It was an extremely strong contest this week. The judges had a very hard time picking.
In the end Consulting Corellian Time Lord's extremely polished piece caught the judges eye, and despite a very valiant effort from Jillyfae, just nudged her way to victory!
Thanks so much for participating guys, it was one of the strongest competitions we've ever had.
This is a very interesting look at Garrus' younger years. It gives a real insight intoboth his shame complex and the workings of turian society. I think the big moment for me was how his mother was so stern about it all, I think I was expecting her to be more grateful and loving but I actually like the choice to have her quite austere, it makes sense with Garrus' personality and intimacy problems. The halting style was an interesting choice but maybe detrimental in the long run, the themes were all present but I didn't really latch onto a single idea that followed me through. I think the second half was stronger than the first, right around the time he actually gets ahold of the medicine. The theme of resillience was well-articulated. I very much enjoyed this, I think this is a great addition to canon.
Janiejanine:
Poor Garrus, still young enough to try to be a good turian. You can see hints in this story of the person he'll become. The voice was very well-done - writing kids isn't easy, and this was effective and believable. It definitely fit the theme, and these glimpses of his relationship with his family are so fun to read and complement what we see in-game. That said, I'm not sure the dramatic style really worked for me. Also, the setting was a little odd; granted, we don't know much about turian day-to-day life, but the similarity to Earth (the coat, the store, etc.) was jarring at times. Other than that, though, I thoroughly enjoyed Little Garrus.
mrsalenko:
I liked the perspective on this one. I thought the younger voice worked well and a little peek into Garrus' young years was interesting. It's a nice choice to see Garrus' younger years, and what it was like growing up with a sick mother and perhaps an absent dad. The bits about being a good turian and how a young hothead Garrus might have reacted to that were great. I thought a couple of things were a little vague, as if chopped off a little by the time restriction, and I felt that Palaven was a little too similar to a earth setting. But like I said, really enjoyed the young voice style, and his almost panic. The bit were the neighbour was watching so he pretends to pick up the ball was quite touching. I did think the theme could have been driven into the readers head a little more.
Judging - Consulting Corellian Time Lord 'Impossible Odds'
Omgmussimm:
This is AWESOME. I'm so impressed. I actually think this is my favourite entry from all the competitions I've judged. Garrus' voice is great and I love his father, I absolutely believe the character given everything we know about him. The sense of time and scale is really present, I feel like I'm sitting in the room with them. I love Garrus' attempt to use the human saying, turians liking human metaphor is a common theme in fic but this is a great example of it, it doesn't feel out of place like a lot do. The theme of resillience is captured really well, Garrus' frustration and eventual conclusion hit home for me. Mostly this is just what I look for in fanfic: a valuable addition to canon. The time Garrus spent on Palaven while Shep was in custody is something we've seen so little of and this brings to light all the things I wanted to see. An amazing job.
Janiejanine:
I really enjoyed getting to see this scene. Garrus's characterization was spot-on, and it was so interesting seeing him go back to the culture in which he was raised, and realizing how different he'd become. The theme was covered well; he does what he can with what he has, and never gives up even when he has nothing to go on. Shepard's influence is addressed but isn't the focus. All in all, excellent.
mrsalenko:
I quite loved this. It was very smooth, for an hour remarkably polished. The theme was worked well in overall. Garrus persisting despite resistence and the influence Shep had on him was really nice, and very in character. I liked Garrus using human expressions, it was amusing and showed how much he isn't a regular turian. The only criticism i would have would be it's a teensy bit dry, as essentially it's about politics, but the frustration that Garrus feels really translates well to the reader. The theme of turians prevailing against the odds was nice, and worked really well for the theme. A great effort.
Garrus Vakarian would admit, on the best of days, that he was a bad turian. Part of it had come naturally with habits picked up from time spent on human ships, which was essentially Shepard’s fault, but he had problems blaming her for that. After all, he’d been the one to drop everything and follow her after Saren, then do the same to go to Omega. Drop the Hierarchy, drop his family, and go. No loyalty, few ties, no need to be a good turian. Just himself, surviving, out in the insanity that was the galaxy, running around with a human Spectre who managed to survive against impossible odds and drag him along, sometimes kicking and screaming, with her.
But now Shepard was on trial, and the team that had taken down the Collectors was scattered. He’d found himself taking a shuttle from Arcturus to the Citadel and then on to Palaven, following Shepard’s last order.
Get the damn turians ready.
So it was for that reason he’d steeled himself and gone first to his father, currently sitting across from him in their family home and tapping a digit on his thigh, seemingly mulling over what his wayward son had told him. Garrus tried not to fidget – like he usually did when he and the elder Vakarian were together in one place, always a dangerous thing – as he waited for the disbelief, the denial, and the brushing aside. It was an impossible story, after all. No one would believe him, let alone logical Vakarian Senior.
