[h3][center]Getting Drunk At An Office Party, 600 Years Ago[/center][/h3]

They had the same sky on Tuchanka. He supposed they must have. Perhaps the stars were a little different, the atmosphere a little dustier. But still, fundamentally, the same sky: the same slither of a view into the sprawling cauldrons of creation. The vast and shiftless dark, deeper and more mysterious than the stillest of waters, older than time. Worlds had come into being and turned to dust beneath it, Tuchanka amongst them. And yet, out in that endless ink-coloured stretch of shade… fire. Dust. Smouldering clouds of silver, and white, cast to the windless void like embers beaten from the cosmic steel, the stuff of galaxies. Swathes of star-spangled sky, shining unattainably bright, and far. Broken up only by stretches where the sky burns primordial red and blue, bruises on the face of reality. And one glares more so than any other. Calling. Beckoning. [i]Daring.[/i] 

[i]”Andromeda.”[/i]

And this had always been true. The sky had always been infinite, an inviting chaos of explosive brilliance and depthless murk. But it had never seemed that way, so full of potential and portents, until he had seen it in Revixtia. She had changed him.

[i]”They’re looking for volunteers.”[/i]

Kargad looked away from his drink when the applause struck up, but hadn’t heard a word. He’d been somewhere between here and a year prior, listening to Revixtia sell him on this adventure, instead – pitching him his own dream, but in words far more eloquent than his, and concise than hers. For an instant he panicked, looked for somewhere to put his drink, then hastily slung it back- weak enough to be water, anyhow- and pinched the glass between his teeth so that he could clap along. 

This lapse in attention hadn’t escaped his company, either. His daughters- the two most wonderful Asari in this room, barring none- exchanged a concerned glance across his front. To his left, Kalayla rested a hand on his shoulder, and then gripped it firmly. 
[color=#A4A8C5]“You alright, dad?”[/color]
[color=#D54122]“Hrfmf?”[/color], Kargad turned to face her. He opened his mouth to respond, but winced when the glass he’d been biting struck the floor, and shattered into glinting edges. 
[color=#D54122]“Ah, uh. Geeze. That looked sort of expensive, do you think that was crystal?”[/color], he fussed, scratching at the side of his face, [color=#D54122]“One of us really should’ve, uh. Caught that. Biotically, I mean.”[/color] 
[color=#A4A8C5][i]”Dad,”[/i][/color] Kalayla pressed on, [color=#A4A8C5]“Are you doing alright?”[/color]

Kalayla was almost the spitting image of her mother. A freckled, heart-shaped face the colour of heather, and a nose both small and slightly darker than the rest of her. The only compromise was in her eyes. He and Revixtia shared green eyes, but in Kalayla he knew for certain hers were his. Revixtia’s stare was intense, it betrayed her nature, but Kalayla’s were soft. Thoughtful, as, Kargad flattered himself to think, his were. In this instance, they were full of sympathy. 
[color=#D54122]“What?”[/color], Kargad snorted, defiantly, [color=#D54122]“I’m doing [i]great.[/i] I just don’t like parties, is all.”[/color] 
Kalayla tilted her head forwards, and looked up at him with an empathetic scepticism: [color=#A4A8C5]“Are you sure?”[/color]
[color=#D54122]“What’s with the interrogation, all of a sudden?”[/color], he shot back. He reached up, loosened the frankly [i]ridiculous[/i] looking bowtie he was wearing, [color=#D54122]“Krogans don’t do black tie, that's all. I want my armour.”[/color]
[color=#A4A8C5]“I think you look good in a tux, Dad,”[/color] she needled him with her elbow. He raised his brows at her, unimpressed. All three of them had to admit, he [i]did[/i] look spectacularly foolish. 
[color=#A4A8C5]“It’s just one night.”[/color]
Kargad’s shoulders slumped, and he sighed irritably: [color=#D54122]“Our [i]last[/i] night. Just put me on ice already.”[/color]
[color=#A4A8C5]“Dad. It’s okay to-”[/color] 

[color=#D8BEF7][i]”Oh, by the Goddess’… c’mere,”[/i][/color] his second daughter, Faoria, interjected. She was shorter than Kalayla, but built a little broader, too. She had a narrower face, and although she still had freckles, they gathered more about the bridge of her nose than anything else. Her eyes were blue, but [i]definitely[/i] her mother’s all the same. Without fanfare, she had seized Kargad by the shoulders, and turned him to face her. Then, Faoria leapt up into the air- no small feat, in heels- and smashed her forehead against his crest as hard as she could manage. 

He wished he could’ve said she got her quad from him.

The crowd of people drinking and chattering immediately around them stopped for an instant. It was quiet enough in that small sector of the room, Kargad was certain he’d heard his glass shattering again. Faoria landed with a band of dark purple across her forehead, a bruise she would probably still have once they docked in Andromeda. 
The silence hung for a few seconds… and then Kargad was laughing. Nearly crying with laughter, in fact – doubling over himself, just as both of his daughters were, in a frenzy of belly-born cackling. He felt his shoulders heaving, his jaw stinging – his tuxedo popped a button, which just made them laugh more, and harder. 
People opted to give the loud krogan surrounded by broken glass a little breathing room, dispersing as he recomposed himself.

