Awakening, + 15 months

Tsarik stood in the back of the crowd, uncomfortable as Ksad shouted. "This is reckless in the extreme!" he all but screamed at Ksiril and Jakir, the male nervous and trembling, the female standing tall and defiant. "You would subject a child to suffer here, the way we are? This is no place for a family!"

She summoned her biotics half a heartbeat faster than he did, throwing their leader against the wall, stalking over to him angrily. "The choice to quicken an egg belongs to the female, always, not you, caste leader," Jakir said firmly. "And yes, I choose to. Yes, our life here is grim. It is bleak. But it is my life, and I will do with it as I choose."

With this declaration, she finally released her biotics as she walked back to Ksiril. Ksad rose slowly, obviously gathering his temper. "And you?" he addressed the viral specialist. "You agreed to this?"

He inclined his head slightly, still nervous. "She chose me, as is her right. Yes, I agreed to it. Why shouldn't I? What else have we to do in this burkked place but work, eat, and sleep? You may be able to survive on such a flat mental diet, caste leader," Ksiril muttered, ducking his head slightly, "but not all of us can."

"Do you think I am as uncaring as the storm?" Ksad hissed out. "In those pods out there, dark and silent, lie my own children! You cannot give yours a future. The Cosmic Imperative has already sentenced us to death, and all we few can do is try to cripple our executioner before he can take the next species in line." Fists clenched, outer eyes closed, he stared at the rebellious couple. "Bah, do what you will," he finally whispered. "Just don't let it slow down your tasks. We must complete our task while we have the strength to do so."

Turning away, Ksad walked out of the room, too heartsore to stalk away. His anger had fled to his grief, as it sometimes did. He was not simply their leader, but also the oldest among them, just finishing his second century of life. He had perhaps another fifty years of health before his body would start to fail from old age. And despite his own incredible knowledge of the medical arts, it was unlikely they could save him once that began to happen.

Tsarik also slipped out of the room as the others talked, most of them giving Jakir cautious congratulations. Quickening an egg was not a simple task at the best of times, and how the two of them had managed to construct a proper nest escaped him. "Tsarik, wait," he heard Jorsh call down the hallway, and he obediently stopped and turned. "Where are you going?"

"The air filters for this area need to be replaced," he said quietly. "They are one month past their normal life cycle."

"Air filters? Is that really what you're concerned about?" It was, and it wasn't; he was equally concerned with avoiding her and Baknar as much as possible before they got any ideas. "Fine, go to your maintenance, then," she scoffed dismissively when he did not answer. As was proper for his caste, he waited until she turned away before continuing on his path.

He was closing the cover, the fasteners squeaking in protest, when two hands ran up his back, teasing along the edges of his carapace, and he stiffened. "Please, desist," he said quietly, and the hands stilled a moment before withdrawing, and Baknar walked into his sight. "Do you need my assistance?" he asked, perfectly deferential.

"Why are you always so proper?" she asked, leaning against the side of the ventilation shaft, watching him finish closing it up and carefully bind together the used filters.

"You are superior caste," he explained lifting the bulky things and settling his jury-rigged strap onto his shoulders to carry them. The water filtration, now optimal, should run another forty years before it required more maintenance, and would quite possibly outlive all of them. It was a thought both sobering and breathtaking, to think that his works would outlive his species.

"The Cosmic Imperative has killed the castes, as surely as it killed our race," she said, reaching out a hand he deftly avoided by stepping towards the door.

"Why do you still follow Ksad then, if he is not your caste leader?" The question was meant to be rhetorical, as he stepped out of the room, but to his surprise, she followed him and answered it.

"Ksad is still the smartest and most experienced of us all. He came up with the plan most likely to succeed." She motioned acceptance. "I follow him because it gives me the greatest chance to gain vengeance."

"Then why do you continually stalk me and disregard his orders?" Tsarik blurted out, at once weary of the constant careful dance of words and glances and subtle pheromones coloring the air.

"Our world is ended, and I find that I want one thing of my own, one thing not taken because the Empire demands it of me," she said grabbing his shoulder and whirling him around. "Why can't I find something to take for myself? Why must you continue to resist?"

He stared her in the eyes, all four of them, and flooded the air with his grief and his memories. "Ksad is not the only one who has family lying in those pods, dead for centuries before we awoke again." He pulled away roughly, feeling her talons scrape his skin. He stalked away, looking for the mind-numbing salve of mindless repairs and constant maintenance. Because then maybe he could put away her face, eyes lit up with glee as she showed him the nest she had built, hidden away in between the pipes, forget his laugh as he teased her for not building it in her quarters like any modern Prothean would. Forget the bleak fact that either she had climbed into a pod, forced to leave their egg to wither and die of cold, or else stayed with it, growing and dying of age or suicide, and his child with her, the only waking people on the planet.