The aliens push through the gap in the gates, not bothering to wait until they open completely. The asari follow close behind. The dirt trail soon changes into a heavy wooden flooring as they enter the city proper. The cart soons stops as the pathway becomes too narrow to support it. Two of the aliens begin to tip the cart as if they mean to simply throw the semi-conscious Dehira off like trash. T'lena makes to stop them when the third one - the same one that admonished the one who made the medicine before - stops them and begins to lecture them again. Suitably admonished, the first two settle the cart back down and reach underneath it. They pull out a simple stretcher, little more than a sheet of thick leather wrapped around two sturdy wooden rods, and carefully pull Dehira off the cart and onto it. One alien goes to either and, with another demonstration of strength disproportionate to their size, lifts the stretcher above their heads.
The third alien leads them deeper into the complex, past a building that echoes with the cacophonous crash of hammers on metal, and up a stairway that leads into a tunnel cut into the cliffside. As they go deeper into the tunnel, the sunlight pouring from the entrance is replaced by head-sized wicker baskets hanging from the ceiling, containing a bright, flickering light. They follow the path to its end, leading back to a structure jutting out from a different part of the mountain away from the main city. In the halls they find another of the tall aliens, a female this time. She looks similar to the one that the asari first encountered back in the marsh, with some differences: in addition to being of generally slighter build than the male, her long, tapered ears jutted outward from her head, her hands sport four digits instead of five, and her feet, instead of being flat like those of an asari or batarian, are stretched like those of a quarian so that only the toes touch the ground.
She is momentarily surprised at the asari's appearance before turning to address the leader of the trio. The smaller alien answers back in their incomprehensible language. The look of shock on her face quickly shifts to worry as she looks down at Dehira. With a curt word she turns and briskly marches onward, beckoning them to follow her. She quickly leads them to what seems to be an operating theater with a single table at the center of the room illuminated by light pouring from a skylight directly above, along with several small tables to place tools on and a few assistants.
The woman begins barking orders as she steps to a basin to wash herself. One of the others rushes to her side to assist her while the other two lift Dehira from the stretcher onto the table. One of them grabs a pair of stout scissors from a nearby table to try and cut her suit off, but the ceramo-polymer weave resists the shears' attempts to break it.
"Help them get my suit off," the nurse says. Alina, being the closest, steps up to her and releases the seals on the suit, carefully helping her peel the suit off. Once it is removed, the assistant wielding the shears nudges Alina aside and quickly slices through Dehira's clothes without any concern for her modesty. She shivers at the sudden chill, and the other asari automatically avert their gazes from their now bare comrade, but the two assistants ignore Dehira's nudity in favor of assessing any wounds she may have, including the large indigo bruise along her abdomen. The lead woman returns along with the first assistant, prompting the other two to leave Dehira's side to suit up themselves. The doctor and her assistant are clad in white robes, under which the asari see heavy leather coverings. Their faces are concealed behind pointed, bird-like masks with crimson lenses for eyes. Not an inch of skin can be seen on either of them. As the other two assistants approach, now donning identical garb, the three smaller aliens quickly usher the unharmed asari out of the room, shutting the door behind them. As they depart, they see the two of the assistants gently wiping Dehira's body with rags that reek strongly of alcohol while the third is tapping dried leaves into a censer.
The sextet retrace their steps back to the main city. The apparent leader of the aliens speaks to its two comrades, who then take off in two different directions. The third leads the asari down a nearby flight of stairs and into what seems like a housing area. The alien leads them into a room near the stairs. The room is spartan in appearance, with little more than four bunk beds and a single large chest to furnish it. Once they are all inside, it pats one of the mattresses in invitation before it scampers past them, shutting the door behind it. Several moments pass with only the sound of rushing water and distant crowds filling the air.
"Goddess," Meerla sighs as she flops down onto one of the bunks, the madness of the day finally catching up to her. "I can't believe we actually made it."
"Do you think Dehira will make it?" Alina asks as she sits down next to Meerla in a more reserved fashion. "That bruise on her stomach looked pretty bad."
"I don't know," T'lena says while sitting down on the opposite bunk. "But I imagine that with having to live with monsters like that around, these people would know how to treat injuries from them. We'll just have to wait and hope; it's not like we have any other choice."
