Liara
I froze in place. I did not want to turn around, did not want to look at who would be standing behind me. It did not matter that my own mind had summoned them here. It mattered that Avi had been the face that I wanted to see, the acknowledgment of my anger and bitterness. And she had left me in the presence of the one thing I could not face.
"Stay where you are." I ordered. "I do not desire your wrath nor need your condescension and reprimand."
"I do not have those things to offer, Little Wing." my mother's voice filled the ship and my heart turned to ice. "Will you not look upon me? Will you not let me see your face and offer you my comfort?"
"You have never been a comfort to me." I hissed, though I knew it was a lie.
Benezia…I remember her from when I was a child. The kind, calm mother who would disregard her work for my company, who would hold me in her arms and explain to me the beauty of the world. The voice that would sing ancient lullabies in the asari language, who taught me of the Goddess and the siari cycle and the great galaxy that was our inheritance. And then I began to wonder, to dig in the dirt and follow the past and the supportive mother I had known faded into the cold, austere stranger who died in my arms.
"Why do you tell yourself such painful lies, little one?" her powerful voice held an emotion I did not attribute to her, but that I had always wished to remember…but I found it so difficult to do so. It was so long ago that she had loved me.
"Please go." I begged, remaining rooted to where I stood.
Avi was right. I do not want this.
"And deny you what you need most?" Benezia inquired.
I heard her footsteps once again, but I could not move. I could not turn as she walked in front me, standing taller than I. I closed my eyes and gave in to my trembling body. I did not want to look into her face, into the features that were nothing like mine.
I remember asking Shiala, once, why my mother had become so distant. She did not have an answer, merely a speculation. That I looked and acted too much like my father…a father I still do not know.
"Liara, look at me." my mother spoke, but it was not the cold dictate I was so used to. Her tone held compassion beyond measure, understanding so broad my own mind could not grasp it.
After a long moment, I opened my eyes and looked into hers. The blue, the same shade of my own, held such gentleness and understanding that tears pricked my eyes. But I did not let them fall. I would not cry in front of her; I would not show my weakness. I would not reveal to her the deepest secrets of my heart. I would let the dead impart their torment and I would go my way…no matter its direction.
"Do you think I do not love you, child?" Benezia asked and I immediately became a child again, far beneath her gaze, desperate for her approval and understanding. "Do you think that I cannot hear your screams echoing through the galaxy, chasing after one who has gone into eternity?"
"You aren't real." I shook my head and took a step back, knowing that she was not real, but wanting her to be. I feared I would reach out for her embrace, and that my heart would break further.
"Perhaps." she allowed. "But my wisdom is still present; your need of me is evident. In the darkness of your mind you have called me forth when you could have called another. You could have called your Shepard, stood with her in the depth of your hallucinations, and begged her to stand for what I do."
"I do not know why you are here." I whispered, wanting her gone, wanting Avi back with her blunt, scathing condemnations, her rage against my actions. "I do not know what you stand for…I cannot sort through the chaos of my mind."
"I am the love you need so desperately, Little Wing." Benezia reached out and touched my cheek, but I felt nothing, because she was not really there. "The love you do not believe you deserve, because you turned your back on Shepard. You fled when she asked you to do so. There is no flaw in that, Liara. There is no flaw in leaving behind someone you love at their behest. You left me be when I asked it of you. You let me die and it did not tear at you like this."
"I had Shepard then." I muttered. "She…she helped me. She guided me through your loss."
"And you cannot use the wisdom she gave you to guide yourself through this loss?" my mother asked, gentle.
"It is not the same!" I shrieked. "I loved her as I have never loved anything in my entire life!"
"You say you loved?" Benezia questioned. "You do not still love her? Has that love within your heart died? Will you no longer accept it? Not even from me?"
"You couldn't understand!" I shouted. "You could not possibly grasp what is within my heart, because you abandoned me! You think you know me but…"
"I do know you." she interrupts. "I am the mother you wish to remember, the one who cradled her Little Wing close, who saw your dreams and cherished them, even though I dreaded your following them and flying far from me. I am the mother who became once again myself at the hour of my death, who saw the human you would come to love and gave her my blessing. I begged her to be good to you, and she was. Yet here you stand, destroying yourself after her loss. All I would do is heal your heart, Liara. All I would ask is that you listen."
"Listen to what!?" I demanded. "If you have come from my own mind, what could you possibly tell me that I do not already know!?"
"Nothing." she admitted. "But my concern is that you will not listen. You are allowing your darker voices to conquer your thoughts, and reason will not be had."
"Then why do you persist in trying?"
"How many times must I tell you that I love you before you truly believe me?" Benezia asked, stepping closer once more.
I closed my eyes and imagined the way that she smelled, of flowers, sunlight, and the color yellow. I convinced myself that I felt the warmth she had exuded in my childhood. I looked at her once again and a radiant smile crossed her lips.
"This loss will only break you if you let it." Benezia told me. "Your heart is strong and powerful, but your love of her is now an open wound, and you must tend to it. You are letting it fester and grow infected."
I collapsed to my knees and gripped my chest. My heart literally, physically hurt as she spoke the words.
"What do you truly feel, Little Wing?" my mother pressed. "It cannot be confusion. You rescued her. You know where she is, and are aware that she truly is gone."
"It is not confusion!" I shouted to the image of my mother created by my own mind. "It is rage." I got to my feet. "I do not want to feel love! It hurts too damn much, mother! It hurts too damn much to feel that powerful of an emotion and know that there is nothing to be done with it. I cannot let grief run its natural course or I will lose my mind! I…I want to hurt things! And I want to hide! And I want to get out of this hell that, had I not abandoned her, I would not be in!"
"Let your wounds bleed clean, Liara." Benezia advised, her hand reaching to turn my eyes to hers, but I would not look and she could not touch me. "Remember her love. Remember mine. Let it comfort you."
"No!" I reached out and struck the thin air where my mother's presence resided. "I do not need something so easily damaged as love! There is nothing in it worth preserving! I want to forget her, and forget you, and forget that such a time in my life ever even existed!"
In a flash, Benezia faded and I sat on the floor, attempting to gather my breath.
"Told you." Avi's voice chimed from the galaxy map console. "You wouldn't want to see what came after me."
"Will the dead ever fade?" I muttered as I got to my feet.
Avi laughed. "Nope." she shook her head. "We're here for the long haul. And why not? You seem intent on destroying yourself. Why not let us help?"
"Fuck you, Avi." I growled.
"That's what Shepard said." a wry grin quirked the ensign's lips. "Granted, it was in a different context."
The meaning of her innuendo struck me and biotics streamed from my body, tearing through the illusion of Avi Rivera, and destroying the acceleration chair and the galaxy map. It felt…cleansing.
"Nice one, T'Soni." Avi mocked from my side, surveying the damage with her keen eyes.
I crumpled to the floor once more and sighed. This will not end. I might as well accept it and give in to the madness.