[Citadel, BlueShift] Disco Celebration!

Flexi-sexy wasn’t what Taleeze had expected of the exile. A nice touch though as Kari wasn’t bad looking! This was actually starting to be fun. At least she hasn’t been talking about dancing back then to some half-arsed amateur but obviously to someone who knew the drill quite well.

Oh well. For a moment Taleeze was distracted by a reflection from the sideline – there had actually formed a half circle on the dancefloor now with people watching, among them a human female with a ridiculous piece of jewelry on her head… face… whatever. The person seems to have fun though but the ‘glasses’ were irritating as hell.

She had almost missed a beat – almost only though since her body was doing it’s thing while she could make a mental shopping list. Which happened sometimes on boring night shifts but not today.

By now the lights had circled in on their little performance and the DJ must have noticed as well. He moved to the next track, a popular theme with a hymnal melody and a fast thriving bass line.

Perfect for the ‘signaler’. A series of exalted moves with her arms, an interpretation of an old asari huntress silent signal alphabet – she had learned that from Freh’ya – in combination with wide swaying steps and winding midsection. Fuck that dress, she needed to give it all obviously. But the dress kept together very well and proved more flexible than Taleeze had thought as she whirled around and repeatedly wrote “buckets can’t dance” into the air. If a huntress would have been on site she might have been able to read it….

The turian moved like a man, after all. Which wasn’t a bad thing, he wasn’t the kind that childishly was trying to impress with moves he couldn’t pull off. As a soldier he knew what he could do and that he did well. The dancing was a good workout and released the tension of the week. He seemed a bit shy though as he didn’t speak up about drinks or anything. Sweet actually.
Very well, she could handle that. Over on the other side, the couple was going all out and a crowd had gathered.

So after a couple of rounds of quite good music (that club had kept his promise there) Arina was quite a bit thirsty. She indicated ‘drinking’ with one hand and stopped, moving towards the sideline, casually waving in Leeta’s direction.

“Phew, care for a drink, soldier?” She was fanning herself with her hand and smiled at the turian. Let’s hope he also had manners and introduced himself.
“There’s a friend of mine at the bar and a couple of yours as well I suppose?”

Kari was a bit impressed herself. The irritating asari was still sticking around, even with the lights of the club now focusing on them. Which meant the entire club would see who the most superior dancer was.

That's a nice little asari dance. But I think I'll show one of mine

Going with the music, Kari began to show off her skill at the quarian dance known as 'Dasnia'. Legs moving quickly (and rather uncomfortably to those species that lacked her leg structure), the exile circled around Taleeze, the haughtiness in her body language visible to everyone as her long skirt swirled with the movements, capping off with a little "shoo" gesture as she finished her circle.

Top that. You weak-legged little tart

Speaking of legs, hers felt like they were about to fall off. She had been dancing for a long time without a break even before the asari had intruded into her space.

This asari was something. Hot as hell flashed through the lad's head before she gestured towards the bar and conveyed the message across, even through the noise of the club. "Sure thing ma'am", the turian mouthed after the gesture for drinks. Sulla made a mock salute as if addressing an officer and headed towards the bar. He ordered a Palavian ale (nothing stronger, I'm drunk enough already) and "anything for the miss, it's on me" and leaned on the counter. "Let's hope just a few of mine left, this night has been busy as it is." Sulla flashed a cocky grin and looked the asari right in the eye, holding the eye contact for several seconds before turning his attention to his arriving beer. "Sulla Talodias, nice to meet you. I gotta say, you're quite something on the dance floor." The turian tried to keep his eyes in check but the dress in front of him was barely waterline.

At the table with Juhani, Victan saluted with his beer. "The uncut of course. We aren't a group of pussies at the barracks!" he boasted, right after downing the last of his beer and eyeing longingly at the bar, ready to fetch another. Juhani's fears were unfounded as Fallah was already busy doing something else; she could not hold her attention on one thing for long enough to gather the details. "If you recommend it, I need to take a look at that. Now, more drinks!" and with that, Victan set towards the counter, spotting Sulla with the asari at the counter. He smiled to himself when he ordered a new drink. Someone was about be teased the next week at the barracks. The sergeant was still a turian after all!

