[Citadel, Bliss Festival] By the Code, I will entertain you (closed)

Taleeze was ready; Daia could hear it unquestionably in her voice, and even begin to sense it, the awareness of her own body as Taleeze's tentatively reached out. Subtle drifts of pheromone and energy as the electrochemical matrices opened themselves to outside influence and reached out invisible feelers to sense their opposite numbers.

"I generally meld slowly," she said in hushed tones, reaching out her hands to Taleeze's. Her friend would probably have guessed as much, but it was part of Daia's 'ritual' to speak as the connection formed, the soft words adding their own layer to the bond.

Breathing in water. A state of pure joy and bright optimism. Warmth and love. Freh’ya’s face reflected in Ana’s visor. Blond hair in blue water. So much love. She had been living on Omega. There was no Daia or Taleeze anymore, but a new entity.

It was easy and a question of timing, that three-way meld.

How much time had passed? Taleeze had no idea and did not care, it could have been an hour or minutes. She dropped sideways into the sheets and curled up, her eyes welling up with tears, but those of joy. Her mind still vibrated, echoing from the connection they had shared. With a sigh she tried to capture every little piece of it. She wiped her eyes and looked up at Daia, smiling.

”Do we have some time left or are you in a hurry?” she asked with a steady voice. “I think I have understood…” she squinted to think and sort her mind. “… what you showed me. It’s interesting really… melding about sharing a meld. You have to take care not to get lost.” She chuckled and reached out, touching her friends leg. It was different, as if their existences where passing through each other. She knew it wasn’t a real physical effect but a psychological aftermath of a quite deep meld. She had felt the gap over which their entity had crossed – with the briefest of mental hesitations. It was Daia’s mental arrangement at work, her carefully defined zones. She was so much more experienced with these things, Taleeze had to admit. She had now seen pieces of it.

“I am eager to try it out as soon as possible now! Thank you, Daia.” She chuckled.
She rolled unto her back, looking up at her sister. “I have to ask you something, Daia… have you ever melded with Skylar before? I mean… did you two ever… I just have to ask, I dunno, sorry.” She chuckled, rolling her face into the sheets again.

Daia enjoyed the slow drift back to individual consciousness - another cherished pleasure of 'personal' melds like this, or with Ana, not having to pull her mind back together in any particular hurry to anticipate a client's post-meld needs. She felt her senses detaching from Taleeze's, the mosaic of consciousness - no single 'thought' voice, but an ocean - recede, like the tide, and was more or less herself again by the time her companion let herself slump sideways. Daia reached out a hand to touch her shoulder, maintaining the faintest echo of contact, and contenting herself that there was no unease in the tears. Intricate melding, even between close and experienced partners, could be a confrontingly intense experience when used to share such a depth of information.

"Good question," she admitted, checking her omni-tool. "No, no hurry." She smiled. "I'm inclined to agree, we understood. Not that there won't be some discovery along the way, still, but I'd hazard a guess the three of you will rather enjoy that."

She raised an eyebrow at the question about Skylar, but smiled, and gave a little half-shrug before lying down herself.

"Natural enough to be curious," she grinned. "No, actually. Which - you'll forgive me saying so - is a bit of an oddity. We knew each other back when we were both unattached, for quite a while... She was never particularly shy about her interest in asari, and you know me - well, you can imagine when I was single. Any opportunity." She chuckled - 'monogamy' with Ana, insofar as the term counted with her still working, held no regrets for her, but she looked back very fondly on that freedom nonetheless.

"Still, though," she went on thoughtfully, "the tides just never happened to draw us in that direction. I admit, the thought did cross my mind - I like to think hers as well," she added impishly, "- but for one reason or another whenever we spent time together, it was as friends and colleagues, just that." She mused for a moment on what might have been - the beautiful human, eager to discover all she could about asari, and her own insatiable desire to join her passion with others. Among casual liaisons - she was fairly sure it wouldn't have gone further than that, although almost certainly they'd have remained firm friends regardless - it would undoubtedly have been one to remember. "'Ships the pass in the night,'" she smiled, aptly enough borrowing a phrase she had picked up from Skylar. "But no regrets to speak of."

