Second Life

Chapter Twenty-Five – The Tuchankan Desert

Shepard looked up when the door to the Loft opened. Garrus walked in with a bottle in his hand. Shepard smiled and abandoned the OSDs on her desk; she took out two cups and walked Garrus to the sofa. "Our favorite turian wine! What's the occasion, Garrus?"

Garrus poured the wine into each glass and settled himself comfortably in the sofa. "We never celebrated your return, Shepard. You can say what you want about those Cerberus goons, but that is one thing I'm grateful for. Besides, do I need a reason to drink you under the table?"

Shepard laughed. The warm liquid tasted sweet on her tongue just as she remembered. She let out a small sigh and leaned back in the sofa.

Garrus smiled back and poured himself another. "I hear we're going to Tuchanka. It'd be good to see ole Wrex again. For a krogan, he's an alright guy and I miss drinking with him."

"He said there's a lot to see on Tuchanka. Apparently he and Matriarch Aethyta have been working on some secret project preparing for the Reaper invasion. Liara is already there, looking at a huge Prothean data trove the asari matriarchy gathered."

"It feels like the old times again. I wish Tali were here with us." Garrus drained deeply from the cup.

Shepard felt her temporary serenity wrenched by the mention of Tali. She had sent her friend several messages but hadn't received any replies. Shepard had replayed their first meeting since she came back in her mind and the more she thought about Tali's mission the more she disliked it. "Both Liara and Matriarch Aethyta told me that things aren't looking so good for the Migrant Fleet. I'm worried about Tali. I've sent her messages to the Neema but still haven't heard back from her. Liara is going to have Feron check into their communications and see what's going on. I miss Tali, Garrus."

"I know, Shepard. I miss her too. I even wish that asshole Ashley would come back here, I'd talk some sense into her, or we can bring Wrex back, he and I will make a wager with Ashley, if she loses in a drinking game she has to watch your back, just like old times."

"Wouldn't that be nice?" Shepard put her cup on the coffee table. Ever since seeing Ashley, she had been wondering what Kaidan would've done. Would he have taken a fist to his old commander's face? No. He'd resort to logic and reason, and he'd use that sharp voice that he always used when he chided his commander. "Garrus, we had a family on the SR-1 and I'm getting what's left of them back."

Seeing a cloud come over Shepard's face, Garrus added some wine to her cup. "Hey, at least we're picking up some new blood. I don't care for the Cerberus goons, but the drell you and Liara picked up, he's all right. I had a chat with him, he knows a lot about sniper rifles and mods, he even helped me with a couple of things."

Shepard let out a sigh of contentment; she had missed just sitting and chatting with Garrus. "I thought you'd keep a distance seeing that he's an assassin, and you know, you're on the other side of the law."

The Archangel chuckled. "I've learned a thing or two by being around you, Shepard. If it were up to me, I'd have shot Benezia the minute I saw her. But I've learned to think more like a diplomat than a C-Sec officer. You should record this conversation and play it to my father, he'd probably kick your ass or give you a medal."

That brought a chuckle out of Shepard as well. "EDI, be sure to archive this conversation. I might find a use for it the next time we need a favor from Garrus' old man."

When their shuttle landed on Tuchanka, the day was already boiling. Wrex's large form and red shell appeared from one of the dozen tents lined the compound where the Tuchanka project was building underground. Shepard reached out to grab the krogan's arm. "Damn you, Wrex! We've been apart for too long."

Wrex gave a deep rumbling growl. "I never doubted for a moment that you'd be back and kicking ass again. Krogans don't die easily and neither do you." Wrex shook Shepard's hand and pointed at the large door leading to the underground structure. "While you were sleeping, we've been busy building a fleet and a network. Come on, you have much to see, better get started."

Shepard pointed at the young krogan behind her, "I also brought you a tank bred krogan, his name is Grunt and he needs a family, Wrex."

Wrex took a large step and stood in front of Grunt. "Tank bred, huh?"

