Chapter 7
It went like this:
The buildings tumbled in on themselves
Mothers clutching babies
Picked through the rubble
And pulled out their hair
The skyline was beautiful on fire
All twisted metal stretching upwards
Everything washed in a thin orange haze
I said, "Kiss me, you're beautiful -
These are truly the last days"
You grabbed my hand
And we fell into it
Like a daydream
Or a fever
We woke up one morning and fell a little further down
For sure it's the valley of death
I open up my wallet
And it's full of blood
Godspeed You! Black Emperor-"Dead Flag Blues"
They were walking along the riverside. It was a pleasant boardwalk, bursting with life, walkers, runners, cyclists, friends and couples, lined with small stores and eateries. They'd spent 8 hours in the museum, having seen only a small portion of it, talking ceaselessly and laughing just as much. They'd tired of the museum and went for a walk along the riverfront. They'd finished eating ice cream and decided to sit down on the many benches that lined the riverfront. There were still a few hours of sunlight left. The river was equally packed, buzzing with canal boats, tour ships and sailing vessels. This was one of Thessia's grandest, and newest, tourist attractions. Liara saw individuals of every species walk by. They sat next to another on a bench, sitting close to the other, just inches shy of touching another. Liara felt this was very close in of itself, as if Isolda possessed a kind of eezo field that enhanced her presence, her aura.
"I've told you an awful lot about myself." Liara said with a bright smile. She'd told her about her youth, about some of her adventures. But hadn't gone too deeply. She was too cautious for that. "I don't like imbalances." She teased.
"I suppose I should tell you about myself." Isolda said quietly, almost tentatively. Liara then realized what a foolish mistake she'd made. She'd forgotten about Isolda's history, but then, she had to act ignorant. She spent so much time being Shadow Broker it was difficult to adjust to being herself. It was easier in the old days, it was easier when Cass was still alive.
"I was on Palaven when the Reapers came, I fled to Thessia, and then the Reapers came. And I stayed." Isolda said grimly.
"I'm sorry." Liara said. "I… it's rude of me to inquire about such things."
Isolda shook her head softly. "No, don't apologize. It's better for me to speak about such things, rather than holding them in. It only took me a few decades to learn that." Isolda smiled sadly.
"We were on Palaven, on leave, spending time together as a family. Due to his service with the general staff, we didn't spend much time together, but every day he made time in his schedule to speak to us. Sala was growing up so quickly, now an adolescent, as tall as many adults, well into her schooling. I gave her the best of his traits, self-discipline, work ethic, and his keen eyes. They loved another deeply, humans would say she was a daddy's girl." Isolda chuckled weakly, she looked straight ahead, not focusing on anything.
"We were walking through one of the parks in Palaven's capital when Arktauros received an urgent message on an Omni-Tool. He barely answered it when the skies darkened with these hulking, insecticidal monstrosities. I'd never seen any ship like that. My bondmate grabbed our hands and led us running, out of the park. For the first time, and not the last, I heard that dreadful ping, followed by the sounds of incalculable destruction and carnage. I didn't dare look behind me, as if looking would send one of those beams straight for us. There was chaos, and cries of panic, and anger. We ran 10 miles to the spaceport, the sky filling with ashes, seeing more and more debris on the ground, more and more dead."
"The spaceport was crawling with people desperately trying to get out. I saw a lot of turians, and all of them were trying to get to a military ship or installation. None of them were fleeing. A building next to the spaceport was hit, it tumbled down, landing on the southern half of the spaceport. I don't know how many people were crushed to death. The sounds were horrible, deafening. Still we kept running, all of us were out of breath but we kept running."
"Suddenly we were on a shuttle. I don't remember how we got there. I just remember being in a cramped shuttle with Sala. We didn't have enough room to sit down. There were every species in there, maybe 30 of us in a shuttle with capacity of half that. I don't remember saying goodbye to him, I don't remember if we kissed one last time, if he said goodbye to Sala..."
"The shuttle barely took off; it was struggling to get in the air because we were overloaded. We felt a massive explosion; the spaceport behind us was blown up. We didn't need windows to know that. The shuttle was rocked by the shockwave; we were thrown and tossed around inside, banging against each other, walls, the floor, the ceiling. Somehow the pilots kept us from crashing. By the grace of the Goddess we made it into space. The Reapers didn't pay attention to us. Maybe they didn't see us or maybe they didn't care. They would wipe us all out given time. I looked out the cockpit and I saw those abominable monstrosities, seemed like there were hundreds of them. The very sight of them chilled me. What were they? Where did they come from? Why were they doing this? What had the turians done to deserve this? They were so incomprehensible."
