Verro - Husband, male bond-mate.
Derra - Wife. Female bond-mate.
Marida - Mother in law
Parida - Father-in-law
Diume - My joy. A term of love specific to family.
Caris - Beloved, precious, cherished
Itarnuptas - The six week period following turian bonding ceremonies where the two new bondmates celebrate their bonding and move in together.
Senuxem - Ancient exalted. A term of reverence when referring to one's elders: grandparents, great grandparents. Senux: slang. A derogative. Human equivalent: geezer.
Obluvis - plural Obluvi. One who is senile or absent-minded. Slang: Idiot
Tapek Menru - Literal translation: The long defeat.
Haksaya kubenar - A term of endearment, literally translates as my strong, true heart.
Cikabeknai - The reciprocal term of endearment for the above. Literally translates to brave love.
Kepala - The ridges of carapace that cover the top of a Prothean's head.
Feodusi - The Prothean government's scientific branch. Senarium - sub-branch tasked with finding and securing the five keys to dark space including the conduit.
The story to date: Nihlus and Shepard have just been married, taking a short break in the build up to war. The chiastyllia and Legion—and all the geth—have formed a symbiotic relationship, the geth imbuing the tiny organisms with will while the chia offered them a way to form a truly sentient, fully realized intelligence including emotional awareness.
Shepard and company have taken down a collector lab on Thessia and turned another on Palaven over to the government. They suspect other, species-specific husk labs exist on the remaining homeworlds, but have not yet located them.
Note: I've probably said this before, but … saying it again. Even though Bioware named Garrus's dad in Andromeda, Herros has been Herros in my head and heart for 5 years, so … yeah, I'm not changing his name.
Also, apologies to anyone with different canon for the Ryders … including Bioware. I'm basing it on my understanding of the ingame info. Information from sources other than the game and wiki might not be represented.
91 Days ASR 0330 hrs (Lake Remar, Horizon)
The sounds of life flowed through the peaceful dark of sleep, their current coloured in gentle pastels. Shepard breathed them in, aware and lucid as she stepped into the stream of the rachni queen's song without waking. She welcomed the river, allowing it to sweep her away; it had been too long since she felt Amalair's reassuring presence.
Nihlus appeared next to her, his hand already gripping hers. She looked up into his face, a broad smile and twinkling stare gazing down on her, as warm as the sun. Squeezing his talons, she closed her eyes, the barrier she kept erected around Tashac's prison melting away into the dreamscape.
"It's time," the ethereal voices of the rachni whispered through their queen. "Their sour, yellow note moans through the darkness between galaxies while their needle men and abominations weave its taint through the light."
Shepard took a long breath, unsuccessfully trying to ignore the tremble of her diaphragm. They'd known how short time ran since the beacon downloaded its contents into their brains, but oh, hadn't it been easy to pretend years remained for them to prepare?
Tashac pressed at the thin barrier between consciousness and dreaming. Through Nihlus's grip on her hand, Merol's softer presence coaxed her to relax and trust them. While nothing guaranteed victory, the more knowledge they possessed, the better their chances.
Not even Shepard's prodigious talent for denial could argue that.
89410 of Tapek Menru
Shepard opened her eyes to a familiar vista: the intense blue of the clear water sparkling under a bright, hot sun, the mountains majestic and capped with snow in the background. She shed her torso armour as she strode toward the water. The rackus sound of her mate and children raced up behind her, as bright and cheerful as the sun.
Atit sprinted past her, tiny legs pounding like pistons until he hit the water. The drag sent him into a sprawl, arms pinwheeling comically before he splashed down belly first. Giran giggled as she jogged past, already carrying herself with an officer's reserve and demeanour. The sight sent a soft keen of sorrow warbling through Shepard's chest. The reapers had stolen a great many things from the prothean people, but the loss of childhood innocence and joy cut the deepest. Her children deserved to play and laugh without the specters of despair and death haunting them more persistently than a gerhund.
