[Citadel / Illium] Concerning Boys

Daia tapped a correction into the piece she was working on - a one-shot guest column for Illium Alternative Tech Weekly, not an especially prestigious or high-circulation periodical, but Envirometrics was no Sirta or Armali Council, and any publicity was worth pursuing - re-read the revised sentence to herself, pondered a moment, reversed the change, then looked slightly relieved when Sasha appeared at the office's VI terminal. Formal writing wasn't her strong suit, and whatever the distraction was, it was welcome.

"Oui?" she asked.

"Request-for-connect from Vindi," the VI replied, unphased by Daia's eccentricities. "Interstellar two."

"Respond affirmative and connect when ready, thank you." Sasha nodded and disappeared, and Daia spun her chair and stood to face the side wall, which blurred into a floor-to-ceiling holographic display, currently showing a Citadel waiting-to-connect intermediary loader. She smoothed out her dress - today's was one of the midriff-baring top-and-skirt strappy combos, with an unusual asymmetric cut - and waited. The moment news had come in - trickling slowly through low-band comms buoys, with the relays out of commission - that the Citadel had survived, Daia had begun searching for word of all her friends, contacting those who had made it, mourning those who hadn't. But brief messages only said so much, and life in Nos Astra had been so busy... Daia was looking forward, more keenly than she might have expected now she came to think of it, to actually seeing one of her friends again.

Vindi is not a poet. She would not recognize the Shakespearian quote that best describes the image that appears on Daia's screen:

But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

The image that looks back at her is not a shy girl in velours. Daia is greeted by a chieftain.

Vindi has shortened one of the traditional fur capes into a cropped throw that rides on her shoulders and hits at mid-back. Tailored to her shape, she no longer looks like a child playing dress-up in clothing too big for her. She's wearing the traditional Sundowner vest, sleeves cropped to reveal her prison tattoos on her left arm, some new markings on her other: under the skull and crossed rifles is a slim five pointed star, perhaps a flower, perhaps the Citadel, lit in blue. Over the skull is a solar disc, but not the Sundowner emblem with its mexta and gun--a five pointed sun, something new. The buttons on the vest and pin on the cape are gold, matching her prosthetic mandibles, but perhaps the biggest change is in her eyes. She no longer looks as though she's pleading for approval. She's welcoming Daia into a home that is hers.

"It's good to see you," Vindi says quietly. "I'm glad you survived. Sicaria is..."

She pauses, thinking. "Missed here," she decides on.

It's possible to miss a person without condoning their behaviour.

"And I'm glad that Miss Ana is with you. She was a great help to me."

"And here," Daia nodded soberly when Vindi mentioned Sica. "She was a dear friend." She had been many other things, too - some Daia had only thought she had accepted, so long as they remained comfortably abstract and non-specific. After four hundred years she should have known better, but she supposed people were always people, always fallible. The fault had been hers, not Sicaria's - and ultimately, it hadn't mattered. It had been difficult for Daia to accept what Sica had done, and to accept that, loyal to the Hierarchy out of her father's ideals and her own, she had to also accept the Hierarchy's right to seek justice for Sica's victims. But she was Daia's friend, and Daia loved her as such - even the Hierarchy would not demand she do otherwise.

"Ana sends her love," Daia went on, more cheerfully. "She's across the other side of the city this morning, where our factory floor's set up, or she'd pop in to say hello. Having adjoining offices is a sizeable perk of the job."

She grinned, trying not to get distracted by the memories of various ofice escapades that, by virtue of the adjoining door between hers and Ana's suites, nobody in the rest of the HQ had known about. The couple's sex life now occurring more or less entirely within the confines of their melded minds hadn't slowed them down so far as variety went. Daia pushed the thought aside - until Ana arrived back in the afternoon, at least - and studied Vindi's image.

"It's very good to see you, Chieftain Dettica." There was no amusement in her tone as she used Vindi's formal title - light-hearted warmth, but beneath it genuine respect. "And running to be Mayor, too - we've had Denakot flagged in the newsfeeds we get from the Citadel, so we've seen the reports that have been posted. You'd have our support if we lived there. You do in any case, of course, but I don't know that the Citadel's going to take the opinions of a couple of Illium-dwellers into account on the night."

