Two updates in under a month? Clearly something has gone awry.
Some recs, if I may. If you're in the market for more Benezia/Aethyta, I heartily suggest u/4224952/R-J-Ames. If you like asari, thrillers and cracking good reads, s/8627108/1/A-Few-Personal-Favors will certainly keep you on the edge of your seat.
And, finally, thank you for all your lovely comments. They give me such lovely warm fuzzies.
Twelve: Aethyta
"That's the best you've got?" Aethyta sneered, spitting blood towards her opponent's feet. "My old granny could hit harder than that, and she's dead and buried."
The krogan charged at her with a roar, urged on by the jeers and laughter of the others in his company. Aethyta held her ground until he was almost on top of her, then ducked under his swinging, grasping arms. She pivoted, then, as he thundered past in a spray of mud, and kicked out, hard, with an added biotic flare, taking him in the back of the knee. She heard the crack and watched him stumble, and knew that she'd found her mark. There weren't many weak points on the krogan body - the knees and elbows, those recurved shins, the eyes and, of course, the quad on the males - but they were there to be taken advantage of if you only knew how. Lucky for her, she'd been taught by the best.
From there, the rest of the fight was almost too easy. Any given krogan would always have brute strength and mass over any given asari, but paid for it in speed and agility. She kept to his blind spot, behind his hump, as much as possible, focusing her attention on the same knee as before, working it until it could no longer support his weight. He made one last turn and lunge for her, and there was a dangerous moment when he managed to get a hand on her jacket and started to reel her in, but she slipped out of the garment, twisted, planted her foot solidly enough in his quad. He instantly doubled over, his breath left him in one pained explosion, and she met his head with her own when he tried to recover, straightening up. He blinked up at her for a few seconds in pained bewilderment, then his eyes rolled up into his head and he fell over sideways.
The circle of onlookers erupted into cheers as she snatched her jacket back up from the fallen krogan, slipped it over her old black and gold leathers, and spat again, the gob of purple this time landing smack in the middle of her downed foe's back.
"Right," she said when the noise had died down, cracking her knuckles and glaring out at the krogan dotted amongst the circle. "Anyone else got a problem with taking orders from me?"
When there were no takers - to her not insubstantial disappointment - she picked a pair of smirking krogan out from the crowd. "You two, get this sack of shit outta here. I want you other seven back up on the fucking wall. And the rest of you," she finished, rounding on the asari in the circle, "the show's over. Get back to whatever the hell it was you were doing."
The crowd quickly dispersed, chattering and laughing, the unlucky krogan dragged away by his heels by his comrades. Aethyta sighed inwardly. Put them to work, the kid had said. Keep them out of trouble, the kid had said. She may as well have said: Aethyta, go smack their fucking heads in. It wasn't that she minded doing it – honestly, she'd been spoiling for a good fight for days now, to work off some tension- but the rest of the camp was getting antsy, and had reason to: krogan, in her experience, who'd been promised a fight tended to go looking for one when it didn't immediately eventuate.
A hundred and ten of them had come down on twelve turian drop ships, with supplies enough to last them more than a month of hard fighting. That made a hundred and five more than had been permitted to assemble together on Thessia since the Rebellions. At their head was the young krogan she'd recognised as Shepard's pet Urdnot: Grunt, the Tankborn.
He seemed like a good kid, from what little she'd seen, with a fairly impressive track record. You had to have serious quad to be accepted into Aralakh Company, let alone run it. They were heroes whose deeds were legend, the krogan that every krogan aspired to be. Her dad, whenever he got on the turps, could be goaded into singing about them, a little bit, and the great battles they'd had in that great, deep, rumbling voice of his.
This wasn't Aralakh Company, though. From what she'd heard, that fabled group had been entirely wiped out at some point during the war. Instead, what the Urdnot Wrex, the cunning old bastard, had sent was a collection of krogan from two dozen different clans, each vying for one of the twenty open spots that would form the backbone of the Company when it reformed. Most of them were out there, now, with two-thirds of the commandos and the kid, hunting down those fucking banshees and other Reaper remnants. These ten, however, had been left behind to help guard the camp, a duty that rankled some of them even more than it did her. There was no glory in babysitting civilians. But, as her dear departed mother had told her more than once: tough shit. The galaxy was far from fair, and if you continued to bitch about that fact, ways would certainly be found to make it even more so. If Berskin Tarn and Gutnar Krig and the rest of them felt that guard duty was beneath them, then there was always the option of digging latrines or hauling the dead to processing or the pyres - or getting sent the fuck back home to Tuchanka in disgrace.
"You've broken your nose again."
Aethyta cursed inwardly as Benezia stepped out from the dispersing crowd. She thought she'd spotted her, in amongst the circle of onlookers, but had been too preoccupied to pay Benezia any attention beyond that. She had, in fact, been trying very hard not to pay any attention to her at all for the past couple of days, working at her anger, nursing her grudges.
