A/N: Sorry for the long delay folks. Hoping to get back into a more regular updating schedule here. And thank you all so much for your comments so far.
Eleven: Benezia
When she reached the end of the material, hours later, Benezia was left with but one question, a thought that circled round and round her aching head without ever coming to rest long enough to be answered:
Was this her fault, too?
It was so very hard to reconcile the serious, driven, angryyoung maiden in the cargo hold with her daughter. Liara had always been serious, yes, even as a child, and driven too, if only in the pursuit of those things that interested her. But, equally, she had been gentle and sweet-natured, slow to anger, quick to forgive and open in her affections - if slow to initially give them out. It was even harder to reconcile her shy, academically-minded Little Wing, a child who'd been timid to the point of awkwardness for most of her life, with the warrior lionised by the wartime press as a biotic powerhouse, someone who easily kept pace with battle-hardened Spectres and Special Forces soldiers, someone who was accustomed to command and making difficult decisions.
No, that was not exactly true. It was not difficult to reconcile the two versions of her Liara. By the end of her first pass through the material, the collection of articles and vids and still images had melded into one long, sad account of how her daughter had the last remnants of her childhood and innocence stripped away from her, by death, by deceit and by war. One could track the transition from sweet child to hard-eyed adult over the too-few years, needing only a little imagination to fill in the gaps. What was difficult, however, was acceptance.
Was this her fault, too? Another life she had ruined in her pride?
Noveria was the start of it; that much was plain. Or even before that, on Therum, where Liara had been when Benezia had suggested that Saren bring her daughter to her. Of all the myriad esoteric things in the galaxy she could have developed an interest in, Liara had managed to pick the one on which the Reaper's return had swung. They would use her, as they had used everyone else.
Benezia remembered the small part of her that had always remained herself, locked away behind the glass, weeping and cursing and screaming at the thought of bringing Liara into the waking nightmare her life had become, but to no avail. She had been unable to stop herself from making the suggestion and the order, once given, was something else she had never found the strength to countermand. She had not found such strength at all until she had come face to face with Liara for what should have been the final time, and then only when aided by pain and fear and the likelihood of her imminent death.
Liara been saved from Benezia's own fate, at least, and Benezia supposed she owed the human Spectre something for that. But from that moment on, it was a downwards spiral, captured as a part of the public record for all to see.
Still images, a few snippets of vid from not long after the... confrontation on Noveria, Liara looking lost and angry and so very, very young. An unlikely quintet of a krogan, a quarian, a turian and two humans attempted to shield her, with limited success, from a horde of asari from the Citadel's press corps. The six of them, together, were famous now, she knew: Commander Shepard and the Normandy Five, and not one of them still looked the same now as then.
The awards ceremony, following the defeat of Sovereign and Saren, in full this time rather than the fragments the news services had broadcast. There was enough footage available for Benezia to realise the smiles from the recipients, Liara included, were forced, angry, their acceptance speeches short and ghost-written. A journal article, from not long after, and several informal notes, published to extranet, forums hinted at an attempted return to normalcy: Liara's ongoing attempts to decipher several prothean data discs evidentially found during their travels. And then...
Disaster. The death of the first human Spectre, the destruction of her ship. Liara, alone amidst a sea of uniformed humans, wrapped in a blanket, staring without seeing at a human-style mug held between two hands. Liara, exchanging a hug with the quarian, tears in her eyes, her face aged and haggard. Liara, the quarian and the turian beside her, stoically sitting at the back of a funeral party, surrounded by black-clad and uniformed humans, listening to a speech being given by the woman who would become the second human Spectre.
Duty. Honour. Courage. Friendship. Loss.
A little less than two years on Illium – Illium! -of all places, working as an intel broker, just as Aethyta had said. And, just as Aethyta had said, Liara seemed to have lost her way whilst there. The reports of her time on the lawless planet were a disturbing and confusing mess of gossip, lies, speculation and precious little truth, charting her absolutely meteoric rise through the ranks of Illium's information brokering fraternity.
