Re: Unalterable - turian!FShep/Garrus (5b/?)
anonymous
November 30 2013, 01:36:03 UTC
She's still fumbling with the turian utensil when Garrus' fingers envelop hers and adjust her grip on the metal object. “Try it now,” he says as he almost hesitates before withdrawing his hand. She swears he's fidgeting when she finally scoops a bite of the blue-grey... turian Shepard's pie.
“Oh my God,” Shepard whispers after she swallows. “It tastes just like chocolate covered bacon.” She takes another bite, “Yep. Chocolate covered bacon. Weird.”
She finishes quickly and pats her stomach in satisfaction, or where she assumes her stomach is, when she's full of the odd concoction - and Garrus visibly startles in his seat beside her. “What?” she asks with a confused tilt of her head, “You seem a little jumpy there, Garrus.”
“Oh it's just,” he's not looking directly at her. “Turians, we, um, don't really touch our waists. In public.”
“Why?” She pokes her middle to emphasize her question, “Some sort of cultural taboo?”
Tali, who was valiantly trying to hold in her laughter, succumbs to it and wheezes out, “It's a turian erogenous zone. Keelah Shepard! It would be like... if you were quarian, or human, and you touched your breasts. Intimately.”
Shepard's mandibles fall slack at the revelation. She grabs a hold of her side and kneads the flesh there. The pressure causes an oddly familiar sensation and a full-body shiver. She gasps after a moment, and the dual-tones of her voice hum, “Oh. That's different.” Garrus is absolutely not looking at her when she looks back to him, and she wonders if she should be embarrassed about what she just did in his company, if turian waists are really an equivalent for breasts.
Tali's still laughing. “Shep-ard,” she struggles to say between her fit of giggles. “You need to learn turian etiquette, or turian everything. You're going to embarrass yourself whenever you're around other turians.”
Shepard's mandibles and brow plates pull in a slight frown, “Right. I guess I should,” this isn't changing. I'm a turian now. “I need to... learn how to be a turian. If I'm stuck this way, I can't really do everything like I used to.” She hums in thought, “At least my biotics still work, right? And I can still use a gun. Might need a little bit of practice, but I can learn. My hand-to-hand though,” she frowns further and her subvocalizations twang with displeasure, “it'll probably need work. I don't move the same... Ugh,” she sighs and places a palm to her forehead, “The Collectors, hell, the Reapers, aren't going to wait for me to... to adjust. I better learn, and fast.”
Re: Unalterable - turian!FShep/Garrus (6a/?)
anonymous
November 30 2013, 01:39:21 UTC
Shepard wakes up early in the night-cycle with a sharp breath and her heart hammering away in her chest. Her normal nightmares now have the added element of her skin and hair falling off, and the phantom pains of her metamorphosis into her new turian body. She looks down at her arms and hands - she's still a turian. She gently rubs her left palm, the spot where she first bled blue and a miserable trill bubbles out from her throat. She wishes this never happened, that she was still human and she never touched that Prothean tech.
“Commander,” EDI breaks through her thoughts. “Your vocalization patterns indicate significant levels of distress. Should I contact Dr. Chakwas?”
“No, EDI.” She shakes her head to clear it, and rubs a hand along the pointed spines of her fringe; they're barely as long as the length of her skull, “I'm fine... Thanks,” she adds as an afterthought. She sighs and clamors out of her new harder and dipped turian-made bed Miranda had bought for her. I'm not getting any more sleep after that.
Several hours later, Garrus turns off the night-mode on his omni-tool and sets it to regular settings, only to have it beep impatiently indicating a series of pings - all from Shepard. He worries something happened again for a split second, but it looks like she started looking at turian products on the extranet.
01:20 S: Did you know you can dye your fringe?
01:36 S: You can even pierce it! Doesn't that hurt?
02:14 S: I found these fringe cuff - band things. They're like hairclips? Or barrettes?
02:22 S: I bought some.
03:02 S: Oh my God. I need armor.
03:10 S: I don't think I should buy it on the extranet.
03:11 S: Wanna head out to the Citadel later?
Garrus checks the time on his omni-tool - 05:33. The messages stopped two hours ago, and he wonders what Shepard got up to since then. He takes a nutrient bar out from one of his storage containers, knowing that whatever it is, he likely won't have time for breakfast, and activates EDI's terminal in the Battery.
“Where's Shepard?” he asks the blue holographic orb.