Under Wrex's stare, the young krogan pounded his chest once. "I want to be the best known warrior in krogan history. The name Grunt will rival those of great generals and battlemasters."

Wrex only grunted and talked to Shepard without removing his stare from the young krogan. "I see you've got a lot of work to do with this one. He'll have to go through the rite of passage."

The dismissive tone in the clan leader's voice irritated the young krogan. He grumbled his questions at Shepard. "Am I not the perfect krogan? Why doesn't the clan leader want me? He wants me to kill a worm? Shouldn't he be worrying about recruiting the biggest krogan army instead of curing some disease? And what the heck is Genophage?"

After two days touring the facility and meeting with the people running the Tuchanka Project, Shepard decided to take the trip in the desert and help Grunt complete his Rite of Passage in the old arena. Both Matriarch Aethyta and Liara would join them on this adventure.

The strong morning sun harshly revealed the detritus around the camp as they set out on the long march into the desert. At Lieutenant Kurin's suggestion, each traveler added environmental mods to their armor to keep body water evaporation to a minimum. She offered a commando unit to escort the Matriarch on the journey, but Aethyta declined the kind gesture and took off first, muttering only a few words to Shepard. "I'll scout out the path ahead."

The truth was she couldn't wait to get started on the trip with her daughter. This wasn't the annual varren hunt she had participated with her own father, the hunting journey she'd dreamed of taking Liara on countless times, but they had both made it here at last, on her father's planet. What better way to introduce her daughter to the Tuchankan desert than helping a young krogan pass his rite and teaching him what it took to belong? The tribal ways had always fascinated Aethyta and they had also connected her to her father. To experience them with her own daughter was an opportunity of a lifetime. How could Aethyta contain her excitement?

Stepping on the hidden path towards the desert, Aethyta called up her memory of the journeys with her father. There were no marks in the sand, but the memory marks were clearly displayed in her mind. In the new beige colored armor that Jamaya had picked out for her to blend in with the Tuchankan desert, Aethyta felt cool and energized. The modded underarmor wrapped her skin tightly to preserve liquid and gave her a refreshing feeling. Wrex had given her incendiary ammo for the shotgun Liara had given her on the Shadow Broker's ship, and Aethyta had given it a name, "Rock" for its heavy weight, just like her old man's favorite weapon, heavy and sturdy. In close combat, when your shotgun ran out of ammo you could use the heavy gun to bludgeon your enemy to death. Reaching behind her back, Aethyta felt the familiar solid handle of the Rock and she smiled. "What a kid!" Aethyta breathed out. Liara had been on Tuchanka for three days and had only greeted her with a stranger's courtesy and then the kid buried herself in the Prothean data storage room, only coming out to join Shepard in their temporary quarters in the Bunker to sleep. Aethyta had a nagging feeling that the kid either suspected something or had figured out who she was to her, and she was trying to avoid her. Aethyta's smile faded; staring at the horizon that was already simmering in the morning sun, she sighed.

No matter, we'll talk during this journey. And the Tuchankan desert will give me the strength.

The closer Aethyta came to the desert, the more barren the country, until she could no longer see the small structures around the Bunker and the above-ground krogan camp. Pale yellow sand crushing under her feet and hot wind beating on her face, Aethyta stopped at the edge of the desert and waited for her three companions to catch up.

Shepard, Liara and Grunt took off an hour after Aethyta. Both the human's and the asari's armor had similar mods to Aethyta's with special cooling underarmor, but Grunt's mod was for his shell. At the young krogan's request, the weapons master at the camp had given Grunt a v-shaped meshed plate that covered his head with a reinforced point in the front for more efficient head butting. "Here, stronger than any metal and it keeps your head cool under the mid-day sun. You wear this until you grow your own shell." The old weapons master told the young krogan. Each of them carried their own dry water canisters and food rations that would last them for the four-day journey: two days to the arena and two days back if the thresher maw didn't eat them for dinner. Grunt walked ahead in his bouncy steps and his companions followed closely behind.

