Master and Apprentice Start

The last couple days had been quite dramatic for Liara. First of all, there was the hectic rescue from the clutches of the Geth on Therum which was stressful enough, not even figuring in the exploding volcano at the end. But on top of that, she learned her mother had for some reason seemed to throw her lot in with a genocidal ex-Spectre named Saren who was obsessed with the Protheans. And to top it all off, the human Commander Shepard believed in the Reaper theory, because restoring the Reapers who were responsible for the extinction of the Protheans seemed to be Saren's insane goal. So all in all it had been a lousy week. Her mother was the evil sidekick of a super villain whose evil master plan validated Liara's extinction theory in the worst possible way.

Still there were a couple of bright spots. For now her theories would be taken seriously, though how this mission pans out would affect if they continued to be so. In addition, she was now in the presence of somebody with a Prothean archive jammed into their brain, and the possibilities there couldn't be ignored. Shepard seemed hesitant to accept her offer of a meld to try and sort out the information, but that was understandable. There was a tendency for other races to only view melds in terms of reproduction, as that was what they knew of best. Liara could just wait until Shepard was more comfortable with the idea.

As she sat alone and ate her sandwich, her personal time was still quite messed up from her time in stasis and it was well past midnight ship time, her private thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door opening, revealing Yang in her borrowed nightgown. As surprised as she was to see Yang, Yang seemed much more nervous to see her. "Yang, what are you still doing up? Did I wake you?" She thought she had been quiet, it would be quite rude if she woke up one of her rescuers.

"Oh no no no, not at all." Yang assured her, before moving to the fridge. "Just a bit of hunger for the late night munches...and Garrus hid all the food. Not cool." Slamming the fridge closed, she slumped in a chair across from the young asari scientist. "Just because I eat more than lizard boy he goes and hides the goods."

Liara was confused for a few moments before realization dawned on her. "Oh, I forgot you're dextro-amino. It's hard to remember you're not human."

"You think you have it bad? I'm surrounded by aliens that look like me that eat poison and picked the exact same word for their species as mine." Seeing Liara's shocked look, Yang explained. "See, it seems out of all the possible words in the universe we could have used, we both wound up calling our species human. My word for fish sounds like I'm mispronouncing some moon in their solar system, and I nearly wound up slapping Kaiden before Ashley explained that on Earth Brisbane is the name of a freaking city. We spent like two hours rigging up some stuff after that to prevent any profanity slips. And as vastly different as our moon to fish language is, we both wound up using the word human." Leaning back in her chair untill she was staring the ceiling, she sighed. "I swear, it's like the universe hates me sometimes. Probably should have spent more time at temple."

"You're religious?" Liara asked, gentle curiosity evident in her voice. She really didn't know much about Yang she had to admit. And now that she thought about it, she didn't know much about Yang's people either. Yang had been learning about the galaxy, but what had the galaxy bothered learning about Yang?

"Eh, not really. I'm saying I think that's part of the problem. It feels like somebody up there decided they don't like me. I mean, everything that's just piling up from me just being here, before you get into the crazy robot battles, is stressful enough. And then you throw in the poison mirror humans, and it just gets to be...gaaah! I feel like I'm just going to explode sometimes, this is so frustrating and confusing...sorry I'm venting."

"No no, it's fine. I know how stress can mess with your head." Liara assured her. "I wasn't in the best state of mind after having Geth working to kill me for sixteen days straight. Sometimes you just need to find a moment of peace to relax and not worry about the fact that your mother is working with a genocidal super villain."

"My mom abandoned me like a week after I was born...we think. She left me on Dad's porch and nobody's seen her since. Nobody knows the exact day I was born." Yang flopped forward, looking down as she just lay her body upon the table. "Our moms suck."

Liara put her sandwich down. She didn't feel like eating now. "You know what, forget this. Wait here." Getting up, she went over to a different cabinet, examining some bottles before bringing two back to the table, setting glasses next to them. "Here, this one's dextro. I say we drink until we stop thinking about our mothers and the stress stops trying to kill us."

"I'll drink to that." Yang said, downing a glass with only a slight wince. "Little dry, I prefer fruitier mixes. I probably get that from Mom, Dad likes his straight..." poring herself an even larger glass, Yang took another shot. "Take two."

"I never knew my father. Mother had a falling out of some sort." Taking her own shot, Liara hardly flinched. She'd had hard alcohol plenty of times in her life. She poured herself another measure, though she would be hard pressed to keep up with Yang who had already downed her third full glass.

"So yeah, I almost get my sister killed trying to find my good for nothing mom, all cause I wanted a normal family. I wanted a mom and the one I thought I had wasn't really mine. Now, now if I found her I'd just want to punch her in the face."

"You know, my mother had to know something was up. I normally message her weekly, or else she pesters me until I respond. She had to know what was going on. She didn't care that I was being shot at by killer robots."

"Well looks like it's take...twelve?"

"I think we're on twelve yeah."

"You know, you're very blue. Blue is a very pretty color."

"Thank you. I like your hair. It's shiny. Like gold. Shiny gold hair."

