#sera ryder

This is still very beta and therefore may be full of typos and bad grammar (Sorry). But still I hope you will give it a read (can you say 'give something a read'? Hmm ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't know)... Anyway, here u go...

...

"Ryder?"

Again, no reaction.

Now that Jaal was closer to her, he could see tiny white plugs stuck left and right in her head which he hadn't noticed earlier. He couldn't remember what these gristly shell-shaped human skin-colored things on their heads, where the plugs stuck in were called but he knew they had something to to with their ability to hear - like the jollon of the angara.

So, if the humans need these shells to hear and they were somehow blocked by these plugs than it was presumable that Ryder couldn't hear him. And because of the way she behaved (humming, rocking her head, drumming her fingers on the table in a strange fashion) she must be listening to some kind of melody - replayed by these small plugs which must then be tiny speakers. Now that Jaal identified why Ryder wasn't aware of his presence he wondered why SAM hadn't called her attention to him. Maybe the AI had but Ryder choose not to aknowledge him? Perhaps she didn't want to talk to him and is ignoring him on purpose? Or she instructed SAM to not disturb her outside of extreme emergency or something like that. If that would be the case, then he should leave, right?

But instead of leaving quietly he stood there - transfixed and eyes glued to her, observing her. To Jaal humans still were very alien in many respects. Their bodies, especially those of the females, seemed fragile compared to the other races (except the salarians maybe) but still they are able to endure a lot more than one might think. Humans are smaller, less musceled than the average angara and they have these shorter, strangly straight legs which make them slower and weaker in running or climbing. But the shape of their legs allows them to be far more flexible than anything Jaal has ever seen before and bent in ways that seemed impossible for every other species he knows. He once observed Cora and Ryder at their training warmup out of curiosity and the impressions he gained still lingered in his mind. It was one kind of a lession in how the human body workes. Jaal had been utterly shocked and concerned but also baffled that humans are able to force their bodies in such impossible positions and then called it 'just stretching'. Ryder spread her legs in seperate directions and slid down in a way that made her legs form a straight line - a split she called it and it looked very hurtful but the two women assured him that it is not if you are trained enough (still Jaal wasn't completely convinced that it was safe to twist a body like this).

The legs were not the only things on humans that leave him in wonder and in fact evoke an interest in biology he never thought he would have. There's this fur on top of the humans heads that he hadn't seen on other species before - weather on the other Masaaf Shell aliens nor the Jave Jarevoan. When Jaal asked Kosta about this 'hair' the answer he gave him hadn't been very revealing. He said something like 'cuz it looks good, keeps us warm in winter? Jaal could've asked Cora but the woman seemed to be annoyed everytime he wanted to know something so he skipped that option. Ryder on the other hand was always eager to satisfy this curiosity. It was easy talking to her and Jaal enjoyed their conversations very much. He found it wasn't solely the talks he enjoyed but also simply spending time in her presence. She was warm and welcoming, always friendly and honest. But when matters come to personal or emotional things she became close-lipped and evasive. Jaal quickly learned that the Masaaf Shell people are not as open with their feelings as angara but with Ryder it was like running head-first into a massiv wall. Back then he thought it was because he was a foreigner (which made sense at the beginning) but now that they went through the events on Havarl and the horrors an Voeld... They had become comrads and as far as he was concerned she had become a trusted friend, someone Jaal wanted to share his thoughts and emotions with and he wanted to know hers. He was curious about her, wanted to know her better, wanted to know more about her history, things she liked and things she didn't like. He wanted her to see him as a friend as well.

Jaal was so deeply sunken in his own curiousity about the woman infront of him that he startled when he heard her alarmed voice.

"What the...?" She suddenly looked up from the workbench and her impossible blue eyes snapped to his form, her brows knitted together in concerned frown. She looked somewhat buffled at him and when her eyes met his her features softened immediatly with a genuine smile. She pushed herself fully up from her hunched pose over her dismantled gun, straightened her back and rubbed her exposed forearms absentmindly.

"Oh, hey Jaal. I, uhm... Actually, there's something..." She frowned again and he could see her cheeks turn a shade more pink before she held one hand up, her second finger pointing up in the air to signal him to hold on. She popped up the surface of her omnitool and tapped on it with nimble fingers, then reached up to unplug her hearing shells. When she spoke up earlier her voice was raised so that she was practically yelling at him. That she must have realised herself and Jaal must admit that he found her reaction to this situation endearing and also quite funny. She nervouosly scratched the back of her head and gave him an apologetic look and he couldn't contain the chuckle that rose in his chest any longer.

