Ichor sloshed through every gap in her armor, regardless of how small the chink was. Shepard held her arms nearly akimbo to keep from accidentally smearing more deeper against her skin. That was the first time she'd ever had to deal with a fully armored Elcor, and after that fiasco a never-ending army of husks sounded more appealing. At least when their brains splattered they didn't have a backup bomb strapped to their chest to explode their innards everywhere.
Her fellow companions walked behind as was typical, in this case far behind.
"I can't help but notice none of you got soaked in Xetan the Pulverizers's intestines, or whatever this was," Shepard groaned, doing her best to not glare behind her at the sparkling clean Turian and Krogan.
"We tried to warn you," Garrus couldn't bury a chuckle even if he tried. Which he didn't because he found the entire thing so damn hilarious.
"Since when?" Shepard whined. "All I remember was, 'All right, he's down.' And then Boom! Blood and guts splattered in a full 360."
The Turian wasn't capable of shrugging, but he ran a gloved finger over his mandibles in fake thought, "I believe that counts as a warning."
"Who cares?" Grunt grumbled. "He's dead, his belongings are ours. Let's get to the next thing to kill."
"No," Shepard sighed, "I'm returning this...whatever it is to the proper authorities." She turned the hard won crystal over in her hand, watching the light burst into rainbows as it circled the blue glass, "then taking a very long shower." Barely a sound broke from the silent shadow flitting slightly nearer to her than the Krogan or Turian. She did her best to not stare too long at Thane, certainly not while on a mission. There were protocols to maintain and...what did it even matter? Two weeks since they destroyed the Collector base and she told Cerberus where they could shove it, and Shep was still running the Normandy like it was an Alliance ship. But it wasn't. In truth, she was little more than a merc herself, with no one to answer to but her personal whims.
"It is a mourning crystal," Thane spoke in his soft but enticing voice.
"What?" Grunt turned on the drell who didn't blink a green eyelid at the attention of a bitter and bored Krogan, "They use it like an alarm or something to wake up? Seems stupid."
"No," Thane shook his head. There was no smile on his lips, but Shep could sense it. She was getting rather good at reading alien emotions. "Not morning as in time of day. It is a symbol of the dead for Elcor. They do not bury nor cremate their dead."
Grunt growled in confusion, but Shepard blinked furiously as she began to realize what they'd fought through an entire warehouse on Elysium to steal back. It was, of course, Garrus who sprung in to say, "You're saying Shepard here is holding a dead Elcor they crystalized?"
Thane didn't respond, only turned his big, black eyes on her. She got the sense he was apologizing without saying anything. Groaning, Shepard clung tighter to it with her fingers while also trying to keep the dead body of some no doubt honorable alien from touching her in any way. "This day just keeps getting better and better. At least we're almost at the rendezvous point. We should have a shuttle around..."
Elysium's ports were some of the fancier the Normandy had set down in since being rebuilt. Not as nice as the Citadel, but few in the galaxy were. Clean, organized, and very few mercs smoking on the sides while eyeballing up anyone they thought an easy mark. The makeup of the port was about 85% human to a handful of random aliens that'd be willing to set foot on an Alliance controlled garden planet, which meant mostly Asari. Her rag tag team kept getting a few pointed looks, in particular the Krogan, but no one had tried anything at least.
While shuttles zipped in and out through the skies carrying their passengers to their ships in orbit, it was hard to not notice a definitive lack of the Cerberus one they really needed to repaint. "Joker," Shep growled, already booting up her omnitool to flag down her wayward pilot. "I swear, if you've gone joyriding..."
"Maybe Jack finally snapped and went full pirate. And we get to spend the next few months hunting down scrap parts of the Normandy scattered in blackmarkets across the galaxy," Garrus unhelpfully added. He hung closer, peering down over Shep's shoulder while she prodded sticky fingers at the holographic interface.
It took a few more runs before connecting to the Elysium satellite and, oh god, why was it routing through a Mass Relay? What did he do? Once it picked up, Shepard opened her mouth to shout orders, but Joker spoke over her - as was typical.