“The Commander is currently in the Cargo Bay, Officer Vakarian.”
“Alright.”
“Logging you out.”
He's chewing the last bits of the bar when he exits the elevator to find his Commander wreathed in a cloak of blue biotic energy, and holding a storage crate several feet from the ground in front of her with the energy. She seems to be totally focused on her task, and doesn't see him approach. He thinks she looks better today, if not a little tired. Her plates have a healthier sheen to them, and her posture is better too. It's still weird to see her like that though. A turian. When he gets close enough, he can see the fringe-cuffs she had mentioned in an alternating pattern, one forward and one back, on each of the spines of her fringe. They're more an accessory targeted to adolescent turians, but they seem to work for her and distract from her lack of face paint. Is it wrong that he thinks she looks nice as a turian? He'd have to be blind not to notice, right?
Re: Unalterable - turian!FShep/Garrus (6b/?)
anonymous
November 30 2013, 01:42:32 UTC
Shepard sets the crate down gently as the biotic aura fades from her body, and takes a few deep breaths before turning towards him with a flick of her mandibles in a small, quick smile.
“'Morning.” She gestures at the crate she had biotically pulled and then put into a stasis field, “Just wanted to make sure the biotics worked the same. Thank God they do.”
“Good. I thought I'd heard Mordin saying something about replacing your biotic amp.”
“Yeah,” she nods and touches the scar at the base of her skull. “He did it before I woke up. I needed something that'd work for turians.”
“And you need armor too, right?” He asks as he shifts his weight, “I got your pings.”
“Oh!” She smiles wider, more genuine. It seems that her species change is starting to weigh less on her. “I got those cuffs,” she touches one of the silver bands adorning her fringe. “No day-night cycle on the Citadel, so I got them right away. But you know that,” she smiles a little sheepishly. “I've decided something - after I get myself some armor, I'm going to let the crew handle some missions while I... train. I need to be fit enough to go against the Collectors, and I'd like it if you could help me do that. Mordin says most things should be translatable well enough, but I need to be better than 'well enough'. What'd you say? I think it'd be best if I learned how to fight like a turian from someone who actually knows how to fight like a turian.”
Garrus is nodding even before she finishes, “Sounds like a plan, Shepard.”
“Great,” her smile turns a bit more solemn. “I've decided to try and make the most out of this - being turian. I've requested a meeting with the Council, and Anderson should be putting it together. I want my Spectre status to apply to my alias as well, and I want to update the Council on the situation. Who knows,” she shrugs, “maybe now that I have a fringe and spurs they'll start taking me seriously.”
Garrus shakes his head, “I doubt that.” She shrugs again, a very human gesture, and precedes him into the elevator. “Just try and remember not to touch your waist in public,” he says with a teasing lit to his voice. He tries to make light of what she did yesterday in curiosity, but he can still hear the way she had gasped, and represses any outward response to those thoughts.
She pokes him in the side of the waist with a single talon and a big grin on her face, “Like that?”
He thinks his heart has lodged in his throat, and he coughs to cover his reaction as he shuffles to put a little more distance between them in the elevator. He could barely feel the pressure through the suit of his armor, but still. Spirits. Why'd she do that? “Uh, Shepard. That's not, um.”
She blinks up at him, and must realize that the waist matter isn't nearly as amusing to him as it is to her. Her mouth opens as she pulls her hands back to her chest, “Sorry! I didn't, err, just molest you or something?”
She looks genuinely concerned and he takes pity on her, “No! No, it's, ah, just not something we usually do. With friends. Just,” he remembers what Tali had said yesterday, “treat waists as you would breasts, and you'll be fine.” Honestly, he knew they were popular amongst asari, but had no idea breasts were even like waists that way, until Tali had mentioned it. How'd the quarian know that anyway?
Re: Unalterable - turian!FShep/Garrus (7a/?)
anonymous
November 30 2013, 01:54:21 UTC
“Are you sure you don't want to wait until your Spectre status is renewed to requisition armor?” Garrus asks as he trails behind Shepard towards the C-Sec customs station into the Citadel proper.
She slows her gait to walk next to him, “It's already renewed - as Jane Shepard,” she frowns for a brief moment. “No - I always find better armor at private businesses. The Spectre stock is only good for firearms, really.”
“Name?” a turian C-Sec officer asks in Shepard's direction.