Another thing time with Shepard had made him – impatient. Or, at least, more so than he’d always been.
“Well,” his father started.
“Yeah?” Never a good sign, his father starting off a sentence with ‘well.’
“You say you have spoken with one of these things?”
Garrus nodded. “The one that attacked the Citadel two years ago.”
His father’s tapping digit tapped the smallest bit faster. “And there are more coming?”
“I’ve been fighting them for the past several months. Their foot soldiers, that is. Controlled by one of them. Shepard knows far more but . . . well . . .”
“Do we know anything of numbers? Size? Scale? When they will get here? How bad the devastation will be?”
Garrus shook his head. “Only that it will be the worst war we’ve ever fought.”
“Then we are flying blind.”
“Yes, we don’t –” He blinked a few times, mandibles fluttering slightly in shock. “You aren’t . . . going to argue with me?”
“Why would I?” The older turian scoffed. “Your evidence is solid and the patterns are there. You should see them clearly enough, if any of your C-Sec training is left. We will need to prepare, of course. And it will not be easy – I doubt many turians will see the same patterns I do.”
“We won’t be able to. Prepare, that is. I’ve found people are very unlikely to believe anything about the Reapers – too willing to hide their heads in caves.”
Or was it hiding their heads in the sand? He couldn’t remember, just that Shepard had yelled it once while ranting about the Council’s stupidity and incompetence while throwing things across her cabin, leaving Garrus sitting wide-eyed and silent on her couch. He’d found quickly it was best to just let her rant at such times, after all.
“We will.” The elder Vakarian looked far more confident than Garrus felt as he stood. “I will arrange a meeting with the Primarch. We will see what can be done.”
Garrus shook his head as his father left, one claw tracing the cybernetics slowly fading into his face – a nervous habit he’d picked up since being fitted with them. The Hierarchy was never going to believe him.
But as he thought of Shepard sitting in her cell, he knew he had to try. The turians were central in the war against the Reapers, and he was the only person who could motivate them. Or, at least, that was what Shepard thought. He swallowed, drawing a deep breath. What was it Shepard always said she did? Scream loudly enough until someone paid attention?
Well, if he was good at something, it was getting people’s attention.
And either way, he had to try.
#
Garrus laid out what he did know for the small task force he’d been given. He showed them a copy of what information Shepard did have – video she’d taken with her helmet cam during the fight against the Collectors, reports she’d gathered describing pieces of Sovereign as completely alien, Legion’s assertion that Sovereign was not geth (that one had raised some eyebrows, metaphorically of course), anything she’d collected or seen or heard or done, all of which she’d passed onto him the night before she’d surrendered herself and the ship to the Alliance.
Their first meeting lasted for seven hours, and ended with a lot of headshaking and naysaying.
But the next day the turians that the Primarch had placed under him came back with different opinions. They’d done what good turians do – sat on the information, thought about it, probably read over some things again or in more depth – and while at least three quarters of them still didn’t believe him, they admitted that there might be some validity to his statements and that they maybe should start quietly preparing the Hierarchy for war. Quietly, of course, because they didn’t want anyone to think they were preparing a war, especially without the Council being aware. The backlash would be hard, fast, and likely painful.
Five months after their first meeting, Garrus sat at a desk in his tiny shut-up-and-lead-our-task-force-and-don’t-cause-a-panic office with his head in his hands. He wasn’t cut out for this. Shepard treated him as her second in command – he’d been more of an XO than Lawson had ever been – and seemed to see him cut out for leadership, like he actually could convince people to do what he told them. With her safely locked in a communication blackout in an Alliance prison cell on Earth, he’d been tasked with handling everything – reports from Legion, which had dried up about two months earlier; ones from Mordin, who hadn’t reported in for weeks; Tali, who had also dropped off the radar – everyone was dropping out of touch, and Garrus had no further information. Nothing on the Reapers, nothing on Cerberus, just . . . silence.
Silence and then the Hegemony was nearly utterly destroyed by something. And he knew what.
He collected a pile of datapads, leaving the news bulletin up on his terminal as he made his way to the conference room. As usual the same stares met him.
Garrus always had the same thought, when he walked into their meetings. He wasn’t cut out for this. It was too political, too much talking, not enough doing. Things didn’t move fast enough – weeks to move Fleet A over here, months to fortify their long-range sensors there, probably a decade to even fortify that damn colony over there when they didn’t have decades to spare. When the Reapers finally reached Palaven they would be far too underprepared, not at all ready for the destruction they would cause.
And today he was not at all in the mood for the slowness, the patience, the let-it-happen-it’ll-all-work-itself-out and the Garrus-Vakarian-has-gone-off-the-deep-end looks his team was still giving him. He was just a turian – a bad one, at that – who should be dead, missing half his face, obviously gone insane from his time away and whatever had happened to him.
