Solipsis – Thane Krios

–

News traveled quickly on Illium. The planet was a hotbed of gossip and intrigue, populated by celebrity worshippers watching the loudest and the richest unfold their personal dramas in front of a billion hidden cameras. Every omni-tool, every ocular implant, every extranet terminal was tuned to pick up all the latest scandals, and if you forgot yours at home, the hundred-foot holographic viewscreens plastered on every other building would do just as well. One fashion faux pas might mean hours of coverage.

So the death of one of the planet's wealthiest businesswomen would be everywhere for days. Nassana Dantius' oft-disbelieved heart had hardly stopped beating when her top-of-the-line medical implants had called for help, and despite the top-price services of some of Illium's few discrete doctors, her death proceeded as her life had – in the limelight.

All told it was a mere four minutes and thirty-seven seconds from the time of Nassana's death to the time her obituary was splashed over every screen on the planet. The updates came swiftly thereafter as the press converged on the unfinished Dantius Towers like a swarm of carrion flies.

'Salarian massacre at Dantius Towers' read one headline (five minutes, twelve seconds).

'Asari business merger ends in tragedy' noted another (five minutes, twenty-six seconds).

But the real story didn't truly begin until the last of the injured mercenaries was escorted out of the building by none other than Commander Shepard himself. The press moved in without reservation and the dead Spectre's grizzled face joined Nassana's as billions of Illium-ites tuned in to watch the fireworks.

But even as flocks of camera drones from every station on Illium swarmed to hear Shepard's attempt to stem the tide of questions, no one noticed a lone figure slipping out one of the towers' back windows. The figure's movements were utterly silent as he maneuvered the narrow ledges, unbothered by the way the building swayed in the wind and the ocean of police lights and camera flashes below. A modest hovercar awaited him, tucked covertly under a ledge like a sleeping tuk-bird, and the figure leapt in and disappeared into the traffic lanes without a backwards glance.

All of Illium was awash with the breaking scandal (Deadly Love Triangle: Jilted Hero of the Citadel Kills Secret Lover Dantius in a Rage read the newest headline) by the time the figure resurfaced in the dim lights of the Eternity bar as a new being, unconnected and unknown. His background was freshly cut away, his accounts emptied, his hideouts abandoned, his vehicle donated. His past was gone, his future uncertain, and his present reduced to the clothes on his back, the freshly-serviced weapons in his holsters, and a single clay jar no larger than his thumb.

Thane Krios was soundless as a ghost as he strode through the Eternity doors. The bar was almost empty – its only patrons a sleeping elcor and a pair of asari too engaged in their game of iristil-tiles to pay attention to him – but still he selected the quietest, most out of the way corner he could find before he took his seat.

Drell were not known for being effusive, but Thane looked positively grim as he uncapped the jar, sending thin wisps of red-white dust curling through the air in front of him.

…(Blue fingers, scales supple against my hand, grasp demanding I yield. The dry smell of Rakhana joins her perfume. "Asash-felah," she says, voice like ancient wind as she paints me. A gentle touch beneath each eye. "For penance." One stripe. "For forgiveness." Two stripes)…

Thane thrust a finger into the jar and jabbed the now-familiar marks beneath his eyes. The rosy powder – the ash of Rakhanan bones – had a heady smell that tugged at his memory. Reminded him of her.

So much did. So many things made him wish to reminisce. But there was no time. He pushed aside happier thoughts as he returned the jar to his pocket and inclined his head.

"Quetarch," he prayed, eyes downcast behind their painted lids, "Arbiter of wise sin, justifier of will." He paused, his lower lip trembling of its own accord. "Heed your child. Grant me forgiveness for the weakness of my will and for the sloth of my hands. I willed today and innocents lost their lives. I willed today and forgot the innocents before me." He took a breath, ignoring the rattling in his chest. "Accept my repentance; give me the strength to redeem myself."

His mouth stilled but he remained in position, his fingers clasped around one another, his eyes closed. In his head he fought for how to continue. How to make amends for himself now. He remembered every time he'd ever invoked one of the gods, remembered Irikah's lessons on prayer in exacting detail, but it had been near a decade since the last time he had felt the need to beg pardon from Quetarch.

There was more to be said. More to be asked. More penance to be given. But Thane could see none of it.

He opened his eyes.

"Hey there."

Anyone else might have jumped in fright at the asari's sudden voice, but Thane's pupils took their time flitting upward to her face. The bartender leaned casually against the wall, her arms crossed across her chest and a pleasant smirk on her blue lips. She stared at him. "Don't see many drell here," she said after a moment, shrugging, "but I think I remember a few drinks that'll put a shiver in your scales. What'll you have? Cacta-beer? Twelve Scutes? Rakhanan Sunrise?"

…(Every color imaginable, reds and yellows and blues and blacks, sinking into a bleak horizon. This world is dead, but this moment is perfect. She shifts her weight deeper into my lap, rests her head beneath my chin. Her warmth fills me as the day's recedes)…

Thane was quiet for a moment, his mind lost. "Water, please," he said eventually. "Five glasses."

One of the asari's eyebrows rose, but after a moment she gave a short nod and strode off to the rear counter to prepare his drinks. Her hands balanced the five glasses with casual ease as she set them in front of him.

Thane could feel her eyes on him as he examined the water. He knew it was pure – why would the Eternity make a habit of poisoning its customers? – but old habits died hard. He held one glass beneath his nose for a moment, tasting the air above it, before giving a satisfied nod and downing the glass in a single sip. The others followed in short order, his ribbed throat rippling as he emptied each one.

"Wow," the asari said once he'd set the final empty glass aside. "Thirsty?"

"Preparing," Thane said. He had calculated it out. Three point two liters of water – the most he could store in his body before its weight would begin to slow him down – would last him nearly a month if he was careful. Hopefully Shepard's mission would conclude before then. If not, he would have to find a way to secure another three point two liters, and in the worst case maybe even a third. But after that… it wouldn't matter anymore. He gave an imperceptible smirk as he remembered Irikah telling him that the ancient pagan drell measured time in mouthfuls of water. Now he did the same. Oh, the irony.

"Preparing for what?"

Thane hesitated. Some part of him wanted to tell her about his plans (how great it would be to hear her reassure him that joining the commander was the right move!), but a larger part urged caution. Shepard had made it clear he was trying to keep a low profile – and Thane had already caused him enough problems by leaving him to deal with the Dantius mess. He stared at the bartender. "Would you prefer silence or an untruth?"

The asari waved her hand. "Never mind. Forget I asked." She sighed wearily, staring past Thane's shoulder. "Everyone on Illium is so damn secretive. Would it kill this planet to toss me some interesting conversations?"

Thane frowned. "I apologize if I have offended you. The sensitive nature of my work is such that-"

"Matriarch Aethyta," the asari interrupted, grabbing his thumb and squeezing it with her own in a traditional drell greeting. "You got a name?"

Thane hesitated again. "…Would you prefer silence or an untruth?"

Aethyta just shook her head, smiling despite herself. "Okay, okay," she said, pulling up a barstool to sit opposite him. "No name then either. Should I just call you 'drell' then? Or can I come up with one of my choice?"

Thane managed a short smile. "I would be honored," he said.

"I'll think about it. First instinct is to name you after how you look." She pointed to the sleeping elcor, "You know, like fat-face over there, or eyebrows at the next table," she said, arm sweeping to one of the gaming asari whose eyebrows, indeed, looked to have been painted on with a roller brush. Aethyta's eyes narrowed as she stared at Thane. "But it isn't coming to me for you. You're a pretty son of a bitch, I'll give you that."

"Thank you," Thane said, diverting his gaze. His mind drifted back to the ruddy markings he'd traced on his lower eyelids. If Aethyta knew what they meant – all the pagan myths of Phryn the Blood-Crier – she showed no sign, but they still prickled uneasily now that she was there to witness them. "Would you mind terribly if I prayed?"

"What for?"

Thane paused. "Forgiveness. Guidance. Strength."

"Kind of greedy, aren't you?"

Thane nodded emptily. "As are we all." Aethyta shrugged and Thane bowed his head, resuming his wordless prayers. It was not that he was embarrassed to be seen praying to a near-extinct deity – far from it – but some part of his upbringing made it hard to admit his flaws aloud to others.

…(Quetarch Arbiter, she says, a serpent of great beauty. Handless, bodyless. A creature of pure soul. She traces his shape in the sand. Blind and deaf but sees more than us all. Bodyless and better for it. She has me think on this, but Quetarch's body is not the one I ponder)…

As soon as he'd finished he rubbed the ash away from his face with one hand. Aethyta seemed to take that as permission to continue. She rubbed at her chin. "Didn't figure drell asked for forgiveness," she mused. "Don't you guys do that copout thing where nothing is your fault because your body did it?"

Thane's face was blank. "Some drell," he corrected. "Most call their kind the Enkindled drell now. The pagan drell felt rather differently."

"So which kind are you?"

Thane hesitated yet again. It was a good question. "…both, I suppose," he said, staring into his hands, flexing his fleshy fingers against the bar counter. "I took lives today," he admitted finally. Aethyta did not react – he supposed she was used to the idea of violence. She might have even been a warrior herself – asari were difficult to predict on looks alone. "My body takes life often," Thane continued. "I do not enjoy it, but I do what I must and I do not feel guilt." He looked up at her. "Today I enjoyed it," he confessed. "Today I wanted to kill… Today I am responsible."

"Pffft," Aethyta said, waving a hand. "Big deal. You've killed people, I've killed people, my parents killed people, their parents killed people. People kill people." She rolled her eyes. "It's the way of the galaxy. It's gotta be done. Why not enjoy it?"

A dozen arguments danced on Thane's tongue. Some were Mistress Preya's, her airy, ethereal voice explaining to his childhood self about the order of the universe, about how bad people were like any other bad situation, to be passionlessly removed without guilt, anger, or sympathy. Others were Irikah's, about the beauty of life itself, the duty of each person to protect the sacred balances, the intense personal responsibility that came with dealing death for the good of the universe. Thane had had his entire life to struggle with reconciling the two ideas, and he was no closer to it now. "I do not know," he said simply. That was the truth.