"Had to let him get one good shot in," she shrugged, wiping some of the blood from her lips and chin with the back of her hand and flicking it away. "Would've shamed him too much, otherwise, and then we woulda had a different problem when he woke up." She paused and cocked her head to one side, watching Benezia even as she was watched coolly in turn. "Is the part where you tell me that 'violence is not the answer'? That 'there's always another way?' He was a krogan. Word'll get around, now, that causing trouble in the camp will lead to a swift ass-kicking."
The pain was starting to creep in now as she spoke, from her nose and her jaw where the Tarn had landed his punch. She spat again, felt some of her teeth wobble when she probed them cautiously with her tongue. Could have been better. Could have been worse. But she was definitely slowing down. A decade ago, he'd never have managed to lay a finger on her after the first blow, let alone grab a fistful of her jacket. A decade ago, she wouldn't have fallen on her ass fighting a banshee either.
"Those arguments did not work when we were together, if you recall. I don't imagine they will start now." Benezia did not move, did not change expression. "Would you like me to set it for you?"
She almost said no. She should have said no. But Nezzie had done this for her at least a dozen times, and the alternative was sitting down in front of a mirror and doing it herself, which had never gone well. Even with the integration of the Pischan camp, swelling their little village into a town of almost two thousand, they still didn't have any proper medicos.
"Knock yourself out."
She found a seat for herself on the broad steps to one of the blocky, drab emergency shelters. The grey, unburnished metal of it was cold under her ass and mud-splattered to boot; the drops of rich purple blood that streamed from her nose to splatter against it seemed incredibly vivid as she bent over to one side and cautiously blew to clear it as best she could.
"Charming."
"Had to be done. You know that" she replied, straightening to find that Benezia was in the process of kneeling on the step below her. For one lovely moment, Benezia's tits, straining against the zipped-up, slightly too-small jacket, were at a perfect eye level. If Aethyta wanted to, she could lean forward, just a little bit, and bury her face between-
Shit.
This was a bad idea. Her blood was always up after a fight, and she usually wanted nothing more than a stiff drink followed by a good fuck. Or vice versa. Or a stiff drink and a good fuck. Where had that bar been? The one with the wood counter and the sticky lapezberry liquor that she'd licked-
Shit shit shit.
She was a matriarch for Athame's sake, not some randy matron. There was such a thing as self-control. And she was still royally pissed off at the asari to whom that magnificent rack belonged. Never mind that some of the best sex of her life had taken place after or even while she'd been fighting with-
Shit. Shit shit shit.
Aethyta turned her head and spat again to cover her thoughts. This was insane. No, wait, it wasn't insane - it was pathetic. Lusting after the fucking ex. She just needed to get her nose dealt with, then go find someone who'd be up for a good fuck. Someone else. Maybe one of those nice krogan boys would be interested in a different sort of a tumble. It'd been at least five years since she'd had a krogan.
"Are you alright?"
"Fine," she said shortly. When she straightened herself again, Benezia had, mercifully, finished settling, sitting back on her heels so that their faces were level instead. Her face held cool concern, nothing more. "Just hurts. Hurry up, will you?"
Benezia arched one of those stupidly perfect eyebrows with its stupidly delicate markings, but made no comment other than: "Very well."
Benezia's hands found her face, gently tracing the line of her nose to find the breaks. Her fingertips were cool and smooth and steady. Aethyta closed her eyes as one of those hands fell to her cheek, then to her chin, turning her head this way and that to examine her in profile, trying not to remember where else those deft fingers had touched her before.
"It looks to be a simple break. One or two manipulations, I think." The hand returned to her nose, fingers firming up either side of where it most throbbed. "On the count of three."
Goddess, she'd always loved that voice. Benezia'd always had so much control over it too. She could project enough to be heard clearly across a room packed full of chattering airheads and drop back down to a whisper in the same breath, pitched so low that you and only you could hear the remark that followed.
"One..."
Maybe... Maybe they should just fuck. Take the edge off. Get Benezia T'Soni out of her system for once and for all. Avoiding her clearly wasn't working.
Goddess, she wasn't seriously considering that. Insane. Pathetic.
"Two..."
There was a sudden increase in pressure, a sharp upwards spike in pain, and she felt as much as heard the horrible grinding noise and subsequent 'pop'.
"Aaargh! Ow! Goddess! Fuck!"
"Three," Benezia said dryly, releasing her.
"Fucking hell, Nezzie! You said on three!" she accused, her eyes watering. "Fuck! Gah-"
"You always tense up if I do the full count," Benezia said. She sounded almost... amused? Yes, amused. "Now, quit being such a baby. You wouldn't want any of those nice young krogan boys to see you cry."
