Chapter One - Arrival
This, Shepard thought, This is why you do not send a soldier with a talent for blowing shit up to operate experimental tech that could blow up the galaxy.
But the job had to be done, and she'd always been known to do whatever it takes. It had been her lifelong motto, instilled by her parents from an early age. The Alliance had heroes aplenty, it needed people who got shit done.
Nevertheless, it seemed wrong, somehow, that these were her choices. Destroy civilization along with the Reapers, or become one. Take diversity from the galaxy she'd worked so hard to unify in spite of differences, or die as a united galaxy. Somehow, some way, there had to be another choice. And it had to be made fast. The apparition - the Catalyst - stared at her expectantly.
This thing was behind the Reapers. Could she trust it - or was there another option that it wasn't telling her about?
It was designed to stop the war between organic and synthetic life, and had made the choice to eradicate both. She thought the Catalyst must be flawed, somehow, broken, but Legion - still a presence in her mind, for all that he had sacrificed himself - corrected her. Three is greater than two. Two is greater than one.
The Geth heretics hadn't been wrong - only misinformed.
Legion... Legion had pointed out how the Reapers had guided the galaxy's technological advancement. The Catalyst suggested that if peace were possible, it would be preferable, but its creations, the Reapers, ensured that technology always lead toward the same end. It could not be trusted - it was trying to force her to continue the cycle as much as it could. It would see the galaxy in ruins and all synthetics exterminated, if it couldn't have the organics. Or it would see the Reapers dominant - whether Shepard controlled them or the galaxy became part of them...Legion had said that he couldn't fathom a single Reaper thought - Shepard was strong, mentally, but even Leviathan was more than she could handle. Legion was used to hive minds... Interfacing with the Reapers would destroy her mind, and synthesis - what if that just put the galaxy under Reaper control? Galaxy wide indoctrination.
No, there had to be a way to destroy the Reapers and nothing else. The Catalyst had indicated that she'd need to blow open a part of the Crucible to destroy the Reapers - Shepard knew a little about engineering, and the Alliance doesn't build machines that need to be shot to function. The panel - indicated to control the Reapers - that was the key to isolating them. She wouldn't be controlling all the technology in the galaxy, after all.
With a glare at the Catalyst - damn it for using that face just to fuck with her! - Shepard approached the console. She could sense the Catalyst's anticipation, somehow.
"You need only touch it, really," it said, in its echoing voice. Her voice, a boy's voice, a voice she didn't recognize, but felt like she should...
"I doubt the Alliance created a machine this powerful without making the control a little finer," Shepard said, as she extended her hand toward the console. Energy bound her to it almost instantly, jarring her teeth - she could feel herself burning out, didn't mind, whatever it takes, but not before she beat these assholes.
She asserted her will, and could sense them, the Reapers, on the other side of the excruciating pain that was her entire being. Now to figure out where the explode button was on this thing...but there was something wrong. The console seemed to be on the frits - it couldn't only be the energy burning in her eyes - and as she glanced aside, she could see the boy, shouting something at her and doing something to the console. It seemed angry. Shit, it'll stop her any way it can.
Shepard smiled. There was one way it couldn't stop her. Would it work? Here's to hoping...
One hand on the console, keeping her connected to the Reapers, she raised her pistol in the other, and aimed through the apparition's head - was she on her knees? When had that happened? - at the portion of the Crucible it had told her to blow up.
The look of shock on the boy's face as she pulled the trigger gave her more satisfaction than she'd ever have imagined she'd get from shooting at a child, and as the Crucible exploded - her specialty, after all - Shepard embraced eternity, as Liara had bid her do so many times before.
Nothing hurt as much as being spaced - that's what she told anyone and everyone who asked. She'd have to revise that statement. She didn't know where she was, but her...everything...was on fire. She tried to open her eyes, but her eyelid felt rough moving across her eyes, and the glare almost blinded her.
She couldn't just lay here, though. Had to make contact with...anyone.
She called on all the strength she could muster, braced herself, and flopped over onto her stomach.
Dust slipped into the cuts on her face and stung her cracked lips, blew away from her nose with her heavy, ragged breaths. The air hurt her lungs, and her ribs felt like they'd barely survived the impact of rolling over. This was bad.
