Chapter 61 - Meet Prothy, the Prothean
"Couldn't you have found a better place for him than the cargo hold?" Liara looks a little upset, pacing outside the Prothean's new quarters, glaring at the two Alliance soldiers stationed outside the doors. "And is this security truly necessary? He might take offense at such undeserved treatment."
Shepard has just finished reporting the surprising news of recovery of a living Prothean to Admiral Hackett, and she herself is a little surprised about the soldiers swarming the engineering deck. "I guess someone has dusted off the regs for first contact protocol with new species," she shrugs, then facing the two Alliance soldiers standing on guard. "Dismissed. We'll take it from here, boys."
"Thank you, Shepard," Liara whispers as the soldiers walk away and they both enter the cargo bay. The Prothean is sitting on his knees on the floor, almost like meditating, but his eyes are wide open, staring at the floor in front of him. As he notices their arrival, he slowly rises and faces Shepard with what seems like a challenging stare.
"I told the guards outside to bugger off," Shepard speaks, holding the Prothean's gaze. "Was I right to do so?"
"That depends on you," the Prothean replies hoarsely, swiftly reaching towards Shepard and grabbing her hand before she can withdraw it. Again, a flood of distressing images washes over her, like a slideshow depicting the extinction of Prothean species. In turn, their new guest seems to be drawing on her feelings, her emotions. "I sense fear in you. Anxiety and distress. The Reapers are winning."
Shepard breaks free from his grasp, angrily swatting his hands away. "Don't fucking do that ever again, not without a permission... which won't be coming anytime soon," she snarls.
"Shepard, please," Liara looks at her pleadingly. "Think of what we can learn this way!" Morgan is about to suggest that Liara can let the Prothean touch her all she wants, but then quickly decides that she definitely does not want to see that happening, and chokes back the comment. "It is simply amazing the way you are able to communicate your feelings, your memories, all by simple touch!" Liara gushes, staring almost adoringly at the Prothean. "I take that your beacons are built to work the same way?" she asks.
"You found one of the beacons?" he looks at Liara.
"That was me," Shepard says. "Being the reckless fool I am, I let myself touch it and it burned that warning, the distress signal in my brain."
"You saw our destruction, our warnings?" the Prothean exclaims angrily at her. "Why didn't you heed them? Why didn't you prepare for the Reapers?"
"We did manage to delay the invasion for three years, actually. That was more than your species managed, I believe?" Shepard snaps back. "Besides, it was difficult to convince others that the images from the beacon were real, not merely a figment of my imagination."
The Prothean gives her that snide and dismissive look again. "I see that communication remains extremely primitive in this cycle."
"Primitive?" Shepard fumes. "Well, excuse me, but I don't see what's so great about your method of communication. I rather like being able to shake someone's hand without being traumatized by flashbacks of them receiving their potty training."
"Well, at least you managed to delay your extinction," their guest admits grudgingly.
"And now we have your plans for the Crucible," Liara says proudly. "The super-weapon that was supposed to destroy the Reapers. We have started building it." The Prothean gives her an extremely blank stare. "The... weapon your people were working on?" Liara becomes hesitant, then bringing up the Crucible blueprints with her omni-tool. "I hoped you would know of it. We need help to finish it."
The Prothean stares at the blueprints for a long time, then shrugging. "I know our scientists were convinced it would help defeat the Reapers, but we never finished it. It was too late." His stare falls on Shepard. "I know nothing of this weapon. I am a soldier, not a scientist. I am skilled in one art and one art only: killing Reapers. Only when the last Reaper has been destroyed will my purpose be satisfied. I have no other reason to exist."
Shepard sighs, her heart aching at the briefly devastated expression on Liara's face, her lover quickly managing to regroup and hide her disappointment. So much for the wisest counselor or prime scientist of his time. This one is not only extremely irritating and arrogant, he is also completely useless to us. Though, I suppose one more gun against the Reapers won't hurt. And a Prothean fighting at our side would be a powerful symbol.
The Prothean turns towards her. "Those who share my purpose become my allies. Those who do not, become casualties," he says coldly.
