[Sniper's Touch] Everybody Hurts (closed)

The door to the Sniper's Touch opened and a large bent figure entered, wearing combat boots, thick grey robe, hood over his head and a duffel bag on his back.

It was close to closing time so the place was almost deserted safe for some of the locals, the man lifted his free hand up and removed his hood, revealing his face. Nex was, for a lack of better word home, because he wasn't sure what he had seen back on Solregit, but, with all things considered he came to the conclusion that the place he considered home had turned into something far more alien than The Touch. What a difference a couple of years make.

He rubbed his eyes as if trying to wipe the contemplation away, and stepped forward.

It's quiet, and most of the live-in members of the hall are indoors. The cafe is deserted, save for two figures sitting at a table near the door - the hooded shaman, and Trex.

"It was a warning shot!" Trex says hotly.

"What part of do not fire until fired upon do you not understand?" Raelon retorts, irritated. "That does not mean warning shots only. That does not mean shoot to wound. That means do not fire."

"That thing went off in Tango's face."

"And that thing was a gun."

Trex is silent.

"I didn't know what it was," she mutters.

"That's right. You didn't know. You weren't sure and you took a shot anyway."

"I was protecting Tango."

"This is the Citadel and that makes it more dangerous when you're us. You can't shoot someone on probable cause or gut feeling. You have to be sure. And yes, that may mean we're more at risk, but that's the price of living here."

"I don't like it," Trex argues, as though her disapproval could change the entire legal system on the Citadel.

Two heads look up as the door opens.

"Nex!" Trex squeals.

Nex straitens up, he somehow managed to grow even more.

“Trex,” his voice is soft, there's a weary edge to it, his mandibles flutter for just a second. He looks at the shaman, and nods solemnly.

“Shaman.” He looked back at Nex, “am I interrupting something?”

"Yeah," Trex blurts, "A totally boring lecture..."

"Trex," Raelon says sternly.

"We can finish this later, right?" Trex asks.

"Of course. And you're banned off weapons until then."

Trex's face falls. She looks ready to argue. But Raelon, quite clearly, is done.

...Be careful what you wish for.

The shaman turns his attention to Nex. "It's good to see you again," he says, "I wish it were under better circumstances."

“Trex, ya should listen to ya Shaman and elder.” He said, “unless they turn out to be barefaced pieces of shit.” There was a lot vitriol in the young turian's voice

He let a sigh and turned back to the Shaman, “I'll need talk to ya, Shaman, our hall is gone, and… and the souls need a new place to call home, as does the soul of the hall itself. I'm hoping to find a place for them here, if you think that's possible and all.”

Raelon's jaw drops for just a moment as he understands the magnitude of what Nex is asking of him.

"I'll have to ask Vindi," he says, "but I doubt she would say no." The next question he asks very delicately. "Were you able to bring a physical anchor?"

Anything bad enough to decimate a hall would probably also destroy the soul tags of the fallen, perhaps even the hearthstone. Sundowner religion strictly stated that at least a fragment of the hearth stone had to survive to give the spirits of the fallen a beacon to home in on. But Raelon was not about to tell a devastated young warrior that they were all lost, if even the hearthstone was gone. Raelon did not believe in any Spirits that would be so petty as to condemn fallen comrades to the void because of a tragedy in the mortal realm.

This is heavy stuff. Trex feels unsure she should be listening in on it. "Do, um, do you want me here, Nex?"

“Yeah, I got something Shaman,” The turian lifted the large duffle bag off his bank and placed it on the ground with a very heavy thud, “It took me some digging, but.” Out of it he produced the two large charcoal black shards of the hall's hearthstone.

“They shot down ships above the village. One of them things struck the hall, rending it in pieces, but there was no fire.”

Once the stone lay on the floor, he grabbed inside his bag again and pulled out a large collection of soul tags.

“They managed to save many of them, especially those in the back, ya know... that's enough for them to find their way back right? I mean the ones who don't have a tag still know where they should go 'cause those who do show the way?” He looked hopeful towards the Shaman, then to Trex, “of course I want ya to be here. We'll talk in a bit, but this is important.”

Without the heavy weight, both figuratively and literally on his back he could once again stand up straight, confirming that he had indeed undergone another growth spurt.

