Lessus Monastery | Mesana System | Nimbus Cluster | 2180
(Definition of terms at the end of the chapter)
The abbess' chime rings out just as someone raps her knuckles on the cell of Falere's door. She glances over at Rila's empty bed-still hurts, years later-and throws on the rough ravion-wool modesty robe before opening the door.
"How may I serve, Matria-my apologies. It seems you are not the abbess."
The turian outside her door is tall, sharp, silver-scaled and carrying enough weapons to outfit half a team of commandos. His face and hands glitter with circuits and metal plates. His eyes are prosthetic, and across his entire face he wears a deep crater of scarring that likely cost him the original set. The irregular, surging pulses of turian biotics roll off him, fearsome because of the surges and spikes, not weak because of the dips and valleys.
He looks over his shoulder at the abbess and then raises his hand and points a long, void-black and quite clearly sharpened talon down the hall before flickering his biotics down it.
He has done everything he can to enhance the already-deadly gift of biotics and turn himself into this grim wraith.
"A moment with your priso-"
"Novice, Spectre Saren. Novice."
A Spectre? Here?
"I see," he rumbles. "And her devotion to the Goddess was born of her morality, not yours? This monastery exists in secret, atop three fusion warheads on a populated planet-a violation of Council law, law the asari set-and watched by commandos on the nearby hills, as what? Tribute to Athame's light? No asari under the age of a hundred recorded as boarding a ship coming here has ever returned, save on military vessels? Matriarch or not, you cannot lie to a Cabalist about manipulation, prisons of the mind, and torture under the name of teaching. I know enough of that treatment. I knew what this place was the moment we landed and I saw a grand palace with three windows. So leave us."
With an upturned lip, a sweep of black silk and a half-suppressed flicker of biotic rage on her fingertips, the abbess glides away.
"You really shouldn't," Falere mumbles, wrapping her arms around her middle and rubbing her suddenly-cold limbs. "She won't do anything to me, but someone will."
The most awesome and fearsome asari matriarch Falere has ever seen-and she can count six Justicars in that number-glides out of the shadows in a many-layered silk gown of crimson and flame yellow and presses a kiss to the turian's mandibles. Standing in the shadow of her biotics, even now-even when the way they crash against Falere says she's happy-is like standing naked on the rocks as the sea crashes against them.
Her pale blue face is decorated in a splash of midnight-blue-A birthmark? Surely not? Goddess-and once she has that obvious clue, there's no question in Falere's mind. Everything from the finely made bondmate bracelet on her wrist with the gap-link indicating a lapsed bond, to the spirals of diamonds, rubies, tideglass, sharkpearls and other jewelry embedded between the scales of her face screams her status as one of The Thirty.
The birthmark that only a member the familes of The Thirty would have is a hint. Combined with the Matriarch's age and bearing, this is everything but a mask of Office hiding her face and a warpsword featuring in millennia after millennia of legend on her hip.
"Hello, Falere. I am Benezia T'Soni, from the Sonalere Republic."
Falere drops into a hasty bow, arms flung wide.
"Matriarch Benezia Qena Zsasi Mehn-Piar-Kanyru T'Soni, Protector of Sonalere, Leader of House T'Soni, Traveling Speaker of the Temple of Athame. Out of the line of Cellinis T'Soni, first Justicar. Under Tevura through Athame, I am honored to meet you."
Benezia makes a displeased hum.
"They made her memorize that, didn't they?"
"Takes me longer to recite the Citizen's Oath," Saren quips.
"Why do I suspect they impressed the importance of my family's connections to the Justicars endlessly and said next to nothing about Sonalere, my family's work there, or our other traditions? Or, indeed, the charitable and academic honors she did not mention?"
"Why indeed?" Saren drawls.
"Be at peace. Obedience is not what I need from you today, and I wonder if you have bowed and scraped enough for one life. Come, fast-fish. It may be cold, but at least on the balcony, we will not be overheard."
"Saren?"
"Yes, min?"
Min? From that forbidd- Falere forces her breath still and mind blank before she can think too much about this matriarch and a SPECTRE engaged in ake'min, no matter which lover comes out triumphant in the collision of hands, claws, biotics, lips and teeth.
The stilling exercise leaves her dizzy with black spots in her vision but quiets her impurity.
The matriarch smiles.
