doing generally nothing. She shrugged helplessly.
"Do you really think you know who I am?" She asked, looking up at him. Her tone was soft, lost and full of the many different fears she had been given plenty of time to think over and line out for herself. "I've only known you for a few months. That's not a lot of time to learn the deepest levels of someone's soul, and I haven't exactly been open about... certain things."
"I barely know anything about who you were before you walked into the Dantius Towers on Ilium with a mind to recruit me." Thane confirmed. "You have ever kept the secrets of your past close, never daring to share them with anyone. I know only the woman that you are now, in this room, as evidenced by everything I have seen you do. I believe you are on the right path Shepard, I believe you can do everything you're saying you can do and more. You have nothing to fear from yourself."
She stared at him, wondering how he knew exactly all the things she needed to hear, how anyone could hold such feverish faith in her when she had none in herself. The dumb bastard really did believe everything he was saying to, she could see it reflected in the depths of his dark eyes. She smiled, shaking her head slightly in wonder until her long bangs sagged suddenly into her eyes. He brushed them away with one hand, trailing his fingers along the smooth line of her forehead and down her cheek.
"Rama, I don't know if you're feeling up to it, and if you aren't you should feel free to say so." She said finally, as his fingers traced her jaw line. As his touch lightened she raised one hand to hold in there, warm against her cheek. "But it would be really great if you could... if you could come on this mission with me. I might need someone there who understands at least some of what is going on. Someone who can keep me on the right track if I... lose my way."
He nodded as though she did not need to ask and she smiled. They had not been on a mission together since he had gotten his implants, since all the medical personnel had allied with her to force him to take the fully recommended healing time. She missed working with him, missed the easy way they complimented each other's strengths and weaknesses. For someone who had spent the majority of his career working alone, Thane had a remarkable knack for keeping her alive when she decided to charge into the mouth of hell, spraying bullets and biotics in every direction. "I should go prepare."
"You are prepared." Shepard teased. "Are you telling me the great Thane Krios lets his guns get dusty? Even if they are, we've got like fifteen hours. Can't you think of better ways to spend the next little while?"
He smiled at her, his expression changing as quickly as the mood in the room did. She was not over Mindoir, as much as she would have liked to claim otherwise. She was not over Mindoir, she was not sure she believed in herself, she was not sure that they could beat the Reapers with the insane plans she had concocted. But Thane was, and for the moment that was enough to alleviate the crushing doubt and uncertainty. He shifted closer to her on the bed, their thighs suddenly pressed against each other from knee to hip. "What were you thinking, exactly?"
She turned her head slightly, against his hand and kissed the side of his callused thumb before flicking her tongue out briefly and sliding it along the sensitive underside of the digit. Drell were insensitive to touch across their scaly areas, but anywhere the scales parted tended to be particularly receptive as a result. His eyes widened slightly at the quick, wet heat of her tongue and she raised one eyebrow at him.
"I thought you didn't want to go fast." He said quietly, and she could hear the note of restraint trembling in his voice, feel his grip tighten on her ever so slightly as her eyes grew more and more wicked. He had the same bashful expression on his face he had borne when she walked in on him shirtless, the closest thing to uncertainty she ever saw on him.
"We don't have to go far. I just want to... get to know you better. The vids gave me an idea of what to expect, but nothing compares to field research." She slid her arms around his neck and pressed herself against his chest. She still was not wearing any undergarments and she could feel him react to the fact, his eyes shifting suddenly down. She took advantage of his distraction to haul herself suddenly into his lap, one knee on either side of his hips.
He jumped, looking up at her as she pressed close again, her hands curling up behind his head, probing the ridges of his scales to find the thin, soft lines of skin at their joints. He sighed, a rush of warm air against her ear and his hands went to her hips, gently, barely there at first, then gaining confidence as she began to kiss down the red fold of skin on his cheek. When she reached his jaw and ducked under the hard line of his jawbone to skate her tongue along the first folds of his completely scale-less throat he jumped again, and sighed again, his hands beginning to wander along the long, powerful muscles of her thighs and up her strong back to circle her waist, steadily gaining confidence at her own soft sighs of encouragement. When she paused, glancing up to see what kind of faces he was making, he turned his head and caught her lips in a kiss.
She remembered what Mordin had said about drell using their tongues, and opened her mouth as his slid along the seam of her lips. He darted in immediately, testing the texture of her tiny porcelain teeth and the curious dimples scattered across the roof of her mouth. She reciprocated and found the inside of the drell mouth as smooth as the outside, with their four large teeth on top and bottom and smooth, unbroken pallet. There was a faint sweet taste to him, almost citrus in nature, but sharper and with a hint of exotic spice as always. Her thighs tightened around his hips as she felt him grip her suddenly tight, her fingers continued to trace the sensitive tracks of skin along the ridges of his scales. As their kiss continued to deepen he pulled her hips down flat onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her flush against him.