“Janix Serpetius,” Shepard replies in the common turian language, glad that her father was a linguist, before translators were common amongst humans, and had taught her several galactic languages. When the officer asks for credentials, she extends her omni-tool in his direction; she had downloaded the data-pad's information for her alias onto her 'tool during the time she couldn't fall asleep. When the officer finally looks up and his eyes flick across her face, she is surprised she can actually detect and understand the displeasure and blatant animosity in the hum underlining his words when he says,
“You're cleared.”
She waits for Garrus before she passes through the check-point and exists the docks.
“If I was that officer's superior, I would've written him up for that,” he huffs once they're into Zakera ward. “He should've tamped down on his subvocals.”
Shepard leans her weight back on one leg as she looks up at him, “I didn't realize the... subvocals were emotions.”
His head tilts, “Translators don't pick up on that?”
She shakes her head, “No, and was that a barefaced thing?”
He sighs, “Yeah. You'll probably get a lot of that. After Saren, and, well, before... barefaces have never really been respected at large.”
“Hmm,” she hums. “Can't hardly blame a turian for where they're born, or who their parents are.” She shrugs, “No different then how humans are usually treated by other species, really. I can handle it.”
“Right,” Garrus rubs the back of his neck, a human gesture he picked up back on the SR-1, “There's a turian ward not too far from here. I know a few good shops.”
Shepard can tell as soon as they've entered the turian ward - for one, there's a lot more turians than other species walking around. She sees a few asari, a few volus, a drell, oddly enough, and more than a few quarians likely on Pilgrimage, or permanent residents. She can actually understand the subvocalizations of the turians they cross paths with, and she's sad to note how much of turian conversation humans must miss. Lovers greeting each other warmly or sweetly departing, children voicing their ever changing emotions aloud, more than a few adults giving voice to their boredom or frustrations, hums of encouragement from shop owners, a dispute with no noticeable words, and more.
Shepard scoots closer to Garrus, elbow touching elbow, and cranes her head to whisper in Hierarchy common, “Human translators miss so much. I had no idea turian language was so... complex.” That thought leads to another, and she frowns.
Garrus catches it, “Something wrong?”
She shakes her head and steps away a pace, “My dad was a linguist. He would've loved to hear all this.”
Garrus hums in consideration. Shepard had never before mentioned her parents, and he honestly thought that maybe she didn't have any family. But he did catch the 'was' she had said along with the sad undertones to her words, and a spike of pain stabs at him when he remembers his mother's own degrading condition. He puts a tentative hand on her shoulder, knowing that humans need touch more than a turian would when talking about something difficult. It didn't matter that Shepard was a turian now in everything but mind and spirit. “Did you learn Hierarchy common from him?” She nods, “Well, now you can hear the rest of it for him... Maybe you can tell someone about it, and they can fix human translators so others can hear it too?”
Re: Unalterable - turian!FShep/Garrus (7b/?)
anonymous
November 30 2013, 01:58:00 UTC
She smiles up at him, “That's a good idea. I think I'll do that.”
He looks around after dropping his hand from her shoulder, and notices that they're not too far from the armor shop he had wanted to take her to. The shop is owned by a quarian that had decided live on the Citadel, instead of going back to the Flotilla after his Pilgrimage, and Garrus hopes that Shepard will be less likely to run into any bareface prejudice there.
They're greeted by an over eager female quarian store clerk when they enter, “Keelah! It's Alidia Heiron!”
They both freeze in momentary confusion, before Garrus chuckles and clears his throat, “No, my friend here may look like Ms. Heiron, but, she's, ah, not.”
“Oh,” the quarian girl tilts her head. “I was wondering why you didn't have your pretty yellow marks. So, who are you then?” Her luminous eyes blink behind the fogy orange of her faceplate.
“Keelah!” Her hands fly up to up her faceplate, “You've never seen Fleet and Flotilla?” The horror in her voice is palpable, “Alidia Heiron is my favorite actress ever! And you look just like her!” She starts talking rapidly enough that it's difficult to understand her, “She plays Persefinae and she's amazing! Persefinae should've totally gotten Jorvis, but he ended up with Izzi'Nia! I know that was the purpose of the vid, but still!”
“Oh,” Shepard says for lack of anything to say to that. “I'm here for armor...?” She ends the statement a little uncertain. The fangirl rant shocked her a bit. I really look like an actress? Garrus was right about the supportive waist thing?
“Of course!” The quarian girl bows her head a little bashfully, “Welcome to Abyss Armory! I'm Revva'Li nar Tesleya. Every piece of our stock is hand crafted by our owner, Zwin'Daal, and guaranteed to be the best custom armor pieces in the ward. Do you have an idea of what you would like, or are you interested in just browsing our stock?”