She chuckled, then glanced at Vindi's attire.

"You went ahead and shortened the cape, I see?" she said with a smile. "I retract my earlier statements about full-length capes - it looks good on you."

Vindi gives Daia a little smile. "Truth? It's hard to look chiefly when you're tripping over a cape. And when there were Cerberus and husks crawling everywhere, I had more pressing things on my mind than looking where I was stepping. I cropped it then, and, well....it worked for me."

She peeks up at Daia's image, looking shy. "Do you...do you mind if I turn this diplomatic-grade translator off? I know it makes me sound more eloquent, and mature and so forth, but I feel a bit...dishonest, trying to have a personal conversation with this device filtering everything I say." Her chin ducks further, as though she's trying to hide her blue-tinged cheeks, and she peeks up at Daia with intense emerald eyes. "I guess you get this a lot, huh, important people trying to be just people in your company."

But Daia's contacted her as a friend, not as a customer, and that means a lot to her.

"Fashion should be functional," Daia agreed, joining in Vindi's smile, while she put thoughts of Cerberus and Reapers out of her mind. Illium had suffered its share, and still bore the scars, but Daia couldn't imagine the hell that those on the Citadel had gone through.

She blinked in mild surprise when Vindi mentioned her translator - normally, except for very expensive models, her trained aurals would have noticed the telltales of a filter, but Envirometrics wasn't in the league of the transstellars who could afford full-band FTL comms channels. The stacked-compression holo she was seeing Vindi through was a good substitute, but not quite the same.

"Of course," she nodded. "And, yeah, it happens. Even when the important people have their pants off, which you'd think would be more of a social leveller." She chuckled, then put the thought aside and focused on Vindi.

"So," she said. "I remember what you wrote, but tell me, just off the top of your scalp - what's worrying you?"

Vindi flicks the translator setting and when she speaks again, she sounds much less formal, as one would expect of a girl with only a basic education. It takes her a while to speak at all, though--she's too busy flicking her mandibles and blushing at the idea of appearing before Daia with no pants on.

"I, ah, well, I've kind of sorted out one of the things that was in my head when I made that thread on the board. The part about feeling weird for liking a boy. I guess because my first girlfriend was a girl doesn't mean I can only ever like girls, and that if I like a person, and think they're attractive, then that's okay, and it doesn't matter if they're a girl or a boy. And I just realized how silly it is to say that to an asari." Her mandibles begin to flick madly as though the gold metal had a life of its own.

"Okay so I guess my next question is..."

Vindi chokes. She looks at Daia, pleadingly, uses her own hands to control the mandible flicking but can't stop the blue blush on her cheeks.

"I just realized it's totally stupid to ask you how to seduce someone," she blurts, "because everybody who makes an appointment with you already knows they want to have sex with you, or, you know, at least do sexy things with you, I doubt you have to, like, talk them into it, and stuff....."

Her face is just burning. She looks at the floor.

It's not impossible that Daia might want to work her wiles on someone, either for personal enjoyment, or to stir up more business, and it's this thought that comforts Vindi as she manages to cough out,

"Can you tell me how to seduce someone?"

Daia gave Vindi a reassuring smile as she explained her progress. It was true that, to the average asari, the matter of gender tended to have a much more fluid impact on the landscape of sexuality and romance than it did among other species, but Daia knew better than to underestimate its importance. For that matter, it was ultimately just another way of identifying oneself, and while the nuances may change, asari grappled with their identities in not such a dissimilar way as everyone else. Daia was impressed by what Vindi was saying, how capably she had dealt with what had obviously been a very daunting issue not so long ago - but then, Vindi was an impressive woman.

"Not so stupid," she gently corrected, as Vindi moved on to the incongruity of asking her advice on seduction. "Even in 'business', people like to go through the motions. Knowing where you'll end up just takes the pressure off. And," she added, unaware Vindi's thoughts were running along the same lines, "I've had occasion to legitimately seduce people in my time. And failed entirely and wound up looking like a goof sometimes, too. It happens to all of us," she grinned, "but luckily it's not the end of the world."

She took a moment to compose herself, sitting on the edge of her desk, hands loosely clasped in her lap - attentive but casual, not too formal, but, she hoped, not contributing any further to Vindi's obvious unease.

