Disclaimer: All Mass Effect and Elder Scroll characters belong to their respective creators.

A/N - Terribly sorry about that once-a-week update doohickey! Exams are forcing me to actually sit down and read text books (rather than fanfics) for once.

Oh, I also decided to stick to 1 POV per ...line(?) area change(?) , to prevent confusion in the future. Sorry about that!

And once again, thank you very much for the follows, reviews, and faves. You guys are seriously awesome ;u;

Happy reading! ;D

Chapter 4 - The Ship Part I

The Citadel, Dock 22 Year 2183 - 0655

"Wake up, sleepy head."

Saren gave a low rumble and raised the blanket to his face.

"Haha... You always have the hardest of times waking up, don't you Saren?" the voice chuckled lightly.

He merely grabs a pillow next to him and covers his eyes. "5...more...minutes..."

"Well, in 5 more minutes, the ship's leaving. So get up brother, come find me!"

"Wha-" Saren sat straight up, cracking his back in the process. Hand on the Carnifex next to him, he scans the room to find the voice that was just speaking. He looks down next to him to find the Asari from last night sleeping next to him. He sighs.

Who the hell was that?

He turns on his omni-tool and squints in the darkened room. "Oh son of a..."

He slinks away from the bed and rushes to put on his armor. Making sure he didn't leave a trace of himself, he turns to the sleeping Asari and merely shrugs. Last night was payment enough he thought. And leaves.

The Citadel, Dock 22 - 0658

Ugh... My head feels like it got run over by a stampeding elcor...

"Saren! Where the hell were you!? We're leaving soon!"

Saren (regretted) spinning his head around and seeing a turian whose chocolate hide could be seen anywhere. "...Nihlus. What are you doing here?"

The new Spectre gave a goofy grin and patted his teacher's back. "Those drinks really did a number on you, didn't they?"

Growling, Saren puffed out his chest as far as he could, trying to look menacing under the weight of the hangover. "You did not answer my question, Nihlus. Why are you here?"

Nihlus was in the middle of lifting a talon when a dark-skinned human began walking up to them. Exerting an aura of prominence and with eyes that have seen the dark side of war, the man could have been one hell of a Spectre. But no, because of his foolish emotions, he was stripped of his candidacy. Of all the people, of all the ships in the galaxy, Saren just happened to be in the same vicinity as one of the humans he hated the most. "I believe I can answer that, Spectre Arterius."

"Anderson," Saren grumbled, staring straight into his eyes. "You don't happen to be the captain of this ship, would you?"

Not breaking eye contact, Anderson nodded at the ship. "Beauty isn't she? State of the art hybrid between turian and human ship schematics, I'm honored to be captain of the Normandy."

Saren was about to say something, before he saw a flash of red come up from behind Anderson.

"Sir, we are ready to leave now," said the red-headed human. Upon further inspection, the human was a female wearing a rather daunting set of armor with N7 labeled on the right breast. Despite being around 6 feet tall, the armor wasn't as striking as the rest of her features. Underneath the flowing red fur that made her head look like it was on fire, her eyes, emerald and glowing, were glaring at Saren.

Hum. A human biotic, now that's uncommon he thought.

"Sir. We were told that a turian was to come on board. Why are there two?"

Saren shifted his gaze onto Nihlus and squinted. "Yes, Nihlus. Why are there two of us here?"

Anderson lifted a hand and shook his head. "It's best not to talk about this out here. We should go inside before Joker decides to take off without us."

Saren watched Nihlus follow Anderson and the red-headed human onto the ship. He, too, was going to take a step towards the frigate, until he saw a grinning human with astonishingly purple and red clothes skip past him.

"Good day, little biscuit!" he smiled, golden eyes gleaming at him. "Are you ready for a cheesy adventure with yours truly?"

Oh spirits... That's right. This human, prince, whatever he is, is the reason why I'm even going on this forsaken trip.

"...Come on, let's get on the ship," he replied, rolling his eyes.

Sheogorath raised an eyebrow and his smile erupted into a suspicious grin. "Now, hold on there silver sweetie. You seem a bit under the weather, why not let me help you with that?"

Saren took several steps away from the grinning human. "What? No! Keep away from me!"

Sheogorath merely gave a shrug and snapped his fingers, preventing Saren from lifting the gun from his side. "Oh sweet bone-cheeks, don't worry! You won't be feeling blue anymore!"

"WAIT! STO-"

The Citadel, The Normandy 0658

"So, Spectre Kryikk. We were informed that Arterius was going to be doing this job. What's with the last minute change?" asked Anderson.

