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zet-sway · 3 years

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Spiritual Shrios Summer - EMBRACE

This is a prompt fill for @rosenkow’s Spiritual Shrios Summer!

PROMPT WORD: EMBRACE - | - WORDS: ~6100

Rated: “E” for “Awkward but Spicy” [NSFT] AO3 Link: "Too Much and Not Enough” Pairing: Thane / FemShep Summary: Maybe it's the traces of venom in her system or maybe it's just him, but this man beneath her - this assassin, feared and infamous for the lives he's taken - swells her heart with trust. It's a new and curious thing, so different from the trust shared between brothers in arms. It's simple intimacy, and maybe… just maybe… something more.

A/N: This fic is a god damn hot mess, and yet I have literally *never* revised anything so heavily in my entire life. Was supposed to be part of a slow burn but I'm impatient. I literally can't tell if this fic is worth reading. You decide lol

Thank you @quietonewisp for your feedback on my first draft! It's unbelievable to be in the same fandom with such talented writers after all these years. Thank you also to everyone who shared encouraging words while I was pulling my hair out over this fic :) this is my first attempt at writing Shepard as a thought out character of my own creation. As a result it's pretty awkward.

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"I don't know how you do this," Shepard grunts through clenched teeth.

Every third day is yoga. And today, she thought it would be a good idea to try a headstand.

Thane guides her feet into the air, resting her knees against her elbows. Her hands are planted on either side of her head, elbows bent at a right angle to form three points of support against the floor. Truthfully, he hadn't thought she would struggle so much with this pose, given her strength.

"Push with your hands. Distribute your weight."

Slowly, he releases her calves and repositions himself behind her as she pulls in a sharp inhale, holding her balance.

"You better not be staring at my ass, Krios."

He raises a brow ridge. It's hard not to stare at her ass, thrust in the air as it is.

"You forget that I have perfect recall," he says dismissively. "I can reflect on the image of your backside at any moment of my choosing."

"So you admit you've been looking?"

"Shepard," he admonishes, "Just because I've seen your ass does not mean I consciously seek to see it." It's a stone cold lie, but an easy one to sell, especially when she makes a point of training her glutes every day during their morning PT.

Slowly, she lifts her knees into the air, shaking with the effort to retain her balance. "I bet you're an ass man," she grits out, one leg finally pointed straight into the air.

Thane sets his hands on her calves to steady her as she wills through the pose.

"I'm unfamiliar with the term."

She huffs, swallowing down a breath before speaking. "A man who prefers ass over breasts."

Only humans would have a word for something like this, he thinks. "As you know, women of my species do not have breasts."

"Yup," she hisses, slowly and carefully straightening her other leg. "That's why you've gotta be-" another shaky breath, "-an ass man."

Well… she's not wrong.

In truth, he finds breasts no more desirable than any other mundane part of the human body. The appeal, he suspects, comes from actually touching them - something he hadn't considered at all until she'd launched herself at him in the airlock weeks ago. He's replayed the experience in his mind hundreds of times by now. The insistent press of her mouth on his, her smooth human hands clutching at his shoulders... and the soft crush of her body against him. He hadn't pulled away, but he hadn't kissed her back either. Right now, he wishes he had.

There's a curious connecting thread between his return to the Normandy and her sudden urgency to speak to him - frequently. Even more curious - neither one of them has broached the subject of her impulsive kiss before his procedure.

With a relieved sigh, Shepard finally manages to straighten both legs and complete the pose. Toes pointed toward the ceiling of the shuttle bay, she trembles. It's all he can do to not close his hands around her thighs to feel every rippling muscle under her skin.

"Excellent work," he says, voice perhaps lower than he intended.

"My head hurts."

Thane shakes his head. "You're not distributing your weight through your hands. Push down, and lower your knees slowly."

She makes a strained sound, tenses her legs, and the motion is just enough to pitch her center of gravity backwards.

He catches her, but not before the rounded curve of her ass is pressed with distracting persistence against his hips. If he could have blushed, he very well might have. Looking remarkably contorted beneath her splayed hands, she grins at him.

"How's your perfect recall going to handle this one?"

He should say something, but he doesn't. With steady arms, he lowers her to the mat and she flops against it, sighing heavily. There's a familiar quiet about her, something he's come to recognize as the silence before a storm.

"...can we talk about this?"

His deflection comes instinctively. "Your mastery of the headstand will take some practice, but-"

"No," she says firmly. "This." She waves a hand between both of them. "I kissed you goodbye and we're both acting like it never happened. It was inappropriate of me. Did I upset you?"

This time he needs a minute to think.

"Shepard, I… no, you did not upset me."

"But...?" She sits up, knees drawn in a loose spread against her chest, arms looped around them. The same focus he'd seen in her face on Tuchanka is there now. But this time her expression is uncharacteristically open, visibly hanging on his next words.

She's not even trying to hide that she wants him.

So why does he resist?

Ten years ago he swore he would never love another, and he meant it. The compulsion to remain ascetic is by now second nature in him. But although the years have not dulled the memory of his beloved Irikah, they have brought a new perspective: the fires of one love are not dulled simply because the fires of another are kindled.

"I've recalled that moment more times than I can count," he says, finally.

"So... does that mean you liked it?"

"I enjoyed your kiss enough to admit that should the opportunity arise... I may not let go."

She leans closer, fingers lacing together with visible anticipation. "And what if I didn't want you to let go?"

The look in her upturned face is what does him in. In a rare display of impulse, he drops to the mat and kisses her. And this time he intends to savor it.

Somehow, the same humility that drove him to his knees before Irikah now folds him again as he gazes into the unknown with Shepard. A purpose, a reason to fight. And now perhaps... a reason to love. He's not sure if he would call it love just yet, but kissing her awakens his body like hot tea on a bitter cold morning. She draws him between her knees, lips parting eagerly beneath his seeking tongue. She tastes like coffee with an undertone of alien unfamiliarity, and his pulse quickens. He's already eager for more.

Shepard mumbles something against his mouth and he pulls away.

"You taste tingly. That's normal right?"

He smiles gently back at her. "Normal for humans, as I understand."

They lean together for another kiss before she releases him. "We still haven't done cardio."

He slips his arms around her waist and tugs her tighter against him, using his strength to pull her up with him as he stands.

"A quick jog around the hold, then?"

"...or," she says coyly, all suggestive eyes with a cautious smirk blooming across her face. "A quick jog upstairs?"

He shouldn't. At least - old habits tell him he shouldn't. But his heart says it doesn't much matter.

"Promise me one thing," he says with caution, taking her hands in his. This is not how he’d imagined his morning. After all the time they’ve spent seeking each other’s company, he hadn’t dared to think...

Shepard tips her head, listening, fingertips idly exploring the subtle texture of his scales. His throat feels dry and the words are stampeding through his mind so fast he can barely catch them.

"Embrace her memory as I have. Smile upon her with favor." The memories mingle together, threatening to overwhelm him. Shepard has already given him so much, and he still asks more of her.

"Your wife?" She leans into his neck, kissing his shoulder softly.

"Yes." He squeezes his eyes shut. His breath threatens to choke him. "I cannot and will not stop loving her. She is with me always."

Shepard smiles at him, as though he's asked the easiest thing in the world. Her next words are an intimate whisper against his lips.

"What kind of Commander would I be if I told you to stop loving your wife?"

Her breath fills his chest with warmth and wanting. Cupping her face in his hands, he kisses her glistening lips as though they were crafted specifically for him. They inhale each other, her tongue sliding against his as he breathes in her kiss. The word murmurs through his mouth and mind as a soft wind sighing through trees and grasses. "Siha."

This could be his second chance. An opportunity to fight side by side with a warrior angel, as he should have done years ago. Irikah was not a trained soldier, but she damn well could have been. She would have given everything to defend the innocent, and by all accounts, she had. Their son, alive because of her and her alone. He can taste her in the kiss, a familiar and soothing encouragement that makes his heart soar. Perhaps if he survives the mission, he will have learned something of her bravery.