"I'll help if I can," she offered. "Seduction is... It's a strange, crazy adventure, really. You can decide exactly how to go about it, and get nowhere, and then again you can turn around and find out you've done it completely by accident, without even realising."

She chuckled softly.

"No need to say it: not the most helpful advice. It's true, though, there are no hard and fast rules, apart from the old cliché: be yourself. I know, everyone says that, but it's one of those clichés that got to be that way by being one hundred percent true." She gave Vindi a gentle look. "Tell me, this guy who's lucky enough to have your attention - how is it, when you see him? What sorts of things do you talk about?"

Vindi gives Daia an incredulous look, and a grateful smile. "Crash and crumple, you? Well...I guess...well, you're awfully pretty, like Ahsaala, she works for us in the range, I think there's only like once or twice anyone ever told her they weren't interested and she gets so huffy when they do, she's married and faithful now but still such a flirt and being shot down gets her all mad, I mean she's a really good looking turian, but I guess nobody's lucky all the time, no matter how pretty they are. I mean I guess sometimes you're just not a person's type, and there's nothing anyone can do to change that."

Feeling a little better, Vindi continues. "So, um, so the guy I like..." Her mandibles gently flare, in, out, in, out, sending gleams of light into the camera lens. "He lives at the range, and he's one of the guys not the least bit interested in Ahsaala, which made her say he was either gay or dead, and her money was on dead..." Which was uncomfortably close to the truth of a philosophy of an elite black ops unit who called themselves xuzam, "dead men."

Vindi isn't sure she's ready to divulge that secret, not yet. "We, um, we talk about shooting...we run the sniper sims together, and take turns as spotter and sniper..." That innocent comment suggests the gentleman in question must be deadly indeed if he's of Vindi's calber. "...a lot of the time I feel like it's me babbling on about whatever and him just listening, but he seems happy that way...for work we talk about improving the range's security and our disaster response plans and how to keep the business going and now we talk about improving Denakot too..."

She's smiling when she talks about him. "And Trex, that's my half-sister, she says the creepiest thing is when we sit down to dinner together and we don't actually say anything. She says she's watched us greet each other, inquire after each other, comfort each other, share a meal, and communicate what we're going to do afterwards, without ever talking. She says it's like watching a wordless conversation and it's creepy." Vindi peers up at Daia, "I don't think it's creepy, it's nice. I feel safe. And happy."

Clearly the person she's set her heart on is someone she already spends a good deal of time with.

"I, um, the problem is he doesn't date. Anyone. He used to have a girlfriend and I'm pretty sure he's not gay, but he hasn't gone out with anyone in years. And I'm afraid that when he looks at me he sees, a little sister or something. Someone for him to humour and protect and look after. And when we met I guess that's what I kind of used to be. Especially because I had someone at the time. But things are a lot different now."

Daia grinned and nodded at Vindi's incredulity that she had ever 'crashed and crumpled'. It wasn't uncommon - understandably - that when the subject of seduction and sexuality came up, people tended to unconsciously see her as operating on a different level, which in turn could make conversation more awkward than it needed to be. A reminder that, even when it came to fanning a potential admirer's flames, they were all just regular people, and had all shared the same ups and downs, often defused that, and Daia was glad to see it having that effect now.

"Okay," she nodded, when Vindi had finished her explanation for the moment. "From an outsider's point of view, you'll be relieved to know that it sounds to me like there's plenty of reason to be optimistic, at least. From what you've described..." She paused a moment, smiling as she quickly ran the descriptions back through her mind. It was obvious she wasn't untouched by the warmth in Vindi's words. "You're close, you communicate well, he enjoys your company clearly... this seduction, then, it's not about creating an interest, just transforming it from one thing into another. Which... isn't necessarily easier, but at least we're getting somewhere. Like I said, seduction can be a baffling thing - take the little victories along the way wherever you can."

She chuckled, adjusting her seating on the desk - shifting a little further back, so her feet didn't quite touch the ground, and tapping her fingers quietly against the desktop. With her lower legs idly swinging she looked something like a schoolgirl, all cheer and carefree optimism. The sophisticated dress didn't quite fit the picture, but Daia would have been the first to admit she was a contradictory creature.