Her rapid ascent was at once a vindication and source of deep concern. Benezia had always known that Liara would go far, if only she could be dragged away from her history books long enough to engage with the people around her. She was so smart- and that wasn't just a mother's pride talking - and had a gift for making connections and spotting patterns within the greater whole that matriarchs seven or eight times her age would envy. It was little surprise that she had been so very good at her second choice of profession.
But information brokering! It was a dirty, dangerous profession, skirting on the very edges of legality and seen by many as just one step above smuggling or stealing or slaving. And it was also a role that called for a ruthlessness that she would not have thought her Liara, her gentle, kind-hearted little girl, capable of. And yet there was ruthlessness, even a kind of brutality hinted at in the abrupt end to the sad affair. The return of the supposedly dead Shepard and the death of Spectre Vasir. Bombings. Murders. Liara's own supposed death. And, Goddess above, it was, all of it, laced persistent rumours of some sort of a feud between Liara and the Shadow Broker...
Was this her fault, too? Yet another crime to be laid at her feet?
Or was it this Shepard's?
She felt the echo of anger, again, at the thought of the human Spectre, and was not sure whether it came from within her true self or not. But if Benezia's actions might have started Liara's descent, then Shepard's had continued it, driven it to its conclusion. The events leading up to Saren's defeat would not have been enough to drive Liara to such depths, of that Benezia was certain, but grief might - grief and despair and loneliness. To open her heart for the first time, for Liara, who was so shy and sensitive and insecure at the best of times, to finally understand the joy that comes from being in another's arms and thoughts, and then to have that wrenched away from her barely a heartbeat later, to have no-one there to guide her through her grief and share the burden of her pain -
And then it turned out that Shepard's death had been another lie, and all Liara's suffering for naught. Were all humans so cruel? The Spectre had dragged Liara to Noveria and forced her into a situation where she had to shoot her own mother, where someone with the barest flickerings of compassion would have left her in a place of safety. She had, too, brought Liara to her bed and stolen her heart, only to fling it aside like some worthless bauble when she no longer had need of it.
But Shepard had evidentially come to need her again, her skills and knowledge, and had come back, faking Liara's death so she could be safely stolen away from Nos Astra. And Liara, for whatever reason, had gone with her, taken her back. Her voice, when speaking of the human, was laced with proprietary pride and wonder.
From there - and the exact timeline got somewhat murky - Liara had gone to a classified facility attached to the Prothean archive on Mars, in the human's home system. It was there that she'd made the discovery that Benezia knew she would go down in history for. No wonder the others in the camp treated her with such reverence: from everything she had read and heard and seen to date, the Crucible was the only reason why any of them were still alive. On the tide of victory, after the war, Liara had been revealed publically as its discoverer and chief translator. Staggering to think that without her daughter, without the childhood obsession Benezia had worked so hard to dissuade, the galaxy would likely have fallen.
And that was but the half of it. Liara, fighting on Menae. Liara, talking with refugees on the Citadel. Liara, at a war meeting with Spectre Shepard, Garrus Vakarian and the heads or de facto heads of several governments. Liara, the subject of an in-depth, interactive profile by an award-winning turian journalist, lauding her transition from academic to warrior.
Battle footage from Eden Prime. Battle footage from Tuchanka. Benezia watched, her heart in her mouth, as the tiny spec that was Liara, her white armour shining like a beacon in the ash-strewn waste, fell back as the great maw Kalros rose. Infrequent interviews with the Normandy's embedded reporter, Liara obviously not enjoying the experience but getting more comfortable before the camera each time. A 'Day in the Life' vid done by the same reporter, who had managed to balance the daily grind and stress of ship life during wartime with moments of optimism, including a human-style surprise party that the crew had thrown for Liara's one hundred and tenth birthday, over her laughing protestations - one of the few times that Liara's smile seemed genuine in the entire collection.
Propaganda, certainly, to various degrees and in ever increasing quantities, but the overall picture served to paint Liara as a hero second only to Shepard herself.
Her daughter, the hero.