There's a gentle tug on his shirt. Shepard leads him toward the elevator.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

When they stumble into her cabin, her eyes are already bleary with his venom. Thane presses her into the bed, one hand cradling her neck while the other winds into her hair. His lips are slow but strong, kissing her like he knows nothing else. She's never felt so wanted before.

"How far do you want to take this?" she gasps when he trails her mouth down her jaw.

"This was your idea," his mouth is scorching on the column of her neck. She leans back to give him better access. "How far do you want to take this?"

Her insides are on fire at the feel of his mouth alone, and logic says she's crazy to jump into bed with another fucking species so suddenly. But she doesn't care - she's spent enough sleepless nights imagining this very moment. She wants his hands on her bare skin, she wants the forbidden unknowns of his alien body. With every fiber of her being, she wants. But it's easier to think about it than to say it.

"More," she says finally - breathlessly. Words are fleeting. Her hands fist the edges of his shirt and he obliges, pulling away so she can lift it off before she begins pulling off her own.

And then he surprises her by playfully rolling her on to her belly, kissing the back of her neck, her spine, palms trailing an electric line down her sides.

"I confess," he murmurs between kisses, "You were right to accuse me of being, as you say, an 'ass man.'" She moans as those strong hands settle on her backside, fingers kneading her flesh with delicious strength. Good god.

Words are difficult, but she manages. "Don't get any ideas, I'm not letting you fuck my ass."

"It wasn't my intention. Is that something humans do?"

Shepard snorts. "Don't act like you didn't know that."

He laughs like she's never heard before, a rich and jubilant peal in that dark voice she's come to savor. She can nearly feel the soft vibrations of that laugh through his hands as he presses his fingertips between her legs. “I’d rather know where you burn hottest,” he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice as he strokes her just hard enough to make his intentions understood.

"Oh fuck yes."

His palms return to her backside, sliding up to hook his fingers into her waistband. "May I?"

She nods furiously, her own hands closing over his to push her clothes off.

When she's firmly on her back again he drags down the zipper on the front of her bra. It's flung on the floor with the rest of her things and then she's bare before him, biting her lip under the heat of his hungry gaze. She wonders if he can see her body vibrating in anticipation.

"Beautiful," he murmurs, settling his knees between her thighs. He crawls up to kiss her. "For weeks, I've thought about touching you."

She hums as he strokes the rounded edges of her breasts.

"Your body is so wonderfully soft, will you tell me if there's something you don't like?"

"Yeah," is all she can manage before his mouth returns to her neck, his hands wandering like a dying man searching for water. She's certain to have hickeys by the time they're done.

Curious, she brings a hand up to stroke the delicate flesh of his throat. His answering groan confirms her suspicions, and suddenly his questing hands are not so chaste, closing with suffocating warmth around her breasts.

Shepard bites her lip. "Please don't tell me you think breasts are gross."

He shakes his head. "I'll admit I find it strange that human breasts are erogenous, given their purpose. But they aren’t ‘gross,’ as you say. Just... new." She pushes her chest into his palms and that gets a rise out of him - a lovely trembling purr in his throat. "And so soft, Siha."

"Feels good," she murmurs. With parted lips, she breathes her pleasure as he kneads her breasts in slow, sensuous circles, dipping his head to kiss along her sternum and at the tender underside of her flesh.

"I think I might like them,” he says, lips twinged upwards.

Her need flares with that simple statement and she pulls in a breath, straining against him.

"I hadn't imagined how... tempting they could be. Soft curves... ripe like fruit at peak season." A strained moan falls from her mouth when he punctuates his statement with a more appreciative squeeze and draws a thumb over one sensitive peak, his mouth close enough to make her whimper in frustration.

“You’re teasing me.”

"I’m exploring you, Siha. There’s so much to learn." He circles his fingertips around her nipples and they tighten in response. The visual alone has her reeling, electric sparks of need slipping down her spine and straight into her core. "Your body shows me what it wants," he murmurs. "My mouth begs to taste you."

He flicks his tongue out, sampling her in light, infuriating strokes, teasing until she's keening beneath his hands, eyes shut tight and panting over clenched teeth. It's hard to think about anything at all except his hands and lips and that rumbling voice shimmering across her sensitized skin.

She strangles out a moan when his lips close around her nipple and he hollows his cheeks, drawing it into his mouth before releasing it with a soft, wet pop. Her arms clamp reflexively around his neck in an unspoken order to keep still.

"Do that again," she gasps.

He complies without question, textured fingers on one breast and wet tongue on the other, toying with her. Her back arches, hands holding herself like an offering to his mouth, every touch like a phantom crack of lust between her legs. There's a low rumble in his throat, he's practically purring into her skin and she can feel it, thighs clenching together in desperation.

She whines when he finally pulls away.

"I'll be back for those," he promises. "I hadn't expected such enthusiasm."

Fingertips brush her inner thigh and she leans into the touch, wanting more - for fuck's sakes - more - gasping out a shuddering breath she didn't even know she was holding when he flattens his fused fingers into her seam. Face buried in her neck doing god knows what with his lips and tongue, he's exploring her by touch alone. Each press of his hand is excruciatingly gentle, pushing slowly into her slick channel, gliding upwards to her clit. She's so sensitive that she flinches when he brushes over it, clutching at his shoulders.

"Too much?" He asks.

She hadn't even realized her eyes were closed. Her throat is dry, but she rasps, "Not enough."

His full lips curve into a smile before he strokes her again and this time she moans, pushing back on his hand as much as she can manage. Her mind is chanting "please, please," but she won't beg. Not yet, at least.

His voice rouses her from her desperate thoughts.

”Your species makes great effort to avoid using definitive terms for this part of your body."

"Do we?” She asks, willing her thoughts to clear enough for her to speak. “I mean, there's pussy, snatch... cunt, if you're feeling profane."

His voice drops a register lower, and he leans close enough for her to feel his hot breath when he speaks. "Shepard, I believe the technical term is vulva."

She groans. Loudly. "Fuck off."

He huffs out a stiff laugh. "Perhaps you'd prefer something new. Ara'te. Chalice of Arashu."

She tries - and fails - to hide her impatience. "Really?"

"Do you find it repulsive?"

"No, I just... mixing religion and sex is kind of..." She fumbles with her answer, not wanting to offend, but the words are gone from her when he leans in and draws the flat of his tongue in a wide sweep between her legs. "-Jesus, Thane."

His voice is thick with amusement. "How interesting that you invoke the name of a god you don't believe in, if I touch you just so."

Shepard's mouth snaps shut and she looks pointedly away from him with a huff.

"But I digress," he says, fingers rippling along her seam. Scaled hands smooth over her slickness, spreading her with gentle consideration. His mouth is dangerously close, gaze fixed on her with eyes like gleaming onyx. Something in the way his voice drops sets her heart racing.

“You feel like the softest silk,” he whispers, each word rolling off his tongue in a veil of hot breath that cools over the heat of her wet center. Her eyes flutter closed as he presses his exploration, teasing her entrance with his joined fingers.

"Your body is a wellspring," he murmurs, slowly penetrating her with his hand. "Drenched with arousal… begging me into your depths."

She gasps when he takes the opportunity to flick at her with his tongue. Hips grind against his hand, desperately seeking more.

"What the fuck," she moans. "Don't stop."

He withdraws only to enter her again, this time sheathing an extra finger in her heat. Those fingers crook inside her and she damn near twitches off the bed, drawing a sound from him somewhere between amusement and arousal.

"So sensitive, Siha."

It feels like she's melting under the intensity of his touch, a thumb moving in teasing circles around her clit. She hisses, thighs clenching.

"Holy shit just touch me."

