thisavrou_log | A day in the new life of Bird Alien.

Entry tags:

mass effect: nihlus kryik

A day in the new life of Bird Alien.

Who: Nihlus, Andrew, Starflight and anyone else who wants to talk with the guy.
When: March 9th
Where: Around the Moira.
What: Various odds and ends.
Warnings: None yet!

For Andrew

When Andrew arrives, he gets to see Nihlus sitting on the floor near where they'd first met, a blanket draped over his cowl and shoulders.

His omni-tool is glowing and various holographic pages of text documents, videos, images and schematics are floating around him. Now and again, he manipulates the glowing, orange device and brings up something new, eyes darting over pictures and texts.

He seems pretty engrossed with it all.

For Starflight

Actually finding Nihlus at the library will prove to be a bit of an undertaking for poor Starflight. Eventually, he will find the Turian behind a small fortess of books, buried in a particularly voluminous cooking bible.

The selection of reading materials was all very random, suggesting he'd just pulled whatever had looked interesting off the shelves. He seems to have been here for quite a while too, well before their agreed meeting time.

General

There was probably a dedicated place that people could use for jogging, but Nihlus wasn't really a fan of running inside a small room if he could help it. Spirits knows he's had enough of that between Mass Relays and space stations.

Plus, he gets to meet more people this way, and he was always down for meeting more people.

He's wearing his actual Moira uniform now, too. Well, his black thermals and his pants anyways.

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Andrew's been in a bit of a mood the last few days due to an incident spawning from his network post. His natural reaction was to keep to his room or just go off and be alone, but eventually his anger is quelled enough for him to feel up to leaving his room.

When he spots Nihlus he's walking along with his hands in his pockets, head down as always. He notices all the fancy holographs and remains quiet as he approaches, at least for a couple of seconds before he actually speaks.

"Hey, Nihlus..." A little hesitant, unsure if he's disturbing him at the moment.

Nihlus stops in the middle of what he was doing and inclines his head to peer up at the teenager.

"Andrew," he greets warmly. "I was just about to ping you."

Turning back to the haphazard spread of documents around him, he starts organizing it all into something more logical.

"I've got the data, if you want to look over it? And an extra blanket if you need it."

"Oh, yeah, that's cool."

Andrew walks over and takes a seat, cross legged. He looks at all the documents in wonder. He's still unable to get over how Nihlus is reminiscent of a character straight out of a sci-fi. But in all honestly it's actually really cool.

"Is that from your MID or something else?"

Because he's pretty sure the MIDs can't do that?

"This is from my omni-tool," Nihlus explains, gesturing to the glowing, orange device wrapped around his forearm. "It's basically a beefed up MID with a sensor array and a mini fabricator slapped on. It's as common as a MID where I come from."

He finishes rearranging various files, leaving several neat stacks hovering in the air.

"Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to transfer the files between devices just yet," the turian continues, pulling the neatly folded extra blanket he'd brought along off of his lap and handing it over to Andrew. "but I think there's a note-taking program on the MID?"

At least that way, he doesn't have to sort through a whole bunch of potentially irrelevant data just to find something.

"Oh. That's pretty awesome."

Andrew takes the blanket and unfolds it, muttering a "thanks" as he instinctively drapes it over his shoulders to wrap himself in it. Not from being cold or anything, just because he's more comfortable that way. More secure.

"Uh, I think I remember seeing something like that," he says uncertainly as he raises his wrist to look through various programs on his MID. "Oh, yeah. Here it is."

He opens the program and begins trying to familiarize himself with it before taking notes down. "Oh yeah, uh, I spoke to a biotic the other day. She said she knew you."

At the mention of a biotic, Nihlus casts Andrew a curious look.

"That sounds like it might be Shepard," he murmurs, selecting and enlarging what appeared to be an infographic of sorts. "I know her. What did she say?"

It's been so strange talking with her.

"Her ID said Jane, I think." Must be her last name or something.

