CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Maiden
The energy field that contained her dissipated swiftly, somehow placing her on her feet. Unfortunately, her stiff limbs and lethargic thoughts seemed incapable of balance. Her legs folded beneath her, and she seemed about to fall face-first onto the floor, when strong arms caught her.
Kara. The human carried her to the console, leaning her against it's hard surface. She felt lightheaded, but her rescuer's eyes seemed to pierce the haze. They were brilliant green, flecked with browns and greys, but more than that, they seemed genuinely concerned about her wellbeing, even handing her a canteen of water and some sort of ration bar.
Liara smiled, oddly happy. Yes, she was free of her invisible prothean cell, and she felt like Kara could be trusted, but somehow it was more than that. She wanted to grab the human by the soft-looking fibers on her head, and kiss her firmly. The impulse was clearly a combination of her weakened state, and long-term isolation. She was a dull, introverted archeologist, who preferred the company of abandoned ruins to that of other people to such an extent that she had forgotten to even introduce herself.
Besides, it was just a crush, and Kara's eyes were only the latest part. Her features were pleasantly attractive, despite her odd skin tone, and the curves of her armor were highly suggestive of an asari-like body underneath, but Liara also understood somewhat the psychological implications of their current relationship. What could be more fascinating than a mysterious stranger, of an unfamiliar species no less?
Nothing, of course. She was certain of one thing, though; Kara had deliberately sought her out. It sounded arrogant, but considering the krogan's interest in her, and the fact that there was nothing of general interest in the ruins, it made sense.
Liara washed down the last of the foul-tasting bar with a swallow of water. Her throat still felt dry, and her stomach empty, but her legs were more cooperative. She would have appreciated five minutes in the restroom, as well, but they were outside the barrier, and likely filled with geth. She raised her eyes to Kara's, and smiled. "Let's go."
"You're sure about this, doctor?" the turian asked, grunting as he set the last crate of supplies atop the pile. "Jesus, I wouldn't want to get left on a planet this close to the batarians."
"I've dealt with my share of pirates," Liara snapped. She was probably three times his age, and old enough to hate being treated as helpless.
The turian shrugged. He was a freighter pilot, hired to deliver her to the ruins on Therum, not a bodyguard. "Not my problem, I guess. Just remember, the humans picked up their comm sats when they abandoned this place. If anything does go down, you won't be calling for help."
That piece of information had been included in her briefing. She had grown accustomed to the solitude, but it was nice to be able to watch a vid, when she wanted to unwind, or check the news. Then again, that same isolation made the planet an unlikely target for pillage.
"Fine. If that's everything, I should get going. The captain will be anxious to get underway."
Ah—she'd been ignoring him, again. She had spent most of the trip reviewing the records of the previous expeditions, and planning her approach, not conversing with her hosts. Smiling at him, she struggled to remember his name. "I appreciate the help."
Instead of heading for the shuttle, he frowned slightly, his mandibles flexing. "If you don't mind the question, doctor, what is it you expect to find here?"
Liara sighed. She had been asked that many times over the last few months, as she planned and gained support for the expedition. The answer wasn't entirely clear, even to her. The turians had come looking for technology, mostly, which they could study and adapt. She was more interested in the ruins themselves. There were unusual similarities, in style and materials, between them and the Citadel, that seemed worth more than cursory study. The Citadel was a monumental feat of engineering, situated at a relay hub that made it a natural center of trade. Therum was a backwater, light-years from the nearest relay. It was reasonable to assume that it was, somehow, a vitally important installation.
Or, it wasn't prothean at all, but a relic of some older race, which had constructed not only the Citadel and the Therum facility, but the mass relays as well. She did not know to what end. "Proof of a theory," she replied. Something that would finally discredit the belief that the protheans were the precursor race, responsible for all the technologies that made galactic civilization possible. That would also mean that they were not the first to disappear, which considerably raised the urgency of discovering their fate. "If you really are interested, it's all explained in my published works."
