Talons Like Iron: Incipiens

Here go, folks, the next chapter is finally here, and it came a lot quicker than I expected because I've never seen so many follows and favourites for just one simple story! I can understand the caution of not wanting to review until the next one comes along, but I guess I'm a very patient person.

In this chapter, Skyler awakens to a whole new world and undergoes a lot of passage of time. I apologise for some of the dumb timelines, I'm not used to some of it because my complete understanding of the timeline is REALLY bad. Good lord, I hope to not do this again.

Chapter 1:

The Passage

The first thing I became aware of was that I was encased in darkness. The same kind of darkness as before, only this time I couldn't open up my eyes and that the darkness felt a little warmer than it did before. It was strange being in it, but at the same time, I felt safe and warm. But more importantly, I found myself with my arms and legs completely wrapped around my body and somehow floating upside down with my head pointed downwards in a way that I couldn't even describe.

Was this what the asari meant by becoming something else entirely? I know I couldn't remember much of my old life, but memories of the world in which I had chosen to take part in continued to flash before my eyes. Time seemed to have no meaning in whatever I was in, but at the same time I felt myself slowing changing, growing. I became aware that I could move my hands and feet, flexing them and learning to kick and grab at nothing. I still couldn't open up my eyes, but I know I will eventually be free from whatever was keeping me safe and secure. And then I realised that I could hear a slight thumping noise. Was that my heart or was it someone else's?

I don't know why, but that thumping noise eventually brought comfort to me, and subconscious memories of long ago came pouring into me when I was still no more than a thought in my mother's eye. Whether it was true or not, I do not know. But eventually those memories of my old life faded away and were replaced by different thoughts and feelings that I barely understood. Somehow, I could even hear words being spoken to me in a different language, but they were muffled by the darkness I was encased in. They sounded so strange, and yet so loving and comforting.

But then comes a time when I was going to have to leave this cacoon of darkness and face this whole new world.

The first thing I became aware of was that I had been shifted around by some unknown force, then I was being squeeze and pushed downwards. Fear gripped my heart and I wanted to scream, but something kept me from opening up my mouth and breathing in the strange place I was encased it. More pushing came, forcing me further down something that was so tight that my skull had to compress itself on my brain to give me more room. I felt everything expand and contract, continuing to push me until my eyes began to open.

Once again, I was engulfed in a bright light and then air came rushing into my lungs.

I screamed loudly and then breathed so deeply that I couldn't even tell whether it was air that was getting into my lungs or if it was water. I coughed and spluttered, continuing to cry like I hadn't before, at least not since I was nothing more than a toddler all those years ago.

Then I realised I was being held at arm's length and I blinked my eyes to adjust to the new world after having been in the dark for so long. It was difficult to believe that I was well and truly alive again. Only instead of a human face that was peering at me, it was... something else entirely. It was completely avian, its face covered in bony plates that stretched all the way into some kind of crest and it was flexing a pair of mandibles in what I believe was some kind of smile. Bright amber eyes with slits for pupils blinked at me. The face was covered in blue paint on the cheeks, nose, and the mandibles.

"Spirits, Octavia, it's a girl," the creature replied. "We have a beautiful little girl."

Holy shit, he a turian, and now I am realising that he was my father. Oh boy. All I can do is stare at him, blinking back at him, kicking and screaming once again in an attempt to try and test out my limbs. Oh shit! The shock is beginning to overwhelm my young brain!

"Pass her to me, Maximus," came another voice, this time it was lighter and feminine, but it also sounded tired and exhausted. "I'd like to see her for myself."

My father gently cradled me in his long arms, peering down at me with loving eyes that I couldn't even comprehend. I couldn't believe it, I was alive again and I was being held by a turian of all things! This couldn't be happening! This can't be real at all. He carried me several for several paces and then I was transferred into the arms of another turian, but this one was lying down and I was pressed against a warm chest. Octavia, my mother... she was my new mother. I was in the arms of my mother. This is almost too much for my young brain to completely understand.

"Look at her, she has your eyes," father said, his clicking his mandibles as he looked down upon me. It took me a moment to understand that my mother's eyes were not amber like father's, but rather... green.

"And your nose, Maximus," mother chuckled as father tickled my belly. "I've never heard such strong lungs before."

My cries finally died down as I continued to stare up at them, blinking and flexing my own mandibles in an almost subconscious manner that caused them to laugh at me. I don't know how I was doing that, but it felt weird having two pieces on the side of my face that pretty much twitched at a simple thought.

"What should we name her, Octavia?" father asked, looking over at his mate. "We mostly had names for a son. The doctors said that she was going to be male and all we could think about was male names."

