#tach

all good! it happens haha

also hiiiii :D

anyway, here she is! :D

she do be lookin like she's abt to kick someone tho-

ok. the colors killed me on this one too. as did the belt, it just- it's so weird-

but the hair was probably my fav part to draw! as was the shirt, it was strangely fun!

anyway, enjoy! :)

Gui in real life

The Klingon restaurant on the Promenade is a hectic confusion of talking people, Klingon singing, and spicy smells. The food is exotic, crusty, crunchy, gamy, and gummy, most of it still alive, and you practically can’t find a thing on the menu not guaranteed to make you shake and sweat with the intensity of the flavor.

And to put it mildly, the staff there is energetic.

Cephalon Tach liked to think that he ran a tight ship. Despite his Orbiter being hidden in the Void for… well, that particular sub-process had run out of memory long ago. Regardless, he’d kept the Orbiter cleaned both inside and out, using the meager resources available to build tiny cleaner drones that kept the ship spick and span.

Of course, many of these drones had been sacrificed over the centuries. Examples had to be made to keep the other automatons in check.

Yes, Tach was proud of his ability to bring order to the chaos that, he assumed, took hold in every Liset when left alone. Under his supervision, dust, dirt, and tiny cleaner corpses were cleaned away the moment they appeared.

That is, until-

“Tach!”

Cephalon Tach felt a grimace run through his circuits. Yes, order had reigned until a daemon of chaos broke down the castle gates.

The Tenno plopped into a seat next to the Comms, immediately putting their booted feet up on the console. “Tach,” they repeated in a sing-song voice. “Tach, tach, tachyon.”

“Operator.” Tach cut the song off, his tone that of a mother forced to look after her least favorite of her child’s friends. “I did just clean that console.”

“Why?” The Tenno popped a Fried Neptunian Jellyshrimp from their bag into their mouth, biting into it with a sharp crunch that sent shards of batter and shell into the air. “It’s not like I’ve left on a mission or anything.”

“Yes,” Tach growled, one of his drones immediately swooping out to clean up the mess in the making. “Yet somehow, there is always some amount of detritus that accumulates when you-” He cut off, buzzing angrily to himself. “By which I mean,” he continued, his tone friendly again, “a Cephalon’s work is never done, Operator.”

“Man, I feel that,” the Tenno sighed, flipping a lever on their seat that immediately dropped it into a reclined position. “Seems like all we do is work, work, work as long as Sol’s still shining.”

“Some more than others.”

“What was that?”

“I said,” Tach chirped, “it is impressive that you have picked up the idioms of the Solaris people so quickly.”

The Tenno brushed a bang away from their face, the grease of the Jellyshrimp acting to hold the lock of hair in place. “What can I say?” they said with a grin. “I’m a fast learner.”

One of Tach’s visual sensors narrowed in disgust, hidden from sight in a corner of the cockpit. “Should you not be meditating or… doing whatever it is the Tenno do when not in combat?”

“I was meditating.” Another puff of batter crumbs huffed into the air as the Tenno scoffed. “And I’ll be meditating later, after I’ve taken a break. Meditating is exhausting work.”

Tach stared at the Tenno in silence for a full 3000 clock cycles. “My core processes bleed for you, Operator.”

“See?” The Tenno snapped their greasy fingers, the sound muffled by the gloves of their bodysuit. “That’s why we’re such a good team, Tach. We get each other. We’re like Khora and Venari! Darvo and Clem!”

“Like a new Infestation strain and a Grineer troop galleon without sufficient quarantine procedures,” Tach replied, notes of excitement and disgust in his tone in equal measure.

“Like-” The Tenno cut off, glancing up at one of the Cephalon’s more visible sensors. “Is that another example of ‘Cephalon humor’, Tach?”

“I assure you, Operator,” Tach said quickly, “it would be hilarious if you had decades worth of processing time to analyze.”

The Tenno kept their eyes on the sensor for another second. “I’ll take your word for it,” they said eventually, upending the remaining contents of their junk food bag into their mouth without blinking. “Alright, back to the grind.” They stood, leaving the half-crumpled bag on the console as they turned to descent into the Transference Room. “Let me know if the Lotus has any new missions for us.”

Tach hesitated “The… Lotus, Operator?”

The Tenno froze. Tach’s sensors picked up a 5 degree drop in temperature around them, coupled with several of Tach’s carefully maintained lighting systems suddenly dimming. Both changes only lasted for a second, but to the Cephalon’s spinning processes, it felt as long as the centuries he’d spent alone in the Void. Distantly, 

and not through any particular sensor, 

Tach heard 

a soft 

tapping.

As quickly as it had happened, the moment passed. The Tenno chuckled, scratching the back of their head. “Sorry, old habits. Let me know if you pick anything up.”

“You shall be the first to know, Operator.” Tach followed the Tenno’s progress down the ramp, past the Arsenal, and into the Transference Room. He didn’t watch what the Tenno did on the other side. Instead, he busied a drone with cleaning up the results of the Tenno’s break.

Yes, Cephalon Tach had run a tight ship before the Tenno’s return. Where he had once been able to impose order, now a sort of barely maintained chaos seemed to reign. More than once, Tach had wondered how difficult it would be to just… disconnect that room while travelling between planets.

And yet, there was something about the Tenno that Tach felt he had to investigate. Something hidden; layers under layers of masks under masks that hid… What?

Well, that would be what he was investigating, wouldn’t it? Tach would keep maintaining the Liset, keep protecting and cleaning the Tenno, until he understood what exactly was so intriguing about them. 

Then, maybe, he would think of a way to kill them. 

Maybe. 

Perhaps not.

But perhaps?

Tach flushed the empty bag into space, on a collision course that would take it into the Origin System’s star. Yes, perhaps.