"Uh, maybe I'll do that," the turian said. Even she could tell that he wasn't that interested. "Excuse me."
Alone again, Liara gave a sigh of relief, and began unpacking her things. She had tried to come prepared for whatever obstacles awaited her, with tools for careful excavation, and for diagnostics and repair of electronic systems. Hopefully, she could supply enough power from her photoelectric generator to partially restore the facility's systems. That was her first goal.
Dark soil passed through her small fingers, gritty and moist, and disappointingly free of anything more interesting than a few bugs. She frowned. She had expected to find something. She'd been so sure an afternoon of patient labor would yield results. Perhaps she needed to dig deeper. Squatting in her small hole, she could still see over the edge, into the waist-high grasses, the thin reddish stalks mixed with shorter, bluer varieties. The patch of native grassland in central Armali had seemed a much more sensible place to start her expedition than the well-kept upper portion of the park, filled with benches and strolling asari.
"Liara? There you are."
Liara looked up at the suréathe, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. The elder asari's expression changed from concern to amusement.
"You are filthy, little wing." She knelt in the grass, beside the hole. "What are you doing down there?"
"Looking for arti—arti—"
"Artifacts? I see."
Liara frowned. "I'm gonna try digging deeper," she stated firmly.
"That's adorable, Liara," the asair smiled, "but you really shouldn't be digging up the community garden. I'm sure it's all been explored already."
Liara nodded solemnly. "Yes, kerta."
"Besides," the asari stated, helping her out of the hole with a strong hand. "Now you need a bath."
Liara's gaze crossed the elegant spires of Serrice. The sprawling city was generally accepted as the capital of Thessia and the loose interstellar Asari Republic, though that reflected a poor understanding of asari society. They needed no center of authority, no satharii or government to dictate their actions. That didn't make the city any less beautiful, the curved spires shining in the bright daylight, their bases separated by swaths of blue and green vegetation. Armali buildings had straighter lines, with multiple tiers with wide balconies, where people grew crops or held gatherings. The climate of her home city was sub-tropical, and often spent their evenings outside.
"The tour is about to start, Liara," her kerta said, coming up behind her. "Shall we go in?"
Liara turned. The Temple of Athame, a building thousands of years old, rose out of an open plaza. It had once been the dominant religion on Thessia, but in the years since most asari had adopted a vague pantheism when they expressed any faith at all. Now the dated architecture housed a museum to the ancient faith, rather than a place of worship. "Alright."
The main hall was dominated by five stone figures. The first, the essené, held a single golden flower in her cupped hands, looking down on it with wonder on her face. Second, the kenanda, standing straight, several books clutched to her chest. The third, naked, with her head high and arms raised and her legs mid-stride, represented the satharii's yashandril stage. Next, full with child, clothed in a loose tunic, was the eskareta aspect. The last, standing over the others, and smiling down at the living asari gathered at her feet, was the suréathe. Modern worshippers said her five aspects represented the five ages of civilization; the early asari, hardly different from any other animal, who through experience created a primitive civilization, trading knowledge and goods to become a mature nation, which later gave birth to galactic civilization in the form of the Council, and the elder civilization that guided it in prosperity and peace. It was a distasteful idea for anyone who believed in a society of equals.
As the tour began, she mostly kept apart from her kerta. Suréathe Benezia T'Soni was widely respected, a leader and philosopher, which made Liara proud, but she did not like how the attention reflected upon her. It was inappropriate, and uncomfortable.
They began with the earliest artifacts, painted stone tablets some eight thousand years old. Though worn and cracked, the images were still intriguing, ranging from a detailed depiction of Athame-eskareta giving birth to the world, to her elder aspect instructing small asari-figures in primitive clothes. Another showed Athame-yashandril, her head thrown back in ecstasy as a dark figure pressed against her—the supposed origin of the Ardat Yakshi. The dark figure, the satharii's adversary, was never named, though she would reappear several times in the legends.
