After Shepard returned from her spectre mission, Liara's father was already gone. Shepard was sorry that she has missed her, but she was certain that she would see her again soon. After her reconciliation with Liara, the matriarch visited them often.
Meanwhile, there was still another guest in the T'Soni mansion to whom she could play the host.
After two weeks, Syrila T'Soni was still staying with them, although she told Shepard and Liara that she would be leaving soon, saying that it was time for her to go.
Liara urged her not to, wanting to get to know her aunt better, but Syrila said that she still had duties and obligations in the galaxy to return to.
She however promised Liara that she would not disappear again and that she would be back soon.
"Before the ardat-yakshi matriarch would go away, Shepard needed to privately talk to her about something.
And as luck would have it, Syrila was currently occupying the room where Shepard was heading.
Before she entered the room, Shepard stopped at a large window in the hallway which afforded her a nice view of the entire estate.
In this day and age, Liara's ancestral household was a vast complex of buildings. On the outside the main house had a very historical look, but in reality, it has been extensively reconstructed every few millenniums over the course of history. Every generation of T'Sonis and their bondmates added something to it.
In addition to the main mansion, there were several smaller buildings placed around it, containing facilities such as swimming pools, garages and even a small shuttle dock.
Liara's family also bought out the surrounding land as far as the eye could see and so the household was surrounded by vast expanse of land where the nature reigned freely.
The parts immediately surrounding the house were meticulously cultivated by gardeners, giving it a civilized, park-like look. Contrasting this, the further parts were mostly untamed, allowing one a glimpse on the true Thessian wildlife.
Of course, the reaper war was terribly devastating to the planet's nature, even more so than on the other planets.
The reapers purposefully drove several animal species, which were actually a threat to their occupation, to extinction. Many animals on Thessia have had a truly terrifying biotical powers. And while they were always largely non-hostile to the native asari, they aggressively reacted to the synthetic oppressors encroaching on their territories, unwittingly saving many asari civilians in the process.
After the asari realized that the reapers were focusing on large population centers, millions of civilians went into hiding in Thessia's jungle-like rain forests. The reapers would send husks to capture them, but the animals living there would react aggressively to the foreign presence.
After entire platoons of husks kept being wiped out by single species of a flying creature and its heavy warp strikes, the reapers decided to deal with it personally – sentient reaper destroyers descended on Thessia's rain forests which ultimately had a devastating effect on them.
Nevertheless, Shepard heard that all species that were lost during the war could be restored. The cloning attempts were already underway and the preliminary results were very encouraging.
Looking out of the window, Shepard shook her head and continued into the room where she was originally headed. She looked quite nervous as she entered the large room and saw Syrila.
The asari matriarch was wearing a form-fitting suite that was accentuating her body's curves to a dangerous degree.
Shepard was absolutely devoted to Liara of course, but she had to admit, that if she wasn't, she would be easily tempted by her aunt… there was just something about her.
"Her body will tell yours that she'll bring unimaginable ecstasy…" a words justicar Samara once told her echoed in her mind and she shuddered.
She went behind a nearby screen to change herself, donning her own sport clothes – because that's what the room was – a gym.
When she emerged from behind the screen, Syrila still had not noticed her, deeply immersed in her exercise, her eyes closed.
Of course, asari gyms and exercises were different from the human ones.
They focused less on physical strength and more on their biotic abilities. Which also meant the equipment was different.
Syrila was currently sitting cross legged on a mat placed on the ground in a meditative position. She was softly glowing with blue aura as she focused on the exercising machine before her.
It was a machine designed to train asari's precision control over her biotics. It was also a popular game used at asari parties.
It consisted of five metallic spheres, each about ten centimeters in radius, and mounted on vertical bars placed next to each other. The individual metallic spheres were allowed to move up or down along the bars.
Inside each sphere was a miniature but powerful mass effect generator that could rapidly and randomly shift the spheres mass.
The goal of the exercise was to use one's biotics to compensate for the rapidly shifting mass of the spheres and to maintain them in the centre of the structure.