"But you still regret it?"

"…I do not know," he repeated. That was a lie. He regretted it, whether he wanted to appease Preya's teachings or Irikah's.

"Don't know much, do you?" Aethyta shook her head, smirking. "Think I'm gonna call you Zirwas," she announced.

Thane's lips curled for a moment. "Zirwas the Indecisive," he said, recognizing the name from his childhood.

…(The clade-mother's fingers spread wide in front of the clear sky. It is a day without rain, and she traces our ancestors through the stars. Each story has a message. Zirwas stands at the ancient Rakhanan shore and ponders which foot to set in the water first. A million seasons pass as he ponders and the sea recedes. Rakhana is a desert now. The fire crackles.)…

Aethyta nodded. "Which foot are you putting in the water, Zirwas?"

Thane was quiet. The tale of Zirwas was many-layered, but it was easy enough to guess what she was implying. He was hesitating at the shoreline and she knew it, even if he refused to tell her the details. How the asari knew such an obscure character from drell mythology he did not know, but he could feel Aethyta watching him, her eyes concealing a wisdom easily overlooked. She saw more than she seemed to see. He would be honest.

"I fear for my son," he admitted. "Kolyat."

Aethyta nodded, face grim. "You want to see him?"

Another good question. "I do not know," Thane said again. Of course he wanted to see Kolyat again. "I long to believe I have done what is right for him."

"Have you?"

Thane eyed Aethyta, somewhat taken aback by her simple tone. As if it was so easy, so straightforward. He didn't have a millennium to live. But the asari's expectant gaze was unrelenting. "…I do not know. I cannot know. I am not there for him, and I regret that with everything I am. But separate I cannot corrupt him, and I rejoice."

Aethyta shrugged again. "Eh. You know, whether you want to admit it or not. You left him somewhere, you feel bad, you want to know if you're doing the right thing." She distracted herself picking at her blue fingernails. "And you're gonna be lizard jerky before too long."

Thane's eyes widened at her words, but Aethyta just stared him down, daring him to disagree.

...(This one is sorry to interrupt, but this one has bad news.)…

"Yes," he admitted. "I will not survive the year." It felt strange saying it aloud.

"And yet even when your time's almost up you're sittin' on the shore, Zirwas. If you really thought you'd done the wrong thing you'd be trying to take it back about now. I think you know what you're doing."

"I wish I did."

"Listen to me, drell. I've been an orphan for nine centuries now."

Thane looked at her. "I am sorry."

"Me too," Aethyta admitted. "I miss them. But parents are overrated. Sometimes they do as much for you leaving as they do staying. I have a daughter. Never spoken to her in my life. Never plan to."

"Do you not miss her?"

"Every day, drell," Aethyta said, nodding. "Don't even know what she's like and I still miss her. But I stay away because that's what I can give her. She grew up thinking I didn't care about her and at this point that's nothing I can change. She grew up strong, on her own, and all I'm going to do by hunting her down is upset us both."

Thane paused. "Do you not fear dying without knowing her?"

Aethyta shrugged. "Dying's not the end, right? Siari and all that. Everything goes back to everything. But what do I know?"

Thane nodded behind her. "Everything goes back to everything," he agreed. He stood, pushing his chair back. "Thank you for the water, Matriarch Atheyta," he said quietly, placing a pair of twenty-credit chits – the last of the money he hadn't spent on supplies or dumped into Kolyat's account, in fact – on the counter. "And for your wisdom."

Aethyta smiled and picked up his empty glasses. "Hell, you're the first person to say that in a long time," she said, turning to place them on the rear counter. "If you ever need to-" her sentence died as she turned back to emptiness.

Thane was gone.

"So… uh… Bye then."

–

Thane steeled himself as he stepped out from under the shadow of the Normandy. It was the dead of night, and no guard had been posted (though Thane had little doubt he was being watched, all the same. Call it assassin's intuition.)

He stared up into the belly of the beast, his eyelids nictating anxiously.

Commander Shepard's ship. The hero of the Citadel. A great man. A hero.

Or so he was told.

The man was famous for his uncanny ability to show up in the right place at the right time and turn the tide at a critical moment, and Thane could not help but notice how he'd done the same again. Thane had been ready to die killing Dantius, his final act pulling one last thorn from the palm of the galaxy. He'd been purposefully sloppy, leaving alive guards he might otherwise have neutralized, heading straight for the target with no exit plan in place. If Shepard hadn't been there he'd likely have had the time to take Nassana's life in the seconds before her guards riddled him with holes.

But Shepard had been there, and he'd given Thane a great gift. A further chance at redemption. Not just for the dead salarians, not just for the battle-lust Thane had felt while rushing to beat the commander to the target. But for all of Thane's many sins, all of his failures. A chance for one final act of contrition to the galaxy before he left it. One final unseen gift to Kolyat, one final apology to Irikah.

He should be overjoyed.

But he wasn't. Shepard had saved him from killing himself, true, and given him new purpose, also true, but he'd also awoken feelings the drell had thought long gone. Hearing Shepard's trainwreck of an infiltration team smashing their way through the tower levels, Thane had felt a rare streak of competition, had tasted and wanted the hunt in a way he hadn't in ten years. By the time he'd reached Nassana, he was barely holding on behind his usual stony façade.

He'd wanted her dead.

For all their differences, Preya and Irikah would have agreed… He wasn't supposed to want his targets dead.

It never felt right in the end.

10 years previously…

–

There were one hundred sixty-eight bones in the batarian body. Half of these were in the hands and feet – fragile but too small to cripple. Most of the others were too large and heavy – or too well protected under thick layers of fur and leathery skin – to break in a single strike, no matter how well focused. The skull could be broken under the bridge of the nose or the neck levered against the chin and snapped downward if death was the goal, but it was not yet time for that.

That left only two.

The batarian's four eyes widened in astonishment as Thane Krios – suddenly standing in front of him where an instant before had been nothing – latched onto both of his elbows. The drell's grip was strong, his movements lightning fast, and the batarian had only the briefest of moments to realize his mistake.

(...impacts in the darkness...)

Both elbows shattered under Thane's perfectly-focused blows, and the batarian yowled in agony through a cage of gritted needle teeth. The heavy alien's arms were limp and useless by the time he'd sunk to the floor, his scream echoing a thousand-fold in the darkened hallways. Unbidden tears streamed from all four eyes.

"Are you ready to listen to me?" Thane asked from down the hall, where his dark eyes watched the batarian's pain without emotion. The sickly emergency bulbs – the only light that remained on the Half-Hour station since he'd visited the command center – flickered anemically behind him, casting an eerie shadow.

The batarian swore, catching another pained gasp in his throat, and ever so slowly lifted his eyes to meet Thane's gaze. His breath came in pained wheezes that made his many nostrils quiver, but even teetering on the edge of consciousness, hate and rage gripped his face.

"You son of a bitch," he panted. "You damn son of a bitch!"

In a second Thane's hand had come down on the back of his head and darkness took him.

–

The batarian awoke to sound of crackling fire. His eyes blinked drunkenly as sense returned to him. The smell of smoke was heavy in the air.

"You are awake," a voice observed from nearby. The batarian gave a jolt and turned to see the drell – the very famous drell, the very famous drell who'd already cost him millions – sitting serenely against the backdrop of a small, crackling fire, set right in the center of the polished hallway, his hands clasped. Thane nodded at the batarian. "I hope you do not mind the fire," he said. "Without working life support the temperature is quickly becoming uncomfortably cold for me."

The batarian stared at him, brows raised in confusion.

"I do not possess your species' hardiness against the cold," Thane elaborated. "I am son of a hot world. Please forgive me."

The batarian swallowed wetly, trying to process the drell's words. One thing stood out. "You… knocked out life support?" he managed, voice slurred.

"I am afraid so," Thane confirmed. "I have no intention of leaving this station in working condition. When we are finished here I will activate the scuttle charges." His voice never lost its polite lilt.

Comprehension seemed to dawn all at once. "My men will… s-stop you," the batarian said, trying (and failing) to infuse his voice with menace.

"Unlikely," Thane said, cocking his head to one side in a gesture of respect. "With all due respect, those that have come for you so far have fared quite poorly indeed." He gestured with his chin towards a dark pile at the other end of the hallway. The batarian turned – it was too dark to see details, but he recognized the look of carnage when he saw it. His soldiers – at least a dozen of them – lay dead in a neat stack, their necks bent at obscene angles.

The batarian frowned. "You son of a b-b-bitch," he said.

"Do not try to talk yet," Thane interrupted. If he took any offense, he did not show it. "The painkillers I've given you will make it difficult. Later, later you will talk."

"What do you want from me?"

Thane did not answer for many seconds, his black eyes boring into the batarian's. His eyes never wavered, never blinked at all as he unclasped his hands and reached into one pocket, but the batarian cringed, sure he was about to die. His four eyes squeezed shut, preparing for the killing blow.

It did not come.

He opened his eyes to see Thane sitting right were he had been, a silver disk in one outstretched palm. It flickered to life, shimmering as an image – a smiling blue drell – resolved itself. "Please look at the holo," Thane instructed.

The batarian felt his hearts sink. He knew that drell too. He looked away. "Piss off," he grunted.

There was an impact and a spurt of brown-black blood lanced across the wall. Thane was back in position so quickly it was as if he never moved, but the batarian's eye was gone all the same.

The batarian screamed again.

"With your remaining eyes, please look at the holo," Thane said, offering the projector again. The batarian shook with agony and rage, blood still pooling out of his newly-vacant eye socket, but lifted his head to stare at the image all the same. It flickered and moved, bringing the tiny drell to life.

Thane's face was set in a grim frown, looking anywhere but at the device in his hands. "This is Irikah Ahlio," he whispered. "The drell you killed."

