Mass Effect Fanfiction
Interview with an Ardat-Yakshi
From Jessa’s POV
Asari Centric story mostly on Omega
Jessa Pell - human free from Batarian bondage, wears round wire rim glasses, practical & protective had never known life without slavery, her mother died in bondage.
Anfisa Leos - flower lion - Heteria. Matriarch thinking really hard about retirement, but finds that she feels fulfilment helping people. Even if she is jaded and sore about the universe and the way things are.
Jessa sat quietly on the couch looking around the room filled with cubbies of varying sizes, each one holding its own bucket of rocks. Some of them in decorated pots, or painted pails. One was an entire shipping crate big enough for both herself and every personal effect she owned, filled to the brim with what seemed an innumerable amount of stones. Some of them were swathed in shrouds, some had a lot, some only a little, each one different from the next. In the spaces in between these pails were polished stones, beautiful and glittering in the soft light that filled the room. It was a room like none she had ever seen before. Jessa wondered if Kasiani too had a wall of rocks, or was that something unique to this Hetaira.
Rather than sitting behind a desk the aged Matriarch sat beside it. Her chair is simple, undecorated, forgettable. On the desk to her side was another basket of rocks, and a cup of pens. Amidst the alien surroundings and strange beauty sat Matriarch Anfisa Leos. A unique character that made Jessa feel things even without trying. Her garb was a single shouldered dress, with what appeared to be hand painted glyphs of gold and warm earth tones on a burnt umber base.
While not at all the model of Asari beauty she had come to expect, Matriarch Anfisa was no less stunning in her own right. She wore her scars as an embellishment. Scars that melted blue skin to a deeper waxy indigo against a soft blue backdrop. Beginning at her crest it looked as if something hot had been poured onto her, and as if she were a candle that had melted under the intense and unforgiving heat.
There was a crater in her crest where it began, slipping and pocking down her brow, disfiguring a cheek, making the skin pull at generous lips. Her neck nearly flawless as it fell onto Anfisa’s shoulder, and chest. It continued down her arm to her hand. Hints of the hot substance pocked her leg and splattered across bare feet. Jessa wondered if it hurt, especially near the joints where skin was forced to bend and stretch. The discoloring of her eyes left Jessa wondering what she took to cope with the life long disfigurement.
“Ask your questions so we can get them out of the way.” Anfisa’s voice was rough. Did the damage her body sustained reach inside?
Jessa felt anxious about this meeting, in human culture mental health was for the disturbed & deranged, or the wealthy who needed someone to hold their hand. If you weren’t the rich complaining about something your shrink said, you didn’t talk about it at all. She expected the Matriarchs words were about her scars, while she wondered what had caused them, or even why she still had them, Jessa felt a question less personal was probably a safe place to start.
“Do all Hetaira have a thing for rocks?”
Anfisa raised a brow ridge, obviously amused and not at all expecting Jessa’s choice of questions. Her features twisted into a warm if warped smile. “Do all teachers teach the same way?.” Setting the tablet she had in her lap aside, Anfisa let her hands rest in her lap.
Jessa pursed her lips, shaking her head.
“What is your next question?”
“Are you going to answer all my questions with a question?”
Anfisa chuckled. “Questions do more than answers do, but not all my responses will be another question.”
“Fen says you can help me.”
“That does not sound like a question.”
“I hope that I can, but your success will largely depend on you. Do you want help?”
Jessa had thought about it since Foínix had mentioned getting it.
“Will I be able to become more confident, less afraid?”
“You can. Despite what the majority of the populace believes, you can teach yourself to be anything you want to be.” As she spoke, Matriarch Anfisa removed her glasses, squinted at them as a distraction before pulling the hem of her skirt up to rub them clean. Despite having just removed her glasses she looked over at Jessa as she cleaned them.
It was a gesture she knew well. A social pause, a moment to think. Or a way to observe without challenge. In most cases, it was hardly ever to actually clear your glasses. Most people didn’t even think about it as they did it. Did Anfisa?