During the exercise, a computer would measure all deviations from the centre and assign penalty points when the spheres would move out of the centre. The goal was to have as low score as possible.
There were different levels of difficulty, based on how fast and how often would the mass effect generators shift the spheres mass.
But the main difficulty level was based on the number of spheres one used. Not nearly every asari could exercise with all five spheres.
Smoothly handling five randomly shifting masses required an immense concentration and few asari could play the game at this level at all.
While Syrila was currently playing with all five spheres, Shepard knew that Liara could well handle only three. The asari children and aliens then usually played with only one sphere.
Many could not play it at all.
Shepard chuckled as she remembered a funny story from when Wrex came to visit them on Thessia.
Shepard would take her to this gym and the krogan suddenly wanted to try the game. Naturally, he went for all five spheres from the start but was shocked when they immediately went up and down, not a single sphere remaining in the centre.
Angry, he gradually switched to lower number of spheres and when he still could not keep the damn thing in the centre, he roared and smashed a warp into it, turning the machine into a scrap metal and forcing Shepard to replace it with a new one.
Syrila on the other hand was handling all five spheres with a great precision, their deviations small and quickly corrected, Shepard noted with appreciation.
While most of the machines in the room were suited to asari, Shepard had also brought in more traditional human exercising equipment.
She started her regimen by pulling up dumbbells in various positions. Afterwards, she went to a treadmill and ran for about half an hour.
As she ran, her eyes wondered around the room, examining the other equipment.
There were more machines that focused on brute biotical strength rather than control.
Liara's favorite was one that was composed of a single large block of cube shaped metal that was tethered to the rest of the machines on all sides except the one facing the exerciser.
The asari could try to pull, throw or move the block in any direction and a computer would measure her strength.
This exercise was much more favored by biotic aliens as it did not require a fine control of one's biotics that a non-asari rarely achieved.
And, as it turned out, it was also popular with quarter krogans…
There were also more machines that focused on speed and aim of biotics and also on the less common disciplines like stasis, singularity or flares.
At the same time that Shepard finished her running, Syrila also finished her biotic exercise. Shepard looked at the display and noticed that she achieved a high-score, her biotic control surpassing Liara's and also Benezia's by large margin.
"Hello, Shepard. Good to see you again," Syrila bowed slightly when she looked at her. "Will you join me at the bar?" she asked, gesturing her hand.
"Hello Syrila," Shepard responded, giving the asari a bow of her own. "Just give me a minute" she said and watched Syrila nod and walk to the small refreshment station that was found in the room adjacent o the gym.
Shepard herself went to change her clothes and shower herself.
It was another thing that she could not help but envy the asari.
Syrila probably just burned thousands of calories and yet she looked as fresh as ever. On the other hand, Shepard burned only hundreds of them and was already all sticky and gross from the sweat.
Liara always rolled her eyes at her, when Shepard complained to her about asari's annoying perfectness. There was, however, also a smug smile on her lips…
When Shepard finished her shower, she put on new clothes and went to the "bar". They called it a bar, but in reality, it was just a small lounge with a refreshment station containing snacks and various energy drinks.
Until Aethyta's intervention a few months ago, there wasn't even any alcohol to be found.
Shepard saw Syrila sitting on a couch while she sipped her energy juice and quickly ate a large cake placed on a coffee table in front of her.
Shepard shrugged as she took a human energy drink from the station.
She knew that the asari drinks here were laced with eezo, but even if she removed it, she knew that they were basically sugar with a little water in them, the asari being notorious with their high-caloric diet that would give any human a diabetes in few months.
Shepard smiled as she sat in a chair opposite to Syrila and watched the asari matriarch stuffing her mouth full with the cake.
"They can eat almost anything and still keep body of a goddess… I heard that human fashion models absolutely loath the asari" Shepard thought and chuckled in her mind.
"Shepard," the asari managed to say when she swallowed a sizable piece of the cake.
"I was hoping to see you again before I left… do you want some?" Syrila politely, but reluctantly asked, pointing at the cake.