"We will be here a while. Could you call for that pupil of yours? Nihlus should join us here. This facility is not the one either Serrice or Sonalere first funded."
The matriarch sighs.
"And I fear the abbess knows that I know that. So she will hide things. Lie if asked. Des-"
"I'm sure they wo-"
A sharp glance at the interruption stills not only Falere's tongue, but seemingly her whole body.
"We must tease it out. And the novices not only are likely to honor Athame's guidance on honesty, they have no reason not to. This place is lonely. Given new faces, they will speak about anything and everything. Send Nihlus around to the public spaces, have him share meals. He should come straight to me if anyone needs a reminder of the Athame's teachings on shameful secrets. I think Nihlus' good looks and kittish charm might be well received by these lonely wretches. Jondam Bau springs to mind, as well. Amusing fellow. Likes jokes. Having them strolling the grounds will shake a few answers from the branches without too much fuss."
"His kittish charm?" Saren demands, putting his taloned hand on the shelf of his armor-clad waist.
The matriarch chuckles, low and warm and lovely in tone, tempo and texture.
"Yours is more fearsome than wholesome."
The monster that Falere carries in place of a soul wakes, paces, and seemingly decides that the matriarch is more a match for it, before quieting down and leaving her with only a racing heart and hot shame prickling in her eyes.
"If you need to cry, young one, do so unashamedly. We matriarchs did not work to place our people in the galaxy so that we not feel our feelings, love our loves, and live our lives, hmm?"
"Of course, Matriarch T'Soni."
"Goddess, you're going to be stiff about titles, aren't you?"
She tugs off one of her long, slick gloves-leviathan skin, naturally and probably from a roll of hide ten times older than the monastery-and offers her bare hand to Falere. Bare skin. Bare skin that a meldcould pass through, a meld Falere could kill her with. It would take just a moment's lack of control.
"You honor me, bu-"
"Hush and take it. I doubt you have a thousandth of the danger in you that you think you do. Trust requires a lowering of blades, little one. I am choosing to lower mine first."
Saren's mandibles flick.
"And you will not be making her regret that."
She lays the gloved hand on the back of his head under the spines and drags her fingers, drawing a purr from deep within.
"He fusses so," she whispers to Falere, as if they were two maidens gossiping.
"Scherd tat," the big turian slurs, his mandibles slack with drowsy pleasure.
The wind is slow enough that the fire in the nearest brazier suffices to keep them warm. Falere curls her hand around the mug of kaffe and stares at the matriarch across the table from her, but can't focus her eyes. Cannot see her. She cannot see the mountain across the valley.
"Mother took her own life?"
"I'm afraid so, Falere. Perhaps your mother..."
She sighs.
"The fact that your mother was allowed to swear a vengeance-related oath at her induction is a sign of deep rot in the Orde-"
"Surely n-Apologies, matriarch."
Matriarch T'Soni chuckles.
"Wound so tightly, aren't you?" she jokes, grinning and rolling her shoulders playfully.
"Leaping to defend the Justicars in all cases without qualification, including correcting me, who has read the both Charter and Code, in their untranslated form and who keeps the originals in a case in my study. Programmed to defend your captors to the point of overriding the reflex they've hammered into you to tremble in fright at the sight of a matriarch."
"That..." Falere stammers. "Truth in the latter, surely, and I would never presume to speak to the history of the Order."
"We need Justicars to hunt monsters, surely. Such protection was and is one of the Order's oldest and noblest works."
The matriarch sips her kaffe. Falere wants to reply in the pause that follows but the matriarch raises her hand before the thought can form, let alone the words on the tongue.
"And know that I do not mean Ardat-Yakshi, exclusively."
She smirks. "After all, when was the last time someone got eaten by a leviathan on a swim, or picked up by an eezo drake? The order is especially useful in the outer Terminus. Laws are few and often lack enforcers but the Temple can be messaged by all and that is a Justicar fighting evil. Because evil is most often ordinary, not fantastical and worked by the healthy rather than the sick."
"And yes, my ancestors felt that the Malari Queens and their Ardat butchers were not so much a unique aberration as a beast that escaped the nest and grew too large, so we set Justicars upon that task, as well."
She lifts a finger to indicate the monastery's western spire.
