Chapter 2

"Well, Solana was pretty easy to raise." Vakarian's voice echoed in his mind. Sparatus recalled his friend's advice clearly from the vid-comm he shared with him yesterday as he sat waiting for the workers in the Adoption Agency worked to get Jane Shepard out of her hidey-hole to meet her new father. Sparatus shook his head. Three days, he had waited for the paperwork to finish. The real hang-up wasn't so much the signatures as it was trying to keep up communications on a completely private network.

"When So was 4 years old she was already itching for her fifteenth birthday and started practicing with the blade. Always had a problem with eating her bones though, kept insisting that they tasted gross. I told her that if she didn't want her own bones to be brittle she'd have to eat at least some of them for the marrow inside of it, but she wouldn't listen.

"When it comes down to it, a kid who hasn't hit their sixth birthday is usually trying to find their place in the world in relation to all the adults around them. Especially if this… 'Jane'…? If Jane is anything like Solana was, she'll be jumping off the walls and trying to kill bugs in her spare time. Try to keep Jane busy with household chores or something similar, so that she can burn the energy off." Vakarian suggested.

Sparatus had done his best. In the interim between signing his part of the paperwork and arranging for Jane, he made a simple list of things that the little human girl could do to expend excess energy in a productive way. Considering her height and build, and her age, she would perhaps be best suited to learn how to clean house, such as sweeping the floors, dusting off the counters, and keeping things organized by shape and color. He'd gotten her a series of differently colored blocks for that very purpose.

Thankfully, Vakarian was more than willing to help him out. After knowing each other since boot camp, Sparatus had come to trust Vakarian to do things right when the time came. Knowing that he had someone to turn to at a time like this was a boon, especially since Systems Alliance captain Hannah Shepard died on the *SSV Konietzko Alliance carrier and couldn't give him any advice at all. Stupid human.

Sparatus had to homeschool her. He still didn't know exactly what he would teach her, but if he wanted to keep this matter a private affair then public school was out of the question. The humans were distrustful enough of turian agendas after the Relay 314 Incident last year, he doubted he'd be able to enroll her without arousing significant suspicion for his actions by everyone who had ever set foot on the Citadel. However, he also didn't think he could smuggle a homeschool regiment or educational standards overview from the humans anytime soon.

The list was quickly becoming daunting. From what he recalled of his own schooling, he would have to teach her the history of Palaven, the histories of the 13 Colonies and the Unification War, he'd probably have to teach her how to do mathematics, science lessons were bound to be a ticking time bomb, how to read and write the Galactic Standard Script, and he had a sneaking suspicion that he was missing at least one important subject that the humans would never think to exclude from their school curriculums that hadn't yet crossed his mind.

In the end, Vakarian had suggested Sparatus just raise her as though he would raise a turian child. Vakarian figured that going about it that way would save some headaches, and that so long as she didn't eat any dextro foods she would grow to be a fine member of society. Sparatus hoped he was right.

"I have one last thing I want to ask." Sparatus remembered asking.

"Go ahead, Sparatus." Vakarian said.

"If… if she wants to start meeting other kids her age. Would you mind having her meet yours?"

Vakarian shifted in his seat.

"Maybe." Vakarian said. "Solana's already reached her first *lia'alediy, so she might not want to meet her. Garrus is reaching his third year next week though, so he might be interested. It'd be his first time meeting an alien face-to-face, too…"Sparatus nodded. He hoped the little ones would at the least get along in each other's presence. With that, he had ended the vid-comm by arranging a time for Vakarian and his boy to meet his ward on the sixth day of the galactic standard week. He'd deal with that when the time came.

As he sat, waiting for the door to open, he considered the few human toys he had ordered for her to play with. Among them, a stuffed brown plush toy with short ears and thick limbs called a 'teddy bear'. According to human history, a 'teddy bear' was named after one of their Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, refused to kill a creature called a bear because the circumstances around its capture were deemed 'unsportsmanlike'. Hopefully she'd take it as a familiar element in an unfamiliar environment and have positive results.

Sparatus had also ordered the import of a 'dog' which was to arrive from its homeworld in a week. There were several breeds according to the extranet pet store he had ordered it from, such as 'husky dog' and 'golden retriever dog', each with interesting photographs and dimensions. He eventually chose the one labeled 'fish dog' out of a slew of other kinds, hoping that the lack of a picture on that dog's profile wouldn't come back to bite him later. Now, however, the only thing he still had to take care of was actually taking the kid to his house.

Finally, the door opened.

Jane's fringe was orange. Sparatus had no idea that human fringes could even be orange, but hers was a shade that was unmistakably orange. The kind of orange that resembled the bark of trees on Palaven. Her skin was light, with speckles all over that reminded him of asari birthmarks. Her eyes were the exact same color as her mother's, and it was in that moment that Sparatus knew without a doubt that this was the worst decision he had ever made.

But he was a good turian, and he wasn't about to go back on his word now. This girl had been through enough. He stood up from his chair and faced the brown-skinned human man and human child together, nodding to the adult (his uniform suggested ties to the Alliance).