She looked visibly relived when Shepard refused.
"Syrila, I am glad I still got hold of you here" Shepard said and took a large sip of her energy drink. "There is something I've been meaning to ask you…"
"An important thing." she said seriously.
While Shepard was overjoyed to see her bondmate this happy at finding her last living relative, there was one thing she had to clear up with Syrila.
"Of course, go ahead" seeing Shepard's serious expression, Syrila put the cake down on the table and listened intently to the human spectre.
Shepard sighed. "I need to ask you something, Syrila, and I do not want you to take this the wrong way, because I am really glad that you came into our lives... I really am" Shepard assured her.
Syrila nodded at her with amusement. "Ok. I am sensing a 'but' coming up now, Shepard..."
"But..." Shepard said and stopped for a moment.
"Who are you really, Syrila? I know that you did not lie to us, but you didn't tell us the whole truth about yourself either, did you?" Shepard asked, watching Syrila's expression turn pensive and perhaps slightly ashamed.
"When I first saw you... I sensed that you were the most dangerous person I've ever met…" Shepard said.
"…that you were a power to reckon with and you knew it"
Shepard paused for a while.
"You said that you occasionally helped your family in some little ways, but it was more than that, wasn't it?" Shepard finally questioned her.
Syrila stared at her for a moment, thinking her words through.
"Are you certain that you really want to ask me that question, Shepard?" she eventually asked, her expression turning haughty for a second.
Shepard nodded solemnly.
"Yes… If I am ever to trust you with Liara... with my family, I need to know the full truth"
Syrila laughed bitterly.
"You have trust issues with me? How do you think that I feel about you?"
"What do you mean?" Shepard asked in confusion.
"Under ordinary circumstances, a T'Soni matriarch would meld with your mind to verify that your intentions regarding Liara were honorable..." Syrila told her.
"Obviously, I am unable to do that, since it would prove to be completely fatal to you"
Shepard wanted to smile, but thought better of it when she saw Syrila's absolutely serious expression.
"I would never hurt Liara!" Shepard protested.
"And I believe you Shepard... if I didn't, I would never let you near her"
"Yeah, Aethyta said something similar to me a long time ago..." Shepard sighed.
"I am not surprised, there was always fire in her... but unlike Aethyta, I am actually able to carry my threats out, Shepard" Syrila warned her.
"If you ever betrayed Liara, I would hunt you down and destroy you in ways you can not possibly imagine... you know what I am" Syrila said, dark flames almost dancing in her eyes as Shepard visibly recoiled.
"I thought you told us that you never melded with anyone..." Shepard pointed out.
"There are more horrible ways an ardat-yakshi can destroy a person by..." Syrila said, looking straight into Shepard's eyes.
"I think now we are getting to what I initially asked you about," Shepard peeped meekly, still determined to know the truth despite Syrila's reluctance to tell her.
Syrila threw her hands in the air in exasperation.
"Very well, Shepard. If you really want to do this, I'll tell you everything," Syrila said.
"What do you know about the ardat-yakshi?" Syrila asked her.
"Just what justicar Samara told me" Shepard admitted, remembering well her talks with the asari justicar on the SR-2 while she was hunting her daughter – Morinth.
"I was afraid of that," Syrila said and sighed sadly. "Justicars always had very twisted and ridiculous notions about my kind."
"I will have to start from the beginning then..." Syrila said, shifting and sitting cross legged on her couch when Shepard gestured for her to continue.
"You know that ardat-yakshi asari are sterile... we can not procreate" Syrila said and watched Shepard nod.
"Have you ever considered why then, the condition even exists among my people?" she asked.
"If the mutation prevented procreation, the evolution should have eliminated it a long time ago," Syrila told her. "And yet, it is still as much prevalent as during asari prehistorics..."
"Why do you think that is?"
Shepard furrowed her brows and considered her words.
"Maybe the mutation is recessive? There are asari who carry it but do not directly suffer from it?" Shepard proposed and Syrila smiled at her appreciatively.
"Yes, it is as you say and that is a prevalent explanation among asari doctors and evolutionary biologists," Syrila confirmed.
