E is for Eidolon
2166, SSV Eleanor Roosevelt
It took all of Eliza's self-control not to bounce on the balls of her feet or chew on a hangnail or play with her braid while Instructrix Odrade circled around her. For the past week, Eliza had hardly been able to sleep, too excited by the prospect of finally getting to use her biotics for more than just routine medical exams, but all that adrenaline seemed wasted now. Instructrix Odrade just kept looking at her, smiling a little, not saying a word.
By Eliza's silent count, it had been more than fifteen minutes that the instructrix had kept her waiting. Except for a polite hello at the door when Mom dropped Eliza off and a quiet request for Eliza to stand in the middle of the floor, she hadn't said a single thing to Eliza. The whole list of questions that Eliza had come up with over the course of the week tried to come out in one long rush, all at once, but in the face of so much silent scrutiny, Eliza couldn't quite get the words out. The room around her was so quiet, so peaceful with its blue-toned light and soft cushions, that anything she said would sound like a shout, even if she whispered.
So she stayed quiet, and tried not to move. Her right ankle itched with a steady prickle, but she refused to bend down to itch it. This much silence felt like a test. If she moved, or talked, she'd fail — and Eliza didn't want to go home and tell Mom about how she'd screwed up on the first day, not when Mom had worked so hard to get her into the class. She kept her hands at her sides, loose and relaxed, and faced forward, memorizing the placement of the cushions to give herself a distraction.
Instructrix Odrade hummed to herself and stopped behind Eliza, close enough that Eliza could smell her, a mixture of clean sweat and some fancy asari flower. Ozone too, a sharp-sweet crackle in her nose.
The prickle got stronger.
Cushions make sense, Eliza thought. Soft stuff to throw around, so if a student messes up, they'll just knock someone over and not like, break their arm. She had seen the students using the cushions after the class, laughing and throwing them at each other as their biotics flared in rich layers of blue and silver around them. It didn't look graceful or like they really knew what they were doing, but it looked fun. And no one seemed self-conscious about the amps at the base of their skulls.
When are we going to get started? Eliza bit down on the question. With every second that went by, she was more sure that this was a test, and until the instructrix said she could move or talk, she wasn't going to.
If she passed the test, she would learn how to fight and protect herself. How to protect Mom, even if she was just a kid. And then, pirates or not, she wouldn't have to be afraid again. No more nightmares of slavers and other kids screaming, and not being able to do anything to help them. She wouldn't fail.
Now the prickle felt like burning, and Eliza wanted to itch so badly than her hands had started to prickle too. Would Instructrix Odrade blame her if she just rubbed her foot on her ankle, just one quick rub to take away the worst of the itch? She'd been so good, standing right where she'd been told for more than twenty minutes, without moving, without talking. Mom would never believe it. What, my girl went for twenty minutes without talking? Are you sure she was breathing? Sweetie, were you asleep? Eliza tried to hold on to Mom's voice, to focus past the itch that wasn't an itch anymore but more like burning, but Mom's voice broke apart and scattered the harder she tried to listen to it.
I'm gonna itch, Eliza thought, as the burning flared in her hands too. I'm gonna itch and I'm gonna fail.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, like a light, cool hand had just traced the line of her spine, and that finished her. Eliza let out a low whine, her eyes squeezing shut, and crashed down onto her knees, scrabbling at the hem of her pants to get at the itch, the stupid stupid itch.
The relief lasted only for a few seconds, before shame came crashing down on her. Nice going, she thought, baring her teeth as she scraped the skin raw on her shin, sucking in one lungful after another of ozone-scented air. Didn't even get back the first day.
"Twenty-three minutes, seven seconds," said Instructrix Odrade. Eliza cringed as two gentle hands, glowing softly, settled on her shoulders, and waited for the inevitable next sentence: Thank you for trying, but you didn't make it into the class.
At least she would be able to try again in two years, when she turned fourteen, but she would still have to go home and face Mom's disappointment. She swallowed hard and straightened her shoulders, ignoring the comforting squeeze the instructrix gave her.