"If you're right about how he sees you," she said, " - and the situation may not be so bad, what we see in people and what's really going on inside them can be quite different. Except when you're melding, but by that stage questions like 'do you maybe want to go out on a date?' are quite a ways in the past. What was I saying? Right, if he sees you as a little sister, as you say. You know him well, I certainly wouldn't rule out what you're feeling. That can be... difficult."

She frowned, mulling the question over.

"The thing is - this is theoretical, but at this stage it all is, so heigh-ho - perceptions like that can be a lot stronger than we think. Especially our own perceptions, and we may not even realise how strong they are. Not to arbitrarily get your hopes way up, but you know, he may be utterly entranced by you, but in his mind you're so firmly wedded to the 'little sister' identity that, consciously, he just isn't making the connection between 'If only there was more between me and Vindi' and 'so go do something about it already'. People get very attached to how they see others, what they believe others to be. Understandable: we're all strange, wonderful, confusing sapient beings, always surprising one another - trust me on that, even when you've fully melded your mind to someone else's, the very next moment you can still discover something entirely new. One of life's little miracles." From her smile, it was clear that - confusion regardless - it was a miracle she was very grateful for.

"So, any time we've actually got what seems to be a solid impression of someone - an idea of who they are, how they fit into our world, that seems to more or less work... the urge to hang onto it can be pretty strong. It's difficult enough figuring people out, without continually throwing out all your theories and starting again just in case. So those impressions, once they're formed, they linger. Even when there's evidence to the contrary staring us right in the face."

She thought a moment longer, then raised her chin, evidently having reached a conclusion of sorts.

"Question," she said, "regardless of whether the answer is 'yes' or 'no', how do you think it would be for him, if you just straight up put your cards on the table? Choosing the right moment, of course - somewhere it's just the two of you, no distractions or interruptions, but casual, not putting pressure on him. But if you and he were sitting there, together, having that wordless conversation - safe, happy. And you simply said, I'm attracted to you. Or however you want to phrase it - they should be your words, but don't agonise over it, simple is good. I'm attracted to you," she repeated, leaning forward slightly - her demeanour was much more relaxed and quiet than the magnetic sensuality one in her position could no doubt turn on if she wanted, but even saying the words simply by way of illustration, there was a moving sincerity in her voice that gave a glimpse of how she would be difficult to resist, if she put her mind to it. "Your friendship means the world to me, and if that's all you want I'm a fortunate woman, but if you'd like to see where we might go, too...?" She leaned back, smiling. "Just by way of speculation, do you think that's an approach that'd work? It wouldn't necessarily put him off, or throw him into confusion, anything that'd get in the way of getting both your feelings out in the open?"

Vindi nods. That explanation does make quite a good deal of sense--that Notras is so used to looking at her as the little colonial girl, lost on the big Citadel--as Voxil's wife--as a fellow sniper--that he's not looking at her as a woman, a woman who is interested in him as a man. That he prefers to think of her as one of those older, pre-established identities. But the idea of laying her cards on the table almost takes her breath away with the sheer contraction of her insides and the sense of panic that washes over her. The sensation of losing him, of losing what they already had. "He'd freak out," she blurts.

Her eyes well with tears. She's not being entirely honest with Daia and as a result the asari's advice is coloured, tainted by the fact of its being built on a partial foundation. She's going to have to come clean, and it's going to hurt.

"Daia," she chokes, "what if it is a case where you're melding with someone but still don't know if they'd want to go on a date with you...I mean....what if it takes a fucking Reaper knocking on your door to make him look at you as a woman and what if he doesn't hardly talk to you for like weeks afterwards... She draws in her breath on a sob, and, as though that intake of air is just too much for her body to contain, something's got to give, and it's her eyes. They well over with tears, hot salty tears that trace the zigzagging red facepaint on her cheeks.

"And then a Brute gets him and he tells you to leave and you do, you go with your people and you leave the most important person to die, except he doesn't die, the blue light comes and he's in the hospital and you're holding vigil and he'll hardly talk to you and then you get busy rebuilding only it's only half busy and the other half is avoiding each other and it takes months to fix, he's acting all weird and it's months before you can hug him and more months before he hugs you back and it takes a year to get him to go out to the movies and put his arm over your shoulders...."

She draws in another deep breath.

"Please don't tell anyone, please."

