Parallax
By Celtican
Four: Prophet
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. - W. B. Yeats
(Saren Arterius)
Through the comm feed, Spectre Saren Arterius watched the three figures approaching the council's platform. He grunted, disgusted, his mandibles fluttering in agitation. So they've brought back the old ghost himself for this, he thought. He glared Udina, the human ambassador, a political patsy who liked to throw his toys when he didn't get his way. Udina, like the three councilors, were pests, thoroughly expendable when it came down to it.
The Spectre's acidic glare landed on Anderson, the upstart; who in the hells did he think he was calling him to the carpet. Humans had no business trying for Spectre candidacy; there were far too many from the established races who would turn rabid for that golden role; Saren remembered that elation at being picked, the youngest of his kind, the prodigal son. The title of Spectre was not something handed out to unknown quantities like humans. Might as well start naming hanar and elcor as Spectres, at that. Saren growled, low in the back of his throat. Fools.
No, humans were unknown quantities. In his opinion, sabotaging David Anderson's chances of becoming a Spectre was the best thing he'd done in his tenure as a Spectre.
Saren's cold blue eyes (one organic, the other augmented), slid over to the female to Anderson's right. Shepard. He zoomed the feed in while the politicians bickered and bitched, studying this latest affront to the Spectre name. She was small and fragile-looking; most other turians would dismiss her as soft and incapable of carrying anything heavier than a pistol, if she could shoot it the right way. Her close-cropped hair (disgusting stuff, practically fur, he thought, then shoved it aside) closely resembled a variety of kelp he'd seen on the beaches near his hometown on Palaven. She was pale, her skin carrying an olive cast that Saren wasn't sure came from the video screen or not; the olive cast was enhanced by the seaweed-colored hard suit she wore. Her face bore a scar, a thin line slicing from her left temple, across her face to a deeper hook under her right eye. She'd been hit by thresher acid, if he recalled correctly. Barely hit, if she'd still kept her vision...or her head.
Three things caught Saren's attention at a primal level, prompting wariness in the predator inside him. Number one, her reddish-brown eyes (the same color of old krogan blood, he recalled, or fresh human for that matter) held the same intelligence he'd seen in hunting animals back on Palaven. She wasn't a fool, for all that she was human. Number two, she carried herself like a predator; she held a combat stance from the waist down, feet planted solidly at shoulder width, arms light and loose from the shoulder, ready to reach for a weapon or glide into close combat.
The third thing he noticed were her hands. She'd taken off the gloves of her hardsuit at some point, probably in some misguided and stupidly human gesture of approachability. Her hands, small and frail like the rest of her, were still, with a small exception. He'd seen corpses with more animation than those hands did. Her dominant hand's index finger was the only thing that moved; it beat a silent, impatient tattoo on the side of her leg. Saren glanced up at the equipment kit mag-locked to her back; she carried a pistol (of course), a shotgun tucked up just over her lower back (a brute's weapon, pointless), and a well-used but well-cared for sniper rifle. Hahne-Kedar, from the look of it, but an older version of the current Avenger line. Saren chuckled darkly; she did her wet work from far away, did she? How simple it would be to spin her as a bloodthirsty coward, if it came to it!
When he brought his attention back to Shepard's face, her predatory gaze seemed to glower back at him. He fought the urge to rise to his feet in a dominance display. It would be unseemly to show himself so bothered by a mere primate.
"The evidence you have is largely circumstantial," the asari councilor was saying, "and frankly incredible."
Saren decided to make his voice heard. "Nihlus Kyrick was a fellow Spectre and friend. Surely his death is tragic, but why lay it at my feet?"
Shepard beat Anderson to the punch with her indignant reply. "There was an eyewitness who watched you put a bullet through his skull with your sidearm; how is that circumstantial?" Her response was to the council, but her eyes never left Saren's. Her voice was low and confident, authoritative. Her eyes said what she was thinking, however: I know what you did, you know what you did. Why do we dance with these fucking politicians, Arterius?
"Well, I suppose if I can't defend myself against the dreams of humanity's pet project, I certainly can't against a dock worker who'd only survived the tragedy at Eden Prime by – what is that charming phrase you apes use? Ah yes...'catching a few winks of shuteye' in the freight," Saren replied, sarcasm oozing over his words. Anderson predictably blew up, Udina bellowed for someone to pay attention to him...but intriguingly enough, Shepard said nothing. The scar across her gaze flushed red, like an artery below the surface of her face. Her index finger stilled, frozen in what Saren recognized as a safety position one would use near a gun's trigger. He grinned savagely, his mandibles wide, showing his race's vicious teeth. Catch me if you can, ape, he said with his gaze. In the video, Shepard nodded imperceptibly, as if she'd heard his insult and taken the challenge, to be decided at a later date, of course. As warriors, of course, and not in the circus of political bullshit. Of course.
With much chest beating and avowing of finding proof, the human delegation stalked away. Anderson gently tugged Shepard's arm, breaking her fiery glare at Saren's projection. With one last comment to the councilors about how he had "real Spectre work to deal with," he cut the feed. Behind him, he heard a gentle throat-clearing.
"Benezia," he said coolly, not turning. The matriarch had done her best to herd him into achieving his ends on a more diplomatic (asari, in other words, not turian, and not particularly his) note. In the end, the ship had helped him cow her into submission.
"Saren," the matriarch replied, equally cool. "You found something intriguing about Shepard, I gather."
"I did," he agreed. "She's probably the only human who'd be capable of being a Spectre for longer than a month."
"And yet you taunt her. She who could end this little sortie before it gets off the ground."
Saren grinned his carnivore's smile again. "How better to inspire her conviction to challenge me and make an ass of herself?" He waved off Benezia's concern. "She'll be an amusing diversion, nothing more. If she proves herself worthy of joining us, so be it."
A pause, full of silent disapproval, like the matriarch was choosing her words cautiously (though more likely trying to get as much of her own intent out before the indoctrination robbed her of her voice.) "She may prove more than an amusement, Saren," she warned.
"How's that?"
"The name 'Shepard'...to humans, a shepherd is a guardian of sorts."
"I know. A guardian of sheep...for the slaughter. Don't use my species' superstitious proclivities to scare me off, Benezia. You've work to do on Noveria, I believe?"
Benezia sighed, the compulsion behind his words (thanks to his ship) impossible to ignore. "Yes, Saren," she intoned, her voice hollow. With that, he heard her footsteps withdrawing, leaving him alone with his thoughts. With Sovereign's thoughts, too.
- You dally, Saren. Sovereign spoke through his implants, through his thoughts. He felt blood beginning to leak from his sinuses; worrisome, but part of the process of joining with his benefactor.
- Patience. I swore my word to deliver, did I not?
- Oaths are irrelevant. You are wasting time.
Saren felt his insides flip-flop nervously. - I will honor my agreement, as you will honor yours, I trust
– See that you do.
Sovereign withdrew from Saren's mind, leaving the turian gasping. He wiped the blood from his mouth and face with the back of his hand, cobalt streaks painting a parody of his old tribal markings.
While he'd admonished Benezia for bringing up the old turian superstitions behind clan-names, he did believe in his own name's meaning. His VI translator spat Shepard's name out as the turian word for 'guardian', which confirmed her words. By this old belief Saren felt, given his current status as envoy for the Reapers, in the right place at the right time.
His own surname translated to 'bringer of ages,' or 'prophet.'