When Shepard found Liara in the storage room in the underground bunker with her stacks and stacks of Prothean data discs and told her about the journey into the desert, Liara didn't show any enthusiasm about the trip. "Do I have to go? The commandos use Tuchanka as survival training ground. I am a creature evolved from the sea."

The day before the journey, Liara showed Shepard what she had discovered on the Big Whale: a series of vids of Matriarch Aethyta holding Liara's pictures in different locations and several letters Aethyta wrote to Benezia, some with harshly accusing words and others begging to come home to her bondmate and her kid. Shepard now understood why Aethyta wanted to invite Liara to join them on the journey. Perhaps the father wanted to talk to her daughter. "I promised you before the SR-1 was destroyed that I'd help you find your father. She had found you, I'd like to help you two to know each other."

Liara put down her OSD on the desk and looked up at Shepard. "She found me and promptly lied to me. She did not say a word to me this whole time. I had her in my mother's house, her bondmate's house, and the house she lived in for a century, Shepard! She didn't say a word!"

"She didn't exactly lie, she just didn't tell you the truth." Shepard could see the hurt and doubts behind the angry words, "She's proud and stubborn, just like you. There must be reasons she withheld the information, I'm guessing whatever that reason is, it's killing her not to claim you as her daughter. This couldn't have been easy for her either."

Liara wasn't convinced. Shepard took her hands and held them in her own. "Look, you were worried that she wouldn't like you or she might have wanted nothing to do with you, remember? But when you were alone and needed help, she protected you. She almost gave her life to protect you when I wasn't there, when your mother wasn't there to protect you. I would've given her a medal for that. Cut her some slack and talk to her." Shepard brought Liara's hands to her lips and kissed them. "Besides, would you let me face the thresher maw alone with your crazy dad and a young krogan pup?"

Liara sighed. "Oh, fine. I know what you are trying to do, Shepard. But I am only going so that I can protect you."

Grunt saw Aethyta waiting for them at the edge of the desert and ran up to her. "How do you know where to go? I don't see any roads other than sand."

"There're many paths in the desert. You just have to know where to look." The Matriarch pointed at a direction to their left, "This road leads to the old underground caves where krogans lived when they were fighting the rachni and expanded during the Rebellion." And then she pointed straight ahead, "We're on the road to the arena and the burial ground." She turned and faced right, "This path leads to the krogan female camps."

Grunt's mouth spread wide at the mention of female camps. "How do you know so much about the desert?"

Aethyta only grinned and started walking on the path straight ahead. This planet talked to her at a subterranean level. The sand, the wind and even the dried up sea spoke to her in a familiar tongue. The bristle bole of a thick low growing tree brought up images that her father had shown her, the images of green hills and blue seas on Tuchanka before the nuclear winter. Old shipwrecks embedded in the dried up seas and old spire tower ruins stood in their stubborn ways, sculptures made by time and passing wind and sand. Most people think of deserts as lifeless, but here on Tuchanka, the desert was not lifeless, it was living in a different form. She could hear the desert when she tuned her ears and focused her attention: there were small beetles rustling and slithering. Standing in a vast sandscape, it was hard to imagine this was a verdant hill once. Only after the nuclear booms stopped, did the silent war begin. Radiation killed everything it touched and death swallowed all its hands could grab. But hidden beneath the surface, there were those who survived the nuclear holocaust. Life went on, just in a different way.

"When the seas crystallized, small pockets of water were trapped and they were too small for fish to survive in but not for small crustaceans. They dug tunnels between these water pockets and carved themselves a colony. When they grew bigger they dug bigger pockets and the colony grew with them. And when they finally made it to the surface for air, and that's when the varren came out and hunt them." Aethyta repeated the story her father had told her many times. She spoke loudly so that all members in the party could hear and hoped one particular member would walk next to her and ask her the questions she'd asked her father before.

"And that's when we come out and hunt the varren, right?" Grunt asked instead.

