[Zakera Ward] Coffee Break (closed)

It was a mom-and-pop coffee house, not a part of chain or franchise, what it lacked in number of choices –no, 'Venti, Non-Fat, No Foam, No water, 6 pump, extra hot, chai tea latte,' here– but the charm was real and not just sticked on top of a soulless, corporate tweaked, giant metal box.

Azure sat in the corner of a booth in the back, he was tilting his head back, eyes closed. Taking deep breaths as tense muscles loosened, replaying a massage in memory was good enough for it, there was a slight grunt of satisfaction as he re-felt the human work away at the knot between his shoulders. He was tempted to slip fully into the memory instead of just skimming the borders of it, but a coffee place wouldn't be the best place for that. Still he took what could have, bliss had been busy and he was still reaping the rewards from it.

He felt the vibration from his omnitool, and slowly pulled away from his memory, Kay would be there soon.

Despite being battle-hardened, made of iron, and seemingly fearless, Kayana generally prefered her drinks to contain more corn syrup than actual espresso, so she was a little disappointed by the menu. "Your biggest hazelnut latte? Extra syrup."

"Hey, Azure." She grinnde, pulling a bunch of datapads out of her bag as she sat down,. "You better not be experiencing one of your clients. That's what public transit is for."

Azure opened his eyes and chuckled, "nothing as crass I assure you," he took a sip from the coffee before him. "You, look fine," he eyed the datapads, "and prepared for a lecture, what's up?"

"Fine? What does 'fine'mean?"

"Becayse you look good, as always." She took a sip of her drink. "Some of it actually is a speech. One of Hadas' sermons that he wanted a second opinion on. This is from my college. You mentioned for next year...'

"Well, fine means that you look great but that your choice of clothes is... sub-optimal, you could show a little more throat."

"Thanks, I try my best." he almost blushed at the compliment, "Yeah I'm going to try and get a degree in business and administration. Shouldn't be too hard." He said with a shrug, "So what's the speech about?"

"I like this shirt." She leaned back to look at it. "The speech is currenty about...I don't even know, some arguement between 3rd dynasty poets? I'm making a case for reater relevance? Also brevity."

"He's not that good at brevity yet. But yeah, you mentioned...." It was sometimes a mistake to mention things, unless you wanted something actually done. [color= #c58c19]"So I dropped by our business school..."

"Riveting, do people really come and listen to him drone about that," another shrug, followed by another sip, and then another chuckle, "not that I can really talk, I spend my Tuesdays listing to hanar."

His eyes darted from datapad to datapad, "so you've come recruiting for your collage. I will consider them, I promise, but it really comes down to price really. I guess that, in some way, it always comes down to price if it involves me."

"Well, that's why he asked me to look it over. Of course, I'd go to the other extreme: You, stop cheating on your wife, you, tithe properly, you, don't even think of signing that compact for your daughter. Praise the gods, love your fellow drell, sermon over food in the hall." She clapped sharply, then laughed. "What denomination are you?"

"I'm not recruiting. I just piked up some information on their business program. And their financial aid program." It was a very complete set of documents.

"The sect of The Blue Light that Shines Deep, they specialize in bringing the word to places where few would want to listen. It's liberal denomination by most standards especially hanar."

He looked over the documentation piles, "I don't need financing, the terms might be a little better than financing on Omega, but in the end, they'll screw you over all the same. I've been saving, so I can afford it, I won't be behooved to anyone."

He looks back at her and smiles, "but thank you, I know your heart is in the right place and that counts a lot. So... what does your college have to offer other than the presence of one very good looking lady?"

"No Drell priests?"

"They have grants for people who..." Her brain caught up with her mouth, and made a face. "My heart's in the right place?"

"There's an excellent drell studies program, and the drell are a gorgeous, if somewhat disadvangaged people?"

"Oh sure, but not on the Citadel, I'm lucky they have a congregation at all here, it's too safe or something."

He smiled again and sipped his coffee, "It's a human saying, it means you do something for the right reason even if it's not really executed all that well. Kay, I'm older than you, I've been around the block a few times, I've worked my way from Omega to the Citadel so I feel confident I'll manage to enroll into college on my own too. But thank you very much."

"I know what it means!" She flushed. "I've been in school longer than you have."

"Nobody fusses over me either, Mr. Self-Sufficient." She sighed, raising a brow and managing a self-mocking smirk to show she didn't take it too personally. "Don't you think it's weird that like, salarian clans and turian...turian everything are so good at looking after their own and we seem to think it's in bad taste?"

"Not really," he grabbed one of the pads and scanned it, "every race has evolved differently and their society is different. Maybe we should be more group minded, but I think it'll take a very long time before we reach turian levels, and I actually hope we never reach salarian levels."

Azure gave a little shudder, "I don't want to imagine how that 'imprinting' feels like. Not to mention my lack of income. Personally I like drell the way they are, but then I'm not the military type."

She rolled her eyes and took another long sip of coffee. "Alright, alright, gods know I like sex too. But I still wish we were a bit more community minded. Who's going to look after us if we won't?"

"Like Pickle. She's doing...okay. In and out of this shelter, I think she's found her own place now. I actually have a set of papers for her...well, or for an identity that could just be hers if it turns out I'm wrong. The people who hurt her have been dealt with, though who knows if their higher ups will take the hint not to mess with us." She stretched her arms out, leaning over the table. "Crap. At least military type sounds better than belligerent worrywart."

"Even with sex I wouldn't want to be imprinted, being biologically and emotionally compelled to do what your mother tells you to do. No thanks hon," He shrugged, "you lead a very interesting life Kay, So she finally has a name?"

"An interesting life i might have, but I did not...here's another human one: The fruit did not fall far from the tree? Even without imprinting, I did what my mother told me. Well, my first mother, anyway. Right down to marrying a nice religious boy."

"Yeah. I'm fairly sure she's one Andra Quoyle. She's the right age and colour, the entire family was declared MIA after...you know, after they started scraping the metre of organic member off the district walls."

"I don't want to push her about it."

"Poor girl, losing everything like that..." He took a sip, "but she'll bounce back, I'm sure of it. Strange how thing sometimes turn out isn't it?"

"She'll bounce back because we have, huh?" She stared at her drink for a second.

"We're going to be this very strange, inexplicable generation, aren't we?"

"You can say that about any generation. But that's only the illusion, the level of strangeness stays the same, it just shifts making us think things are only get stranger. And in the end the real fundamental stuff stays the same." He said win a smile.

"Oh, thats horrible. If that is true, my hypothetical daughter is at risk of being stepped on by a Reaper. I was fine that just being us." She burried her face in her hands, then peeked at him.

"The fundamentals? Should I ask?"