Another surge of tears. They begin to drip from the tips of the golden mandibles.

Daia's eyes widened in surprise as Vindi's composure washed away on a tide of raw, painful emotion. Separated by light-years, there was little she could do - no way to reach out a calming hand, even a hug if it seemed like Vindi would have accepted it, and Daia didn't want to speak until her turn. As agonised as it was, Vindi's revelation was something she had obviously decided she needed to say, and the only comfort Daia could offer her was to allow her to get it all out without interruption.

"I won't," she promised with conviction, when Vindi asked for her silence - on that point, at least, she could set her worries to rest. "You have my word." She bit her lip, wishing she could offer something more than words - but that was all she had to work with.

"It's okay," she offered gently, as Vindi struggled with further tears - feeling inadequate to the task of soothing her, but hopefully the fraction of comfort her voice alone could give would be enough, combined with the considerable inner strength she knew Vindi had. "Take a moment..."

Wondering where to begin, she let Vindi compose herself as much as she might, then ventured on.

"When it is the case that you've melded," she echoed Vindi's repetition of her own metaphor, "and you're still not sure... Well, you know the answer already: it makes things more difficult. Not impossible, but... I don't know that there are straightforward answers here. It may simply be a matter of time - of waiting, being patient. Not an easy thing to do, but," she shrugged slightly, giving Vindi a sympathetic look, "sometimes there's no easy way. Just hard, and harder."

She certainly wasn't telling Vindi anything she didn't know already, but if the truth was hard, it could still be a comfort to know one wasn't alone in recognising it.

"There are... several possibilities," she went on, choosing her words. She had no wish to upset Vindi further by dwelling on obviously difficult memories, but Vindi had come to her for advice, and bared her soul in the process - she deserved whatever help Daia could offer.

"Being in the situation you were in... it's hard to imagine anything more stressful. Even with the whole galaxy looking down the barrell, the Citadel had the worst of it, at the end. So... Another cliché, but another time the cliché is true, in stressful times, people's perspectives change. He may have been driven to you for reasons he didn't fully understand at the time - that, without the situation around you two, he may not have acted on, not at that time at any rate. That doesn't mean it was a mistake, for either of you," she hastened to add. "Sometimes people reach out under pressure, and that's all it is, but sometimes that isn't all it is - it isn't for you, and I don't see any reason to assume it is for him, either. The rapport you have, the communication, that's special. When something like that happens..." She managed a tentative smile. "You never rule anything out, then. You make your own rules."

She didn't want to give false hope - people reaching out under pressure was very true, and it was far from uncommon for them to have difficulty grappling with their confused feelings and perceptions afterwards. But it was obviously a delicate situation - even accounting for Daia's natural optimism, she felt it was only right to leave as many options open as possible, rather than start assuming things wouldn't work out.

"But it could be a long road back," she continued. "Perhaps, if he did act without entirely understanding why... He may feel he shouldn't have, that he ought to have resisted the impulse. People often do, even when the impulse is good, simply because it can be difficult to let our emotions have their way with us. We like to think our reason has the final say, even when it doesn't - when it shouldn't, sometimes. It can be difficult to admit, and if that is a concern he has, it may be keeping him from listening to the part of himself that's telling him he didn't do the wrong thing."

She paused, inviting comment - Vindi knew the man, and even tied in emotional knots as she obviously was, she was still likely to make the better guess at whether what Daia was suggesting might hold any water. There were still other aspects to address, but one thing at a time. Daia had wondered if what they were moving towards discussing was seduction at all, but perhaps, in a way, that was exactly what was needed.

Vindi scratches the tears from her eyes, leaving glistening claw marks on her cheek plates, but by the time Daia is done talking , Vindi is nodding along in agreement.

"That makes sense," she says. "I remember I felt weird for a while afterwards because....well, my first thought was, I'm a lesbian so it wasn't fair of me to lead him on into thinking I could be romantically or sexually interested in him, it was just a war thing, because we were both stressed and scared. That was weird enough, because, um, I've been stressed and scared and in wars before and never, you know, just fucked anyone before to deal with it. But it was a reason that made sense at first, until I realized that I actually was romantically interested in him, and, um, sexually too, and those feelings weren't going away just because the Reapers were gone. They were still around and getting stronger, and then I had to overhaul my self-image and try to wrap my mind around the idea that even if I didn't like boys in general I liked him in particular and wanted...um...you know...and that it was okay to want it."