“Good.” When she finished Anfisa put her glasses on again before smoothing her skirt. “I have something for you, and a task that you must do with it.” Beside her new shrink there sat a basket of rocks… actual rocks. Each of them roughly the same size, naturally shaped. Big enough to fit in the palm of the hand. She picked one of them up and offered it to Jessa.
Jessa looked at the rock offered to her inquisitively before coming forward to take it. She turned it over in her hand.
“I would like for you to write something that burdens you on it.”
A scarred shoulder shrugged as she turned her hand. “Fear. Anxiety. Feeling inadequate. It can be anything that you feel as a burden.”
Anfisa nodded. “Yes.” A marker was held up.
Frowning Jessa took it and scrawled a word on the rock.
“If you wish to share it with me it goes in this bucket.” The Matriarch pulls an empty bucket out from under her chair where it had been resting.
Anfisa gestured to the couch behind her, where a satchel lay over the back. It was made from patchwork leather, each a different color, with a sturdy shoulder strap. “That is yours. Your rock goes in it, and it goes with you. To be clear, the satchel is yours whether you want to share the burden or not, so you need not feel as if you must take this rock with you to receive it. No matter where you go, so long as you choose to hold onto the rock you must keep it in your bag, and your bag with you.
Jessa looked at the rock with its word written on it. “What if I keep it now, and share it later?”
“If that is your wish. You may at any time share it with me. I am always willing to help with your burdens.”
Jessa looked at the rock with the word she wrote on it. “What will you do when you read it.”
“I will ask if you want to talk about it.”
Anfisa smiled, the skin pulling tight around her face making the terrible burn scars lighten. “It goes into the shared bucket anyway. I am not going to trap you into talking to me, there is no ulterior motive or secret agenda. Each day that I see you, you will have to write something on a rock. You can then choose to share it, or carry it with you as you always have. What I request will not always be the same, and some things will be harder than others.”
“What is the purpose of this task?”
“It is twofold. The first is trust. You can trust me, what you say here is safe. I will not share it with anyone.”
“Ever?” Jessa rolled the rock in her hand, feeling the weight of it.
“Unless there is a day you come to me and say I am able to share a specific piece of information with a specific person for a specific reason then I will never share the information.”
“What if I say I feel like hurting someone. Or hurting myself.”
Jessa back tracked to the couch, resuming her seat, taking with her the rock and the word that felt like an injury the moment she was told to write it. “T-that isn’t the point.”
“Help can be given to you if you wish to hurt yourself without revealing your secrets. As for the other, you do not strike me as the person who wishes harm on others. If you did, what authority would I call to stop you?”
Jessa looked down at her rock with a frown feeling her anxiety flutter in her breast. Did she really want to carry the rock around? Did it suddenly mean that much to her with that word written on it? She rubbed the rock with her thumb, feeling its smooth chalky texture as she thought about it. Getting up she offered the rock to Anfisa.
Anfisa reached for the rock, purposefully brushing against Jessa’s palm as she picked it up. Her skin was warm and smooth where scars disfigured slender fingers. Bright pale blue eyes read it then raised to look at her. Rather than placing it in the bucket Anfisa offered it back.
If she was confused about this Anfisa made it clear as she picked up the empty bucket.
Jessa placed the rock in the bucket, face down.
“What would you like to do with your bucket?”
“Do?” Her eyes shifted to the many that filled Anfisa’s room. Each of them on display.
“It is your bucket. You can do what you want with it.”
“Are all these buckets from other clients?”
Anfisa shifted, but did not turn. “Currently, every container in this room except one belongs to me. If your question is have I given a container to all of my cria, the answer is then yes. What has become of them all I cannot say, they are allowed to do with them as they wish.”
“Do people look at them?”
“They are allowed to, yes.”
“Why do people put their burdens on display?”