The batarian gasped for a moment, his lips fighting for words. "I didn't… kill her."

"You ordered her death," Thane said. "Your minion was your tool, but it was your will, your responsibility." He held up the holo again. Irikah smiled brilliantly. "Please, look closely. This is Irikah Ahlio, my wife. She was a beautiful, beautiful creature, and I would have you look on her." The batarian obeyed, his dark eyes staring at the holo without comprehension. "I remember every moment with her with perfect clarity," Thane continued. "Every word she spoke to me, every lesson she gave. Every touch on my skin." He paused. "But you will never have this honor and so I bring you her image."

The batarian looked away to stare at Thane's impassive face. "What d-do you w-want me to do?" he wheezed.

"I would have you learn of Irikah," Thane said, voice quiet, betraying nothing. "Listen to me and I will share some of her wisdom with you." He cleared his throat.

…(Spearheads in the dust. She picks one up, brushes the red away with her shirttail. Sunlight glimmers off of its face. It is a work of art, cast aside, its owners starved and dead. "Dalian clade," she says, handing it to me. "The Dalians were great spar-shela – great warriors, some of the greatest on Rakhana." I feel its weight and I believe it.)…

"The ancient pagan drell despised fighting," Thane began, voice bouncing off of the darkened walls. "But they were great warriors." The batarian's remaining eyes followed Thane's lips, confusion in each one. "To a young drell, remembering in perfect clarity your first kill – the first time you visited death upon another – is a torturous thing. To never forget the look on your foe's face as life left them."

…(My lessons ring endlessly in my mind. Years of drills under Ontaja come to this moment. The human pauses, looks over his shoulder. His eyes glimmer as he recognizes me, but it is too late. I close in. My hands are Illuminated Preya's. Her will through me. I strike.)…

"The Enkindled Drell are taught to bear this burden as the will of another," he said, brushing aside the unwanted memory.

…(Preya is red with disappointment at my guilty tears. She does not – cannot – yell, but angry flashes speak volumes. The human was hers, she says. How dare I believe his killing was mine? How dare I regret what she wills?)…

"But to the pagan elders," he said, "they were a gift." He stared at the batarian. "They believed that a young warrior should embrace his memories. He should live his enemies' deaths a thousand fold, he should seek to understand each detail of his enemy's life. He should see the goodness his enemy held, the love of his family, the dreams he once had. He must know his enemy to his utmost, he must understand what his enemy's death robbed from the universe. Only then could he truly appreciate what he'd done. Only then could he truly know it was justified."

The batarian was silent as Thane's gaze returned to him. "Irikah was of the pagan ways," he said. "Irikah taught me this. And I have come to believe it. You ask me what I want. I want you to know her as I did, know what a grave hole her death leaves in the galaxy. You have killed her, you must now know why."

He paused, his face finally betraying a flicker of emotion.

"And I will know you. And then you will die."

Presently…

–

Thane remembered his lessons. Every teacher, every lecture. Perfectly. He remembered Illuminated Preya, the hanar to whom he had belonged, and her week long ruminations on philosophical minutiae from every corner of hanar and prothean and drell intellectual history, the way her singing voice and the rhythmic flashing of her body had spelled out thoughts beautiful in Thane's eyes and mind alike. He remembered master Ontaje, Preya's oldest and most favored student and her primacy's master at arms. Ontaje had lived a hard life and come to the Compact fully grown, and even as a boy Thane had seen how his own skills eclipsed his teacher's, and yet never had a being been so disciplined, so utterly and nonnegotiably attuned to what was right and proper and perfect as the grey-skinned drell. Thane owed him tremendously.

There had been others. Specialists shipped in by Preya at considerable expense. Masters in every form of combat – drell and otherwise. Biotics and weapons-masters, linguists and xenobiologists, philosophers and monks, engineers and survivalists. Years and years of education, every esoteric scrap of knowledge a young assassin might need on his first trip offworld. Thane's eager mind had drank in the knowledge without pause, and he had never forgotten a word.

But that did not mean it did not take practice.

Thane stood in the life support systems room, arms at the ready, balanced lightly atop one foot, as he had been for the past several hours. His muscles burned in agony, his knee threatened to collapse, his entire body demanded that he release the tension, but he refused.

For a drell, learning was not about memorization. It was about flawless execution. It was about self-control. It was about becoming so intimate with the lifetime's worth of memories in his head that he could instantly call on any of it with no warning.

"Ontaje's eyes narrow in contempt," he said to the room, empty except for the hum of carbon scrubbers. In the past decade he'd learned to keep his solipsisms non-verbal, but in solitude it felt good to speak them as Preya had taught. "My smile fades. I have erred. He holds out a salt-frosted hand, wordless as I fetch the thrown bolas. 'but Master,' I say, 'I was swift. I dodged them all.' He shakes his head. 'Anyone can make a bad decision quickly. Do it again.'"

Remembered enemies flitted through Thane's head, joining him in the silent room. In his mind, his limbs flew out in all directions, but his body remained still.

"The turian's weapon crackles, green plumage splitting the night. His remaining mandible twitches as the trigger is pulled," he said, using his words to enkindle his memories, as Preya had taught him. Thane did not need to close his eyes to see the remembered turian (twenty years dead, in fact) before him in perfect clarity, and he did not need to move to act out the next part. "Light blossoms at my feet but I am gone. Shadows in plain sight. Islands of darkness pool between the blasts, blinding him to my approach. I am beside him. My hands find his skull." His arms remembered the feel of the turian's neck breaking, the exact resistance to his twist, the sudden, slacked weight of the armored alien in his grip.

Thane moved on, even as he felt the heat rising in his exhausted limbs. He conjured up scenario after scenario. Every species, every weapon. Different numbers, different situations. He was in Tayseri Ward when three krogan and a human ambushed him (fingers sprawled on the krogan's crest, feet lashing in every direction. Onlookers watch in earnest). He was stowed away aboard a batarian gunship (instruments shatter under the copilot's face. My elbow catches the astonished pilot). He felt himself walk through each response. Every narrow escape, every grisly, come-from-behind massacre. He'd broken so many necks in his lifetime and yet each one stood out.

The hours trickled by, and Thane trained, never moving an inch. He had to. A week now he'd been with Shepard, and already the human had led him into three separate mercenary headquarters. Already he'd gallivanted with krogan and turians, murderers and thieves, soldiers and mercenaries, heroes and hellions. Even his considerable experience felt inadequate at times. He had to train harder. Had to fulfill his promise.

More remembered foes died. Dozens. Hundreds. Only the life support machines bore witness. The temperature climbed.

Thane's limbs demanded release from his leash. His leg had long since fallen asleep. His mind, even, protested the tedium, but nothing would avail them. Thane was in control. Not his body.

Or so he thought.

He was moving from one solipsism to another when he felt a sudden brick to the back of his head, a pain so extreme it challenged his focus. He swayed in place, just a moment, before reasserting control. He frowned and willed his training to continue.

But it was too late. He'd become distracted and the real world began to crystallize into his senses. Pain radiated from a thousand spots. A sound, desperate and low, had filled the room. Thane blinked rapidly (for the first time in many minutes) as the memories fell away and he realized the source of the sound was himself. He was wheezing.

His throat was in agony.

He set down his foot and grasped at his ribbed neck, feeling it ripple and spasm under his grip. He set his mind to regaining focus, channeled all of his efforts into slowing his breath as he was accustomed to doing when not in combat, but it was no use. The pain had nucleated and now it was spreading. His breathing became more rapid, more urgent, and he found himself swaying on his feet. It was so hot. Why was it so hot? His throat gave a strained clicking sound with each bursting inhalation. The basso sound reverberated in his skull.

It was the sound of a dying drell.

Thane remembered the sound well. It happened to all drell eventually. He'd been a little over twenty when Ontaje had succumbed.

Thane stumbled to the bench, willing his body back into balance. His heart and lungs raced desperately, but he was calm, gently feeling his throat for any major damage. His skin was hot to the touch – practically burning – and Thane gave an accusing glance at the humming machines all around him. He had allowed his memories to overtake him again and had forgotten he was sitting in a room full of autoclaves and sterilizers and scrubbers and all manner of heat-generating equipment. Shepard had happily given him the hottest, driest room on the ship, a veritable basking rock, but there was a limit to how much Thane could take. He cursed his lack of attention. Temperature control was a constant issue for a reptile in space. Letting yourself overheat was an amateur mistake, and Thane was no amateur.

His lungs continued to thunder.

He needed to cool down. Back on Kahje he'd have just taken a quick dive in the ocean, or at least retreated to the shade, but here on the Normandy there was neither. Just chattering machines and warm bulkheads, an island of heat floating in the vast, cold expanse of space. He had to leave the room.

Thane hesitated, looking at the door. It was late at night, but even so, he could hear voices in the mess hall through it. Shepard and Massani. He would prefer not to disturb them. He considered simply enduring the discomfort for a moment, but the taste of blood on his tongue changed his mind.

He stood, his throat still thrumming unbidden.

–

Thane's footsteps were silent as he strode from the life support room and felt the cooler air of the mess hall overtake him. Around him the ship was quiet and dark, most of the crew having retired to sleep while a skeleton crew and the Normandy's batteries of advanced computers kept watch. The soft hum of the engines shook Thane down to his bones.

Thane allowed his feet to carry him to the dimly-lit mess, unoccupied, at the moment, except for Shepard and Zaeed, who'd taken up residence at the end of one table, bowls of food before them.

"So there we were," Zaeed was saying, his gnarled hands gesturing overtop his forgotten midnight meal. "Me and my last few mates and a goddamn field of bodies. Fifteen minutes we'd been gone, Shepard. Fifteen minutes, and they'd all gotten themselves killed. You believe that?"

"Mmmhmmm…" Shepard grunted noncommittally, staring into the depths of his food. He didn't look particularly interested in Zaeed's story, but all the same Thane did not interrupt them, choosing instead to lurk to one side, hands folded behind his ramrod back.