Still, she had to push on. And so she did. Ignoring complaints from every muscle she had, she pushed herself up on her forearms and knees, raising her head out of the dirt, and paused for a breath.
Take stock, soldier, she ordered herself. Let's see... armor? She focused on her chest, moving rapidly from exertion, and didn't feel the familiar weight of her hard suit pressing against it. In fact, the bodysuit she wore under her armor seems to have almost evaporated. She had nothing but a few rags on her. Weapon? Nothing. Maybe it was laying around. She'd look when she was brave enough to open her eyes again. Biotics? She tried to flare up, the typical biotic display, and her nervous system almost tore its way out of her body. Not right now, then... Omni-tool? Blindly she activated the piece of tech on her wrist, and would have breathed a sigh of relief if she had the breath to spare. She could feel it working, she could see the familiar orange glow through her eyelids. It was working.
I wonder if there's a medigel dispenser nearby?
Her success with the omni-tool had bolstered her courage, and Shepard opened her eyes quickly, biting her cheeks against the pain, and waited for her eyes to adjust. It took unusually long, but when she could see, she made a quick scan of her surroundings. Sunset, a few buildings seemingly made of mud, wood and stone. A slum, probably, on a particularly undeveloped world. She was about to push herself further upwards - whatever toll that took on her battered body - when she saw a man dressed in the strangest outfit she'd ever seen step around the corner, recoil at the sight of her, then aim a kick directly at her ribs.
She could feel a few of them break, not even her reinforced bones able to withstand all she'd recently been through. The man shouted something at her in a language she didn't understand. That's odd. All human languages had been recorded for ages. Was her translator broken? Probably. Then the man looked up, and an exasperated look crossed his face, which quickly turned to fear.
Shepard could feel herself losing consciousness, but before she did she allowed her head to roll limply in the direction the man was looking. She saw four people - two women, two men - running straight toward her attacker. One man was glowing blue - a biotic - but was pointing a walking stick at the man who had kicked her, and somehow seemed to fire an incendiary blast from it.
Am I delirious? I must be, she thought. The women both had long knives, the remaining man a sword. A very large sword. That was it. She was delirious.
Finally, unconsciousness claimed her, and Shepard welcomed the blackness.
Hawke watched Anders work quietly - he had ordered her not to say anything pithy, sarcastic, or whimsical while he was trying to save this woman's life, and this business was far too serious to actually say anything that did not fall into one of those categories. The woman fascinated Hawke - mainly because of the glowing bits of metal that had been visible under her skin until Anders covered them up again.
"...rather amazing, really," Anders said to no-one in particular, "They seem to be helping to stabilize her, and to be keeping her in one piece. Remarkable. I've never thought... Enchanted metal under the skin, to heal? How do they stop the lyrium from poisoning her blood?"
"Maybe she's part dwarf," Varric said, leaning against the doorway. Hawke grinned at him - she'd been dying to say that - and he winked at her in return. Anders glared at them both.
"You, Varric, know that lyrium will kill even a lifelong resident of Orzammar if enough gets into the blood. At the least it would drive the dwarf crazy. Besides, she's rather tall, don't you think?"
"How dare you discriminate against her based on height? And who's to say she isn't crazy? We found her mostly naked and unarmed in Lowtown. At dusk. Lyrium poisoning seems to be a handy explanation."
"Varric has a point," Hawke said, head cocked, "I-"
"I told you - none of that smart mouth of yours, I need to concentrate!"
"I wasn't going to..." Hawke trailed off, admiring Ander's glare. She took a certain pride in getting under the mage's skin.
"She seems to be all healed to me," Varric said. "Rather well healed. Nice job, Blondie."
"I..." Anders seemed mollified, "I have rather outdone myself, haven't I?"
"Did you make her breasts larger?" Isabela shouted from the other room. She'd been banished by Anders for ogling the victim. Fenris, naturally, had stalked off long before they reached Anders' clinic. He hated to see mages at work.
Anders ignored Isabela.
"She's been healed to the best of my ability, but there's something about her...something that seems to interfere with my magic. She'll need a lot of rest, a lot of food, and a lot less company for the next few days."
"And you'll need much more coin," Hawke said, "And if you even think about turning me away this time I shall stab you. Starve yourself if you like, but I'm not putting up with Isabela if you let this beauty starve to death just for your pride."