"Sonalerean taxes paid for that one. That one," she indicates the massive central tower. "Armali. The eastern spire, Serrice. Aneszera, Dassus, Kendra, so on. Twelve Republics on Thessia. Each gave funds for a tower, a dormitory, a hall...and to bury a secret from the other races. Did you know that before contact with the salarians, those like yourself-and some who'd done worse-were housed in Justicar citadels?"
"Yes, of course."
"Did you know that the Justicars watched, but only watched? They did not hound them every instant, follow every step, police every book, read every letter home, practically watch every thought as they do here? So long as everyone stayed on the side of the wall they started on, nothing changed. Within the Ardat keep, they governed themselves. Meted out justice among themselves if the need arose. Goods the Ardats produced could be carried out after inspection, profits or trade carried in and divided among the Ardats, not the monastery. You've been taught all you can hope to be is a monster that stayed asleep. But within those cloisters, art was created. Poetry both lush and as you might imagine, cutting and mournful about cloister-mates within arm's reach but a universe away. Weapons and armor used with pride by Paladins of The Thirty have been forged by Ardats. Those used by Justicars as well, likely a gesture of gratitude for what might have been but was not. I have the most magnificent sculpture in my bedroom, carved by an Ardat who said she climbed ajahe trees when she felt weak and glutted herself, and it gave her clarity and calm the texts could not give her."
The matriarch smiles over the rim of her mug.
"The sculpture is of a tree, bursting from the fruit's pit. Remarkable. Energetic. And I find it difficult to look at ripe ajahe fruit and not find myself rather warm in the cheeks," she chuckles. "But I think about my sister under the Goddess who put her lust on the fruit's flesh to protect her friend, who she could not have as she wished to but who she pined for over the course of a thousand years."
Matriarch T'Soni reaches up and pinches the bridge of her nose.
"I apologize, child. I wandered the beach with a dim thought and no torch."
"Pardon?"
"We became distracted before I shared the reason Samara killed herself. It appears that Morinth kidnapped Rila at some point, for a project she was conspiring with a corrupt salarian on. They were both betrayed. For fifty years, she and Rila were imprisoned in a small cell together. Rila..."
"She fell," Falere murmurs. "Morinth tempted her, and she fell."
The matriarch's jaw sets in a hard line.
"No," she replies, rolling each word like she wants to soften the edges first. "Morinth used her. Rila was strong. Immeasurably so, given what she endured. But Morinth understood her ardatic traits-ones which go beyond killing and I doubt the abbess has explained the intricacies of-and Rila did not. She was unable to protect herself. Morinth used those abilities to force Rila to meld for the experimenter's purposes. She was a victim through which Morinth made another a victim. There were..."
She grimaces.
"Instruments attached at all times. Rila felt nothing resembling pleasure in that action. Not her brainwaves, not her hormones. She clawed her crests raw after it was over. It is not something we are proud of, but asari scientists learned a great deal about ardatism and, Goddess grant us the cunning, what might someday become a treatment because two Ardats-sisters, almost identical genetically-were monitored over time and one enjoyed it and one did not. The salarian's experiment was not so much about ardatism as working wickedness on asari bodies. But Rila's data side by side with Morinth's may have done more to settle the Ardats safely for them and for all the other asari than this monastery ever could."
"Matriarch, you say 'ardat' as I say Thirty. As if it..."
Falere wonders how to explain her meaning without accusing.
"As if I see them both as meaningful?"
"Yes."
"Because they are. The mothers and daughters of The Thirty have genetic and physical traits," she strokes her birthmark. "That others do not. For better or worse, both one of the Ardat and one of The Thirty is unlike any other asari. Your gifts have function-albeit a distasteful one-mine are cosmetic and some inherited wit. Yours form a curse, mine a blessing. But we must acknowledge their significance."
"Better salarians found the project, ended it, rescued the victims and..."
"Rila was nearly dead, Falere. Every instant she was not sedated, she raged against her cell. Trying to escape, or perhaps to kill Morinth and be free to make her own choices. We are not sure. She declined treatment and begged them not to open the cell. Asked to be left behind while the station self-destructed. We recovered no body. But I have asked Rila to be buried in Armali, on the hills overlooking the Temple of Athame. For her moral strength, for her service-even unknowingly-to the health of future Ardats, and with them, the asari race. Because she was a daughter of Armali, once, and deserves to watch dawn break over the city until the Goddess gathers her light. If you would allow it, that is."
"I...I see. Of course! And what happened to mother?"
The matriarch shrugs.
