[Rori's of Nos Astra] Issues, Anonymous

In the year since the destruction of Illium's former capital, a few comforting familiarities had popped up in the former Nos Varda. Rori's of Nos Astra was one of them. No name change had been required, since Nos Varda had become Nos Astra (granted, the Board of Governors hadn't bothered to ask Nos Varda if it wanted to do so, but when the Board wanted something, they generally didn't bother asking). There wasn't a Rori's of anywhere else, as far as Ana'Therion knew, so presumably the name was just an attempt to sound fancy.

Regardless of that, it served the best affordable sandwiches in a twenty-kilometer radius. Hell, it was better than the less affordable sandwich shops, in the opinion of many. Ana wasn't one, since her dietary options were generally limited to paste, but she'd held a couple impromptu Envirometrics meetings there, and the prospective clients had seemed to improve heartily. So it was that, on today's lunch break, she'd headed down to Rori's and grabbed a tube of nutrient paste and a booth in the corner, waiting for Cerastes. After the fourth or fifth meeting, management had started remembering her (to be fair, she was a bit memorable), so at least she wasn't going to be thrown out for Loitering While Quarian.

Still, hopefully the drell would show up soon. She wasn't totally sure why she'd asked him out to lunch (it certainly wasn't out of the sunshine-like friendliness in her heart), and was not in the mood to try to figure it out.

Social calls were not Cerastes' forte.

Were he not a drell, he'd be able to fairly say that he couldn't remember the last time he'd gone out with someone for purely recreational purposes. As it was, it had been approximately two years, four months, one week, and so forth since he'd last met someone for, well, anything other than business (prostitutes not withstanding). This precedence led him to believe that Ana'therion's abrupt invitation had been born of need rather than the desire for company, and he'd dressed with said notion in mind, regardless of the fact that she couldn't see him.

A drell alone is enough cause for a stir, but a tall, white-scaled drell decked out in a well-fitted suit (with matching shirt and tie) was enough to draw more than a few stares as Cerastes strode into Rori's deli. Ignoring the attention he'd garnered, the broker cast a red-eyed stare over the other patrons; no, no, definitely not, aha! There, off to the side, was a quarian sitting awkwardly by herself. Cerastes, having recognized the pattern on her shawl (he'd done his research, per the usual), maneuvered towards Ana'therion's table; it took only a few strides of his long legs to take him there, at which point he paused at the tableside to address her.

"Ms. vas Nedas, I presume?

He stood curtly and waited to be addressed. The leg-brace on his left leg stiffened as he stood, reminding him how to properly balance his weight in light of the surgery.

The suit had made her aware that a large object was drawing close to her table, but quite a few of the wait staff had passed back and forth, and so it startled Ana a bit when Cerastes spoke. Well, faux pas aside, she'd had worse introductions.

"'Ms. Therion' works fine," she said, carefully rising from the table and offering the drell a nod. "Mr. Cerastes--" Augh, should've called him 'Mr. (surname)'. Well, no, she didn't know his surname. Unless it was 'Cerastes' and he kept his first name--AUGH. "It's good to make your acquaintance. Here, grab a seat."

Cautiously feeling her way back into her side of the booth, Ana settled in and brought out the nutripaste tube. "There should be a menu interface running on the wall side of the table, unless I picked one that's shorted out," she began, idly wringing the tube in her hands. "Feel free to order whatever you want from it - it's on me, and they make bitchin' sandwiches, so go hog wild. I wanted to thank you for helping me out with the coffee table, that was...an awkward situation. And I believe in tipping."

A pause.

"So yeah. Lunch."

"And you as well, Ms. Therion."

No protest arose to meet Ana's rise from the seat. Cerastes, having lived long enough with the burden of a disability, knew better than to protest; such remarks had always irritated him, in spite of their helpful intent. Instead, he instinctively nodded to her - wait, that didn't matter, she couldn't see it - and stepped to the side in order to slide into the booth seat across from her.

A quick glance to the side revealed that Ana'therion had somehow managed to locate the one booth in the restaurant that had a broken menu. Although he could have remarked upon it, Cerastes simply smiled awkwardly and glanced to the side in hopes of catching the eye of a passing server. Hopefully he'd be able to obtain a menu without alerting his company to her mistake.

