Summary: Atria Cassi has enough problems trying to run her dad's garage on her own. When a squad of bloodthirsty slavers captures her to lure out an old flame, can she survive the ordeal by retreating into her memories, or will she break before the cavalry arrives?
Warnings: violence, gore, torture, strong language, substance abuse, major character death
Characters: original human characters, original turian characters
Pairings: Original Female Human Character(s)/Original Female Turian Character(s), Original Female Turian Character(s)/Original Male Turian Character(s), Original Female Human Character(s)/Original Male Turian Character(s)
When I Started: like 2015 iirc
How I Lost My Shit: uni + a major depressive episode, plus general disillusionment with the fandom
How I Finished My Shit: honestly? No idea. I definitely would not have pulled this off without the genius brains and unwavering patience of @sparatus and @thetrashbagswasteland, all of my writeblr buddies, and one very tolerant german shepherd who let me scream into his fur, like, a lot. This fic went from somewhere around 13k to over 140k in the span of a few months, and I can finally say I finished one of my personal works.
Pairing: Miranda & Thane (gen)
Characters: Miranda Lawson, Thane Krios
Fandom: Mass Effect 2
Rating: General
Warning: Discussion of terminal disease
Summary: Thane meditates alone after witnessing Miranda and her sister reunite, the similarities (and differences) between their circumstances not escaping him. On the Normandy, however, he is not a man alone, and being a member of a crew means accepting help from unconventional places.
This was my gift for @celestialarcadia for the @spectre-requisitions-exchange! It was a pleasure to write! You can also read it here on AO3.
They were twins, alike in every way, down to the finest strands of their DNA. Only Thane did not see a mirror when Miranda stood with her sister; their faces wore their years differently. Oriana was bright with only the faintest thought lines impressed between her brow. Though Miranda’s face was smooth, it was haunted by ghosts— they lingered in the corners of her eyes and the set of her jaw. All the pain she had borne so her sister could know a life of leisure.
The only reflection was their smiles: they were identical in their joy, in their gratitude for this opportunity to share their lives with one another.
Every detail of the scene he’d merely glimpsed at Shepard’s side was etched into his memory. It burned in his mind with greater brilliance than a reunion between a distant co-worker and her long-lost sister had any right to.
Perhaps it was because he was glad for her. Perhaps it was because he could blink, and in the millisecond before his third eyelid opened he could imagine himself standing in Miranda’s place, and Kolyat in Oriana’s.
Perhaps it was hope that gave the memory its gauzelike glow.
Or perhaps it was envy.
Be it jealousy or yearning, he was alone now, meditating to the electric hum of the Normandy’s engine. Though his hands were clasped before him, all prayer failed him. He had come to his gods in times of bounty and hardship, but in that moment he fell silent. His heart was too clouded with desire to see the path ahead, and he would not invoke their names until his thoughts ran clearly.
In that state of silent contemplation, estranged from the gods he put his faith in, the doors to life support hissed open. He expected Shepard, or else Chakwas, there to listen to his lungs, but the hollow sound of heels tapping against the floor announced Miranda’s arrival.
“I’m not interrupting, am I?” she asked, drawing to a smooth stop a few paces behind him.
He angled his head towards her, body still facing towards the Normandy’s rear engine. “No. I was seeking favour with my gods on your sister’s behalf. She has a long and dangerous journey ahead of her.”
And like that, the words find him. Suddenly the hands folded in prayer held meaning in the empty space he cupped between his palms. “Arashu, goddess of protection, guide Oriana safely to her future home. Amonkira, Lord of Hunters, shroud her father’s eyes, protect her from his sight.”
Silence at his back as his prayer finished. Humans, he found, spoke rarely of gods, and when they did it was always in passing. Miranda’s silence felt different, as though she wanted to grant it a window of deference before she deigned to speak again. “Thank you,” she said, voice low then rising in volume, easing into the secular. “I won’t turn aside help from anyone, least of all a goddess.”
With a sigh, she ventured further in what had become his quarters, nails drumming against the desk he leant on as she drew level with it. “There’s no saying when my father will get wind of what happened today, but I’d wager it won’t be all too long.”
Thane watched her suck a breath in around her teeth, a moment’s weakness, quickly quashed. When she drew her gaze from the engine, she was poised, precise. She did not come here on a matter of business, but neither for idle conversation. “But she’s safe, for now. Thanks to Shepard, and to you.”
He blinked. What he expected when she entered he couldn’t know, especially now, but he could safely say he did not expect this. “It was my duty as an assassin in Shepard’s service. I made a vow.”
“To stop the Collectors, not solve my family’s problems.”
“It was a… worthy diversion.”
“And that’s why I’m thanking you.”