Though Leeta spared a few glances to her asari friend and the turian she was dancing with, most of her attention was locked on the asari and the other quarian locked in what could only be described as a battle of titans on the dance floor. She couldn't breathe, and she didn't think to. She had only had time to order a single drink before she turned to watch the pair. One move after another; back and forth again and again, each one throwing up more complex and languid moves than the last. Leeta hadn't seen another quarian move like that since the festival on Rannoch. Envy rose up in her throat, and for a moment she desperately wished she could trade places with the nameless quarian on the dance floor.

Instead, she took a drink. The lightweight sucked up the triple-filtered turian version of vodka through her induction port, scarcely aware of the fact that Arina and her companion were leaving the dance floor. Dasnia. She knew that dance, though it was prouder than anything she had seen in the vids she had borrowed from her friends. Her fingers curled tightly around her drink and she took a longer sip. Where envy ended and regret began, Leeta didn't know. All she knew was that she would have to approach that other quarian later. True dancers were so rare and so esteemed outside of her own family, and Leeta wasn't about to pass up the chance of meeting one.

Leeta's concentration broke, and she noticed Arina's partner ordering his palaven ale. Seeing her friend, she smiled and straightened, offering the pair a wave in greeting. She almost spoke, but she felt as breathless as if she had been the one out there dancing. She surveyed Arina's companion for a moment. There was no denying he was a handsome turian; Arina had good taste, there was no arguing that. She wanted to speak, but she didn't know what to say. Besides, she didn't want to interrupt whatever flirtation they had going on. "You two are amazing dancers," she finally spoke up. She didn't want to seem a mute, after all.

As the turain went straight to order things, luckily close to where Leeta was seated. Now Arina felt almost bad since somehow the quarian seemed a bit depressed. She could see her straightening up a bit when she approached.

So before seating herself on the stool between Leeta and the turian, she touched the quarian on the arm to greet her. “Good evening! I am happy you could come!” Arina winked and nodded towards her turian soldier who was just turning his back on them, checking on his friends to indicate ‘hot catch!’. In fact she just realized that she had no idea if Leeta had any eye for such things.

When Sulla turned to face her, Arina was all attention. His gaze had some piercing quality. By now it was clear they had a silent agreement about the end of the night. She held it while ordering, with one gentle blink. “I think I take a Juicy Justicar, thank you very much!”, a cocktail that wasn’t overly strong (in comparison to an Jumping Justicar) and a bit sour, good for her thirst.

She leaned backwards against the bar, legs crossed, the top one gently rocking to the beat.

"What a pleasure, Sulla. My name is Arina.” She made a small pause and pointed to the quarian next to her. “and this is my dear friend Leeta. Leeta, Mr. Sulla Talodias.” She looked at the wardrobe the quariand had chosen. Arian had never seen Leeta in much else than everyday drapings. "May I say that your outfit looks great?"
She chuckled as everyone was praising the dancing.

“Thank you both for your compliments! In fact, I was as good as he made me look perhaps.” In the meanwhile, the drink had materialized and she took the straw to sip. It was really refreshing.

Her eyes caught some of the show unfolding with the other asari (who looked strangely familiar) and that other quarian.
“But I am afraid I can’t match those two even remotely.” She shook her head. Must be some professionals. She was curious how this would end. While all of them looked over, Arian noted something about the quarians look. Arina had seen that before….. at the Tequila Se’lai! When Leeta had watched her dance as well. She made a note to talk to her friend in the not too distant future.

Meanwhile, Arina was casually brushing Sulla’s arm by ‘accident’.
“What brings you to the Citadel, Sulla? Are you stationed here or is this shoreleave?”

Skylar's eyes widened, and a grin spread across her face, as Linya presented the image of her niece; her composed demeanour wasn't quite so far gone as to squeak, but she certainly betrayed quite a mushy side to herself. Even Taleeze's electric confrontation on the dance floor took a back seat, for a moment at least.