"You're a smart pup." Aethyta smiled. The krogan walking beside her made her feel at home. "Do you know when they come to hunt the crab?" Grunt shook his head. "At night. Varren hate the heat just like everybody else. During the day, the desert is quiet. But at night, everything comes to life. The plants stand straighter and animals come out to hunt. It's fucking beautiful at night in the desert." A millennia old asari and a month old tank bred krogan shared a laugh and a sigh of contentment together.

Shepard and Liara followed behind the Matriarch and the young krogan. When Wrex told Shepard how to help Grunt complete his rite of passage into clan Urdnot, Aethyta was sharing a drink with the krogans in the large tents above the ground. Wrex had told Shepard that his krogans preferred living in the warmth of the sun rather than the climate-controlled bunker. "Besides, there're no fish to stare at no matter how much it looks like the Citadel." The Matriarch had brought in a bathtub for Wrex and his krogans so that they could keep fish in it once they hooked up the pipes to the tents.

"You can't take a tank or a shuttle to the arena. That's cheating!" Aethyta put down her drink and turned to Wrex and Shepard. "The journey to the arena itself is just as important as the fight. How else could he understand the desert if he didn't walk in it? And how could he be a krogan if he didn't understand the desert?"

Wrex's beady eyes turned warm as the corners of his mouth curled up. "Shepard, the Matriarch has a true krogan heart. It's up to you how you want to play it."

Aethyta offered again. "I know the way to the arena like the back of my hand. I'm happy to guide you there." She stood up and followed Shepard out. "You think Liara might want to come along too?" Even though the hot breeze constantly reminded them this was Tuchanka, Aethyta could feel Liara's icy exterior when the younger asari saw the Matriarch at the Bunker. Her heart ached every time Liara turned the other way when Aethyta tried to make a move to talk to her or even just get physically close. She knows and she blames me for leaving her.

In the mid-day when the party was well into the desert, the bright orange sun smoldered the sky and the horizon danced with heat in their vision. Aethyta pointed at a gentle rise in the short distance, "Beyond that ridge, there's an old shipwreck we can hide under to take a break from the sun."

"That looks just like other dunes we've seen. How do you know the shipwreck is behind this particular one?" Grunt asked again.

Aethyta only smiled and remained silent. The grit under her feet told her they were walking onto a different kind of terrain under the disguise of the sand, a firmer response after the usual dip in the steps - they were on the edge of the dried up sea. Aethyta quickened her pace, she was eager to see her old friend again.

Over the small sand hill, a flat surface expanded to as far as eyes could see. In the vast yellow sand plain stood a sunken ship, startling the otherwise uninterrupted landscape. Only half of the ship, the forward half, was sticking straight up in the air, guts of the ship emptied, only the hull remained. The dried sea had swallowed the unseen aft half of the ship, and sand had piled on top of the hard surface, framing the sunken ship in its unnatural background. The curvy hulls of the shipwreck created shade from the hot sun. The traveling party quickly entered the temporary sanctuary, shedding their backpacks and reaching for their dry-water canisters.

After a few moments of rest, Aethyta pointed at the space behind them. "Sometimes a huge storm would swipe through here and move all the sand over there into a small hill, and it'd leave the surface here barren, and you could see the dried salt mixed with orange acid underneath the sand, cracked and curled on the edges, so hard that you couldn't penetrate it with a pistol."

Grunt jumped up and followed Aethyta's vision to the small hill behind the shipwreck. "I'm going to check it out!" With only his weapon in hand, the young krogan walked towards the small dune. Shepard followed behind him.

Alone at last with Liara, Aethyta stood at the edge of the shade and watched the krogan and the human climbing the small sand hill. "In addition to the hot sun, dry air and the dangerous fauna and flora, Tuchanka is an excellent place for dreaming." Aethyta seemed to be talking to herself, but her deep voice was loud enough for Liara to hear.

Despite the romantic notion Aethyta had of the desert, Liara couldn't help but feel the savage undertones of their surroundings. The planet and this desert looked surreal and otherworldly to her. How could any asari love a desert so much? And how did she let Shepard talk her into going on this trip with them? When Shepard told her that Aethyta had volunteered to embark on this journey with them, Liara could only guess what the Matriarch's plan was. What kind of excuses would she conjure up for abandoning her own child? And what kind of devious person was she to hide her identity from her daughter while masquerading as her friend? Liara wished she wasn't in the desert when she confronted her father because she couldn't think straight in this heat!