"That's my girl," Isabela said, sauntering through the door, "But I do believe we have been dismissed?"
"Let's go, 'Bela," Hawke agreed, "Varric. I need a stiff one."
"And a drink!" Isabela added, with a chuckle.
Three days since she'd first woken up in that street, and Shepard still couldn't make much sense of what was going on. She seemed mostly healed - her biotics were still somewhat fuzzy, but otherwise she was in acceptable shape - so there had to be medigel somewhere, yet this clinic seemed primitive. She'd run a diagnostic on her translator through her omni-tool, and the diagnostic had confirmed that the translator was in perfect order - which only added confusion to the excited babbling and gestures of the man - the biotic who had been there every time she woke up, from that first time in the streets. It was entirely unintelligible. Her omni-tool detected no extranet service, so it could not pinpoint her location - but anywhere without extranet access wouldn't be on any galaxy map, anyway.
All she knew for certain was that this man had healed her - the place, while primitive, had the trappings of a clinic, and she'd seen grievously injured people brought to him and leaving in perfect shape, with him looking exhausted. He'd never let her be nearby when he worked, though. Typical doctor, really. If only she could get the message across that she had some basic medical training - many of the injuries seemed to be from fights, and she knew well how to treat those.
He'd provided her with food and shelter, though, as well as clothes. Once they'd ascertained that they could not understand each other at all, he'd resorted to gestures, and had shown her the remains of her body suit, which frankly could barely cover half her torso if it had been all one piece. It hadn't. From what she understood, there'd been no need to cut it from her because it had fallen apart while they carried her.
'They' were the man's companions. A rather vertically challenged man who reminded her of a more masculine Joker, a tall woman with Samantha Traynor's colouring, a body and posture that reminded her of Morinth, and a voice that might put dirty thoughts into EDI's head, and lastly a woman who Shepard had immediately designated as their leader. A kindred spirit. The woman seemed to grin far more than she scowled, of course, and had this way of cocking her head before her tone turned sarcastic - sarcasm, it seemed, was universal - but underneath that Shepard sensed steel. This woman would smile as she ripped you apart. Shepard could respect that.
Of the man with the sword there had been no sign. Shepard had tried asking after him, miming the large blade he'd held in a low guard, but that had raised her healer's eyebrow and sent the two women into a fit of giggles. She needed to learn their language. To that end she'd set the omni-tool to record every word said, and every night, before she slept, she fed the new data into her translator for analysis. Once enough information had been gained to decode the language, she could start learning, even in her sleep.
She'd also been keeping a journal.
"I never understood Javik's distaste," she muttered into her omni-tool, "'These primitives' this, 'In my cycle' that, when we seemed to function excellently, but now I understand. These prim... people function. They've adapted to life with their simplistic surroundings, yet I know from experience how much better everything could be. If only I could get access to the healing tech the biotic must be using... Perhaps that could help me figure out how to contact the Alliance. After all, these humans seem to have had no contact for centuries, but if the tech is still working, that means supplies of medigel and regular maintenance. Perhaps this world is a secret experiment? One can only hope."
She let the omni-tool blink out and allowed her eyes to drift back into focus, to see the man staring mystified at her. He pointed at her hand where the omni-tool had been, and made a questioning face. Guessing at his meaning, Shepard brought the omni-tool back up, cycled through her recordings and played the most recent.
Day three, her voice began, and the man coughed, staring in amazement. Shepard could only grin, but it worried her somewhat. How did he apply medigel to his patients if he didn't know how an omni-tool worked? It made no sense.
Nothing in this world made sense to her.
She wished she could go home...
"Anders, I need you..." Hawke said in a breathy tone as she stepped into his clinic. She struck a pose - hip thrust out, sultry grin on her face, but they'd played this game before, and Anders only rolled his eyes.
"Hawke, I have an apparently brain damaged patient with magic I've never seen before on my hands. I can't go running after you on your next killing spree. What if someone breaks in and they hurt each other?"
"I'm breaking into the old family home to see if there's enough of value to make up for what your patient is costing me. I'm still trying to fund an expedition into the Deep Roads, you know. We could use you."
"Breaking and entering is Isabela's strong suit, not mine."
"Frying the balls off anyone standing in our way is your strong suit, not Isabela's. That's why I'm taking you both."