"Yeah my hair is great. The bottles are almost empty. We should finish them up, so it doesn't go to waste because it didn't all get used up till it was empty."

"That makes sense."

Joker smiled as he snapped the picture on his omnitool. This was too perfect. He'd gotten up late to go to the bathroom, and had decided to swing by the kitchen for a late night snack before he carefully lowers himself back into his specially cushioned bed, and what should he find? Liara and Yang passed out drunk in each other's arms, the end result of what appears to have been a drunk make out session that sadly didn't get much further or else he'd have even better blackmail material. He'd find some use for it after they hit the Citadel in a few hours. He'd have probably thought of something for Yang to do by then.

"So what will you not do anymore?" Shepard asked, a good deal louder than was necessary.

Yang, wincing and wishing she had her sunglasses and some earplugs, groaned. "Drink like mad a few hours before a mission or meeting."

"To be fair Shepard, it was my idea. Both of us were highly stressed at the time, and I figured a few drinks would help us relax. I...underestimated how much we'd wind up drinking before we started to feel better."

Massaging her forehead, Shepard sighed. She'd been getting plenty of headaches lately from her crews more...colorful members. She supposed she'd have to either adapt or burn out. "Liara, Yang has to present herself to Captain Anderson and Ambassador Udina in less than three hours at a meeting to discuss her status and position with my crew. I do not have time for her to have a hangover." Shepard smiled a little as the two winced. Yeah, she wasn't lowering her volume anytime soon.

Groaning, Yang drank another tall glass of water. "I get it, I messed up. I'm already helping flush out my systems, I'll be fine by the meeting...I still need to shower don't I?" the blond noted, realizing she was still in her borrowed nightgown. "Ahh, I'll get on that. Gonna need time to wash my hair...can we claim we were late due to space traffic?"
Shepard found herself massaging her forehead yet again.

"I can't believe you didn't give me time to wash my hair." Yang groused. Sure she'd had time to do a quick rinse with water, but she hadn't had a chance to give it a full wash for a couple of days. It wasn't a mantle of golden silk anymore, just a head of shining golden hair. While for many that would be the result of intensive care and professional aid, for Yang it was a step down. She didn't even had anything formal to wear, just her clubbing outfit she had arrived at the Citadel in. "I mean we have half an hour till the meeting, and according to the map on this wrist computer thing it shouldn't even take half of that to walk there." She glared at Shepard, her only companion. The rest of the crew had scattered off to do various tasks or have downtime, something Yang was looking forward to doing herself. She seriously needed to get some of her own cloths if nothing else, and Shepard had offered to give her a five hundred credit loan to get her basic supplies together. She wasn't sure how much that was, but it sounded like a decent amount.

"Okay Yang, three things. One, it's your own fault for sleeping in so late with a hangover. Two, I'd like to arrive a little early in order to make a good impression. And three, your time estimate did not account for that." Shepard concluded by pointing to one of her most dreaded banes. The Horror of the Citadel, the Ruiner of Schedules, and the Demon of Boredom.

"...Shepard I figured we'd be taking an elevator, we have them back home." Yang noted, not getting what the big deal was.

"You don't understand Yang. This isn't just any elevator. This is a Citadel elevator. People have spent thousands of work hours figuring out alternate routes to avoid them. People will literally forgo non-emergency trips if they must take one of these things. I think somewhere in Zerka Ward there is a cult which literally classified these elevators as the source of all evil in the galaxy. You're just lucky that you managed to avoid them on your first trip. But for security reasons, you have to take an elevator to reach the embassy area."

"...okay now I know you're messing with me." Yang smirked, entering the elevator with an exaggerated eye roll. How bad could it be?

Ten minutes later the doors of the elevator opened...or at least started to before Yang smashed them off their hinges in a bid to escape, charging out into the garden square in desperation for a couple yards before collapsing in a panting heap. Shepard found she didn't have the heart to berate her though, considering what they had just learned.

For Yang's species, it turns out that Muzak isn't boring elevator filler. Instead, it hits just the right frequencies to serve as audial torture. According to Yang it had been "like stubbing your toe repeatedly, but with your ears". Shepard wasn't sure if it was the lingering affects of the hangover that had caused the mess, or if that had only made it worse. Reaching the alien to check that she was alright, Shepard found a pair of glowing demonic eyes staring back at her.

"Shepard, I don't care how many laws I have to break. I am never getting in one of those things again. You're a Spectre, you said you can do just about anything right? Well, do something about it."

"Welcome to the Presidium. May I be of assistance?" the Citadel's VI chirped, oblivious to the mood of the two women in front of it.

Looking at Yang, Shepard sighed once again. "Yes, could you let Ambassador Udina know that his ten o'clock appointment will be a bit late." Helping Yang up, she assisted her over to a bench to sit down and recover.

"And if the ambassador asks for clarification as to the cause of the delay?" the hologram inquired.

Looking at Yang, Shepard broke out into the biggest grin she'd had in a while as she turned around and said with a totally straight face "Space traffic."