She chuckled again, and patted Taleeze on the hip.

"Which isn't to say I'm not going to vicariously satisfy some lingering curiosity by quizzing you now and then," she smirked.

Taleeze chuckled, rolling onto her back, resting a hand on her friends thigh.
“We have just shared a lot of things – if you happened to have looked left and right. But by all means, you’re probably the person Sky is most okay with when I talk about us.” She smiled softly. The answer had been interesting as she indeed knew how Skylar looked at the asari and how close she and Daia were as friends. Also, given an unattached Daia… Taleeze wasn’t sure what would have happened if she... But then the chips would have never fallen the way they had with Skylar and Freh’ya. She didn’t belief in predetermination, although being loosely attached to the siari philosophy, so everything was possible, all the time. Things were perfect as they were.

“Also, I always enjoy it so don’t be shy.” Now that was really not a problem of Daia.

It always took a while after a meld of sharing for all the memories to fall into place and make sense. In the immediate aftermath of a particularly intense one she even had experienced the effect that it had been impossible for her to tell if certain memories were her own or ones that had been shared. It was like waking up from a very intense dream, just much much more real and longer.

“You know… I could get used to melding with you … no offense and I don’t mean it that way! But your mind is so… orderly, organized. You have much more experience at guiding someone else through this. Thinking of it, my own closet up there must have looked like a mess to you.” She giggled at the image of Daia wading through some laundry….

“But you’re a professional after all, you could be a very good teacher I belief.” She looked up, straight into the eyes of Daia. Something had changed , as it always did when you joined minds.

"We have shared a lot," Daia agreed, smiling. "I... took in impressions. You know how it is, you can't not be aware of some things, so I saw Skylar in there, and Freh'ya. You'd have felt Ana too, in a way." She chuckled at a thought. "Do you know, I could half believe I felt the friendship between 'Ana' and 'Skylar', when those parts of us touched one another? Funny how the mind works."

She glanced over at Taleeze when her friend talked about their experience, her expression a mix of curious and thoughtful.

"Is that something you'd be interested in?" she asked at last. "Doing this again, some time...? I mean, I could probably add a bit more structure to the whole triple-meld concept, but aside from that - as you say, as friends. Just for its' own sake." She turned the idea over in her head, watching Taleeze's reaction at the same time - it had perhaps been an idle thought on her part, rather than a fully-formed suggestion, but it intrigued her.

It had not occurred to Taleeze immediately how the ‘Ana’ and ‘Skylar’ fractions had seemingly interacted on their own. Now that Daia pointed it out, she was traveling back and fourth the emotions of the memories and found the lines. It was fascinating.
“Ana…” she said.

Then she was a bit surprised, but in a very positive way, when Daia offered her this be not the only instance of them ‘sharing’. She smiled, slightly bemused as she had been talking about Daia the Matriarch as teacher of acolytes in general terms but Daia seemed to have taken it as if Taleeze could be … well, not a acolyte. A true sister, one mind, one heart. She swallowed.

“You would consider that? It is not that I think I need extra lessons on romantic things but… joining minds with you is easy, it would be much more than mere words can tell.”
She paused for a moment.

“But will that be okay for Ana?” Taleeze remembered their first encounter. She had very unambiguously made clear that she had no romantic intentions with Daia and she had explicitly mentioned melding. “I once told her how special melding is for me. I know, as you stated, this here is fine for her but if we continue to do it… I do not want to look like exploiting you or intruding or…” She sighed. “I don’t want to do anything offending. You and I know that this is not for pleasure but … does she?” Taleeze remembered how the then very bitter quarian had ‘offered’ Daia to her, like she would be a playtoy for her bondmate. By now she had become much closer to Ana and since her surgery the quarian had become more approachable and they had shared a lot of fun evenings as friends.