Mother almost looked thoughtful for a moment, but it was difficult to tell considering how the plates on a turian's face were completely covered in plates that didn't move much to perform facial expressions. I dunno, it's difficult to tell from this inexperienced body. At last mother answered with a slight purr in her voice, "I think she should be called Dalena. Dalena Bellarius."

Oh cool! A turian name! Nice!

Father tilted his head at a slight angle and then peered down at me again, amber eyes warm with love. "Dalena it is then," he replied, nodding in agreement.

Honestly, I found that name really good, good enough to make me think that being a turian wasn't all that bad at all. Although judging from the familiar blue face paint on mother and father's faces, I'm going to assume that I was born on Palaven, the turian planet, but it was difficult to tell what year I was born in, not unless I asked mother or father. However, due to my baby voice not being fully developed yet, I couldn't ask, and no doubt it would be weird to learn that your own child was extremely strange.

I spent the last few weeks in Avennio Hospital with my mother before she was strong enough to return home with me. Father came to visit whenever his job permitted him to, but according to turian culture, duty came first before anything else, and that included family. I learned that father – Maximus Bellarius – worked at a docking station and that the work was good pay, enough to support the family but probably meant that he worked late night shifts. So my mother's brother – Uncle Caelus as I would someday learn – had to pick her and me up from the hospital and take us home in a skycar to make sure that we would be home safe and sound. One couldn't be too careful around Palaven, I suppose.

I didn't remember much after that as time went by. All I ever did was sleep and eat for several months like all babies do, growing quickly and my plates hardening, going from soft to flexible and durable that may one day save my life. I don't know how turian bodies work, but I know that their plates protected them from the radiation that passed through their planet's atmosphere.

I didn't see father much, but I knew he was around because at times I heard him when he came home late in the evening before leaving early in the morning before my time of rising. Mother would one day explain to me that he did it to show his love, and that he was working to give us what we needed in the future. I couldn't blame father for that, and there were times when I wanted to tell mother myself that I did understand. Mother spent most of her time cooking dextro foods, doing chores, and caring for me. Sometimes during the night when I cannot sleep and father is home, I hear her chatting with him about something that got father worried. I wasn't sure what it was, but something told me that it wasn't something concerning enough for the Turian Hierarchy.

Eventually, when I was old enough I began to make my first steps, much to mother's glee and to her surprise. I don't think she expected her daughter to start taking her first steps just when she was reaching nine months old. Learning how to walk again wasn't exactly a walk in the park (no pun intended), but I practised. Unfortunately, father wasn't around to witness me taking my first steps, but my mother and Uncle Caelus encouraged me like any family did.

Hell, I even tried to learn how to talk before my voice was even ready. Mastering the language of the turians was even harder than walking. Most of it was just simple clicks, hums, hisses, and sometimes growls. You even had to use the mandibles to create different sounds and pitches to make it sound just right, but again I was not old enough to learn how to speak! I mean, who knew that such an atrocious language could be so hard! I still wasn't quite ready to master the alien language, but I know that I one day will.

It sucks being a baby with the mind of a fully grown human female that may slip into English should I become careless and I would be suspected by my family.

Of course, things would get even more complicated when you're aware that there's a race of giant robot squids that would one day beat the shit out of your home planet and leave you floating for god who knows how long. I may have lost my memories according to the asari being, but I never forgot that I was once human and that Mass Effect was a game in my world, thus it made you become aware of the fact that hell will be coming soon, and then the peace would be disrupted.

I think I was a strange kid to my parents once it was noticeable that my personality began to shine through. By strange, I mean boisterously strange once I became vocal. I could never seem to get enough out of trying to talk. Mother would laugh at me whenever I asked questions and so she subjected me to reading datapads to satisfy my growing curiosity about our language, culture, and history. And once I became completely mobile, I couldn't help but try to run, testing out my limbs and playing with my mandibles to get a feel of them. And when father wasn't working at the docking station, he would play games with me that really gave me what I needed to adjust to my growing body.

Mother Octavia was perhaps a gentle and caring mother, always telling me stories about our mythology and I could become fascinated by them for I had never heard much about turian mythology before. She'd tell me stories whenever she had the time until I was engrossed into her very words. She was pretty protective of me and didn't like it whenever Caelus went too far in regards to his handling of my young body. I could understand why as he was pretty rough sometimes, but my bony plates would often protect me whenever there was an accident. But she always took the time to read to me at bed time and would even sing to me in a voice that reminded me of the birds of Earth. She was bright and cheerful, and she moved with quiet grace and precision and it took me a while to realise she was once in fact part of the Blackwatch, a deadly group that specialised in infiltration.