After he’d caught his breath, Kargad flung his arms up and around his daughters. The pits of his tuxedo tore. Faoria hugged him with the one arm, whilst Kalayla simply put one of her hands over his. 
[color=#D54122]“I love you girls.”[/color]
[color=#A4A8C5]“You too, dad,”[/color] Kalayla replied, simply.
[color=#D54122]“But I am also going to get spectacularly drunk tonight.”[/color]
[color=#D8BEF7]“We know,”[/color] Faoria assured him.
[color=#D54122]“And then very emotional.”[/color]
[color=#D8BEF7]“Mhmm.”[/color]
[color=#D54122]“And then drunk again. There’s a pretty good chance I’m going to cry.”[/color]
[color=#A4A8C5]“That’s okay.”[/color]
[color=#D54122]“A lot.”[/color]
[color=#D8BEF7]“…”[/color]
[color=#D54122]“Like, [i]so[/i] much.”[/color]
[color=#D8BEF7]“Uh…”[/color]
[color=#D54122]“Hoo boy, it is going to be a [i]mess.”[/i][/color]

He cried his way up the ramp the next morning.

[h3][center]Eos, 15 or so Salarian Generations Later (hah!)[/center][/h3]

 Eos was as golden a world as any Krogan can dream of. A sand-swept jewel in the heart of an alien galaxy, all russet sierras and cinnabar sand. Above, a stretch of clear, clean blue – and all beneath it, pure air and inviting sun. [i]This[/i] was what Kargad had come for.

Or it was a good start, anyhow. He had never had the fortune of knowing a Tuchanka where the air was not a strange saccharine with the stagnant scent of death, where the sky was not bruise-yellow and the sand scorched to brown glass. But he liked to think this was what it must have been like, in the days before his most foolish ancestors. Perhaps they were twins, in a sense – formed in the same way, at the same time, by the same ever-expanding and all-inclusive thought. Products of the same celestial heartbeat. 

He pondered that often, as he wandered the desert immediately adjacent to Prodromos. He would do it in the morning, when the sand was warm but not quite yet hot – and he would do it bootless, to feel the grain shift beneath his feet. The first Krogan, maybe, to ever leave barefoot tracks on a Golden World… here he was, making a small change to the universe, but a change nonetheless. Once he was done walking, he would usually find a rock- the biggest he could- and sit atop, cloud-watching. Certain, just as he was that he still drew breath, that Revixtia was some part of that great, endless blue. They'd had a sky like that on Tuchanka, once. He supposed they must have. 

It was one of those mornings. A bootless walk through the wastes, with a hammer slung over his shoulder and a tuneless song on his lips. He’d spent the sunrise whomping spitbugs and kaerkyn into fine mush, as he would often do when he found himself a little homesick. They were hardly [i]klixen,[/i] but it was cute that Eos was accommodating for his preference of wildlife, anyway. He was about to slug one of them back into the Oneness from which everything came, when suddenly:

[i][color=orangered][B]FORM UP OUTSIDE: 10 MINUTES[/B][/color][/i]

Form up outside? Outside of wh-
Oh.

Kargad didn’t have his boots or his gun, what a professional [i]embarrassment.[/i] He was easily five minutes out of Prodromos, too. 
[color=#D54122]“I can make it,”[/color] he grunted to himself, puffing out his chest, [color=#D54122]“I’m only 480-young, and in the best shape of my life!”[/color]
He jabbed his hammer at a kaerkyn he’d had underfoot, his heel on its back. It scrambled desperately.
[color=#D54122]“You got lucky today, brother, the universe doesn’t want you back yet.”[/color]
Then he pulled his hammer back, yelled, and sent it sailing back out into the desert in a burst of mass effect fields and sand. 

To the rest of Prodromos, going about their day, it was probably a bit of an odd sight when Kargad got back. 400 pounds of Krogan sprinting between the prefabs, panting, sweating and yelling to himself: [color=#D54122][i]”Shit, shit, [b]shit!”[/b][/i][/color]
He bolted right [i]past[/i] Sabinus and his companions, cursing still, and erupted into the barracks. He kicked his locker open and pulled his M-96 up into his arms, before dropping it onto his bed. Then, immediately filled with guilt, he scooped it up, kissed it, and put it down on his pillow instead. Then he rescued his boots from beneath his bed, and wrestled with them for a few instants before finally getting them on. 

[color=#D54122][i]”Ahh yes, now my boots are full of sand – everything is going according to plan.”[/i][/color]

When he finally came stumbling out to greet the trio, it was bang-on ten minutes. He breathed heavily before them for a few moments- winded more by the panic than he was the effort- and then straightened up as much as any krogan could, and side-glanced his comrades. They were saluting. Should he salute? 
He did, but he did it with the hand he’d been holding his hammer in, and so was visibly straining with the effort of maintaining the gesture. 
[color=#D54122]“Bragus Kargad, uh. Krogan, of... Bragus. Dad of two. Nice to meet... you. Hello.”[/color]