"However even recessive mutation that is so obviously harmful should gradually decrease in population during the years... nevertheless, it rather stayed constant."
"I don't know then..." Shepard admitted, the engineer inside her unhappy about not being able to solve the scientific problem.
"I don't expect you to solve it in five minutes, Shepard," Syrila assured her.
"It took me almost a century to get a working theory about it myself..."
"Err, just tell me already" Shepard growled from growing curiosity.
"The ardat-yakshi mutation can be evolutionary beneficial to the asari... by giving her powers to protect her family better" Syrila said.
"What?" Shepard gasped, not expecting that answer.
"Think about it, Shepard... the only natural way a sterile organism can increase its genetic fitness is if it somehow helps its fertile genetic relatives have more progeny themselves."
"All ardat-yakshi are genetically programmed to be fiercely loyal and protective of their families" Syrila explained.
"When I realized this, it was easy to start to see connections in asari history"
"I examined history of all noble families and discovered a very curious thing…"
"I found that during their most significant raises in power, there was almost always an ardat-yakshi asari working from behind as their agent..."
"Like you did for the T'Soni family?" Shepard asked, finally seeing the connection.
"Yes..." Syrila confirmed. "And I wasn't the first one either, I believe."
"There were more ardat-yakshi in the T'Soni family?" Shepard asked disbelievingly.
"According to my estimate, at least five others over last 40 000 years" Syrila told her.
"Your family went to great deal of trouble to erase your existence from all records... how do you know any of this?" Shepard pointed out.
"Didn't they do the same with the others?" Shepard challenged her.
"That was a problem at first," Syrila admitted. "But as I understood it better and better, I began to look for a specific lack of evidence rather than an evidence itself."
"In all instances, there was a same specific kind of discrepancy in the records... and every time, the T'Soni family grew constantly more powerful over the next thousand years..."
"The same was the case with other families... a trace of tempering with the records followed by an unprecedented growth of influence lasting for a period of one asari lifetime."
"This is..." Shepard gasped. "... unbelievable"
"I know," Syrila agreed with Shepard's sentiment as they both fell silent and thought about their conversation.
"WAIT!" Shepard suddenly gasped, startling Syrila for a moment.
"What about Morinth? She was hunted by her own mother for centuries! She really did not like her family at all!" Shepard said.
"Tell me about her," Syrila urged her and Shepard spent the next ten minutes describing Samara's lifelong mission to hunt her rogue ardat-yakshi daughter.
"Well there you have it, Shepard..." Syrila said when Shepard finished her story.
"The girl was insane... rejected by her family and hunted by her own mother for centuries? That must have gone against all her natural instincts" Syrila said.
"What you just told me is actually another prove of my theory... just try to guess the one common thing all those rogue ardat-yakshi nut cases share in common?"
"They all have been utterly rejected by their families?" Shepard offered, seeing Syrila's point.
"Exactly..." Syrila confirmed. For an ardat-yakshi, her family is everything. Take that away from her, and all that is left is a loose canon with no purpose, no future and no control... they spend their lives flying around the galaxy and melding with everyone they see until they are killed themselves."
"You might think that my family rejected my as well, Shepard, but it wasn't the case. My mother always acknowledged me and loved me as her daughter, at least privately. My sisters never broke contact with me and I was often around when it mattered…" Syrila said.
"But this Morinth… I bet that Samara would not even admit their relationship into her face. I bet that she would grow angry whenever Morinth would call her 'mother'… am I right?" Syrila asked and Shepard nodded, remembering very well their fight in the apartment on Omega.
"What about the monasteries? The ardat-yakshi are kept away from their families there, aren't they?" Shepard asked.
"The only reason the ardat-yakshi monasteries can work is that the ardat-yakshi there instinctively come to see their convent as their family… and forget all about their biological one" Syrila said.
"Perceiving their fellow ardat-yakshi as their sisters and the monastery as their family is even being actively encouraged by their supervisors," Syrila pointed out, making Shepard remember her own visit to the Lesuss monastery during the war and the computer logs she found there.