In only a few days, both of her children would leave to begin basic training … at only ten summers old. In those same few days, the odds of her receiving a message informing her of their deaths would eclipse her odds of seeing them again.
The universe no longer looked upon innocence with kind eyes nor did it easily forgive its presence.
Before the reapers began the protheans' long defeat, her children would be preparing for their third primary learning cycle. Now they'd be adults and warriors even before their kepalas closed, every moment of their formal schooling focused on war. Once they left her side, all their songs would turn to dirges for the lost … for all they'd lost but never knew.
She'd be left a single recourse: hope. She could only hope they'd remember what she taught them, all the tales and morals. And to strive for the joy hidden within every moment.
Her mate's arm slipped around her waist, his naked hip pressed against her armored one. "Stop," Merol said. His smile stretched as tight and thin as his whisper. "Today we play. Tomorrow's worries won't vanish before we catch them."
Shepard wrapped her arm around him, clinging to him even as she nodded. Despite wishing to leave worry behind as often as the galaxy offered her the chance, wishing didn't transform anything into reality. His warmth soaked into her bare torso, heating her through more effectively than the sun, the distant star cold on the back of her neck.
Despite being the center of the scientific branch of the rebellion, the entire system—what her people had become—set her skin crawling. Death loomed there more acutely than even the now-dead planets circling soon-to-be-forgotten stars.
"Hear my words and join us in the present, mother of my last children." Merol chuckled as he reached up to caress her face. Gently, he turned her to look at their children, the pair splashing one another with abandon. "We will enjoy these last, precious days with our Giran and Atit. We must, as these memories need to last forever."
She smiled despite the hand that gripped her heart—squeezing until the organ cried out—and nodded. "You're right, haksaya kubenar, as always." Nudging him away from her side, she released him. "I will follow directly in your footprints."
Before she unclasped the girdle of her armour, her comm implant chirped in her head. Letting loose a long sigh, she lifted a hand to her jaw. "Jacar. Proceed."
"Kanetah Jacar, the Senarium assembly just pronounced their ruling on the Inusannon blueprints."
Shepard tensed. Her team believed the blueprints discovered in an inusannon ruin belonged to a weapon of terrible power. The feodusi had taken possession of the plans less than a full day earlier. The haste of their deliberations informed her of their decision before she asked. As she suspected when her team turned over the design, the council members responsible for weapon development would declare that it be built with all haste and then deployed regardless of the consequences. Now, she could hold onto only one hope of restraint on the part of the prothean government: lack of resources. The long defeat dragged on, the transportation networks so crippled that they'd struggle to find the resources to build something so massive.
She swallowed a curse more profane than she felt comfortable allowing her children to hear. "Report. What is the feodusi's decision?"
The line remained silent but for the sounds of the aide's computer interface. "The feodusi decided to divert all planet-based and robot mining equipment from harvesting hydrogen and helium 3 in this system to mining and refining platinum and iridium on the terrestrial planets. They say fuel for non-existent ships is of lesser import than the materials required to build the inusannon transmitter."
Shepard stiffened. "Transmitter? It's not a weapon?" With the design's energy requirements, her team speculated it formed some sort of beam weapon, but a transmitter? She opened her mouth to ask another question, but then glanced toward the lake and her family playing in the waves. "Send me their entire package. I want to go over their arguments and reasoning myself."
Merol turned to face her, his expression slowly melting into a frown to match hers. It lasted the space of a single breath before he shook his head and waved her over. Right. She nodded once before looking down at her onboard armor computer, acknowledging the received file.
"Thank you for keeping me up to date, Binav. Jacar, out." When her aide signed off, Shepard stared at the computer interface for a moment. The file beckoned to her, insisting she dig in, searching for routes to fight the construction of a possible doomsday weapon before they had time to research it.
Then a cheery chorus from the lake chased off the desire, and dragged her from her armour and into the cool embrace of the water.
