Characters: Shepard. In a way, Legion and Tali
Rating: G
Disclaimer: The narrator is mine, unlike the others.
Prompt: "The value of a smile" for the French community 6 variations
The essence of sacrifice
To anyone's eyes, the place wouldn't be anything more than a rocky stone covered in deserts, sometimes crossed by rivers joining into oceans here and there. A planet of an endless brown, without life except for some patches of grass, here and there. Perched on the edge of a cliff, it was looking at the stilled sea far beneath, scrutinizing the depths as if they would give an answer to its multiple questions.
"Why did Creator Tali'Zorah jump?"
Its RAM replayed endlessly this moment, a lot earlier, when the Creator Tali'Zorah had leapt into the air, ending her platform's functionality. The end of her existence meant the slowdown of the Creators' collective evolution, didn't it? So, why had she willing to such a thing? Silence answered the question as the human behind him moved. It turned to face him, eye flashing in curiosity. He opened his mouth, like he was about to speak, shut it, then shook his head.
"Organic beings can not change their platform. Why would one break it? We do not understand."
The corners of his lips were down, lightly trembling. His eyes were a lot more humid than instants ago, his cardiac rhythm much more high than it should have been and his fists tight. Interesting.
"What do you see in the sky?"
Its frontal plates softly clicked when its eye rested on the horizon. There, a shower of shooting stars, which he knew were the Creators' vessels, were rushing through the atmosphere, going up in flames as they crashed into the Consensus' defense. The answer was simple.
"The Creators' death."
"Why did Tali jump?" The human imitated the geth's mechanical tone when he returned the question. Even if it wasn't an organic being, the answer should had been obvious. It wondered if its processor lagged, for not being able to deduce it from the start.
"The Creators' death was a necessity."
Its eye came on the Legion-platform, resting inert on the rocky soil farther away. It was regretting the Creators' end, would have like another solution to the problem. However, the organics' decisions were often obtuse, heavenly influenced by their individuality, rarely logical and for the greater good.
"We defend ourselves because they attack us," it added, its head slightly perched on the side, surprised by the weird accent in its voice. That was the truth but, it strangely sounded like a justification. "We regret their death."
When it directed its optic captor on the Rannoch-seas-like blue irises, it seemed like they had taken another dimension. As if they were transpiercing him, perceiving something beyond its synthetic components; as if they could guess what it was thinking. That was stupid: organic beings' eyes weren't fitted with telepathic decoder. Otherwise, they wouldn't be in such a situation and, the Shepard-Commander wouldn't seem so strained although he had successfully accomplished his mission.
It looked away, its gaze on the geth again, on the white armband with a red stripe attached to its platform. Technically speaking, the scans revealed it was still operational. Only, it knew its RAM, its consciousness, was down, all of its data totally lost. It was also aware that organics called that death.
"Like we regret the one of the unit called Legion."
It looked back at the humain. His expression had even darkened, his eyes on Rannoch's sky, still covered in the fires of the Creators' destruction. The human didn't speak but it was obvious that his thoughts were with them.
It didn't know how to react. Its processor was proposing a large choice of sentences collected on literary and audiovisual databases, however it felt like nothing fitted the situation.
"We…" It stopped, unusually uncertain. With the update Legion had bestowed upon them, could it really speak for the whole geths? It wasn't sure of what it was about to say would be a certain affirmation of the agreed-upon Consensus' opinion. It chose to correct itself. "I will honor the creators' sacrifice as much as Legion's."
It was sincere, like geths always were: the act of lying had never been coded into their original program and they never had modified it since. Using the first person singular had a strange echo to its audio captors, but the sensation wasn't unpleasant. It didn't felt natural, but that was expected. Geths formed a consensus: each platform's decision was authorized by the Consensus, each sentence was words of the whole Consensus. Before Legion and the upgrade, they hadn't been anything but a plurality.
In front of it, the human had looked away from the sad spectacle to stare at it. His face seemed a little less strained, his expression softer. He was smiling. A tiny smile, a little crooked, weird, but the corners of his mouth were slightly up designated it as a smile. It was the first time it saw one. As confusion filled it, a discharge ran through its system.
"Data indicate that organics smiled when they are happy. Visual clues indicates you aren't. Why smiling then, Shepard-Commander? I do not understand."
"Because when I see you, I know that at least." He took a sharp breath then continued, his face looking like its was painful for him to speak, "Legion's sacrifice wasn't vain."