She was quiet for a moment. "I also felt kind of guilty because, well, we were good friends. And if you take a lover and then it doesn't work out, you can go your own ways, but I was afraid I'd ruined our friendship for a quick screw, and that it was, I don't know, a lack of respect. We didn't actually talk about what we were doing. We were trying to wash up and clean our wounds and the next thing you know....it was kind of out of character for both of us but...I'm not sorry."

Daia nodded understandingly, glad to see Vindi's outpouring of emotion abating. She wondered how many others Vindi had that she could talk to about something like this - the fact that they were having the conversation didn't necessarily mean there were none, but the way her tale, and her fears, had come pouring out like the tears they brought with them was a testament to their having been walled up inside a lot of the time. Vindi had already been a leader - a chieftain - when last they met, Daia reflected, and now she was running for civil office too. It didn't take the clue of the translator she had been using to see that the role demanded a careful modulation of her visible personality, and that sort of thing was a burden for anyone.

"That's about what I would have suggested," she noted with a faint grin, when Vindi described the process she had gone through to deal with what had happened. "I'll tell you something, apart from the war - which, granted, is a big 'apart from' - it was somewhat similar for me and Ana. When we first met... don't get me wrong, it was great, but it was casual. We met, we talked, joked around with Harrad and Cour until they left, then just the two of us... And we went our separate ways afterwards. It wasn't a matter of feeling weird, like you did afterwards, but we both had an idea of what it was we had shared, and we stuck to that idea. Even though it was wrong - what we shared was two people meant to be together finding one another, but it took us both time to figure that out."

She laughed softly.

"Bit of a recurring theme, no matter the people, the culture, the species - love is confusing. But that's the crux of the matter - you love this man. He loves you, too - as a friend certainly, as more, possibly... So here we are, how to reach him? From what you said he was clearly as thrown by the whole experience as you were - happening the way it did, in the middle of the war, the Brute... But he's reaching back to you. It's slow, but he is, so there's hope. And I think, in all likelihood, this 'seduction' is going to require a lot of patience." Perhaps, she reflected, not as difficult a piece of advice to Vindi as it might be to another - Daia was no soldier, but she knew well enough that any sniper worth a damn knew the value of patience. Still, love wasn't war - despite the oft-cited connection, and the undeniable parallels here and there - so waiting, especially more waiting after so long already, wasn't likely to be a walk on the beach for Vindi.

"I think perhaps," she went on, "it's a matter of what you show him - how to draw the attraction into the open, without spooking him. The direct approach is off the table, alright - likewise anything too overt, too blatantly seductive. Starting to show up for lunch in Myerras Jonu dresses would freak him just as much as if you sat down and said 'So, when's the sex happening again?' He's grappling with the same things you did, likely enough - from his own point of view rather than yours, but the experience probably isn't that dissimilar. He needs to be encouraged to close the gap between you, not confronted in a way that backs him into a corner where the only options are commit or escape.

"So, think about how he sees you - what it was about you that drew him to you, that time. Because," she shook her head slightly, "the way you describe it, I'd definitely agree it was more than just the stress of the situation and the fact that you were there. That person, that woman he desires, is you - a part of you, an aspect, along with the friend, the comrade, the chieftain, the sniper, the range owner... It's not about putting on a set of clothes, or an attitude, that gets his interest, it's about getting him to see the aspect of you that he wants, like you want him. Give him space, and don't neglect the other parts of youself, because he loves them too - but make sure he sees the woman."

She smiled, then gave a shrug, a kind of rueful apology.

"Not so much on the concrete, easy-to-follow guide to seduction, I know," she admitted. "But if it was that easy, he wouldn't be him, and you wouldn't be you. It can be about how you dress, how you hold yourself, how you act around him - but it's got to come from you, if it's going to work, so ultimately all those things are secondary."

"You really think he feels guilty? Because..."