"Your mother said Morinth was dead, so her oath was completed. Put a gun to her temple and killed herself in the parlor of the Asari Councilor in front of her, her bondmate and their newborn daughter. She should never have been allowed to swear an oath of vengeance against Ardat-Yakshi, let alone against her own child. If Samara so dearly needed to be a Justicar, she could have taken a Guide's oath, here, to be with you. An Exemplar's oath, though I doubt she was well enough to steer the Order when she began. A Shield's oath, to protect the innocent from corruption where the law alone cannot."
"I find it highly unlikely that your mother went into the Justicars for reasons as lofty as the Order thought. And I'm certain she became hollowed over time. She was in excellent health. Likely could have served the Code for centuries more. But she found a loophole in her joining oath an-"
"And took the easy way out," Falere fills in. "Sometimes, when we were taele, and arguing about what to play, mother would tell us to pick a number between one and three and cast a die. I was so young. It seemed like a game to begin a game but now I wonder if she didn't want to disappoint any of us, so she let the dice decide it for her? Disappoint us for her? She let the Order tie her hands when Rila and I begged her to keep in touch, or visit when Morinth's trail was cold. 'I have no daughters,' she said."
The matriarch's hands cross the table, and this time, Falere takes them. Forgiveness pours across through the tiniest, narrowest of greeting melds, and Falere realizes what the matriarch had already realized. She is kept safe by the fact that she so outclasses Falere in skill that her mind dominates the meld. Any probing from the monster within Falere collides with steel and is quickly abandoned.
"Oh, child. My daughter said much the same to me, once. It was a heated argument and in retrospect, I was prodding her, too. She was in her..."
A cock of the head.
"Late sixties. I felt it like a knife across my face, and I saw realization in her eyes. My Little Wing flung herself into my arms and apologized. We cried in each other's arms until I had to have a servant bring us water, we were so weak. And she never spoke to me that cruelly again. Nor I her. We'd found the cliff's edge. I feel foolish asking, but did Samara ever do the same?"
"Not in four hundred and eight years," Falere sighs. "And now she never will. Nor would she have," she adds, folding her arms with a huff. "Or else she might've waited a week to kill herself until she saw me one more time."
She rises.
"I would like to be alone, Matriarch T'Soni. Summon me as you will. I am in your debt, and not merely because you are a matriarch and I am a novice."
"Of course, child. Seek the Goddess, and she will soothe you."
For detailed entries on all, see the Systems Alliance Officer's Codex ( tinyurl dot com slash me-codex-hum )
ake'min, akero, akertira - Mistakenly oversimplified as 'asari BDSM' and confused for and derided by the truly misinformed as 'teacher/student' play, ake'min is the practice of using power differentials in physical sex and meldspace to enhance the experience. The akero (teacher) leads the meld's intensity, breadth and focus, and the akertira (student) is the one restrained, experiencing as much or as little as the akero allows and existing in the imagined space or memories they choose.
Ardat-Yakshi (Justicar) / ardatism or ardatic (medical) / Ardat (controversial, 'familiar' version) - An Ardat Yakshi or "Demon of the Night Winds" is suffering a medical condition related to the 'draw' of the meld, infertility, and biotic power. Upon detection, they are either secluded in monasteries, or refuse and are executed without trial by members of the Justicar order. A handful of them refuse and manage to escape.
See "Ardat-Yakshi and Ardatism Disorders" under "Intelligence" in the Systems Alliance Officer's Codex
Cabalist - Any turian biotic. All turians must serve 1/10th of their lifespan in the military (The Tenth of Life) to earn citizenship except for Cabalists who serve 2/10ths and "Blackwatch" Cabalists who serve 3/10ths.
See "Biotics, Citizenship, and Economics" under "Articles" in the Systems Alliance Officer's Codex
kitten - A newborn turian. The term is directly accurate until two years of age, when the 'fuzzball' period ends and limbs begin to become clear through shortening fur. Used in slang terms, pet names, and so on, roughly as humans would use 'baby'.
sharkpearl - A blue-black organic gemstone with a distinctive 'shower of sparks' pattern, formed of bone calcium and the Element Zero that nisset sharks isolate in their digestive systems.
tideglass - A dark green, slightly cloudy gem of Thessian origin specific to south-western and far north-eastern shores of the Tescani supercontinent along with the entire rim of the Maejsan island continent.