"I already told you that we're fighting the Reapers," Shepard shrugs. "I see no need to repeat myself."
"I have seen your thoughts... Commander," the Prothean says with an annoyingly knowing stare. "You still cling to the hope that you can win this war while keeping your honor intact. Abandon these thoughts. When you will stand in the ashes of trillion dead souls, ask their ghosts and they will tell you that your precious honor matters little."
Three hundred thousand batarians maybe are not trillions, but the Butcher of Aratoht has no honor left to keep intact. She can just hope to restore some of it, to take a few steps on the road to redemption, Shepard thinks grimly, noticing Liara watching her with a soft, sorrowful look in her eyes. "I don't talk to ghosts," she finally says hoarsely. "And if you imply that I am not prepared to do what it takes to end this war, then your much vaunted means of communication and extracting memories are doing a poor job."
Liara steps up to the Prothean, looking determined to change the pattern of the conversation, handing a case with the shard from the stasis pod to their guest. "I assume this belongs to you," she says. "What is it?"
"A memory shard," the Prothean says.
"It does not have any useful information on the Crucible?" Liara asks.
"No... it contains only pain," comes the reply. Four unsettling yellow eyes turn to stare fiercely at Shepard. "I cannot help you build this weapon. But I can help you fight, if you would have me."
Shepard gives a brief glance to the hopeful and excited looking Liara, overjoyed at the thought of retaining the Prothean on the Normandy. I hope I don't come to regret this decision, but really, I can't do this to her, there's only one answer I can give here. "You may remain onboard, as long as you agree to take orders from me," Shepard says, the Prothean simply nodding, as if her comment was something self-explanatory.
The Prothean seems satisfied and almost as if expecting them to go away and stop bothering him, when Liara speaks up again. "I was hoping that you might answer a few more questions for me," she says a little nervously, wringing her hands. "I have written over a dozen articles on your species. My work has been published in several journals," a hint of pride slips into her voice.
"Asari have mastered writing?" the Prothean says, his voice completely flat. "How very amusing."
"I'm sorry, what?" Liara looks at him, confused, while Shepard silently grits her teeth.
Treat her well or get spaced, you arrogant piece of shit, Shepard chants mentally. "Just answer her questions, and try not to be such a dick about it."
Liara immediately jumps on the opportunity, starting to pepper the Prothean with her questions, first about their sensory abilities, wanting to know everything in great detail about it, and Shepard soon begins to grow bored from the increasingly complicated terms and explanations. "So, you can read something from any object that way?" she bluntly butts into the discussion, sensing that Liara isn't about to stop anytime soon. "What about this room?"
Their guest drops on one knee and presses the tips of his two long fingers against the floor. "Liquid? A form of... incubation?" he ventures. "I see DNA belonging to a krogan. He was strong, prone to violence."
"So like any other krogan," Shepard grins. "But you are right, these were Grunt's quarters during his stay on the Normandy."
"Please, Shepard, this isn't the time for unnecessary tests or games," Liara berates her, making Morgan blink in surprise. "Let us not squander this opportunity, but use it to ask something important and relevant. Such as... how was the Prothean government structured? Or perhaps something about your religious beliefs? Or what about-"
"You call that important, asari?" the Prothean shakes his head dismissively. "Do not be foolish. We are dead now, and this knowledge benefits nobody. All that matters now is how to best the Reapers."
"I'm sorry... I did not wish to offend," the very fact that Liara is apologizing when it is the Prothean who is being increasingly rude, fuels Shepard's anger even more. "Studying your history has been a lifelong passion of mine."
"Pointless squandering of your talents, I'm sure," the Prothean shrugs. "When I was born, my planet was already burning under the Reaper onslaught. The things you ask about no longer had any meaning or importance. It is enough to know that we were the dominant race of our cycle and that we ruled the galaxy."
"My studies indicate that you were the only race engaged in space travel at the time," Liara says, undeterred at their guest's dismissive tone. "Was that true?"
