FOUR: Reinforcements

Shral was doing that thing again. If she hadn't been so bone-tired, she would have been a little more active in avoiding the Andorian aide, but, it was all Dagmar could do to stay upright and relatively awake. She didn't have the energy to do much else, to be frank.

Miss White and the other translator were still sick, leaving the Canadian to once again shoulder their duties as well as her own. As it was, she was struggling to concentrate on translating the latest Vulcan and Tellerite communiqués. Her concentration was weak, probably because she hadn't slept, and the redheaded woman constantly found herself getting distracted and having to retranslate the sentence she'd been working on because of a mistake.

It was after yet another mistake in translating a paragraph about Tellerite wine tariffs that Dagmar tossed the PADD onto the table she was sitting at almost violently and ran her hand over her face. This was ridiculous. She couldn't work like this.

"You seem unwell." Shral commented suddenly. Dagmar jumped; she'd forgotten the Andorian was there.

Pinching the bridge of her nose and sighing, the Terran woman mumbled, "Didn't sleep. Can't concentrate."

Shral's antennae bowed towards each other in amusement, and there was a glint in his startlingly green eyes. Dagmar had never seen eyes that green on a Human. They were an intense emerald green with faint yellow flecks. If he had been Human, Dagmar would have accused him of wearing contacts. "Ah! We had wondered if you have found mates yet! Are they satisfactory?"

Dagmar blinked. Twice. It took her brain an embarrassingly long time to make the connection between the plural "mates" and the Andorian marriage custom of grouping into quads, and then to make the secondary connection that Shral assumed she hadn't slept because she'd been occupied with her hypothetical quad. Her face coloured.

"No! No, no, no!" Dagmar panicked, flustered and embarrassed. She waved her hands around, as if she could make the thought go away if she flailed at it frantically enough. "Wrong conclusion! Definitely the wrong conclusion!"

Shral blinked slowly, antennae wiggling in confusion, and the action was so similar to Varek's that Dagmar nearly laughed. She suspected the Andorian wouldn't much like the comparison, though, and kept her amusement to herself. Even with the alliance between Andoria and Vulcan, there were still a few... issues that needed to be worked out.

"I do not understand." The aide began. "If you were not occupied with your mates, then why are you fatigued?"

Of all the conversations she could possibly be having with any of the Andorians she knew, it just had to be the one Andorian that made her ridiculously uncomfortable and about a subject that she really didn't want to get into. Fantastic. Squeezing her eyes shut, Dagmar hoped that the faint pain growing behind her eyes wasn't going to turn into a migraine.

"I'm tired because I'm... not feeling well." Dagmar answered reluctantly. She didn't want to lie –Andorians hated lying, though they were a little more lenient with indirect duplicity- but advertising her recent 'emotional relapse,' as Varek called it, didn't strike her as a wonderful idea, either. Better to tell a half-truth, or a mostly-truth; a lie that's not really a lie but more of a case of careful phrasing. "It'll pass."

"If you are unwell, your mates should not have permitted you leave your domicile." Shral frowned, antennae flicking in irritation. "Humans are susceptible to cooler temperatures –you are liable to worsen your illness by remaining here."

Okay, evidently she needed to clear up a few things. Lightly, Dagmar commented, "If I had any mates, I'm sure they wouldn't have. As it is, I'm single and free to do as I like. Besides, I'm not sick. Humans just tend to feel awful when we don't sleep properly."

Explaining that Humans only had one mate at a time, and the cultural significance of monogamy over polygamy, would take entirely too long.

"Andorians require little sleep." And that was relevant... how? There must have been a reason for the comment; Andorians didn't make small talk –not unless they'd been exposed to Humans for quite some time.

Shral had only been on Earth for eight months.

"Humans need around eight hours per night. The younger ones need closer to ten because of all of the physiological changes and hormone imbalances –teenagers in particular."

The antennae had stopped flicking, instead curving forwards slightly to indicate interest and curiosity. "What is a teenager? I am unfamiliar with the term."

Oh, right. Slang. The aide probably hadn't run into too much of that in the Embassy –everyone was much too formal to use it. Except her, apparently. Ms. White had always criticized the Canadian for that, for not being formal enough here or proper enough there –but at least, Dagmar thought viciously, she didn't manhandle her food, or pat the shoulders of Denobulans without permission, and force nasally laughter at all the wrong times in front of Ambassador Thoris. For all that Ms. White had seniority and experience, she lacked the sort of tact and self-awareness to know when to act like a Human and when to act like something else.

Dagmar would say one thing about her boss, though –when it came to translating piles of PADDs flawlessly, (and with all of the footnotes Vulcans required on emotionalisms, to boot) the woman was a machine.

"It's slang for an adolescent human." Dagmar explained, drawing herself out of her thoughts. She didn't dislike her boss –not enough to wish the woman ill, anyway- but sometimes Dagmar wished Ms. White would go on vacation on another planet for, say... forever. "Usually referring to any child between the ages of thirteen- to nineteen-years-old."

Silence crept in as Shral nodded and returned to his own work, apparently finding the information satisfactory. For herself, Dagmar was contemplating whether or not it was worth trying to finish her translation, or if she should just cave in to her headache and find some sort of painkiller. Maybe she should comm. some of the more junior staff members –the co-op students, maybe- and get them to help her out. They all seemed to like her well enough; maybe a few would take pity on her?

Leaning over the back of her chair to punch in a few commands at the terminal behind her, Dagmar sent a text-based message to several of the staff members in question. Most of them were students working with the Embassy for extra credit and that sort of thing, and if there was one thing that Dagmar knew, it was student behaviour. All she needed to do was mention buying a few drinks for them afterwards and they were as good as hers for the day.

Valiantly, Dagmar returned to her own work and awaited a response. There was a conjugation that was bothering her –it was vital to the tone and nature of the entire sentence and the Canadian knew it was simple, but her brain just couldn't seem to wrap around it.

When a rapid tattoo of beeps from the console interrupted her, Dagmar sighed in relief. Three students were coming to help her –provided she took them out for drinks (on her, of course) after. Well, the Vulcan minion-to-be had requested to be excluded from the mass consumption of alcohol, but stated that he would not be adverse to dinner.

So predictable.

Dagmar grinned, despite her pounding head and fatigue, and declared, "God, I love students."

Shral gave her a funny look.