"Yeah, but what if they can't help her?" Alina asks while removing her helmet. "I remember cracking open a xeno-anatomy book when I was in school and, except for the hanar, everybody had their major guts in roughly the same places, minus some minor differences. These aliens may look like us, but what if they have totally different insides and end up making her worse?" A heavy silence hangs in the air as they consider her words.
"...Like I said, we don't have any other choice," T'lena finally says. "None of us have the equipment or training to treat her ourselves."
Further discussion is interrupted by a sharp knocking on their door. Frowning in confusion, T'lena gets up and opens the door. Standing at the door is the alien that led them there with a pile of folded clothes in its arms. Behind it are several other members of its species wearing aprons and white, puffy hats, holding dome-covered platters above their heads with mitt-covered paws. T'lena steps aside to allow them entry. The lead alien steps in first, setting the clothes on one of the beds while six more - three carrying platters and the other three carrying simple folding tables and trays holding several enormous mugs full of liquid - follow. The tables are set and the trays set on top of them. With a dramatic flourish the domes are whipped off, revealing the tantalizing contents hidden within.
The first platter has a whole roasted fowl as its centerpiece with skin crisp and golden, sprinkled with crumbled herbs. A wooden block is impaled with several long skewers sporting chunks of grilled meat and vegetables, each piece large enough to fill an asari's palm. Next to it, a large wooden bowl containing thin strips of steak, grilled, sliced, and mixed with stir-fried vegetables is set beside a plate piled high with white flatbread. A ceramic bowl contains a red, spicy broth, within which they can see boiled vegetables and thin, white spongy tripe. A savory custard tart with bits of cured meat and vegetables mixed within sits beside a small plate of very thin raw steaks, artfully arranged in a circle and garnished with herbs and shavings of cheese.
The second platter is equally enticing. In the center is a large red fish, grilled to perfection and segmented into individual fillets. Next to it is a plate piled with long, shelled legs plucked from several large crabs. Another board impaled by skewers is present, this time bearing juicy, golden prawns. A mound of rings large enough to fit their hands through, breaded and deep fried, lie atop a bed of shredded greens and accompanied by a small bowl of thick, red sauce. A tray lined with fillets from a small fish soaked in oil sits next to another plate of raw meat, this time a dark red fish, again sliced thin and arranged in a circular pattern, sitting on a bed of shredded root vegetables and accompanied by a small pat of green paste and a saucer of black, pungent sauce.
The third platter, unlike its companions, features strictly vegetarian fare. The main dish is a large salad composed of shredded leaves mixed with diced raw vegetables. It is accompanied by a mixture of roasted squash and root vegetables, along with a spicy bean stew. Another, smaller salad composed of sliced cactus pads and chopped fruit from the same cactus sits next to a plate of sliced fruit with deep red flesh and warm to the touch.
The asari's troubles are momentarily forgotten as the mixture of aromas tickles their noses and their mouths begin to water. Pleased by their reaction, the various servers bow out and retreat from the room. The last alien says something to them before following suit, leaving them alone with their feast. Now that they are alone, the asari have to resist the urge to descend on the food like a pack of starving animals; though the food is enticing, eating too quickly after having so little solid food over the past few days would only result in more troubles for them, so they partake slowly. They notice that their servers had either forgotten or neglected to bring utensils with them, so without any way of knowing where to find them and retrieve some, they have no choice but to pick at the food with their fingers. Meerla struggles the most with one arm still bound in a sling, while T'lena descends upon the smorgasbord with unladylike fervor, starving from the use of her biotics earlier.
Although they are famished and the food is delectable, it soon becomes apparent that there is far too much for them to eat. Though not as widely known as their long lives and accompanying wisdom, or their ability to make with any species, one fact about the asari is that they are some of the biggest eaters in the galaxy. Biotics are especially taxing on a person's metabolism, especially those of soldiers or athletes who use them extensively, so an asari will typically eat more than a quarian or batarian of similar body size. The only sophont on the Citadel that eats more food per day than an asari are the elcor, who have the excuse of possessing almost twice as much body mass on average. Still, even after stuffing themselves to the point where they cannot take another bite, more than half of the provided food remains.