“You are mistaken, all of these burdens are mine, and I choose to display them to help others understand that while what they are feeling is difficult, they are not alone in these feelings. They aren’t the only ones who fear being afraid, or being forgotten. There is comfort in that.”
“Are these all your clients?”
Anfisa did look now, her smile soft, proud. “No. There is not a room big enough for that. Some of them have no buckets. They dispose of their fears and burdens, choosing to throw them away.”
Again the older woman shrugged her bare scarred shoulder. “Who knows. Wherever they are cast they are forgotten.”
“Once they throw them away do they ever have them again?”
“Many times. Throwing them away is a constant battle, a fight that you must always continue until you figure out why you have them.”
Jessa frowned looking at the rock near Anfisa’s bare feet. “D-do they … Do they ever go away?” Her throat felt as if it were being squeezed, causing her words to fall into a whisper.
Anfisa reached down, tapping the bucket with slender fingers. “You can stop being afraid of this but you will still feel fear. It is natural, and it can be healthy. Air is always around us, it touches us always, but it is most often not a burden. The battle you fight now is exhausting, but it won't always be. You get better at throwing them, better at fighting them off, until one day you wonder why they were a burden at all.”
Jessa wiped at the tears that touched her eyes, scrubbing the moisture off on her pants. “If they stay on the wall is it the same as casting them away?”
Anfisa tipped her head. “The burdens you leave here are not yours any longer, you gave them to me.”
“But…” Jessa sniffled rubbing at her brow not wanting to feel the wave of emotions that felt as if they were stretching out inside of her. Twisting her into different directions all at the same time. “But you said the bucket was mine.”
Anfisa nodded. “It is, but the burdens inside it once placed on the shelf are mine until you return to either collect them, or cast them into the depths of Omega where all the forgotten fall.”
“Why?” Jessa summoned her anger trying to push the emotions back. Hardening her face and stiffening her limbs. She didn’t want to cry over rocks…
“Because that's what happens when you share your burdens with a friend. We help carry their weight until you are ready to cast them off.”
Jessa took in a shuddering breath stunned as it all fell into place. “Are we friends now?”
“New friends.” Anfisa said with a smile that softened the dark scars on her face.
Jessa let out a quick breath wiping at more tears. God dammit she was going to cry about rocks. Sniffling again she held her hand out. “Can I have another rock?”
Anfisa was surprised by this but she complied, handing a clean rock over to Jessa.
Jessa wrote another word down on the rock, and showed it to her Hetaira.
It was Anfisa’s turn to be perplexed.
Jessa took this rock over to the couch where her satchel lay, and placed it with a gentle hand into the bag. When she was done sealing it she pulled the bag over her shoulder and let it come to rest against her side.
“Because, as I carry this rock I will be reminded of the good in my life. Of the friends I have, and the importance of the gifts they give me. If I carry something around I want it to be positive things that can strengthen me.”
Anfisa pressed her hands together, bowing her head over them. For the briefest moment she held the pose.
“D-did you… did you just pray?
“I thanked the Goddess that even I can be taught things at my age.”
Jessa blushed. She might have stood there the rest of the night without recourse had it not been for Anfisa helping her past the moment.
“Have you figured out what you want to do with your bucket?”
She looked to the wall before looking back at the bucket at Anfisa’s feet then back to the wall once more where the giant crate sat with all its burdens piled in it. Would her one burden help someone?
Anfisa sat quietly watching her as she tried to make a decision.
“Can mine still help someone?”
“Because there is only one?”
Again that soft smile appeared as Anfisa nodded. “Always. Perhaps it is the very one someone else needs to see.”
“Then… I” She shifted then stopped herself. “I would like to leave it here… on the wall.”
Anfisa stood with the bucket and offered one side to Jessa. “Would you help me put it into the wall?” In a very real sense Anfisa helped carry her bucket with its burden to one of the unclaimed cubbies on the wall.
As they slid it in Jessa asked. “Is the big one yours?”
“Currently all of them are mine.”
@maskydoolovesmasseffect, @n7month