"What about Bethany? Why don't you take her? It's your family home."
"I am taking her," Hawke said, exasperated.
"Well, why in the fade would you need two mages for a robbery?"
"We-ell..." Hawke smiled, "We're entering through the basement, and the entrance is close to your clinic, and Varric is busy with family things, and Aveline with guard things, and Fenris with broody things, and you know I always try to take enough backup in case we get stabbed, and..."
"And I'm your last choice. Literally your last choice," Anders scoffed.
"Why are you sounding so offended? You were just mad that I was trying to steal you away from your new plaything!"
"Well, I..." Anders began...
"...still think you could have brought the elf," he muttered. There was no arguing with Hawke, and after some heated debate and a few attempts at getting a message across to his patient, Anders had grudgingly relented. He was standing guard at the entrance of the crawlspace while Hawke pretended not to ogle Isabela's behind as the latter shimmied into the whole, and Bethany, sweet girl, pretended not to notice, though the blush gave her away.
"I don't like him," Bethany said, "Somehow I'd rather have a templar at my back. They say the king of Ferelden used to be a Templar, and he's well known for being jolly, funny and loyal to a fault."
"He used to be a Gray Warden," Anders said, "He was only trained as a Templar."
"The point," Bethany said, "Is that Fenris makes me think I should always have a rather nasty spell handy."
"Now, no need to be mean, sister," Hawke said, as Isabela called all clear from the other side of their impromptu entrance, "Fenris is only as psychotic as the rest of us. The fact that he directs that at you is purely coincidental."
"Such protective instincts you have, sweet sister," Bethany muttered, as she clambered into the hole, "I'll remember this the next time you want me to make a spider explode."
"Get on with it," Hawke slapped her sister's thigh playfully, before turning toward Anders and, in a rather terrifying turn, looked serious.
"My sister is going in there with me," Hawke said, "Because not taking her along when I go to explore our old home would not be fair. But this isn't smuggling, this is breaking into a house in Hightown. I couldn't bring a guard along, could I? So Aveline's out. Beth doesn't feel safe with Fenris, so he's out. And while Varric is great at this sort of thing, he is genuinely busy. I'll be taken by the taint before I let harm come to my sister, so you're coming along. Okay?"
She'd been serious. That was more terrifying than all the times she'd threatened to stab him, for all that he knew she meant those threats even when she was grinning.
"Okay," he said. As simple as that.
Mages, thieves... Hawke was sure some of these men were killers for hire! What were they doing in her family home?
"Gamlen," she grunted, as she drove a dagger high under a man's sternum, "Is going to pay for this."
She yanked the blade free, and Bethany made a disgusted face at the sound, even as she herself tore a man's face to shreds with her staff, covered in sharp little icicles.
"I doubt he can afford to pay for anything, really."
"That's what he's going to pay for," Hawke muttered, surveying the carnage. There had indeed been a mage, who had managed to throw her and Isabela cleanly across the room as they entered, but Anders had quickly battered him with fire until he raised a magical shield, and Isabela had stuck his back full of holes as soon as the shield had gone down. He had the most to loot. A few pieces of silver here, a few there... it added up. The fifty sovereigns she needed was drawing ever closer.
"Look," Bethany shouted, form the other end of the room, "It's mother!"
"Now I don't get to surprise you with it," Hawke said, looking at the portrait unceremoniously dumped in a corner. Mother really had looked quite a bit like Bethany, once. Quite beautiful.
"Aaaand victory!" Isabela shouted in the distance. Hawke followed the voice, and saw her favourite pirate with her favorite toy - a rather large purse of coins.
"Got to be ten sovereigns," Isabela said, "If I had a hat, I'd eat it if this were less."
"What will you eat instead?" Hawke asked, keeping an eye on her sister. She knew the pirate well enough to know where this would go.
"Now, sweet thing... If you don't know, we should probably have a discussion soon."
Sure enough, Bethany's cheeks flared, but Hawke stifled her laugh. They weren't done yet.
"Any sign of a will?"
"What, this old thing? Well, you can have it, I'll take the gold."
"'Bela!" Bethany complained. Hawke just grinned. Teasing her sister was really just too easy.
Shepard was at her wits end.