I still remember the good things in my new life, where once, Caelus had accidentally dropped me during a whizzy-dizzy and I had been thrown pretty hard. Mother overreacted a bit, assuming I had gotten hurt in the fall. She was partially right as I had suffered a chipped spur on my right leg that would be there for the rest of my life. Caelus never did it again after that, as he feared how mother would react again if he did something rough like that again.

Uncle Caelus Qui'im was probably what I would call the best uncle I ever had. Even though he was my mother's brother, he sometimes acted like a father to me whenever Maximus wasn't around. Between you and me, I reckon he was perhaps the funniest turian I'd ever seen. Mother would sometimes berate him for using swear words in front of me, but when I learned some swear words, I only ever did it in front of Caelus and he would laugh at me, thus keeping it a secret between us. And whenever mother couldn't be there for me and had to leave on some errands, Caelus would be there to care for me. He was very much like a best friend for me.

I guess having an avian alien family is pretty much similar to a normal human family. I don't think I could trade another life for this one.

2156
Palaven
Standard Earth Time

I turned three and a half years old and I had finally learned how to master turian language, although words were still complicated to form, it became easier. I became aware that things were becoming different amongst my family. Father was around a lot more these days and he and mother would often spend a little more time around each other, talking in secret with Caelus about political issues and then would learn later on that the approaching Relay 134 Incident was coming in one more year time, the very incident that would bring the introduction of the human species and a lot of casualties.

It soon drew to my attention that when I was old enough, mother was considering on sending me off to school, now that I was old enough to learn.

School wasn't all that bad, but from what I could understand was that it felt like they were brainwashing us. Most of the lessons were geared towards serving the good of the Turian Hierarchy, that service and duty came before anything else. But the one thing I enjoyed more than anything else was: fighting classes.

Anyone should know that being a soldier was part of all turian lives. Hand-to-hand combat exercises and studies were more than enough to keep my brain completely occupied. I found it a lot easier than simply listening to lectures that would bore me half to death, in fact, much easier than speaking the language of a race of aliens. But then again, drilled into my brain were the ideas of 'duty' and 'honour' above all else, making them more than just words.

Turians were much more than just a race of avian soldiers, they were a race that were proud to serve. I've got to admit it, even I am happy to be proud that I was born into such a society. I eventually grew to understand through my parents and uncle that I should put others before me, and that I was determined to make them proud of me.

But then comes the new thing that I have to deal with.

It was on this day that I noticed something... odd.

I noticed mother seemed a little bit off more often than usual, she was tired and was getting to the point where she had less time for me and not enough to do the chores, so I spent the time helping out Caelus in looking after the apartment.

But then I eventually learned why mother had been so tired lately and both Caelus and Maximus became just as excited as me.

It was just after school when Uncle Caelus brought me home that I realised that father was home early from his shift at work, as his skycar was parked in its usual parking spot. I dropped my belongings at the door, ignoring the sigh coming from Caelus and rushed into the living room to see Maximus sitting next to Octavia on the couch, whispering to one another before they both looked up from their discussion.

"Dalena, you're home," Maximus smiled and he gestured me to come forward just as Caelus walked in as well. I obeyed him without question, I would never disobey father, even if I wanted to. I took a seat beside father and looked up at him with my green eyes, blinking up at them.

"What's wrong, father?" I asked. God, the turian word still feels strange upon my tongue and I try not to wiggle it out of habit.

"Ah, my daughter," Octavia said softly, laying a hand upon the back of my head and pressing her mouth to my crestless head, her mandibles tickled my head gently in the form of a turian kiss. "We have some wonderful news for you."

"Your mother and I," Maximus spoke up, taking over for mother, "thought it would be best that hear it while the time is just right."

I rested my hands upon my lap, waiting for father to continue.

"Are you aware of how little ones are born?" Caelus asked as he took a seat in his favourite chair.

Oh god, I wanted to tell him I already knew, but I kept my mouth such and shook my head, pretending to play the naive one.

"You will know when you're old enough, Dalena," father chuckled. "But we will say this, we are going to have a new addition to the family."

Maximus, do you know how much I love you and mother right now?

So Dalena (aka Skyler) is going to have a new sibling! I wonder what its gender will be? I can't exactly say, you'll have to find out in the next chapter once it rocks around! Bwahahahaha! But I guess the important thing is that we may get some sibling rivalry in the next chapter and it's going to be a very big pain to write.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Don't forget to leave a review as it gives me a lot of encouragement to know that all you awesome people are out there waiting to see what comes next. I do apologise for not having much dialogue, but there will be a lot more in the next one, this I swear!