Other relics from the religion's origins included clay tablets, inscribed with a primitive written language, which told an early version of Athame's story, much altered as time passed. According to the guide, she began as one of several satharii, the leader of a council, and gradually took on the aspects of the others, until only she remained. The clay tablets were also around eight thousand years old, and one of the earliest examples of written language on Thessia.
History taught that the asari had first taken up writing about nine thousand years ago. Like many inventions and ideas, it spread across Thessia in the minds of yashandril, and in less than five hundred years had become common practice in communities across the planet. Arithmetic followed the same pattern, at around the same time, just as agriculture and domestication of animals had in an earlier age. The sharing of populations and ideas had a place in early codes of law, preventing critical formation of concepts such as race and tribe, which had plagued the civilizations of Palaven and Tuchanka since the beginning.
Without a firm cultural basis for conflict between opposing groups, wars were far more difficult to sustain. When a soldier could look across a battlefield and see the faces of family, it became almost impossible. They still happened, when the distribution of a disputed resource could not be equitably agreed upon, but rarely went beyond a few minor skirmishes before an agreement was reached, or a ruler deposed.
It was in this environment that asari commando tactics were developed. Wars did not become unpopular so quickly when they were fought between a score of professional warriors. At times, an entire campaign could be fought and won with but a single death on the field. It was not until the industrial era when, as communication increased, real war became a threat again.
Concepts of church and state were at the center of that conflict, mutually supporting in many instances. The priestesses of Athame liked to insist that the goddess herself appointed Thessia's rulers. Several other religions did the same, but each looked to someone different. Secular leaders arose as well, demanding obedience to combat the authority of the churches.
Thankfully, the era passed. Tens of thousands of asari were killed in the sprawling conflict, until—finally—as the people of Thessia prepared to explore the galaxy, they won. From then on, their society and economy would both be built from the bottom up.
The Thessian sky was a clear, pale blue. Liara stared upward, taking in the familiar, gorgeous color, and breathing in the cold winter air. She drove every detail into her memory; the taste of the air, and sounds of parting, the tears and the voices. How the cold crept beneath her clothes and tingled against her skin. She had spent almost all of her sixty-seven years on her people's homeworld, and the thought of leaving it was proving more difficult than she expected. It was not her first time, of course; her kerta had taken her to Palaven, and they had visited some of the colonies together. Just five years ago she had spent a year at a dig in salarian space, unearthing prothean artifacts.
This was different. She had secured support from the Archeology Board at the University of Serrice to investigate a the ruins of a prothean outpost in the Terminus systems, a dangerous region of space. They had prepared a shuttle and supplies, both of which awaited her at a transfer station in orbit. This would be her dig; living out of a cramped shuttle, eating dried food and reprocessed water as she painstakingly searched the remains of a lost civilization for clues as to who they were and how they died. Fascinating, to be sure, but she would be alone, and she did not know how long it would take. She didn't know when she might make it home.
Years, she supposed. Depending on the integrity of the site, additional workers would be send to join her, but an untested dig in an unsafe sector didn't warrant the risk at present. A lone asari in an outdated shuttle was poor pickings for any pirate gang, but she was prepared to defend herself if they came. She had packed a pistol, and recently spent time practicing with her biotics.
She supposed that it made her yashandril; a maiden. The kenanda grown up, and prepared to face the universe. She took a deep breath. Well, maybe not prepared, but she was not about to let a little trepidation keep her from studying one of the enduring mysteries of the galaxy.
"Kerta," Liara said, pausing in the office doorway. A breeze through the open window carried with the scent of mixed flowers, blooming in the gardens outside.
"Liara," the elder asari said, a smile crossing her solemn features. She rose gracefully from her simple wooden chair. She was dressed in her usual style, a formal shirt, soft yellow and sleeveless, held closed with decorated clasps. The hem hung down over her upper thighs, hiding the waistband on her dark grey trousers. A pair of brown slip-on shoes sat under the desk, but her feet were bare. "I'd like you see this."
