Thane
They had been at the Citadel with no stated mission for weeks. Garrus was most often at the docks, working with Turians directly. Jane was most often in the simulation pod or on the station.
Thane was…tense and…
The word was lonely.
There was a difference between alone and lonely, and he had learned the distinction.
Part of his attempt to change the course of his mind to be more honest involved accepting that he needed others. This was interesting as a concept, but excruciating as a practice. To need.
His life's practice had been about preparation and execution. In this case there was nothing to prepare him for needing, though it was predictable in its effect. The sight and scent and thought of his wrist bound and bond mate caused upheaval to any mental state he cultivated. Need did not permit acceptance of separation.
There were two types of loneliness, and his training had dealt with one extreme and not the other. His prior life had been the loneliness of vulnerability to death. Being seen, being known would bring about penalty and pain. He had lived his life according to what he had been taught.
Thane had never allowed his potential enemies to see him. His life was about deception. Where he could lie, he should lie. Each move forward must include an element of sideways. Each retreat must also contain that element, and often as a means of trap.
Jane and Garrus were both canny soldiers, but they had been taught frontal assault, power and force to directly face an enemy.
Against all of his instincts, and all of his training, he was in love, and that involved the gravitational fields of the two bright stars in his life. With them, no matter how he tried to keep his feet, hold his direction, they denied him that. With them he must be helpless, he must fall. He must be seen, he must be known. He must not lie. From whatever position he held, whatever meditation he cultivated, he fell.
He fell and he must fall or he would retreat to a position where he orbited, never touched, and could move sideways to his ego's content.
His mates were consumed by their paths, and he was consumed by them.
Gratefully.
Today, however, he must find his feet, must move against Jane's injunctions and must discover what it was that she planned or was failing to plan.
Gentle and polite persuasion attempts to ask her had resulted in nothing but deliberate redirection from her. She was not petty. Not disclosing her plans was not in retaliation for being denied command due to her injury, that was not the source of her reticence. She was in fact terrified and desperate. Well concealed, without a doubt, but as distinct as a fine ring around a planet, if one knew where to look. If her plans were like satellites that she focused her attention upon, this one was shattered and diffuse. She had not grasped it.
She had not involved him, and that had been uncomfortable but accepted. Until now. Some internal counter inside his heart had slowly gathered weight like an hourglass. Alone had turned to lonely.
He had considered finding her in the simulations, she had mentioned setting her security settings to always admit his interruption…and although that would be a piece of theater that would appeal to his dramatic heart, he chose reality. Garrus was on the Citadel and they had work to do certainly, but much of the work was done and there was regrettably at the moment little to do but wait for execution of certain tactics, absorb the inevitable losses. It was no longer the work of strident emergency but a dulled inevitability of constant loss.
It was not acceptable that Jane was an inevitable or constant loss. That was the likely sense he gleaned from her silence. They had not played Pon-Ifa in the passing weeks, most of their time together spent skin to skin, closed eyes and murmurs.
Her deliberate redirection had often coincided with his need.
He arrived at her quarters, with her in the simulation pod. He should wait, patient and deliberate…
He'd seen her often in this pod, could create from his memories a time-shifted montage of each time she had stood paralyzed. Where after her injury she had been wan and fragile, now she was polished and powerful. Her hair was long enough to press between fingers flush to her skull and pull, feel the strands and tips between the inside edge of sensitive skin.
She was as always, beautiful, this view of her another shade of revealed beauty through time.
Her plans…however…
She was his, and her fist would open, and he would open it for her.
That his survival depended on her plans was not a consideration, he was not afraid to die. That his loneliness would be eased by her disclosing them…he had deliberated upon his motives… There was an intellectual need to know, but an even stronger emotional need to be consulted, included. She was foundering and had not turned to him…and he was lonely. He had observed his dual motivations until they had aligned with each other and not opposed each other.
He had observed that loneliness long enough, meditated upon its presence. It was broken and dissolved at night with her body pressed to his, always with her reassuring and welcome hunger that rivaled his. He had respite, but it returned daily, his concern growing as time passed.