If she were drell, she'd be hit with full solipsism now. Even as turian, the memory is exceptionally vivid. She remembers struggling so hard to summon enough courage to ask if she could try his rifle. She remembers the look he gave her, that strange mixture of surprise and disapproval and shock and mistrust and pity. She recalls how Hanol said he never spoke to anyone, how he'd actually strongarmed Hanol into hiring her. When he looked at her--did he still see that mutilated little refugee girl? Did he still hear her awkward stammering that she'd go have a burger with him as long as it was clear they weren't on a date?

"Ohhhhhh."

She bites her lip. "Now I'm thinking it might be easier to steal one of Ahsaala's fabulous dresses and, you know, pad the hips or something...."

Vindi looks up at Daia, "How did you get Ana to start thinking about you as a serious mate?"

Daia waited patiently as Vindi paused, her eyes suddenly looking at something other than the present. If she'd learned anything about giving advice during four hundred years, it was to shut up and let people give themselves advice when the moment took them. As always when it seemed her conversation had produced something fruitful, she was simply grateful that she'd managed to poke the right thought to get the ball rolling, and didn't feel the need to keep explaining just to hear her own voice some more.

"Tell you what," she suggested with a smile, a moment, "if you decide to go that route, I'll send you a dress for the occasion - call it a thank-you for the hospitality, and the food, last time we met. No padding needed that way - trust me, you won't need it, it's all in the tailoring - and you won't have to worry about Ahsaala finding out and trying to steal it back right when you're getting somewhere."

Wrestling with another woman, especially with attempts to remove clothing involved, wasn't entirely out of the question as a method of attracting male attention, but in Daia's experience it tended to work better when everyone knew it was pre-arranged, rather than impromptu. Not quite the path she'd have advised Vindi to take in any case.

"I... was lucky, in a way," she admitted when asked about Ana. "I was still coming to the realisation of how deep my own feelings went, and I wasn't sure she felt the same way. I knew she liked me, enjoyed my company... was exceptionally pleased for us to be lovers," she grinned, "but, beyond that...? Doing what I do, it's not easy to form a relationship the way other people do. Exclusivity is a difficulty - it takes a certain kind of strength, a certain insight, to believe like she does. That even though, as an escort, I have sex with a lot of people, and I really do enjoy it, I'm hers. Not just 'hers outside of work', but... that how I love my work doesn't subtract from how I love her, how complete that is. That's a difficult thing to grasp, and for me, a difficult thing to ask of someone."

She smiled faintly, as if looking back at herself in amusement.

"I wasn't really sure what to do," she continued. "I took every opportunity to be in touch with her, to pique her interest... this," she touched the slim collar around her neck, "she sent to my hotel room, after our first meeting, as a memento, I took to wearing it all the time. She liked that." The asari's fingertips lingered on the silver 'M' set into the black leather. "But, I didn't know how to put what I was feeling into words, to tell her... Honestly, I didn't know it myself, whether it was an infatuation, whether I wanted to continue to see her as a lover, or, more. 'More' won, in the end," she grinned, "but it wasn't really anything I did. You remember Ana resigned from the directorship of the Anhedrax Centre, and went into treatment herself, to help her deal with what had happened to her on Omega? That was the day after I had my little party, for the ship I bought, and I saw her then, and later that same evening. She gave me a dress, as a ship-warming present, and," her eyes were bright with the memory, "I thought it was only fair to let her see what it looked like on me.

"While she was undergoing treatment... it was difficult for her. As rough as Omega had been on her - losing her home there, nearly being killed, it took a great toll, especially when she'd first gone there to try to help people, to do good..." As lies went, it was close enough to the truth, simply omitting the worst of it. "She needed to put all that behind her, but the kind of person she is - determined, strong - needing treatment, a virtual stranger to help her deal with it, and giving up her career at Anhedrax into the bargain... It was difficult, and I did all I could to help her, to be there for her. Silly things," she laughed quietly, "sending her these long letters, vids of myself so she'd have something to watch, random video diary kind of things, recordings of tennis games - it's a Terran sport, I'd got into it a little while before we met - all sorts of things. And just writing to her, and visiting when I could. I wanted... I wanted, whatever she thought of me, however she felt, I wanted her to know that I'd always be there for her, that she could depend on me, no matter what.

"One day there was a letter from her saying she loved me - she'd fallen in love with me, and she didn't know if I wanted that too, but she couldn't hide it anymore. And I replied 'yes'. Actually, that was a really long letter too, but it started just 'yes', I couldn't think what else to say then."

