[Citadel, Tayseri] A Much Needed Drink (Open)

"Arina. Just... Jesus christ you really like dancing don't you?" Said Alex.
He watched,somewhat amused.
"Hang on a second." Alex said.
He went to the bar, checked no one was looking, and stole someone's scotch on the rocks. He swigged it and returned to Arina.
"Fuck it. Let's do this thing!" Alex shouted...
A few minutes later, Alex got off the floor.
"Ow ow ow. Why does my head hurt so much?" Alex asked, dazed, confused and almost certainly concussed.

Arina watched with bemusement how the human was getting party fuel. And when he returned he went all out, to her great surprise. She even had to give him some room when he was flailing arms like in ecstasy tribal dance… shifting completely out of the beat into his own reality as it seemed. She just let him do his thing, knowing too well how liberating exhausting dancing could be.

Then he collapsed.

A few other dancers, already slightly annoyed by his expressionism, were giving the pair strange looks. Arina dragged him to the sidelines – luckily they had been keeping close anyway. He was fairly heavy as he was seemingly quite muscular. A quite handsome male specimen, as Arina couldn’t help but notice, as she grabbed his arms, grunting. Dragging guys around had become a hobby of hers lately. Please don’t let him vomit.

When he slowly came to again, she had already some juice ready. “Here you go. It’s alright. But you never do things by halves, do you?” She grinned.

"You've no Idea."
Alex clutched his head, it was starting to ring in his ears.
"Awww.. I think I might be concussed." Alex said.
As he said this, a nearby turian looked to him and said something. What it was he couldn't understand.
oh oh
"Arina. Can you say something to me? I think I've damaged my implant." Said Alex, referring to the translation implant most people get to understand other languages.

"It's hard to imagine a quarian farmer, but there's nothing wrong with farming. At least it doesn't frequently result in this."

Tobias indicated toward his prosthetic. Looking over toward the dance floor, he saw Alex fall, but was relieved when he seemed to recover. He turned back to the quarian in front of him.

"I'm actually involved in weapon design, construction, and customization. Not something that might be viewed as exciting or interesting from an outside viewpoint, I imagine. But it payed for my ship, and it keeps me comfortable."

He hoped he wasn't boring her, but he had little enough experience conversing with other humans, let alone aliens. He reached for another shot, realized there wasn't one waiting, and promptly ordered several more. He downed one as soon as it was put down in front of him. How any was that? Four? Six? He was probably going to have to leave the bar with assistance, if he kept up this rate.

"How do I sound? Is everything okay, Alex? Come on, let's get you something else to drink." Arina tugged his arm, leading him over towards the bar.

Leeta chuckled softly at Tobias' assessment of her career, shrugging with one shoulder. "It sounds odd but it really is a vital part of surviving when one does not have trade resources to procure and no planet from which to harvest naturally occurring vegetation." She paused, thinking of the farming that was going on on Rannoch right now. The harvest festival had been one of the most symbolic examples of how the quarian race was recovering. As her eyes dropped to survey the prosthetic belonging to the man next to her, she nodded. "Weapon design hm?" She tried to sound less interested than she was. She abhorred firearms now, but there had been a time and a place when the wouldn't have traded her gun for anything. "You must have many interesting stories," Unlike Tobias, she didn't notice Alex fall. If she had, she might have felt obligated to help him out.

Seeing Tobias pound back so many shots so quickly sent Leeta's mind reeling. She had never been one for alcohol, both because of health precautions and because letting your guard down was never a good thing in her book. She looked down, wincing when she realized she had only finished off two shots. She licked her lips and set down her empty glass before picking up another. She lifted it to the induction port and froze, licking her lips again. They tingled with warmth, feeling oddly numb and detached from her face. She shook her head. This wasn't going to take long. "How do you do that?" She prodded, gesturing to the empty glasses in front of him. "I cannot do that." She finished raising her shot and took a sip.

Looking down toward the line of empty glasses in front of him, Tobias shrugged. It didn't seem that impressive.

"Would you believe it's a result of those interesting stories you mentioned I must have?"

He chuckled to himself. He could tell an unasked question when he didn't hear one. Though usually they were directed toward his leg, and not his job. The change was...welcome, in a way. He cocked an eyebrow at the quarian in front of him.

"Admittedly, 'interesting' is a matter of opinion..."

He glanced toward Arina and Alex, making sure they were OK. Turning his attention back to the other side of his conversation, the young veteran smiled at her as he reached for another shot. He was starting to feel the drinks, but only just. He was currently losing a debate with himself over how much he should drink. He was saying he should drink only a few, while his argument to drink more than a few was fairly convincing.

