Thessia

Sunrise found Liara standing on the balcony attached to her room. She looked down onto the expansive, pristine, manicured grounds, finding her eyes drawn further out. She gazed toward the wild Thessian Sea, and the sun cresting over the top of the water. She loved the sunrise…for as long as she could remember, she loved the sunrise. To watch something so immutable, powerful, and indestructible…yes. That was the word for it. Even the Reapers, with all their power and might, their millennia of knowledge comprised and passed down, had never destroyed the bright stars that warmed the planets that orbited them.

The energy of such stars has been harvested, she thought, but even we, with all of our technological advances, have not yet been able to destroy such a thing. A thing full of beauty and power. Something truly invincible.

The Shadow Broker's heart cracked beneath the force of her thoughts. There were other things in which she had believed. Other things that she knew beyond doubt's shadow could not be destroyed, could not be moved, pierced, or damaged in any way. She was proven wrong…time and time again, she was proven wrong by the brutality of the universe, which took as it wished and left survivors behind, wondering how what they knew to be the strongest force in the world had been taken.

She hung her head, the events of the past days crashing down on her with a fury. Her friend, Sen, lay injured, beaten badly by a man who could not evict the demons of his past from his mind. Her bones had been broken, her flesh torn open, and her blood spilled in a madman's revenge against others of her same race who had betrayed him and forced him to watch those he cared for cut down. Edward Dorsen could not forgive the past and Sen was the one to pay.

Anger coiled in Liara's heart like a serpent ready to strike, and she regretted the promise she gave the physician who recovered now in the safety of Liara's own home. The promise to let Dorsen go and be with his daughter and take her back to Earth chafed at her with its wrongness. She did not wish to do so. He damaged someone close to her, and forced the breaking of a promise made centuries ago. She did not wish to forgive him for that, but she gave her word. She made a promise. Liara T'Soni did not break her promises.

The sun grew brighter by the moment, reminding the matron that time moved on, unforgiving and demanding and perfect. Though she had not slept, Liara knew that this sun rose upon a new day, a day without the mistakes of the other, with the chance to mend what was torn, to repair that which was damaged. In spite of that knowing, her mistakes also bore consequences, mending took a great deal more time than tearing, and sometimes…sometimes things, beautiful and precious, could not be repaired.

She knew that the time would come. She would enter her home once more, eat, drink, and do the things necessary and required for living. It would be the same as it had for the last three centuries, but only for an hour. Then, she would have to, as the human term went, face the music. She would be forced to see the questions in Sen's eyes…a gaze that caused her such pain whenever she looked upon it. She would be forced to tell this story before Zhira, the asari, the friend who gave her so much and yet…yet stole everything from her.

A necessary theft, Liara reminded herself. Just as there can be a necessary death, or a necessary evil. At times, the horror of life cannot be avoided. But it can be lessened. Perhaps even forgiven.

In spite of the words Liara had left for the former Councilor Tevos, she still suffered no delusions. In no way were the secrets of the past so deeply buried and kept so secret that their unearthing would leave the galaxy undamaged. A story lived within her heart, a memory within her mind, seared onto the pages of her soul…it could change everything. It could destroy everything, and that with ease. All it took was the belief of a few who would proclaim it loud and with pride and without fear for the consequence.

As she always did, Liara looked back into her past, wondering what Serena would say to her in this moment. If she would have words of wisdom, or if she would simply sit back, smile, and laugh at Liara's ridiculousness. Liara smiled at the memory of her great love, wishing that, for just the next days, she might borrow her Shepard's fearlessness. For all of her years, for all that she bore witness to within them, Liara still knew fear as a companion, ever-present, ever-close.

"Even gone, can I beg you for some measure of your strength?" Liara spoke to the soul no longer with her, gone for so long, so very long, yet still so present in her life. So close, some days, that Liara almost believed she could reach out and touch the beloved phantom of her mind and heart.

Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, burning her. That strength, that love, her Shepard…one of the things she once believed invincible…the memory of it still caused pain. A pain more bitter than sweet. A pain still powerful enough that facing it even now brought tears to her eyes. The pain of a past twisted and convoluted and made into a series of lie upon lie upon lie. One of the greatest lies ever told was the tale of the Savior of the Galaxy. Liara had seen the vids, the talented actors who had portrayed Serena Shepard for the galaxy on a screen that could never recapture the abject terror of those fraught days. They were wrong. They were all wrong.

Liara sighed and fortified herself with a last glance towards the rising sun, towards the emblem of forgiveness for the day. It would be easier to walk away now, to say nothing and let the lies clung to by history paint the rest of the picture for Sen. But she could not do that. Thus far, she had told the cardiologist the truth. She relayed the stories of herself and Serena, speaking always of the fire in the commander's voice, the resolve in her actions, the kindness of the soldier's heart. In every tale, Shepard was portrayed as a bastion of strength, the shoulders broad enough to hold the galaxy. It was true…to a point.

The door closed behind Liara with a foreboding thud. The tales of Shepard's strength were past, the last one hanging in the air, waiting to be spoken, needing to be told. Serena Shepard died a hero, Liara knew this…but she knew one thing more, one thing never shared by any, but known by all who served aboard the Normandy. Serena Shepard died a hero…and a woman broken.