"It's a shame that there's no refrigerator here," Meerla sighs as she pats her full stomach. "We could live off this meal for a couple of days if we could preserve it." Beside her Alina lies collapsed on the bed, groaning in discomfort from an overfilled stomach.
"What I want to know is why they brought so much food in the first place," she says. "Did they really think we could eat all that?"
"Ehh, probably not," Meerla replies with a shrug. "They probably didn't know what we could eat, so they decided to bring us a little bit of everything. A bit wasteful, but it makes sense. What do you think, T'lena?" They looked up to see the soldier staring off into the distance, her gaze focusing on a sight unseen by either observer. "Uhh, T'lena? You still with us?" This knocks T'lena out of her reverie. "You okay there? You seemed kind of out of it for a minute there."
"Sorry," T'lena says while shaking her head. "Just got lost in my thoughts for a bit. Memories of home, is all; don't worry about it."
"Speaking of home, what do we do now?" Alina asks as she pulls herself to a seated position. "We lost the transponder when we were being chased by that...thing...and just from the quick glimpse we got, I doubt that that the people here have the tech level necessary to build their own spacecraft."
"There's also the language barrier to contend with" T'lena says. "Alina, you said that your aunt worked on the translation software on our omni-tools, do you think you can get it to translate for us?" Alina grits her teeth in annoyance.
"Okay one, just because my aunt worked on it doesn't mean I can do anything with it; most of the stuff I know about it comes from listening to her talk about her work. Second, from what she's said, there's hundreds of people maintaining it at all times to keep it smooth and up-to-date. It's got some pretty potent capabilities, but at the end of the day it's just a more robust version of those free translator apps you can find on the extranet. I know that there's a feature somewhere that allows you to match unknown words with known ones, and that it can do it automatically, but unless someone sits down and reads a dictionary to us, it would take weeks of passive observation before it would be considered 'fluent.'" At the last word, Alina raises her hands and curls her two fingers down to signal her sarcasm. "And that's just for a straight, word-to-word translation, never mind how their grammar rules might be different from ours. Once you factor in dialects, slang, and whatever other idiosyncrasies that their language might have, and it'd be easier for us to just learn to speak it ourselves instead of trying to get the machine to do it for us."
Further discussion is interrupted by a knock on their door. T'lena opens it to find their guide from before, along with several more of the apron-clad aliens. When they see the immense quantity of food remaining, they slowly take off their hats, their large black eyes appearing ready to burst into tears.
"Oh no, no, it's okay," Meerla quickly said to them. "It's…" remembering that they cannot understand her, she changes tactics. "Very good! Mmm," she says, exaggeratedly rubbing her stomach in contentment while nodding. "But too big!" She spreads her arms wide while shaking her head. "Next time, smaller please." She pinches her thumb and forefinger until they are only an inch apart. It takes a moment for the aliens to interpret her pantomimes, but once they do, their mood instantly lifts. Nodding in understanding, they descend upon the leftovers and sweep it away in the blink of an eye, leaving no evidence that it was ever there.
Once they leave, the guide alien beckons the asari to follow him. He leads them down a hallway to what seems to be a public bathing area, currently unoccupied. They see numerous individual stalls that, while cruder than what they are used to, are unmistakably toilets. Further into the room they see more stalls with water pouring from spouts near the ceiling; along one wall is a series of shelves for people to place their belongings while they bathe. Through the walls they can hear the thunderous rumble of the waterfall, the probable source of the water there.
Now that they have been shown how to reach the bathing facilities, the asari are led back to their room where they are left alone for the rest of the day. The clothes that they were provided earlier are loose and rough on their skin, but a welcome change from the suits that they had been wearing continuously for the past few days.
A routine is quickly established over the next few days. Three times a day one of the apron-clad aliens will appear with a tray of food - with much smaller portions than the first time, to everyone's relief. In the afternoon the being that had first guided them would lead them to a lookout point that overlooks the entire town, where they sit and bask in the sun for a couple of hours before they are led back to their room. There they can see the townspeople scurrying around like ants in the distance, talking and shopping and going about their lives, oblivious or unconcerned about the monsters that lurk beyond their borders. It is a blissful serenity that the asari cannot help but feel a hint of envy towards.