"You know how the Council is," shrugged Nihlus. "I swear, they change their minds faster than my exes when I get on one knee."

He heard a small snort coming from the fire-furred human next to him. "And this must be Shepard."

Quickly regaining her militaristic attitude, she straightened up and saluted Nihlus. "Yes sir, Jane Shepard, XO to Captain David Anderson, N7 Navy A-574-"

"Whoa whoa whoa," Nihlus took a step back. "At ease, Shepard. No need to recite the entire terms and conducts page in the book of meetings."

"I...uh... Sorry about that Spectre Kryikk."

Nihlus gave the turian-equivalent of a grin and extended his hand towards her. "Nihlus is fine, Shepard. Pleased to work with you."

"Same here, Nihlus," she said, with a calming yet vibrant smile.

Huh, so the stone-faced commander can smile he thought.

"Yes yes, now that introductions are out of the way, can the turian get out my way so that I can finish getting things inside here?"

Nihlus looked down at the annoyed-looking uniformed human in front of him. Unlike Anderson, who radiated strength and knowledge, this bald-headed man was the epitome of the racist underside of the citadel.

Shepard's grin faded into a straight-lipped nod. "Nihlus, meet Charles Pressly, our Navigation Officer. Pressly, this is Spectre Nihlus Kryikk. He will be joining us for the trip."

Pressly gave a haughty huff and eyed the turian. "Yes, so I've heard. Please excuse me, I must finish checking our provisions."

Anderson shook his head and nodded an apology at Nihlus, who replied with a shrug.

"Well, there's at least one in every ship. Can't blame em for these looks." he said, wiggling his brow plates. His smile increased when Anderson gave a small cough and Shepard turned red from holding in her laughter.

"Anyhow, let's give you a tour of this fine frigate, shall we?" motioned Anderson. Nihlus was about to follow him, until he heard a loud boom outside. Grabbing his side pistol, he about faced only to slam into a wall of chitin. Taking a step back, he looked up at the turian whose color was the definition of hot pink. If the turian had a shorter fringe and face, he would have mistaken them for one of those female models on a certain lewd magazine, but no. He recognized those eyes anywhere.

"...Saren...?"

"Not. A. Word." he replied, giving him his trademark death-glare.

It would have worked, if he wasn't glowing as bright as Palaven's sun.

Nihlus couldn't take it anymore.

He broke into the loudest laugh anyone has ever heard.

Narrowly dodging a punch to the face, Nihlus lost his balance and fell on the floor laughing.

"I- Hahahaha! H-How did you *snort* Why- OH SPIRITS I'M DYING!" he cackled in between breaths.

Saren gave a loud growl before turning to Anderson.

"I don't suppose you can lead me to an unused room that I can change into my cabin," he said with a straight face.

Anderson nodded and proceeded to lead the pink turian to his chambers.

Nihlus slowly regained his breath while gripping the wall like it was his life-line. "I-I can't breathe. Spirits oh- how did that even happen. I just saw him like a minute ago! He was normal before then- Oh shit oh shit oh shit if I think about it I'll.. D-damn it!" he yelled before breaking into a crying laughter once more.

"Well, at least some of you have a sense of humor," huffed a white-furred man while walking into the ship. "He doesn't even appreciate my painting! How rude!"

Clenching his stomach, Nihlus looked up. "A-ahhh. So you're the source of S-Saren's new makeover. Absolutely love what you did to him."

"But of course! I have the best sense of aesthetics!" Sheogorath looked down at the shaking turian and smiled. "You don't happen to be in favor of a makeover yourself too, do you?"

Nihlus froze and sat up. "N-nah. I'm good, but if I ever wanted to be a walking piece of bubble gum, I'll call you."

The man shrugged. "What a pity. Oh well, there are places to explore in here. Toodaloo~" he said before skipping into the ship.

Shepard finally unfroze and helped lift Nihlus up. "So... that was..."

"A-M-A-Z-I-N-G." Nihlus breathed.

"Right... Well, I'll be helping Navigator Pressly until we're about to go. Do you need help touring the ship?"

Nihlus patted his back and stretched. "I'm good. I'll see you later, yeah?"

Shepard nodded and left, leaving Nihlus to his thoughts and silent giggles.

This is gonna be one hell of a trip.

A/N - I know this may be lacking a bit in the Sheo side, but I wanted to introduce the plot before going all Sheogorath on it. Sorry! _