"I swear, only one of us thought that was a good stroke," Zaeed continued, "an' that was Stefan's bloody cat. Lookin' at it you'd think it was Christmastime. All that meat, I suppose."

At some unbidden signal, Shepard looked up, blue eyes alighting on Thane's shadowy form in an instant. "Thane?" he asked, as if unsure.

"I am here," Thane said, taking a step forward. He was secretly impressed with the commander's acuity. It was a rare human who could see Thane before it was much, much too late. Shepard would have been only slightly too late. With some difficulty, Thane pushed the thoughts of how best he would eliminate the Commander aside – dark thoughts were an occupational hazard for an assassin, and one he did not make a habit of dwelling on more than necessary.

"I was wondering if you'd ever leave that room," Shepard said, cocking an inviting smile. "Bad dreams?"

"Drell do not dream," Thane said automatically. He was about to explain himself when Zaeed pushed himself up from the table and rounded on him, a thoroughly unamused frown slashed into his scarred face.

"It's about goddamn time," he said, striding up and planting himself right in front of Thane. "Thane bloody Krios. Best goddamn assassin in the galaxy, ask the right people. You got a lot of goddamn nerve showing up here." He dug into Thane's gaze with his two-toned granite stare.

Thane raised one brow, unsure what to say. "I needed a moment to cool down," he explained, meeting the mercenary's gaze. He had almost a head of height on the man, but he knew dangerous people when he saw them. There were certain people in this galaxy that you did not shoot at except from very, very far away. Granted, most of them were krogan, but every once in a while Thane met an exception. Zaeed was old but heavy with muscle and heavier with experience – Thane could see it in his eyes. Even a drell assassin was not fearless.

"I thought I told you never to show your face around here again," Zaeed growled.

That did give Thane pause. He rifled through his memories in an instant. He'd heard of Massani by reputation, but that was it. "I believe you are mistaken," he ventured. "We have never met."

All of Zaeed's tension bled out in an instant. "Huh," he said, shrugging. "Musta been a different Thane bloody Krios then."

Thane did not know what to say. He eyed the mercenary warily. "I see…" he said.

Zaeed broke into a smile and slapped him bracingly on the back, nearly knocking him over. "I'm just screwin' with ya, Krios," he said, letting out a bark of laughter. "Welcome to the team, you ugly goddamn lizard." The mercenary was still chuckling to himself as he walked away, leaving a very confused drell in his wake.

"…I see," Thane repeated, to no one in particular.

"Ignore him, Thane," Shepard said. "He's just being a jackass. Here," he said, pointing to Zaeed's empty seat across from him. "Sit."

Thane hesitated, probing his throat with one hand. It had fallen silent. "I believe I can return to my quarters now," he said, delivering a curt bow. "Sorry to have disturbed you."

"You didn't disturb me," Shepard insisted. "Sit."

After a moment, Thane nodded. "Very well." He slid aside Zaeed's unfinished meal – some human dish he did not recognize – and folded his hands. Across the table, Shepard eyed him with a curiou slook.

Silence filled the room. For his part, Thane spent it quietly scanning the Normandy with his sharp eyes, memorizing every detail. It was a ritual more than anything else – he'd already memorized it perfectly of course – but it was a comforting ritual. Another assassin's habit which was hard to break.

"Why don't you ever eat with the rest of us?" Shepard asked eventually, when Thane had allowed several minutes to pass without attempting to start a conversation. Thane's eyes flickered back onto him.

"I did not wish to presume," Thane answered. "I have entered your service. That does not mean I am welcome at your table."

Shepard put down his spoon. "You didn't think you were welcome?"

"I did not wish to presume. You have given me quarters, but said nothing of food or companionship. It is not my practice to steal from those who employ me."

Shepard's face took on a cross between pity and disbelief. "You haven't eaten anything since you joined us? A whole week?"

"I did not wish to presume," Thane repeated again. At Shepard's exasperated look, he added, "it was little bother. Drell do not require much sustenance."

Shepard stared at him. "Thane," he said, as if speaking to a particularly slow child. "You have my permission to presume. I hired you, so I'm responsible for you. You can eat my food, you can go anywhere on the ship you want, you can talk to my crew. Jesus, Thane." He rubbed his forehead in annoyance.

"Very well," Thane said, but did not rise.

"What do you eat?" Shepard asked. "Want some cereal?" He pushed his bowl towards Thane. Little brown pieces floated in a pool of opaque white liquid. "Gardner says it's popular with colony kids these days. Told me I'd wasted my childhood not eating it." He shrugged. "It's not bad."

Thane regarded the offered bowl. "Processed grain briquettes in the secretions of a mammal," he said. "…disquieting. I must decline."

Shepard grinned, despite himself, and stared at the cereal with a new distaste. "Alright, no cereal. Then what do drell eat?"

A sliver of hope quashed Thane's inclination to wave off Shepard's offer. He decided to risk it. "You mentioned your ship has a garden?"

"Sergeant Gardner. He's a man. Not a garden," Shepard corrected.

"I see," Thane said, giving no voice to his disappointment. "Perhaps then some water only, please."

Shepard rose to his feet. "I'll get you some." He headed for the cabinets behind them, rummaging around for a proper glass. "So… you like gardens, then? Fruits and veggies, that sort of thing?"

"Yes," Thane said quietly. "That sort of thing. On Kahje drell eat primarily shellfish, as greenery is in short supply. But we flourish best on a diet of fruit." He paused for a moment. "And insects."

"Unless Gardner's been getting desperate I don't think we got any insects, but I'm pretty sure we've got something like fruit in here," Shepard said, halfway buried inside of another pantry. "Mordin sure gripes about proper nutrition enough." It took a moment of rummaging, but Shepard eventually returned with the promised glass of water, along with a little bowl of lyophilized grapes and a pair of shrunken Mannovaian plums. "It's not much," he admitted as he set them down in front of Thane, but the drell nodded his head graciously all the same.

He drank the water first (this was a habit he shared with all drell, not simply assassins), pouring it down with no attempt to savor it. The ridges in his burning throat rippled, making little staccato tapping noises as bacteria-gummed cartilage popped in place. The tilt of one of Shepard's eyebrows proved that he'd noticed it, but Thane paid it no mind. He drank every drop before moving onto the fruits, eating each morsel one by one. The plums he peeled with meticulous care not to lose a drop of juice. In minutes it was gone – low metabolism or not, he hadn't realized how hungry he'd been.

Shepard sat in silence as Thane ate, his eyes never leaving the drell's ruddy throat. Thane let him stare, finishing off the fruit and finally re-clasping his hands, readying himself for the inevitable questions about his illness.

"You don't pray when you eat," Shepard observed instead. Thane did not show his surprise.

"Not always," he said, smiling. He gestured to the remains of his meal. "Were I to happen on this meal unexpectedly, were I to find it where it might not otherwise have been, I would have given thanks to Shels-aha, Goddess of Bounty. But this food was not a gift from her." He stared at Shepard. "It was a gift from you. My people believe in giving credit or blame only where it is due."

Shepard scratched his chin. "Huh. So how does that fit with the drell stuff about nothing being your fault?"

Thane frowned. This again. It was always such a chore trying to explain the Enkindled drell moral system to other species. Not least because he wasn't sure he fully grasped it himself. He searched for words.

Shepard seemed to take his hesitance for offense. "Sorry," he muttered. "Not trying to put you on the spot."

"No, it is forgiven," Thane said. "If the universe's faiths were easy to explain they would not require faith at all." He paused again, thinking. "Both the enkindled and the pagan drell believe in owning one's actions," he began, "they simply disagree on which those are. It is true there is an element of… convenience in the Enkindled perspective. I have killed many, many times with no blot on my conscience, while another might regret every one. But you must believe me that it is only an excuse when the believer uses it as one." He stared seriously at Shepard. "I have killed thirty-one sentients of my own volition," he said, voice quiet. "And I relive that shame every second of every day. I do not excuse myself from my actions."

Shepard nodded. "I can see that, but what if the person handing out the orders is evil?"

"Then they are evil."

Shepard shook his head. "I'm sorry, Thane. That's just not good enough for me. Or practically any human, really." He paused for a moment. "Some… two hundred years ago was one of the worst black marks on my species' history," he said, eyes still staring at the ceiling like he was struggling to remember. "Long story short, one people tried to wipe out another. When the rest of us found out they said they were just following orders. I think we decided as a race, then and there, that that didn't cut it. You can't just blindly obey an evil order." He grimaced, and Thane could tell that he had more than just drell assassins on his mind. It wasn't hard to guess whose orders Shepard might struggle with – what with their logos everywhere, and all.

Thane nodded. "I would not suggest you can. You do not pledge your services to madmen and murderers, people who will use you for ill. But when your master, one of the Illuminated, she who enkindled you with all that you know, tells you that a man is evil and must die, it is her decision. Not yours."

Shepard sighed. "I guess so. Too bad I don't have a magical wise jellyfish to tell me what to do."

"I am pledged to your service, Shepard," Thane said after a moment. "I will do as you bid. If I am to follow an unjust order on your mission, it will be yours." He paused. "If you will pardon my saying so."

Shepard waved off his comment, busying himself pivoting his spoon around on the tabletop. "Great. So we're screwed then, is what you're saying?"

Thane's brows rose in confusion. "I did not mean to imply-"

"No, no, I understand. Sorry. Bad joke."

Thane was silent. "You… doubt your own orders." It was not a question.

"All the time, Thane," Shepard said, smiling sheepishly. "All the time."

"…I see. Then you wish me to act at my own discretion." Shepard nodded. Thane 'hrm'ed, thinking. "You are an usual employer."

"I'm not who the galaxy thinks I am," Shepard said, leaning forward in a chair. "I would love to send you all home to live your lives and take on all the Reapers single-handedly because I'm apparently some kind of problem-solving God, but I just can't do it alone. I like to think we're all on a team, Thane, trying to stop something we all want to see stopped. If that means me stepping aside and letting Garrus and Miranda come up with most of the plans, then so be it. If that means I have to tell my team to use their best judgment, so be it." He stared at Thane.