Shepard feels her mandibles flick into a small smile at the change in the girl's demeanor. “I need something with strong kinetic barriers, and...”
In less time than she thought, Shepard had complete set of armor ordered, with a familiar custom paint job, and would just have to wait a few hours for it to be completed and shipped to the Normandy. She's apparently more 'willowy' than most turian females, and she payed extra for reinforced plating and top-notch cooling systems, so she'd have to wait for the adjustments to be made to the pieces she chose. Garrus offered to take her around the ward, and to make a stop for lunch. She's looking forward to the experience. Being a turian is still so strange, and, honestly, she's a little curious about turian food. She wonders if she can find something like lasagna. Damn, she's going to miss being able to eat her favorites.
Re: Unalterable - turian!FShep/Garrus (8a/?)
anonymous
November 30 2013, 02:01:12 UTC
Over the next week, Shepard makes progress - both forwards and backwards. She has nightly nightmares, each more and more gory and horribly creative. Her imagination is seemingly set on torturing her with a mix of her own death, metamorphosis, and Reapers. She wonders if she'll ever have a full night of sleep again. She's seen things in her career, her squadmates eaten and slaughtered by threshermaws for one, but for some reason the destruction of her human body in a dripping mess of bloody blue remnants of skin and tissue, is set on staying with her and torturing her poor subconscious. She doesn't dare show any outward sign of her distress, and instead is set on stealing her waking hours for self-improvement and study for the situation she now finds herself in. She'll damned well be the best turian she can be. The Collectors and Reapers won't allow her to be anything less. She's Commander fucking Shepard, even if she's now spiky, plated, and alien.
Anderson was able to organize the meeting with the Council, and she'd brought along Mordin, Chakwas, and Miranda in case they needed more than their reports to believe that she's now a turian. After a long debate, questioning, an intermission where the Councilors consulted their own experts, and a second meeting, they finally accepted that Shepard was now turian, and extended her Spectre status to her alias. Councilor Sparatus had requested a private meeting with Shepard, wherein he explicitly forbid her from causing a diplomatic incident by presenting herself as human while turian, or spreading word of her metamorphosis. She had the feeling that he was measuring her while they spoke, but what he was measuring her for, she didn't know. She had the uncomfortable feeling of being too exposed, even though she was in her matte black armor detailed with red and white. She had never gotten the creep-o feeling from the Councilor before, and she wonders what that odd clicking sound he made in the back of his throat while he was pacing meant. She'd never heard that before. She could've also sworn that he had growled at one point in their conversation. She still has much to learn about turians.
But she put all that out of her mind, when she returned to the Normandy, and plotted a course for Pragia for Jack to take care of some business. She had asked Thane to accompany Jack to the planet's surface, and oddly enough Jack didn't complain at all. The biotic may have even looked more than a little relieved. Shepard vaguely wondered at the cause. She knew Jack and Thane tolerated each other well, but... They couldn't be...? Well, what ever was going on between her squad members, it wasn't her business. The ship was technically civilian; Cerberus had no fraternization regs. It took three days for them to get to Pragia, and then they spent the rest of the week dealing with a matter for Zaeed. Or rather, Miranda and Jacob aided the mercenary, as Cerberus had promised to do so, while Shepard continued to train and ignore her nightmares.
Re: Unalterable - turian!FShep/Garrus (8b/?)
anonymous
November 30 2013, 02:04:13 UTC
Garrus had agreed to help her re-learn hand-to-hand combat, and cope with her unfamiliar body and it's different strengths and weaknesses. Tali even occasionally spawned her combat drone for Shepard to adjust to using her firearms in her unpracticed three-fingered grip. She used non-lethal rounds of course - no reason to shoot up the inner hall of the cargo-bay. Garrus even taught her about the finer details of being a turian. There were a lot of things she'd have to get used to and remember:
-Don't touch your waist in public; it's near-on pornographic if you do. Turians aren't shy about sex, but it's just polite if you don't flaunt it. -Don't touch the waists of others in public; they may not understand that you find their reactions humorous. -Turians don't really touch casually - that's more for bonded couples, intimately close friends, and children. A stranger may not understand why you're holding their hand, even if they're visibly distressed. -Turians express themselves less in gestures and more in subvocalizations - so don't let your subvocals get out of hand if you're pissed off. The wrong thing said could start a needless fight. -Turians operate in a Meritocracy, meaning that they are free to do whatever they want so long as it doesn't infringe on their duty or break the law. That meant that you couldn't begrudge a turian for his choice in clothing, but you sure as hell could report him for public indecency if he decided to strip out of his ugly outfit in the middle of the street. -Turian etiquette generally dictates that one's talons be covered while amongst members of other species. Some species are squeamish around the sight of uncovered, sharp talons; especially the hanar. If you don't want to scare others off, just keep them covered.