Raelon has no idea if the spirits belonging to the salvaged tags can guide the others - he really ought to do some more formal training on Solregit one of these days - but it sounds logical enough and what good would it do to tell poor Nex otherwise? "Yes, yes they can. Seems to me any Sundowner worth the name would be a guide for his kin."

He takes the tags with reverence, and crosses the room to a large trunk sitting on the floor underneath the altar shelf. "Bring the hearthstone - it will keep safely until we discuss with the Chief." Raelon is hiding the fact that he probably can't lift the two pieces of stone himself.

Trex sits back and watches. It's only now sinking in to her just how lost Nex must feel. She tries to think of something similar in her own experience and recognizes that she really doesn't care about the destruction of Kubla Khan on Omega. She doesn't miss Quatra. She doesn't miss the staff, or the regulars. The only one she really cared about was Raelon, and he's right here, with her.

She suspects she might miss her birth father, and does her best to stop thinking about that entirely.

Raelon turns to Nex, "Have you been eating? I think there's some spicy wraps left in the kitchen."

Nex heaves both slabs up and rests them on one shoulder each, then follows the Shaman, “Well,” he says as he places the pieces of the hearthstone where Raelon indicates.

“I could eat something, but I'd like to add some more spice to the wraps,” he leans in, not wanting to offend the cook.

“I' ain't complaining 'cause now, they're good eating here, but, I always felt ya 'spicy wraps' ain't all that spicy, they taste like them come from the big city.” The 'big city' was still, even after his stay on the Citadel, any town with more than a two hundred inhabitants.

“'corse if ya don't have any I'll eat them like is, like I could eat something and Xee always said to never say no to a free meal. Maybe Trex could join me?”

Trex is actually grateful for the safe topic. "Are you kidding? Those things will light your face on fire."

This is not an accurate statement; Nex is correct, Vindi cooks her food for general consumption, meaning that the average Citadel turian would find the wraps spicy, but not intolerably so, while Sundowners want to know why their national dish has been neutered. More honest would be that those wraps light Trex's face on fire; she can't even handle general-audience spice. The sad truth is that she cannot eat more than the tiniest dusting of spice without turning purple, drooling uncontrollably, and pawing at her burning tongue.

It is a shameful thing.

She likes Nex enough, though, to reach under the bar for an ornate bottle with a long stem to the lid and handing it to him. "Here. Genuine Solregit hot sauce. I know it's not the same as baking in the spices, but if you really want something that will strip the flavour out of your food and replace it with pain, this is for you."

Again, a bit of an exaggeration - if Nex's tastes are at all like Sicaria's, he will find the food pleasantly tangy, while the average Citadel turian suffers.

Raelon brings out a tray with spicy wraps for Nex, xemna slivers with dipping sauce and crispy roots for Trex, and for himself, a vile-looking slurry in a big mug. Whatever that stuff is, he sips it through a straw and looks content.

There's silence followed by a boisterous chuckle.

“C'mon Trex, these things don't even tingle without sauce!” And he gratefully accept both the hot sauce and the tray, “Thanks shaman.”

He adds some hot sauce, tastes, then some more, tastes again, and so on until he finally gets some semblance of spicy flavor. It would always be a mystery for Nex, and probably most of Sundowners, why city-folk didn't want their food to have flavor.

“So,” he says between bites, “what's been happening while I was away?”

Trex scowls. "Vindi has a stupid boyfriend. His name is Arx. He's Hierarchy and he used to be a prison guard. Now I guess he works in logistics which is how the Hierarchy says paper pusher. On behalf of my dad, I hate his guts."

..."My dad used to be Hierarchy too but he got better." Or something. Something bad enough that someone comes around to check up on him. Trex used to think that guy was his black-ops handler, but maybe he's a parole officer? Could her dad be an ex-criminal?

She hadn't got a lot of sympathy on CDN, either. She got a lot of advice to go get her own boyfriend and leave Vindi alone. She examines Nex across the table - that had sure gone wrong, hadn't it? She'd had a friend, with benefits if she'd wanted them, but not a boyfriend. Not the fantasy she'd built up in her own mind.

Looking at him now, at his obvious fatigue and loss, she wondered if it would really be so bad of her to give him what comfort she could, instead of arguing that he wasn't everything she'd hoped he would be when she met him.