"Like this?" he asks in a tone that's infuriatingly playful, barely skimming his tongue across her clit.

"God damn it, Thane, you know what I want-"

He interrupts her, his voice suddenly more serious.

"Show me."

There's silence, and then Shepard blinks at him. "What?"

"Show me how you like to be touched."

"You want to watch me?" her mouth goes dry and her answering tone is more accusatory than she intends. "Because you're a freak, or because you don't know how to touch a woman?"

"Yes." He says simply, dodging both of her questions with irritating smugness.

Her knees twitch inward, uncertain, and with a deep inhale, he withdraws.

"Siha," he murmurs apologetically, taking her hand. "You've left all your confidence on the battlefield.”

The words slip straight through the cracks in her armor. It's painful, but he's right. Cerberus didn't bring her back because they wanted her, they brought back Commander Shepard. The woman she used to be is an afterthought. There's only the mission. The Hero of the Citadel. The Commander.

But here they are, Thane's enormous black eyes boring holes into her defenses in a silent plea for… something. His hand finds hers and their fingers intertwine, resting together on her hip. His expression is more unguarded than she's ever seen, eyes asking a silent question: Do you trust me? Do you want me?

"All my victories have been on the battlefield," she says, looking away.

His thumb soothes back and forth over her hand.

"Intimacy is not a war. What do you hope to triumph over?"

Still unwilling to meet his eyes, her face twists with discomfort.

"I haven't had a lot of partners. I'm laying here naked and you're playing games. I can't tell if you're just teasing or looking for an excuse to drive me off."

His expression softens. "Our differences are not merely physical, then."

She isn’t certain what he means, but Thane shifts to lay next to her, kissing her temple. His fingers tighten around hers in a gentle grip that doesn't let up, finally summoning her eyes back to his.

"On my heart, Siha, there is no place I would rather be than right here with you." There's a genuine apology in his tone, prying her heart open one painstaking centimeter at a time. "Do you want this?"

Her voice is small, but she doesn't hesitate. "Yes."

"Show me what you like," Thane's lips brush against her ear. "Remember that I won't forget." The way his voice rumbles makes her shiver.

He takes her hand and presses a kiss into her palm before setting it atop her thigh. It’s a relaxing gesture, indirect enough that he's not backing down while also letting her choose the next move. His lips are unhurried, traveling up her neck, against her ear, along her hairline.

Years of lackluster partners have tempered her expectations - she’s never shared herself with anyone as intense as Thane; and although she'd never admit it, his sexual confidence is damn near intimidating. But his hot breath against her ear and his endless, patient kisses are an irresistible pull of wanting.

This man is far from bored, she realizes. He's only awaiting her permission to give her something she's never experienced.

Her chest rises and falls in deep, shaky breaths. "No games," she whispers.

"No games," he agrees.

Biting her lip, she guides his hand back to the apex of her thighs. He offers no resistance, humming his approval when she slicks his fingertips through her heat and sets them carefully against her clit.

They move together then, her hand on his, teasing herself while he kisses her neck and shoulder, slowly making his way across her chest. How long has it been since she found release beneath the hands of another? The quiet intimacy of their joined hands, the subtle texture of his scales leaves her breathless, delirious with pleasure, his fingertips sliding effortlessly against her slick center. His mouth wanders over her skin, her breasts, every touch so electric she’s almost not ready for how fast her release sneaks up on her.

"I'm close," she whimpers with eyes squeezed shut, "Oh fuck, Thane, I'm so close."

"Yes, Siha,” he whispers. “Come for me."

She breaks. Every cell in her body clenches in a singularity of pressure before she's launched out in a million pieces, shimmering in the dim light. For once, it doesn't feel cold in her cabin. Waves of heat ripple under her skin, pulsing with every second she spends teasing the tail end of her climax.

She doesn't realize she has a death grip on his hand until she's gone completely still. If it hurts him, he says nothing, only wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her close. When she looks back at him, he's watching her with a knowing, lustful smile. She reaches for him, stroking his delicate neck and earning an appreciative hum that makes her heart beat just a little faster.

"Not that I didn't like you before, but..." she brushes her fingertips along his jaw, tilting his head toward her, "God damn."

Maybe human biology actually is as interesting as he proclaims, if one good orgasm can flood her with this much oxytocin. Like crossing a proverbial threshold, she feels her confidence returning, if only just to tell him we are definitely doing this again. As soon as possible.

"The privilege is mine." His voice is flecked with desire, words she believes so wholeheartedly she can almost see them in the air.

"How are you still wearing pants?"

He growls approvingly as she climbs over him and her fingertips slip beneath his waistband.

"Let's see what I'm about to get myself into," she says with a sly upturn of her lips.

"Or, if you wish - what you're about to get into yourself, " he retorts with no small amount of innuendo.

Immediately she wishes they'd done this sooner. He's... gorgeous. It isn't so much that she thought he wouldn't be, but his anatomy is every bit as colorful as the rest of him and that is a surprise. His length blooms from its internal sheath, a strong and gently ridged gradient of red and purple, nearly glowing in contrast against his green scales.

"Nice," she breathes, reaching for him. "Sorry if I don't have any pretty words to explain how much I want to put this beautiful thing in my mouth." Then she has a thought. "Do you have any fancy words for 'dick?'"

He puffs out an amused laugh and cracks a smile. "I seem to recall you saying something about religion and sex..."

"Humor me," she says, leaning in close enough to make his breath catch from the proximity of her mouth alone.

"Amo'ti," he says. "In your language-"

"Spear of Amonkira?"

He raises a brow ridge at her. "I'm impressed."

She gives his length an appreciative squeeze, testing the give of his ridges, humming at the surprising velvet texture of his skin.

"Maybe," she says slowly, matching the intensity of his gaze, "You can tell me how impressed you are after this." And without any further pretense, she engulfs him with her mouth.

In an instant, his head tips back, and she feels a familiar confidence returning. Men, she thinks, are hopelessly predictable in their pursuit of a hot mouth to fuck. And exactly as expected, Thane's hips are rolling gently forward. She slips her tongue around his length, watching the dancing iridescent scales along the shifting planes of his thighs and stomach.

In the back of her mind, she wonders if drell even do this as much as humans do. But it doesn't seem to matter when he sets his jaw in rapt concentration, visibly struggling to keep his eyes open and fixed on her. She doubles down, flattening her tongue against the underside of his shaft and hollowing her cheeks on the upstroke. His hands thread into her hair, sweeping it from where it falls in front of her eyes and gathering it around his fingers.

Tempted to tease him, she pulls back until the very tip of his length rests against her lips and sweeps her tongue across the head with a seductive smile. Their eyes lock and the sound he makes causes her core to fucking throb with wanting. One hand working him with each teasing swipe of her tongue, she slips lower, plants her lips on the base of his shaft to kiss him with an open mouth. He's shaking now, he's got to be close-

With a strangled gasp, his hips twitch away from her and she stills herself.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No," is his breathless response. "Quite the opposite. Come here."

She climbs astride him, pressing the length of their bodies together as his arms enfold her. "That good?"

"Join with me, Siha," he murmurs, his voice low and laced with need. "Find your release in mine."

An unexpected chill slips through her, tingling every nerve with an onset of understanding. She can hear it in the undertones of his voice: I want you. This was never a game. We will be whole, together.

He rocks against her just enough to grab her attention. The brush of his length between her legs is electrifying - his eyes searching, his body asking.

"I'm… uh…" Shepard bites her lip, processing the words slowly. "I haven't been with anyone since I... came back."

His fingers intertwine with hers for the umpteenth time that morning. It's a gesture she's rapidly coming to adore for all its patience and admiration. He kisses the back of her hand, voice low and steady. "You're in control, Commander."