Time shifted around her in the manner of dreams and memories, the day of laughter passing in the flow of a few breaths. That evening, the children tucked into their beds after a difficult bedtime, she and Merol sat curled up together on the short couch and went through the information on the transmitter/weapon schematic. The data found with the plans clearly said that the inusannon had not commenced construction, the plans missing components that appeared hypothetical, the planners guessing at the power and computing needs.
"The assembly will build it before they understand it," Merol said, his voice soft but rough with concern. "I need to burrow into these plans and find something to slow their charge. Our knowledge remains so limited that we may build the very tool the reapers need to cleanse those of us who remain."
She nodded. "The feodusi will build it, and we won't be there to counsel them toward wisdom and restraint. We will be half a galaxy away chasing the remaining keys."
Closing the file with a thought, she then opened another, the one she should have spent her evening unraveling. It compared data between several solar systems going through the throes of an early death. The technology keeping the last two keys hidden consumed an enormous amount of energy from the very suns they hid within, sending the stars spiralling into an early death. When their children left for training, she and Merol would set out for the most promising out of several systems. The reapers couldn't be accused of making anything too simple.
"The reapers placed shield facilities in far more systems than they needed," she said, glancing up at her mate. A smile greeted his intense scowl, his eyes narrowed as he processed the transmitter data. She reached up, tracing his jaw with gentle fingertips, sending a soft, mental interruption through his train of thought, "Cikabeknai?"
Merol shook his head, tearing his thoughts from the stream of information pouring through the tactile interface, the data changing at the speed of thought as he adjusted and made computations. Her touch whispered through the meld between mate and machine, her thoughts slowly easing him from his genius. She smiled as his eyes focused on her a little at a time. A gasan of complete genius, he threw himself into the deepest part of a problem, submerging into its depths until nothing else existed.
It took him a moment before he nodded. He'd heard her despite his immersion. "Yes, I am certain we record ten false positives for every key. We owe the discovery of the last key purely to chance." He wrapped a hand around her wrist, his consciousness pressed to hers as he examined the data on her OAC. "Here," his words appeared in her head, calling her attention to three systems at opposite corners of the galaxy from each other. She smiled. She suspected those same systems. They all displayed slight deviations from the energy profiles of the others. If they'd discovered a weakness—a trend—in the reaper's methods, it might make the last keys easier to find, but it also struck another method of hiding the keys from her team's idea list.
The reapers only needed to hide the keys from a few generations of whomever lived in that future galaxy. The senarium needed to hide the keys from the reapers for fifty-thousand years or more. Doing so required either craft or inspiration of a miraculous sort.
She pointed to the star system with the highest reaper presence. "We'll recon this system first." Once they discovered a key, they left it in place. If they removed the keys, the reapers would know and come after them. They fought a long defeat in truth: no hope of snatching victory from reaper jaws. All they could do was prepare for the reapers' return to dark space and hope enough protheans remained to carry their knowledge and experience forward to the young races.
Merol sighed, the sound leaving his lips with enough weight that she felt the world shift beneath them. "Methods of keeping the keys from the enemy's grasp are becoming scarce."
"And we dare not allow ourselves to imagine the possibilities," she agreed, wrapping her fingers around his hand. "They are still many long months from their victory." And if either of them faced capture or indoctrination, whatever plans they set would become the enemy's weapon.
All they could do was wait until the reapers finished the harvest.
A handful of the monsters remain to clean up the last traces of their devastation when she formulates her plan to hide the keys as they are recovered. Unlike the reapers, she intends to use completely different methods to hide each key, forcing them to adapt. While the Vanguard and its prothean husks can access a wealth of scientific knowledge, they possess no creativity or imagination. What the husks are at the time of their conversion only diminishes with the reaper influence, becoming drones to perform the reapers' work.
Luckily for the young races, she and Merol were not drones. She drew in a deep breath, releasing it slowly. One key at a time.
91 Days ASR 0445 hrs (Lake Remar, Horizon)
One key at a time. First, be sure you can either use them or destroy them.
Use them?
Patience, brave ones. Patience.