He sensed she would chase the subject until he relented, and so he did. His head bowed in resignation, and acknowledgment. “You are welcome.”
But Miranda lingered, arms folded over her chest as though waiting for him to say more. The distance between them tipped like a scale, and he got the impression that she wasn’t used to feeling indebted to anyone. With Shepard he imagined she could operate safely with the knowledge that she’d brought the Commander back from the dead, but with him she had no such leverage. He was a stranger who had bled for her sister’s freedom and she was grateful, but she was resentful.
It comforted him to consider such duality could exist in her, as well.
Thane allowed the silence, giving her time to count her chips and measure them before placing them on the scale. “As I understand it,” she began, “I’m not the only one on this ship keeping tabs on long-lost relatives.”
If she anticipated surprise he could only disappoint her. “I see you’ve been diligent in your surveillance.”
“With the company we keep I have to be.”
“It was not a judgment, merely an observation.” He’d never been under the impression that his time aboard this vessel was his own, in fact he was quite confident that for every time he’d caught a camera’s lens blinking at him there were at least two more occasions he never noticed its stare.
Seeing no reason to retread covered ground with her, he pushed himself out from the desk, aiming his chair towards her. “What have you learned so far?”
“You have a son— Kolyat, and from the sounds of it he’s taken up the family trade.” Her gaze lowered, dark lashes resting on porcelain cheeks. “How long has it been since you last saw him?”
“He was still a child,” Thane said, “I… abandoned him, left him for family to raise. My instincts as an assassin had more practise than my instincts as a father.”
“I know the feeling. I’ve had a sister for almost twenty years, but I never felt like one myself until today.”
“You became an older sister the day you gave up everything for her safety.” There was much about Miranda to be admired: she had breathed life into a corpse, helped pull together a team ready to face the end of the universe from whispers and rumours, but he had no choice but to honour that decision above the rest. It was a choice he should have made years ago, after they committed his wife’s body to the sea, but he had chosen the easier path. The path of violence.
Now he lived every moment in fear that it was too late to rectify that mistake.
“It wasn’t as selfless as you describe it. I knew what my father had in store for her because I’d suffered it myself, it was only a question of whether I’d leave with her or without but…” She breathed, it hitched on her nerves. “Thank you, anyway.”
He gestured towards her with his head, and a silence descended between them, settling like mist between two mountain peaks. Thane was content with the silence. Words offered distraction as often as solace, and Miranda’s remark served to remind him how much work had yet to be done. His life was ending, be it by the Collector’s hands or time’s cruel grip. As they spoke, Kolyat was drawing plans, gathering intel, sizing up his arsenal, and though Thane lived his life at Shepard’s pace, he wanted to hit the ground running when they reached the Citadel’s docks.
Miranda seemed to sense that anticipation in him. Her hand made a fist on the table and she said, “I can see what intelligence I can contribute, although I imagine you’ve built quite the network of contacts over the years.”
“It is quite formidable, yes, but I would not turn aside help from anyone, least of all yours.”
Her lips twitched into a smile, recognising the words as a permutation of her own. “I’ll see what I can do.” Miranda’s knuckles rapped once on the table, a punctuation to mark their conversation’s conclusion. He watched as she withdrew from his side, her gait long and fluid as she made for the door. The exit yawned widely, and she hovered in its precipice a moment before she reached for a button that forced the door closed.
“When you see him again,” she began, “will you speak to him?”
Thane thought of his vision, of his and Kolyat’s smiling faces where Miranda’s and Oriana’s shone. It wasn’t like the pictures in his memory, their vision clear and crisp, like he still lived and breathed in a moment that otherwise lay buried in the shores of the past. No, the edges swam with sweet nostalgia, the memory of Kolyat’s round, youthful face eclipsing the grown man he had become in the years since he’d left.
If he allowed the harsh light of reality to touch the frame, the smile turned cold. It would take divine intervention to repair the bond he had broken with his son.
“I haven’t yet decided,” was the answer he settled on.
“Hm.” The little sound Miranda made in her throat was discerning, but she didn’t do him the dishonour of stripping his every fear bare. “You ought to. If nothing else, he deserves to hear he still has a father that loves him.”
His lungs tightened against his ribs, a pang of pity dropped in his chest. He was certain Miranda would resent it were she to know. “I will consider it, certainly. Thank you, Ms. Lawson, for your consideration.”
“Don’t thank me until he’s safe.” Her hand reached for the door operator, then hesitated, just once more. “Oh, and one more thing. Say a prayer for your son, for me.”
Thane nodded, hand lifting off the back of his chair to once again face the electric blue engines, cupping his hands together in a display of reverence for the gods that had followed him beyond the white sands of his homeworld.
