"Get [i]up,"[/i] the asari urged her for the third time, with an even more forceful shake of her hookup's shoulder. 

The young human, her beauty only [i]slightly[/i] marred by the open mouth and trickle of drool upon the chic pillowcase, stirred feebly at the imagined assault on her sleeping form. Her eyelids only rose, with great reluctance, at the implicit tingle of biotics that made her hairs stand on end and roused her to wakefulness. Her eyes rolled back into her head sleepily for a moment, with a yawning [color=8882be]"Huh?"[/color] as she sat up and rolled her shoulders. Her black hair fell into her face, and when she lowered her arms she parted it over her forehead with a sleepy grin at the owner of the apartment she'd shacked up in for the night.

[color=8882be]"Ahh, hey,"[/color] she yawned again, craning her chin up and her neck back until she heard a pop. [color=8882be]"Breakfast already?"[/color]

"You need to [i]go,[/i]" her one-night stand said forcefully, the telltale blue aura of a biotic wave slowly dissipating around her right wrist. "Now. My bondmate is getting off work in an hour, and she is never, [i]ever[/i] going to know you were here."

[color=8882be]"...Oh,"[/color] the human mumbled, reaching over her shoulder and scratching her cocoa-colored neck half-heartedly. [color=8882be]"You're really shouty this morning, huh. Do asari feel bad dreams worse than we do or something?"[/color]

"[i]I[/i] didn't sleep at all. [i]I[/i] was up half the night listening to you playing [i]Galaxy of Fantasy[/i] next to me in bed. On a work computer, by the way, all that traffic goes back to the asari embassy. So thank you for [i]that[/i] headache this morning."

[color=8882be]"Okay, alright, I get it..."[/color] Lorena Aaliyah Negasi grumbled, standing up and scanning the floor of the apartment for her clothes. Through the window that stretched along the length of the bedroom wall, she could see the hustle of Citadel traffic; something in her tired mind sent off an alarm, warning her that she had, indeed, made her commute to her new assignment that much harder on herself. Her plan had been to pull an all-nighter and leave a few hours early, after some drinks and some fun at a club here in Tayseri Ward. Tayseri was an asari-dominated arm of the Citadel where drinks and fun seemed to come cheaply. But asari were much nicer at night, when they were looking to blow off some steam on humans they thought guileless, than they were when it came time for those humans to hit the road. She was learning that lesson to her chagrin now. Her punishment for drifting off in the middle of a game, she guessed. Her eyes located her outfit near where she had left her packed bags.

[color=8882be]"Is it cool if I at least shower?"[/color] she asked, stifling another yawn as she padded over to where she had drunkenly left her clothes six hours prior. The asari's eyes followed her as she walked, which only reinforced the smug, if only semi-conscious grin on the human woman's face.

"No," the asari said firmly nonetheless, as Liyah lifted her clothes up in an artless pile under her arm and began sorting through them. "I don't want you leaving hairs in my shower, she'll figure it out the second she sees one. Volus have an eye for details like that."

[color=8882be]"Wait, she's a lady volus?"[/color] Liyah asked curiously, pulling on her pants legs. The asari's lips - [color=8882be][i]mmmm[/i][/color] - retraced the last three words incredulously; she couldn't have looked much more shocked if Liyah had told her that her bondmate was killed in a traffic accident that morning. The human shrugged defensively as she wriggled the previous night's shirt back on, fingering the small stud in her navel just south of where her top stopped covering skin. 

[color=8882be]"I've just never seen a lady volus!"[/color] she protested. [color=8882be]"I just didn't know they could be a thing. ...Why would she check the shower, then? How does the shower situation work around here? Actually, how does that work when you two-- "
[/color]

[i]"Get out,[/i] Lorena."

