Characters: Benezia/Liara T'Soni
Chapter Rating: T (violence)

Prompt: "the taste of your mouth"
Summary: Benezia will miss her daughter (ME1).

Hurt/Comfort

...there's supposed to be a light.

They've always said there would be a light, but you don't see it.

You see the corpses of his Geth, their broken parts sparking and hissing as wires short and hydraulic veins empty. You see the long scars from plasma fire scored along their synthetic hides. Their warped limbs, cracked and bent by biotic detonations. The stains the polonium has etched into their shells—and the walls, and the floors—indiscriminately.

You see your dead commandos, too. Their bodies make less noise than those of the Geth, but they aren't any less broken.

You can taste the bitter tang of ozone in the air. The hum of the hot labs vibrate against your palms, and it makes your vision dance, your teeth buzz. You feel the Queen's presence at your back, pushing at your mind like bones against flesh. Shaping it to forms underneath.

But you won't let her use your voice. You can't. You still... you still have things you must do. Words you must say, if only you had the strength.

You are cruel to yourself, with that irony. If only you had had such strength at the beginning.

Your eyes darken, and you realize that you're afraid. Afraid that you won't find the light. That if you don't find it, you won't be able to let go. You don't want to hurt people anymore. To be trapped in your own mind, listening to its whispers and wondering if it's really your own thoughts you're hearing. You don't want to imagine what she must think of you now, after a century of trying to convince her that violence wasn't how the asari should make their place in the galaxy. You don't want to worry whether or not one human—fragile and short-lived—can fix everything you've broken.

You don't want to remember how seductive his words became, with his talons at your throat and the light of the machines in his eyes.

So you keep trying. But your vision keeps getting taken up by her face, beautiful and sad, and it reminds you of the last time you made her cry.

You remember how angry you were, and embarrassed, at the damage she had done to the Embassy lawn. You remember the way she stood before you, hands and face and clothes covered in dirt, while you flung words at her to be ashamed of herself, to apologize, to fix it, to never do something like that again, to act how a matriarch's daughter should. You remember how coarse your voice was when you finished scolding her, and how she held her breath.

You remember the way her tears washed clean tracks down her cheeks.

You remember how quiet she was when you found her the next day, eating sweet berries with small fingers, and how her eyes lit up when you showed her the pictures in the book. You remember the way her little hands left sticky fingerprints on the edges, and the sweet taste of her mouth when she kissed you. You remember the purple stains she left on your dress, and how you thought they suited its yellow color.

You told yourself that you'd never do anything to make her cry again.

But now...

Now, her tears are all you can see.

You want to tell her that everything will be alright. To hold her on your lap and rock her in your arms like you did that day, your little wing. But you can't find the words that will reassure her. So you think, maybe, if you can let go, she can stop crying. It won't hurt anymore.

But you can't find the light. You're so tired, and you can't find the light.

They always said there would be a—