He had been patient and now that patience would bear fruit. He was certain of the Rightness of his considered action, trusted that he would not be waylaid on his Path. He considered her body and mind briefly in light of harvest, and it was an apt description. He would reach out his hand and twist, ripe and heavy fruit would fall into his palm of its own accord, by its own nature, helpless to follow any other course.
He had wrenched truth from her before, and that had been selfish, cruel and vile. He had torn it from her unwilling, removing pieces of her soul forcibly, painfully, and she had healed, but he was ever aware of the scars. Much of his patience had been cautionary. She could perhaps accuse him in strategic and defensive form of repeating that motivation and pattern.
However, this was not about vengeance, and this was not about causing or expressing pain, and he was not angry. She could not deter him there. She was manipulative and perceptive, but she would know better than to try such a false path with him.
He allowed himself a moment of intensely burning pride, phosphorescent, beholding her.
According to his Path and Rightness, he would not wait, but would call her to him, and she would come.
She was caged into her tech altar, and he wondered briefly how it would feel to her inside her simulation, what would happen to the inside of her subjective world when he touched her. He imagined streaks and blooms of pleasure and lust coloring her perceptions, without known source and inescapable.
She metabolized venom quickly now with her enhancements. She could bypass the aura and hallucination if she chose, but in fact she needed him. She wanted him. She wanted to allow venom to sway her, therefore it did. Incrementally, over time, she had become more susceptible. He was careful, knew her edges and boundaries, stayed where he would cooperatively benefit her. She would never be entirely susceptible, and he would never push her beyond that limit. He preferred the gentle nuance of the sway he had. He could come to within a feather touch away from her limits, slowly expand them, learning her, trust so much more evocative than force.
He prayed to her Spirit as he would to Amonkira before a hunt.
Welcome me, Siha, to your heart, to your fears, share what belongs to me. I will guard you and guide you. Your Spirit burns without direction, too bright, and I fear that you will burn out if not set upon a path. Let me set your course. I will free you from despair and you will free me from my solitary vigil. You value effort, my Siha, and your effort goes unseen, unrewarded. I will not abandon you to your self-imposed exile. Should I be wrong, should I require forgiveness, I trust in your Oasis. However I come to you, mirage or truth as I stumble through the desert, once you see my thirst you will grant me surcease of my wanderings that I may drink.
He opened his eyes and considered her lower lip as fruit, as harvest, and a part of his soul that cleaved to Garrus's more simple method of prayer thought…
Help me, Jane.
He stepped up lightly onto the pod's structure, his feet angled in what would be awkward for most. He felt compensating solid balance and sureness of position, satisfaction with his training. His face was perhaps an inch away from hers. He could feel her breath on his skin, the heat from her body, her rising scent causing his eyes to drift closed. He savored her presence for a moment. He did not need to open his eyes to know exactly where she was. He was near dizzy, pressured intent and desire drawing him to her lower lip, his tongue gliding along the full swell, his teeth gently teasing at the curve. She was cold and unresponsive, so unlike his Jane.
She reminded him of an ancient Drell story, one told to children as a cautionary tale. So many aspects of Rakhana were venomous, poisonous, deadly…so many Drell were the same.
The story was of Kiranas, a young woman trapped out in the desert, driven out because her memory had been imperfect. Considered a curse. She had been unable to absorb the teachings of the tribe, which were provided once and not again.
When her impairment was undeniable, when too many witnesses had seen her blank face when asked to recall, her mother had revealed her long-hardened heart against her daughter. Her father wished to kill his daughter in her sleep, to spare her suffering. He loved her and had watched over his daughter zealously, helping her where he could, acting as her memory. Concealing this curse from the clan carried harsh potential punishments. They could all be staked and left under the sun to die of slow thirst, as they had failed to make the correct choice according to clan law. His wife was adamant; their daughter must be given to the desert, as she should have been as a young child. She should be given back to the Gods, who would take her Spirit and leave her flawed body. Had she been young enough, she might have been reborn without flaw, as long as the covenant was held. Now she was a woman, and she would be by the Shores, forsaken and unable to remember family or law, eternally. The parents were now cursed for allowing an abomination to live.