There's something in his well-placed acknowledgement of her authority that placates her. Maybe it's the traces of venom in her system or maybe it's just him, but this man beneath her - this assassin, feared and infamous for the lives he's taken - swells her heart with trust. It's a new and curious thing, so different from the trust shared between brothers in arms. It's simple intimacy, and maybe… just maybe… something more.

Eyes never leaving his, she steadies herself and sinks down on him.

They join together with delicious slowness, his hips willfully unmoving beneath her as she takes him in. The pressure is exquisite, edging somewhere between too much and not enough, each ridge of his florid length finding its place within the scorching depths of her body. She's nearly sweating as their hips go flush, eyes tipping closed with the sweet pulse of their joining.

One painstaking second at a time, she adjusts. It doesn't hurt, but she's afraid it damn well might if she starts riding him like her lust-fueled mind is screaming to. She stifles her own desire, wills her body for control as she twists and flexes herself to banish the lingering anxiety about her reconstruction. It might even be embarrassing - wriggling against him like a damn virgin - but there's no judgement in his eyes. If anything, he's holding back his own pleasure, unmoving while he waits for her. Hands braced against his shoulders, she pushes up, finally bottoming out with a low, wanting moan. His length lodges against her deepest reaches. It feels fucking perfect.

"Fuck," she breathes with a cursory flick of her hips. "Holy shit, Thane."

Features painted with pleasured focus, he's stone still beneath her, hands patiently cradling her waist. Thane, her unlikely but disciplined lover, waiting for her next order.

Her voice is a whisper against his lips.

"Let's fucking do this."

And with that, he begins to move with her.

The groan in his throat vibrates through her entire body as she begins to ride him. Her fingers clasp around his shoulders, afraid to put too much pressure on his transplant scars. He grasps her hands in his own, holding her firm and letting her weight fall against him, hips rolling with her as she finds her rhythm.

His voice is a breathy sound somewhere beneath her. "Siha… don't hold back."

She gasps when the next thrust hits home.

"Shut up," she huffs, slanting her lips over his.

Despite their hours spent together on the battlefield, his strength is shocking. It's near impossible to tell who's riding who, his hands firmly on her hips, his body moving beneath her like the rolling ocean, all muscle and sinuous control. Either sex is way better than she remembers, or he's just that good. He ripples in and out of her depths, each of his gentle ridges strumming her like a harp, sweat rolling down the back of her neck.

His venom is already refreshing its hold on her mind when she breaks their kiss for breath. There's a kind of weightlessness to the high - she floats up, baring herself to his wandering hands. They slide against the plane of her stomach, cupping her breasts, plucking teasingly at her nipples. It's enough to make her cry out, heedless to the rest of the world, grinding on him for all she's worth. She feels the hot coil of release building within her, sensations concentrated in every point of contact. The texture of his scales against her inner thighs, his teasing fingertips on her breasts… his burning length buried within her, filling her to completion like no other.

In the throes of his venom, her cabin disintegrates, and there beneath an endless veil of stars, they are one - chasing release in the arms of the other. Words can't describe this perfect headspace. Later, all she'll be able to say is how he feels so good, wishing she could borrow his eidetic memory if only for these few perfect, fleeting moments, to revisit at her behest.

She slips one hand down to massage her clit and pitches her head back in a gasp, walls clenching involuntarily around his length, drawing a low rasp of pleasure from his beautiful, perfect mouth. Their voices are a litany of breathless sounds, a chorus of shared ecstasy - the desperate succession of skin meeting scales, the trilling of his ruby throat and the expletives that fall from her parted lips. She's close - unbelievably close - and damn near unwilling to finish if it means this moment will end, a rare second climax bearing down on her as she folds against him. Even with her hand trapped between their bodies, the sweet pebbled friction of his scales threatens to push her over the edge whether she's ready or not.

She releases with a scream, his name barely intelligible in a strangled half-sobbed cry of bliss that can't be silenced even as she buries her face in his shoulder. Thane's strong arms wind around her waist, holding her as he drives into the silken, pulsing clench of her heat with abandon. The sound of him illuminates the darkness behind her closed eyes as he spends himself within her and she can feel it - a glittering tingle of sensation radiating between her legs, up her spine and blooming into a full scale high.

And then she sags against his chest, heaving breaths in tandem with him, unable to give two tenths of a shit about her hand going numb between them.

"Thane..." She whispers. "Thane, holy shit."

"Are you hurt?"

"...No. I feel... tingly. It's good. It's so… just, good. Holy shit." Her head lolls against his shoulder. She won't open her eyes - not yet. Whatever's going on out there beyond his embrace - for once, it's not her problem. She feels over-relaxed, tinged with unreality. Like a dream. When had she gotten so damn high? If they'd barely -

...Oh, she realizes.

Drell toxin. Inside her.

Thane hums in contentment, his familiar alien hands soothing through her hair. She wonders if he feels just as sated as she does.

"Tell me it was good for you too," she whispers softly against his aural ridge.

"Siha," his voice is quiet, as if murmuring a secret, "It feels unfair to tell you how many times I will revisit this memory."

"I'll allow it, if you tell me we can do this again."

"As if you even need to ask," he chuckles breathlessly. "Yes, I’d like that."

"I don't think I've ever been fucked like that. I’m not sure I’ll be able to walk straight.”

“Not the word I would use, but I’m glad to hear I’ve pleased you.”

She feels his mouth move in a smile and takes a strong inward breath, raising her head to look at him. She can see her own silhouette in his fathomless dark eyes.

"Say it," she demands.

His brows - those gorgeous, expressive, glittering emerald brows - raise in curiosity. It must be the venom making him so vibrant.

"Pardon?"

Shepard extends one finger to gently prod his chest. "Say 'fuck.'"

He laughs beneath her and it feels like her whole body is bouncing, joining him in his mirth.

That laughter reaches his eyes and his expression softens. "I think perhaps we've overindulged. I didn't expect you'd be so heavily affected."

Her eyes widen in mock incredulity. "Overindulged? Don't you dare tell me that was too much for you."

A viridian palm settles against her cheek, his lips curled in a soft smile so rare it seems like a gift. "What I mean to say is it may have been too much for you, Siha."

She pauses, pushes herself up on shaky arms and sits back on his thighs. He's softening within her, and the retreat of him leaves a trail inside her that feels... not exactly, but... Sort of like someone stuck a breath mint where it doesn't belong. Shepard smiles inwardly. It feels kind of great.

"I'm Commander Shepard," she intones, setting her hands on her hips in a dramatic display of confidence. "I can handle getting dicked down by the most deadly lizard in the galaxy."

Thane is damn near grinning now. “My apologies, Commander. I will think twice before underestimating your abilities in the future.”

"I'm not moving until I hear you say 'fuck.'" She retorts, arms crossed.

"You're wrong, if you assume I want you anywhere but right here."

He reaches for her arms, trailing down her to her wrists to clasp her hands. Above him, she watches as though entranced, the dim light of her cabin blurring the edges of her vision and bringing the slow intertwining of their fingers into crisp focus. For all their differences, they fit together so beautifully. Her heart feels full.

"Thane..."

Their eyes meet as he kisses her fingertips.

"Fuck you, Siha."

#zet writes things #thane krios #shrios #spiritual shrios summer #fshrios #o boy please dont judge me too hard cause ive never worked on a fic so hard in my life and i have no idea what i'm doing

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sidhelives · 2 years

Text

I posted 453 times in 2021

100 posts created (22%)

353 posts reblogged (78%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 3.5 posts.

I added 331 tags in 2021

#fanfiction - 85 posts

#dragon age - 80 posts

#mass effect - 33 posts

#dragon age inquisition - 27 posts

#solas - 25 posts

#dragon age 2 - 22 posts

#skyrim - 18 posts

#wip wednesday - 15 posts

#cicero - 13 posts

#thane krios - 13 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#god imagine though waking up in 50k years and you’re on a ship full of talking dogs and one of them can’t stop asking you about democracy

My Top Posts in 2021

The lovely @kittynomsdeplume tagged me because she lives in THE FUTURE and turns out that time is relative and who cares that it's Saturday in the states. YOU'RE NOT MY DAD.