"The Prothean Empire was composed of many subjects. All eventually called themselves 'Prothean'. Except those who decided to oppose us instead. Many tried, but none succeeded," comes the grim reply.
"I had no idea Protheans were so..." Liara hesitates, looking for the appropriate word. "...severe."
"Not the word I'd have chosen," Shepard says, scowling at the Prothean.
"Such severity was forced by necessity. Very early we encountered the dangers posed by machine intelligence. They rebelled against us, and we saw that the only way to defeat them was to unite all organic life within our empire. We were about to defeat the machines in the Metacon War, when the Reapers arrived and with dismay, we realized that the machines had long since surpassed us in ways beyond our imagination."
"That explains the reaction towards EDI," Liara nods thoughtfully. "While we have had our... differences with the synthetics, I will be happy to vouch for EDI's unwavering loyalty."
"Yes, you will need to work alongside EDI if you want to stay onboard of the ship," Shepard agrees, watching the Prothean's expression become even more sour. He'll be so thrilled to hear about the geth, I'm sure, she sighs inwardly. Perhaps we shouldn't continue this line of questioning, just in case... "Back on Eden Prime, you clearly expected that more of your people would have survived into this cycle," she bluntly changes the subject again.
"Yes. Under my leadership, a new Prothean Empire would have arisen," the Prothean explains. "We would have commanded the races of your time to prepare for the next Reaper invasion. But we were betrayed from within by indoctrinated agents, and the Reapers discovered our plan."
Shepard exchanges a worried glance with Liara, both thinking back to their recent talk, the words of the Prothean preying on their fears of the threat to Crucible's safety. I need to learn to trust Hackett when he says that they are taking extreme care with the indoctrination threats, she tells herself. Gods, it's so much harder with things beyond my control.
"I have countless other questions, but I do not wish to overwhelm," Liara then says, Shepard noticing that she looks a little glum after the mention of the indoctrination threat. "It can wait for another time."
"I can hardly wait," the Prothean replies. "I must say, this whole conversation has been... most amusing."
"I don't remember anything particularly funny about it," Shepard shrugs.
"The mere discovery that the most primitive races of my time now rule the galaxy? The asari, the humans, the turians..."
"There's also the salarians," Liara remarks.
"The lizard people evolved?" the Prothean stares at her in disbelief.
"I believe they are amphibian," Liara says, folding her arms across her chest, her voice dropping a few levels to reach a frosty tone.
Their guest gives her an uncomfortably long stare. "They used to eat flies," he says then. "And we used to eat their livers. Raw. The greatest delicacy of our cycle."
Liara looks disgusted as she proudly lifts her chin and turns around, keeping her head high and walking away. "Smoothly done," Shepard growls at their Prothean guest.
"She wanted to learn more about my species. I merely told her what she wished to know," he shrugs in response, then giving her another long look. "Commander. You may count on me to pull my weight in battle. I am known as Javik."
"You may be known as Javik," Shepard says, turning around to catch up with Liara. "But I'll be calling you Prothy the Prothean. I suggest you get used to it."
Ignoring the way that Javik's clenched fists briefly glow with the green biotic energy, Shepard rushes out of the cargo hold, glad to see Liara standing at the elevator and waiting on her. "Not quite what we expected, is he?" she asks softly.
"No. Not at all what I expected," Liara replies quietly. "But despite everything, I am sure he has plenty of stories to tell. Getting him to share those stories will be the hard part."
"Your plate is really filling up fast," Shepard remarks. "The Broker work, the Crucible blueprints, and now a real, living Prothean. His name is Javik, by the way. I still insist we call him Prothy like Joker suggested."
"I do not want him to react poorly to my interrogation, so I think I should call him Javik," Liara says, then taking Morgan's hands in hers."And you listed a lot of important things, indeed. I have not read the Broker data feeds for almost twenty hours, and my work on the Crucible plans has all but ceased. Yet, I feel that it is more important for us to spend some time together, just the two of us. There have been too few opportunities for it as of late."