Once Andrew thinks he's got the hang of the program he looks up at Nihlus with a light shrug. "Just that you were a friend of hers. Oh, and that she was exposed to that Element Zero stuff you were telling me about."

"Commander Jane Shepard," Nihlus nods. "And yes, she was born a biotic and is quite an adept user."

Interesting that she would call him 'friend'.

"Anyways, there's quite a few differences between what I have seen of your powers and biotics." He gestures at the document. "For one, most biotics need surgically implanted bio-amps as a way of channeling and controlling their powers into something useful. Without amps, biotic powers can be... well, it mostly depends on how strong the manifestation of the powers are and on the person themselves."

He taps his mandibles against his chin with a thoughtful subvocal note.

"I know there are some asari who are very capable of using biotics without any surgical implants at all, but such cases are rare."

He's already starting to take notes on his MID. He does his best to parse what Nihlus is saying when he uses words he's unfamiliar with, not wanting to stop and ask about every little thing.

"So...is it dangerous if someone were to try and use their biotics without those bio-amp things?"

"Not necessarily. Again, it's dependent on the person. Matriarch Benezia, an asari spiritual leader," he pulls up an image of the Matriarch. "Described the awakening of her powers being accompanied by the house being nearly lifted off of its foundations when she was still a child."

He never did manage to pull the story of Saren's awakening out of his old mentor. The thought makes Nihlus pause for a bit before shaking his head and continuing.

"Most people just send papers scattering or styluses flying. That or they accumulate surface charge and kind of just sparkle a lot."

Andrew stares at the picture of the Matriarch, entranced for a moment. Aliens are always going to be cool to him. Besides, something about her just looks powerful. The story matches her appearance, he thinks.

"Shit," he mutters as he pauses his note taking, sounding more awed than anything. "It was kind of like that when I started. Not the house lifting...just small stuff. Anything more than that would make my nose bleed within like seconds."

That's kind of how he felt in the cargo hold the other day. Like he was just in the beginning stages and couldn't lift a paper clip without his nose bleeding profusely. But he tries to push that embarrassing thought from his mind.

"It is like training up a muscle as far as my understanding of it goes," Nihlus nods, pulling up a video of another asari demonstrating various ways she had of lifting and moving objects throughout the room in certain patterns. "The more you use it, the better you get. In fact, with biotics and how intimately Element Zero nodules tie in with the nervous system, the best way to activate them is through a technique called 'physical mnemonics'. Physical gestures, movements that help direct the power."

The video switches to the asari demonstrator lifting a box and then slamming it down with a flick of her wrist.

"Again, what works for one person doesn't always work for the other. Mnemonics are very individual. For some, it's very mental. For others, it's more physical."

The next video is a turian biotic doing the same thing, but her gestures are more dramatic, her hands curling in a claw as the box is lifted up and then she swings her wrist down and the box shatters against the floor.

"Of course, like training up any muscle, you can seriously injure yourself pushing too far." Nihlus turns his head slightly, peering at the teen sitting next to him. "Your nosebleeds are an indication of such."

Andrew continues to pay close attention, taking notes on his MID while watching whatever Nihlus brings up on his Omni-tool. He nods his head softly at the explanation of it being like a muscle. It's like what Matt said when they were at school - the more you use it the stronger you got. And it turned out he was right.

"Using my hands and stuff, it does help sometimes."

Granted he can do a lot now without moving a muscle. But the stronger the 'move' the more psychical he feels he needs to get. Though when Nihlus peers at him like that Andrew's quick to look down at his lap like a child who had done something wrong.

"Oh, yeah. That doesn't happen to me too often anymore, though. And like, I can stop myself before it happens. My head hurts before my nose starts to bleed."

The way Andrew ducks when Nihlus looks at him makes the turian frown quietly. He hadn't meant for the look to be accusing and it's odd that Andrew had interpreted his expression as such.