Thane was silent.

"I can't do this alone, Thane," Shepard repeated, face haunted. "I might screw it up. Cerberus has me… Cerberus has me all messed up. Doubting myself. Hating them more than is even remotely reasonable. Am I going to be able to work alongside them? Am I going to be able to fight the collectors when I'm worried about my own ship turning on me? If I have to face a choice like that… I'm not sure I trust myself to make the right one." He paused, letting the silence sweep in like a tide again. "I want you to question my orders," he said at last.

Thane said nothing for a long moment, considering this. He supposed he was a free being, in a manner of speaking. Preya had released him from his pledge more than fifteen years before, freeing him into the universe to be his own drell. Still, he knew well how he'd shied away from that freedom ever since, contracting himself out to this bidder or that. Following orders. Now he was here to follow Shepard's orders and Shepard had none to give.

The two were silent for many minutes, their thoughts expanding to fill the darkness.

"I will ponder this," Thane aid at last, rising from his chair. His skin had cooled, his throat had quieted, and he longed to return to solitude to think. Shepard let him go without comment.

Even so, Thane paused in the doorway as a niggling thought occurred. "Shepard?"

The commander looked up.

"The story you told me, about the human genocide. Were the aggressors stopped in time?"

Shepard paused for a moment. "No. No, not in time."

"…disquieting."

16 years previously…

–

Thane set down the communicator where someone else might have thrown it across the room. Preya's tones still whistled in his ears. Of the anger he felt, he gave no sign, no trembling fists or muttered curses. Thane was a soul in utter control of his body.

Sasle, on the other hand, was not. "Well?" the old drell demanded, limping up behind Thane, his feet making scrunching sounds in Rakhana's soft, cool sand. "What did she say? You gonna find the skedda who did this and tear out his throat?" He gestured furiously at the wreckage around them, his long limbs casting longer shadows by the desert sun angling through the shattered doorway.

Thane turned slowly to face the temple's elderly guardian. It had been over eight hundred years since the bulk of the drell had fled to Kahje, and of the many left behind, Thane knew there were no survivors. Still, looking at Sasle, from the way his papery flesh hung off his skeleton to the milky pearlescent color of poorly shed scales that peppered his frills, it was hard not to believe that he'd been here – sole guardian of the Temple of Arashu – as long as the drell had been a people. Sasle was over ninety years old – almost twice the age Thane could hope to reach – and feebleness aside nonetheless healthy and tough, not even a rattle of Kepral's in his hoary old voice. Living on the abandoned desert world had kept him safe.

Of course, being the sole steward of an ancient temple when a human smuggling crew decided to relieve said temple of its relics and sell them on the galactic art trade had not. Sasle sported an ugly white bandage across his skull, stained with black crust from where he'd been dispatched with the butt of a rifle.

Thane placed a hand on the furious older drell's shoulders. "Illuminated Preya forbids me to act," he said, concealing his own anger behind professionalism. "She does not wish me to pursue the thieves."

Sasle's black and orange lip quivered. "Ara! Why not? You are a spar-shela!" he shouted.

"An assassin – a spar-shela – does not kill lightly," Thane reminded him, stepping past Sasle to stare at where one of the great statues – one of Arashu herself, more than twenty feet tall – had been cut from its base with rock saws. Chips of fine ivory and polished marble littered the floor, except for two great tracks from the cart the smugglers had used to wheel the valuables away.

"Eleven hundred years this temple has stood," Sasle moaned. "Myself here for seventy of them. Prayed to that statue every day. Gave my life to protect it. And now it is gone, and you won't even kill those who are responsible!" He hobbled over to the base of the statue and stared desperately up to where, no doubt, its eyes had once rested.

Everything was gone. Every scrap of precious stone, every carving, every altar and prayer stone – valuables left alone by the millions of dying drell scavengers either because they were too sacred to touch or because they were worthless in a world without food – had left in the hands of offworlders. Thane did not count himself among the pagans who worshipped these gods, but still the offense of it made his mind smolder. This was his history, whether his religion or not.

"I share your pain," Thane said, his mind fixed on the strangled cry Irikah had made on seeing the shattered remains of her temple. Obviously this was not how she'd anticipated Thane's first trip to his ancestors' homeworld going either. She'd run off into the desert and Thane had not followed. Not yet. Better that she mourn her stolen gods alone.

"Surely," Sasle said angrily. "It is just the damn jellyfish holding your leash that do not, ara?"

Thane turned to stare at him.

The old drell seemed to shrink a little. "My pardons, master Krios," he murmured, eyes averted.

Thane turned back to stare out the door. He had been looking forward to seeing the temple doors – Irikah had told him they were carved such that they sang when the winds came out of the canyons to the south – but the smugglers had destroyed them too, knocking them out until they were wide enough to pass an enormous statue. "Believe me, Sasle, I share your pain," he repeated. "If not for myself, for Irikah."

Sasle followed his gaze. "She has the right of it, ara," he groused, eyelids sliding over milky eyes. "Sees what's coming. Nothing's sacred anymore. The temples, the priests, the spar-shela, all of it is dying. If it isn't thieves it's jellyfish, if it isn't jellyfish it's sandstorms, if it isn't sandstorms it's just skedda old age." He spat, disgusted, as he turned to Thane and tugged on one of his sleeves. "I'm not going to last forever out here!" he warned, prodding Thane urgently. "I'm not a priest but they'll still need somebody to replace me! Who's it going to be? You?"

Thane watched the older drell's animated ire without expression. "I suppose not," he admitted. Irikah had told him much the same. Her religion – the drell religion – was on its last legs. Bit by bit the hanar and the Enkindled drell like himself were pushing the old believers aside, steadily stamping out all that remained of what was uniquely drell. Thane had known this for years, heard the call for temples to be built on Kahje's islands, heard the hanars' vitriolic refusals, but he had never had reason to care until he'd met Irikah.

"Perhaps Irikah will," he said, and strode out the door, leaving Sasle to his angry despair.

The path to the temple was narrow but well worn by the feet of the millions of pilgrims who'd tread it over the centuries. It wound its way down the mesa into which the temple had been carved, descending into a tangle of canyons and, beyond that, endless miles of arid flatlands.

A slight breeze carried the smell of salt to Thane's nose. It smelled like home – like Kahje. That thought rankled at Thane's mind. Some part of him wanted to call this planet home. It was ruined, its population rock bottom for most of the last eight hundred years. From the path Thane could see the roofs of cramped tenement buildings, half-buried in salt and sand, dotting the flats, the last visible evidence of the billions who'd hunted and farmed and polluted Rakhana into extinction. Still, Irikah loved it. This was Irikah's home. And Thane wanted to share that with her, wanted to love it as she did.

The wind blew harder, and Thane's scales flattened against his flesh, trapping his fleeting heat for the night. He hastened, his thoughts darkening as he let his feet carry him along the trail. Preya's refusal ate at him. Despite her reservations she had allowed him to join Irikah on her yearly visit to the homeworld – had said it would be educational, if nothing else – but now she would not grant him leave to bring justice to thieves and vandals who'd ruined it?

Just thinking of the men who'd caused Irikah so much pain brought an uncommon fury to Thane's mind. Thane had been trained to keep such concerns away from his mind, but he hungered for vengeance. And why not? He was an assassin, honed for years into a deadly weapon. Why should he not wish to use his skills to make Irikah's foes pay? He had the skills, the resources. The smugglers had not expected to encounter any resistance on an abandoned world like Rakhana and they'd been sloppy. Thane could track them offworld in his sleep. A few calls to his contacts and he'd have them. Then it would just be a matter of a few sudden twists, or perhaps a sniper round, or a kick to the neck, or a…

No. No.

He dealt death, but he did not wish death, not on anyone. He was Preya's death dealer, not his own. Thane felt overcome with shame at his angry thoughts. This was what Irikah hated in him. This was what gave her eyes that flicker of hesitance whenever they set on him. What had she called it?

Battlesleep.

Yes, this was battlesleep. Unworthy of Thane. Unworthy of Irikah.

He stopped and turned to stare up at the temple up above him, now framed against an oranging dusk sky.

Unworthy even, perhaps, of Arashu. The Goddess of Motherhood and Protection, Irikah had said. Thane disrespected her with his anger.

He closed his eyes. "Forgive me, Arashu."

He continued down the path.

Irikah was not hard to find. He found her at the mouth of one of the canyons, perched serenely on one edge amongst a swatch of tiny, waxy purple weeds, staring out at the setting sun. The perfect blue scales of her scalp were bared to the sunset, the woven hat she'd worn that morning resting on her lap. She hadn't heard him approach (no one ever did) and breathed deeply, clearly lost in memory. Thane watched her for many seconds.

His perfect Irikah. Five months, now, since she'd stepped in front of his sights …(sunset-colored eyes, defiant in the scope.)... Five months since he'd tossed himself at her feet, begged her mercy like the battle angel – the siha – that she was. Five months of quiet discussions of philosophy, five months of listening to her perfect voice explain the ancient pagan ways. Five months where every job for Preya was torture, made only bearable by memories of Irikah.

They'd grown closer, and Thane prayed they would grow closer still.

He smiled as he took a seat next to her. It was only with great effort that he moved his gaze to the horizon.

"It is beautiful," he said quietly. Indeed it was. Orange and purple and streaks of yellow.

Irikah jumped in place, sunset eyes shooting open. She smiled when she saw him. "Don't do that!" she shrieked, playfully batting Thane's arm.

"My apologies," Thane said, trying not to laugh at her. "I did not mean to interrupt a good memory." Irikah quieted, and the stains of recent, salty tears on her cheeks seemed to jump out at Thane. Even though she did not make a habit of narrating her memories as most hanar-trained drell did, it was not hard to guess where she'd been before he'd interrupted her. "Recalling the temple when it stood?" he asked quietly.