Kiranas's father drugged her to spare her suffering, carried her out to the desert as she slept, down into a box canyon with no outlet other than a ritual ladder, lowered and then withdrawn, the canyon's floor was littered with skeletons of ritual sacrifice. His wife expected him to carry Kirinas down and return, but he chose to stay with his daughter, offering his cursed Spirit in apology for his sins. He would stay with her by the Shores, be her memory still if the Gods would allow. He could not bear to abandon her.
His wife withdrew the ladder, left her husband and daughter to the elements, and returned to the clan. She tore her own clothes, scratched her limbs with a thorn tree and told a tearful story of the death of her husband and daughter to a pack of brech beasts. She described the beasts as glowing, a sign that the Gods had claimed their Spirits, granting mercy, keeping them from a long death of suffering.
She was now considered holy, having been blessed with divine intervention. She cried over their loss, devoutly bowed her head in supplication and service. She was a blessed martyr, her husband and daughter torn from her by the Gods.
A young man of the Clan who was in love with Kirinas, dreamed of her as his wrist bound and watched over her, valued her for her kindness, knew about and cared nothing for her lack of memory, doubted the story her mother told. He knew she was a woman of spiteful pride, who would never grieve in such a way because she had never loved. He confronted her, claiming to have scouted the area where the brech beasts had attacked, seeing no sign of struggle. He forced a confession through guile and wit and promised to conceal her lie if she would only disclose where Kirinas was.
She told him of the canyon, of the ritual ladder, and the young man, Yased, traveled there, days after their abandonment.
He lowered the ladder to find Kirinas paralyzed, the result of her waking, foraging and eating a nearby fruit out of desperation, not remembering the cautions against such things. She had been kept close to home by her mother in shame, never permitted to travel out to the desert, never given an opportunity to learn as she had been proven unable to learn. Her father was near death, bleeding from scavenger attack and poisoned by their bites and scratches, holding vigil.
Kirinas's father begged Yased to find the plant that would act as a counteragent, wake his daughter, he himself had been unable to leave her for fear the scavengers would return. Kirinas's father offered his Spirit to the Gods, his flawed body to remain. He begged Yased to cure her, take her far away, protect her. He knew Yased loved her.
Yased did what he could to ease the pain of Kirinas's father, bound his wounds, gave him water and left to find the antidote. Yased returned to find her father dead, his last act to guard her with his body covering hers. Yased buried her father and said the prayers to bring him to the Shores, bore her out of the canyon, destroyed the ladder, carried her deeper into the desert and brought her back to consciousness.
Yased and Kirinas were real people, the founders of the deep desert bandit clans who stole from the clans that had become cold and vile in their pride, arbitrary and lazy with their law. Yased was the embodiment of wrath, one of the few mortal Drell in history that had been imbued with the righteous anger of the Gods themselves. Some considered him a Vatet, one of the heralds of Amonkira, his dervish presence a warning and a promise that Drell would now hunt other Drell as punishment for their pride and cruelty.
After Yased's wrath, the curse of memory was broken, Kirinas having paid the price for all in his view. Any child within his range of travel left at a ritual sacrifice site was rescued, brought to Kirinas, who watched over them and protected them, it was said, though she herself was never seen again by an outside clan. Yased would then find their parents. He would not kill them, but he would rob them of their belongings, their livestock, poison the memories they valued over life. Children with imperfect memory were to be prized as lessons from the Gods to embrace other gifts. This was Yased's demand.
Shrines to Kirinas were found throughout the desert, offerings from parents, hopeful and ordained, left fruit and flowers.
There were no shrines to Yased, only prayers against his judgment. Often a shrine to Amonkira would hold an offering of nergan root, the antidote to Kiranas's poison.
Fitting.
He imagined the awakening of Kirinas, calling her from another world, bringing her back with knowledge of a cure and a kiss, the certainty of Yased's ownership of his woman, without her knowledge or consent.
A truth so certain and immediate it must be taken with commitment or lost forever.