There were other rules, but Shepard doesn't remember all the details explicitly. Something about fringe upkeep, the normal reminders of barefaced prejudice, familial protocols that she doesn't quite remember at all, the significance of facepaint and what the actual facepaint is, military procedure, duty, holidays, the lack of birthday celebration, etc. All the lessons were starting to get overwhelming at times, but Shepard's infinitely grateful for Garrus' help. She doesn't want to imagine how much worse her situation would be if she didn't have his guidance and understanding. How could she acclimatize to her turian body without him? How much of a fool would she make of herself in public? How injured would she be trying to use humans means of combat as a turian?
........
A/N: That's it for now anons! The next update probably won't be for awhile, sadly. Hope you enjoyed what I've written so far!! - A!A
Re: Unalterable - turian!FShep/Garrus (8b/?)
anonymous
November 30 2013, 02:41:00 UTC
Really enjoying how you captured Shepard's awkwardness especially the waist. Maybe she should use that against Sparatus, you know when he gives her a hard time she runs a gallon along her waist. Hope you come back soon, I'm looking forward to reading more!
“Oh my God,” Shepard whispers after she swallows. “It tastes just like chocolate covered bacon.” She takes another bite, “Yep. Chocolate covered bacon. Weird.”
She finishes quickly and pats her stomach in satisfaction, or where she assumes her stomach is, when she's full of the odd concoction - and Garrus visibly startles in his seat beside her. “What?” she asks with a confused tilt of her head, “You seem a little jumpy there, Garrus.”
“Oh it's just,” he's not looking directly at her. “Turians, we, um, don't really touch our waists. In public.”
“Why?” She pokes her middle to emphasize her question, “Some sort of cultural taboo?”
Tali, who was valiantly trying to hold in her laughter, succumbs to it and wheezes out, “It's a turian erogenous zone. Keelah Shepard! It would be like... if you were quarian, or human, and you touched your breasts. Intimately.”
Shepard's mandibles fall slack at the revelation. She grabs a hold of her side and kneads the flesh there. The pressure causes an oddly familiar sensation and a full-body shiver. She gasps after a moment, and the dual-tones of her voice hum, “Oh. That's different.” Garrus is absolutely not looking at her when she looks back to him, and she wonders if she should be embarrassed about what she just did in his company, if turian waists are really an equivalent for breasts.
Tali's still laughing. “Shep-ard,” she struggles to say between her fit of giggles. “You need to learn turian etiquette, or turian everything. You're going to embarrass yourself whenever you're around other turians.”
Shepard's mandibles and brow plates pull in a slight frown, “Right. I guess I should,” this isn't changing. I'm a turian now. “I need to... learn how to be a turian. If I'm stuck this way, I can't really do everything like I used to.” She hums in thought, “At least my biotics still work, right? And I can still use a gun. Might need a little bit of practice, but I can learn. My hand-to-hand though,” she frowns further and her subvocalizations twang with displeasure, “it'll probably need work. I don't move the same... Ugh,” she sighs and places a palm to her forehead, “The Collectors, hell, the Reapers, aren't going to wait for me to... to adjust. I better learn, and fast.”
Reply
“Commander,” EDI breaks through her thoughts. “Your vocalization patterns indicate significant levels of distress. Should I contact Dr. Chakwas?”
“No, EDI.” She shakes her head to clear it, and rubs a hand along the pointed spines of her fringe; they're barely as long as the length of her skull, “I'm fine... Thanks,” she adds as an afterthought. She sighs and clamors out of her new harder and dipped turian-made bed Miranda had bought for her. I'm not getting any more sleep after that.
Several hours later, Garrus turns off the night-mode on his omni-tool and sets it to regular settings, only to have it beep impatiently indicating a series of pings - all from Shepard. He worries something happened again for a split second, but it looks like she started looking at turian products on the extranet.
01:20 S: Did you know you can dye your fringe?