"How can anyone even fall asleep in this heat under the baking sun?" Liara let out a comment that stamped out the enthusiasm in Aethyta's voice.

Looking at the sun shimmering in a molten sky, Aethyta smiled. "A real dreamer doesn't need to go to sleep to dream."

"What do you dream of on Tuchanka?" Seeing no escape from talking, Liara turned her full attention to the Matriarch.

"The future, the past, the life I never had. But most of all, I dream of this." Aethyta swiped her gaze from the base of the shipwreck embedded in the bedrock through the bow and to the prow.

"You dream of an old sea vessel stuck in a dried up acid sea?"

"No. Taking a trip with you here, in this very desert, like my father did with me for many years." Ignoring the irritation in Liara's voice, Aethyta produced a smile as her eyes welled up with tears. This was a dream come true. She looked further at the horizon and the little black dots created by short bushes that looked like they were dancing in the heat-distorted vista. "I've dreamed of this day, standing right here, me holding your hand and telling you stories of my father, of the desert. Of course, you were always much younger in my dreams."

Abruptly, Liara jumped up from the base of the shipwreck and walked pass Aethyta. "I can't do this! I'm going to join Shepard."

"What? We can't even talk to each other?" Aethyta hid her deflated spirit and asked in an even tone.

"Talk? You're the one who should talk." Liara stopped in her tracks but she couldn't stop the tremor rising from her stomach. "You had plenty of chances to talk to me, to tell me the truth. Now you want to talk?"

"What do you want me to say?" Aethyta moved her eyes away from Liara's face that was trembling.

"Tell me who you really are!" Liara shouted.

Aethyta wished she could carve out her heart and show Liara how much she loved her and what she'd do to protect her. It pained Aethyta that she had caused Liara such grief. "Look, I'm sorry. I promised your mother I wouldn't say anything, okay?"

That was a wrong thing to say. Liara moved closer to Aethyta, staring intently with fiery eyes and flushed cheeks. "My mother made you promise to hide from me? My dead mother?"

Aethyta backed up a step at the word "dead". She hadn't let herself think Benezia as "dead" when she brought up Nezzy's image in her mind. When she thought about her former bondmate, Benezia was always in motion, at work giving a speech or at their home drinking tea or telling her about something funny she had heard. Aethyta never knew that Benezia told jokes until they moved in together, but somehow Nezzy always managed to make her laugh. It was always the laughing face that was plastered in Aethyta's memories of Benezia, so open and warm. It had overshadowed the gloomy days of their last few months together, sensing the doomsday was coming when Aethyta picked up her things and left the house they had shared for nearly a century; and Aethyta could never bring herself to look at Nezzy's face in the vids Shepard brought to the Council from her battle above Noveria. Even after Liara came into her life, when the lost was amplified by the absence of the other family member, Aethyta still didn't let herself think too much about Benezia's death. She couldn't let herself touch the sense of the infinity in that word, she couldn't imagine her Nezzy was gone, forever. But hearing the word from her own daughter startled Aethyta presently. The sudden crushing wave hit her when she had no defense against it, and the realization made her head spin. She turned away from Liara who, from the movement of her mouth and the expression on her face, seemed to be still asking questions, but Aethyta didn't hear a single word. The ringing in her ears had blocked every sense from her, the only thing she could feel was the heat, the baking heat rising from the base of the bedrock and cooking the sand above, almost crystalizing the pebbles as they glittered in sunlight. Aethyta grabbed a broken plank that was sticking out from the bow and steadied herself.

"What do you want from me?" She asked weakly.

"I want answers!" Liara's face was still burning, but her voice sounded far away.

Before Aethyta could respond, Grunt's voice came from behind the shipwreck. "Matriarch! We found a freshly used fire pit over the ridge. Someone had been here last night! Shepard said you should take a look."

