Liara

"Are you serious!?" I heard a loud, angry voice.

It was the voice that had carried me out of Eternity. The voice that had encouraged me to let the black swallow me whole. The voice that had chased away the pain and the heat wracking my body.

"Watch your fucking mouth." the grating, harsh tones of Matriarch Aethyta, bar-tender of Eternity.

Why is she here? I wondered. Wherever here may be…is too quiet...it is not Eternity.

"I don't care how damn old you are, or what in the galaxy you've done...why in the Goddess' name did you let her do that to herself!? Especially considering that you're..."

"Keep your lips shut or I'll sew 'em to your asshole." Aethyta hissed.

"I don't even know why I'm talking to you." the voice hissed. "I shouldn't be surprised that the Goddess-damned matriarchy is doing something like this. It's easy to see she's in so much pain she can't even fucking function."

"Yeah." Aethyta sounded regretful, though not at all abashed, in spite of the razor-sharp words flung at her. "Got orders not to inter-fucking-fere. Shouldn't have listened."

"I hope you're denied the universe." the other asari growled and I flinched.

Those words were the asari equivalent of the human's "go to hell". They were not spoken lightly, especially not to a matriarch, unless it was another matriarch that addressed her. And I could tell, simply by the tone of her voice, that the other asari in the room was no matriarch.

"With that fucking mouth on you, how are you not dead yet?" Aethyta asked, and it shocked me that she did not sound angry in the least.

"Because I'm not a blithering, heartless fool." the arrogant reply. "Unlike the bitch I'm currently talking to."

"Any other matriarch would've put your face through the wall, T'Aryn." Aethyta said, and I thought I detected a tinge of warning.

"Let them try. I'm not letting a damn one of them near her, Aethyta. Not even you. Not after what you've done." T'Aryn muttered. "In fact, I think you should go. You're a negative drain on my state of mind."

T'Aryn...T'Aryn...I kept repeating the house name in my mind, struggling to recall where I had heard it before.

I squeezed my closed eyes tighter and fought down the messages my body attempted to send to my brain. Discomfort. Aching. I shivered beneath the covers...covers? When had I been put in bed? No matter. I needed to remember something that I had forgotten. A name...a name that I had heard before, a name that Benezia had spoken with anger in her voice.

T'Aryn! I remembered at last, going back at least eighty years in my memory, recalling seeing my mother pacing in the foyer of the T'Soni estate, followed by her acolytes, furious and fuming. Kariah T'Aryn was a matriarch. She was found guilty of investing in illegal weapons resarch, drug-running, and the batarian slave trade. But she was too protected for the matriarchy to simply arrest her...T'Aryn's commandos knew no equal. Shiala was one of them, I recall...before she found working for Kariah too morally damaging and joined my mother. The matriarchy banished Kariah and her entire family from Thessia and barred her from the Council of Matriarchs. She moved to Illium, still in control of her fortune and still pursuing her illicit ventures. The family itself was untouchable at the time. I wonder if that remains the case.

"Fine." Aethyta conceded. "But I expect you to keep me updated. The doc's number is on your omni-tool if you need to call him again."

"Thanks." she did not sound at all grateful. "Get the fuck out."

"Not even your goddamn place and you're fucking giving me orders. Feels familiar." Aethyta muttered, but it sounded like a laugh. "I always liked your grandmother, y'know. She had a fucking quad on her."

"Until a turian sniper, contracted by the matriarchy, put a bullet between her eyes. You always have to bring shit up don't you, Aethyta?" a cold, furious reply. "Get. The. Fuck. Out. Now."

"Good night, kid." Aethyta sounded like she was smiling. "Call if you need me."

"I'd sooner jam a nail through my crest." I heard a muttered grumble.

The door slammed and I felt the tightness that had been in the air ease a little. I risked opening my eyes and I groaned as the light from the lamp slammed into them. My head ached fiercely and I continued to shiver beneath the covers.

"Dr. T'Soni?" I heard her again. Weight settled on the bed and her hand, warm now, not frigid as when she had first touched me, touched my shoulder. "I thought I heard you stirring. Dr. T'Soni, are you awake? Can you open your eyes for me?"

"Light...hurts." I mumbled. My throat felt dry and raspy.

"Let me dim it for you." she sounded completely different from the angry asari who had traded bitter words with Matriarch Aethyta. Her tones were soothing, compassionate, calm, and kind. "There." she spoke after a moment. "Can you try now?"

I risked pulling my eyelids open once again, finding that the light had been dimmed to an endurable level. My gaze darted around, taking in my surroundings. I frowned as I realized that we were in my own apartment on Illium. It was no mystery how we had made it in…my omni was keyed to open the door as soon as I came within a meter of it.

"What...what happened?" my voice slurred across the words.

"You overdosed." she informed me, simple. "I brought you home and Aethyta called a doctor, who apparently owes her all kinds of favors. Thankfully, he got to you before you started seizing. But...you're dehydrated, malnourished, and you've been abusing the fuck out of that shit, haven't you?"

It seemed that her words should have hurt, but the blunt, brutal truth reminded me of something else. Someone else. Someone who would have cared enough about me to give me the unpleasant truths in the same manner as this asari. It felt comforting.

"Yes."

"I figured." she rose from her seat, opened the closet, pulled out another blanket, and drew it over me.

I glared at her. Her skin was a rich indigo, darker than Matriarch Aethyta's. Her facial markings were jagged bolts of silver that looked like lightning strikes beneath her intense, amethyst eyes. A glittering jewel gleamed out from an aqualine nose. Her lips were not full, but they were generous when they smiled, and set off by the slim, silver ring in the center of her bottom lip. She turned her head towards me and the light glowed against her neck, illuminating a thick line of lighter blue scar tissue over the carotid artery. It held a story.

She caught my glare and smiled. "I'm not trying to upset you, Dr. T'Soni." she said, and I wondered at her formality with me, when she had called a matriarch by her given name. It was obvious that she was a maiden, perhaps a century older than myself...at most. "May I call you Liara?"

My eyes widened as I remembered back seven months or so. Feron, Miranda, The Illusive Man, and the Shadow Broker all using my first name as though I had given it to them. This asari...she did not take it for her own, but asked for its use. It was different. It was kind. Even though a part of me wanted to be angry with her for breaking into my life and treading where she had no right, I could not summon wrath.

"Yes." I assented, feeling more in control of my existence than I had in some time.

"Thank you." she smiled. "Like I said, I'm not trying to upset you. But I knew what was happening to you the instant I saw you go down in Eternity."

"Are you a medical professional?" I wondered, thinking she might be a nurse or paramedic, seeing as a doctor had apparently been called.

"No." she shook her head. "I'm a dancer."

"Then how..."

"Because I've been there." she said. "And, if you'll let me, I want to help you get well, Liara."

I looked at her eyes, seeking dishonesty, seeking deceit, but neither dwelled there. Instead, pure clarity and concern shone forth. She seemed an asari possessed of her entire self, and I remembered when I had been much the same. I did not know if I could become that again. I did not know who I was, for beyond the drugged haze lay the wasteland of pain that had chewed at my shadow for months on end. I knew who I was when I ran from it...but who I would be when I entered it...and who I might become if I emerged through it...I had no way of knowing.

She grinned and pressed the back of her hand to my forehead. "You're still a little warm." she said. "You don't have to decide right away, Liara. And I know you're tired. You should rest a while. I'll be here when you wake up."

I fought to keep my eyes open a little longer, if only to meet her gaze and ask her one thing more. "Who...who are you?" I asked.

A quicksilver smile crossed her lips again. "My name is Zhira." she answered. "Zhira T'Aryn."