01:36 S: You can even pierce it! Doesn't that hurt?
02:14 S: I found these fringe cuff - band things. They're like hairclips? Or barrettes?
02:22 S: I bought some.
03:02 S: Oh my God. I need armor.
03:10 S: I don't think I should buy it on the extranet.
03:11 S: Wanna head out to the Citadel later?
Garrus checks the time on his omni-tool - 05:33. The messages stopped two hours ago, and he wonders what Shepard got up to since then. He takes a nutrient bar out from one of his storage containers, knowing that whatever it is, he likely won't have time for breakfast, and activates EDI's terminal in the Battery.
“Where's Shepard?” he asks the blue holographic orb.
“The Commander is currently in the Cargo Bay, Officer Vakarian.”
“Alright.”
“Logging you out.”
He's chewing the last bits of the bar when he exits the elevator to find his Commander wreathed in a cloak of blue biotic energy, and holding a storage crate several feet from the ground in front of her with the energy. She seems to be totally focused on her task, and doesn't see him approach. He thinks she looks better today, if not a little tired. Her plates have a healthier sheen to them, and her posture is better too. It's still weird to see her like that though. A turian. When he gets close enough, he can see the fringe-cuffs she had mentioned in an alternating pattern, one forward and one back, on each of the spines of her fringe. They're more an accessory targeted to adolescent turians, but they seem to work for her and distract from her lack of face paint. Is it wrong that he thinks she looks nice as a turian? He'd have to be blind not to notice, right?
Reply
“'Morning.” She gestures at the crate she had biotically pulled and then put into a stasis field, “Just wanted to make sure the biotics worked the same. Thank God they do.”
“Good. I thought I'd heard Mordin saying something about replacing your biotic amp.”
“Yeah,” she nods and touches the scar at the base of her skull. “He did it before I woke up. I needed something that'd work for turians.”
“And you need armor too, right?” He asks as he shifts his weight, “I got your pings.”
“Oh!” She smiles wider, more genuine. It seems that her species change is starting to weigh less on her. “I got those cuffs,” she touches one of the silver bands adorning her fringe. “No day-night cycle on the Citadel, so I got them right away. But you know that,” she smiles a little sheepishly. “I've decided something - after I get myself some armor, I'm going to let the crew handle some missions while I... train. I need to be fit enough to go against the Collectors, and I'd like it if you could help me do that. Mordin says most things should be translatable well enough, but I need to be better than 'well enough'. What'd you say? I think it'd be best if I learned how to fight like a turian from someone who actually knows how to fight like a turian.”
Garrus is nodding even before she finishes, “Sounds like a plan, Shepard.”
“Great,” her smile turns a bit more solemn. “I've decided to try and make the most out of this - being turian. I've requested a meeting with the Council, and Anderson should be putting it together. I want my Spectre status to apply to my alias as well, and I want to update the Council on the situation. Who knows,” she shrugs, “maybe now that I have a fringe and spurs they'll start taking me seriously.”
Garrus shakes his head, “I doubt that.” She shrugs again, a very human gesture, and precedes him into the elevator. “Just try and remember not to touch your waist in public,” he says with a teasing lit to his voice. He tries to make light of what she did yesterday in curiosity, but he can still hear the way she had gasped, and represses any outward response to those thoughts.
She pokes him in the side of the waist with a single talon and a big grin on her face, “Like that?”
He thinks his heart has lodged in his throat, and he coughs to cover his reaction as he shuffles to put a little more distance between them in the elevator. He could barely feel the pressure through the suit of his armor, but still. Spirits. Why'd she do that? “Uh, Shepard. That's not, um.”
She blinks up at him, and must realize that the waist matter isn't nearly as amusing to him as it is to her. Her mouth opens as she pulls her hands back to her chest, “Sorry! I didn't, err, just molest you or something?”
She looks genuinely concerned and he takes pity on her, “No! No, it's, ah, just not something we usually do. With friends. Just,” he remembers what Tali had said yesterday, “treat waists as you would breasts, and you'll be fine.” Honestly, he knew they were popular amongst asari, but had no idea breasts were even like waists that way, until Tali had mentioned it. How'd the quarian know that anyway?
Reply
She slows her gait to walk next to him, “It's already renewed - as Jane Shepard,” she frowns for a brief moment. “No - I always find better armor at private businesses. The Spectre stock is only good for firearms, really.”
“Name?” a turian C-Sec officer asks in Shepard's direction.