"It's appreciated, nonetheless," he said, surprisingly smooth for having been so out-dated. The drell was still treating the occasion like a business outing, unaware that his company felt it to be a social call. "There's an asari vegetable called the 'limari' that I'm fond of, I'm sure you've heard of it. We'll have to see if they've got it on anything here..."

Lunch.

Yep.

Cerastes glanced from the bustling servers to the quarian across from him, allowing himself a moment to study her. It felt dirty; she couldn't follow his gaze, which made just glancing at her feel like an invasion of privacy. Given her profession, he supposed she wouldn't have minded either way, but propriety - rare as it was in the galaxy these days - led him to be conservative.

"What is it that you've been doing lately, Ms. Therion?"

She couldn't follow his gaze, but Ana'Therion could certainly meet it - over the time she'd possessed the sensors and haptic feedback, she had gradually learned how to interpret the input to as fine a point as possible. Often, from the way she could track people's general position while talking to them, it was difficult for the uninitiated to tell she was blind.

Well, until she did something like choose a table with a nonfunctional menu terminal.

"Making small talk, I see," the quarian answered, a sly note in her voice. "I'm reasonably sure you know already - it's your job to know things, after all, and considering how much information Daia gives away on the extranet--" The fingers on her right hand twinged with pain as she parroted her attacker's words. They'd been healing after she set them and stuffed the gloves to keep them immobilized, but still, that drell had done a number on her. "--that can't be particularly difficult. Still, I'll humor it, heh. I'm nominally the co-CEO of Envirometrics, officially in charge of requisition/transaction oversight and M&A. In practice, I'm basically my bondmate's glorified secretary, she's the real CEO. Does all the public appearance stuff and...you know. Anyway, we sell clean-room tech."

She wondered, idly, if Daia knew she was out. Probably; it was hard to miss her just disappearing from the office at lunch. That was, of course, assuming the asari wasn't too busy screwing Taleeze going out and having fun with Taleeze in a totally platonic manner, but it was hard to get anything by Daia. Hopefully she wouldn't worry.

"So do you do, like, digital information aggregators or is it the more old-school 'pay me for secrets' cloak and dagger stuff? I know data trafficking's become kind of lucrative in the past ten years..."

The smile remained, unseen though it was. Cerastes clasped his hands atop the glass tabletop and peered at Ana's mask, attempting to discern the features underneath. He had not, contrary to the majority of individuals Ana met, seen any of her prior 'work', despite the nature of his own profession. The thought of looking at someone in that way prior to meeting them was... unseemly to him.

"Mm," he rumbled in reply, his deep voice carrying well amongst the general chatter of the deli. "Small-talk has never done me a disservice in the past, nor has it now, evidently." A pair of pale hands reached up to straighten his tie as he listened to the rest of her explanation. He knew everything, just as she'd projected, but there was no sense in interrupting her, particularly since she had such a pleasant lilt to her voice.

When Ana had finished her explanation, Cerastes gave due pause. He would have done this normally, but the waiter had swung by, and he occupied himself by murmuring a quick order to him before answering. This was, of course, a perfect opportunity to give himself a few seconds to think before answering.

"'Cloak and dagger' is a particularly medieval phrase," he began. "I'm afraid knives are used solely in more delicate operations. However, if you meant to ask if I conduct business on a less-than-official scale, that does tend to follow the profession. Aggregates are well and good, but a personal touch does wonders to one's performance in the information relocation industry."

'Information relocation,' in turn, was an absurdly stiff way of putting it, but he had to follow the protocol when in public.

"Clean-room tech, that sounds interesting. Is this solely for purposes of reproduction?"

Drell had something of an advantage in conversations. There was a sort of low note to their vocal modulation that made it easier to listen to them than, say, turians. Ana had no idea if that was based in science, and if so what the specific effect was called. She was by no means an audiologist.

"Fair enough. I guess without the personal touch, I wouldn't have a new table, so here's to good business practice." Raising the tube of nutripaste in salute, Ana relaxed a little. See, he was easy to talk to. This hadn't been a terrible idea after all. She briefly considered popping it open and getting started on lunch, but it'd be rude not to wait until the drell had his sandwich.

"As far as the clean rooms go, no, not even remotely. I mean, I guess some people probably buy them for it, but there's tons of mundane uses for decontamination even without taking quarians into consideration. I mean, nobody does medical procedures without a full-blown clean room - that's standard procedure even for back alley surgeons at this point."