Benezia allowed herself a moment to taste the words and savour the flicker of pride, before she remembered that all Liara had accomplished had been despite, not because, of her. Had she her way, Liara would most likely have been dead by now, the galaxy along with her. And, if Liara now served her people and engaged with them as Benezia had once so dearly hoped she might, it was not done out of any real desire to serve, nor any enjoyment taken from the endeavour. No, she felt that she hadto. A maiden of one hundred and ten, serving in the role of a matriarch because she didn't think there was anyone else in the community capable of leading in this crisis. What was perhaps worse was that she was, so far, proving herself right.
Her daughter might be a hero, yes, but she could claim no credit, and would live on knowing that it had come at a horrendous cost. Liara was old before her time, now, and suffering for it. Benezia was not the only one afflicted by nightmares, she knew, and she could watch Liara shutting down her emotions, one by one, every time they spoke until they were all stripped away to leave nothing but the ever-present anger that had replaced curiosity as her motive force. Her innocence was long gone. Her delight in the universe and all its wonders, lost. Her gentleness and kind heart ground away and buried, her affections guarded.
Was this her fault, too? Or Shepard's? Or both of them together? She had no answer.
When she finally awoke the following morning, the sun was well past the horizon and Liara long gone. The night of restless sleep, plagued by nightmares wherein Liara stood in the place of Shiala and her other acolytes, combined with the late night itself had left her feeling so drained and bone-weary that she had seriously considered not rising from her bed at all. Two things, however, had stopped her from her passing the day in a sleepy, blessedly thoughtless stupor: the threat of still more unwelcome dreams, and the certain knowledge that, if she did not rise today, she would find it even more difficult to so on the morrow.
Well, two things, and a third, if you counted Aethyta. Her former bondmate had spent the night in one of the communal halls rather than aboard the freighter, but had come by to check on her when she'd not appeared for breakfast. She'd departed again, upon seeing Benezia up and moving, with little more than a perfunctory grunt of 'good morning', and had avoided her for the rest of the day. It seemed that she'd abandoned the idea of being her 'minder' in Liara's absence, at least for the moment, a decision Benezia wasn't entirely sure how to feel regarding. The return of such distance was undoubtedly a good thing, and yet the day was undeniably more of a struggle without her solid, unflappable presence, and even her occasional bouts of grousing.
It was startling, truly, to realise just how much she'd missed Aethyta. It had all come back to her in a rush, the previous morning, how they'd used to be. The hundred sunrises they'd shared, each one marking the day of their bonding, and the untold number of sunsets. Ten thousand nights had been spent safely encircled in those strong arms, lulled warmth of her body, the slow rhythm of her breathing and the beating of her heart. Innumerable thoughts shared, playful flirtations and jests and subtle games beyond counting, debates that challenged and arguments that had always seemed to end up with them in bed together. Her body had remembered too, the warmth rising from her belly to cut through the lingering aches. And, for a few heartbeats, she'd seen the same recognition, the same remembrance in Aethyta's eyes.
It had been too much to bear, and she'd been forced to pull away from the comfort provided before she did something rash. She simply had no right, as Aethy herself had said. She had no right to want her again after she had cast her aside, not now, not ever, and certainly not just because the ground was quicksand beneath her feet and she wanted something stable to hold on to.
But she missed Aethyta all the same, almost as much as she'd ever done during those first few difficult decades without her. And without her to trail after here, through the camp, Benezia felt... lost. Aimless. Purposeless. And lonely. Of all things, she felt lonely. The other residents regarded her with nervousness, if not suspicion or outright hostility, and she could not bear to meet their eyes, most times, lest she saw the pity or the accusation there.
Yet, for all their discomfort, they were unwilling to let an able pair of hands sit idle, not when there was still so much to be done. Since they did not trust her to mind the children, nor to sit watch upon the walls or tally stores, she had found herself drafted into a construction team the moment they'd spied her, sitting alone and staring silently up into the grey, ash-laden clouds that blanketed the once pristine sky. The work was hard, especially to someone for whom gardening had been the closest thing to manual labour ever undertaken, but oddly relaxing. She could lift and carry and hold under the direction of others without needing to think about anything other than the task at hand, and the burn of exertion, the ache of her muscles, was strangely sweet. And, as that rose, the pounding in her head slowly diminished.
That the work was rewarding as well helped.