The asari slid off the desk onto her feet, giving Vindi a friendly smile.

"Like I said, I got lucky," she said. "I got her attention, I bumbled around not quite sure what I was feeling, not quite sure how I wanted her to see me, just letting myself do whatever seemed like a good idea at the time. And through fate, perhaps, or the galaxy having a kind sense of humour, or maybe just blind luck, here we are."

A dress?

A dress just for her?

Vindi hugs herself, wondering if she dares say yes. No squishing into something taken from Ahsaala, designed for a far taller, more angular form than hers. She....well, her waist is actually pretty supportive, it's just harder to see it with her skinny hips, and the fact that she covers it up all the time...

"Um...okay. I mean sure. I mean yes, I'd like that very much, but, um...."

What's a nice way to say this? "I could never walk around half naked like so many people (including you) do?"

"I don't think...I can't wear anything too, um, revealing," Vindi stammers. "I, um, I do want him to notice me, but I think...."

Her voice gets softer and softer.

"I think I would totally freak out if some other guy noticed me."

The very thought makes her feel queasy. She'd get nauseated if she thought about it at length. If she's bi now, why does the thought of other guys touching her gross her out? She tries to imagine it being women, instead, and that just makes the nausea worse--creepy strangers pawing her, ogling her, trying to get into her pants. She shudders and tries to think about something else instead.

Something like Notras, and lying next to him running through one of the sims, sniper and spotter, feeling his heart beat against her shoulder blade, his breath against her nape.

The thought comforts and settles her, and strengthens her, all at once.

She needs it, considering who she's talking to. "I'm glad that things are working out for you, Daia. I think...I think if I had your job, Notras would be camped out on my roof with a sniper rifle hoping to ruin business for me."

"That'd slow business down, that's for sure," Daia agreed, laughing. The expressions ghosting across Vindi's face briefly hadn't escaped her notice, but they only agreed with what she had already surmised. Daia herself quite enjoyed being 'noticed' by virtually anyone, excepting those individuals who couldn't help but be tzuholes about it - Vindi obviously didn't share that sentiment, but if she found happiness in her own life, what was the need for her to change?

"Don't worry about the dress," she promised. "I have just the thing in mind. Contrary to popular belief, I do have a sense of decorum - you have to know the rules before you can have fun breaking them, after all." She tilted her head, grinning briefly, but then her smile softened. "Anyway, anything you didn't feel comfortable in just wouldn't work. Nothing gets attention - from the people you want to get attention from, the ones worth your time - like feeling good about yourself."

She pictured the dress in her mind, nodding slightly at the thought. Nothing from the selection she was familiar with from work, obviously - Vindi herself would be up on the roof with a rifle if she'd tried to outfit her in one of those - but she had had spent plenty of time with generation after generation of her uncle's descendants, including some young men and women who, if they hadn't mirrored Vindi's exact circumstances, were at least close enough in general social outlook to be good examples. A dress like the one Kaliah had bought when they'd been out shopping together that time in Sarlik, that would be perfect - and a token of good fortune, as well, since Kaliah had selected it for a date with the man who would become her husband.

"Expect a package, then," she concluded brightly. "I'll send it from the office here - what with running for office, you can probably do without getting mysterious packages delivered from a cabaret club on Illium, so we'll avoid that."

She chuckled, then, with a glance at the desk clock, straightened slightly.

"I wish we could chat longer, but I'm afraid I really have to get back to work," she said, with genuine regret. "Nothing scandalous either, officework, if you can believe it. What's the galaxy coming to..." She grinned. "It's been lovely to talk to you again. Good fortune to you - with the range, the run for mayor, everything."

Vindi beams. "Thank you, Daia, that's great! If you're ever back on the Citadel...I know it's a lot harder to travel around these days but if you're ever here, come by....meals are on me and if you have any interest at all in firing some weaponry I'll get you on the lanes."

She clasps her hands in front of her. "This makes me feel so much better, I really appreciate it. Thank you again, so much."

A year and a half ago she'd been so wary of Daia solely because of her profession. Vindi had looked beyond prejudices, and this was the result. If she ever questions her philosophy--whether she's being naive or foolish or gullible--she knows she'll look to this friendship as a reassurance that she's doing it right after all.