Idly, she wondered.

"What do you look like?"

"Mm. An important addition to any room."

Luckily for Ana, the food wasn't far behind the conversation. As she began to describe the many versatile uses of a clean room, the turian waiter returned and quietly placed a plate front of Cerastes. The drell muttered a quick thanks, but hesitated on starting; he'd always found it more polite to let the woman take the first bite.

He reached over and took a sip from his glass of water as he waited, his throat suddenly parched. Beneath the table, he stretched out his left leg and set it to the right of Ana's foot, just so that it wouldn't stiffen too much while they sat. The muscles were still tense, yet altogether delicate; leaving his leg in one position for too long made it difficult to stand again.

The frown that curved his lips dissipated as Ana spoke to him once more. As soon as he processed her question, he blinked his second set of eyelids, scales shifting thoughtfully on his brow.

"Well," he began, for once uncertain of how to answer, "I suppose the fact that I am a drell is ready enough, but... aside from that, I'm an albino - my scales are white, my eyes are red, and I've little pigment on my striping; a woman I knew once described them as 'cream,' but I can hardly tell the difference myself." Ahh, the downsides of testosterone. "I am six foot, two inches tall; lean build, I suppose."

What else should he say? Did she want to know about the scars, the burn, the shape of his nose? He'd never truly spoken to someone blind before, not in such a personal situation.

"I am uncertain of whether or not this is a cinematic stereotype, but if this is your way of asking to feel my face, I would find that acceptable, given the context."

"It is absolutely a cinematic stereotype, and no, while I appreciate the offer, it wouldn't do me much good. Envirosuits tend to block off any ability to feel ultra-fine details," Ana explained, feeling slightly embarrassed at the way her question had come across. "I mean, we get nervous system input based on the sensors, but unless you have a very high-end suit, it's not nearly enough to make out that level of detail. Also, I 'see' through tactile feedback as well, so that'd get in the way of trying to figure out appearances through touch...ohhh."

Embarrassment had suffused her cheeks, and with it came a twitch of pain. Not, thankfully, the deep and abiding ache that made it hard to sleep (and had necessitated a two-minute rest on a bench when she was halfway to Rori's from the office), just a small sting. The quarian sighed.

"White, huh? Sounds memorable. Is that much of a drawback in your line of work?" she asked, popping open the tube of paste and slotting it into her helmet. Leaning back, Ana stretched her legs, accidentally bumping Cerastes in the process. "Oh sorry, my bad. Because, I mean...well, actually, no, I guess you get your information through contacts, so nobody's going to be like 'huh, a white drell was asking around right before somebody sabotaged us'. Fair enough." A sip of the nutripaste quieted her for a moment. It was...bland, as nutripaste tended to be.

"It sounds nice either way."

Unfamiliarity was not a particularly common feeling for Cerastes. He thinned his lips slightly as his supposition proved to be wrong; adjusting to the sensation wasn't exactly pleasant, but he'd just have to get over it. At least he could pass his gesture off as a joke, if the worst case were to happen (which it very nearly had).

With this in mind, he took some solace in the fact that Ana was more embarrassed than he was. The drell took a moment unto himself to dive into his sandwich, which was... surprisingly awesome. His eyelids nictated twice in surprise before he took another bite, this one much healthier than its predecessor. Apparently, tall, socially-maladjusted drell could still harbor a phenomenal appetite.

"Not entirely," he replied after a swallow. His leg shifted as she brushed against it - was that intentional? "In general, it makes me a tad more recognizable in a positive way - people call me the 'pale' drell, liken me to a ghost, that sort of thing. Superstitious nonsense, but it works to my favor." Another chomp, another swallow. "I do a mix of fieldwork and database. Afraid I can't go into too much detail," he grinned, though she couldn't see it, "but it keeps things interesting."

The drell cast a questioning glance to her nutripaste. It looked awful.

"What do you... do, normally? Can you eat anything other than the paste, drink anything? Research is well and good, but it's much better to hear from the source, before you ask."

"I don't doubt it. I found out a while back that I don't really have the stomach for even remotely interesting life, heh. Or, well, I used to, but the whole quarian thing doesn't really hold up well in it."