"Ohh, look at her! Oh she's adorable. How old is she now? What's her name?"

The dimness of the lighting at the bar must have been doing wonders for Sulla's face in Leeta's and Arina's eyes, as the lad did not think he looked better than a tad above average. One could not say much about how he was built from under the rather heavy and rigid clothing other than that the turian was slim, but spending the better part of the year wading through mud and water knee-deep does wonders to your physique. The lighting also made his elaborate facial tattoos almost glow; the network of red thin lines over his features seemed to shine with their own inner light in the ebbing disco lights.

Sulla thanked the bartender for the beer and took a small sip. Light taste with moderate foam, but a fairly full aftertaste. He nodded politely to Leeta, then brought his claw to an imaginary faceplate and touched his face as if greeting a senior officer in the quarian navy. If anything, this was the time to show off his knowledge of different species and their everyday culture. He chuckles when the quarian compliments his dancing. "I was just trying not to fall down, flail my arms around and not seem like a complete idiot. But thanks anyway."

Sulla turned his attention to the pair on the dance floor when Arina mentioned them. He had been vaguely aware of something big going on behind his back, but he had no idea of the magnitude of the event. Trying to force the four dancing figures into two again with just the strength of will (and failing miserably), he too, with his very limited knowledge of dancing, thinks this is something else. "These two must be pros. Or this is a set up thing by the bar to get more people to the dance floor, which then again would make them buy more drinks. Still, those two got some dancing skills", Sulla said, shaking his head in disbelief.

He turns his attention back to Arina when he feels her gently touching his arm. "I'd love to be stationed here. Citadel is my home in so many ways, and being able to live here again would be..." He shrugs his shoulders as his voice trails off. "But that's life, you don't usually get what you want. Me and my friends there", he nods towards the table where Victan and Fallah are seated. "-are providing planetary security and an agricultural workforce with the 32nd engineer legion on a planet called Yricax in the Apien Crest. And it's exactly as backwards as you'd expect. This is our first shore leave in many months." He smiles at Arina and takes another sip of his drink. "I'm glad I managed to find some new people to spend the evening with. Those two are like family but you know how family can get. Spend every waking moment of your life with them and even your brother starts to annoy you to the point of murder." The rather grim remark is softened by a chuckle.

He leans on the bar and sets the bottle on the counter. "But what do you do for a living? Living on the Citadel or just visiting?"

Well...that choice was going to end up in some very awkward stares next time they saw. Assuming Victan would manage to identify him from the movie. "I won't recommend it. I'll buy it for you as a gift! It's why I asked about it in the first place." Juhani decided to follow him to the counter, for his glass was dangerously empty as well, but he wasn't one to abandon his company. While Victan went ahead, he stayed around the table, turning to Fallah.

"I'll go get myself some more drinks as well. You coming with us?"

A laugh escaped Leeta as she recognized Sulla's greeting. Even the thought of someone addressing her so formally was funny, but to have it actually happen was unreal. She smiled and nodded politely to Sulla, tempted to greet him in a manner befitting a turian soldier of his stature. Instead she just listened to the pair talk. For the first time since she'd met Arina, it seemed she was finally getting an idea of the asari's 'type,' assuming she had one at all. Leeta couldn't blame her. Sulla's facial tattoos were oddly enchanting in the gleam of the pulsing disco lights, and Leeta wasn't the first quarian to be able to recognize a person's physique under their suit. "Thank you for the compliment Arina, I did not want to just wear the same old thing..." The gold embroidery of her fabric glinted as she shrugged. "We both live here," she answered on Arina's behalf. "At least for now that is." She smiled to herself, wondering if she should leave them alone to let Arina flirt. She didn't want to get in the way after all.