"And if you want to shoot afterwards, I'm banned off guns." She says this challengingly, looking at Raelon as if hoping he'll deny it.

He nods instead, pressing his mandibles together. Yes, she is still grounded from firearms.

She growls under her breath.

Nex considered her words, and wiggled his mandibles when he noticed her looked at him. There was a question that was nagging at him, and true to form he blurted it out once he realized he had such a question.

“What the hells did ya do anyway, they don't take guns away without good reason, did ya try to shoot this Arx guy, and what will ya do with ya time?”

Trex glares at Raelon. He's staring off into space looking at something only he can see. Probably watching porn on his heads up display, she thinks. Or maybe that's just what he wants her to think. Raelon likely knows far, far more than he ever lets on.

But whatever. She looks at Nex and answers, "I was supposed to be emergency insurance on a mission. Someone was hassling one of Raelon's friends. The creep tased Tango and so I fired a warning shot over her head. I was told I was only allowed to fire if either ordered to fire, or one of us were fired upon. I assumed that tasing Tango counted as fire, and took the shot. Apparently it didn't."

She scowled.

"I've got my dad teaching me hand to hand combat. Keeping him, and me, too busy to be depressed at least some of the time."

“Though call,” Nex said with a shrug, he wasn't about to try and get Raelon to change his mind.

“Still, it's good ya know some hand-to-hand, just in case.” The man could eat, his plate was emptying quickly, “how's that drell doing? The one who's always riding me about junk she doesn't understand.”

"Kayana? Good. She got a job. She's happy about that." Trex pauses. "She's a bit busy now. Her husband's back in town and she's also hanging out with this other guy, a blue drell."

....Did Raelon just react to that statement, or are those flickering lights a signal of some download finishing or something??

Trex doesn't care. "And I've been kind of sticking around here keeping watch on Vindi. Also I don't know if I like her husband much. He had a baby with another woman and didn't tell Kay until super late and apparently they have an open marriage, which means it's apparently okay he was screwing this other drell, but I....look, does this make any sense? She says it's okay, he says it's okay, but I don't feel like it's really okay at all. She should have known about it before he did it, not after a FRIGGING BABY comes of it." Her hands form into fists. "And then I say do you want me to shoot him, and Kay is like sure, and then she's like "no wait not really." And I was like "what do you THINK I meant?!"

Raelon opens his eyelid at that comment.

Trex scowls at him. She's already in the "no guns" hole, so what does she have to lose?

Nex tries to follow alone but Trex' stream of consciousness regarding her friend makes it difficult.

“... why would ya have a marriage if you go sleeping around, maybe it's a drell thing?” Aliens were strange after all, hells, even hierarchy turians were often hard to understand, “maybe she's screwing the blue drell, like she can't have kids with the red one so she sleeps with blue? Or something...”

“But one thing I don't understand, well one of the things you told me I don't understand, is why she would have known about the kid before he did? And don't go shooting people on the Citadel, you'll get yourself in trouble.”

"No, I mean he knew about the kid first, he just didn't tell her until after it was born, and that seems like waiting a long time. She's more mad that he told her on a public forum because I guess she has enemies. Or drell do. Or something. She won't tell me much about that because she's afraid I'll start a fight, or shoot someone, or something, and that hurts, you know? It's like the biggest insult you can give us - tell a Sundowner you don't trust them to defend you."

Her eyes well with tears.

"I just...I didn't want Tango hurt, and I miss being a sniper and getting respect and having punks be scared of me. I'm just a kid here and I hate it."

“The asshole,” Nex aid between mouth full of wraps. “That's not how ya do it, 'specially when ya're in danger. And she should welcome all the help she can get.” He reached over the table, which was frightfully easy for him, and place a claw on her shoulder.

“Ya did what was right, nobody saying ya wanted to do wrong, but you know, orders are orders. Anyway ya be 15 soon enough then ya can do what ya want, don't understand those stupid rules anyway, why wouldn't you be able to fight one day and fight the next just 'cause its ya birthday.”

Trex thinks about his words, and then with a sidelong glance at Raelon - who seems back in that world of his own, contentedly drinking his abominable puree--she picks up her chair, moves around the table and sits right next to Nex.

"Can you keep a secret?" she whispers as she leans over and puts her head on his shoulder.