Today that was enough of that.
He tossed the datapads on the table, letting them scatter across the table. The lower-ranking officers and one general jumped, surprised.
He was irritable. Good. He was more effective that way.
“The Hegemony is gone,” he started. “I’m sure you’ve seen that. Read that report from the first refugee ship to reach the Citadel.” Garrus tapped his digits on the table, waiting, then picked up his own when they weren’t moving quickly enough to satisfy him. Now wasn’t the time to be slow or patient. Now was the time to act, and act fast. “‘Large ships, shaped unlike anything we’ve ever seen. They tore through our fleet in seconds. Nothing we did seemed to stop them. There were hundreds, if not thousands. They looked like the thing that attacked the Citadel.’ From a shellshocked female batarian.”
Garrus threw the datapad onto the table, glancing around at his task force. Wide eyes, open mandibles, shock. Shock was good. Shock was always good when it came to the Reapers, because shock meant belief and acceptance. Shock meant they knew he wasn’t crazy. Shock meant action.
It’d been the moment he’d been holding out for, fighting an uphill battle for, since he’d come back to Palaven six months earlier.
“How much time do we have?” The general on his force had that same determined look turians tended to get when they knew they needed to act hard and fast.
“Not enough. We need to arrange a defense of Palaven – Shepard believes they’ll hit us, the Citadel, and Earth first.”
“The Alliance will never hold out.”
“No. But we must.”
Garrus would admit he was a bad turian – always and forever – probably thanks to a human commander sitting alone in a cell for doing what she had to do. But as he stood in front of the room, watching as the Hierarchy was suddenly spurred into action against a threat that, until five minutes ago, they didn’t acknowledge, the thought that maybe he wasn’t that incredibly bad occurred to him. After all, politics were just another version of a battlefield, and like in a war of attrition you merely needed to hold out long enough to browbeat your opponents into submission. And if he was good at anything, it was holding out.
And if turians were good at anything, it was surviving.
Mother was coughing. It was deep in her chest. Too deep. It made his mandibles twitch in sympathy every time he heard it.
Follow the chain of command. Father's voice rumbled in his memory.
But Father was gone.
Again.
No word. No messages.
When she wasn't working, Mother was worried, her fingers too tight, wrapped around each other when she thought he wasn't looking.
Solana would tell him to call Grandmother.
Solana was taking a nap.
Little ones needed their sleep.
Mother had sent them both to their rooms for 'quiet time'.
But he wasn't little.
He didn't need to sleep. He was older. Stronger.
He had to help.
He had to step up.
Be responsible.
He'd help Mother, all on his own.
But how?
He shoved a stool into the pantry, climbed on top of it to look at the top shelf. The shelf with the first-aid kit, the medicine. All the things they wouldn't let him use by himself.
But he was big. He knew they weren't toys. He remembered which one Mother took when she couldn't sleep, when the cough got really bad.
He couldn't find it.
He tried the next shelf down.
It wasn't there either.
Was that why she was so tired? She was out of her medicine?
He'd go get her some more then.
He knew the way to the store. He walked there with Mother every Firstday, when she was doing the shopping for the week.
She hadn't gone shopping this week. Spread her fingers, tried to smile, told him they didn't need anything, and would he like to play with the new block set his father had sent?
Solana had fallen for it, laughing and knocking her tower down, over and over.
He'd seen Mother talking to the man at the store the week before though.
It wasn't from Father.
She'd had it delivered to distract them.
She wasn't feeling well, and she hadn't gone to the store.
He should've figured it out sooner.
He'd do better, now.
He was careful, opening the front door.
Didn't want her to hear him.
She'd stop him.
She was so worried about them she wasn't taking care of herself. So he'd take care of them, until Father got back.
He knew where they hid the emergency credits.
You'd think grown-ups would be better at hiding money, but no, there it was, behind the vegetable drawer in the cooler.
He wasn't sure how much her medicine cost, so he took it all.
He remembered to grab his coat before he left.
Should always be prepared. Just in case. It might rain.
It was red. He hated red. But Father had picked it out for him before he left, so he wore it anyways.
He was spotted by their next door neighbor before he made it all the way down the driveway. He picked up the balls against the fence, pretending that was why he'd come outside, and went back in again.
He waited by the door, but the neighbor didn't go back inside.
He snuck out the back, instead, climbing the fence and dropping to his feet in the dirt.
The manager of the complex saw him when he got past their block though.
He checked the mailbox and turned around again.
He got back inside the house and tried not to stomp his feet in frustration.
Mother would hear that.
He took his coat off, turned it inside out and put it back on again.
Found one of Father's old hoods in the closet.