Instead she watched the two dancers sparring on the dance floor. It seemed like they had intimidated most of the other dancers off the dance floor. She wondered who the quarian was. Surely there would have been some news in Little Rannoch of a professional dancer arriving on the Citadel. "I am not sure they were hired...I definitely would not want to be seen dancing anywhere near them. I would look like a clumsy infant that has not learned to walk." A small exaggeration, but not in her mind. "But I am an agrarian specialist, not a dancer." She leaned back against the bar counter and had a very small sip of her drink. After last time, she needed to pace herself.

As indicated Michelle was cheering the two dancers, when it hit her, when she managed to look at the asari's face instead of her legs, but she was definitely familiar. It took her a minute, since she was still learning to differentiate aliens, and she was used to Taleeze's strange face expression on her CDN avatar. But she had seen her make some similar move with Daia on that show they made on the extranet.

"Hey that's Taleeze Driana you guys! GO TALEEZE! YEAH!" Many others started cheering Taleeze by name too.
Michelle wondered watching Pariah. She noticed the suit resemblance, but she couldn't ever imagine that the everyone-hating Pariah would go in a dance-club.
Plus come on what were the odds?
She resumed cheering for Taleeze.

"Her name's Siobhán," Linya answered excitedly, "and she only had her first birthday a month or two ago! She's talking, kind of, and crawls everywhere!"
Rather like Linya herself, at that age; many's the time Mirala would awaken to find a tiny nose inches from her own.

"Hey, boss-clan," came a voice from behind the scientist, "think you might've forgotten something."
Hab the barman was, indeed, clutching the cocktail she'd left at the bar when she scurried off.
"Oopsie! Thanks, Hab!"
"No worries."
Inclining his head in Skylar's direction, the volus waddled off leaving Linya to wince slightly in embarrassment.
"Sorry about that."

Arina was amused about Sulla’s modesty. He still was a nice guy after opening his mouth. Not always a given, it could totally ruin the desire to hump someone. But this guy seemed pretty interesting, so even better. A pleasant surprise and she was satisfied with her knowledge in people. She sipped from her drink as he explained his duty.
Must be hard to be commanded to some ass end planet when you’re a Citadel boy but that’s how turian military worked and the reason they had to let off steam and lots of it.

“Leeta’s right, I consider myself still new to the Citadel though, only here for a few months. I work at the asari embassy” , Arina explained. “But don’t expect too much, it’s a lot of reports, reports, reports and analyzing. We only get to do the Dirk Black stuff once a year or so.” She chuckled.

“I agree with you, nice company to be found around here tonight. You know, I frequent a forum on the extranet from time to time and I tend to run into all sorts of people that hang out there as well. I already wonder who around here I already know from that place.”

Then Michelle was shouting Taleeze’s name.
“Oh… there you go. That’s her? I had the impression I saw that face before, she’s also on that forum. Well, she’s a professional dancer indeed.”

Oh, that was actually a good move of the exile. Taleeze even recognized the patterns from the vids she had watched. Kari clearly had the advantage of already being on the floor for a bit, being all warmed up and in the flow while Taleeze just had jumped from the streets right to the dancefloor, totally unprepared.

She was going down, up, doing the torch, waving Kari a ‘No, no!’ with her fingers. She was doing square steps, while her arms were going over her body and then swinging wide to turn her body into small pirouettes. But ach, that wasn’t enough, that wasn’t it, Taleeze wasn’t satisfied.

On top of that, the irritating human with the headgear now started crying out her name! Oh CDN, that’s your probability vortex. It was out of question where the woman knew her from. Anywhoooo…..

She had to finish this, show the quarian that asari were better dancers and revenge the insult Kari had thrown at her. So why not light the torch all the way? It was what the asari were famous for anyway.

A faint blue glimmer started at her hands, crept up her arms and soon was engulfing her body. Taleeze made a visible wave run up and down as she snaked, then a second. Following the bass beat, she finally made a series of steps that ended in a small jump and the biotic glow was scattering in a faint cloud before rebuilding as she danced away now in a winding frenzy, picking up pace.

This was seriously exhausting. She couldn’t go much longer like this but Kari must see some reason eventually!

Oh now using biotics was practically cheating. But it didn't matter she could just... no that wouldn't work. Or she could... No. No that wouldn't work either. Her omnitool didn't have that function.

