There is a reaper passing the twisted remnants of the Sol relay. Even at that distance Shepard can hear it, it broadcasts memories of horrific continent spanning slaughters, and a faint wail of regret~the last deep, keening regret of an ancient people re-purposed into its terrible metal shell. Like a song heard through static it sings of an endless savannah beneath a red moon, it sings of a reaping, a harvest; and the death of worlds. Caught in the wailing dirge are flashes of newer times, of millions caught in dreadnaught fire as Cipritine roiled in flames and Shepard closes her eyes, wishing just once that would block out the endless, sickening song of destruction.
Shepard notices that nobody speaks to her anymore. Humans duck their heads, stuttering out their nervous thanks to the cracked, heat scorched ground at her feet; turians refuse to bow to anyone and simply focus their intense, avian eyes somewhere above her head. Her eyes, lit now with reaper tech, fascinate the salarians, but even they usually only manage to wring their supple hands and turn away.
Walking through the decimated rubble of London has become a daily ritual, a mindless self flagellation cunningly disguised as exercise. From the hospital to the barracks, from there past the cleared ground and the mass graves...into the city to a street where the charred pavement had run like molasses and settled as smoky, ash stained glass.
The air is thick with the stench of unclaimed dead, the cleanup crews haven't made it out this far. The burned out shells of military vehicles lie scattered like a child's toys, the occasional brave scavenger scrabbling through the remnants. The rank smell of burned decay sticks in the back of Shepard's throat like heavy regret, ash tainted and impossible to swallow.
A few more steps and a tiresome scrabble up a half-shattered barricade and she is there, staring down the twisted street to where, just a month ago, everything ended. The silent, blackened stone stretches to the site where the conduit beam had touched down. Viewed in the day, without the hellish light of burning cities it seems almost peaceful. So hard to think of the dead here, of sweet, loyal Tali, so excited about returning to Rannoch, and Garrus….Shepard doubles over, nerve stripping grief burning in the cybernetics of her eyes.
She can't cry anymore, a restriction of function rather than choice. The upgrades that allow her to hear and control the reapers no longer allow for that simple biological release, but the grief burns in her stomach like hot lead. Garrus….Shepard closes her eyes and tries to remember what he felt like, how he liked to nestle his head against her neck while he slept, the way he would arch and hiss with appreciation as she took him in her hand, the feel of fever-hot scales and skin against her. A keening cry bursts from her mouth and Shepard clasps a hand over her mouth to stifle the building scream that wells in her throat.
Shepard's grief whispers against the reapers still in range, and they voice her grief with a klaxon barrage of fury and mindless resentment. Small flickers of awareness echo through the ruined city, the surviving reaper forces, their tortured minds flickering against hers like dying fireflies.
Shepard tries not to listen to them, freed from the reapers that controlled them they wallowed and died in a constant state of confused pain. Teams of sharpshooters were their only hope; the reaper implants wouldn't let them die a natural death~but forced their bodies into a parody of life until the quick mercy of a bullet ended their torment.
One was closer than Shepard expected, its mind broadcasting a litany of confusion, pain and grief that rattled against her consciousness like a handful of gravel. She can hear it moving now, and drops a hand to the pistol at her side. The mental scrabble of anguish and grief gave way to the physical rasp of metal-infused flesh on stone as the twisted form of a marauder dragged itself from the rubble, ruined eyes fixed on her face.