Legends of the Sky 1 - Observer

Title: Legends of the Sky - Observer
Author: Eisen
Game(s): Mass Effect 3 (Post-Synthesis Ending), Dragon Age 2
Characters/pairing: f!Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Disclaimer: Plot bunnies make crossovers happen. Mass Effect and Dragon Age belong to Bioware.

Commander Eris Shepard was running.

What felt like every fiber of her being protested at the exertion; a cacophony of aches as muscles strained despite having passed the threshold of endurance hours ago. But now more was being demanded of them, so they delivered, if weakly.

She buried the pain, repeating the mantra that the Drill Sergeant had, well, drilled into them in training. It’s only pain. It’s only pain. It’s only pain . One foot in front of the other, one step at a time. Ignore the lie that is the body’s perception of its limits.

A shuffle became a stagger; a stagger a shaky lope, picking up more and more momentum as she went until it felt more like she was falling, if not for the constant spike of straining pain that was a leg pushing her up again. One limb barely managed to push off before the other needed to do the same, but she managed, somehow. Somehow she remained upright, somehow she kept moving.

“Shepard, you are a peacemaker.”

Those were the words he had used. Oh, how she wished now that those words had been a lie. Oh, how she wished that for once he would have been dead wrong - if not for her sake, for his. It was not as if she tried to be the antithesis of her own given name. Not now, after all the illusions had been torn away. But now she was bound on this path, a path duty had laid out before her, a path the galaxy demanded of her after all the lives that had been lost.

The edge drew ever nearer, the impossibly bright blue-white beam growing larger until it swallowed her entire vision. The only thing left was the path stretching out before her where the Citadel swallowed the Crucible’s energy.

The Catalyst - the Intelligence...whatever it was - watched her progress from where it had halted after explaining the choices ahead. Choices that once again she had to make while the ethereal child-like apparition patiently stood. As unfazed by the unfathomable changes about to take place as only a machine could be.

Shepard reached the edge.

Where one would have expected a graceful image, befitting of the greatest accomplishment in untold millennia, the fruit of countless civilizations’ greatests minds’ most desperate efforts, one instead got exhausted floundering. Even if she had wanted to, the First Human Spectre no longer had the strength to halt her momentum, doing her utmost not to collapse to the polished metal surface.

Tapping into reserves she did not know she had, she pushed herself forward one last time, towards the light, towards the galaxy’s salvation, towards her end, towards peace.

Falling, Shepard felt the beam envelop her - felt the warm glow of the Crucible’s energy suffuse her, its caress as it consumed her.

Her skin charred and peeled away as the very matter of her existence drifted apart. Her cybernetics flared, sending a wicked orange glare glowing through her. The battered N7 armour slowly disintegrated - its scarred and molten existence almost sighing after all it had suffered.

One last thought surfaced in her mind before the darkness embraced her for a second time.

The beer’d better be decent.

Like a giant metal flower spreading its petals into bloom at Spring’s first light - the five wards of the Citadel opened to welcome a new era. At the colossal construct’s epicentre a light flared. The entire construct shuddered as vibrant green energy pulsed forth from where an ancient seat of power met a desperate bid for survival.

Allied forces scrambled to leave the battle as the call to retreat was sounded, their duty fulfilled, with the souls of billions paving the road for this opportunity. Now fear of what they may have unleashed chased them from where they had only hours before raced towards.

The swarming synthetic beings that had been sent out to reap all organic life in some delusional attempt to preserve it did not chase after the fleeing vessels. Instead, the nightmare constructs went limp, littering the vacuum of space surrounding the Earth like parasites in a pool suddenly pumped full of chlorine.

A child’s voice rang out through the void: “You can’t help me.”

A woman’s voice hitched as it replied: “Just try to stop me.”

-III-

She was Faith - watching as the woman sat cloistered in her spartan chambers, but the grandest of cathedrals. Echoing halls and soaring arches inhabited the same space as suffocating walls and cobwebbed buttresses.

Barely eating, drinking, or sleeping, the woman meditated, mind devoid of all but an iron will. Faith reached out, brushing its fingers across the woman’s strong-featured face, admiring both the reserved young girl she saw locked away and the driven woman simmering with hidden rage, both occupying the same space. Faith’s fingers passed through her, but as it drew back its hand the two before it merged and the woman’s eyes shot open, mouth growing into a broad smile.

...

She was Perseverance - watching as the girl grew up, holding the things that lurked at bay. Standing by the girl as she was mocked and scorned. Standing by her as the world turned against her, as the final answer was revealed to her.

Perseverance watched as the dark girl with soft features turned hard. As comfort and innocence were traded for struggle and pragmatism. Perseverance looked on as the girl’s ruined form was tossed from on high, purpose fulfilled. Perseverance looked on as a dark girl with hard features, who’d turned soft, crouched over the ruined form, a shadow swallowing them both.

...