Rare and intimate as the share meld was between asari, it was mostly just mysterious and not fully understandable for outsiders. It was a facet of asari society that was rarely talked about in the open.

“I would want to share more with you, sister.” There was the whole Freh’ya issue, her troubles and how Taleeze had to deal with them, her own sorrows and thoughts and most important, feelings on everything. She had things to share alright. She would nontheless talk to Skylar and Freh... no, she would just share a bit of this. They would understand.

"I would," Daia nodded, smiling. "Not to 'educate' you - there's plenty more, but I'm sure you'd have more fun learning it the practical way with Freh and Skylar. Just... Honestly, since we first talked about this little session, I've been thinking about melding in general. It's not that I've been short on friends, but it's been quite a while since I shared this," she touched a finger to Taleeze's forehead lightly, "with someone, without... Well I don't want to say 'ulterior motives' like I'm ashamed of it or anything. But you know what I mean?" She gazed up at the faux-spacecraft-cabin ceiling, thoughtful. "It seems like not a lot of people do, anymore, other than sexually. Or professionally, therapy and the like. Or professionally and sexually, not that I'm against that," she chuckled, "but it's odd, how... defined it all is. Like there's only meant to be the one kind of intimacy, and anything else is just a, a process. As if..." She found Taleeze's hand and held it tightly. "As if this is a... less important kind of love."

She nodded again at the mention of Ana, smiling a little involuntarily.

"I'll talk with her about it," she replied. "She accepted this - tonight - easily enough. Give or take a bit of teasing," she giggled. "She knows what there is between you and me, but that doesn't mean she won't crack a joke now and then." She sobered a little. "It won't be a problem, I'm sure. If it were, I'd never put you in that position - I know you wouldn't want that. Or to 'exploit' me, even though I am damn hot." She laughed again. "Actually, melding - Ana and I - it's become more... open, more the breadth of experience now, than when you first met us. Back then melding was all we had, so it was... a way to recreate the physical side of things, to not have lost that completely. Now we're back to... well, the way we're meant to be, our melds are becoming more emotional, more about sharing thoughts and state of mind again. Not so much left unsaid - unfelt."

She rolled over and glanced at the bedside monitor - despite reporting their position as 'Ilos Excavation Site', the clock was showing Citadel standard.

"Should probably start thinking about heading back to the real world," she said.

Taleeze pressed Daia’s hand in return, just a weak physical expression but one that always held meaning from the escort. Was it that she could differentiate about professional and meaningful displays so well?

She chuckled at Daia’s explanation, out of relief.
“You see, I worry too much obviously. Yes, that first impression of you two still looms a bit, but you’re getting farther than I could see. I hope I can catch up on your development more when I come to Illium after this event. So I rely on your word on this.

You know, maybe we look like a bunch of old traditionalist to some when it comes to our asari ways recently.” She chuckled again. A lot of giggling and chuckling ongoing. “It’s how we are supposed to be though…. I think a lot more people… well asari mostly, should drop their reservations on some traditional ways of… interaction and society. You can read everyday how this and that is not supposed to be in a developing intergalactic society and we blend our own culture so much sometimes it is hard to differentiate. But I understand, it is very convenient for some. We should take more responsibility towards each other, towards other asari. And look at me and Skylar, I think we underestimate how interesting we can be for aliens when we follow our own ways.” She mused, the giggled. “Not saying every human should get his personal pair of loving asari though. But there could be more openness from both sides… well, you know what I mean.”

Following Daia’s gaze, Taleeze also noted the time.
“Goddess, I could lounge around with you forever.” Another giggle “But that would make a few people impatient out there.”
With a sigh she erected herself and grabbed the hoodie, pulling it over. Somehow a cozy hot bath seemed appealing to her now, just floating in water.