"We made it to Thessia, I tried to console Sala and helped some of the wounded. After one day I sent Sala to live with my parents and I reported to my regiment for duty. I said goodbye to her, confident we'd see another again. For a few weeks we did nothing, reinforced a few areas, stockpiled resources, but mostly we watched the news. That's how we knew it wasn't just the turians, but the humans and batarians also. It would only be a matter of time before they came for us; at least, that's what most in our military thought. The civilian leadership didn't agree. Or, most likely, they were in denial. That's when we started hearing about Cassandra Shepard, all the work she was doing. I knew vaguely of her before, I knew she was the first human Spectre, but that didn't impress too many people. But when the news reports flooded with what she did, fighting off that coup, spreading the cure to the genophage, getting the geth onboard, we felt hope, that we could win this war against annihilation."
"I don't remember saying goodbye to Arktauros. I spent days trying to reach him but I only heard static from Palavan. But I do remember the day the Reapers came to Thessia. It was sunny, the first days of spring. My unit was guarding a munitions depot, miles from the nearest city. Everything stopped suddenly. The wind stopped blowing, the birds stopped singing, animals stopped grazing and looked up to the sky. Dozens of those things were descending from the heavens, as if unfathomable demons had invaded the heavens and in turn invaded the mortal realm. A Reaper landed a few miles away and started making its way towards the nearest city, a few others landed right in the city. We assembled and made our way towards the city, abandoning our post to fight the Reapers."
"We were in the outskirts when we first saw them, their ground troops, husks, praetorians, bio-mechanical abominations. They shot our APC, shearing the armor off like it was nothing. Six of us died, the rest of us were wounded in some way. We set up a position and started fighting off wave after wave of them. They were relentless. We made radio contact with other units; we linked up and managed to form a stronger force. We headed for the city proper. We weren't acting on any orders from above; we simply fought and tried to save civilians."
"The sixth night we had a lull in the fighting. We were exhausted; our biotics were weak, almost useless. Our weapons were jamming and overheating more, running out of heat sinks. We had to scavenge what little we could find, which wasn't enough. We'd lost a lot of people, there were only five of us. Our peak strength had been ten times that. We found a hospital. We didn't see any activity, so we went inside. We thought we could rest, get some meds and food. The hospital was heavily damaged, only three floors were accessible, the rest were destroyed, but it was still standing and stable for the moment. "
"The first floor was empty. We sensed something was awry; a hospital should've been bursting with patients at the time it was attacked. But we found no bodies. Only debris and a foul stench that reeked of burnt skin and decaying flesh. Our sweep of the ground floor netted us some food, but it was growing stale. We made our way to the second floor. Parts of it were inaccessible. We found some medicines, precious few antibiotics, but we took what there was to take. The stench worsened, so much we couldn't block it out."
"We made our way up to the third floor. In the stairwell the stench increased even more, it was almost unbearable. We thought about retreating but we pressed on. Upon landing on the floor we knew something was amiss. The stench was overpowering, we felt the unmistakable vibrations of an eezo reactor running. We hunched and readied our weapons, activated our shields. It didn't take us long before we found Reaper forces, a few Praetorians. The fight lasted a few minutes. We lost one of our own before we killed the Praetorians."
"We went further in, deeper it seemed, to investigate what they were up to. We traced the energy signature of the reactor to the maternity ward. There… What we saw… I'll never forget. In the incubation room, where babies are placed post-partum, was a huge device using the reactor as a power source. The device was several feet wide and in length, lined with sinewy pipes and wiring. It resembled as much a machine as it did a living abomination. It was emitting this strange purple light from a black proboscis that glowed as if it were coated in some slimy substance. The light was pointing to the corner of the room. There… there was a morass of blue flesh, but not just any flesh. The flesh of hundreds of newborn asari melted down and fused to make the skin of a monstrous abomination, standing on four limbs made from asari babies, wielding four arms made from asari babies. The creature's head was but a massive hole, lined with the lidless eyes of asari babies like teeth. It emitted the most hideous sound when it 'saw' us. It made the cries of banshees sound like a baby's laughter."
"We fired upon it. Firing the last of our ammunition, using the last of our biotics. The thing exploded in a miasma morass of cybernetic flesh. The substance exploded all throughout the room, covering us .The electric guts stung my exposed flesh and I scratched my face, my arms, my legs to remove every trace of that foul substance. I feared my pores would absorb it and turn me into one of those abominations. I screamed and ran. I ran out of the hospital. I ran out of the city. I don't know if my teammates chased after me. But I just kept running. All I could think about was Sala. I had to save her from this fate. I kept running from street to street until I found a shuttle that was more or less flightworthy."