"I—" Liara tried. Satharii, but she hardly knew where to begin. Didn't know what to say, what to think. How to explain to her widely-respected mother that she wanted a different path for herself. She didn't want the attention, or the demands.
"What is it?"
"I have enrolled at the University of Serrice, kerta," Liara said slowly. It was the only way she could get them out at all. "I'm going to become an archeologist."
"Still the protheans, little wing?"
Always the protheans, Liara thought. For whatever reason, they had ignited her passion when she was a small child, digging for relics in the community garden. The ancient lost civilization, the precursors who had left them the infrastructure of interstellar life. What were they like; how did they live; and most of all, where did they go? Despite nearly three thousand years of searching, the answers were still hidden. Out there, somewhere, waiting for someone—maybe her—to find. "Yes."
Benezia slumped back in her chair. For a moment her eyes were distant, remembering, perhaps, Liara's ilatra, who had departed the martriach's life before their daughter was even born. She had never spoken of the unnamed asari, not even revealing her name.
Mostly, Liara was content with this silence. Many young asari knew only their kerta, for a variety of reasons. That didn't stop her from collecting hints, however unconsciously they were dropped.
"You are barely forty, Liara. There are decades left in which you can decide."
Decades she could spend immersed in the study of prothean relics. What was left to decide? "It's done, kerta. I have to live my own life."
"Yes," Benezia sighed. "Time to accept that my little wing is ready to fly away."
"So the baby azure is alone," the turian grinned, her mandibles flaring with disturbing cheer. Her armor was pitted and scarred, and missing several plates, but the assault rifle she aimed steadily in Liara's direction looked large and quite dangerous.
Liara had started out terrified, but she found anger at the turian's insult to be an excellent counter. She struggled to clear her mind and recall her commando training.
There were only two pirates facing her now, though their ship was large enough to carry a number of others. They were armed and armored, while she wore a dirt-smudged jacket over a plain shirt, and had not even a pistol. At least she had worn her amp, not knowing when she might need biotics to shift a piece of a collapsed structure.
The second pirate, a batarian, wore armor that was obviously in better shape. If she could disable him for long enough to take out the turian, then she stood a chance. Unfortunately, his barriers protected him from biotic attack.
Except… his weapon. She had once learned how to disrupt the mass effect generators inside small arms. It was a fairly complicated technique, and she did not have as much practice as she would have liked. She ignored the turian's shouted threats, but she just needed a moment more…
"Hands in the air, azure. Now!"
Liara hit the turian female with a biotic field that punched straight through her archaic shields, lifting her off the ground with an angry shout, then flung her away, in the opposite direction from the pirate's ship, and potential reinforcements.
The Batarian laughed. "I always hated that bossy gavokth." That didn't stop him from raising his weapon and firing. The rifle sheered a fragment from its ammo block, and attempted to activate its eezo core.
The core, interacting with the biotic fields she'd bound it in, backfired, multiplying rather than reducing the weight of the shard, stressing the mass accelerators past the point of overheating as they attempted to launch a mass a hundred times what it was designed to handle. The weapon bleeped in protest, venting clouds of coolant as it attempted to prevent the meltdown and detonation of the core. "What the—?"
Liara hit him in the face with a biotic-enhanced punch, knocking him off his feet. She snatched his sidearm, and kicked his weapon out of reach, but… Satharii. She had never killed anyone before. If she knocked him out and left him, what would she do with him when he woke up? What about the other pirates? She couldn't keep them all prisoners, but, if she killed a few, the rest might flee. Or try for revenge.
She closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger. The Batarian died with a wet thump. What other choice did she have?