The chirps and trills of the Horizon bird call symphony greeted Shepard as the waters of sleep and rachni song parted. She stayed buried beneath the thick comforter, listening to the music echoing through the chill, damp air, the dreamscape and reality separating reluctantly. She shivered and pulled a stray leg back under the duvet, tucking it into Nihlus's heat envelope. Sweet baby Jesus, the mountain nights cooled off enough to match the daytime heat.
Curling in against her new verro, eyes closed, she savoured the sensations of his rough hide caressing her skin and his breath on her neck. She willed the moment to wash away the bleak chill of saying goodbye to their—no, Tashac and Merol's—children. Surely, she could allow the beauty of their first morning as bondmates to last another hour or so.
Yes. Despite her eagerness to discuss the rachni queen's help with finding the remaining keys, and even though it would amount to a miracle, she hoped Nihlus got a chance to wake on his own. She lifted the duvet just enough to see his face, his mandible relaxed against the pillow. Sweet baby Jesus, she loved him. She'd fallen completely years before, seeing him pull that single child out of that flaming slaver den. Oblivious as always, she'd dismissed it as a hopeless crush.
She took a deep breath and relaxed down into the mattress. She'd never imagined being married to him. Even if she had, she'd never have been able to imagine his presence being a place of such peace and safety. The precious peace lasted three seconds before her comms squawked at her. Damn. So that's what woke her up. Enkindler cursed thing. She slapped at her ear.
"What, dammit?"
"Good morning, sunshine." Anderson. "You sound cranky. Am I interrupting anything?" The urgency riding beneath the humour in Anderson's tone almost pried her eyes open. Almost.
Groaning, she pushed aside the duvet covering her head. "Damn it, Anderson." She grumbled and half sat up, eyes still pressed closed. "There's no way it's morning, so any crankiness you hear is due to the ungodly hours you keep, not coitus interruptus." After another breath, she cracked one eye, taking in the purple, pre-dawn light. "Oh, damn, it is almost morning. Fuck you, morning."
Anderson's chuckle ended abruptly. "It is." Another noisy sigh guillotined the small talk. "I'm sorry for the early wake up, but I received intel from Hackett that I knew you'd want to move on." He paused, his gravitas kickstarting her pulse. "Earth security services reported what the admiral thinks are multiple husk sightings. Eyewitnesses described them as, and I'm quoting the report here: 'weird, twentieth century television, protomolecule zombie shit.' Sounds like husks to me." He paused before continuing. "I've forwarded the details. If the reports are accurate, they might lead you to the collector base on Earth." He cleared his throat, a rumble she knew and understood all too well: We'll talk about this later.
"Yeah, that's husks for sure. Okay, so when and where?" Shepard rolled onto her back and stroked her hand down the outside of Nihlus's thigh. "Wake up, old guy, the galaxy needs us again."
Anderson cleared his throat. "I'll expect you aboard the Normandy at 1200. We'll give you a lift to Earth." The captain chuckled as Nihlus let out a roar of complaint. "Think you can manage that deadline?"
Shepard shook her head when Nihlus rolled over and gathered her in against him, trapping her in heavy, sluggish arms. "We'll see what we can do. Shepard, over and out."
Nihlus nuzzled her ear and pulled her in tighter along his length. "This war can't end soon enough," he whispered, his voice thick and rough with sleep. "Rachni conference calls while we sleep, husk wake up calls …." He shook his head and burrowed further under the covers.
Shepard tugged the duvet under her chin, sealing out the cool, damp air. "I hear you." Letting out a long breath, she nestled into his heat. "Anderson says the husks were sighted on Earth. If it's true, they might lead us to the collector lab."
"No." The Spectre groaned and shook his head. "It's too early to think about shooting our way through another collector base. Let's go back to sleep for a couple of hours, then make love, eat a leisurely breakfast, and then worry about collector bases and husks."