The discovery of other desert visitors had distracted the tension between the father and daughter. It took no small amount of effort on Aethyta's part to feel her legs returning to her and to move those legs pass her daughter's stare and climb over the crest and investigate the small fire that had burned within a small circle of rocks. Aethyta cleared her throat before speaking, "They're a day's journey ahead of us. There're only two places this path leads to, the rite of passage arena and the burial ground. We either have another seeker of the rite or fighters who will fight to their deaths at the burial ground. Let's hope they don't cause any trouble."

The journey between the shipwreck and sunset was a quiet one. Everyone seemed to be preoccupied by their own thoughts as they reached the overnight campground marked by a few posts on the ground for setting up tents and a small stone circle to build a fire. The desert overnight was a cold place. Before setting up the tents, Aethyta stared at the narrow band of orange drawn out in the distance, bulging in the middle where the sun trekked rapidly into the horizon. She had always loved the exotic sunset in the Tuchankan desert, its beauty often moved her to tears. But not today. As the pale metallic blue replaced orange sky overhead, she muttered with a heavy tone. "We'll need a defensive perimeter from the night hunters." Without waiting for any response, Aethyta started to walk towards the edge of the campground to set up an enclosed sensor network. Shepard followed her.

When they finished placing the sensor posts, Aethyta stared out at the distance and pointed at a small dune to Shepard. "There used to be a beacon there for travelers on this road to follow. The beacons used to line this trek for the annual varren hunters, the rite seekers and there were even tribes that roamed in the desert, mostly female krogans, never settled down in one place. When I was a young pup like Grunt, my father told me stories of the roaming tribes, I used to fancy that I was traveling with them."

Shepard sensed that the Matriarch had her own agenda for this trip, and from the brief stolen glances she flickered at Liara's direction, the human hoped that the father and daughter would work things out. Liara needed her father in times like this; Shepard understood that perfectly as she often felt the urgent need for her own mother. "The desert has a special place in your heart."

"It's magical when you're a kid to travel in the desert." Aethyta's thoughts turned tender and her voice turned soft too. "The infinity springs possibilities in a kid's mind. I had dreamed of taking Liara here ever since she was born."

"You're a great teacher. I'm very glad you came along. Grunt has learned so much about the krogan way on this trip from you." Shepard saw the sudden discomfort Aethyta showed when she was being complimented and the human smiled. "Liara is very smart. She knows that you're trying, she just need some time to adjust, please don't give up on her."

Aethyta had seen the vids of Shepard in battle, but this side of the warrior surprised the Matriarch. She had imagined the first human Spectre would be determined or even ruthless at achieving her own goals, but she had also observed Shepard around others, the way she instantly won over a Justicar, the way she looked at Liara when her face softened and shoulders relaxed, and the way she talked about Benezia. This human had a gift of connecting with people and she connected with Benezia, her Nezzy! Aethyta gave Shepard a smile, "There's no way in hell I'm giving up on her now."

When they got back to the campground, Grunt and Liara had set up three tents and a fire was burning from three small canisters within the stone circle that shielded the flames from the passing wind and spilling sand. Grunt sucked down his ration pack, "I wish we'd hunt varren tonight." He had heard the krogans around the Bunker talking about grilled varren meat.

Aethyta tossed her own ration pack in Grunt's lap, "Don't worry. You'll have plenty of varren to kill when we get to the arena. We need to save our ammo for the thresher maw."

Shepard got on her feet and motioned Grunt to follow her. "Come on, Grunt. You take the first watch, I'll show you the perimeter we've set up."

Liara didn't touch her food ration either. Watching Shepard and the young krogan disappear behind the tents, Liara stood up and walked a few steps away from the fire and faced the last light of the day. She trained her eyes on the transient beauty of the setting sun, and took a deep breath and let herself feel the sudden stillness descending upon the desert in the quick darkness after the pale blue sky vanished.