Glossary:
Azure;
1. Vulgar slang. An erogenous zone near the base of the spine. An evolutionary holdover from the asari's pre-ancestors, when physical intimacy was a necessary trigger for their reproductive process. The clinical term for the spot is 'kassas'. Touching the spot stimulates an autonomous mental-link, which enhances the effect of the asari's touch on her partner, and allows her to share in the response; no conscious-level thoughts are shared. A kenandra-stage asari does not experience this link, but stimulation of the kassas still provides her with an orgasm-like experience.
2. An insulting term for an asari, originating from krogan and batarian patriarchal influences, the term has caught on particularly in the Terminus Systems. Similar in intent to the human insult 'cunt'.
Eskareta: 'matron'. This stage of the asari lifecycle essentially begins with the conception of a child, and is triggered in both the kerta and ilatra(asari only). It will also begin naturally in asari between two- and two-hundred and fifty years. Eskareta will tend to seek stable relationships, evidenced by their increased interest in intimate melds, rather than physical sex.
Eskareta do not so much lose the desire to wander, as it becomes subsumed beneath the demands of raising a family. However, childrearing in asari society has always been a communal exercise, with the duty shared between other parents and Suréathe, so an individual's freedom to travel or work is limited primarily by the role they wish to play in their child's life.
Essené: 'child'. Any asari between birth and the kenanda stage.
Ilatra: 'muse; inspiration'. Lit. 'the one who inspired[influenced?] the creation of'. Sometimes (crudely) translated as 'father', but only by anthropocentric dicks. The term is already in use by gay couples of other species to as an alternative to using their equivalent of 'mother' or 'father' for both parents, and is gaining acceptance among humans.
Kenanda: 'youth/young adult'. The second phase of the asari lifecycle. A kenanda has entered the preliminary stages of puberty, and may become sexually active(though cultural mores limit their partners other kenanda), and have reached mental maturity and full physical stature, most notably the final lengthening of their crests. The stage ends when the individual goes through final physical maturity.
They generally enter the kenanda stage when between twenty-six and thirty-two years old. The comparison has some flaws, but in general they are the equivalent of a human between 18 and 21 years old, experimenting with adulthood in a stage than can last for as many as sixty years. This can include apprenticeships, traveling, and study.
Kerta: 'mother'. Strictly speaking, the term in non-gendered, like all asari language. However, the translation is adequate, often being defined(by asari) as meaning; 'the one who gave birth to'. Even so the term is mostly obsolete, as the vast majority of asari have the embryo surgically removed two weeks after conception, and placed in artificial wombs.
Gavokth: A batarian food-animal of avian descent. According to the famous chef Koth Batanak, they are 'stupid, aggressive, and more dangerous after they've been cooked'. The last part is a reference to the obscure but successful assassination of a pre-industrial batarian leader by another chef, who used a diseased and improperly cooked gavokth.
Satharii: 'goddess'. The 'female' attribute is added in translation.
Suréathe: 'matriarch'. The final stage of the asari lifecycle, suréathe are still fertile, and remain so until their deaths, but have little interest in reproduction. Unlike earlier stages, suréathe are defined more by attitude than physiological changes. As a general rule, asari enter the matriarch stage somewhere between six and seven hundred years old, and are often regarded as wise advisors. It is acceptable for a suréathe to retire from active labor, though many will wait until the last decades of their life.
Yashandril: In biology, the stage of the asari life which begins when a young asari becomes fertile, including final physical maturity(the development of breasts), generally beginning between 95 and 120 years of age. Socially, any asari who has completed their education and begun to pursue a career can be considered a yashandril.
The more commonly associated traits of the yashandril stage, such as wanderlust, are a result of the neurochemical changes of final puberty. This is often translated into a 'journeyman' existence, where a formerly 'apprenticed' kenanda focuses their travel on gaining further skills and experience in their field, as well as expanding their knowledge of the universe at large.
Note: Still not happy with this one. It's missing something, but I've been staring at it long enough. Maybe it'll get fixed eventually, but not today.