Ahem.

So I'm still working on this blasted chapter of Listen Closely, my CiceroxListener fic. It's getting close to being done but ME:LE might delay it's completion 😅 (oops sorrynotsorry)

Anyway, here's some mad jester:

She cocked an eyebrow. "You can keep a secret, though, can't you, Keeper?"

A shiver tickled down Cicero's spine, like her velvet voice had slipped into the back of his collar. "To the grave," he cooed, voice low, leaning towards her.

She smirked and mirrored his posture. "You can share them with me. I'm a very good, Listener."

Cicero's back stiffened, his grin freezing in place.

The tempo of the music has changed. New steps in the dance. Best find your footing fast, Fool.

That's more than six sentences but I think I already mentioned that YOU'RE NOT MY DAD.

Tagging: @hezjena2023 @piecesofsolaswriting @the-cryptographer @beaubartley @yourstrulycommandershepard

18 notes • Posted 2021-05-16 01:14:47 GMT

19 notes • Posted 2021-03-03 01:05:08 GMT

@kittynomsdeplume and @hezjena2023 tagged me. Love them.

I'm terrible at cutting out six sentences so here is something near it.

Since IDA chapter three needs some major work and is not ready for any form of public consumption, instead have a bit of Listen Closely chapter seven, featuring a very special guest:

Truthfully, it had not all been for show. The Night Mother trusted Cicero absolutely, her esteem for the acolyte second only to that for Sithis himself. Diem herself did not hold such an honor. She was a chess move, a risk, and the Night Mother patiently waited and watched to see if she would prove to be a profitable gamble. Her position could only be improved by gaining the confidence of The Keeper.

"You are preoccupied, my Listener." The phantom behind her spoke, it's voice like gravel.

She spared it a look. Diem had read enough of their history to know and respect who it had once been. Lucien and his wisdom had been wasted on Astrid, the blithering fool.

"I was thinking about Cicero," she told him honestly. Who would he tell? Sithis?

"Ah yes," Lucien mused. "The erratic Keeper. Though not as erratic as he postures."

Tagging: @piecesofsolaswriting @the-cryptographer @enby-hawke @yourstrulycommandershepard

21 notes • Posted 2021-06-13 17:15:20 GMT

Tagged by @crown-laurel

Rules: Share your lock screen, last song you listened to, and the last pic you have saved on your phone.

Tagging: @fiannans @the-cryptographer @piecesofsolaswriting @beaubartley @hezjena2023

25 notes • Posted 2021-06-27 21:11:14 GMT

Hidey-ho everybody!

So things have been kind of quiet around here lately writing wise and it's because I was busy writing sneaky sneaky porn for the @dasmutquisition! Now that names have been revealed I can finally share with you all the things I have created! I had a lot of fun with that writing three different pairings I had never messed around with before!

Note: All works below are rated E and tagged. Please note the tags before reading (and let me know if I missed any important tags! Turns out I'm terrible at this game!)

Care to Dance? for @adoxyinherear

Paring: Varric/Casssndra

A smug chuckle announced Varric's presence on the balcony. Cassandra rolled her eyes and straightened up, turning to look at him over one shoulder. "What?"

"Just you," he answered with a shrug. "You can take down dragons without breaking a sweat, but a room full of silk draped Orlesians and you're hiding in the wings."

"I am not hiding," she snapped, a touch too defensive.

He chuckled again and came to stand beside her. "Sure you're not, Seeker. You only came out here so the garden could get a sample of your radiance. Understandable, there is enough of it to go around."

Cassandra scoffed. "That line would sound better on paper."

"You're right. I should write it down. Maybe I can work it into the next Swords and Shields chapter."

After the events of Halamshiral, Cassandra is worn out and in need of some TLC, which Varric is happy to provide, after he gives her a little grief.

Clandestine Operation for @barbex

Pairing: Solas/Merrill

No one raised an eye as she entered the inn and returned to her room which was wreathed in the darkness of night. As she stepped into the gloom, the door suddenly slammed shut behind her, and she felt the cold steel of a blade pressed to the soft skin of her neck. Merrill went completely still, barely daring to breathe, lest her throat press too hard against the razor edge.

" Nuvenas mana helanin, dirth’bellasa na ." The whisper came from just behind her ear, more breath than voice, too low to be identified.

" Ar-melana dirthavaren. Revas vir-anaris ." She supplied the passphrase immediately, breathlessly, still too anxious to take breath.

" Amae Vhenan. " The relief in his voice was palpable, and the blade at her neck disappeared.

Post-Trespasser. The Inquisition, in an effort to learn more of Fen'Harel's plans and movements, placed one of their own in the wolf's jaws, not knowing she was already in his heart.

Blackhawke Down for @KittyNomsDePlume (@kndp)

Pairing: Blackwall/f!Hawke

"Don't believe we've been introduced, Miss…?

Marian smirked. "Marian Hawke. Champion of Kirkwall."

Blackwall choked on his ale and hastily dragged a sleeve across his beard. "Begging your pardon, Champion."

She waved off his reaction. "Call me Marian, or Hawke if you prefer, everyone else seems to."

"Alright… Hawke," he assented diffidently. "It's truly an honor to meet you."

"Oh, I assure you the pleasure is mine ." Marian smirked, looking him up and down.

He chuckled. "Said like a woman who's never had the pleasure." He took a drink and Marian found her eyes drawn to the small droplets of ale that clung to his beard. She had a sudden flash of desire to lap them up like nectar before his sleeve wiped them away and he cleared his throat. "So, what brings you to Skyhold?"

"Visiting an old friend. Though I've found I've developed a keen interest in making new ones," she offered suggestively, curling her lips into a haughty smirk.

Blackwall nodded obliviously. "There's plenty of good folks about the Inquisition. Certainly a lot who would make for fine fellows."

Marian ran her tongue over her bottom lip, swallowing her exasperation. "I was more interested in bed fellows, and I already have a candidate in mind." She raised a single eyebrow, all attempts at subtlety abandoned.

Marian has arrived at Skyhold and finds herself longing fo some companionship.

Bearded companionship.

29 notes • Posted 2021-03-15 18:20:25 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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zet-sway-kahje · 3 years

Text

Standard Maintenance

AO3 Link - Safe for Work

I just really wanted to write Shep thirsting after Thane while watching him clean his gun, but the moment kind of got away from me. I don't know anything about guns and I haven't written /anything/ since 2014 so I'm very rusty. Be gentle with me pls ಠ‿ಠ

Was originally going to try to pidgeonhole this into the spiritual shrios summer prompts challenge from Rosenkow but it felt like cheating cause there’s nothing spiritual about this lol but I have plans for those prompts too if I can get my shit together

She had figured Thane would find Zaeed repulsive given his crudeness, but perhaps there was something about contract killing that made him relatable. The three of them were wrapping up a mission on a particular terminus backwater - it had gone surprisingly well. The team was in good spirits, trading banter and headshot counts down their comms. The gangs they assaulted were woefully less equipped than their informants had suspected, and those who resisted were easy pickings.

"That's a big fuckoff rifle you have, Krios." Zaeed said as the three of them disembarked the shuttle and loaded into the elevator. He jammed the button for the cargo hold with his elbow. "What kind of recoil damper you have on that thing?"

"It was a custom order. Government contracting has its advantages," Thane said casually. The pair stepped off as the doors hissed open. "If you would like, I'd be happy to show you. As it happens, I had planned on servicing my equipment tonight." Thane held out an arm to stop the elevator from closing, tilting his gaze toward her. "Shepard?"

Shepard shook her head, already fussing with the toggles on her hardsuit. "You boys go on, I'm gonna wash up."