Here it comes.
"Not a record, but quite respectable, especially for someone your age. Not many novices hold up much longer against a localized field like that."
Eliza craned her neck around to try and read the instructrix's expression, waiting for the punchline, but all she got was a warm smile and another squeeze as the biotic glow around the asari's hands faded.
"The class average is twenty-four minutes, sixteen seconds," Instructrix Odrade went on. "So you weren't that far off." Her hands slipped from Eliza's shoulders, and she took a step back.
Eliza rose, a little unsteady, and turned around to stare at the instructrix. "So I didn't fail?" she asked, all her other questions forgotten for the moment.
"Fail?" Instructrix Odrade cocked her head. "Oh, no one fails this test, Eliza. It's not like a test you have in your classes, it's more like the tests your mother does. Those tests tell her where the problems are, where weak spots need to be shored up." She gave Eliza a bright smile, but Eliza frowned back, still not convinced.
"So, I have a lot of problems, right?"
The instructrix threw back her head and laughed, then turned an even brighter smile on Eliza. "All of you do, even the students I've had for years." She reached out and touched Eliza's cheek with her thumb. "And they're not problems, so much as they're clues that tell me wheat we need to work on. This test tells me about your control, and your willingness to listen. You humans do biotics a disservice — even many asari do — by thinking of them as a science. Of course science is behind them, and science can be used to study them and predict them, but their actual use? It's an art. You must feel them, like a dance." She pulled her hand away from Eliza's cheek and gave her a measuring look. "What do you see, when you picture your biotics? Do you feel anything?"
Not once had anyone asked Eliza that, not in years of medical exams and tests. Everyone wanted to know if she felt healthy, or if she had headaches, or if her amp overheated. No one wanted to know what it felt like when she reached out for the knot of cool, bright sparks that clustered near her amp, and how the sparks reached for her when they sensed her coming close. Pulling away was always so hard, like she was slamming a door on the best parts of herself.
No one wanted to know that. But the instructrix did, so Eliza licked her lips and tried to answer.
"It feels like — sometimes it feels like sparks, a whole big ball of them in the back of my head, but then sometimes it feels like a wave." She caught the inside of her lip in her teeth, searching for the right words. "Not an ocean wave, but more like sound waves? The way they look on a vidscreen, jumping and leaping and —"
"Dancing," finished the instructrix, staring down at Eliza with a new smile, a soft smile. "The dancing wave."
"Yeah," said Eliza, pleased with herself for being understood. She had gotten that much right, at least. "And that's when it feels not — easy, but best. Like I could just reach out and grab it, and then it would show me what to do." She looked up through her lashes at the instructrix, struck through by a heavy shyness. "Is that…right?"
The instructrix just kept smiling, her eyes warm and brown even in the blue light. "It sounds like you already know how to begin," she said, after a long pause. "Can you reach for it now? The wave?"
Eliza started to say yes, then caught herself. "I…I think so. Is that okay?" The habit of not reaching, not touching, no matter how badly she wanted to, seemed impossible to break.
"Yes, it's okay — more than okay." The instructrix walked around behind Eliza before bending down, until her chin almost touched Eliza's shoulder. "May I show you a trick? It might help." When Eliza nodded, she lifted Eliza's right arm and held it straight out in front of them, and rolled Eliza's hand into a fist.
"Just like that. When you reach for the wave, raise your arm and clench your fist."
"Why?" Eliza asked, frowning at her fingers. "What does it do?"
"It's a mnemonic. Like a study trick, but for your body. Once you connect using your biotics in certain ways with a specific movement, your nerves will remember how to act." She turned Eliza so they faced a pile of cushions. "There. Now, when I tell you to, I want you to reach for that wave — hold it hard — and wait until you feel it stop jumping to move your arm. And when you do move, I want you to focus on that cushion." The instructrix pointed at the top of the pile. "You're going to move it."
"Uh," said Eliza. "Okay." She gave herself a shake to get rid of the jitters in her belly, and took a deep breath.