"It was so beautiful, Thane," she mewled, leaning against him. "I wish you could have seen it before…"

Thane tried to ignore the wash of feeling that threatened to overtake him at her touch. He carefully placed a hand on her shoulder, drawing her as close as he dared. "I wish that too," he said. He could not help but think again of disobeying Preya, of hunting down the thieves against her orders. "If there was some way I could return it, I would."

Irikah did not miss the veiled meaning in his words, and drew away in an instant. Her eyes traced suspiciously across him in a way that hurt Thane more than he wanted to admit. "By killing them?" she asked, voice quiet.

Thane closed his eyes. He would not lie. Not to her. "Yes."

"It is just a statue," Irikah said, looking away. "It isn't worth that. There are other ways to solve problems, Thane."

"Not for me, siha," Thane said. "Beyond killing, my skills are meager. I would craft you a new statue if I had the hands for it. But I do not. Killing is all I can do."

Irikah did not look at him. "If that's true, then I pity you," she said. Thane's heart descended into his stomach. He stared down at his lap, defeated. For a long moment they sat in silence as the sun dipped beneath the desert horizon and darkness claimed the land. Neither of them moved.

"Am I an evil creature, Irikah?" Thane finally asked.

There was silence, but Thane did not risk looking up to see her. He closed his eyes.

Her hands met his cheek and he felt relief wash over him as her gentle touch brought his eyes to hers. Looking at her, he always felt she could see right through him, to something behind. Or inside. "Thane, no," she said, staring deeply enough that Thane believed her. "You are asleep."

"How do I wake?"

"Keep trying," she said quietly, clutching his head to her chest. "Pray."

"The hanar do not pray," Thane reminded her, listening to the thud of her heart, the robust strumming of her throat as she breathed the desert air.

"The drell do," she said. "Try it. You will like it more than you know."

–

They sat like that for hours, listening to one another's hearts beat, and it was pitch-black before either of them moved. The stars had come out in force, casting a weak glow on the landscape that seemed to swallow up the desolation. At night Rakhana was not dead. At night it was still home. The weeds the two had been sitting on seemed to realize this and tiny black-violet flowers bloomed, releasing a pungent, fruity smell into the evening.

"Siha," Thane said, plucking one of the blooms from its stem and holding its silhouette up to the sky, "I may not have been entirely truthful with you."

"Oh?" Irikah asked, eyes somehow still bright and mischievous, even in the dark.

"I neglected to mention, I possess one other skill aside from killing," Thane boasted, turning the flower between two fingers. "I am told I make delicious tea. There is hardly a leaf or bloom I have seen that I could not make a nectar." He grinned at Irikah, holding the flower up to show her.

She smiled back radiantly. "I would be delighted," she said.

But when Thane reached for the tiny heatplate he used to cook in the field, she laughed.

"Except that they're poisonous."

Thane sighed, defeated.

Presently…

–

The world was alight with biotic fire.

Thane had been a biotic since before he was born. His mother, still carrying him, had been chosen for the honor. The drell had no biotic culture of their own, having never discovered element zero, but the hanar were masters.

And if Thane was to be an assassin, he would need the proper tools.

The krogan bowed to their biotics, the humans ostracized theirs, but the drell had them made to order. The fact that Thane was a biotic didn't mean a thing – many Compacted drell were. It only made sense that the young drell with the fastest reflexes, the sharpest eyesight, the swiftest feet would be chosen for training. Biotics were just another part of the package. They didn't define him.

Biotics defined Jack.

Thane crouched behind the speck of cover he now shared with Lieutenant Taylor in one of the Eclipse Sisters' seemingly endless hangars-turned-staging camps, his focus holding on for dear life as the air rippled and buckled around him. Ahead, Jack was almost invisible under the twisting blue maelstrom that was her response to a warehouse full of biotic-enhancing drugs (or, really, just about anything, as far as Thane could tell). Her power was frightening to behold – multi-ton shipping crates upended and hurled themselves across the room like dry leaves, crashing towards the seven asari sisters Jack had chosen to assault on her own.

"One more, motherfuckers!" she howled, tearing another one of Pitne's tanks open. Brown-purple liquid bled across the floor, fumes roiling around Jack's booted feet. Thane could smell the sickly odor from here, so powerful it made his head spin and his amp prickle unnaturally, but Jack just laughed and lashed out again. Her biotic wave was ugly and unbalanced, drunken with the power of the Minagen X3, and yet so forceful one of the sisters was reduced to a purple smear against the ground. Jack laughed harder.

"Damnit, Jack, enough!" Jacob Taylor was shouting from Thane's elbow. "You're going to get yourself killed!"

Jack was in entirely too good a mood now to bite off the man's head as she'd been wont to do every time he said anything to her previously, but she still belted a string of curses his way for good measure. She extended her fingers as she darted towards the asari, dragging zero-g debris around her like a hurricane. The air fluttered hard enough to make Thane's timpani buzz.

Thane shook the muddiness from his head as Jack leapt into another widening slick of spilled X3. He fingered his communicator, his conscience precluding further silence. "The volus warned of fatal overdose, ma'am," he reminded her. "Perhaps you risk yourself unnecessarily."

Jack snorted, tossing another flurry of cargo that would have taken an hour to move by forklift. "Fuck off, Lizard," she shouted back. "I haven't felt this good in years. I am Rock. Fuckin'. Steady."

Thane did not reply (it would have been cut off by another stomach-jarring crash either way).

He peered over the edge of the crate he and Jacob were using to shield themselves from the flying debris, his dark eyes scanning the room. Soaking up details. His throat itched fiercely, threatening to close up on him if he moved, threatening to start bruzzing again like it had back on the ship, but Thane pushed the reflex away. He slowed his heartbeat as he'd been trained, conserving his energy for the right time to strike.

His mind traced out a plan.

Six opponents. Three biotics of some strength, all six heavily armed. Four in hardsuits. Asari-made weaponry. The one behind the loading crane was the best target – her shields had been flickering. Running low. Thane did a quick mental calculation. He could feint left, then move overtop. Four shots with the SMG would drop her shield (…an ocean of blood pools at the alien's feet. One yellow eye opens in confusion, then closes forever…) Take three steps, drop the SMG behind the console there, draw pistol with left hand. Fire twice into the asari's head to finish her off, dive behind the next palette. Roll. Draw second pistol. (…the bullet enters just under the human's beard and passes through as if he were merely a ghost. Fire is everywhere…) The second asari will have turned enough by then that her side will be exposed. Fire three times to overbalance, then dive and-

"She's going to get herself killed," Jacob growled, causing Thane's mental notes to evaporate in a flash. Thane suppressed a growl at the dark-skinned man, but said nothing. He did not enjoy sharing his cover. Or working with others at all, for that matter. It was not a talent he'd much cultivated in his life as an assassin, especially since Irikah's death. Occasionally some of his more nervous patrons would insist that he partner with their men – usually out of a misguided fear that he would turn coat at the last moment, as if he did not choose his jobs carefully, as if he could be bought. Usually he'd find some occasion to knock these supposed 'partners' unconscious until he'd managed to finish the job. But he could hardly do that with Jack, or with Lieutenant Taylor. They were his… allies. He had to adapt to them, accept the variables they threw into his calculations. Lieutenant Taylor was clearly a man of some talents – his obvious dislike for Thane notwithstanding – and Jack as destructive as a drunken Blood Pack squad. They complicated things more than he liked, but Shepard had asked him to accompany them on their search for Wasea, and so Thane would be civil.

Luckily, if Jacob sensed Thane's frustration he didn't show it, too preoccupied pushing a fresh heatsink into his overheated weapon. Thane nodded at him. "Perhaps. She is proving an admirable distraction, at least."

Jacob looked up, as if surprised to hear Thane's voice. When he met the drell's eyes, his own narrowed distrustfully. Jacob sneered at him. "You planning to fire a shot sometime in here?" he asked snidely, cocking his shotgun, which practically glowed red, "Or do you only shoot people in the back?" Thane's weapons – still in his holsters – were stone cold.

Thane frowned. "I will draw when I am ready to fire. Not before," he said.

A sudden rush of cool air cut off Jacob's response as another human materialized beside him. "That's the spirit, Thane," Kasumi said, flopping down to sit next to them. She downed a sip from one of Jacob's canteens and flashed them both a toothy smile. "I never fire if I can help it. Although…" she hefted a beautifully-crafted (and obviously stolen) new gun in the air, "with this bad boy I'm not sure I'll be able to resist."

"Asari-made Solsa pistol. Where did you get that?" Jacob asked.

Kasumi grinned cheekily, fiddling with the gun's sight in her hands. "Captain Wasea. Team Jacob wins the prize. And she's got a lot of nice crap."

Jacob frowned. "Does any of that crap include the shipping records we need?"

Kasumi just shrugged. "I didn't see any decent computer terminals yet. Mighta been distracted, though, what with Inky over there rearranging the décor at mach ten. That last crate nearly took off my head. Got to say, never been much for Feng Shui."

Thane blinked, his mind easily recalling the missing terminals. "I saw them. Three computers, across the room between the fourth and fifth loading bays."

Kasumi looked impressed. "Yeah? Any cover?"

"Any of the three could suffice," Thane said, "but the westernmost terminal is least exposed. It is obscured behind a palette of mech circuitboards, approximately five feet by five feet by four feet. Properly positioned, it should shield you from fire from five of the six mercenaries."

Kasumi grinned and slid her new toy into a hidden pocket. "Awesome. Thanks Thane." She stood and gave them a lazy salute. "See you, boys. I'd better go do some actual work before Jack gets bored."

"Small chance of that," Jacob muttered, hearing another explosion as Jack tore a fuel tank from its supports and tossed it into the far wall, laughing all the way. Burning shrapnel rained on all sides. "Be careful, Kasumi. If they see you, you'll be dead." Jacob sent Thane another suspicious look as if Thane himself might fire on the tiny thief.

"My suggested route is perilous," Thane agreed, ignoring him. "If you are detected you will be inside five of the six sisters' firing arcs."