"On other planets, if you don't like the heat, you move to colder latitudes. Here, you've got to stand your ground because there's no other place you can go to escape." Aethyta's voice behind her told Liara that the Matriarch was standing close. The young asari didn't move her vision from the darkness that blurred the line between the land and the sky.

"There're some low growing bushes in the northern part of our perimeter you've got to watch out for. They're poisonous on contact. The krogans use desert beetle's serum to treat poisoning by these bushes. They've also discovered that the rachni's piss could sanitize the wound from the thorns." Aethyta retold the wisdom of the desert her father had shared with her, keeping the topics safe and benign.

Liara closed her eyes for a moment as her mother's voice came to her mind. "Liara, don't be discouraged when you see flaws in others and in yourself. Only when you realize them, have you gained the right knowledge. That's how you grow." Liara was amazed at how often her mother's voice spoke to her now. When Benezia was alive, Liara sought to hear her own voice that she felt was drowning in the crushing weight of her mother's wisdom. But now when her mother was no longer talking to her, she found she sought her mother's voice she had tried very hard to bury, and to her surprise she could hear her mother clearer than ever before. If her father had indeed made a mistake when it came to her daughter, she might've had a good reason.

Liara turned around and faced Aethyta. "Did you think I would be a burden to you?"

"What? No!" The sudden question made Aethyta's heart jump for a beat. "Your mother made me take a blood oath to never reveal myself to you."

"Why?"

A question Aethyta had asked herself over and over again. Why did Nezzy kick her out before the kid was born? Was the pureblood curse so bad that two powerful Matriarchs couldn't protect one kid from the prejudice again her? Or was it because of the fights she and Nezzy had and the things they both said to each other that they regretted deeply afterwards?

The wind had picked up after the sun disappeared from the horizon. The beating sand on her face filled Aethyta with an odd sense of displacement in time. She once stood in the same desert at sunset, tears streaming down on her face while she cursed herself for crying. Aethyta had come to the Tuchankan desert after watching her daughter's birth from distance. She needed an escape from the memory of Nezzy holding a bundle of blue in that hospital room where Malayne, Sha'ira and Shiala surrounded the new mother and the new baby.

The joyful laughter sounded muffled from the distance, where Aethyta stood, behind a busy nurse's workstation. But the glow of a new mother, even at the Matriarch's age, made Benezia look even more beautiful. Aethyta stood by the wall, half hidden from the view, mesmerized by the look of Benezia and by the faint cry of her newborn daughter. She didn't remember how long she had stood there, watching the mother and the daughter, unnoticed by the ones who knew her and uncared for by the strangers who walked by. After the nurses put Nezzy to sleep and Liara in her carriage into the nursery, Aethyta snuck in and stood next to her newborn and stared at her. The kid had such energy, flailing her little arms in excitement when she saw Aethyta and she tried to reach Aethyta with her arms, then brought up her legs and feet trying to touch the hand Aethyta put on the plastic barrier.

Aethyta had such an urge to cry watching her daughter's small hands reaching up at her and yet she couldn't touch them. She wanted to cry, no, she felt she needed to wail to relieve the pressure she felt in her chest. She wanted to shed tears of joy and loneliness, the joy of a new life with a part of her in it and the loneliness of the thought that she'd never be a part of the family that was rightfully hers. Then she remembered what her father used to say to her, "We krogans, we got the short end of the deal, we face extinction and nobody cares to lift a finger to help us. Do we cry about it? No!" So she left the hospital, left Armali and left Thessia altogether. She came to Tuchanka, to seek comfort in the Tuchankan desert, to listen to her father's voice in the old ruins, to feel the krogan part of her, the tough nail grinding into hardwood part of herself that her father had instilled deeply within her in this very desert, and let the desert strip away her self-pity.

But her father's desert did little to dampen out the first cries of her infant daughter or her bondmate's melodic laughter. The desert that had filled her with joy of life and wondrous adventures seemed muted and empty at that moment. Aethyta let her tears fall into the empty desert and let the sand absorb the precious water. "I suppose a good friend would laugh with you and be there for you when you needed to cry too." Later she reasoned when she said her goodbye to the Tuchankan desert.

