A/N: I'm a bad person.

Ganar Okeer looked down somewhat doubtfully at the tiny asari child, folding his thick arms across his barrellike chest. His deep baritone voice rumbled out, polite but still coolly forbidding. "Does your mother know you are out beyond the House walls, Sea Lily?"

The young face of Thana T'Armal scrunched up in a pout, her blue eyes finding his and not looking away. "Saana is busy. And mother is also busy. If they do not have time for me then am I just supposed to sit around?"

The much larger krogan looked around, glancing over the sparkling edifice that was mighty Serrice. Built upon the giant out-thrust spur of the tallest of the Skypillar Mountains, the city was split by three huge ridges of rock. The Thirty and their Lesser Houses had their domiciles carved into these blue granite ridges, while the Clans occupied the valleys between them, and the clanless radiated outwards to the edge of the city wall, done in brown stone and harder than laser steel.

The doctor gave a sigh and with one hand lifted the tiny asari girl up onto his wide shoulder, ignoring her giggles. She settled herself upon the back of his hump, hands gripped tightly to the cowl of his ancient bronze armor, and cheered as he set off with a long, loping stride away from the House proper.

She did not notice the pair of House huntresses trailing them, or the single war priestess following at a discreet distance. Okeer tapped a quick message into his omni-tool to the girl's mother before heading down the wide, silverstone paved path leading into the city proper.

"Velar Okeer…?" Thana's voice was quieter than usual, as she used an asari term for trusted distant relative.

"Yes, little one?"

"…Why does the Matriarch of the T'Shora keep saying we should eliminate the krogan? I know I'm too young to understand everything, but… everyone likes you. And your sons. You have asari daughters, like Aunt Vheza. Why…?"

She trailed off, and Okeer's voice became musing. "The asari people are the strongest in the galaxy, because of one thing. It is not your technology, little one, or your biotics. Neither the strength of your military nor your economic might. You are powerful and unmatched because of your unity. Due to this, even the disaffected in your society rarely if ever act against its best interests."

He nodded politely to a pair of asari maidens walking up the road, taking in their T'Armal robes, and sidetracked down a metalled path to overlook the rushing waters of the Vesina as they crashed down the mountainside. The cool spray in the wind invigorated him and his muzzle parted in a pleased exhalation as he continued.

"Most of the peoples in the galaxy are not so… unified. The salarians struggle almost as much with one another as they do outsiders, and the SIX are, at best, of divided minds. The turians are almost dysfunctional in terms of unity, as those who do not feel represented by the Hierarchy will never bend or support the High Primarch. The volus only care for money and intrigue against one another."

He grimaced. "But only my people, in all of the known races, have literally attempted to obliterate ourselves. Not even the turian Days of Fire were as bad as the Wars of Blood. We destroyed our own world, young one – and then, when given a chance to join something greater, turned our backs on what was right to inflict violence and bloodshed on those who had only helped us."

Thana's mouth hardened. "People are stupid. They think they can just take something instead of working to get it."

Okeer erupted into laughter, a sound Thana always loved to hear. "You are wise for one so young to grasp this. The krogan are indeed a rather thickheaded species. Most of our Loremasters and Loresingers… died in the Rachni Wars."

He paused. "It is a lament, really, that you cannot sit in the ancient timbered halls of the Long Wall, with crackling fires and fresh meat and hot, dark black vova bread smeared with vheng honey, and listen to the Loremasters. To hear Old Baida tell of the flaming heart of Vhurga, He Who Was Krogan, as he battled the devils of the waste to save his mate. Or listen to the golden voice of Shurgia, as she sang of the rachni demons as we slew them and triumphed."

His head dipped and bowed, he came at last to the overlook of the waterfall, silvery streams cascading down broken spars of rock and erupting into flashing, glittering spans. Rainbows arched through the mist, as the clean waters of the Huasa Pool far below rippled with the falls, the gleaming blue witchlights of Athame's Eyes deep and mysterious below the water.

"My people have lost most of who they are and were, Sea Lily. We are no longer a people whole and entire. What passes for leadership among the wild tribes of Tuchanka are morons bartering intimidation and posturing on the battered exhausted flesh of what fertile females remain, while our mothers wail tears and hold the broken, stillborn frames of krogan youth, who never drew breath. Our colonies are arrogant mercenary packs of hooligans who, unless I am mistaken, will do something stupid and very ignorant in the near future."

His voice grew hard. "The T'Shora Matriarch wishes my people dead because we are a liability, little one. We are a force that will follow any strong leader, that disdains wisdom and learning for fighting and war, that sneers at intellect and competence for charisma and grandstanding. I have not returned to Tuchanka since before your mother was born, out of disgust."

Thana took all this in. "Do you think the krogan will change?"

He sat down upon the bare stones, heavy legs bending only slowly in his thick armor. His unlined muzzle lifted to sniff the winds, and he tilted his head. "Perhaps. There are many ways to change the nature of a single person. It is harder to alter the course of a nation, much less an entire race. But not impossible. But before that happens, my people have many more years of suffering and loss to endure. Only when the way they chose on their own has been proven not only false, but fatal, will they finally bend to reason, intellect, and culture."

Thana shifted her position, staring at the waterfalls. "…Why don't you just make them? You're the strongest krogan – and my cousin in the justicars said you're the strongest person in the galaxy."