Kasumi's voice sounded amused as she flickered away into nothingness. "No worries, they won't see me. You might be sneaky, Thane, but I'm the master. I'm so stealthy I put the 'b' in 'subtlety'."

Thane and Jacob did not laugh.

"Don't you get it?" Kasumi's voice asked, a note of irritation creeping in now. Jacob shook his head.

Human humor. The answer came to Thane in an instant. "The human word 'subtlety' includes a character which by convention is not pronounced. A silent letter. You imply you placed the letter in the species' collective lexicon without detection." Drell were known for their humorlessness – their perfect minds didn't have the same need nor capacity for the abstract absurdities that so many other species found amusing – but they weren't uninformed.

There was a pause. "Right," Kasumi said. When Thane still did not laugh, she sighed, disappointed, and he felt an invisible hand pat his head. "Oh Thane," she said, "you are just hopeless."

–

Thane did not draw until he was ready to fire.

"Victory is mine," Kasumi reported, her communicator crackling over the sounds of combat. "Fugitive hitched out on the AML Demeter."

It was all the cue he needed.

Thane's heart beat once. Slowly, with focus, like everything he did. A blade, a sedative, pressed up against his chest. Through sheer force of will his heart slowed, his lungs slowed. His metabolism dwindled away to nothing. It was the only way to prolong things. His only way to keep living long enough to do something that mattered. He would never run and punch and kick like he used to again. It was too hard now, in the twilight months of his life.

But shooting? That he could do.

Thane drew his gun.

Time proceeded in slow motion as he stood in one fluid motion, his memorized map of the battlefield overlaying the scene before him without flaw. Five sisters left. Low shields. Jacob's heat sinks running low. Jack getting weaker, angrier. Kasumi would still be at the computers, visible or not. It was time to end it, before she stepped back into the line of fire.

His gun tracked past the first asari and his finger pulled. (…Ontaje's blows down upon my grip. The gun spirals. "Pick it up."…) His hand kept moving. Over the second asari. Her angry snarl and the muzzle flash of her shotgun glowed unmoving in Thane's mind. He pulled again. ("How can a turian be my survivalist teacher? We're not on Palaven," I ask, my tongue escaping my sense. Rogus introduces me to my ignorance on Kahje. And on turians.) He twisted, springboarding off of the crate to speed his pivot. A quick biotic field leveled his aim. Two shots for the third asari. (…We walk on water, on the ocean's bounty. Floating grass so thick Irikah glides across the surface. Her weight barely ripples, even heavy with my son, even heavy with our newfound freedom...) The fourth sister's reflexes had just kicked in by the time Thane's aim had found her, so Thane got a good look at her face as he fired. (…Irikah would have me be a spar-shela, to look on my enemies' faces as I kill them, to gather their souls in mine. So they are not forgotten. But she is gone and I have room no more. The batarian commander spills his soul out onto the floor, drop by drop, until I am done...) The fifth asari – Wasea – got three shots into the stomach. Not enough to kill, but enough to distract her from the wall of steel thundering towards her. (…Orange patterns kaleidoscope out into space, flicker and die. I will not look back to see their bodies spill into the void. Their souls will stay out here. With mine...)

Thane holstered his gun and started to pray.

His heart beat a second time.

Five asari corpses struck the ground.

Even Jack was silent for a moment.

"Holy shit."

–

Thane padded along behind the justicar, allowing his feet to take him where they willed. True to her word, the blue-skinned woman had agreed to spare the police station her impassionate wrath. Calls had been made. Shepard and Miranda's teams (or Team Bossy and Team Bubble-Butt, if you asked Kasumi) – currently shaking down other Eclipse bases looking for Wasea – were recalled, and the mission was over.

The AML Demeter.

All of this for just three words. Thane withheld a sigh. He had killed so many, many mercenaries in his life. Hundreds. Thousands. He could count his memories if he cared to. It seemed so small to continue. Now he was aboard a suicide mission where he might help save hundreds of thousands of lives, and they sent him to kill more Eclipse. That the five he'd killed tonight thoroughly deserved their deaths, Thane had no doubt. But it was the same hollow victory as before. Chipping away at the small-time scum that made the universe a more dangerous place, while the collectors made off with entire colonies.

He longed for a better purpose. A greater purpose, a purpose worthy of his son. Not because he minded killing the Eclipse. Because his time was limited. The tingle in his throat never left him now, sitting there, reminding him of his numbered days. He was a marked drell. Oceanbound, the hanar would say. He only had a few months left before he'd be too weak to lift a gun, before he would return to the waters. Before he would rejoin Ontaje and his parents. Before he would rejoin Irikah.

He wanted nothing more, but he could not allow it. Not yet. To die before his chance to lend his skills against the collectors? It would be unbearable. It would not happen. He would not allow it. If it came to that, he would strike off on his own. Find a way to kill the collectors without Shepard. To do something.

But that was getting ahead of himself. For now he would have faith in Shepard. The commander had promised to meet them on the Normandy as soon as he could – Samara had been quite adamant that she swear her fealty sooner rather than later – and then they would be off this planet. To better things.

"Krios."

Thane turned to see Jacob fall into step behind him. The man smelled of mammal sweat and melted plastic from where his over-pushed weapon had melted the grips of his gauntlets.

Thane gave a curt bow and kept walking. "Lieutenant Taylor," he said.

Jacob looked around, anywhere but at Thane. "Jacob's fine," he mumbled. "You aren't part of our chain of command, don't need the title."

"And yet I believe it is just that that you despise so much in me," Thane said evenly.

Jacob's eyes darted to Samara's back. Kasumi had already disappeared, Jack was struggling with the two crates of Minagen X-3 she was trying to lug along, and the asari was clearly not interested in their squabbles. They were alone. Jacob's shoulders sank a centimeter and he returned his gaze to Thane. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess so, Krios. I have a problem with you."

Thane arced a scaly brow at him, inviting him to continue.

Jacob sighed, clearly struggling with his words. "Listen, Krios," he started, "I don't like leaving this stuff unsaid. It's unprofessional to let grudges fester, and I know the commander doesn't need any more of that. It's frankly amazing that he let me lead a squad after what happened between me and the krogan. I don't mean to let him down again."

Thane nodded. "I can respect that. Tell me your grievances."

Jacob mouthed dumbly for a moment, as if he hadn't expected Thane would listen to him. "Well… We have loyalty problems on this ship, Krios. Lots of problems."

Thane nodded. Shepard's comments on Cerberus swam to the forefront of his mind.

"I think we can work them out in the end," Jacob continued, "because I believe in the commander and I believe in Cerberus."

"Then you differ on that point with the commander," Thane pointed out. "His opinions on his employers are not so optimistic as your opinion of yours. If you are forced to choose between them, whose man are you?"

"I won't have to choose," Jacob said instantly, but Thane saw the worry in his eyes. "Because me and the commander are both here for something bigger than Cerberus. We're here to save people. To save the galaxy. And no matter what happens we won't let that drop. But I know the commander. He doesn't know who to trust."

"At least he acknowledges that decisions must be made in that regard."

Jacob grimaced. "My point is, if you're not with us completely, if you're not one hundred percent with us, then get out now. I don't pretend I could kick you off if you didn't want to go, but I promise you this." He leaned close to Thane, dark eyes meeting dark eyes. "I will end you if you betray us. So if you get any other offers you better delete them without reading."

Thane did not blanche. He could kill Jacob twelve times before the man hit the ground. A fact which was not supposed to give him any satisfaction, but it did. "I am an assassin," he admitted, "it is true. But perhaps your faith in Shepard falters if you are so quick to judge where he is not. I have offered my services to Shepard for free, because I too believe in the righteousness of his cause. My loyalties are not to be bought."

"You're an assassin."

"And you are a soldier. The hanar call soldiers and assassins both Arawar. To the drell they are spar-shela. No difference, in our eyes."

"Then get a dictionary. Soldiers fight for causes. Assassins fight for money."

Thane repressed the offense he felt at that claim. It was an explicit point of the Compact that the drell were not paid for their services. They were not employees, nor slaves. To accept money would be an offense to everyone involved. "Amateur assassins fight for money," he corrected. "Lost souls who turn to base savagery because they have nothing else to sell. No other way through the darkness of the galaxy."

"You never take money for your jobs?"

Thane frowned. "I do. When I left the services of my master, I also left her hospitality. I must feed myself. I must feed my family." All of it for Kolyat. I will help him in this way. It is the only way I can.

"Then you're a merc, as far as I'm concerned," Jacob said, folding his arms across his broad chest. "You and Zaeed are no different. You're dangerous."

"As are you, Jacob," Thane insisted. "As are all with the skill to deal death. We are burdened with a choice as to where our loyalties lie, and sometimes loyalty is both sides of the horizon. It is a blessing and a curse, a weapon and a burden. The assassin who kills the innocent is no less loyal than the soldier who kills the wicked." He stared at Jacob, who looked recalcitrant. "Consider this. May a soldier disobey orders?"

"Never."

"Nor may an assassin. It is a grave dishonor to betray those to whom one pledges oneself. But now tell me, does a soldier choose which missions to accept?"

"No," Jacob answered instantly. "I do what I'm asked."

"A loyal soldier believes in a ruler's causes, and so swears to do as he is bid so long as he is a soldier," Thane said, smiling thinly. "A loyal assassin researches each mark thoroughly before accepting each job. Which, then, is in a better position to exercise conscience over his decisions, the soldier or the assassin?"

"Please. As if you ever told your hanar handlers no."

Thane was momentarily at a loss for words. He had not expected Jacob to know of his past – the man looked for all the world ready to disregard Thane for his job title alone. Perhaps he had underestimated the human. He paused. "No," he admitted eventually, "No, no I did not."

"Assassin," Jacob concluded, practically spitting the word as he turned away, hastening to catch up with Samara.

"I will meditate on your words," Thane called out. "I hope you will meditate on mine."

Jacob said nothing.