Standing with her old friend again, with her daughter all grown up and standing right in front her seeking the reason why a father would abandon her own child, Aethyta felt the same pressure in her chest as she did before. No, she would not do that in front of Liara. She would not let the trembling that she felt rising from her gut overtake her body and wreak havoc through and leave her shaking like a leaf in the wind. She would not defend herself with lame excuses in front of her daughter. She called up her father's voice in her mind, "We krogans don't cry!"

Aethyta looked down at the long scar on her hand, a reminder of her oath and the seal of the fate of her family. Nezzy had made an attempt of protest at what she called a "barbaric ritual", "You don't need to spill blood, Thyta. I only wanted your promise."

Aethyta ran the sharp knife diagonally on her palm, "I'm doing this to show you how serious my promise to you is in exchange for the promise you made to me for our daughter. You'll let her live her own life, not tie her little wings before she learns how to fly on her own."

Aethyta closed her hand and walked back by the fire and Liara followed her this time. "Your mother had her reasons to keep me away from you and they were her reasons, not mine." Aethyta started slowly.

"And what were your reasons for not to tell me who you are after my mother's death?"

Aethyta sighed. "You accepted me so easily as a friend. I didn't want to fuck it all up by telling you that I was your father, the person you might have hated all these years for not being a father to you. I didn't want you to hate me."

"Did you love my mother?"

"Of course I loved her!" Aethyta felt the ache coming back in her chest. "Look! I had hopes, okay? I had hoped that one day when you spread your little wings and found a place in the world and the pureblood bullshit or whatever else your mother was worried about for you wouldn't matter anymore, Nezzy and I could get back together. You want to know how stupid a person who's in love can be? There it is. I'm the stupidest person in the galaxy and I squandered a century of experience with my daughter and that bastard asswipe Saren robbed me of my only hope with the love of my life. I…" She couldn't continue anymore. The weight was too great and her legs could no longer hold her body, Aethyta sunk to the ground. There was no price to put on true love and there was no measure to express the loss of that love. The only tangible thing Aethyta could feel was the weight of her body and the pain that numbed her mind and dulled her senses. But a hand on her shoulder and a gentle voice brought her back, Liara was suddenly next to her, kneeling, head tilted to meet her eyes.

"That loss you feel, that I can understand, and for that, I am very sorry."

Aethyta's eyes welled up. "I wish I had been there to save her. How was I supposed to face you when I didn't lift a finger to save your mother? What would I say to you if you asked me where I was when Nezzy needed me? What you've done for Shepard, I should've done for Nezzy. But instead, I acted like a coward and stayed out of her life. Thinking it was for the good of your future. How dumb was I? How could I not see that my brutish ways were what Nezzy needed to ground herself and without me beating some common sense into her once in a while she'd drift to the deep end and let that asswipe sweet talk her into the craziest idea that ever existed?"

"You blame yourself for Benezia's fall into Saren's hands?" Liara hadn't expected this from Aethyta.

"Entirely! If I were there, I'd have slapped her back into her senses. After we separated she had slowly drifted apart from her friends, even Malayne told me once that she missed the old Nezzy. That asswipe must have recognized her isolation and taken advantage of her. If she had brought the idea to me or Malayne, we'd have told her how stupid it was. You don't sleep with your enemy! You just don't. I should've fought tooth and nail to stay with her. I should've found a way." For the first time since Aethyta heard about the death of Benezia she asked the question out loud. "How in the hell could I let her go that easily?"

The silvery light of ghostly grey frosted the horizon. Shepard stepped out of their small tent and walked a few paces toward the first hazy light of the morning, behind her, the desert was dark, and night's chill still lay in the sand. Suddenly a figure appeared over the nearby ridge, Shepard reflexively put her hand on the pistol by her hip and saw Aethyta racing back to the camp.

"What's happening?" Shepard searched the face of the Matriarch who was on the night's last watch.

"A pack of varren has surrounded a group of female krogans. Get everybody up. We need to help them!"