Ah, Omega. The highs had been very high, and the lows had been...very frequent. She should probably regret those days, but the Citadel had actually been worse, and Illium was...well. It was a return to highs and lows. And so she looked back on those days with a little more fondness than she should, perhaps. Ah, to be young and idealistic again.

"Oh, researching me now, are we." Ana chuckled, though conservatively. Extreme facial expressions were a bad idea, given the scar tissue. "Well, assuming you mean the species, and not me in particular - it's arduous. Contaminants are a major health risk, so nutripaste and purified water are the standard. I mean, we can eat other dextro things, I've done it before, but they have to be prepared very specifically and you can't take them out of the seals until right before you eat them - which you have to do quickly. There's a purified soy derivative of ice cream I used to enjoy a lot, for example, but the company that made it went under somewhere around the time the Reapers wrecked everything." She swilled from the nutripaste again. "All in all, it's way too risky to do with any measure of regularity. Drinks are a little better - alcohol coagulates protein on contact so it tends to inhibit microorganism growth, and you can just drop in a purification tablet and then run it through a suit filter to deal with dust or anything non-organic."

She shut up for a moment. Talking that much at a time made her jaw hurt.

"...but the bottom line is that it's arduous."

"Arduous." He let the word sit in his mouth, sifting. Life had been anything but fair to Cerastes, but he'd at least had the luxury of not having to worry about everything he ingested. "I believe you've found the perfect adjective, based on that description."

Another grin went unseen, but it was just as well: the curvature of his mouth disappeared a moment later as he bit into his meal once more, nearing the end of his sandwich already. A few week's worth of intravenous paste, combined with the strange substances they'd called 'food' at the hospital, had sparked within him a certain hunger for anything bearing a semblance of flavor. The deli's offerings were more than enough for him at present, despite his preference for more expensive fare.

"So, essentially," he said, setting down the last two bites of his sandwich, "you eat mush and occasionally enjoy flavorless alcohol. Substance abuse is a possibility, as we both know, but it's risky at best; the cost often outweighs the benefits."

His hands clasped atop the table once more as he scrutinized her, this time inspecting the fine weave of her shawl, the construction of her suit. He couldn't see much else, but it would have been rude to look in front of her, even though she couldn't have known either way.

"Perhaps we should have gone to one of the 'college' bars," he rumbled, a loose attempt at humor. There was a pause; he decided to fill it with a question. "I'm afraid I am not personally familiar with your prior work, the cinema. If it isn't too forward of me to ask, was it more profitable than the corporate venue? Which is the more satisfying?"

"Keelah. I'm thirty-one, and you're however-much; I don't think either of us would fit in at the college scene at this point." Ana'Therion snickered a little at the mental image. "Although I don't know, by the time I got done with my degrees, I was almost twenty-six. Still, you can never tell with asari perceptions."

Popping the emptied nutripaste tube out of her helmet's induction slot, she stretched a little and let out a contented sigh. Bland though it may be, you couldn't fault the stuff for how filling it was. Thankfully, it was inside just in time for her to be a little surprised by Cerastes's question - a ridiculous reaction, because of course he knew about that. It was his job.

"Ahhh. Well, film was secondary to my session work," she answered. "I did, uh...eleven full-length pieces or shorts? You probably know the figure better than I do, with the whole perfect memory thing. But anyway, that was over five years of freelancing, right up until I lost my eyes and got burned. Otherwise, if I had the energy, I'd still be doing it--"

She swallowed. He had asked, and it was perhaps the straightforward nature of the question that pushed Ana to answer so honestly.

"--and I don't know if it was necessarily more lucrative than my current position, but satisfying? I..." Another swallow. "I'd give anything if I could go back, somehow. Chronic pain and blindness aside, I mean. That was the best job in the galaxy. There's something about dominating people, controlling them, being the center of their universe for a one-hour increment, that if they weren't paying me, I would've paid them." Something old and unfamiliar swelled in her chest, just a little. "It was perfect. It felt like an integral part of who..."

All right, this was a bit much. Tone it back, Therion.

"You get the idea. Maybe someday. For now, your answer is yes, it was my dream job. Wish I could've done it forever."

That had perhaps been a bit too forthright. Ugh.