Okeer smiled at that. "Flattery is always appreciated, but should never be internalized. I am certainly the eldest being. The strongest? There have been stronger in years past – stronger krogan, stronger asari, stronger turians – and there will be stronger ones in the future. One day I will face a warrior beyond me, who will meet me in single combat and not flinch from death like so many others who have challenged me."

He bowed his head. "It is a… vision I had. A figure in white, with a sword of fire. Could be an asari, or a batarian, or even a turian – it is unclear. I have fought and killed five who wore white so far and none have even harmed me, so I must wait."

He looked back up at the water, and the cliffs beyond. "But to answer the question more directly, Sea Lily – you cannot defeat ignorance with a hammer, nor destroy arrogance with a gun. You cannot beat stupid out of a million heads. The krogan could not stop me if I decided to 'rule' them – the CDEM would happily aid me."

His voice got soft. "But they would not bow to me. They would not listen, even as they did not listen when I told them they were marching to ruin. They do not value the songs of the asari or the wonderful stories of the salarian. They do not admire the grim arts and music of the turian or the beauty in that which is alien. I cannot 'make' them until they are willing to admit they were wrong."

Thana nodded. "…But what if they never do?"

Okeer turned his head a bit, enough so that his pale green bulbous eye was visible to hers, glowing with mischievous amusement. "Oh, I think I will find a way one day. The beauty of dealing with those who refuse to accept the primacy of intellect is they fail to recognize when their actions are not of their own volition."

Thana leaned against the warm metal of the back of his armor. "Fishbits. You should just stay here, Velar Okeer. We like you."

Okeer said nothing for long moments, his massive hand touching the rocks he sat on in a pattern. "I have long considered doing just that. To simply admit that I am as much a victim of hubris and arrogance as my kin. That my own pride and stung ego is more to blame for my rejections of what the krogan have become than any benevolent impulses."

He grunted and stood, and his voice rang out with its usual baritone hardness. "But I am the eldest, and there is that which only I can achieve. The rachni are not the last monsters we as a galaxy may face, and the rest of your various species…" He chuckled. "You are mostly made of water, for Kalros's sake. How you small people even beat mine can be granted more to the rock-headed stupidity of the Emperor than any ability of the asari, salarians or turians."

"Hey!" She beat a tiny fist on the back of his armor. "The asari are powerful you said! We have war priestesses! And… and Justicars! And commandos!"

Okeer snorted. "I lost my respect for war priestesses when the first one I beheld died to a mine that cost sixty credits, due to her arrogant trust in her barrier field." He paused. "And therein lies a lesson you should learn at all costs, little one. No foe is invincible. No matter how strong or powerful they may seem, if you can outthink them and play upon their own blind spots, you will always triumph."

– STG – STG – STG –

Centuries later, an old asari entered a climate-controlled room, followed by two younger asari, and beheld the figure lying dead upon the stasis field bed.

Thana T'Armal remembered the warm halcyon days of her maiden years, when her only worries were if the flirtation of Senna Vabo was real or just teasing, and the bulk of Okeer carrying her piggyback around as if he were her personal war chariot.

She took in the wounds, carefully dressed by krogan and asari morticians, and the gleaming finish of his armor, repaired from the battle with the Butcher. She took in his gnarled, massive hands, folded over his mighty chest, empty of the weight of the hammer God-Splitter.

She bowed her head, as Okeers grandnieces behind her wailed softly, and managed not to do more than exhale softly and deeply. After a moment, she found her voice's proper hardness, and turned to the two krogan in the room.

"I am aware Okeer is your warfather and the eldest, and that his rites called for him to be laid to rest in the warm sands of Tuchanka. But he is also blood kin to us as well. I would ask you permit us to send a tithe of our people, led by his granddaughters and grandnieces, to perform our own rites."

The tallest krogan bowed. "Queen Matriarch. The Warfather said you would wish to perform the Remembrance. We plan to take him to Tuchanka, that is true, and hold a ceremony there. But he has asked that he be… Remembered… and incinerated not on the world that spurned him, but on Thessia, at the falls of Vesina."

Memories rose up to assail Thana then, and even her control could not hold back tears of memory and sunny days, the smell of mist and the crash of sound as the waters tumbled far below, and Okeer's many words of guidance and advise. With a careful, slow motion she wiped her eyes, and bowed her head in respect. "Words will not convey my gratitude to you for this. Thank you."

The lead krogan nodded curtly, but his own voice was soft. "That he has fallen… I cannot believe, even now. He could have evacuated!"

Thana gave a bitter laugh at that. "Okeer would only run from a battle that had no meaning." She paused. "And… centuries ago, he said he had a dream, of a figure in white with a sword of fire defeating him in battle." She looked up. "I think he knew death raced to embrace him, and he would not be Okeer if he did not merely laugh at it and meet it head-on, now would he?"

She turned to the two younger asari. "Inform the House Entire, and the Lesser House, that we will assemble at the Halls of Memory in a month's time… to sing the longest Dirge of Remembrance that has ever been sung."

She turned back to face her mentor, uncle, and friend. "To celebrate the mighty life and death of Ganar Rethet Okeer. Warmaster, eldest, and beloved."