TWENTY-TWO: Intuit

The first time Dagmar encountered the Andorian word "bouf," it's when she bumped into Minister of Agriculture's primary aide. Not in the literal sense, mind –that would be inexcusable- but she came across the stern-faced female Thallassan in one of the many corridors of the Federation Embassy.

Thallassans were one of the more numerous of the Andorian races, near as Dagmar could tell, and were darker in skin tone than the Bishee Andorians she knew so well. More interesting, however, was the way that the Thallassan woman's antennae came from closer to the back of her skull, not the front, and were knobbly and stiff in their movements.

Bouf, as it happened, had two meanings: pink, and useless.

Dagmar had contained her response to a stiff bow and a withering glare that was one part irritation and two parts I-can-find-out-where-your-mates-and-offspring-reside, but it had been a struggle.

From that point onwards, however, it seemed that the usage of the word increased tenfold. The Andorians who liked her (as much as they liked anyone, at least) tended to refer to her as pink-skin, which was a marginal improvement, but those that didn't like her nearly as much referred to her almost exclusively as pink and useless. The only ones who referred to her by name seemed to be Shral, Ambassador Thoris, and Thelen –with the odd exception of the others who had been in the Andorian compound on Earth, but even they slipped up sometimes.

It was... not quite what she had expected, to be honest. Maybe she was asking for too much, expecting Andoria to be so different from Earth in that respect.

At least on Earth, they didn't call her names.

The thought made her sigh –and attracted the attention of one of the marginally friendlier Andorians nearby. His name was Thelus, and he worked under the Minister of Defence. He spoke a dialect that Dagmar sometimes struggled with –its structure considerably more archaic than the more widespread Andorii and its accent more agricultural than hers ever was.

"What now, pink-skin?" Thelus asked, curious. Dagmar suspected she could translate that a little more smoothly as "what's wrong?" or "what is it?" but she hesitated to actively do so, if only so that she didn't form a habit of translating things colloquially.

Vaguely, Dagmar answered, "I'm lamenting similarities and differences."

She didn't bother to look up from the folktale she'd been assigned –again with the folklore and children's stories! Thelus' station was inferior to hers, if only technically, so she wasn't required to acknowledge him immediately.

"Lieutenant Thelen spoke highly of your adaptability." Thelus commented neutrally. Dagmar glanced over at the male, surprised. Thelus was a bit stockier than the average Andorian, and fractionally shorter, but he retained the same sharp features she was growing so familiar with. His eyes, like hers, were blue –as were those of his two sons and one of his four daughters.

Suppressing a grimace, the Terran lamented, "Sometimes I worry that the lieutenant overestimates me."

Thelus made a noise of interest (Dagmar suspected he'd picked the habit up from her; they often shared lunch breaks) and Dagmar shrugged in response. It amused her, in a vague sort of way, when she saw that Thelus had to puzzle the gesture out –not unlike how she often had to with his antennae.

"Those are very high expectations to live up to, you know." She joked half-heartedly. "Here's hoping I'm not a complete disappointment!"

Thelen would have smiled, albeit stiffly. Shral would have bowed his antennae. Ambassador Thoris would have snorted. Anyone who knew the first things about Humans would have acknowledged the joke.

Thelus took a good five minutes to figure it out, and even then he only offered a slow and mystified, "Human humour is... very strange."

Dagmar sighed again.

She did her best to blend into this new environment of hers; she worked hard, constantly strived to improve her skills and make herself more useful to her employer, and she strictly adhered to the rules she had been taught. It was... difficult, though. More so than she'd thought.

The pair fell into a semi-comfortable silence once again, each working on their respective projects. Dagmar was nearly finished hers an hour or so later –it was hard for her to keep track of time, with her biological clock thinking in terms of twenty-four hour days and the Andorians working on a thirty-something-hour one instead.

Standing and stretching, the redhead made a mental note to praise the Weaver's Guild representative that she'd met the other day for her ingeniousness. When the Terran had complained that the standard temperature regulators didn't function properly on Humans, she had sparked a flurry of activity and inquiries which lead to a newer, much more Human-friendly set of modifications. The Guild regarded her as a test subject to practice on before they accessed the Terran market, but they took their work very seriously, and they took much of Dagmar's advice into consideration for their Human-geared goods. The end result was that the translator no longer had to jog around to maintain an acceptable level of warmth; the sensors were attuned to her physiology now and adjusted the temperature they maintained depending upon how active she was.

In short, she was warm and toasty when she sat around translating things, and comfortably cool when she jogged or did any sort of exercise.

It was glorious.

"I'm done for the day," She informed Thelus, who glanced up from his work and nodded in acknowledgement. "If anyone needs me, I'll be in the gardens."

The gardens were part of a sprawling, carefully cultivated courtyard that separated the government offices from the surrounding buildings –many of which were Guild-owned, where policies and such were discussed amongst members and voted upon. There was a particular area that Dagmar had grown fond of –a little niche that was off to the side and nearly overrun with the thorny vithi plants. There was a low, flat boulder right in the middle of the niche, and Dagmar was fond of sitting on it and thinking. The xenolinguist didn't meditate –at least, not in the usual sense- but she often found herself going to that little spot to sit and think deeply about whatever was troubling her. It gave her a quiet sense of peace, that place, and if anyone saw her there, they never bothered her.

How the vegetation could survive such low temperatures, Dagmar couldn't hazard a guess, but the plants seemed healthy enough to her.

For once, Dagmar wasn't sitting on that rock and puzzling something over, though. Today, she was just relaxing. With her hood pulled up and her mask pulled over her lower face –even underground, the temperatures could be dangerously cold for her and frostbite was not something Dagmar had any intention of experiencing if she could help it- she arranged herself, cross-legged, and threaded her gloved fingers together loosely on her lap. Away from her coworkers, she no longer needed to retain her stiff, unyielding posture, and allowed her shoulders to slouch comfortably, head bowing and back curving slightly. It was quiet, the sounds of people and civilization muted compared to what it was like on Earth, and the redhead slipped into an almost serene state easily, eyes closed and muscles lax.

The whole world became the pattern of her breathing and the flicker-thought-images of her mind, and the silence was deep and heavy, like her grandmother's favourite quilt.

How long she sat there, comfortably lost in her own thoughts and the silence, Dagmar wasn't sure, but she gradually became aware of something –a strange niggling sensation at the back of her mind. It became more and more persistent as she second slipped by, puzzling the Terran, feeling a lot like intuition but at the same time nothing like it.

Without knowing why, she spoke, "Thiptho lapth, Shral."

No one answered, and, feeling a bit daft, she cracked open one eye.

Shral was standing there, looking staring at her with something that looked an awful lot like incredulity; his antennae quivered. Dagmar felt her stomach drop.