"I was hoping you would say that," Morgan grins, pressing the button to summon the elevator and take them both up to her quarters. "I have my own reports to write, rounds to make, and so on, but... I can delay all that for the next few hours. We'll switch off all comms."
Up in Shepard's quarters, the first thing Liara does is to kick off her boots and sigh in relief, wiggling her toes. "I would not say no to a shower first, though," she says. "Wash off the sweat and grime from Eden Prime."
"Nice rhyme," Shepard grins. "Oh boy, I did it too," she breaks out in laughter, Liara joining her. "And yes, I could use a shower as well," Morgan adds, a little more seriously. "As you know, Dr. T'Soni, our water recycling system demands that we conserve this precious resource as much as we can. Thus, I propose that we take our shower together," she finishes by winking at Liara.
"I knew you were going to say that," Liara replies. "You know, I'm not sure we end up conserving any water that way. In fact, I suspect the exact opposite."
"You know you want to, Dr. T'Soni," Shepard teases. "I'll even let you wash my hair. You love that, don't you?" she adds, watching Liara practically tremble from temptation and desire, Shepard marveling at the reaction that this newly discovered fetish towards her hair brings out in her lover.
"Damnation, Morgan, you do not play fair," Liara smiles in gracious defeat, slowly stripping off the rest of her armor, before slipping into the shower, gloriously nude and Shepard wastes no more time in undressing and joining her.
Half an hour later they are laying splayed out on the bed, Shepard on her back and staring out the port window in the 'loft' as Liara snuggles up to her side, burying her face in Morgan's still wet strands, inhaling the scent of her favorite shampoo, something that is supposed to represent wildflowers, but Morgan doesn't actually have the reference to compare it with, she merely enjoys the subtle aroma and judging by the throaty purr Liara makes she is fond of it as well, the asari's naked leg wrapped around Morgan's, moving up and down her skin teasingly.
"You are right, I do love your hair, the scent, the texture, everything about it," Liara sighs softly.
"You're just being strange," Shepard chuckles. "I suppose it's kind of nice, but also rather useless. Unlike your lovely crest, and how... sensitive it is, in the right places," she reaches out to run her fingers alongside Liara's neck and upwards, enjoying the way the asari reacts, immediately pressing against her side tighter.
"Not yet," Liara interrupts her, despite wanting it so much, seizing her hand and moving it away. "I was hoping we could talk a little."
"Of course," Shepard replies, looking deep into her lover's eyes. "Something on your mind?"
"I was going to ask you the same," Liara confesses. "I wanted to know how you feel about where we stand in this war. Are you happy about the progress we've made?"
"I guess I am. I mean, we seem to have done everything we could, up to this point. Shame about the salarians, but it was always going to be them or the krogan. Maybe we can even salvage the rift somehow and manage to get the salarians onboard, at least partly," Shepard replies after a moment of thought. "I'm feeling confident about the genophage cure, I think Mordin will deliver. But..." she remembers her recent talk with Wrex. "It seems that the Reapers have started to mass on Tuchanka. We will have a real battle on our hands."
"Well, it was never going to be easy," Liara says. "It is all that we can do, all that can be asked of us. We can only fight on one front at a time, Morgan."
"Yeah, I know," she sighs. "And it's the fronts that I'm not fighting on that I worry most about. Because I can't do anything about it."
"Earth?" Liara asks. "It's eating at you, isn't it?"
"Earth and Palaven both, every day. I have not checked the news feeds for 72 hours, fearing what I might discover," Shepard confesses. "I will do it later, though. Right now... I wish to put my worries aside for a few hours, at least."
Liara softly rolls on top of her, and she immediately wraps her arms and legs around her lover, feeling the heat in her body increase tenfold from the contact. "Allow me to suggest a way to forget your fears," the asari whispers, her lips brushing against Morgan's cheek, moving on to her mouth, teeth gently grazing her lower lip before claiming a tender kiss. Shepard traces her fingers all the way down Liara's spine, feeling her shiver with delight.
"There's only one way to make me forget all that," she whispers, watching Liara's eyes darkening. "And that is to lose myself in you."