“Janix Serpetius,” Shepard replies in the common turian language, glad that her father was a linguist, before translators were common amongst humans, and had taught her several galactic languages. When the officer asks for credentials, she extends her omni-tool in his direction; she had downloaded the data-pad's information for her alias onto her 'tool during the time she couldn't fall asleep. When the officer finally looks up and his eyes flick across her face, she is surprised she can actually detect and understand the displeasure and blatant animosity in the hum underlining his words when he says,
“You're cleared.”
She waits for Garrus before she passes through the check-point and exists the docks.
“If I was that officer's superior, I would've written him up for that,” he huffs once they're into Zakera ward. “He should've tamped down on his subvocals.”
Shepard leans her weight back on one leg as she looks up at him, “I didn't realize the... subvocals were emotions.”
His head tilts, “Translators don't pick up on that?”
She shakes her head, “No, and was that a barefaced thing?”
He sighs, “Yeah. You'll probably get a lot of that. After Saren, and, well, before... barefaces have never really been respected at large.”
“Hmm,” she hums. “Can't hardly blame a turian for where they're born, or who their parents are.” She shrugs, “No different then how humans are usually treated by other species, really. I can handle it.”
“Right,” Garrus rubs the back of his neck, a human gesture he picked up back on the SR-1, “There's a turian ward not too far from here. I know a few good shops.”
Shepard can tell as soon as they've entered the turian ward - for one, there's a lot more turians than other species walking around. She sees a few asari, a few volus, a drell, oddly enough, and more than a few quarians likely on Pilgrimage, or permanent residents. She can actually understand the subvocalizations of the turians they cross paths with, and she's sad to note how much of turian conversation humans must miss. Lovers greeting each other warmly or sweetly departing, children voicing their ever changing emotions aloud, more than a few adults giving voice to their boredom or frustrations, hums of encouragement from shop owners, a dispute with no noticeable words, and more.
Shepard scoots closer to Garrus, elbow touching elbow, and cranes her head to whisper in Hierarchy common, “Human translators miss so much. I had no idea turian language was so... complex.” That thought leads to another, and she frowns.
Garrus catches it, “Something wrong?”
She shakes her head and steps away a pace, “My dad was a linguist. He would've loved to hear all this.”
Garrus hums in consideration. Shepard had never before mentioned her parents, and he honestly thought that maybe she didn't have any family. But he did catch the 'was' she had said along with the sad undertones to her words, and a spike of pain stabs at him when he remembers his mother's own degrading condition. He puts a tentative hand on her shoulder, knowing that humans need touch more than a turian would when talking about something difficult. It didn't matter that Shepard was a turian now in everything but mind and spirit. “Did you learn Hierarchy common from him?” She nods, “Well, now you can hear the rest of it for him... Maybe you can tell someone about it, and they can fix human translators so others can hear it too?”
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He looks around after dropping his hand from her shoulder, and notices that they're not too far from the armor shop he had wanted to take her to. The shop is owned by a quarian that had decided live on the Citadel, instead of going back to the Flotilla after his Pilgrimage, and Garrus hopes that Shepard will be less likely to run into any bareface prejudice there.
They're greeted by an over eager female quarian store clerk when they enter, “Keelah! It's Alidia Heiron!”
They both freeze in momentary confusion, before Garrus chuckles and clears his throat, “No, my friend here may look like Ms. Heiron, but, she's, ah, not.”
“Oh,” the quarian girl tilts her head. “I was wondering why you didn't have your pretty yellow marks. So, who are you then?” Her luminous eyes blink behind the fogy orange of her faceplate.
Shepard, emanating confusion, answers, “I'm Janix. Who's Ms. Heiron?”
“Keelah!” Her hands fly up to up her faceplate, “You've never seen Fleet and Flotilla?” The horror in her voice is palpable, “Alidia Heiron is my favorite actress ever! And you look just like her!” She starts talking rapidly enough that it's difficult to understand her, “She plays Persefinae and she's amazing! Persefinae should've totally gotten Jorvis, but he ended up with Izzi'Nia! I know that was the purpose of the vid, but still!”
“Oh,” Shepard says for lack of anything to say to that. “I'm here for armor...?” She ends the statement a little uncertain. The fangirl rant shocked her a bit. I really look like an actress? Garrus was right about the supportive waist thing?
