Author's Note:
Back when I played Mass Effect I made up this massively long story about Tali surviving her suicide, finding other Quarian survivors and establishing a colony. But her mind is broken by the experience, so she definitely isn't the sweet shy girl we know, and in general it's not a very happy story. I never finished it because of time constraints, but this is the first chapter.
I don't know if anyone wants to read that story, or even if I want to write it. But here's what I've got...
The waters of Rannoch are cold, so very cold against her bare skin.
But they carry away her tears just like a mother's hands.
Diamonds dance in her eyes as she sinks. The salt water pushes against her lips and nostrils, so she lets it in; lets it flood her mouth with the taste of birth and decay and tingle down her sinuses, filling her lungs in time with the pulses of her heart.
Is this what it means to be alive?
Her suit, that useless old tin can, is sealing itself around her neck and inflating itself; pushing her upwards into the air of her promised home. Rannoch, the homeworld, the place in the stories. Rannoch, where the sunset is real; where strange birds cry and flowers spill their scent to an audience of machines. Rannoch, the hell where her people scream and burn and die.
Veetor. Kal'Reegar. Auntie Raan and Mother and Daddy. Why did you all leave?
She brings up her omni-tool, watches it cut the dark water into wonderful jewels, and punches in the ejection code.
The layers of cloth and metal part around her fingers and toes, fissures creeping up her arms and legs and finally over her chest and abdomen. And then she's free; as free as she was when she floated in the warm salt darkness of her mother's womb.
My name was Tali'Zorah vas Normandy.
I am Tali'Zorah vas Rannoch now.
She runs her bare fingers over her bare face, tracing the lines of her nose and lips; pressing against her burning eyes; nails digging into the flesh of her cheeks. It hurts, so she presses harder, and the ribbons of violet blood entwining with her last bubbles of air are so pretty that she begins to laugh.
Tali'Zorah vas Death, she thinks as she laughs and chokes and dies. Tali'Zorah vas Nothing.