Before Shepard could form an answer, she heard a familiar tread on the other side of the pavilion's curtains. "Too late," she whispered, turning to nuzzle Nihlus's mandible, "the dawn patrol has arrived." She waited for those footsteps to stop at the entrance, but they passed by. After a moment, she heard the telltale hiss of a campstove and the genial clatter of breakfast preparations.
"Good morning, Callor," she called through a wide yawn.
"Good morning, Kahri." Yep, Garrus sounded far too perky for so early in the day. "It's a gorgeous morning out here."
"Go away!" Nihlus stretched until his joints popped, then curled around her again. "Maybe the general will serve us breakfast in bed," he said, loud enough to be heard outside their cocoon.
"Wake up, Nihlus," Garrus called back, his cheer teasing a smile onto Shepard's face, "you're dreaming."
"They're still in bed?" Sol's voice dripped disdain. "Seriously, you people are the laziest unit I've ever witnessed. I'd send you all back to the academy. A couple hours of PT at 0330 should do it."
"Wars are meant to be fought on quarter rations and one hour of sleep per day?" Herros asked, also far too chipper for the hour. He rumbled, his subvocals low and strong enough they raised the hair on Shepard's arms, and when he continued, all the humour had bled from his tone. "Soon enough, diume. Soon enough."
Shepard yawned and dug her way out of the covers to sit up against the arm of the wide settee, duvet clutched to her chest. "I can't even say 'they're your family' any more," she said between two yawns wide enough to send a painful crack echoing from her jaw to the crown of her head.
Leaning over, she kissed Nihlus's brow. "Wake up, caris. The war waits for no one, apparently."
He wriggled deeper under the duvet. "Fucking inconsiderate reaper bastards."
The human cuss words yanked a sharp laugh from Shepard's throat. "Right?" She pressed absent lips to his brow again, plans already spinning like spider silk drifting in the air. "We need to figure out a way to assemble the Crucible without either faction getting ahold of it. It's important."
"Yeah, I just wish we knew what it did. Transmitter of unknown function isn't any more comforting than unknown WMD." Nihlus sighed, the breath erecting an invisible wall between them. Shepard matched it. They didn't have the luxury of living without that professional barrier between them ninety-five percent of the time. She just prayed that once the war ended, they could tear it down and burn the rubble.
"We'll have a lot of protheans to help put it together, even if they're warriors rather than scientists," her verro said, continuing. "That will keep them busy until war breaks out."
"We can't do everything ourselves, so we've got to get Giran access to Tashac and Merol's memories." Shepard tugged the covers up under her chin, the chill creeping underneath and into her bones. "If only we hadn't had to blow the senarium base on Ilos into radioactive dust." She trailed her fingertips along the edge of his chest plates. "Maybe there's another beacon somewhere."
"We need to ask Giran to assign a couple of prothean officers to the war council, too," Garrus called in from outside. "Hopefully, the more we involve them, the less we have to worry about a coup. Also, breakfast is nearly ready." Pans rattled against metal burners. "We have drellak steak, krellar eggs, crispy bacon, a chicken egg sandwich with a revolting side of catsoup that smells like death and is probably made from actual cats, and a pretty amazing sunrise out here."
Shepard grinned at Garrus's extended diatribe against her ketchup—a very effective reminder that her husbands' senses registered things differently than her own—and glanced around for her robe. It didn't offer much protection from the chill air, but waiting wouldn't improve her situation. Counting them off, she braced herself for three seconds then threw back the duvet and leapt to her feet.
"Hey," Nihlus grumbled, tugging the blankets back over his exposed side. "Didn't all of Garrus's complaining on Noveria teach you how much turians hate the cold?"
Shepard spotted underwear and a pair of sweats sitting on the top of a crate. Offering fervent thanks to whoever possessed such glorious foresight, she slipped them on. She picked up the light shirt and leggings sitting out for Nihlus, and returned to the bed.
"Here you go, old guy," she teased, tucking the clothing under the covers to warm. "I know how hard cold mornings are on old bones." Or on her bones, for that matter. She laughed at his answering grumble. "You've got five minutes to get dressed before I come back to roust you, caris."