Ahh, she wasn't too much younger than him. After working with Shirin for the past few months, it was refreshing to speak with someone closer to his own age group; Jil'korah was, of course, in that category, but the two men had brewed between them a certain animosity that would not lend itself well to casual outings. The thought of him, in his thirty-six years, lingering at a bar of young students was just as amusing to Cerastes as it was to Ana; he bit back a snicker at the thought.

"We'd stand out some, I suppose," he reflected. "The wonders a decade does."

When his quarian company began to speak again, Cerastes opted instead for finishing off the remainder of his sandwich. His eyes remained trained on her, though it was now out of genuine interest for what she had to say, rather than an inspection of her person. At this point, he was aware that the invitation was less than professional; although Ana might have labeled the luncheon as a 'tip,' even he knew it was a social occasion now.

... which was why it was all the more difficult for him to swallow the mouthful of sandwich when she began to describe her 'passion'. Cerastes cleared his throat, a strangely telling move on his part, and reached over towards his water to wash down the last of his meal. Maybe he should have looked a little more into her prior occupation before meeting her.

"It's the release," he countered, before he could stop himself. A pause. "... As I understand it, at least. You're giving up a part of yourself in the process of power-exchange, yes? A popular concept post-war." The drell ran a hand over the spines on the back of his head, glanced out towards the restaurant. Everyone else seemed so quiet, so... normal, in the light of it all. "It isn't all that unusual."

Well, perhaps it was a day of unnecessary forthrightness.

Subtle though Cerastes was, and despite Ana's inability to pick up nonverbal cues, it was difficult not to register that she'd caught him a little off guard with the intensity of her declaration.

"That's very astute of you, Cerastes," she said, smoothly transitioning into a first-name basis and suppressing the hint of something predatory that lurked in her tone. "With me, it was less 'giving up something' and more 'being entrusted with something', but yes, I think you phrased it very well." Yeah, that had been some very telling wording on his part.

With that said, it wouldn't do to embarrass him, and it absolutely wouldn't do to lead him on - that was a promise she couldn't fulfill anymore. So it was that Ana'Therion let that line of thought die where it landed, and smiled pleasantly at the drell. Not that he could see it, but smiles tended to shine through in a person's tone of voice.

"You know, I have to admit I was nervous about this," the quarian confessed, relaxing against the booth's cushions. "I mean, we were basically strangers, and from what I saw of you on the boards, I figured you were at least as antisocial as I've gradually become. So this was really kind of a shot in the dark. Drowning men and straws, and all that. But well, here we are, having a nice conversation. We understand each other and can relate fairly well, I think, and if you don't mind me saying, both of us are pretty easy on the ears. All in all it's been a very pleasant surprise so far."

She cocked the helmet to one side. "I think I'd like to be friends."

"Close enough."

Sight was unnecessary. Cerastes glanced instinctively towards the faceplate and was met with nothing, but he could feel something animalistic behind the suit. It was... both comforting and disconcerting, given the past month's events. Memories of a similarly-clad girl slicing into his kneecap sprung to mind unbidden and overcame him momentarily, his pupils drawing in tightly in light of the memory, the sound, the blood pooling at his feet as she hummed delightedly --

No, he wouldn't go there. Shut it off. He was at a bistro now, having lunch with a pleasant and very different quarian woman. There were no knives, here, no severing of the tendons, the flesh beneath.

The drell steeled his jaw and tilted his glass back, taking in the last of his water. A gesture towards the waiter indicated that he was ready for a refill.

"Such occasions are a bit of a mystery to me as well," answered the broker. Red eyes turned to meet the space where the glow of hers had once been. "I cannot promise I'll always be in this system, given the nature of my work, but should you find yourself alone wishing for company, I'd find the opportunity to fulfill that void promising, to say in the least."

His plate was empty before him, his glass waiting. He looked to Ana with a narrow, careful gaze.

Well, there you go. Sometimes gambles paid off. This whole crazy enterprise had worked out leagues better than Ana had been expecting. Truthfully, the best she'd been anticipating was an email with a polite version of 'kindly go away, overly personable lady'. It was heartening to get otherwise.

"I'd like that. Honestly, this was...spur of the moment, kind of," she admitted with a small measure of cheer. "I don't usually make social calls, especially not to barely-acquaintances, it's just that with my condition, I tend to spend most of my non-office time sleeping, or trying to. Combine that with the fact that I'm perhaps a bit more prickly than most, and I don't really get much interaction."