His kiss, ordained and blessed and necessary, would call her to him. His hands would carry her, his mind infuse her with what she needed to know. What her memory could not provide, he would know for her.
Despair had poisoned her, no escape, and he must bear her out, deeper into the unknown desert.
The story echoed, reverberated in his mind, gathering strength as allegory, unable to be thrown off as fancy. What perfect-memoried Drell man-child had not imagined himself as Yased, boldly and righteously defying Clan, claiming his love, ultimately declared near to Gods?
His fingertips spread over her shoulders, ritually spaced, though he did not move her. He would wait until she moved herself, and she would. He leaned in until his chest brushed her breasts, imagining sensation overtaking her, wherever she was, whatever she was thinking. His tongue traced the line of her mouth, probed at her closed and silent teeth.
So unlike his Jane, paced breath and paralyzed body, the resonance with the Drell myth investing his hands, his mouth with an odd, dissonant excitement. He needed to overwhelm her, make her respond. He was not falling to her gravity but demanding she fall to his, calling her away from whatever obsessed her, pulling her to invest herself in his will.
He passed one hand between his chest and her breast, the first sign of arousal, her hard nipple against his palm, the knowledge that her body responded to him without her mind present causing his kiss to deepen. He spread more venom over her lips, slid his hand under her shirt and massaged her breast with his palm rotating on the nipple.
He contemplated losing himself in her body, considered it inevitable, but he must be cautious, must be careful. He reflected on his precarious balance and the consequences of incendiary subjects and bodies.
He must not fall.
He wished to fall to tu-fira, but must maintain self reliance. The possibilities of myth and reality swirled in his head, his mouth on hers, his body pressing tighter to her until she took her first breath against his mouth, startled and weak. It ended on a breathy moan, her mouth opened to his, and he closed any distance between them, one arm around her waist, her head pressed back from the force of his kiss.
He twisted his body, brought her with him before her balance was assured, steadied her, lifted her and had her down on the bed, his hands pressing down on her shoulders, his knees taking most of his weight, his cock hard against her stomach, chest pressed to her breasts. Her body had taken in a great deal of venom, but he would assure she was under him physically as well as strategically.
He must not fall.
Gods, he wanted to fall, since it was denied him in the moment he perversely wanted to roll over and melt under her hands. He redoubled his kiss, tightened his hands and thighs, held her down. Her arms closed around his back, her hands moved along his frill, along his shoulders.
He was falling.
Some thin scalpel of forced purpose invested his spine, recalling the weight and the myth of the moment. She was lost and he must not abandon her now, whatever the cost.
He would find her later, lose himself in her body, sway to her, but now she must sway to him.
He had allowed her no words, kissed her until she was under tiremit entirely, began to speak into her ear. "Jane…tell me what you are planning."
Her eyes flew open and her body tensed, that cold scalpel touch braced in his spine, his hands beguiling on her body.
She drew in a deep breath and said only, in disbelieving vehemence "NOW?"
A smile graced his lips, then he kissed her, looked into her astringent blue eyes and said "Yes, my Jane. Now. I would have reserved the conference room…but the table is cold. You like cold, however. Do you wish to move?" He invested his voice with inevitability.
She closed her eyes, and he tried to discern if it was for fight or flight.
What he saw…and felt…was surrender.
She had been anticipating this.
She said quietly "I think the Citadel is the Catalyst."
The way she said it, his eyes narrowed. She sounded defeated, lost.
Paralyzed.
He said carefully "You think…or you know?"
She flinched visibly. So unlike his Jane.
She said "I think. I can't prove it. I've asked David and EDI to work on it. The Crucible will be finished. I have to bring it to the Citadel. I have to get people off the Citadel."
He froze, stared at her, time dilating and myth overarching the moment.
She did not see it.
That was her paralysis, she did not see it, she was trying…but her mind did not hold it all, could not, not as his did.
She was more Kirinas than he knew. Lightning calculation filled his mind with storm and consequence, and he knew it for her, saw it for her.
He closed his eyes, the cold in his spine stronger but the need to touch her even more pronounced. He kissed her throat, chose his words with exquisite care, and chose a tone of casual interest "Have you decided upon an evacuation plan?"
