RP: Dorian (dorianfadewalk)

[keelah_selai]

Tali was sure that some day, kicking the bosh'd electronics was not going to work, and she would look silly, standing there thumping on a busted device.

But today was not that day.

The outer doors to the airlock finally popped open, and Tali dropped to the grassy ground just past the exit. She stared at the roiling sky, at the high stone (stone! like in the fairy stories of children!) walls of the castle, at the disturbing lack of solid ground that encompassed the whole of the building.

Then she scribbled off an invitation to the human she had been comparing notes with, and settled down on the end of the Normandy's closest wing to wait.

Baby steps, she told herself. You don't learn how to rebuild a combat drone during your first firefight.

Comments

[dorianfadewalk]

Dorian was still puzzling through both what his other self had said and the messy tangle of his own response to those words. He'd made it sound so simple. Could it possibly be true?

He was good at getting stuck in his own head, and the worry may have just circled around uselessly, but the sight of the ship and the hooded figure was enough to jostle him free for now. Dorian stopped and watched, head cocked to the side.

[keelah_selai]

It wasn't the SR-2. Or at least, it had been repainted. The awful orange and black logos had been scrubbed from the hull, and Alliance blue and black dominated the ship. Why would Shepard have had the ship repainted, before or even after the Omega-4 Relay? Something important was missing from this equation.

Tali's musings were interrupted by the heads-up display of her helmet, pinging movement closer to the castle. She looked up to see a human, with dark hair and a mustache, looking in her direction.

What would Shepard do? Tali thought nervously, and then laughed at herself. Be friendly, and offer to help with whatever task they came up with. She waved.

[dorianfadewalk]

His lips quirked as he moved to join her. The suit wasn't entirely unfamiliar to him, though it was light years beyond the elegant clockwork contraptions the Dalish sometimes wore. Was she, then, elven?

"And you must be the engineer with the clever fingers," he said with a broadening grin by way of introduction.

[keelah_selai]

"And you the scientist with funny ideas about capacitors." Tali glanced briefly at her three-fingered gloved hands, before tilting in her head in a nodding gesture she'd once taught Shepard as equivalent to a friendly smile. "Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. I'm not sure I caught your name amidst all the drawings."

(OOC: She's wearing this armor, for visual reference.)

[dorianfadewalk]

"Fascinating," he murmured, then blinked and grinned. "...is what I usually attempt to be, but my name is Dorian. It is a pleasure, Tali'Zorah."

[keelah_selai]

"Tali is fine. It gets to be a mouthful, after awhile. Dorian." Tali sounded the name out in Quarian, and then repeated it again with the vowel and consonant sounds of Galactic Common. "Dorian. Does it mean something? I mean, does your name have a meaning, or is it just pretty for pretty's sake?"

[dorianfadewalk]

"I'm pretty enough," he teased, smoothing his mustache. "I don't need my name to help. It's a family name, but it comes from a musical scale. And you? Your mentioned the Normandy, and I can't help but notice this...ship...is called the Normandy."

[keelah_selai]

"Your mustache certainly is something to see." Tali carefully teased back.

Tali glanced behind at the Normandy, the ship's name and Alliance designation beaten and battered from rough combat, but still visible. She looked back at Dorian before speaking. "Yes...vas Normandy means 'crew of the Normandy'. We quarians are named for the ship that we serve on."

Tali stopped, and with some effort, dredged up the official "Council Handbook" explanation she'd once given the human crew of the Normandy. "My full name would be Tali'Zorah vas Nee" Tali tripped over the name, and then corrected herself "...Normandy nar Raaya. Tali is my given name; Zorah is my clan's name. nar Raaya means 'child of the Raaya' and is the ship I was born on."

[dorianfadewalk]

He flashed a grin at the teasing. Dorian was a big fan of the playfully insulting give-and-take. But he immediately focused on her explanation, nodding thoughtfully. "It's an elegant system," he said. "Certain tribesmen use something similar, but it never cycled its way up through Tevinter. All we have are our family names, which are paramount."

[keelah_selai]

Tali nodded. "Family is important. In many cases, it's all we have. Though I've never heard it described as elegant before. It's useful - how else would we keep track of where we were born, or where we served? We're not like the turians, who can say 'I lived in this city' or 'I worked out in this colony.'"

As she spoke, Tali pulled out a sketchbook, as well as a datapad that still held a charge, from a bag she'd brought with her and set them aside on the wing.

[dorianfadewalk]

"And why is that? Do stop me if I ask too many questions," he added. "Curiosity is an occupational habit."

[keelah_selai]

Tali shook her head and smiled behind the helmet glass. "No, it's fine. It's..refreshing, to talk to someone who doesn't know. Doesn't think they have a reason to look down on us."

"Quarians made a mistake, almost 300 years ago...my time, that is. We created a race of synthetic, artificial intelligence-driven beings which are now called the Geth, from our word for them - s'geth, which meant.." Tali hesitates here, before rushing ahead, "'Servant of the People'. They gained true sentience by accident and we tried to reverse it. We lost the resulting war, and our homes..."

Tali pauses for a breath, and sighs sadly. "Since then, we've been nomadic, traveling in a collection of starships known as the Migrant Fleet. Home is...a state of mind."

[dorianfadewalk]

He winced in sympathy.

"I think you would have a great deal to say to an elf," he mused. "Especially a Dalish. Though truthfully, they're a nomadic race because humanity is quite awful when given a chance."

[keelah_selai]

"I haven't met any elves in person yet. I think Neria is one, though, based on our previous conversation." Tali picked up the sketchbook and flipped through the pages, until she came to two-page spread. She flipped the sketchbook around to show Dorian. "This is the Migrant Fleet."

[The pages are filled from edge to edge with starships of every kind, a large star in the background illuminating them. The picture's perspective given the illusion of being on a ship amidst the rest.]

[dorianfadewalk]

"Curious. The ships appear to be a strange array of makes and models, some literally cobbled together from disparate pieces."

[keelah_selai]

"My people left our homes in something of a hurry. We've had to repair issues with what we have on hand, or purchase ships to replace older models when they finally break down. No dry docks to recreate new ships of our own, after all." Tali flipped the sketchbook page, and turned it back around to show a tiny, one-man ship welding a large metal plate over a melted whole in the side of a much larger vessel.

[dorianfadewalk]

"Interesting. There really are remarkable similarities between your people and the Dalish of my world, though while I can speak some of their history, I would hesitate to try to dig to the heart of who they are. Being a Vent and all."

The last was said with dry archness.

[keelah_selai]

"Vint?" Tali tilted her head in a confused gesture. "But you look human?"

[dorianfadewalk]

"Ah, yes, well, Vint is what Bull would refer to my people as. I am from the country of Tevinter--a glorious place full of absolutely blood-soaked, dreadful history. I am not very well-regarded outside my home."

[keelah_selai]

"I find that the history of most races are bloody, if you go back far enough." Tali blinked, and tilted her head. "Who is Bull?"

[dorianfadewalk]

"Bull is my bodyguard." Dorian waved a hand. "Big fellow. Grey. Massive horns. Probably off making a mess somewhere. He's what keeps me from getting assassinated day in and day out. It's a dangerous business being as fabulous as I am."

[keelah_selai]

"Sounds somewhat like a Krogan. Though Wrex did more assassinating than he did bodyguarding." Tali flipped through her sketchbook, trying to find an image of Wrex...but to no avail. She peered curiously at Dorian.

"If you're supposed to have a bodyguard, why isn't he here guarding your body? I mean..." She shrugged a little in embarrassment. "I'm not going to try and hurt you but he doesn't know that..."