"I had to drag two bodies out of the shuttle before I could take off. I didn't think to say prayers of consecration. I just thought about Sala, about saving her. If I couldn't save her life, I could at least save her from being perverted into those monstrous mutations. So I ignored their open wounds were dripping with blood and oozing with the pus from the eggs of carrion flies, I ignored their hideously broken limbs, the smell of their decaying flesh, even as my hands were covered with their blood and entrails."
"My parents lived on the outskirts of the capital. I couldn't raise them on the radio. But I listened to a lot of chatter. It was going very badly. I knew we were facing extinction. But I was so exhausted. I felt no anger, only sadness. I just wanted to be with Sala one last time, before the end."
"I arrived at my parent's home. The walls were littered with holes from weapons fire, smoke was slowly billowing from a small hole in the roof. My parents were former soldiers who kept weapons. I wasn't surprised they'd fought. I landed the shuttle next to the home. I didn't shut off the engines, I just ran inside, screaming Sala's name. I heard this horrible, high pitched screaming in response. It stopped me cold in my tracks. Emerging from the house was a banshee. It saw me and screamed again. I heard other, distant screams reply. This thing was calling others, alerting them to my presence. I still had my sidearm so I fired at it. It teleported, avoiding my bullets. I was too tired and slow to react to it, it grabbed me from behind. I felt its cold hands tear at me, as if it were trying to twist me like a corkscrew. It turned me around and I was face to face with this horrifying uncreation. I saw this thing's eyes… and there was no mistaking it, those were Sala's eyes staring back at me. They hadn't lost their colour. Only there was no recognition in those eyes. It might have been created from my dead daughter's flesh, but it was no more my daughter than a blade of grass was."
"With what little strength I had left, I created a singularity around us. It was weak, but it was enough that both us floated in the air, allowing me to fight free from its grasp. I landed on the ground roughly and ran back to my shuttle. The door closed behind me with a loud bang, I looked behind me and saw a sharply formed dent facing inwards. I scrambled towards the cockpit and took off; no doubt incinerating what little was left of my daughter beneath the shuttle's engines."
"I flew like I ran, without purpose, at topmost speed. The shuttle was too damaged to take it out of the atmosphere. Before long I was shot down, probably by Oculi, but I'm not sure. My shuttle crash landed in a farmer's field."
"I took shelter in the home. It was empty, the entire countryside was deserted. I heard distant echoes of destruction, the ping of the Reapers' beam weapons, thick smoke, black as pitch, rising from the horizon everywhere I looked, blotting out the sun. There was some water and food. I spent days in that house in a daze; I did little other than sleep and pray to the Goddess that my end would come swiftly. Nothing came. No other asari, reapers or animals. The entire countryside was on its deathbed, as life itself. One day I noticed the ground was shaking. I looked out the window and saw a Reaper Destroyer walking. I ran out of the house towards the Reaper. I screamed, shooting a few warp fields at it to get its attention. I succeeded eventually. It turned towards me. I jumped up and down, waving my arms, frantically screaming for it to kill me. The Reaper's cowling flaps opened, revealing the red beam. I stopped jumping and closed my eyes and stood still. I thanked the Goddess for granting me deliverance at last. Even though my eyes were closed I was aware of a bright red light. I waited for my end to come. The red light washed over and I felt nothing. For a moment I thought I was dead. But then I heard a loud grinding sound. I opened my eyes, the Reaper listed to its left and fall inert on the ground. And the next thing I knew, I awoke in a makeshift hospital."
"By the Goddess…" Liara exclaimed breathlessly. She had no idea Isolda's tale was so harrowing, so stirring. "I'm so sorry you went through all that." Liara tentatively reached out and placed her hand on Isolda's shoulder to comfort her.
"You don't need to apologize. If anything, I should be thanking you. If it wasn't for Cassandra Shepard, if it wasn't for you, none of us would be here." Isolda said, forcing a smile in Liara's direction. Liara discreetly returned her hand. She looked away, not seeing the flicker of disappointment in Isolda's eyes.
"So, tell me about your life after her retirement, so little was heard from you until she passed. Surely you spent a lot of time together, enjoying another's company, going on holidays together. That's the least you two deserved, peace and happiness." Isolda stated, eager to change the subject, no doubt her retirement years was a happier time.