He gave a nod of acknowledgement and the lift continued to her cabin.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Thane. Shepard didn't know what she expected when she'd read his dossier but it wasn't this. Their conversations had become more frequent and he had been surprisingly open with her and the crew - there was something about the ease with which he communicated, effortlessly setting and breaking down boundaries through tone and choice of words alone. What had started with genuine curiosity had turned into healthy respect and now... whatever this was. Something resembling a crush.

She heaved a sigh, shedding the rest of her hardsuit. She tried not to appear too eager but the truth was he just about lived rent-free in her mind most nights. His voice and cautious smile visited her behind closed eyes. Right now, she was thinking heavily about his casual offer for her to join him and Zaeed for... 'servicing their equipment.' The more primitive parts of her mind interpreted this almost as a proposition when it absolutely wasn't. She had to admit it by now - she wanted any excuse to be near him, alone or not.

Tempering her expectations, she quickly showered, threw on a hoodie and cargo pants, and fucked off for some 'standard maintenance' in the cargo hold.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The two had their guns spread out across tables and crates when she arrived, and they appeared to be deep in conversation.

"Glad you could join us, Shep," Zaeed said as she sat down cross legged on a crate by the hull. "Krios was just telling me about the fucking Hanar firearms market. Can you believe this? Those prude jellyfish make some nice guns."

Thane chuckled, removing the sights from his rifle. "The Hanar are far from prude. Have you ever been to Kahje?"

"Can't say that I have," Zaeed mused. "Boarded a transport cruiser headed there once. Only, we never made it there on account of I was hired to hijack it."

Thane glanced up from his work, stopping to stare at Zaeed with a gaze that could have put holes through the hull. "Were you, now?"

"Made an unscheduled stop at a transport station, told the everyone the ship was unfit to fly, and disembarked them." Zaeed paused with a telling grin. "And then we killed fucking the slavers in the hold. Got paid double if the passengers stayed alive."

The drell's body physically relaxed. "Slavers headed to Kahje." A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Yes, my encounters with EKL Group ended with similar bloodshed."

"That's the name! Bunch of soggy cunts. It was pretty disappointing when they didn't put up much of a fight, but I'll never say no to easy money."

Thane simply hummed his approval of the merc's boast as Zaeed launched into another tale of his headhunting exploits. Shepard listened as she dismantled her pistol, not wanting to interrupt their conversation. Sometimes Zaeed really liked to hear himself talk - and that was fine by her. It made it less awkward for everyone when she couldn't take her eyes off Thane, who was presently uncoupling the handle and stock from his gun.

The handle had a custom grip that looked specifically made for drell hands. Thane's hands. She fixated on them. Large palms and long fingers, about the same size as any human man's hands, but with two fused digits in the center. She took stock of how he handled his rifle - having freed the barrel, he was cleaning it with a lightly oiled rag, dragging back and forth along the hollow tube. The gesture was almost suggestive - just a small mental leap to take it from cleaning his gun to polishing his -

She sucked in a breath and tried to focus on her weapon. Dumbly, she had put the compression release on backwards and now it was mildly jammed. She triple checked that the safety was on and went to work freeing it as Zaeed continued with his current tale about how he'd shot a cartel drug lord between the balls from 800m - and her mind wandered back to Thane. The drell was presently - almost indecently - using one finger to push the cleaning rag inside one end of his suppressor in a way that made heat pool between her thighs.

Hungrily, she watched his biceps tighten and relax as he twisted the suppressor back on to the barrel and set the assembly down on the table. The fantasy rose unbidden into her mind - his strong arms pushing her back on to that very table, dragging the zipper of his jumpsuit down to reveal the viridian expanse of his torso, peeling it back and letting it hang loosely over his hips and that positively luscious ass. Shepard bit her lip and tore her eyes away, the mental image of the deep grooves of muscle at his hips crystalizing in her mind. She burned for him - wanted to know what his mouth tasted like, how his palms would feel gliding over her body, how good it would feel when he...

"Shepard!" Zaeed's raspy voice jolted her back to the present.

She was so distracted she hadn't even noticed Thane had finished disassembling his rifle and excused himself to the crew deck for the moment. His gun sat in an organized arrangement of parts and pieces, a sure sign he would return shortly.

"- yeah?" She started, her voice giving away her surprise. Zaeed chuckled and she knew she had been caught. "Sorry, just a lot on my mind."

"A lot on your mind? You look like you're about to die of thirst and he's the only one that'll-" he paused just long enough to make his point understood, "-fill you up." He gloated over his crude observation.

Shepard laughed to swallow her embarrassment and shook her head. "Aren't you perceptive."

Zaeed whistled. "You're a brave woman, Shepard. I heard kissing drell is like licking a fucking toad - people say it'll get you high off your ass."

Her face colored at his words but she said nothing. She'd heard this too and had been trying not to think about how he would taste, sharing his breath, riding the high while she rode him.

"What are you gonna do if your Cerberus friends have a problem with you fraternizing?"

"Fuck Cerberus," she said flatly, jamming the last pieces of her pistol back together.

"I think you mean Fuck Thane Krios," he cackled.

Suddenly the door hissed open and Thane strode inside. Before Zaeed could say another word, she quickly holstered her gun and made for the door. "Good talk, gotta go. Catch you later," she huffed, leaving Thane to raise an eyebrow at her sudden departure.

As she boarded the elevator she heard him shout with a laugh - "Good luck with that frog in your throat, Shepard!"

She could feel Thane's eyes on her. Yeah, she was gonna have some explaining to do later.

#shrios #thane krios #zet writes things #fanfiction #thane #fshrios

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aevallare · 3 years

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fanfic tag game <3

ah @zet-sway thanks a bundle!! anybody who wants to join in, consider yourselves tagged! 320,301! cheesy pleasy that’s wild.

How many works do you have on AO3?

13 of varying lengths!

What’s your total AO3 word count?

320,301! cheesy pleasy that’s wild.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

a sycophantic, prophetic, socratic junkie wannabe - a fallout 4, deacon/female sole survivor long-fic

our wide eyes burn blind - a dragon age, krem/female mage trevelyan long(ish)-fic

lionhearted - a mass effect, thane krios/female shepard long-fic

black magic on the holy drive - a fallout 4, deacon/female sole survivor mini-series

Hurt - an until dawn, samjosh one-shot

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i REALLY try hard to even though i am not always successful. i appreciate them so much and i want people to know how much they mean to me.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

treason is a deacon/female sole survivor one-shot where the sole survivor betrays him and the railroad and joins the institute. i think i also find it sadder because it’s the same main character as features in my fallout 4 longfic.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

most of my fics have happy endings! the one that’s outright the happiest is a sycophantic, prophetic, socratic junkie wannabe. my good guys win and nobody dies :)

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the strangest one you’ve written?

no,i don’t.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

i don’t know if i’d call it outright hate, but i very recently had someone extremely unhappy about the way i write garrus (which, to their credit, is pretty different from most of fandom at large). what can i say? i like him a lot more like a snarky little brother than most people i guess.

other than that, it’s been a long time since i’ve gotten much in the way of unkind feedback.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

most of my fics have an... erotic element. the long-fics, anyway.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not as far as I know!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! someone unbelievably kind translated my until dawn fic, Hurt, into russian! the translation is here.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

in high school, my best friend and i used to e-mail a fic back and forth! we wrote quite a chunk of fic for the prince of tennis and fullmetal alchemist fandoms ^^; if you see this, lissa, i miss those days! <3

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

it’s tough for me to pick; i’m a little fickle and i jump around too often to ever be a BNF! it’s between deacon/female sole survivor and shrios, simply because those are the worlds i’ve probably lived in the most.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

i actually don’t think i have one! i finish almost everything i start (or at least everything that makes its way online).