"Hey Commander! So, funny story, seems Miranda got word about a Cerberus base that was about to go dark and thought we should swing in and blow it up to smithereens, or save it, or whatever. Miranda's not big on sharing. Which is where we are now, instead of where you are."
"And you didn't think to inform me because..." Shep drew it out, wishing she could glare through at her pilot but he wisely kept the channel to audio only.
"You were busy, with whatever robin hood do gooder thing caught your fancy. Shouldn't be more than a day...or two," Joker whispered the last part out.
"Are you kidding me? Two days? You've stranded us here for two days!"
The static rolled, as if he was trying to cut off comms on the assumption it wouldn't enrage her more, before Joker's voice returned, "It's not like you're being abandoned on Tuchanka. Oh no, I have to spend a few days on Elysium, I hope I don't get pampered to death. Those hot spring spas are real death traps."
"Joker!"
"I'm sure you can find somewhere to stay in a place that's got a big statue of you in the middle of a garden. Op, sorry, looks like we're going through an ion storm," he was obviously crinkling wrappers on the other end to mimic static, "can't talk. Send a report later. Joker out."
Her omnitool went dark, leaving Shep with few options. Even as her head flopped down uselessly, she couldn't stop the dream of wringing Joker's neck in her bare hands. Bare hands not coated in the Elcor's early lunch. "I'm gonna kill him. No, I'm gonna kill him, force Miranda to bring him back to life, and then kill him again."
"So..." Garrus flexed his arms back and forth, "I take it every Turian for himself?"
She glanced over at him, fully adrift at the options before her. Shepard hadn't been on shore leave since before Saren and the Reapers altered her life completely. Then she went dead for a couple years, which wasn't the most relaxing vacation one hoped for, and now they were kinda on the run from Cerberus, but not really. Either the Illusive Man knew better than to strike back at her, or he was laying low for some other reason. Right now, she didn't have the first idea on how to relax. All she had on under the armor was just that, underarmor. It wasn't exactly beach wear or something flirty for the bars.
Lolling her head back, Shep went to scrub her face off as if that would solve the problem, when her eyes caught sight of the gore clinging to her gloves. Exhausted and cranky, she was starting to side with Grunt in wanting to toss the crystal to its owner and then find a few more batarian mercs to shoot. She couldn't feel the hand land upon her shoulder through the plate metal, but she spotted it from the corner of her eye. Thane didn't say anything, only patted her as soothingly as one could through armor. It wasn't a friendly, "there there." The intimacy of him standing so close drew a faint blush to Shep's cheeks.
"Riiight," Garrus shuffled backwards, turians rather light on their feet when they had a mind. "So, I'm gonna go find a turian embassy, there's always one or two around, and I'll take Grunt with me."
"What?" Grunt turned his entire shoulders and heat up at Garrus to try and stare up at the man. "Why?"
Garrus ignored him as he gestured two of his three fingers towards Shep, "You, uh, when you get all washed off of dead Elcor and drop off the less squishy Elcor we'll...yeah, never mind. Have fun, Commander. Let's go, Grunt."
"I don't get it, why are we going?" Grunt said even as he followed after Garrus' quickly retreating feet.
"Because sometimes people like to be left alone."
Grunt blinked a few times, processing the request, before turning fully around to eye up Shepard and Thane. In his booming outdoor voice, seeing as how krogan didn't have an indoor one, he shouted for the entire docking port to hear, "Are we supposed to pretend they're not mating?"
Dear god, could this day get worse?
"Spirits," Garrus groaned, "So the whole raised by voices in your head thing never taught you much about tact, I take it," was the last of Garrus' voice Shep could make out before he pulled Grunt further into the mob of vacationing humans doing their best to avoid the krogan.
Exhaustion managed to take most of the sting out of Shepard, all she could do was sigh and shake her head. It was Thane who removed his hand and whispered in his achingly calm voice, "It could have been a more dire reaction."
She snorted once before twisting around the dead elcor in her hand. "Let's go drop this off and then...I'm finding the first available shower I can."