"Yes, she didn't exactly receive it." Liara admitted, swallowing a lump in her throat. "I wish she would've retired a decade earlier."
"What do you mean?" Isolda looked at her inquisitively and worriedly.
Liara looked away, looking at the boats sailing to and fro on the Riviera. The wind was strong but warm, filling the sails fully. The ships flew gracefully and quickly on the water.
"I never told anyone this." Liara began tentatively, still looking away. "But Cass had dementia. I watched her being eaten away bit by bit, day by day. When she…passed, there wasn't much left of her. But… there was enough."
"How did it affect her?" Isolda asked, reaching across the divide between them and gently placing her hands atop Liara's. A tremor ran through Liara's body but she barely noticed it, she was so caught up in her recollections of Cassandra.
"At first it was cute, funny even." Liara began, still looking out on the Riviera, focusing on a trimaran which had several people lying on the deck, sunbathing. "She would forget she'd eaten a meal, she'd forget where she'd placed something. But, after a while, she would forget bigger things. She would be relaxing and then suddenly bolt upright; she would grab my arm and tell me we had to get to the Citadel to warn the Council about the Reapers. She would wake up the middle of the night, in the midst of her many nightmares, convinced she was reliving them. I would join our minds to restore her memories, it worked for a time but it became less effective, she would just as quickly forget what I restored to her. I hired nurses to help care for her, but she thought they were Cerberus or Reaper assassins and had me dismiss them." Tears were running freely down her face, but she continued to look away, continued to be unaware Isolda was holding her hands. "There… there were times she forgot our grandchildren's names."
"That's so… unfair, I'm so very sorry." Isolda said softly, her fingers gently massaging the top of Liara's hands.
"Fairness..."Liara mused on the word with something approaching bitterness. "Cass believed that nothing is ever accomplished without an equal or greater price being paid. She saved the galaxy, but lived with PTSD, depression and dementia, constantly living in fear of her life and the lives of her family. She wasn't happy about bearing these burdens, but she viewed it as a fair trade off, a small price to pay for all she accomplished… It might've been fair for her, but it wasn't fair for me, for our children, our grandchildren. Our grandchildren know her more through textbooks and vids than from any personal experience with her. Before she had her surgery she recorded vids for Aisha, in case she didn't survive, so our daughter would know her. She tried to hide it from me, but I knew she was making them. When she set off to join the Bridgeburners, not long after Cass died, I sent her a file of all the videos. I… I hope she's watched them but I doubt she has."
"I've lost so many." Liara exclaimed, removing one hand from Isolda's to wipe the tears away. Isolda didn't react, continuing to look upon Liara with wide open, sympathetic eyes. "I'm so tired of grieving. Almost every friend, almost everyone I've ever loved is dead. I don't want to grieve anymore! We're raised to take death philosophically. I've tried and I just can't be philosophical about losing Cass! "
She looked beside her, at Isolda, into her eyes. She too was crying. Liara realized Isolda's hands were touching her own. Without thinking Liara flipped her hands, their hands now palm against palm, their fingers entwining. They squeezed another's hands forcefully, as if cosmic winds were threatening to tear them apart.
"I don't want to grieve again. It hurts so much." Isolda said quietly, looking with quiet intensity.
Liara looked into Isolda's eyes and saw clearly. With Isolda she would never grieve again. She would never lose a loved one again. They could live long lives together; fill the emptiness gnawing away at her soul. She threw cautious away, without reflecting further Liara bent forward and pressed her lips against Isolda's. Liara kissed her urgently, feverishly, as if it would be the last thing she would ever do. Isolda kissed her with equal passion, their lips and hands moving together seamlessly. Liara felt like she was adrift on waves of passion, biotic flames stirring around them, surrounding them like a ring of fire. Their lips suddenly parted, Liara looked into Isolda's eyes and panicked.
"I'm sorry." Liara said, breathing heavily, "I…I…I…need…" She stammered, not knowing what she was trying to say. Isolda looked at her with concern. She reached for Liara but Liara stood up brusquely and ran away, heading for the spaceport, and home. Isolda sat alone of the bench for many hours, long after the sun had set, she remained, a forlorn and confused look upon her face.
There is something painful in the first spring bud of life,
it tears at the insides and claws at the doors of tenderness
that riseth in black forms from an obsolete graveyard.
-Mourning Beloveth-"Narcissistic Funeral"
This chapter's structure is different in structure from the rest, I hope you don't mind. We'll get back to Aisha's shenanigans (and normal chapters) next week!