Thane watched him go with a heavy heart. He was not surprised at all when he heard the tell-tale sign of Kasumi reappearing behind him.

"Wow," she said, casually taking a bite of an apple she'd apparently stolen from the Eclipse base. "Rough crowd, huh?"

Thane sighed. "I grow weary of explaining myself to humans," he said, frowning. "Lieutenant Taylor will not think about what I said. He has his own moral compass and mine will not touch it."

"Moral compasses are always sticky," Kasumi observed through a mouthful of apple, patting him on one leather-clad shoulder. "That's why I pawned mine a long time ago. But let me tell you something. Jacob will think about it."

Thane looked at her. "Will he?"

"He will. Haven't been here long but I know it. He'll think about it all day. Sit there and worry that you might be right and he might be as judgmental as everybody else. Shepard isn't the only guy on the Normandy who thinks too much." She counted on her gloved fingers, "Shepard, Jacob, Garrus, Mordin, Joker, Miranda, You? I swear, sometimes I wonder how we get anything done with all the pondering going on. But I guess that's just me."

Thane pondered this.

–

By the time Thane had reached the Normandy, the tickling his throat had started to burn again, scorching at his nerves. He quieted the spasms as best he could and, as soon as Kasumi had left him to go harass the pilot, he quietly excused himself, choosing not to stay to watch Samara deliver her oath or the inevitable gaggle of excitement as every male on the ship fought to catch a glimpse of their newest squadmate. He slipped away, unseen as always.

Or so he thought. Shepard was standing at the entrance to Mordin's lab, talking with the salarian in hushed tones as Thane approached the elevator. They quieted as Thane pressed the call button.

"Everything go alright?" Shepard asked. "No more asthma attacks?"

"Shepard!" Mordin interrupted, aghast, "Asthma human disease. Autoimmune in nature, inflammation of airways. Kepral's Syndrome bacterial disease unique to drell. Very different mechanisms."

"Either way, no further attacks," Thane interrupted with some effort, cutting the salarian's complaints off (much to Shepard's obvious relief). "Thank you for your… concern, but I will control my temperature better in the future. I will simply have to leave my quarters to cool p-periodically."

Shepard nodded as the elevator doors mercifully opened and Thane fled inside. Thane could see… something in the man's eyes. Pity, perhaps, or concern? It was hard to tell.

The doors closed, and Thane released his hold. He coughed forcefully, his throat expanding out so fast it hurt. The grinding sound was back. Thane fought to keep it down but it rose in ferocity until he doubled over in pain, hacking into one gloved hand.

"Mr. Krios, are you well?" EDI's voice joined him. "Do you need me to contact medical assistance?"

The coughing fit subsided and Thane stared blearily at the blood on his hand. "No," he said. "No thank you."

EDI paused longer than seemed normal for a computer. "…Very well, Mr. Krios. Logging you out."

As soon as the doors opened, Thane rushed for the life support station, cradling his bloodied glove against his stomach. His mind raced against his will, mercilessly recalling the day Ontaje had started coughing blood.

Oceanbound…

He was so distracted that he was halfway to his meditating table before he noticed that the entire room had changed. He stood up straight, astonished.

Every inch of the room had been covered in clean gray insulation panels, fitted to cover the life support machines. Thane could smell the newness of the material. He paused to touch the surface of one. Where the machine underneath could have burnt him, the panel was pleasantly cool to the touch. His guns had been neatly laid out in well-lit shelves in one corner, while the other corner was dominated by a towering heating and dehumidifying unit.

On the table rested a bowl stacked high with fresh fruit and a note scrawled on a piece of paper. Thane couldn't help but be struck by its archaicness. He read the note.

Thane, it said, I knew you'd never ask so I had Gardner and the engineers whip this up for you. Should let you keep the room as hot or cold as you like. Tali got the fruit. Hope it's to your taste.

PS: Don't think this is an excuse to never leave this room. I expect socializing from you, and not just the kind that happens at the end of a sniper rifle.

-Shepard

Thane smiled. His throat was quiet.

–

Codex Entry: Audio transcript of Zizi Tic's Celeb-Watch, Episode #12037, originally aired March 8, 2185.

*opening theme*

Zizi Tic: This is Zizi Tic's Celeb-Watch! I'm Zizi-Tic, the Celeb Shadow Broker, the Dalatress of Scandals, the Matriarch of Movie News, and your guide to the world of Novatown's biggest names!

This week's Big News is, of course, the death of powerful businesswoman and beloved asari heartthrob Nassana Dantius. Nassana was killed this morning in her office by what eyewitnesses describe as "At least ten drell." Nassana was already a successful trade mogul when she blazed into Novatown with a string of critically-acclaimed vocal performances. While police are describing her death as a result of business rivalries gone bad, this reporter wonders if there might be more to it.

*A security camera still of Commander Shepard appears on screen*

THIS man was seen exiting the Dantius towers not twenty minutes after Nassana's death. Facial recognition software has identified him as Commander John Shepard, a Spectre believed killed two years ago. But what is a dead man doing exiting the home of a dead woman? Where has Shepard been the last two years? The answer is as obvious as the frills on his chin. Serving as Nassana's love-slave.

Yes, that's right. You heard it here first. The legendary Commander Shepard killed Nassana after yours truly revealed Nassana's budding relationship with turian actress Urna Solaris last month. That's right! Solsanna versus Shepsanna! And nobody wins! Urna Solaris was unavailable for comment, as she's still busy filming Blue Harvest on location on Palaven, but we contacted expert doctor Trap'dah Hadah, who had this to say. Trap?

(Offscreen) Zizi Tic: "In your professional medical opinion, was Nassana's death inevitable once word of her relationship with Solaris was revealed?"

Dr. Hadah (on camera): "What? What does tha-" (footage cut) "-es, Nassana's behavior consistent with asari pregnancy. It is highly likely she was carrying an infant, though whether Solanis' or Shepard's is impossible to know."

Zizi Tic: You heard it here first, Zizi-fans! Of course, the story takes a darker twist when combined with the death of Information Broker Nyxeris two days earlier, known to be employee to – and possible secret lover of – one Liara T'soni, former lover of none other but Commander Shepard. Spectre Tela Vasir had this to say:

Tela Vasir (on camera): "Investigators have given me no reason to think the two crimes are related, but you can be sure we will be keeping a close eye on everyone involved. Now get out of my face, I have work t-"

Zizi Tic: Could this love rectangle be a love pentagon? Time will tell!

In other news, turian actor Balcus Alcwin, the eldest of the famous Alcwin brothers who have dominated Novatown box office profits for more than a decade, has been checked into rehab for "pulling orange". Uh oh! That's right, that nefarious Earth plant, the carrot, has claimed another turian addict! One of the most potent and addictive turian drugs known, carrots are typically rendered into a paste and spread on the inside of a turian's mandibles, where they result in a sustained high. Balcus' representative had this to say "Balcus is innocent. He was exposed to carrots entirely by accident – one of the servants tending his trailer accidentally delivered a vegetable dish intended for his human costar. Needless to say, he has cancelled his upcoming appearances and begs his fans to have faith in him. He'll be back as soon as you know it!" When pressed on reports that Balcus was spotted entering a human vegetable merchant's store, he had this to say "Balcus was researching his next role for a crime thriller in which he plays a renegade detective, abandoned on Earth when he discovers a deadly truth." Balcus is also signed to return as Saren for the as-of-yet-unnamed prequel to last summer's "Battle for the Citadel", for which he won a Nebulon Award. I, for one, wish Balcus a speedy recovery!

"Lady Lava", the crimson-skinned Drell diva we all love to love is being accused of lip-synching to previously-recorded tracks by noted elcor critic Drunun.

Drunun (on camera): "Confidently, Ms. Lava's claim that she can hit notes four times above the asari hearing spectrum is a pitiful plea for attention. Smugly, if Ms. Lava had done her research she would have pretended to sing a note outside the elcor spectrum as well. Hopeful that this will result in a book deal, apparently she believes her elcor fans too stupid to recognize the difference between true art and a volus-made sound vocorder."

Zizi Tic: Lava maintains that the notes are genuine, and involve no mechanical assistance.

Now it's time for Tic's Picks.

Being married this week are actress Depa Chadra to the Artist Formerly Known as S'r'rashiiiiik. The two are finally tying the proverbial knot in a small, private ceremony on the space station Aerilla, which they've rented out for the occasion. Shella Aipso made a splash with her new line of body wash which promises to, quote "Make your scales so shiny turians blink," and the season 2 premier of "So You Think You Can Kill a Krogan" opened with 147 million viewers, a record for the show, who tuned in to see last season's champion Bovar Krash spend 30 seconds in a burning engine contrail.

And the Dud of the Week is none other but the always-crazy Kebta Korlack, who made headlines last year when he drunkenly claimed the Salarian Union had never landed on the third moon of Uttuj IV. This week Kebta made a whole new set of enemies by claiming the Rachni war was a hoax as well! Hey Kebta, I've got an idea! How about you tell that to Krash? Once he stops smoking, anyway!

And that's it for Zizi Tic's Celeb-Watch. Stay tuned, Zizi-fans, as I'll be back later tonight with all the Celeb news fit to share!

*outro*

–

A/N: And I'm back once again, with another belated chapter.

So... Thane. Yeah, Thane's cool. He's one of the characters that I feel gets plenty of attention by the fanbase, much of it quite impressive. That said, the vast majority of these stories are structured as Thane/Shepard romances, and I felt like there were a few aspects to the character that were often ignored by the fanbase. (Foremost among them, Irikah. Who seems kinda important to me). In any case, I hope you like my interpretation of events.

So, for the nerdy ones out there, this chapter is loaded with a half dozen or so references.

Next chapter's plan has changed slightly. It turned out a lot bigger than I'd planned so I'm splitting it in two. So chapter 17 will only be about ONE of the most epic, super-cool characters ever ever ever. The other guy has to wait for chapter 18.

Also, this codex was so fun to write.

Read! Review! Enjoy! The Works!