What are your writing strengths?

god if i ain’t the man at writing dialogue. i feel like i have a real strength for knowing the ins and outs of a character and bringing them to life. in fact, i would go so far as to say that a surefire way to make me write fic is to introduce a character with great potential that’s either spoiled or wasted (deacon and thane are my obvious examples, but krem, kal’reegar, james vega, irikah, ashley williams, and sera are others)

What are your writing weaknesses?

what the fuck is a plot. i’m out here writing novelizations of media. plot is, bar none, my greatest weakness, even though i think i’ve grown lightyears with it recently.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i did this frequently in a sycophantic, prophetic, socratic junkie wannabe; my sole survivor was a dane recently transplanted to the US before the bombs dropped, and it was a lot of fun to write her fish-out-of-water story. i probably wouldn’t do it for any language i don’t speak, because it has a real potential to break bad if you come to have a reader who does speak that language.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Naruto. haaaaaaaaaaaaa :’)

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

literally impossible question. as far as the best product i’ve ever made, it’s probably lionhearted (even though it’s not done yet). it’s by far my most mature (as in not immature) fic.

the true, honest answer though is probably that i’m proudest of the first fic i ever published, which was a death note one-shot when i was fourteen. that was the first time i was ever brave enough to share something i wrote with strangers, and i think THAT is what i’m really proudest of. even now i get butterflies when i post. that teenager was courageous as hell.

#tag game #thanks zet <3 #these were a lot of fun

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morkofday · 3 years

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thank you once again @yibobibo for tagging me ♥ even if, like I said, this is pure torture. I have so many sons that I’ve given up on counting them sigh but here goes.

favourite male fictional characters.

I took it that this meant ten so am going with that (tho am not gonna try and put them into order). am also sticking to all the characters I loved this year. and gonna ramble and add gifs so cutting it here.

1. Liu Sang

The Lost Tomb Reboot/Reunion: The Sound of The Providence

I have so much love for this boy it’s not even healthy. it’s a bit funny tho bc once I started tltr, I didn’t really like him and almost forgot about him as the first season ended. he just felt so annoying and bitter in what I saw him, even if I did get that he had a Tragic BackstoryTM (I felt for him but well. tltr really made him hard to like at first). but then they brought him back in the second season with his sad puppy eyes and inability to handle his thoughts on wu xie and being all touch-starved and pitiful and whatnot and baam, I had the adoption papers ready. he’s wonderful and so strong and so smart and amazing. and liu chang as his actor has been wonderful (and he’s so pretty my god, have you seen him??)

2. Shen Wei

Guardian

never did I expect to just. fall into this hole after a year? I remember what a mess I was when I first watched guardian over a year ago, right after finishing the untamed. I was in shambles even as I knew how it would end. and now I’ve done this all again while also reading the novel and. my love for shen wei, especially bc it’s zhu yilong acting as shen wei? astronomical. I want to write poetry about him and his stupid responsibilities that he chooses to carry silently and his devotion to zhao yunlan and his love for his ppl and his didi and. I hope that one day I manage to write weilan bc I have this one idea and you can come pry it from my cold, dead fingers if it doesn’t get out there (am also super happy about the edit I made bc my god does he deserve at least that)

3. Cloud Strife

Final Fantasy VII

ok so stepping into the video games territory now. I was waiting for the remake like crazy and it was everything to me once the quarantine hit during spring. the game is so beautiful and I felt like I looked at this gorgeous boy once and was ready to give him my heart (tbh am quite sure he owned my heart before I even learned to know him). he is tragic in so many ways (I’ve only scratched the surface of all of his pain I know) and I wish I could just. hug him a lot. he is kind and cares very deeply even if he hates to show it and I love it how remake showed him also just being a human disaster (some of his scenes are just. peak comedy). I would kill for his smile (I have already cried for it a dozen)

4. Geralt of Rivia

The Witcher (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt)

if there’s one grumpy, brickwall of a man I love, it’s geralt. I affectionately call him “papa wolf” while playing witcher 3 and his voice in it does things to me (I am just so fond of him ok, begone you dirty fuckers). I got introduced to him through the books and adored him in them bc he is so prickly and sarcastic and still so full of love even if he will never admit to it. he is the father figure I wish I could have in real life. (and yes, I’ve seen the tv series (or at least a couple of the first episodes) and it looks stunning but. this is my version of geralt and that’s the hill I will die on)

5. Xiaoge

Zhang Qiling, Daomu Biji (The Lost Tomb 2)

(wow finding a gif for him was a pain, apparently I gotta learn how to gif or?) ah, my dear boy who I’ve ended up just calling xiaoge bc he seems to prefer it over his real name/title/whatever zhang qiling really is. I got introduced to him through tltr where we really didn’t get to know that much about him bc he was just... there. huang junjie was absolutely stunning tho and his soft smiles made me super fond, but only in the lost tomb 2 did I really fall in love with xiaoge as a character. I was surprised tbh bc I didn’t expect it to be this drama? I had so many doubts about the cast in tlt2 but they all delivered! and I think cheng yi’s xiaoge is now my favorite bc he somehow captured that softness and the pain of him? (and we do not talk about that buxun storyline tyvm) tho now that ultimate note is on the way, I gotta say that xiao yuliang does a wonderful job as xiaoge too!

6. Wu Xie

Daomu Biji (Ultimate Note)

(sorry we have to go with a pingxie gif now but maybe it’s only fitting) tbh it’s hard to choose my favorite version of wu xie. I think all of the actors for him have done amazing job showing wu xie in different parts of his life (all of them are very distinct but still feel like the same person) but currently zheng shunxi takes the lead. I really wanted to put the reboot version of him here (bc I love that mature, relaxed and somehow very soft version of him and the angst is phenomenal and the thoughts he has about death... yeah) but I already have zhu yilong’s face here once so :’D wu xie is just one of those characters you cannot not like. he is so strong, so kind, so stubborn, so wonderfully stupid sometimes and in need of careful protection. I also adore it how smart he is and I could listen to him spew history facts for 10 hours straight (even if it was in a tomb full of blood zombies) ♥

7. Jiang Cheng

Jiang Wanyin, The Untamed

my darling boy! my beautiful angry grape! I love him beyond words. I love him in all of his raging, misunderstood, stupid, sassy, constipated, abused, tragic, bitter, big hearted glory. I could write novels about him (and I did and am still writing oh boy) and his love for ppl and his inability to show that love and his loneliness and his issues. I could also write another novel for all of his outfits etc. bc damn, what a fashion king. he is just so great. he owns my soul. he deserves happiness and in this essay I will

8. Isana Yashiro

Adolf K. Weismann, K Project

I rewatched k project this spring bc a) it’s one of my favorite animes ever (it just looks stunning with all the colors) and b) I love yashiro to bits. I remember falling in love with him when I first watched k project many years ago bc he was just so kind and bright. this time though, I ended up seeing another side of him and my god did I cry. he is... so sweet. he cares for others so deeply and is ready to sacrifice so much for them and his love for his two clansmen... yeah. I think I finally saw the tragedy of him too, all the pain and loneliness and insecurity he decides to hide behind his smile and obnoxious personality. he reminded me a lot of myself and watching him made my heart bleed in a good way

9. Qi Tiezui

Ba Ye, The Mystic Nine

(wow am going to riot for the lack of all the gifs hhh) yes, we’re continuing with the dmbj universe that sucked me in big time this year. the drama of the mystic nine wasn’t probably that earth shattering for me as it somehow got boring more than once but I did love ba ye to bits. he was just... so nice? I got it that he was somehow this “comedic relief” in the drama with all of his funny scenes and ridiculous mannerisms but I could see the brilliance of him. he is warm and smart and kind of a romantic too and he cares for all of his friends so deeply? it was also sweet how protective of him his two zhangs were (does that run in the family? the tendency to imprint into one smart but disastrous man and keep him safe? maybe) and I really hope I knew more about him bc he seemed to have a lot of knowledge and a lot of impact to ppl’s lives (I yelled when they mentioned him in ultimate note, I miss him ;;)

10. Dorian Pavus

Dragon Age Inquisition

(yes I’ve been replaying DA:I this year, this counts!) another darling boy! my lovely sass master son! I have so much love for him and his story in DA:I. he is my favorite companion (and his romance is my favorite too, probably obvious in the way am currently romancing him for the third time) and he has given me a lot of strength. the way he stands up against his father, how he’s ready to reform his homeland instead of walking away, how he’s so caring for those he sees struggling... it’s very warming and I feel like I’m safe with him. it feels a bit silly to say that but he really is that comfort character I will seek out when I just want to know am doing fine :’) (and I am so excited to see him again in DA4! probably?)