"I think that the loyalty of ardat-yakshi to their families is the reason my people began to treat them the way they do now… they feared the advantage the condition afforded them over the rest of our kind," Syrila said sadly.
"And they were probably right to fear us…" Syrila sighed.
"Either way, they solved nothing," Syrila said resolutely. "The girls in the monasteries are merely innocent victims… while those like me are still able to do what my people probably feared in the first place"
"So you used your condition to help your family as the evolution intended for you?" Shepard asked and Syrila nodded.
"How exactly did you do it if you never melded with anyone?" Shepard asked.
"Another common misconception... the ability to kill during the meld is just a symptom of the ardat-yakshi's sterility… a result of her overcharged biotics," Syrila explained.
"It is however not her true power"
"Samara told me that they can get stronger by melding... increase their own intelligence and biotic powers" Shepard offered.
"Yes, that is true, although not in a sense you understand it"
"Ardat-yakshi does get stronger biotics by melding, but only because melding, in general, increases asari's control over her biotics. A same effect can be achieved with biotic exercises… like the one you saw me doing earlier" Syrila explained.
"The difference is like getting muscles by either exercising or taking steroids... you can get muscles faster by taking steroids, but it is ultimately addictive and self-destructive"
"And while they can take some knowledge from the victims mind, it is just another form of learning... nothing magical."
"So what is the true power of ardat-yakshi if not melding?" Shepard finally asked.
Syrila flashed her a smile.
"The ability to mentally dominate others, of course," she laughed.
"Yes, I know what you mean... I think Morinth tried to do something like this to me, but I resisted her long enough for Samara to come" Shepard smiled proudly and sipped her energy drink.
Syrila cocked her head and smirked.
"My my, human. You barely resisted a scared, tormented little girl... and you think you are something special" Syrila chuckled.
"Would you like to put your resistance to a test?" she suddenly offered while smiling innocently.
"Wh- what do you mean?" Shepard asked carefully.
"I will try to dominate you for a moment... I will order you to touch your nose, stand on one leg... innocent stuff. See if you can really resist me" Syrila said and stood up from the couch.
"I don't know..." Shepard said, suddenly not so confident at her abilities.
"Come on..." Syrila teased her.
"Is the great commander Shepard afraid?"
Shepard stood up and put her energy drink on the table.
"Alright!" she barked. "Bring it on!" she said and prepared herself for Syrila's attack.
"Is there something I should do?" she meant to ask Syrila, but to her horror found that she could no longer speak… the attack on her mind already started.
She looked at Syrila and saw her looking at her with confident smirk, focusing her gaze on her.
Shepard started to feel warm and felt her body rooted to the spot. She could not move.
"Don't resist, Shepard..." she heard Syrila say to her but she did not see the asari move her lips at all.
With fear, she realized that the voice was coming from inside her head...
Surrender... don't resist... you are mine... give it up.
Shepard was lost. Every part of her inner being was screaming at her to obey Syrila… to worship her, to do anything for her.
Syrila continued to whisper in her mind until suddenly, Shepard felt as if some invisible barrier was finally breached inside her mind and something entered her very being, pressing on her from all sides, trapping her consciousness helplessly inside her body.
"I have you now..." the confident voice whispered.
"Touch your nose with the fingers of your right hand..." Syrila suddenly said with her real voice.
Shepard wanted to ignore her, but it was as if her body took on a life of its own and she did as Syrila ordered her.
Satisfied by her victory, Syrila slowly walked around the spectre who was touching her own nose.
"I own your mind now, Shepard" Syrila said.
"A pity... I was hoping the savior of the galaxy would be stronger" she said in mixed mocking and genuine concern.
"If I was your enemy, I could destroy you, and you would not lift a finger to save yourself..." she chastised her.
Shepard struggled in vain with the mental bonds that were keeping her trapped inside her mind.
"If I was a crazy rogue ardat-yakshi, I'd meld with you right now..." Syrila told her, stopping in front of her face as she considered something.