An arm reached out from under the white, lumpy mass, and a large hand snatched at her, gentle talons wrapping around her waist. She yelped as he yanked her backwards onto the settee and held her trapped against him.
"Spend the five minutes in here with me, instead." Nihlus emerged from beneath the duvet and pulled her onto his lap. "We can spend five more minutes of proper itarnuptas before we surrender to the war."
Shepard sorted herself and wrapped her arms around his neck. "I suppose I can steal another five minutes from the galaxy." Relaxing into his arms, she rested her head in the curve of his neck. "I feel like we're standing at the edge of a cliff, and when we leave here, we're stepping off into chaos."
Nihlus nuzzled her ear, his breath comforting as it brushed her neck. "We'll get through it." His embrace tightened. "We'll hang onto each other and refuse to let go, no matter what."
Turning her face into the high desert scent of his neck, Shepard kissed him and whispered, "I'm so thankful for you, Nihlus. You make me feel like maybe Cerberus did bring all of me back."
He nodded, but just held her, letting the musical peace of morning envelope them. The soft conversation, laughter, and the savoury scents of breakfast shored up that invisible wall rather than piercing it, allowing them to hang onto their illusions for those precious moments.
A soft knock shattered the cocoon, then the curtain rustled, Garrus's head peeking through. "Sorry to break this up, but the food is getting cold, and we have a conference call in a couple of hours. Legion, Mordin, and Liara all have news." He met and held Shepard's gaze, his mandibles flicking once, that distinct, flutter-snap that broadcast his joy and love louder than words.
Shepard blew him a kiss without moving from Nihlus's embrace. "We'll be right out."
"Nothing says 'congratulations on your bonding' like a couple of hours of conference call." Nihlus lifted her free of the bed, setting her on her feet. His palm stroked the length of her spine. "Do you need your shot?"
Shepard started at that. It hadn't occurred to her. She did a quick inventory, but the pain remained within easy tolerance. "Not yet. I'll let you know if it gets bad." She paused at the curtain, and turned back. "Thanks for checking, though."
Shepard ducked under the tent flap into the watery twilight. "Yep, way too frickin' early." She grinned, catching Trea's gaze. "You turians are going to be the death of me." She strode to the end of the table and bent over her marida's chair to touch brows. Sweet Jesus, Trea looked good. Figuring that the tarin had probably suffered her fill of people telling her how good she looked, Shepard choked back the words. despite their truth.
"Nihlus!" Herros called. "Hurry along, I've got something important to talk to you three about."
"Yeah, coming." The Spectre's tone expressed Shepard's feelings on their being dragged back to the war with an eloquence that spared her having to be the party pooper. Of course, they just poked him harder when he appeared, eyes half-closed, his armour hanging off on one side. Obviously, turians didn't have any truisms about poking bears.
Shepard sat opposite Trea, her verros to either side. When Garrus set her plate in front of her, she attacked her sandwich and bacon with a fervour usually ascribed to the starving. "Oh, dear, blessed Enkindlers, this is tasty." She moaned to emphasize her point followed by a massive bite. "Pure heaven," she said, the words sounding more like 'oohur hehbun' outside her head.
The family teased and talked of easy things, the war blessedly staying outside their pocket of morning while they ate. Shepard sat between her verros, allowing herself to simply feel blessed and happy. For all her 'humour', she couldn't have remembered a single moment where she felt truly happy from the moment her parents died until she met her torins. Even then, fear overtook those moments far too easily before her death.
Note to self: Send the Illusive Man a 'thank you for dragging me back from the dead as a mismatched pile of agonized, Frankensteinian monster parts, you megalomaniacal bastard' card.
Herros pushed his plate away, metal scraping against metal, and let out a long sigh. "Excellent breakfast, Garrus." He looked to each of them and nodded, as if he hadn't been sure about reporting his news until that very second.