One of Benezia's hands found her chin again, tilting her head around to check her handiwork. She made a satisfied noise and released her.
"Done in one?" Aethyta asked, gingerly feeling out the damage.
"I believe so. You would, of course, do well to check it for yourself before using medigel to finish the job. I've not had to set a nose since Liara was twenty-five." When Aethyta looked askance, she elaborated, voice wry. "She was 'exploring the wild jungles of Nevos', I believe, and ran headlong into a tree."
She had to chuckle at the mental image that conjured up despite herself. She'd gotten a holo or vid of the kid every few months, at first, and then one every year or so until she'd left home. Sometimes, there'd be a letter. Sometimes, there wouldn't.
For the first decade, Aethtya had treated everything sent to her as an insult, salt rubbed into the raw, open wound. Benezia was flaunting the girl before her, the relationship with her lastborn that Nezzie had, for whatever reason, chosen to deny her. In the second decade, after the first hot flush of anger, bitterness and heartache had started to fade, she'd begun to wonder if the stuff Benezia sent her way wasn't actually some strange sort of almost-apology. Eventually, as curious as she'd been wary, she'd even written back. They'd only ever written of their daughter, the two of them, updates, advice, cordial arguments over schooling and more; tentative forays into the whys and hows of their own dead relationship had gone carefully unanswered.
By all she'd seen and read, Liara, at twenty-five, had been a bright-eyed but gangly, uncoordinated little thing, all elbows and knees and skinny little neck. She was adventurous and insatiably curious, much as Aethyta's own girls had been at that age, but had an academic streak that none of her three possessed. Melania had taken too much after her mother to be interested in a formal education, Zara had been disinterestedly pursuing a fine arts degree for around two hundred years now, and Khyvos, well... Aethyta loved Khyvos dearly, but she'd always had the attention span of a salarian on speed. Privately, Aethyta had wondered, sometimes, how in Athame's name her third daughter managed to raise her own children, let alone do so while running a business.
And, just like that, her desire fled. Her girls. Lunkheads the lot of them, but still hers. She could only hope that they were someplace safe. That they were still alive.
Benezia rose, wiping her hands clean on a dirty grey pant-leg, and looked down at her. Whatever she saw there made her frown, ever so slightly, in renewed concern.
"Are you certain-"
"I'm fine," she replied in a tone that brooked no argument. Forget the fuck; she'd finish fixing her nose, find her emergency brandy stash and get quietly drunk.
Benezia seemed unconvinced, but wisely elected not to press the issue.
"You should get to the medical tent before the swelling becomes too severe," she said, offering her hand.
Aethyta took it after only a moment's hesitation, and soon stood beside her former bondmate, surveying this little section of the camp. A half-dozen blocky, grimy, grey and white emergency shelters, stamped with the Armali seal, sat in two convex lines that blocked the rest of the camp from view. The buildings here served primarily as storehouses for food and the other bits and pieces they'd been able to salvage, and spent most of their time sealed shut. A large, open patch of ground stood in between the rows, muddy from the morning's rain and two different types of blood, bordered by a crude path of cargo lids and lengths of plasteel and other flat materials, laid to keep feet and hand-trolleys free from the muck. It was certainly nothing to write home about.
Wherever home was these days.
Abruptly, Benezia frowned and stepped forward, out into the mud.
"Do you hear that?" she asked, head tilted upwards to scan the grey sky.
Aethyta bit back an inane 'hear what?' just in time, and cocked her own head to the side, holding her breath to better listen for anything out of the ordinary. After perhaps ten seconds, she heard it too.
"One ship, I'd say. Maybe two" She cast about for somewhere with a better vantage point and was left only with the shelters themselves. Elsewhere in the camp, someone began to ring the warning bell - another of the kid's little, effective ideas. "Give me a lift, will you?"
Benezia looked at her in incomprehension for a second, then shook her head.
"I... don't know if I can anymore," she said, sudden nervousness in every line of her body. "I've not used my biotics since-"
"Past time you started again then," Aethyta replied. "Dive back into the ocean. I just want to have a quick look."
"I... Very well."
Benezia exhaled and drew herself up into her preferred casting stance, side on, her knees bent, feet planted firmly a shoulder width apart, one arm loosely extended while the other was held ready, in a fist at her side. Aethyta turned to the shelter and tensed for the lift. Of the two of them, Aethyta was the better fighter by far – Benezia had little inclination towards violence of any sort by nature or belief - but Benezia was the better biotic. She matched raw power at least as great as Aethyta's own with a finesse born of a lifetime's daily practice and study of both the modern and ancient arts. She could do with a flick of her wrist and a moment's thought what it took Aethyta a full arm and a minute's solid concentration.
The lift, though, never came, and when she turned back to find out what, it was to see Benezia frozen in place, body crackling with biotic energy.