"It's unavoidable sometimes, though," he intones in gentler voice. "Especially in combat situations. Typically, biotic fighters carry around specialized medical kits to help mitigate the effects of over-exertion."

He pulls up the image of one such kit and the visual list of items carried within it.

"A lot of biotics have very high metabolic rates for example. It was pretty big thing with Saren and his kits contained high energy ration bars to help him deal with it." Watching his mentor clean out an entire restaurant once was pretty hilarious. On the opposite end of the funny spectrum though, Saren absolutely did not deal well with scenarios where food rationing was unavoidable.

"If you don't have one, it might be a good idea to start carrying one around, customized to suit your needs?"

Starflight had admittedly kind of expected Nihlus would meet him at the front of the library, but when he showed up and no one was waiting, he went searching. The library was like a second home to him by now. He knew all the sounds and smells to expect. He sniffed the air, forked tongue flicking in and out till he had identified the most foreign smell.

Eventually he stuck his head around the corner, looking over Nihlus' wall of books. It made him a little relieved to know he was talking with someone who also enjoyed reading?

"Nihlus Kryik?" Starflight called out hesitantly, not wanting to interrupt while he was reading.

Nihlus looks up at the sound of his name, then down to his MID, and then back up again with a distinctly embarrassed expression.

"Oh, whoops," he laughs a bit awkwardly, sitting up and closing the book. "I was not keeping track of the time. I'm sorry."

Peering curiously up at the dragon, Nihlus wonders if this curious wonder was what a lot of the humans he'd encountered felt when they'd seen him.

"Starflight, was it?"

"Yes. But, um, don't sorry about the time. Really."

He walked over to where Nihlus was sitting, picking his way between books carefully without knocking anything over.

"Did you find something interesting? There's so many different books here, from all over. It's my favorite place on the ship!"

"Interesting doesn't begin to describe it," Nihlus says, gently closing the cooking book so that his claws didn't scratch anything. "I didn't realize that trashy romance novels were such a universal thing!"

Starflight snorted, looking a little embarrassed even with a small grin on a his face. He'd stumbled on a few of those himself. Not that he'd ever read them, of course.

"Uh, yes. Those are certainly a thing here. It's a lot better now that it's been organized. They used to be mixed in with all the other books."

Nihlus has skimmed several already, but then this kind of stuff is right up his weird trashy alley.

"Probably for the better. I don't think a lot of people would like happening upon books about humans turning into critters and eloping," he remarks, glancing pointedly at a copy with 'FERAL SINS' scrawled over the badly photoshopped cover.

"Ugh, is that really something people want to read about?" he asked, turning the book so he could see it better. He reached up and moved the glasses that had been pushed back near his horns, squinting suspiciously at the cover.

"You sure these aren't just some kind of alien?"

"I was thinking that initially, but humans turning into things seems to be a re-occuring theme." Nihlus picks up two more books, holding them up for Starflight to see. The covers are both pretty badly photoshopped.

"Like there's this one where they turn into some weird blood suckers. This one here features people turning into half fish critters. And there's another one that features both the blood suckers and the people who turn into animals."

Helpfully, the turian elbows the third one into view.

"Additionally, the people who transform seem to have been human until one of the transformed people bites them."

"That's...really weird." He picked up the third book Nihlus had pointed out, flipping it over to read the description on the back.

"I didn't realize that was usually a plot point in human romance stories. None of the scrolls I've ever read had anything like that. Kestrel probably would have burned them before she let us read that sort of thing."

"Honestly, you don't really find stuff like this about other species until you physically end up in their libraries sometimes," Nihlus shrugs. "Humans like to keep pretty tight lipped about erotica and sex in general. It actually almost started a diplomatic incident when one of the Salarians asked a high level diplomat how they did the do in public."

"I, um, I'll bet," Starflight replied with an awkward cough. He was way too young to be having a conversation about alien erotica. He inelegantly tried steering the conversation in a different direction.

"So, um, anyway- you said you had some questions about the ship, right?"

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A day in the new life of Bird Alien.

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