"Unintelligible Unintelligible Unintelligible? Unintelligible Unintelligible Unintelligible, Alex? " Said Arina to Alex.
Ohhhh shit
Alex cut in
"Arina. My Translator is broken. I can't understand a word anyone is saying." Said Alex.
"Though you should be able to understand me... I think?"

Oh Goddess, his translator was really messed up. Arina winched, trying to remember all the lessons she had received prior to her being transferred to the Citadel among those had been various human languages, English, German and French among them. Not that she ever had to use that in free speech ever since … It was mostly a help should she overhear a casual conversation, standard procedure for diplomats.

She started in English as this was supposedly very common, trying to speak slowly.
“Ahh… okay, I understand. Let go to…. bar, drinking and getting better, okay? Then you need … fix machinery, okay? I hope I am sensitive!”

“Oder ist Deutsch ihre Sprache? Ou Francais?"

She made gestures towards the bar, as she was tugging him along. Help me out here! Maybe Leeta had a build-in multi-language output tool in her suit? The guy had to go see some medi-technician.

"Swahili? Um... What about Afrikaans? Or... I know a little Spanish." Said Alex.
Alex went along back to the bar.
"Unintelligible Unintelligible Unintelligible Unintelligible ?" asked the bartender.
"Why does it keep doing that? I'm sorry, I don't speak... Turian?" "Replied" Alex.
Alex sat down. His head was ringing, he couldn't understand anyone, and he'd only been here for about a hour.
"Teach me for only knowing two languages." Said Alex.

"I would absolutely believe it is a result of those interesting stories...but which does make them slightly more interesting." She leaned forward to put her elbow on the bar counter so she could rest her chin in her hand. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Arina helping Alex -- more like pulling Alex to the bar. She slowly raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips in thought. Maybe their dancing hadn't gone as well as she had assumed it would... "An opinion held by people who do not usually spend their days watching men get set on fire."

Leeta turned to look at Arina quizzically, cocking her head to the side. "Is everything all..." she trailed off hearing Alex's comment to the bartender. "...is something wrong with his translator?" she asked, almost laughing as she looked back at Arina. That wasn't something she was about to try to fix, but Arina was right to think Leeta had added a multi-language output upgrade to her suit. She hoped it still worked - she had downloaded it when she left on her pilgrimage and hadn't exactly been updating it as often as she should have been. Unfortunately, she didn't know what language Alex spoke. Humans had an irrational number of languages. She wrinkled her nose, trying to remember which ones were supposedly common. She activated the program and began flipping through languages. In her tipsy state, it didn't occur to her to just record a sample of what Alex was saying to find a match. "你会讲中文...? Español? English...?"

"Wait! Wait. I understand Spanish! Well, a little." Said Alex.
You wouldn't ever need to learn another language they said.
Translators do it all for you they said.
"But I speak Swahili. Weird I actually have to say that. Or perhaps Afrikaans?" added Alex.
He turned to the bartender.
"I'll have a Double scotch, on the rocks, slice of lemon please." he asked, subconsciously speaking slower despite the fact that it was totally unneeded.

Arina rolled her eyes at Leeta, sighing. Could the day go more wrong? The man was looking nice and all but he was such a clumsy fellow. She forgave him though because of his family business.

She unfolded her Omnitool and typed a message, hoping that his wasn't broken as well. She opened the app of her translator implant.
[language detected: Swahili] it said.

She typed him a message.
'Get that damned thing looked at. For a human you seem to have an uncommon dialect it seems'

"Leeta, do you have output in Swi.. Swahi..li? Goddess, I've never heard that and I've come across some dialects."

"Swahili?" Leeta stared at Arina's omnitool with interest. Why hadn't she thought of that? "Swahili..." she repeated. She giggled. "Swaaaheeeleeee?" It sounded strange and foreign on her tongue as she sounded it out, but of course it was strange and foreign. She had another sip of her shot, almost finishing it. She wished she could drink as much as Tobias or dance as confidently as Arina or -- well she couldn't think of anything she envied of poor Stubble...but she liked him all the same. "A very silly thing," she began in Swahili, having switched the settings of the program again. "To break your translator so easily...I thought I was a clumsy dancer. It was a lighthearted little prod, and she obviously meant no harm with it. She rested her chin heavily in her hand with her elbow on the counter. "I say you should pour another drink. Until everything sounds as foreign as our 'alien languages...." She turned to the bartender anyways and interpreted his order. "A double scotch, on the rocks, slice of lemon..." The bartender began to fix up the drink. Another giggle and Leeta turned back to Arina.

[color=#CC0099]"What did you do to him on the dance floor?" she teased. "Surely humans are not so easy to break..." Her eyes flashed brightly behind her visor as she studied Alex inquisitively. No. Humans were made of sturdier stuff; she was sure.