She was Justice - watching as Pride committed injustice upon injustice unto its subjects. Justice watched as the people grew hopeless and angry. Watched as Despair and Fear courted with the borders of Pride’s domain. It grew furious. It marched forwards to act - she would see this travesty brought to an end.

...

She was Nobility - watching as the young woman, still in her early teens, stood between her brother and a Fade-touched beast. The creature’s aura of unnatural malice was rivaled only by the fearful rage that burned in the woman’s eyes. Nobility watched as flames licked across the woman’s hands, as the not-quite-innocent face assumed a furious snarl.

...

She was Valour - watching as the woman walked away. It considered calling out after, but upon looking down at its gauntleted hands the thought vanished. Valour turned back to the racks of ancient weapons behind it and brought its hands together, observing as the the essence of what it wanted to create was siphoned from the very air, gathering between its armoured hands in a glowing green nucleus.

...

She was Faith - watching as the girl screamed into her pillow, the ruby hair comfortingly familiar, though it knew not why. Faith tried reaching out to comfort her, but as always its hands passed right through. Something stuck in its core as it then saw the bedclothes starting to smoulder around the girl’s hands. Faith fled.

...

She was. She walked beside the scantily clad woman whenever she entered her realm, glad for the company. She had been treated with suspicion at first, but soon the woman started conversing with her as they traveled the aether. She enjoyed these moments, but the woman would always have to leave eventually.

...

Faith stood beside the red-haired girl. She was much older now. The emerald green eyes were strangely devoid of life - all of it buried beneath a dead sea of fear. Words tumbled from her lips, eerie in the manner they echoed off the stones.

Men stood around the walls of the chamber. Faith could feel their eyes as they silently watched every move the girl made. Faith could feel herself within them, but she wanted to reach out to the girl, to help her. After what had occurred the last time, she stopped herself.

One of the men moved in on the girl, a glowing rod clasped in his hand. He pushed aside a lock of hair on the girl’s forehead and pressed the rod against the now-bared skin.

Faith grabbed the girl by the shoulders, not wanting her to suffer whatever it was the man was inflicting upon her. Faith’s incorporeal form passed right through the man as it normally did, yet her hands did not pass through the girl. She felt the texture of the rough tunic that the girl wore. Looking up in surprise, she saw the girl’s eyes glowing a bright blue as they looked right into her own.

There was a scuffle behind Faith as one man knocked the one holding the rod down. With the  glowing metal leaving the girl’s forehead, her eyes became blind to Faith’s presence once more and her hands slipped through the body as if it were as immaterial as the air.

...

Perseverance watched as the child stood at the core of the devastation. Eyes smouldered a fierce orange before the small body collapsed to the scorched ground, lids finally blocking out the angry light. Ashen skeletons stood in flash-frozen rictus around the bundle, armour and weapons fused to the bones. Nothing moved in the expanse for a long time, until eventually a figure crawled out from underneath the charred remains of a wagon, staggering towards the unconscious child.

...

Justice watched as the dark woman pushed through the crowds in front of her. She knew her, had seen her act in the essence of Justice before. The dark woman’s eyes flickered in recognition. In the woman’s wake followed two men, companions. Something about that struck a chord within the aspect.

She looked closer at the woman; there was something different about her from when she had first observed her, something that had slowly grown into place. Something that had taken root in the core of her being.

A small but bright nova burned within the woman, and from it a link tapered off into the distance, breaching all the barriers of the realms to reach...something Justice could not discern.

...

She was Command - watching as the girl fought against and ran away from herself. Fear, it was everywhere. Nightmare’s essence created the ideal breeding for it. Platinum hair streaming out behind her, the girl vanished, yet did not. She radiated a sun’s worth of light despite no longer being there.

...

She was Wisdom -  listening to the old man as he spoke, a constant visitor, perhaps even a friend. Always coming back to her in all her places. She knew that in truth she was the furthest from her aspect. Foolishness disguised as Wisdom, for wisdom was the knowing of the self. She was more a stranger to herself than to those she encountered.

-

She was and she watched, as she had always done. For as long as she could recall, she was the unseen observer, until one day she looked down at herself. Glowing within the core of her being was a nova, just like the one she had observed within the other woman…. She reached down, hand testing the link that tapered from her, away into the unknown.

Slowly a memory formed itself in her mind, an idea that was simple, elegant, yet shattering. It was a word, but more - a promise, a name. It brought sadness, elation, anger and peace to her all at once; blanketing it all was trust.

What is this?

It took form, asserting itself over the ages within the span of a heartbeat. It was eternal and timeless, yet immediate, a core part of her being that had been lost.

Garrus.

She uttered the word, and as the last syllable left her ethereal lips a woman’s voice echoed through the emptiness, “There is no Shepard without Vakarian.”

A lifetime of experiences rushed through her, leaving her staggered and shaken. She would have fallen had this place required strength to hold oneself.

A gravelly voice responded, reverberating in the void that followed too much emotion, too many memories.

“Remember that I took the kill shot.”

Commander Eris Shepard opened her eyes.