As soon as the doctor - if that's what he was - had left she'd ransacked the place for any sign of advanced medical equipment. There had been nothing. He could not have an omni-tool, not even a prototype - medigel capabilities had been a recent addition. And there was no way to heal the way he did without medigel. Her other options seemed limited to a different form of portable medigel dispenser, but either that would be too obvious to miss, or too experimental for him to not know about the galactic community - and omni-tools, and such. Could he be playing her? Pretending amazement?
Shepard doubted it, but it was her only option.
The frustration was unbearable.
Normally she'd flare up her biotics - that always calmed her down a little - but while it was certainly coming back, it hurt like a bitch and made her bring up her decidedly sparse meals if she tried. She supposed getting blown up could do that...
The explosion. She didn't even want to think about how she survived.
"Priorities, soldier," she commanded herself. She was in an unknown area, and didn't understand a word anyone was saying. She needed to communicate, and the somewhat small sample size the clinic was providing limited her translator. She needed to get out.
Without a second thought, she shrugged into the woven leather coat the woman - the leader - had presented to her on a visit. They seemed almost equally proportioned, and the little breathing room the other woman's clothing gave Shepard didn't bother her much - the leather was stuffy, not something she was used to.
She activated her omni-tool in a passive mode - a barely visible glow on her wrist - and strolled out into the streets. People surrounded her, dirty and seeming miserable. She saw children looking sad, parents looking angry, women - undoubtedly prostitutes - calling at passersby, and more than anything else, curious glances at her wrist. These people didn't miss much - they survived on their wits. More and more, they seemed to be passing nearby her, and for all that the translation software must have been gathering mountains of data, their fingers were scrabbling at her wrist as they brushed past, and she was beginning to think it was a bad idea.
Just as she made up her mind to turn around, she came to a thankfully clear alley. Shepard slipped in, leaned against a corner, and breathed deep.
Growing up on ships didn't leave you particularly antisocial, and the Alliance military took great pleasure in breaking you of any sense of personal space, but these streets, these desperate people...
Could this be an Alliance experiment? Would they let people - the people I died to protect - suffer like this?
What else could it be?
Salarian, of course, but even the Salarians would have their hands full abducting enough people to populate even these slums. And they would control the situation better. What could it be?
Her musings were interrupted when a group of men, armed with all manner of sharp pieces of metal, stepped into the alley's entrance. Shepard's senses immediately snapped to full alert. One of them gestured at her wrist with a leer, and seemed to be expecting some response. Shepard brought the omni-tool to her other hand, and toggled it off. The leer turned into a scowl.
Scowl right back, she told herself. She'd ended a centuries long conflict by shouting it down. This man couldn't dare attack her.
Then again, there she'd been Commander Shepard, N7, Spectre and the savior of the Citadel, curer of the genophage, and all around legend. She'd been backed by Archangel, whose name was still only spoken in whispers on Omega, and a personal friend of Aria T'loak, the Pirate Queen of Omega and the only person who dared say Archangel's name with a sneer.
Here she was a woman wearing a somewhat too large leather jacket.
The man just laughed bitterly, and swung steel at her head, his companions circling around her back.
Without even thinking, Shepard punched up her tech armor and paired omni-blades, and watched her attacker's expression as the sword jarred in his hand upon meeting the barrier, before slipping through slowly and harmlessly. The faster an object, the greater the resistance, the reasoning being anything that made it through her kinetic barriers and tech armour would be stopped by her hard suit. As matters stood, the armor gave her enough time to dodge aside, only a small cut opening in the leather coat she was wearing, and she parried the return swing with her considerably denser omni-blade. The next flick of her wrist disemboweled her attacker, breaking straight through the leather shield he'd been holding in front of his chest. Sheppard grinned - the adrenaline... She hadn't felt this since her 'dance' with James Vega, the thrill of true, one on one combat, no guns, just skill.
Shepard scythed her blades out as she spun around, just in time to catch a dagger aimed at what had been her spine. Her turn allowed the blade to slip harmlessly off the leather, which it caught at an angle, and she filed the information away for future use. It was no hard suit, but the coat was tougher than she'd thought.
Her wild swing had caught one attacker's face, opening a gash beneath his eye that had sheared cleanly through even his cheekbone. Still, he tried to stick a knife in her face in retaliation, and Shepard batted it aside. She was about to take off his head in one clean sweep, but his friend dropped something at their feet, and suddenly she was coughing, her eyes stinging. She couldn't see a thing.