She'd reflected on it once, on one of those nights where a persistent ache kept her from drifting off, and concluded that loneliness was probably the second-most-prevalent theme in her life (right behind 'poor decision-making'). As far back as childhood, it'd been with her, through the Fleet to Omega to the Citadel, and now it was slowly settling in again. There had been brighter points - Thessia, her time with Daia before the Reapers came - but in retrospect, maybe they were just transitional.

"So...yeah, I'd like that. Daia's out a lot these days, working--" replacing me "--and I don't really want to weigh her down--" any more than I already have "--so having someone to talk to, especially someone as similar to me as you are, well. That'd be nice. As long as it doesn't interfere with your work."

Still, sometimes life was pretty swell.

A part of Cerastes was still waiting for the pitch. The closest he'd come to 'hanging out' over the past year was his initial meeting with Shirin, which had ultimately resulted in him getting kneed in the balls several times a few days later. Did it even count?

"You haven't been prickly," he chuffed. "Given the company I typically keep, you've... Well, in light of an uncomfortable simile, I'll just say you haven't physically assaulted me yet, and that that's become unusual for me as of late."

When the waiter returned with a new glass of ice-water, the drell took to it eagerly. Having something in his hands was oddly comforting; the glass gave him something to concentrate on other than the blank slate of the mask across from him. Quarians in general were a tad more difficult to read than other species (save for, say, the elcor), but Ana's degree had evidently trained her well in the art of body language. She'd given some hints over the course of the conversation - the way she leaned forward slightly when she talked was one - but overall, he was impressed by her cool.

Right, she'd probably want him to answer her now.

"I'll be planet-side for a while yet," he said. Perhaps he'd mention why later. "If you're interested, I can give you a more permanent means of contacting me. I've been staying at the Maison, I assume you know where that is?"

He hoped it didn't sound forward of him; the hotel would have a means for her to contact him.

Okay, he might have been propositioning her there. Fuck, this was one of those times where being able to see body language would've come in handy. They had discussed some things of vague prurience, maybe she'd gone a bit too far. After all, dissatisfaction was one thing; adultery (reciprocal though it may have been) was another altogether, and way out of the question. (Particularly when she had neither the energy nor the health to do much of anything these days. That was just unfair to Cerastes.)

Well, wait, no. Ana hesitated. He'd given her a temporary contact number before, and now the hotel would have a more permanent forwarding address. Of course. It was an innocent, if awkward, friendly gesture. Bullet dodged.

"That'd work," she answered, resting her elbows on the table and hooking her thumbs into the underside of her helmet. Fingers interlaced gingerly (the two fractured ones had mostly recovered thanks to the medigel, but no reason to put them under undue stress) as she appeared to study the drell. "I'll forward you my personal address instead of my business one; it's an easier way to get my attention. I like to keep the inboxes clear of any crossover." He probably did the same - Cerastes came off as the type who kept his personal life (if he had one) as separate from business as possible. Another way they were similar. Nice.

Ana breathed out contentedly. "Let's do this again sometime, then."

Ana'therion had just survived the curse of talking to Cerastes. Although usually, his typical, deadpan expression cleared any mistranslation, the drell had a terrible habit of sounding as though he was propositioning people when he was just being, well, socially maladjusted. He cocked a brow as Ana paused, waiting for an answer - had she changed her mind? It wouldn't be any scales off of his hide, but the past conversation would have been a waste of time if so.

Not that he had anything pressing to do. Catching up on the hundreds of messages he'd received while he was in the hospital was enough to keep him busy, but he'd be through with the list within the next day or so, and field work was out of the question while he was still in physical therapy.

Ugh. He had an appointment tomorrow afternoon, too; the exercises were frustrating, but the ability to walk again unhindered... it was worth it.

"I'm afraid I'm not in much of a position to entertain at present," said Cerastes, when Ana had finished. "If you're unfamiliar with the area, though, I could research... hrn." The orange screen of his omnitool flashed before him suddenly, his fingers tapping away at a holographic keyboard as he searched. Though Ana was unaware, Cerastes' right eyelid twitched with frustration as a colossal amount of strip clubs and brothels ran across the screen. Did asari do anything that didn't involve sex?

"... Right, apparently nudity is still very much a commodity here post-Reapers," he muttered irately.