"Hey," she said, and then repeated the call, more loudly. When no response came, she took a couple of steps towards her, and realised, with a horrible sinking feeling, that Benezia was gone again, in the same way she'd fallen into memory the first night they'd landed. Her eyes had a fixed, glazed look to them, her chest rising and falling rapidly, the colour drained from her face. She was talking, though, this time, soft, frantic words that became clearer as Aethyta took another cautious step forward.
"I can't. I won't. You won't make me. My daughter. I will not-"
"Hey," Aethyta tried again, edging closer still, enough to reach out and touch her if need be. Though, she considered, remembering Benezia's reaction that first night, physical contact probably wouldn't be the best of ideas.
The other matriarch's head jerked up as she neared, body straightening, face twisting into an uncharacteristic sneer.
"Have you ever faced an asari commando unit before?" Benezia said as their eyes met, her voice oddly hollow and dripping with contempt. "Few humans have."
"I'm not seeing too many humans around here-" Aethyta began, but Benezia didn't seem to hear her, reading instead off some internal script.
"I now realise I should have been stricter with her."
Aethyta frowned, puzzled.
"What-"
The next thing she knew was pinned in an impossibly strong stasis field, and the moment after that she was flying back into the storage shelter. She didn't even have time to flick up a barrier before she hit the building with a resounding thunk, hard enough to knock the wind clean out of her. She slid down the wall to land, wheezing, on her knees in the mud, shook her head to clear the stars from it and rolled to her feet, heart racing, a fresh wave of blood running from her nose, barrier up and ready for the next attack. Benezia, though, had turned away from her, bent over almost double, her hands at her temples.
"Benezia?" she hazarded, not quite daring to move. "Nezzie?"
"I- Goddess! I'm sorry. My baby girl. I'm sorry. I-"
That sounded like her again, at least. Aethyta edged cautiously out towards her once more, carefully circling around to approach from the front rather than behind. As she did, she caught sight of the small audience the altercation had gathered, a group of kids and one or two maidens, lurking awkwardly. She sent them her best glower.
"You lot - can't you see we're having a domestic? Scram."
They did, hastily, even as a small shuttle came humming in, low overhead, reminding them all as to why the alarm bell had been sounded. Aethyta spared it the barest of glances, enough to note the Republics symbol embossed on its side. Markings like that never meant much, least of all in times like these, but it was a small reassurance, none the less. And a shuttle that size could hold maybe five people, in a pinch, anyway. With ten krogan and two commandos on site, anyone who'd come here looking for trouble would quickly find it.
When she reached her former bondmate, Benezia was visibly trembling. The trembling only intensified when Aethyta slowly, carefully drew her up and into a light embrace, giving her every opportunity to pull away. Benezia clung to her instead, burying her head against Aethyta's shoulder while Aethyta awkwardly rubbed her back and tried desperately to think of something soothing to say. She'd never been very good at this sort of thing. Even with her girls, it had always felt so unnatural; when they'd come to her teary with dating trouble, for example, her instinct had always been, not to hold their hand, but to go out and kick the lout's head in.
Despite her silence, Benezia seemed to take something from the embrace, at least, the shaking more or less coming to an end by the time the 'all clear' bell sounded. She pulled away, pressing a still-trembling hand to her temple. She looked confused, exhausted and deathly pale, splattered with drops of Aethyta's own blood.
"Come on," Aethyta said, not unkindly. "Let's get you to somewhere you can lie down, huh?"
Benezia allowed herself to be led through the camp towards the freighter as if she were in a daze, both of them relatively oblivious to the ripple of excitement rapidly spreading through the camp. The ignorance did not last long, however, as the shuttle seen earlier had landed neatly beside their own craft. The shuttle's occupant stood at the centre of a growing crowd of asari, the krogan guards returning to their posts on the walls.
When Aethyta caught sight of the newcomer for herself, however, she stopped in her tracks, her blood running cold.
A Justicar. A fucking Justicar.
Aethyta had only seen a couple from the Order in person over her entire lifetime, and she'd never relished the experience. They were worse than Spectres. At least Spectres had an understanding of moral ambiguity, and had to answer to the Council. A Justicar was judge, jury and executioner in one neat package, answering only to a black and white Code that was at least five thousand years out of date.
It certainly didn't help that Aethyta had done a few things over the years that would put her on the wrong side of what passed for a Justicar's notion of 'justice'.
The Justicar was scanning the crowed slowly, even as she exchanged greetings with those who'd come out to see her. Seconds later, however, she was starting towards the pair of them with long, confidant strides, the crowd parting before her instantly, silently.
Aethyta's mind raced, trying to think of what she'd done that the Justicar could possibly know about. It was only when Benezia, at her side, drew herself up, drew herself away and stepped forward, that the realisation dawned.
"Oh," she said softly. "Shit."