“Of course!” The quarian girl bows her head a little bashfully, “Welcome to Abyss Armory! I'm Revva'Li nar Tesleya. Every piece of our stock is hand crafted by our owner, Zwin'Daal, and guaranteed to be the best custom armor pieces in the ward. Do you have an idea of what you would like, or are you interested in just browsing our stock?”
Shepard feels her mandibles flick into a small smile at the change in the girl's demeanor. “I need something with strong kinetic barriers, and...”
In less time than she thought, Shepard had complete set of armor ordered, with a familiar custom paint job, and would just have to wait a few hours for it to be completed and shipped to the Normandy. She's apparently more 'willowy' than most turian females, and she payed extra for reinforced plating and top-notch cooling systems, so she'd have to wait for the adjustments to be made to the pieces she chose. Garrus offered to take her around the ward, and to make a stop for lunch. She's looking forward to the experience. Being a turian is still so strange, and, honestly, she's a little curious about turian food. She wonders if she can find something like lasagna. Damn, she's going to miss being able to eat her favorites.
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Anderson was able to organize the meeting with the Council, and she'd brought along Mordin, Chakwas, and Miranda in case they needed more than their reports to believe that she's now a turian. After a long debate, questioning, an intermission where the Councilors consulted their own experts, and a second meeting, they finally accepted that Shepard was now turian, and extended her Spectre status to her alias. Councilor Sparatus had requested a private meeting with Shepard, wherein he explicitly forbid her from causing a diplomatic incident by presenting herself as human while turian, or spreading word of her metamorphosis. She had the feeling that he was measuring her while they spoke, but what he was measuring her for, she didn't know. She had the uncomfortable feeling of being too exposed, even though she was in her matte black armor detailed with red and white. She had never gotten the creep-o feeling from the Councilor before, and she wonders what that odd clicking sound he made in the back of his throat while he was pacing meant. She'd never heard that before. She could've also sworn that he had growled at one point in their conversation. She still has much to learn about turians.
But she put all that out of her mind, when she returned to the Normandy, and plotted a course for Pragia for Jack to take care of some business. She had asked Thane to accompany Jack to the planet's surface, and oddly enough Jack didn't complain at all. The biotic may have even looked more than a little relieved. Shepard vaguely wondered at the cause. She knew Jack and Thane tolerated each other well, but... They couldn't be...? Well, what ever was going on between her squad members, it wasn't her business. The ship was technically civilian; Cerberus had no fraternization regs. It took three days for them to get to Pragia, and then they spent the rest of the week dealing with a matter for Zaeed. Or rather, Miranda and Jacob aided the mercenary, as Cerberus had promised to do so, while Shepard continued to train and ignore her nightmares.
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-Don't touch your waist in public; it's near-on pornographic if you do. Turians aren't shy about sex, but it's just polite if you don't flaunt it.
-Don't touch the waists of others in public; they may not understand that you find their reactions humorous.
-Turians don't really touch casually - that's more for bonded couples, intimately close friends, and children. A stranger may not understand why you're holding their hand, even if they're visibly distressed.
-Turians express themselves less in gestures and more in subvocalizations - so don't let your subvocals get out of hand if you're pissed off. The wrong thing said could start a needless fight.
-Turians operate in a Meritocracy, meaning that they are free to do whatever they want so long as it doesn't infringe on their duty or break the law. That meant that you couldn't begrudge a turian for his choice in clothing, but you sure as hell could report him for public indecency if he decided to strip out of his ugly outfit in the middle of the street.
-Turian etiquette generally dictates that one's talons be covered while amongst members of other species. Some species are squeamish around the sight of uncovered, sharp talons; especially the hanar. If you don't want to scare others off, just keep them covered.
There were other rules, but Shepard doesn't remember all the details explicitly. Something about fringe upkeep, the normal reminders of barefaced prejudice, familial protocols that she doesn't quite remember at all, the significance of facepaint and what the actual facepaint is, military procedure, duty, holidays, the lack of birthday celebration, etc. All the lessons were starting to get overwhelming at times, but Shepard's infinitely grateful for Garrus' help. She doesn't want to imagine how much worse her situation would be if she didn't have his guidance and understanding. How could she acclimatize to her turian body without him? How much of a fool would she make of herself in public? How injured would she be trying to use humans means of combat as a turian?
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A/N: That's it for now anons! The next update probably won't be for awhile, sadly. Hope you enjoyed what I've written so far!! - A!A
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- A!A
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This is great fun!
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As I said before, this is not my usual type of fill.... but I'm really REALLY loving it!
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