She leaned close to her ear and whispered.
"And then I could go and do the same thing to Liara…"
As soon as she mentioned hurting Liara, Shepard roared a loud "NOOOO!" inside her mind and strained against the mental bubble that was holding her prisoner with all her might.
Eventually, she felt Syrila's influence slipping from her mind as she forcibly pushed it away.
Shepard abruptly regained control of her body, but would have collapsed if Syrila did not catch her and guide her to her chair again.
"I have to congratulate you, Shepard" she said in honest voice and handed her the energy drink.
"Congratulate me?... For what?... You've won," Shepard said between gulps.
"Actually, you resisted my strongest mental assault for almost ten seconds …" she said appreciatively.
"So what? I still lost," Shepard protested to her.
"I admit I wanted to teach you a lesson, Shepard" Syrila said. "But when you resisted for so long, I decided to test whether you could also break my control once it was established – something I did not think possible until now."
"And you did it," she smiled at the human spectre.
"You also incidentally proved to me, that I can implicitly trust you with Liara…" she said and pulled her into a hug.
"Thank you" the matriarch said as she hugged her tightly.
"How?" Shepard asked confused.
"I tested what would make you fully fight my control…" she explained after she released her from the hug and allowed her to sit down.
"It wasn't when I hurt your ego… It wasn't when I threatened your life… It was only when I threatened Liara," she said and sat back on the couch.
"You should be proud of yourself, Shepard"
"Wow, that must be the first compliment I heard from you" Shepard raised an eyebrow at her.
"You earned it…" she admitted.
"You are part of my family now, Shepard… which means that if anyone screws with you, they will have to deal with me as well."
The both sat in silence for a moment, thinking about what just transpired between them.
"You said that nobody ever resisted you before… how many? Shepard asked, beginning to fully understand Syrila's help to the T'Soni family.
"Hundreds… maybe thousands" Syrila said in serious voice.
"Our enemies… our would-be competitors…" Syrila mused.
"They were no longer a threat to us after I had them literally groveling at my feet," she said smugly.
"Most of them were eager to do anything for me and immediately obeyed my instructions without question…" Syrila mused.
"Only few required more convincing, but ultimately they all submitted to me…" Syrila smiled in triumph.
"In this way, I continued to clear the way for my mother and then later for my older sister…" Syrila narrated to her.
"Sometimes, they would ask me directly… sometimes, I acted on my own… but I was always successful."
Shepard could hardly believe what she was hearing.
"Knowing all this, I wish that we had you during the war," Shepard said wistfully.
"I am ashamed to admit that, I could not do much during the war, Shepard," Syrila said.
"Unfortunately, neither the geth, nor the reapers could be controlled by my powers" Syrila admitted.
"In addition, ever since Benezia joined Saren, my options were limited… especially since she told him about me" Syrila said bitterly, shocking her listener.
"How do you know that?" Shepard asked.
"I quite was certain of it when Saren's krogan mercs came for me on Hyetiana," Syrila said and Shepard's eyes bulged out.
"What?!" Shepard gasped. "Why is that the first time I hear about this?"
"It was a small team and I lived in sparsely populated area…" Syrila shrugged.
"Anyway… either my sister underestimated me, or on some level, she was giving me a chance to escape," Syrila closed her eyes for a second.
"I like to pretend it was the later" she said.
"Either way… The mercs easily fell under my control and I ordered them to climb the nearest mountain and lick the snow there while I made my escape…" Syrila said and Shepard chuckled at the mental image.
"You are certainly creative with your… eh, victims"
Syrila returned the chuckle.
"They are still licking it for all I know…" she smiled.
"After I made my escape, I discovered that Liara was attacked at the same time too but that she was rescued by a newly appointed human spectre… sounds familiar, Shepard?"
Shepard smiled, looking into the ceiling as she remembered the mission on Therum.
"Yeah, I think I might have heard something about that…" she said jokingly.
"Soon after that, I heard that you killed my last sister on Noveria…" Syrila said and Shepard immediately stopped laughing, awkward silence falling between them once again.
