Arashu's Gift

Chapter 28

Shepard removed her helmet and began to unfasten every one of the Cerberus armor's clasps. Quickly she took off the single inner layer this model had and entered her cabin's bathroom. The skin around her eyes felt tense. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her tears had dried on their own over the previous hours. As she took a shower she cried again for Tali.

To see Tali fall to her knees before her father's lifeless body had hurt Shepard as much as it had her quarian friend. Shepard knew well what it meant to lose her father, but the tragedy of such loss combined with the injustice of her own people's treatment of her was such a low blow, a new form of inflicting pain, one of sticking the finger in the open wound over and over again ...

Before she went up to her cabin, she had gone with Tali to Engineering. She had asked her several times whether she was alright, whether she needed anything. Even in such a dark moment of her short life, Tali hadn't wanted to cause more concern and so she had minimized the situation. Shepard had spoken with Garrus and asked him to stay with her. Her turian friend needed no further reasons or excuses to do so. At least Tali wasn't alone. She had Shepard, and Garrus who loved her more than her own people did.

Shepard got out of the shower, put on her N7 tracksuit and hoodie, and ordered Joker through the comm to plot the course towards the Sowilo system in the Hourglass Nebula. She'd pay Liara a visit in Hagalaz, and this time nothing and no one would interrupt her.

She took a seat at her desk and noticed a new message in her inbox. It was from Mordin. As she opened it, she found herself face to face with an illustration of the female and male front and back of naked drell bodies. She was rendered open-mouthed. In a few lines the salarian explained about the contents of the attached information, as well as telling her he had provided Thane with reading material on human biology and psychology. He concluded his brief communication by wishing both good luck and offering his aid in case of doubts or if they needed medical advice.

Shepard checked the endless list of articles and illustrations. The first one she opened was concerned with drell's frills, their placing on their bodies, and function and purpose, as well as their origin. Apparently, ancient drell skin had been the same color as Rakhana's desert soil, camouflaging in the geography of their fields to compete for the scarce natural resources available. However, such an innate blending with their surroundings posed a disadvantage when trying to attract possible mates to procreate, causing their frills to evolve to have flashy colors, making them easily stand out among each other. When drell had ceased to depend on hunting for survival and developed their first settlements, their scales slowly lost the ability to blend with the desert, evolving to different colors. The genetic pattern seemed to be for the frills to always be distinguishable from the rest of the skin. Because of this evolutionary reason, drell frills had an erogenous effect linked to the hormonal reaction of sexual attraction.

Shepard zoomed in on the image of the drell body, studying it with scientific attention. The article explained that the frills' location on their bodies was similar to humans' lymphatic nodes. On the inner side of knees and elbows, on the wrists' pulse points, on the armpits, the throat, the crotch. They were points of increased blood circulation, responsible for maintaining their body heat, and therefore extremely sensitive. Is this the reason for the long sleeves of Thane's jacket? she thought, engrossed in the image. She began to understand his reactions every time she caressed the frills of his cheeks and neck. She remembered when she'd seen him shirtless, noticing those frill bands running at each side of his chest and abdomen and joining in a V shape beyond the waist of his pants. The article concluded with the social meaning of drell frills. It seemed that touching them without clear permission on their part compared to what groping was for humans.

Shepard surfed through the extensive amount of information. Another bit of data that caught her attention was on the drell's inability to sweat. The text referred to the low amount of liquids drell required to stay healthy and the balanced temperature their thick scales regulated throughout most of their bodies. Instead of perspiring, drell skin secreted an oil which acted as a protective layer and a moisturizing agent for their scales. Due to their cold blood, drell enjoyed long sunbaths or, alternatively, benefited from heat sources like radiators or air conditioning set on high temperatures.