Fuck it. My feet hurt anyway. Let the asari have it.

Kari bowed her head in defeat. And listened to the crowd cheer for the victor. The victor that wasn't her.

Fallah simply nods and her omnitool flickers away. They follow Victan to the counter where he is already chatting with another turian, a luminous drink in hand. "Klicksan", Fallah shouts, and, the new turian turns around, lifting a claw in response. "This one's one of ours as well. An engineer so a pretty boring guy to hang around with to be honest", Fallah states in a matter of fact -tone to Juhani. She wastes no time and orders herself a drink too.

At the other side of the bar, Sulla's blue eyes light up when Arina tells where she works. "The embassy? Spirits, that's awesome! I worked at the turian embassy for a little while, doing my service there when I was studying on the Citadel. A place in the diplomatic corps is actually something I'd like to pursue in the future. I was already drafted, but-" the turian turned his head away sharply and then took a sip of beer. "Yea. The Reapers. But I know what's the day to day work is. I was basically running coffee to the diplomats, but once I worked for a while they allowed me to start making a report every now and then. I think it was pretty interesting. Really knowing what's going on in the galaxy, you know, even though you're looking at a very small portion of it." Sulla is visibly excited.

When CDN comes up, Sulla does not even bother to roll his eyes. This was inevitable. However, he decides not to go there right now, it was far more interesting to get to know Arina face to face rather than stalking her after learning the nickname she used.

Instead, he turns to watch the dance battle again. "I'm not surprised. Those moves, well if you got centuries to practice it sure shows." He eyes Leeta after the quarian makes a remark about her own dancing skills. "Oh come on, I'm sure you'd do just fine. Club dancing is a different story from whatever this is", he makes a gesture towards the pair in the middle of a heated battle.

And then, abruptly, it ended. Sulla clapped with the others and grinned. "Well that was quick. Though I really can't say who was better, I mean, I just don't consider the biotics at all. That's almost cheating."

Oh, wow, that was a surprise - and a relief as Taleeze was running out of options. It felt more like an achievement, not like a victory. It had been nice to be driven to her limits. It had been a battle of tricks and style, not so much of stamina although her legs hurt. Not the best shoes for that.

Taleeze stopped, breathing. With a smile and a nod she accepted Kari's gesture.

The music was still playing, there were a few more minutes left for that track. Taleeze extended her hands.
"Come on, let's finish this together." She was starting a simple pattern of movements.

Kari hesitated. Staring at the asari like she had gone completely insane. She had won the game, there was really no need to drag it out with even more dancing. Her feet felt like they were about to fall off, she was breathing so hard it felt like she had run several hundred miles, and she felt like she was stuck in a boiler for all the good her suit's functions were doing.

But the crowd cheered, and before Kari knew what she was doing she had taken Tal's hand and started dancing once again.

Kari could never resist an audience.

For one last round their feet were flying in sync over the dancefloor. A little bit more relaxed and easygoing. Still Taleeze couldn't resist to wave her arms one more time, Kari following. She had been paying attention.

When the final beat dropped there was silence and the guy doing the lights had received the message, as the turned off all the spots, drowning the dancefloor in darkness for a few seconds before lighting up again. The DJ put on something relaxingly slow after a moment of silence. It was over.

Taleeze and Kari stood there, panting and a bit exhausted, but Taleeze had enjoyed the dancing, so a small giggle escaped her between breaths.

Michelle and the crowd around her were overjoyed, this dancing had been beautiful, and the fact that the two victors, although exhausted, concluded with a dance, was pitch perfect.
When the dancing ended Michelle approached Taleeze.

"That was amazing Taleeze! You're the queen of the evening, and as such...".

She removed her superb glasses and handed them out to her.

"I've been fixing them for an asari head", she said before Taleeze could object, "I put them on a headwrap! You'll look amazing all night, the queen of dancing!"

The crowd loved this obviously, they started chanting "Yeah! Taleeze! Wear the glasses! Whoo-hoo! That's awesome!"