Disoriented, an impact against her back spun her around, but the blurry shape she could make out was that of the biotic, and a younger girl, similarly carrying a staff, who seemed to likewise be biotic, launching a flare of bright energy at the other attacker. The man dropped, and Shepard was about to relax, but more men stepped from the shadows, metal shining in the dark. Two of them dropped immediately, wreathed in clouds of smoke identical to the one that had disoriented her, and only then did she notice the other two women, the dark skinned one and the leader.
There seemed to be no end to attackers, though. At first Shepard tried to keep track of everyone like she would have with her squad, but this was so much more chaotic than the battles she was used to. She lost herself in the rhythm; cryo blast - one of the biotics would always follow up with an incendiary blast from those staves of theirs - and electric shocks to disable, a pivot to allow a blade to glance away, and a heavy swing from an omni-blade. She'd never used the blades for such a prolonged time. It felt good.
At long last, only one man remained. His eyes darted between the five of them, and he ran. Shepard hit him with another shock, burning his nervous system almost as badly as she herself had been burned, at the same time as the leader leapt forward - she was incredibly agile, and drove a blade up into the man's back.
A few glances either way, confirming that no more were incoming, and Shepard let her armor and blades wink out. She gave the healer her best winning smile.
He seemed rather unimpressed.
The healer and the leader had ranted and raved at each other for hours on end once they reached the clinic, until the young girl had pointed at Shepard and said something rather quiet. Shepard supposed she'd suggested they check their patient for damage - she was sure of it - as the healer's face immediately softened, and he stepped up to her, and put a hand on her head. Shepard felt something electric flare and cause the implants under her skin to go into overdrive, but she saw no glow of an omni-tool, nothing to suggest that the man had run any kind of diagnostic at all. Nevertheless, his hand immediately probed at her back, where she'd been hit in the fight. Shepard had a bruise - she knew from her own diagnostic - but no lasting damage. The man seemed to confirm as much, then glared at their leader, who glared right back and stalked off without a word, the other two women trailing behind.
Shepard felt bad. A little. She'd caused so much discord. But her translator had gotten more information in those few hours than all the time she'd been here so far, and that was worth it.
As the biotic sank into a chair, brushing his hand somberly over his face, he stared at her.
Taking a chance, Shepard called up the translation software on her omni-tool, and did a quick search. Yes.
She played the audio file twice - only on her earpiece, not aloud - and tried it once in her head, before putting on her most sheepish face and muttering "Sorry."
The look on his face was priceless.
A week had passed, and Shepard had been out into the town a few more times under Anders' supervision - she'd learned his name, now - and her translator had been working overtime. So had Shepard's mind. The translator was learning their language, but they didn't have translators of their own, so she actually needed to learn their language herself.
Strangely, once she'd gotten past the initial barriers, the language had started to seem like a very mutated English dialect.
The visits helped - the young biotic girl visited often, and seemed to be very curious. She also seemed to be very, very smart - reminded Shepard a little of Liara, in some ways - and they talked a lot. Shepard had decided to keep her origins to herself for the moment, and claimed amnesia, but there was a lot else to talk about. The girl insisted her biotics were magical abilities, and after a few demonstration Shepard could see how someone could believe so. She was able to generate fire, ice and electricity, barriers and plasma blasts... a massive variety of effects, but few of the ones Shepard was familiar with. No warp fields, no pull or push abilities, though she seemed to indicate that these last two were not unheard of, just not her specialty. Shepard had begun to suspect the experiment was something Cerberus had set up - similar to Jack's experiment, but less cruel. An attempt to advance biotic abilities in humans. Javik had once claimed that the Protheans had manipulated Asari DNA to give them biotics, and this seemed to be something similar - expanding the range of biotic effects.
The girl in turn was very interested in Shepard's omni-tool and its various applications. Shepard had, one day, lined up a few targets - bottles - on a crumbling wall and launched cryo blasts at them. The girl had squeaked in fear and glanced around as if daring anyone to have noticed, but in her halting manner Shepard had calmed the girl and convinced her to blow the frozen bottles up. Soon they'd developed a pattern, and were working together almost as well as Shepard and Liara had - Shepard would lob a lift grenade, and Liara would warp whoever survived.