By the time they'd finished the project, some unknown point in the late afternoon, the mood in the camp was positively buoyant, so much so that even Benezia could not help but be affected by it, to some small degree. A cheer had gone up when the last piece of piping had been laid, and another once the final tests had been completed, the last leaks plugged. A laughing, jostling queue had formed not long after, its members joking with one another as to who had dreamed more of this moment over the past weeks or, in many cases, months.
A shower. A simple dream, perhaps, but a dream nonetheless, and seeing it achieved was cause for hope and celebration.
Benezia, one of the last to take her turn, sighed with something approaching satisfaction and ducked her head beneath the hot spray, feeling some more of the tension leave her body along with the layers of accumulated grime. She hadn't bathed since the morning after her reawakening, the freighter's small shower unit having been quickly stripped out for use by the wounded and ill in the medical tent. She hid a smile when a trio of small children ran by, squealing and slipping and trailing soapy water, and exchanged basic pleasantries with a matron who, up until now, had nothing for her but silence and dark, suspicious looks. It was, she knew, the first conversation she'd had with someone other than Liara or Aethyta since awakening; she could hear the rust and surprise in her own voice. Further down the undivided, open-air block, a maiden and matron whose names she did not know coupled quietly in a cloud of steam, dark eyes and wandering hands ignored by all with practiced ease.
She was just debating finishing up, torn between the soothing water and the knowledge that her allotted five minutes was long over (though no-one had seemed to mind overruns so far), when she spotted Aurelia hastening past the block in the direction of the unofficial barracks, her arms full of white and blue armour. Seconds later, Palla Liakos and Liara herself entered the showers, talking animatedly. Palla stopped abruptly when she caught sight of Benezia, but Liara continued on, oblivious or affecting such, and stepped up to the shower to Benezia's right. After a beat, Palla followed, taking the final unoccupied station, one down from Liara's own.
"I see that you took my advice," Benezia murmured. Commandos would only handle and service the armour of their sisters in arms, or the one they were sworn to protect.
"It was good advice, even if I didn't like it," Liara shrugged, and then sighed in pleasure, eye falling closed as the first drops of hot water began to fall. Benezia took the opportunity to glance her over; Liara's armour had hidden more scars than she'd realised, some old and faded, some new and livid like the ugly burns, standing in even starker relief. Of greatest concern was the fist-sized, skin-coloured dressing that that sat above her hip on her stomach, matched by an identical one, sat slightly higher, opposite on her back. What had done that Benezia shuddered to think, and absently touched her own side, feeling the new, raised scar there.
"Goddess, but I've been looking forward to this all day."
"You had this planned?"
"I offered the construction group a choice of three projects," Liara said, lathering up carefully. "I cannot say that I'm particularly surprised that they picked this one."
"It has made many people happy."
"You included, I hope." Liara glanced over at her and smiled. "You're looking better."
"I am feeling somewhat better," she conceded, feeling she ought to say more but not quite knowing where to begin. This was not the forum to talk of what she had learned last night, nor was it the venue to discuss… other things. Liara, fortunately, filled the silence for her.
"If this is the kind of result we get, I suppose I should begin to give the builders more autonomy too. I don't suppose you'd be interested in taking charge of them..?"
"I think not." Not now. Perhaps never again. Just thinking about it made her heart race, her head hurt. Her mind was clouded, her judgement compromised; she should not be trusted.
Liara nodded, but didn't seem surprised.
"And I suspect that Aethyta would tell me to do something anatomically impossible if I asked her. Well, I'm sure there's someone who will be good at it." She frowned and glanced around. "Where is Aethyta, anyway?"
"I do not know. I've not seen her since breakfast."
Liara's frown deepened, and Benezia could all but see her file the tidbit away for future consideration.
"No matter," she said after a moment with a shrug, and returned her focus to her bathing. "While you're here though, I do have a question, and I think you're the only person here who might be able to answer it."
"You know you may always ask," she replied immediately, intrigued despite herself.
"But you may decline to answer," Liara completed the phrase for her and smiled again, but the edge of it was somewhat grim. "Or I may not like the one you give. Under what circumstances is an Ardat-Yakshi permitted to return to the homeworld?"