|27|
"So what's going on." The lights were decked with transparent orbs from things Braith would have called motes in her eyes, but they were too real and too big to ignore easily, and as she pushed by them, the same four eyed creature of light walked behind her with its forelimbs held to its chest…..She stopped a few paces away, looking at Wrex, Kasumi, Miranda, Casnar, the creature and then to her front—Catherine sitting with Sieis and the large group of bantons on a floor that shimmered and pulsed with color and glow around them, "…I saw you," she said to Catherine, "…But are they from Lothiraxl, because I've not seen them here," and turning from the bantons, she looked back at the four eyed creature keeping close with her, "…And you, I know what you are, you've been in my dreams," Braith paused as Casnar spoke…
"You've never drawn them on the attic…."
"You didn't check the basement cellar," she replied, her voice flat.
"I didn't know you had a cellar, we ever go back, I'll find out what's going on down there in terms of plumbing," he frowned at Kasumi's raised eyebrows, "…Literally speaking….She's got bad pipes."
"If you ever go back," Braith said, "…It'll be to your old shop….You should leave—go back to Rakhana….Wherever you're from there," she turned back to Catherine, Casnar blowing out through his mouth as he covered his jaw with a big hand, "….Why were they trying to use you with me?"
Catherine glanced at Sieis, "…I think they believed they could help me bridge your friend to the city, to serve as a route so to speak," she gestured towards something behind her, and Braith turned, "….He is one of the pio….He detached from you once we arrived here in this place, and there are others like him," Catherine's smile met Braith as she double-checked the woman, "…They are nothing like I imagined."
"Oh," Braith stuttered and stared at the pio looking back at her, "….Damn….No wonder I've been seeing you in my visions….You were trying to tell me where to find your kind….But what happened—how did we separate….I feel better by the way…Kind of hungover, but better—"
"That may be due to the treatment they were harming us with," the pio spoke without a mouth, and the sound of his voice was uniquely female, but they had referred to pio as he and him, "…We are able to be separated here….It is our place where we may build and isolate….But there is a downside….I must exist with you here."
"Wai—what…..I can't….This isn't free—you're not out of me?"
"It is the core of Lothiraxl….It is where we belong….You and I were bonded together in the collapse of Tu, which your people and their allies referred to as the Citadel."
"Can I leave here?"
"Why can't she leave—I'm jumping ahead," Miranda held up her hand to silence Braith and pointed her porcelain features at the pio, "…You're going to tell her she can't leave, but she's obviously been alive to this point and not here in Lothiraxl…."
"Miranda, wait," Braith ignored the expression on one golden drell's devastated face, "…I can leave….You would have to come with me and stop fighting to come here, wouldn't you," she said to the pio, and the four eyes maintained their unblinking stare, "….Right?"
"For a time….I have been contained in you for a long while….And I do not like how you have suppressed me….I do not wish to leave here and I am needed in any case," Pio took on a petulant quality in the raise of his head.
"What do you need to be here for? Aside from the fact, yes, it's likely your species—are you a species?"
"Would you want to go back to your home?"
"I do," Braith said with her own annoyance at the double entity of herself, "…Therein lies the big deal…I don't want to be here permanently—I'm glad you're out, but I would like to go back to….To…." She glanced at Miranda and the others, trying hard not to make eye contact with a stewing Casnar. "Damn….I really treated us to a nothing, didn't I," she finally huffed, the pio turning slightly to avoid making its knowing nod at the woman's conclusion, "…So what….What can or am I supposed to do…Just remain here in this….Pio core?"
"It's not all that bad," Casnar offered, "…You don't have to get shitfaced on moonshine anymore…And the place is a little closer to a rehab clinic for you," he chuckled, half-hearted, and slumped his shoulders against a wall of light with soft intangible tendrils drifting out from his impact.
Braith looked over the others, "….What about all of them…They get to leave?"
Miranda walked around the lit room, shapes appearing as she learned to avoid them and recognize which were not solid, and others that were, "….Can she even live here, or does she become like these things floating around us?"
Casnar frowned….He left the wall and took it upon himself to test something, and reaching into one of the large motes, he pushed his hand through to the other side as he learned nothing was really actually there, "….By Kala….None of this is real….We must be sleeping. Is that even your true form?" He looked at Sieis, "…How much do you weigh," and with his finger he imagined the banton floating—and that's exactly what he did, "….We're in a simulation….This isn't possible."
Wrex grumbled and pushed against a glowing wall, the tendrils of lightning fuzzing over his red and yellow scales, "…Feels real to this krogan…" His red eyes turned to the pio formed by Braith, "…What's going on here—we trapped in some kind of damn limbo?"
The lights dimmed and the floating motes all disintegrated, leaving them in a long, empty hall as high as a cathedral, inscriptions carved into the walls—inscriptions both Casnar and Braith recognized….Her own hand had etched similar designs into her attic ceiling boards….
"Oh….shit," Braith whispered backing up into Sieis and Kasumi as the others started to circle inward, backs towards one and other, and the bantons started thrumming with fear. Millions of glowing particles of dust formed together in the center of them, and from their circle they had formed tighter until this phenomenon, from which they started to spread, and Braith felt suddenly deteriorated and fell to be caught by Kasumi, "….Nnnh…"
"Shepard, Shepard?"
Casnar went to her through the cloud of particles and took her from Kasumi—she was limp and breathing shallowly, "…Kala, what's going on…Everything was fine a moment ago!" His fingers wiped at her brow, pulling her eyelids open to see the pupils contracting into dots, "….Braith, look, look up at me," and turning, he realized the pio was gone, the room was stirring and clear waves between them, making his vision feel blurry as the cloud of light particles intensified. "Stop!"
"What is this place," Wrex said, stepping backward with Kasumi and helping drag Casnar and Braith over the floor, underfoot being more of the strange glyphs and characters on the walls—the blue cloud of light stilled, melded together into something more identical to an organic living being, and stepped forth, tendrils of light pulsing and clawing into the characters written over the surface beneath all of them. A hand extended from the walking lightning and from those silently crackling fingers did there come more energy—expelling out and knocking Casnar, Kasumi, and Wrex off Braith—the second hand formed and reached towards Braith, lying motionless on the ground, and lifting her into the air, hands trailing below her waist and feet dangling, the entity of light faded…
And with it was Braith gone.
Darkness was gentle, and with a cold breath leaving his lungs, Casnar's eyelids flickered shut. The end, he feared in the final seconds of his wakefulness, was come….And with one more whisper, he uttered her name in grief.