"Hey, stop laughing at me" she fake-pouted at him before the corners of her mouth went up with an amused smile.

"Sorry, Ryder. I dind't intend disturbing you. You seem to have work to attend to so I will come back again later." Jaal gave her a small nod, turned around and was about to make his exit when Ryder made him halt.

"No Jaal, stay! I mean you dont't have to leave if you don't want to. Not because of me. I dont't mind. And you don't disturb anything - sometimes I'm so far gone I fear I would accidently die from thirst or strave... as you might have noticed I'm embarrissingly good in fading out and covering my surroundings in white noise. I mean, not that I want to bar you or something. It's just... It's good for focusing on stuff and... helps putting other concerns into background..." seeing his baffled look she caught herself and took a deep breath. "Uhm, forget I said that. Anyway, what I wanted to say is: sorry I hadn't noticed you earlier. And by that, how long have you been standing there?"

"Hmm? Let's see... I left the Moshae in the medbay about ten minutes ago. On my way back here I had a short chat with Drack at the research room before I came here. So I would say it has been maybe two to three minutes from the moment I entered the room until you actually aknowledgeing my presense."

For a second her face was a mixture of distress and worry before her cheeks turned even more pinker than before and she slowly slided one hand over her face. Jaal wasn't quite sure why she reacted that way for there was no reason for her to be embarrassed. After all, it was him staring at her without her knowing and therefore he should be the one embarrassed. As Jaal learned very early in his time on board, observing someone intansly without that persons assent or knowledge was considered very rude and awkward amongst the Masaaf Shell people. Well, it is very uncivil clandestinely oberserving another person amongst angara, too. But intense eye contact (which could be consodered staring) and only 'talking' with your current ist therefore very mundane and happens naturaly for all angara. So it was normal to Jaal to communicate with the other crewmembers using the tsidvfirra until he recognised that it wasn't working (which didn't take long). First he thought that the others only might be unable to decipher the meaning behind the ebbs and flows of his current but he quickly realised, that they aren't even capable to register his energy and therefore wouldn't be able to feel the intentions he would be transmitting with it. Tough sometimes it seemes that Ryder could feel him somehow. Sometimes when he unintentionally touches her with his current she startled or her gaze wanders to find some sort of source of something until meeting his eyes with a confused look. Or maybe his mind is just making things up here in a fruitless hope to communicate with someone else the way it should be.

It sometimes was complicated for Jaal to decipher the feelings of the other species only by reading there expressions. It would be much easier to know their emotions if they had something like the tsidvfirra (the turians use something similar to communicate with each other; subharmonics to pass feelings and meanings. Sadly subharmonics and bioelectricity weren't compatible in kinds of communication as far as Jaal could tell) and if the others would be more open in sharing what they were feeling. It sometimes really frustrated him. Jaal was not sure why but Ryder was the most frustrating of his new friends. Maybe because she fascinated him so much? The emotion she unintentionally shows on her face or in her bodylanguage were always obvious, easy to read. But if he (or someone else for that matter) would try to talk about her feelings let alone coax out the reasons behind them she would bottle up completely and change the topic immediately, hiding behind her solid wall of denial, concealment and sarkasm. Maybe a lot of her reactions or the lack of it results from a cultural or social ingrained reservation toward open communication in general? All of the Masaaf Shell aliens had their barriers - some of them higher than others but none of them distressed him so much like Ryders.

Even if deep inside Jaal wanted to, he was not sure if it was on him to crumble down her iron walls. She would need to do it herself, she needs to want to appear from behind these walls. Why the other species thought hiding their true feelings from other in the first place would make them appear stronger was a concept Jaal absolutely couldn't comprehend. It was a method that could only make you suffer. Why would someone put himself into such pain? To truly feel every emotion was what makes you stronger, proves that you are alive. That's the faith he grew up to and believed in wholeheartedly. It was so frustrating. All he could do to help her was to be her friend and show her that he trusted her and that she could trust him as well. And Jaal would not be Jaal if he not at least tried. Fehal paava set vaa shaija. ... to be continued

If u want to read the story plz look here: Symphony of life on AO3

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