He could accept immediately that the Crucible was the Citadel. Her hatred of the location aside, it was a valid intuition. He could accept that she wished to use it and act upon that premise. He stood beside her in that, saw no need to question it.
But…she absolutely could not warn any of the inhabitants.
His viewpoint shifted, and he had never thought of Kirenas herself from her point of view. He had imagined her as the woman carried away, watched over. Now he imagined her as a woman wishing to return to her clan, rejecting Yased's judgment and choices after the fact, struggling against his grip, not in fact grateful to be held, rejecting his terms of rescue.
Kirenas would want to return to her Clan, would not wish to leave all she loved, would not want her father to be dead or her mother to be cruel. Kirenas loved and forgave, would imagine embraces and change.
Yased had to be that change, something he knew as deeply as he loved her.
Thane waited for her answer, but felt a frisson of knowledge that this is what held her in paralysis.
She wanted to save everyone. She could not.
Whatever the Crucible did, if she was going to commit, she had to abandon all other boards.
She said "EDI is working on that…I can't…"
You can't. You know it, Jane. You know it because I have taught you. You do not want it to be true.
He held her face between his hands, her eyes closed, pain on her face. He waited long moments but she did not open her eyes. He said "Siha, you cannot save them. You cannot warn them. You must know this."
Her eyes flew open, the dim echo of defiance, but mostly sorrow and grief. She said weakly "There has to be a way."
He shook his head, another scalpel length of inevitability. "Jane…once you move the Crucible, it will be a target. All our forces must protect it, if they can. We cannot move the Citadel to it or it to the Citadel without the Reapers knowing. To give them forewarning, to give anyone forewarning, would cripple the mission, condemn it to failure. You would possibly save the people on the Citadel but lose access to the Citadel and the Crucible together, and wherever the survivors were evacuated to, the Reapers will find them, take them, kill them. Kill everyone."
She knew it, the lines of her face collapsing into grief.
She must be searching for a new alternative, but it was impossible.
Evacuate people by force, that takes time, it would alert Reapers, who would converge.
Warn people as Commander Shepard, the same outcome.
Whatever the Catalyst's purpose, if she was committed, it must be everything at once, a hammer's blow. No hesitation.
Yet she did not know, she only suspected, and it would potentially place all lives on the Citadel at risk for immediate annihilation, called down by her perhaps to no avail, all effort wasted, all turning on her intuition only. Bringing the Crucible out in itself was the end of their efforts, right or wrong. They had only one chance to create the Crucible. They would have only one chance to execute its function.
He asked "How long until the Crucible is ready?"
She opened her eyes, said hoarsely "One week."
He stroked a finger along her cheekbone, quiet certainty of approximately one week of life replacing the cold in his spine.
He blinked, rapidly discovering and categorizing concerns and threats.
He said, inevitable "You will bring me with you."
She swallowed "I'm not even sure where yet…"
He tilted his head "But you believe you know."
She nodded "David…can impersonate a Keeper. He has discovered the most likely place for uplink. It is accessible only through Keeper order. Nobody else can get in. But once I am in…"
He ground out in defiance and order "Once…we…get in."
She closed her eyes.
He shook her, glaring down at her "Jane. I demand the right."
She opened her eyes again, inexpressible sadness and grief.
She would not dare.
He would not fall.
He would allow her to fall because she demanded it, but he demanded that she not fall alone.
She spoke the words like bleeding poison, grief laced and hoarse "I wouldn't have…don't think that I wouldn't tell you. I just…all I have is conjecture and hope. I want to save more people…I would not abandon you, Bes Tiron, to live alone. I just…don't want to…"
He ground his teeth carefully and said "But you would abandon me and Garrus, to live together…not alone."
She pressed her lips together, a tear down the side of her face and he was furious at her. He did not allow the anger to reach his hands or his eyes, understood this woman, would not damn her for her nature.
But he damned her by his nature.
He would not fall.
He said "I…am going with you, Jane. I will be by your side. Promise. Me. Your last gift will be trust and not a lie. We do not have long. You will not force me to haunt your steps. You will allow me to walk at your side as your wrist bound."
