What makes life worth living? The progeny you leave behind, the choices you make, the life you have taken, the soft touch of love. Siha. Those are all the ways you shape the world but you remain untouched, your mind unknown, your soul adrift.
Even if your body betrays you in the end your mind remains by your side.
.
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Tu-Fira
It means to be unable to forget someone and he can never forget.
Inside his mind time stretches forever. Here he is eternal. He does not have Kepral's Syndrome, Irikah is by his side with Kolyat playing by the sea. Here laughter doesn't cause him pain and the tears are of happiness not from suffocation.
.
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He is dying.
.
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The sun is setting beyond the horizon and he can feel the numbing chill starting to surround him. Shepard never spoke of it but he always understood the familiar expression. The soft caress of death which has pulled the mightiest into its embrace.
Irikah is beckoning him to come back inside the shelter, she promise supper and warmth. Kolyat calls him father and a small smile quakes on his lips.
But he cannot go back to them.
The sand feels too heavy on his feet, each grain embodies each life he has taken, every regret and sadness.
Here he is eternal. He relives them again and again until he cannot blame himself further.
.
.
His eyes snap open. He is on the battlefield cutting a swath through the enemy line. Shepard is embodiment of Amonkira itself.
Be alive with me, Thane. He follows her light but he will never forget.
Death comes for us all.