[color=8882be]"Ahh, ehh...actually, just Liyah, I don't really like when--"[/color] she started, before the asari put hands on the small of her back and began physically guiding her towards the door. When she was in front of it, Liyah dug her heels in for just a moment and turned back. The asari had used Liyah's alabaster jacket as a buffer between her palms and actually being forced to touch the skin of the human she'd spent the night with, and when Liyah was within a boot's distance of the apartment's exit her one-time lover relinquished the jacket back into Liyah's waiting arms as though it were poison. [color=8882be]"Okay, okay! Just really fast--you [i]did[/i] log out of [i]Galaxy of Fantasy[/i] before you turned the computer off, right? You're really not supposed to turn it off without logging--"[/color]

[i]"Out."[/i] The teal fog of death had begun to congeal around the asari diplomat's arm again, and Liyah, taking her final hint, performed her walk of shame with arms raised placatingly all the way to the elevator, back to a CRT station. 

[hr]

Thankfully for Liyah, the cab ride to Bachjret Ward required little effort on her part apart from staying awake. Even if that had been a problem for her by the time the cab arrived, the view of the Citadel, even from the lens of stop-and-go traffic that she viewed it through, was more than enough to keep her transfixed. She had thought herself no stranger to the congestion and bustle of space stations, but even Tayseri Ward alone was busier than ten Arcturus Stations. And that was the seat of Alliance power! 

Whenever she got too sick of looking out the window at the same skycars, she made idle chatter with her cab driver, a gruff turian who she nonetheless managed to charm out of his shell after a few minutes of earnest questioning about the volus sexuality and gender spectrum. It turned out the confusion that the idea fostered in her was galactic, not just limited to her ignorance as a human on the galactic scene. That made her feel a little better, even if afterwards she started to wonder if the turian had really been ignorant, happened to be an idiot, or was just fucking with her. She liked the idea that they were all equally stupid. 

Her driver seemed skeptical that she had the district name right, and to prevent herself from looking like a hapless tourist she doubled down on the name [i]Batia[/i] even though she had no idea if that pronunciation was anywhere close to right. Right or wrong, that's where he took her. The traffic lessened up here considerably compared to Tayseri or even Zakera Wards, although here and there Liyah could see telltale signs of the gentrification that had apparently begun to plague the latter. The inner workings of the five arms of the Citadel meant little and less to her right now, although subconsciously her brain was cataloguing the info her driver rattled off to her for future use. That was a habit she'd picked up even before her time onboard starships as a Corsair, back when she was skimming money off the top from clueless assholes in Arcturus who wouldn't miss it. It was always the smallest nuggets that gave the game away.

She found Livilla Towers in short order, and after a cheerful goodbye and generous tip to her driver - footed for her, knowingly or not, by her asari lover from the night before - she managed to breeze by the complex's security guards and into the elevator with zero fuss. Recalling the door code for the relevant apartment listed in her dossier, the human inputted the digits and walked in to find a small bustle of noise. Clearly, she had been among the last to arrive - with a little luck, not the [i]very[/i] last. She dropped her bags at the first space that seemed unoccupied and used a boot to push them out of anyone's walking path.

[color=8882be]"It's pretty crazy out there, huh?"[/color] she asked brightly, leaning against a wall and out of anyone's way. [color=8882be]"Traffic from Tayseri was--[i]oHHHH fuck.[/i]"[/color]

She had turned at the rasping voice that came from the entrance of another room and jumped slightly to see a vorcha standing before them with a toothy grin. She jumped slightly; having spent the last year and change in the Terminus systems, she had encountered only a scant few of the aliens, but she had hoped each encounter would be her last. Quickly she managed to parse the use of proper pronouns and, overwhelming her immediate adrenal response, she realized this must be one of their teammates. With a little chagrin, she plopped down on the couch, kicking one leather-clad leg over the armrest of the well-worn furniture. 

[color=8882be]"Hey yourself,"[/color] she grinned sheepishly. [color=8882be]"Sorry, you're totally cool. I thought I saw a bug back on that wall, and I'm not great with bugs, so...okay, you freaked me out."[/color]