One week.
"From this day forward, Jane."
He would not fall.
He held his breath, sick fear and horror crawling from his spine, cold that would lead to numb unless she spoke.
Her eerie, delicate and small eyes opened, saw him. Saw him as only she could see him, likely felt and saw his rage and the cold, the anger and the damning. He saw her as a young woman abandoned to a desert, a young woman tied to a bed, a woman scarred by thresher maw acid, a woman scarred by the death of the man she loved to Sovereign, a woman strapped to a dolly for weeks, her mind and will torn from her in its entirety except for seven seconds, upon which all their lives had been suspended.
She had done much with seven seconds. They would do everything they could with a week.
He counted to seven, counted to seven again, and he waited for her, breathless until her eyes softened, her breath released as she said "Yes."
Truth. A truth she would have given him, it would have taken longer, but she would have told him. Within days. He knew it, his anger sinking. He saw his wrist bound, tears streaking her face and voice. He saw the line in the future where she would have told them. The forces he and Garrus controlled would be moved when the Crucible moved. She had kept them incontrovertibly involved, responsible, and she would not have taken that away, had given it with purpose. He had not been alone in fact, had not been abandoned. She would not, could not have done this in secret, and would not execute any planned force of evacuation without consulting with him.
She already knew the answers. In time when she found no alternatives she would accept them. She did not wish to accept them yet, but he had forced her hand, a hand which would have moved on its own. He was not regretful, wished he had forced this earlier. His palms stroked her face, his eyes holding hers. It was not a full blessing, perhaps a curse, but it was what he had to give. "You will not be alone, Jane. Walking beside you is a gift I demand, not something you take from me."
They had both made promises in comfort, his tested to not return to battle sleep, hers tested to always allow him to be by her side.
They would not be tested for much longer. He found the thought terrifying and freeing. He had not become complacent, had not fallen to battle sleep, had wasted no time, every moment consumed with purpose.
Some with loneliness, but no longer, and not again.
He longed for an end to the suffering of the war, and if his death was part of it, so be it.
He wished for eternity at her side, and Garrus's side, and all his moments would be consumed with that purpose, to earn that, to have that right.
Her hand moved to his frill and stroked there, and she said "I know, Bes Tiron. I just wanted to somehow…find a better way."
He said gently "We have faced impossible things. We have in fact been impossible things. Have faith."
The pain on her face was raw and unguarded, and as he looked at her he thought that perhaps, if he were a good man, he would leave her, now, and promise her that he would be safe. He would promise as Kirenas had, to stay safe while Yased raided.
He was not a good man. He would not stay behind and be protected. He would not ease her mind.
He would not, if that was her will, leave with Garrus and spend a life without her.
She would have to kill him herself to stop him.
He spared a moment of regret for her lost hair, that he could not wrap it about his wrist and pull her head back. Instead his hands spread over her scalp, hair between his fingers, and he fell to her, gravity and heat, the taste of tears and stifled sobs under his tongue. He knew her, knew not to withdraw, not to allow tears to stop him from cherishing her. So little time, but he had now. He would not leave her. She was beyond hope, his Jane, and so was he. What they had left was grief, and love. He did not attempt to inspire her, that would come from inside his Siha, and she would not stop.
She was not Kirenas, he was not Yased.
But he loved this woman, loved her with all the passion a small Drell boy could be inspired to want to feel, loved her with all the passion a Drell man could gather with mortal hands. It was selfish to stay by her side, it was selfish to walk beside her for eternity, and he would never renounce that claim, would demand that she give herself again and again if she doubted or faltered.
There are, were and will be better men and women, Siha, but none will love you as I do, as I have, as I will.
He was present as she cried, bringing no end to her tears before their time, gentle strokes of his fingertips and lips along her skin until the poison was drawn from her, until her stiff muscles melted and her moans met his mouth of their own accord, sought him with her lips and fingertips.
His name on her lips was his only prayer to hope, and as the greedy and selfish man he was, that she loved, he sought her body, sought the gifts only she gave.
He fell.