Snuck out again, stayed behind the buildings, avoiding the regular walkway.
Made it all the way to the main road this time.
But he wasn't supposed to cross it by himself.
There was a bridge further down, but it was out of his way. Could he afford the time?
Better than getting stuck in traffic.
He ducked his head, pulling the hood further forward so no one could see his face.
It did start to rain, and he grinned, mandibles flaring against the fabric of the hood.
Always have a back-up plan.
The echo of Father's voice almost sounded approving, that time.
No one bothered him now, everyone fleeing back inside to avoid the weather.
The lady working at the store gave him a hard look, mandibles tight, but he was very polite, described Mother's box, explained she had a cough. The lady still looked suspicious, but she got it down for him, rang it up.
He managed to pull out a credit-chit without spilling too many in his pocket.
She grunted, wrapped up his change in the bag with the medicine, and followed him all the way out the door, scowling as he went back down the street.
Back across the bridge, back down the street.
It would ruin everything if he got caught again so close to home.
He cut over before he got back to the complex, trying not to slip in the mud between the fences as he cut back between the yards.
No one was ever back here, besides the maintenance crews. He liked to keep an eye on them though, see which panels accessed which systems, which hatches were used for transporting materials, which ones for trash, which ones for people.
He made it all the way back to his yard, recognizing the notch at the top of his fence where he perched when he was watching the workers.
And only then realized there was no way back UP from this side. No handy tree, like there was in the yard, the path between the fences always kept clear in case they needed to get a cart or a trolley through.
It took five tries to find hand-holds, and he was absolutely covered in mud from sliding back down after each failed attempt, but finally he managed to brace himself around the corner and get all the way back up.
He fell in a puddle when he slid down the fence on the other side, water leaking down between his hood and his coat, mud sliding against his neck.
He stood up, I am not crying, big brothers don't cry, and jumped a few extra times in the puddle, letting water splash everywhere, cover his face and his hands and his pants and his coat.
He snuck back in through the back door, careful to strip off everything muddy and throw it in the 'cycler for cleaning. He tiptoed carefully back through the house in nothing but his shirt, the bag carefully clutched in his hands.
He'd forgotten to put the stool away.
He felt an instant of panic, joints locking up when he saw it, wondering if anyone else had seen it, but the house was still quiet.
He decided to be glad that it was still in the pantry, right where he needed it. He climbed back up, slid the box back behind the first-aid kit.
Put the credits back behind the vegetables.
Went back to get the stool again, put it away this time.
Ran back to his room, found new clothes, stuffed the now empty bag under his mattress.
His hands were a mess, mud in between the joints. He'd broken one of his talons completely on the fence, another one cracked almost all the way to the quick.
Mother would notice that.
Mother always noticed things like that.
He needed an excuse.
A reason.
A lie.
Father's voice was not approving that time.
Good turians didn't lie.
Good turians don't break the rules.
A good turian would've asked Mother what to do.
Or called Grandmother.
Solana's a good turian.
Garrus sighed.
He pulled the bag back out from under his mattress.
Walked slowly downstairs, rescued his boots and coat and pants and socks out of the 'cycler. Hung them up on the drying rack, in plain view, right next to the back door.
Put the bag in the bin.
Went and moved the stool again, got the box of medicine, and sighed again.
He had to swallow three times before he could convince his legs to move, to take him to the door of Mother's study.
He raised one hand and knocked, trying not to wince when he bumped his broken talon.
He heard Mother moving behind the door, and then it opened, her eyes and mandibles tight as she stared down at him.
"Garrus? You're five minutes early, you know." She stopped, eyes widening slightly as she looked at the box. As she looked at the state of the hands holding the box.
She sighed, that tight almost whistle to her breath that he hated. It only happened when she was worried. Or disappointed.
She stepped back into her study, gesturing for him to come inside.
"Sit."
He sat.
"Explain."
He tried.
Really, he tried, but her eyes and her hands and her mandibles just got tighter and he trailed off, miserable, staring down at the box still in his lap.
She sighed again.
There wasn't a whistle this time.
He lifted his head, trying not to fidget. Trying not to hope.
"I'm sorry?"
She laughed softly, but it broke as she started to cough again.
He made himself stand up, ignoring the twist in his stomach and the wobbly feeling in his knees, so he could walk the two steps over to her and give her the box.
She almost smiled, that time. "You are grounded, you know."
He nodded.
"For a very long time."
He nodded again.
"Go back to your room. I'll call you down when dinner's ready."
He nodded a third time, though a bit more slowly that time.
"Go on, shoo." She patted him gently on the arm. He took one step, and then she reached out and pulled him back in a proper hug. "I love you, silly. But don't do that again."
He nodded yet again, though he smiled that time, and scurried off to his room.
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