"And — reach."
Eliza snatched at the wave. Out of the darkness in her mind, it rose, reaching for her, twisting around her fingers, eager to move, to dance. She fixed her eyes on the cushion, not blinking, not even breathing.
Move, she thought, as she raised her arm and clenched her fist.
Eliza never missed a meal, not unless she was sick. Even then, the empty pit of her stomach sometimes won over a fever or nausea. So when the time for dinner came and went, and Eliza still hadn't come home, Hannah began to worry. She'd ordered pizza to celebrate Eliza's first class, with extra-extra cheese and plenty of mushrooms, but for the past hour, the pizzas had been in the oven, waiting to be devoured.
She's with Lamia, Hannah told herself. She's fine. And if she had managed to blow herself or the ship up, I'd know by now. Besides, there aren't that many places she can hide on a science vessel. Other than the drive core.
Oh god, I need a drink.
"Mom! Mom!" The door to their quarters had barely started to open before Eliza slammed through, shoving her backpack through first and then tripping over it as she pushed her way into the kitchen. "Mom! It was great! I held still for more than twenty minutes and Instructrix Odrade told me that she saw the wave in her head too and I knocked a cushion off all the others twice in a row and I learned how to flare my corona and — ow." She rubbed her temples, wincing but still smiling. "I have a headache," she said, a little sheepishly. "But it felt so good! Like I was untying a knot inside my head! And she said we'll keep doing the private lessons until I'm ready to join the rest of the class but that should be pretty soon! She even said she'd call me Shepard. Ooh, did you get pizza? How much cheese? Is there enough?"
Hannah couldn't stop laughing, from relief and pure joy, even when Eliza growled and flopped on top of her, a sweaty tangle of limbs and braids. "Glad you had a good time, sweetie," she said, patting Eliza's arm. "And yes, I did order pizza, but I think a shower is in order first. You smell like a locker room."
"But I'm hungry."
"Shower, now." Hannah pulled Eliza's arms from around her neck. "Or I'm eating both pizzas by myself."
"Highway robbery!" Eliza yelled, her voice shrill and breaking with endorphins, and that set Hannah off again, until she was facedown on the table, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. "I declare a mutiny!"
"Shower!" Hannah said into the tabletop. "Now, and that's an order."
When Eliza padded off, still giddy and out of breath, Hannah wiped her eyes and pulled up her omni-tool display.
Lamia answered immediately. "No more trouble with nightmares, I'd say," she said, before Hannah could open her mouth. "She took to it like — what's the human phrase? — a duck to water. She's nearly a prodigy, but that posture. It's like no one's told her to sit up straight in her life."
Hannah cleared her throat. "Well, that aside," she said, not missing the way Lamia's eyes sharpened as she hedged. "She's happy?"
"She's overjoyed." Lamia smiled. "She still needs to learn the value of patience. She wants everything now, if not sooner, but once she learns control, well, I wouldn't want to go up against her." Lamia leaned forward and balanced her chin on her fist. "The pirate attack knocked her back, but she's resilient. We should give her more credit. She doesn't see the shame in others' fears, only her own. That, we can fix. And then there's no stopping her."
"Already a terror at twelve." Hannah sighed, a heavy weight twisting at her heart. A week of nightmares, of Eliza sobbing helplessly, was too much to bear. If they weren't already dead, Hannah would have slaughtered the pirates just for that. "Lamia, I can't thank you enough. I know you could have done more with the program, but —" She spread her hands wide, struggling for what to say. "You're…"
"I told you that when she was ready, I would come." Lamia gave her a steady look, almost as warm as an embrace. "I promised you that, Hannah. I keep my promises."
There was nothing to say to that, no words that could convey all her gratitude, so Hannah didn't try. What a pair they made, the asari matron and the Alliance captain, herding their small, wild Eliza away from danger. "So we'll see you tomorrow?" she said, and knew that Lamia understood when she smiled and nodded.
"Tomorrow."