"Don't worry… Later, I learned about the indoctrination and I knew that you did the right thing" Syrila said. "Liara told me that she got to speak with Benezia one last time and that she ultimately helped you to defeat Saren…"
"Although, I admit that at the time, I was going to come after you for what you did… that was before you supposedly died and I had to silently watch my last living relative spiraling into depression over your death…"
"I was ready to break my cover and reveal my existence to Liara right there and then, but a new threat forced me to remain in shadows again… threat from the matriarchs themselves"
"Yes, Liara told me about how you used your contacts to make sure that it was her father – Aethyta, who was sent to spy on her."
Syrila looked at her with very dark expression.
"This is not the whole story, Shepard"
Shepard stared at her for a moment before she asked.
"What have you done?"
Syrila hissed. "The brilliant idea to have Liara assassinated was considered by many, but I discovered that it was being secretly spearheaded by a single asari matriarch.
"When I removed her from the picture, the rest of the matriarch council immediately abandoned any such thoughts and they were perfectly satisfied to have Aethyta watching over her…"
Shepard listened intently and then asked the single great question on her mind.
"I am almost afraid to ask what you did to that matriarch," she said quietly.
Syrila huffed in anger.
"Can you believe that this blue bitch planned to kill Liara for over a century? After I took her mind, she confessed everything to me."
"It was a relatively good plan too. The bitch figured that since Benezia birthed her daughter so late in life, the leadership of house T'Soni would sooner or later fall on shoulders of a young and inexperienced maiden… she then could get rid of Liara and make a challenge for our family fortunes… the whole situation of Benezia working with Saren was just a convenient excuse for her to have her plans carried out legally"
"That bitch!" Shepard finally exclaimed. "I think I began to see asari as too perfect. I would not expect that from your species, Syrila…"
Syrila laughed.
"Don't let our pretty faces fool you, Shepard. My people can be just as ruthless as batarians." Syrila said and continued.
"I have to admit that after she told me this, for the first time in my life, I seriously considered melding… not to feed some addiction, but to feel her die in agony."
"I knew that I could not risk getting myself addicted, but I knew that she had to be punished… so I broke her" Syrila smirked.
"I broke her mind in every way, until she literally could not live without me"
"I ordered her to make series of investments that would gradually, over the course of next few decades, land her fortunes in the hands of loyal cadet branches of the T'Soni family.
"Then I ordered her to make an announcement that she was stepping down from her position and going into solitude for the rest of her life to 'restore her unity with the universe'…" Syrila made the air quotes gesture.
"A lot of crazy old matriarchs do that, so it wasn't all that suspicious to her family"
"You completely ruined her…" Shepard mused. "Can't say that I am sorry for her…"
"Oh, that's not all, Shepard" Syrila laughed.
"She did not go onto any great soul-searching journey… she went to a plastic surgeon who altered her appearance so that she would not be recognized by anyone."
"These days, you can find her on Omega as one of the streetwalkers… I heard that the 'matriarch whore' is very popular there."
"She will remain like this for the rest of her life and she knows it," Syrila finished with smirk.
"You are not kidding, are you?" Shepard asked, hardly believing that Liara's aunt would be capable of something like this, even after all that she just heard from her.
"That might have been the most insidious thing that I've ever done to anyone, but she broke the first rule of the universe…"
"Don't fuck with T'Soni family."
Shepard shook her head with a smile before she stood up.
"I am glad that you came into our lives Syrila… even if you honestly terrify me sometimes."
"And I thank you for accepting me, Shepard. And for talking to me about my life… it was interesting to be able to finally talk about it to someone."
"It was my pleasure" Shepard said, offering a handshake to the ardat-yakshi matriarch before pulling her in for a hug.
"You should tell all of this to Liara" she suggested.
Syrila looked unsure.
"I don't want her to think lesser of me or our family because of what I did…" she whispered.
"Nonsense," Shepard said.
"You did bad things for the greater good… I can assure you that Liara will understand that better than anyone."
"Thank you, Shepard… I'll consider it."