“Arashu, mother to us all, shield my son from those who would do him harm in this time of trouble. Lord Amonkira, clear our eyes and sharpen our wits. Kalahira…” He swallowed, and breathed. It came easier with their names in his lungs. “Kalahira, I ask your tides to carry me to Kolyat’s side one last time before I embark across the sea. I ask only for the chance to call to him by the name his mother gave him.”
The doors closed behind her, but in her absence, he was not alone.
Evfra actually has little against individual aliens. Unlike some of his kind, he won't be assuming all members of a species are the same, though he may regard them as similar to each other and does foster a few strong prejudices. For example, he generally will trust Salarians less, due to many stories from Milky Way species regarding them, namely from the Krogans. He will also keep into account a species-wide affiliation, and if the Initiative ever goes too far, all aliens stemming from it will be subject to suspicion.
Anyway, that's not what this post is supposed to be about, is it?
I will place the rest under a read more for length.
Dating an alien or even being close with one can be a difficult matter, considering the climate in Heleus among the Angara. Aliens are not trusted among a great many of his people. Unlike the Milky Way species, who have lived together for so long now, angara have never had the opportunity to entertain the thought of coexistence with another species as a real possibility until the kett arrived, and we all know how well that played out.
While he is tolerant of them, and he is accepting to the idea of interspecies dating between a Milky Way alien and one of his own, albeit with some difficulty understanding how this happened, he himself has an image and reputation to uphold. He is fully able to love an alien in a romantic sense after some time, he simply couldn't act on it. Not in public, at least. There are too many risks.
The Roekaar already weakened the Resistance, and their cooperation with the Initiative garnered many harsh criticisms from both outside and inside the Resistance. He won't risk pushing criticism to desertion or betrayal at this point in time. It's ridiculous that one would abandon the Resistance for something such as that and possibly condemn their own kind to extinction, but it's understandable. The angara are an emotional people and there is no way he will not hear any disagreements about a relationship. There is also no way nobody will decide to leave the Resistance because of such a relationship.
Perhaps, when the angaran people are no longer at risk and the Initiative has further earned the trust placed in them by many, he will entertain the thought. Of course, this is all going by a Ryder who makes decisions that benefit his people and/or shows a clear desire for cooperation and peaceful coexistence, a Ryder who values angaran lives and didn’t blow up the exaltation facility.
For now, there is a war that has him keeping even his own people at arm's length. Any bonds that run too deep run the risk of meeting a violent end or compromising the security of the Resistance. It destroyed him once, he won't let it destroy him again. Seeing his people die every day is hard enough without it.
After defeating the Archon, he will remain on his toes while setting the Resistance towards rebuilding what remain of their culture and their homes, eyes still fixed towards the skies for any signs of the continuation of the kett war. In that time, he may grow more accustomed to Milky Way aliens and their ways. This time will also be taken for himself to recover from the events his people have lived through for so long. every one of his people will need such a time of healing, and he knows however little time they have won’t be enough.
Breaking the habits he’s developed will not happen so easily either. He has put up walls as thick as the ice of Voeld. In a way, seeing Voeld change from the vault brings some form of hope in this regard. As far gone as it seemed, it’s warming up, becoming more hospitable, welcoming a future, a new beginning.
As with Voeld, it may take some extra assistance to start the process of mending all the damage that has been done, but it can be done. Everyone knows it can, and there will be people ready to offer him their friendship when he is ready.
If some of those people are aliens, so be it. He's not actually that opposed to becoming familiar with some of the Milky Way aliens.
There are some good people in the Initiative, even within the leadership. Kesh, Kandros, Ryder. He respects those three. He respects the Krogan, as a species, as well. He also respects Lexi and the other doctors.
Tl;dl: Evfra could befriend and fall for an alien given the right time and circumstances but he will not be dating any before Meridian has been secured due to a risk of weakening the Resistance and trust in his leadership.
Hi, I hope I'm not going to be a bother Momo but I was just wondering if you'll ever return to the soft dom prompts and the a,b,o prompts you did ages ago for Mass Effect Andromeda. I loved reading them so much and I've read them so much after each and every one of them and I keep being hopeful for new content. I totally get it if you aren't though! I just thought I'd ask in case. If you're not I can try to write for myself. Have a lovely day!
Oh you’re not a bother at all!! Though sadly, I don’t think I’ll return to any Mass Effect fanfiction anytime soon. The whole debacle with it shutting down and no hope of any further content kinda dried up my inspiration for it :(
Please write for yourself! The fandom could always use more content and I readily encourage anyone who gets an idea to write it and put it out into the world, you never know who could be out there just waiting for what you produce :D