"Greetings Councilor, my name is Captain David Anderson of the Human Systems Alliance. I'm happy to say that the paperwork went through in the end. Jane is ready to go with you." Anderson looked down towards Jane, who was holding onto his pant leg like crazy.

"See, Jane? This is your new dad." Anderson said, smiling. Jane looked up at him, then back at Sparatus. Sparatus' mandibles twitched, then expanded a little in an imitation of a smile. Jane blinked.

"He doesn't look like a dad." Jane said. Sparatus clamped his mandibles back into place. In all honesty, Sparatus agreed completely with her statement, but Hannah wanted him to take care of Jane so he was going to take care of Jane even if he risked life and limb. "He's all pointy. Like the dinosaur-men who were on our ship."

Oh. She was just unaccustomed to calling a turian "dad". That would be much easier to deal with than the alternative. Anderson looked worried for a moment, then continued speaking.

"These dinosaur-men are called turians, Jane. This turian agreed to take care of you after you left the escape shuttle." Anderson explained tenderly. Jane suddenly leaned away from his leg to get a look at Sparatus from a different angle.

"Are you my uncle Spartacus!?" She asked. Sparatus blinked, and peered down at Jane. So, Hannah did mention him to her then. This was going to be easier than he thought.

"Well, my name is Sparatus, but yes, I believe I am the one you're referring to." He said. Jane blinked a bit, then beamed.

"My momma said that the Alliance was going to take me to Uncle Spartacus after I got off the shuttle! She said that Spartacus would take care of me while she was gone." She said. Ah, so it wouldn't be that easy. Jane didn't seem to comprehend that her mother was dead. That was… problematic.

"Please, Jane, call me Sparatus." He said, then quickly added, "But don't worry, I'm here to take care of you from now on." Jane pursed her lips together. The same way Hannah pursed hers when she had saved his life back when they had met, a week after the avalanche. He shook his head slightly; now was not the time to reminisce on dead almost-lovers.

"I like Spartacus better. I wanna call you Spartacus." Jane said, a fiery determination in her eyes daring him to retort. The bigger part of him wanted to lash out with discipline at her insubordination; the hierarchy between parent and child was the first one a turian learned. But the better part of him remembered that Jane was a human, not a turian, and likely learned different things before now. He sighed.

"Very well, but only if you tell me was Spartacus means." He said. He didn't want any of his private acquaintances figuring out that Spartacus meant something ridiculous and that his ward called him that in private. Jane furrowed her fuzzy little brow and puckered her lips again, deep in thought.

"Spartacus," Anderson interjected, "was a slave from the Roman Empire in human history. He led an army of slaves against their oppressive masters, who tortured them. Legend says that when Spartacus and his team was captured by a Roman general, the general asked who was Spartacus, and every member of Spartacus' team claimed they were Spartacus." Anderson smirked, clearly enjoying telling this story.

"Sometimes we tell the story of Spartacus to our children to teach them camaraderie and friendship. *We are all the hero; kill one and the rest still stand." He said. Sparatus was taken somewhat aback. This was very similar to the scriptures on spirits he had studied in chapels as a child with his conservative parents. Perhaps turians and humans weren't as different as he had assumed… Jane shook her head vigorously.

"Yeah! So I guess that means that if you're Spartacus, my mom was Spartacus too." There was a child's logic to that statement, and Sparatus couldn't help perking his mandibles out a bit. "Can I be Spartacus too?" Jane asked.

"Tell you what, Jane," Sparatus said, "If you come with me, I'll hold your hand, and we can both be Spartacus together." Jane made a high pitched sound, like a brief version of a laugh, and ran straight to Sparatus' leg from Anderson's, clutching to his spur the same way she clutched to Anderson's pant leg. Anderson smiled.

"Thank you for your assistance, captain." Sparatus said. "I will definitely be looking into more of those stories you shared." Jane was trying to pull herself on top of his spur. Thank the spirit between him and Jane that his spurs didn't have any nerve endings, otherwise he'd probably be more discomforted than he was.

"Absolutely, Councilor." Anderson said. "I recommend telling her the story of Superman, or Fa Mulan. I think she'll love them." Anderson nodded his head in a farewell gesture, and went on his way. Sparatus picked Jane up (she was much lighter than he thought she would be) and set her on the ground. He placed her tiny, five-fingered hand in his longer, three-fingered one.

"Come on, now. Time for all Spartacus's to go home." He said. Jane lifted her other hand to her forehead in a (very cute) imitation of a salute that made Spartacus' fringe swell a little with an emotion he didn't have time to name.

"Aye-Aye, Spartacus!" She said.


CODEX

From what I've headcanon'd about turian culture, a lia'alediy would be the sixth birthday. Because turians only have three fingers on each hand, I imagine their number system would be in base-6, so the first 6th birthday would be like the tenth birthday for a human child, but celebrated like a quinceañera or a sweet sixteen. This event is repeated each time a turian child completes six years, so there's a celebration at 6, 12, 18, etc.

I would also like to mention that I went through a lot of trouble to make up an actual language for the turian race that's currently in its preliminary stages, so all the words I'm using here are all following the same crazy logic and aren't just being pulled out of a hat. %D For example, lia'alediy means six-sun-march, referencing the sixth year (sun-march referring to the passing of the seasons).