Another week passed, and Shepard's mastery of the local dialect was improving dramatically. She'd learned that biotics on this world were referred to as 'mages' - and treated as outcasts even more than they were in Turian society. There was a group dedicated to controlling them, and Shepard took an immediate disliking to them - these Templars.
There was also a new addition to the group. A girl who looked not much older than Shepard's new young friend - Bethany, she'd said - and who reminded Shepard of Tali. The way she associated almost everyone in the group with her old crew was beginning to worry Shepard.
This Merril, had large eyes, sharp ears, and was also biotic, though perhaps she also had some strange tech implants. Shepard had seen her speak to plants - and she'd seen the plants react. Tech based on the Thorian? Cerberus...
Shepard had a lot of theories, and she was itching to get out and explore beyond the dusty streets that Anders wandered with her. She'd come to the conclusion that searching within the clinic was futile - if she were to get back to the Normandy, she'd have to find her tech somewhere else. Her chance came - naturally - in the form of the group's leader.
"Anders..."
"Oh for the love of - Hawke, don't sneak up on me like that!"
"I'm going into the Deep Roads soon, Anders," Hawke said, leaning against a wall and watching Anders shave. He'd nicked himself, startled by Hawke, and was glaring sourly into his little mirror. Absently Shepard wondered if he'd waste some medigel on the little cut, but it was a vain hope. Of course he'd conserve every drop.
"Good luck," he said, "Don't die."
"I won't," Hawke said, "Because I will have a Gray Warden with me."
"Just keep him - or her - away from me, then."
"I meant you," Hawke went on, her tone teasing, " How could I enter into the bowels of the earth without my favourite Warden to make sure I don't enter the bowels of a genlock?"
Anders sighed.
"I've got a patient, Hawke."
"I'm healed up pretty well," Shepard said. Like every time Shepard spoke, the other woman, Hawke, looked at her like she were some exotic animal.
"You're a healer now, are you?" Anders asked.
"As a matter of fact, I am," Shepard said. "A combat medic. Look, if you're so worried about me, take me along."
"Brilliant idea!" Hawke exclaimed just as Anders said "Absolutely not!"
"Anders, you've seen her fight," Hawke said, "She's got some interesting magic. And she fights as well as any soldier I've ever seen."
"I am a soldier, in fact."
"See?" Hawke said, as if that settled it.
"I thought you just said you were a healer?" Anders demanded, though, but Shepard was ready.
"I thought Hawke said you were a...Gray Warden?...whatever that is. You're a healer. I'm a soldier trained to make sure other soldiers make it home."
"And we do want to come home, Anders, but if you don't come, and she doesn't come, how will we ever survive?"
Hawke was putting on a show - she was more dramatic than Shepard by far - but it seemed to be working.
"And if I take her," Hawke added before Anders could say anything, "I won't have to take Fenris. Her magic armour and blades certainly seemed to outclass anything he's got. Except for the fisting thing."
"You talk to Isabela far too much," Anders said, but his voice seemed resigned. Shepard recognized the signs. Nobody resisted Hawke. She was beginning to like this woman.
"Do you really not know what Gray Wardens are?" Hawke asked out of the blue, and both her attention and Anders' fixated on Shepard.
"Perhaps I do know, but only in my own language?"
"Wardens are a group of warriors dedicated to killing darkspawn under the control of demons. What would you call that?"
"Religious fanatics," Shepard said in English, but continued, "I'm not sure we have any of those."
"Everywhere on Thedas has Wardens," Anders said.
"I'm not from here."
"You never did tell us where you came from," Hawke said, dragging a chair close and staring with a patient smirk. Shepard chose her next words carefully, thankful for her many trips through the streets - her translator had made a lot of progress, and it's hard to be evasive with a limited vocabulary."
"My ship was involved in a great battle," No need to share the nature - if some people here knew about advanced technology, that still didn't say why and how, and she couldn't risk upsetting an unknown force, "And I was caught in a powerful explosion. I woke up here - I never even knew we were near your...Thedas."
"Well," Hawke said, "Another sailor. And a soldier. And a healer. And tough enough to explode without dying. I think she's coming along whether you like it or not, Anders, so you might as well."
"Fine..." Anders muttered, "But we'd better avoid any other Wardens down there."