An attentive silence fell, those still eating setting down their utensils to focus on Heros. "When your mother began her treatments on Omega, I received a call from an old acquaintance." He reached across the corner of the table for his mate's hand, closing his talons around hers. "His name's Alec Ryder. He was a military liason on the Citadel early in humanity's tenure there."
"Big man with a booming voice and crushing handshake?" When Herros nodded, Garrus echoed it, his eyes narrowing. He ate the last bite of his steak, chewing for a moment before continuing. "I remember meeting him. He had twins just a little younger than Sol. The three of them used to torment me."
"That's him. He was an N7 at the time, but his insistence on developing artificial intelligence earned him a dishonorable discharge and council censure." Herros settled deeper into his chair. "Anyway, when your mari started her treatments, he heard of the breakthroughs being made on treating corpalis. He hoped the research might have applications for his wife's illness."
"Ellen pioneered biotic implants for humans," Trea spoke up. "She was the major driving force behind the L2 implant, then the L3 once the complications with the L2 became apparent." She shook her head, her mandibles dropping a little. "All that exposure to eezo gave her AEND, a degenerative neural disorder just as merciless as corpalis."
Shepard frowned, her heart going out to the family. For all civilization and medicine progressed, so much remained unknown. Not to mention the illnesses created by their new technologies. Ellen Ryder hadn't been the first, nor would she be the last poisoned by eezo exposure.
"Alec pushed his development of his SAM AI, hoping to marry it with Ellen's implant technology to create a treatment for her illness, if not a cure." Herros's tone told Shepard that Ryder hadn't succeeded in time to save his wife. "Unfortunately, her illness outpaced their research and she lapsed into a coma earlier this cycle. Alec placed her in stasis, which halted the degeneration, and continues to search for a cure." He looked down, a talon scraping at a bit of breakfast on the table. "His children … everyone … believes she died. He didn't want to put them through her loss twice if he wasn't able to effect a cure."
Silence fell over the table for a long thirty seconds before the Vakarian patriarch cleared his throat. "He's been messaging me over the past month or so but instead of asking about Trea's treatment, he's been asking for information on the reapers, collectors, and the geth. He's playing his cards close to the vest, but I think I've got him convinced that your claims and evidence are real." He lifted Trea's hand to his mouth, nuzzling her knuckles. "Yesterday, he asked me to come to Earth. Apparently, he's working on a huge project and wants me to come check it out."
Shepard looked to Nihlus then Garrus. "Anderson woke me up to tell me that husks have been sighted on Earth, so why don't we take the Normandy and Ypres to the Sol system?" she suggested. "You can accompany your pari to see what Ryder wants while Nihlus and I check out the husk sightings."
Inspiration sparked, sharp and a little vindictive. "You guys can take Anderson along just in case Ryder needs convincing. Anderson's word goes a long way even with ex-Alliance, and he just loves a good handshaking op."
"Sounds good," Garrus agreed, "but if you end up fighting your way through another collector base, call for backup." He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pressed his brow against her temple. "The more the merrier when it comes to those places."
"Merrier?" Nihlus chuffed."Says the obluvis who wasn't on Thessia." He grinned, his mandibles twitching in a cocky challenge. "How about you go take out a couple thousand husks while I go shake hands and drink good brandy?"
"Aw, poor senux," Sol said and cooed. She stood and circled the table, gathering up the dishes. "It's probably more fun if you're not two thousand cycles old and obluvis enough to take banshee talons to the gut." She followed her matter-of-fact statement by tossing a cheeky grin over her shoulder. "I guess I'll have to go along and make sure your poor, rickety old body comes through in one piece."
Content, Shepard settled into the curve of Garrus's armour, savouring the precious moments of normalcy, laughing as Nihlus and Sol bickered back and forth. She took her husband's hand, and watched dawn creep up between the mountains. Despite the lovely show of pastels and the warmth of the growing light, along with sun came the war.
Along with the sun came the war.
A-N: I did it after almost six months ... I got their voices back in my head. And now the poop gets deep and real. :D Thanks so much for sending messages to ask about updates ... your continued interest in these crazy kids pulled me through a lot.