When their lips parted they both drew a quick breath and stared at each other. She squinted slightly as her vision blurred, the details of her surroundings glowing and expanding in the corners of her eyes. Everything was suddenly slightly unreal, except him. He was the only solid thing, so close she could see herself reflected in his glossy black eyes. She thought back to Mordin`s warning about those psychotropic effects, and wondered how quickly they would set in for a second before she felt his weight shift under her and suddenly she was on her back on the bed as Thane moved over her, his tongue doing amazing things down the curve of her ear before he nipped lightly on the lobe and began to trail smooth, damp kisses down her neck. She sighed, closing her eyes and relaxing back against the smooth sheets, her body relaxing even as he set every nerve on fire. His incredible, agile tongue twisted its way across her throat, finding every sensitive spot and exploiting it mercilessly, his pleasure apparent every time she gasped or moaned involuntarily.
She stretched her arms out above her head and sighed again as he latched onto the base of her neck, just above the collar of her shirt and nipped the skin, kissed it with his soft lips and took deep, shuddering breaths of her scent. As he pulled back slightly, she took the opportunity to slide her hands under the collar of his jacket, tracing the strangely solid line of his thick collar bone, taking in every delicious change in the many textures of his skin.
There was no way to tell how long it went on like that, touching, kissing and staring into each other's eyes with none of the awkward whispering that usually accompanied the act of exploring a new lover, especially one of a different species. The world was definitely breathing around them now, the light from the fish tank flowing across the floor, the stars above him filtering down through the window like a snow fall of glowing sparks. She felt like she could reach out and touch them, had she not been so busy nuzzling her face against Thane's neck as he pulled her shirt down her shoulder a little ways, exposing a new patch of skin to explore. She felt his other hand moving up her stomach from where it had been tracing small circles through the thin fabric of her shirt, hesitating as it neared her breast and arched her back invitingly into his touch. He took her invitation and she felt his hand close over her. His lips left her neck and she glanced down to see he was staring at his hand as he felt her up.
"What?" She asked, one eyebrow raised at the curious expression on his face. Breasts were new to him of course, and he seemed to be suddenly very interested in them, his brows knit in an expression she could not read. She definitely wanted to know what he thought about his introduction to what seemed to her an indispensible feature of femaleness.
"They're... soft." He remarked quietly, looking back up at her as a grin broke across his face. "I never expected any part of you to be so soft."
She laughed, feeling incredibly mellow all of a sudden and pulled him down to her, sliding her tongue into his inviting mouth. He was a quick study despite his initial hesitation, and she soon felt his fingers tease the rapidly hardening bud of her nipple through the light cotton. She broke their kiss to suck in a quick breath of air and he stopped, watching her reaction intently. His fingers moved again and she felt a light blush of color spread across her cheeks as her core suddenly tightened, the flood of heat that had plagued her for what felt like eons breaking over her with sudden and incredible intensity. Again he teased her and she gasped a loud, putting one hand over his to stop him.
"That's..." She began, her voice hitching in her throat, and he let his hand drop away in instant understanding. He kissed her cheeks, the tinge of darkness her arousal had spread across them, and nuzzled into her neck as she wrapped her arms around him and they stayed like that for a few long moments, not moving or talking. The world swam so actively around her that Shepard had to close her eyes and curl around him to keep herself grounded, the warmth of him all that was real and solid in the shifting, melting colors of the world.
"Siha, whatever happens on Mindoir, I will do all I can to keep you on the right track." He whispered into her hair, shifting his weight until he was laying beside her on the bed rather than on top of her. He ran his fingers through her soft blond hair, down the side of her face. She moved closer to him, curling up slightly against his chest. "Whatever you need, I am always here."
"Just lie here with me for now, that's all I need." She replied lazily. She cracked one eye open and giggled, trying to focus her eyes on him. She was no virgin to hallucinogens, but they were strange with mechanical eyes that were determined to examine all the impossible things that were happening. Wherever she focused her attention the world was perfectly normal. In her peripheral vision everything wavered and moved, bleeding into everything else. "Wow. Whatever it is that you're carrying around in your mouth, it packs quite a punch."
"Are you unwell?" He asked, his voice instantly concerned. There was always a chance that something could go horribly wrong when species co-mingled at this level. She waved a reassuring hand at him and laughed as it left long, ghostly traces of itself in the air. She waved it back and forth, watching them for a second before she remembered what she was doing and looked back at him.
"I'm fine. Just tripping out a little bit." She let her hand fell back and closed her eyes again. "Just hold me for a while, it'll go away."
As he had promised, he gave her what she needed, his warm arms around her, fingers still casually exploring the soft, sloping lines of her body. As the world turned and swam around her she did not sleep, but she managed to grab a few moments of peace in the face of all that was surely coming for her.