It is also during these brief excursions that they learn that there are not two, but three sapient species living on the planet; the doctor that they had initially assumed was the female of the taller species is actually part of a separate, similar race to the angler that they had first encountered. Both sexes of the species look incredibly similar to each other besides their obvious morphological differences, to such a degree that from a distance it is almost impossible to tell the two apart at a glance. They encounter a few during their daily walks, or during their visits to the bathing facilities. As members of a polity consisting of multiple species, the asari are used to the befuddled stares that they receive from the locals, although it is strange for them to be seeing looks normally only present on small children to be sported by adults. The natives, for their part, apart from the stares politely ignore the asari as they go about their business.
Their nights on the other hand are not so peaceful. Their minds are plagued by nightmares, giving them little opportunity for sleep. Dreams of being chased by the monster from the desert, of it catching them and brutally eating them. Of other, formless yet equally terrifying beasts lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce upon them. As the days pass by without word of Dehira's condition, not even being taken to visit her, the terrors populating their nightmares turn from the monsters of the wastes to their mysterious hosts. Are they hiding Dehira? Experimenting on her? Did she even survive the operation? And what are their intentions for the rest of them? Though their hosts have been cordial enough thus far, and they have not technically been barred from going anywhere, the inability to communicate with anyone has effectively left them restricted to what few places that they have been led to before; their peaceful abode quickly feeling like a prison with no bars.
Almost a week passes before there is a change to their routine. A knock on the door reveals their guide waiting for them once more.
"Excuse me, misses, but the Commeownder wishes to see you now," it says to them in a high, nasal voice. For a moment none of the asari respond as they process what they have just heard.
"Wait a second, you can understand us? How is that possible?" Meerla demands, incredulity showing on her face.
"We felynes have always been good at picking up languages, miss," the alien - felyne - says. "It took a few days, but I managed to pick up enough to be able to talk to you. And now that we can commeownicate, our leader wants to speak with you."
"Well, now that we can understand each other, we have a few questions of our own," T'lena says, crossing her arms. "For starters, how is our colleague faring? It's been a week, and we don't even know if she's still alive. We're not doing anything for you until we know that she's okay."
"Your friend's alive, but last I heard she was still rather sick," the felyne says with a shrug. "From what I heard, the opurration had some difficulties."
"Prove it. Take us to her, then we'll talk to your commander." T'lena glares down at the diminutive alien, who is glaring back at her, displeased by her defiance. After staring each other down for several tense seconds, the felyne looks away and nods in acquiescence.
"All right, I'll take you," it says. It warns them, "But if the doctor turns us away, I can't do anything about it."
"Fair enough." All three of the asari have had to visit the medical ward at least once in their military careers, and they knew from experience that there, the medical officer in charge outranks everyone, especially with an injury as bad as Dehira's. With a wave of its paw it leads them back to where they had first brought Dehira a week before.
"So now that we can understand each other, what should we call you?" Meerla asks.
"You can call me Purrcy, miss," the felyne replies. Once they reach the hospital Purrcy speaks to one of the workers in his native language, who guides them to where Dehira is being held. There they see her lying unconscious in a bed, her azure skin sporting a sickly pallor. A mask is strapped to her face, connected to a hose that leads to a machine pumping air into her mouth. There are no wires running out of it, nor anywhere for it to plug into, but they hear a faint rhythmic ticking under the hissing of air being pushed in and out; run by a clockwork mechanism perhaps?
"How bad is she?" Alina asks. Purrcy asks a nearby attendant, who looks over clipboard attached to the end of Dehira's bed. After listening to the attendant's response, Purrcy turns to the asari.
"He says that your friend survived the opurration, but she lost a lot of blood," he says. "Since they don't have any way to give her more, they've been keeping her here to recover. They've been feeding her broth mixed with vitalily honey to keep her fed and to help with the healing."
Satisfied that their colleague is alive, if not exactly well, they give a quick prayer for her speedy recovery before following Purrcy to where they will be meeting the Commander, whomever they may be. The felyne leads them to an elevator connected to a large chain, continuously driven by the force of the waterfall. They descend to the lower level, where they are close to a bustling bazaar. Purrcy leads them around the marketplace, ignoring the gawking onlookers, before leading them to a doorway obscured by a curtain.
"Wait here," Purrcy says before stepping inside. A few moments later he emerges, beckoning them in. "Come on in, the Commeownder will see you now."