+ 11. Li Cu

Tomb of the Sea

yes I cheated a bit (with my own rules lol) to fit li cu here. I didn’t really expect to like him or tomb of the sea as much as I did once I started it? I’ve seen leo wu elsewhere before this (battle through the heavens, nirvana in fire) and his face always makes me think about a sad puppy so maybe I just grew fond over li cu instantly bc he was... so hurt? the first episode really slaps you in the face with all of it, showing him being abused, wounded, kidnapped, tortured, used and then just very, very scared and broken. he continues being that throughout the whole drama and I feel like tomb of the sea (or sand sea or sha hai idk) is the darkest and angstiest story in the dmbj universe. I know it deserves to be bc this is a dark time for wu xie but... my darling li cu. I wish him only happiness ;; he was so strong and smart and wonderful in this and it was just so amazing to watch him grow and find his own place in the world just bc he did something himself (even when he got dragged into all of this bc of wu xie) also I support the wu xie adopts li cu -agenda

Honorary mentions:

Zhang Rishan, Xie Yuchen and Hei Xiazi from DMBJ universe. The Twin Jades of Gusu and Ouyang Zizhen from The Untamed. The Iron Bull and Fenris from Dragon Age games. Thane Krios, Kaidan Alenko and Jaal from Mass Effect games. The whole lot of Assassin’s Creed protagonists (especially Ezio Auditore and Shay Cormac). Adam Parrish and Ronan Lynch from The Raven Cycle. Neil Josten from All For The Game. Eduon and March from The Smoke Thieves. Qiling from L.O.R.D. Critical World. Luo Fei from Detective L (played by Bai Yu).

well, with this I can really see that I have a thing for those who are tragic :’D I have a thing for grumpy, prickly and antisocial guys or those who hide their pain behind a smile. maybe it’s bc I am somehow both, even if I can’t show my anger or be mean to others and even if I feel like my smile never sticks either. I just find kinship in all of the characters who are on this list. and I feel like I aspire to be as strong and as kind and as loving despite all the pain I’ve been put through.

thank you, this was so much fun! and sorry I made this so long and so complicated ^^’ but well, there are just way too many male characters I love haha

at the end I want to tag @i-am-just-a-kiddo @ashenwren @kholran @tiesanjiao @lan-xichens @aheartfullofjolllly @manhasetardis and @lzswy ♥ feel free to do this in your own way or not at all! and thank you if you managed to read through my rambling :��D

#tag game #wow this was something #i've been waiting for one #bc there is so much love in me #and this year i've discovered so many #new characters to just gush over #about me #random #edit: added a few characters #and tagged some more ppl sorry #also mobile tumblr wouldnt let me edit so lol

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shadoedseptmbr · 4 years

Text

For Work In Progress Wednesday:

I am fooling around with a framing device for a few ME2-pre ME3 sketch fics I’ve been piling up but it’s still rough. Wouldn’t mind a little feedback from the peanut gallery.

Case Files

Not immediately.

Major Alenko absolutely does not run to the SPECTRE office with his new authorizations to view files he honestly has no business seeing.

The second Human SPECTRE nods and smiles and shakes hands during the small party the Council insists upon. He does an interview with a shockingly meek Al-Jilani. He has a cup of tea with the drell, Tannor Nuara, though he’s pretty sure that’s not his name and checks in with Dr. Michel to remind her to keep him updated on the hospital’s needs.It’s no problem, he assures her. He used up enough of the resources, himself.

Kaidan goes to his quarters and changes into his fatigues and opens a beer he probably shouldn’t. He sends another message to his mother and makes a few replies to friends. He starts in on the endless pile of paperwork. He considers dinner, a shower, hitting the training facility. He drinks his beer.

An hour after that, he’s in the elevator, in the hallway, avoiding an ambassador’s aide.

It’s probably a violation of privacy. It’s absolutely taking advantage of privileged information. But he needs a few answers, if he’s ever going to sleep at night without wondering if he did the right thing.

Her file is...staggeringly long. He scans a few others, for comparison. His is almost nothing but his BaAt file, his service record, and the three debrief interviews he did after Alchera. After Horizon. After Earth and Mars. Others are thicker and thinner. Saren’s is heavily redacted even with Kaidan’s authorizations and the affirmation of the Reapers and ends with “Status: Revoked. Terminated.”

Shepard’s starts with a few files from an orphanage that he just glances through, most of which are nothing but “Fostered: Date. Returned: not much later.” There’s one black and white holoscan of a little girl with tight braids, freckles, big eyes and a gap tooth grin. It’s labeled: Eden Magdalene Shepard

No other record found matching available data. Possible id not confirmed.

But it’s her. He can see the woman in those clear, direct eyes.

There’s a stack of arrests for an Ace Shepard

Possible alias. Matches available data. Records sealed for age

And one mugshot. Definitely Aedan Shepard, the scar under her eye still fresh and stark. Red hair, though unnaturally crayon bright, half shaved and shaggy on the other. Those eyes lined in red, staring at the camera like murder from a pale, bone thin face. Black lipstick smeared across her sneer. One arm long and dangling, the other in a cast, strapped to her side. A sketchy green tattoo on her neck in the side view of a knife, a slash of purple make up stark across a nose too big for her pixie face. No age listed but she can’t be 14 by the date.

An Academy admissions form for Aedan Shepard with an accompanying note from one Commander Anderson that he skims to land on a final line. “I know she isn’t what you usually look for. She’s going to need some remedial work. Trust me on this one, Mira.”

Her Academy file shows grades gradually improving to higher marks. Her physical improves faster, doctor notes indicating that between regular meals and gene mods she’s going to make the height/weight requirement by the end of her first year. Her marksmanship punts her into the stratosphere.

Another picture in familiar Academy togs. There’s his...there’s the Shepard he knew. No visible tats, Dark red hair, short but neat. Seven freckles across her leonine nose not quite hidden by regulation makeup. The scar is faded, but still raised. Eyes level and cool, mouth firm. Baby professional.

He knows her service record almost as well as his own.

There’s the one holonet picture from Elysium, Aedan in her black bikini and flip flops, dogtags flying, pistol steady, directing someone (a teenage girl, she told him later) to fill a hole in the defense. There’s the picture from a little later, chin high and firm in her dress uniform: an admiral pinning the Star of Terra to her chest. He can see Anderson leaning over to Hackett in the background.

There’s a cross reference to her N file.

Commendation after commendation. One flag for disrespect to a superior officer.

SPECTRE CANDIDATE

There’s the file on the Normandy SR1, the holo of her SPECTRE induction, and the Saren mission.

Her Alliance report on the mission, the letter to Ashley’s mother. A few interview files.

A debrief they’d called her to Arcturus to give. She’d shrugged it off as routine and they’d run to the Citadel for shore leave.

There’s the official Alchera report cross referenced with his. Joker’s. Chakwas’.

He slows down. There’s a termination flag that wasn’t removed.

Attached to that is an addendum from another SPECTRE, Tela Vasir, cross referenced with the Shadow Broker file three weeks after the Collector attack on the SR1.

Situation to be reviewed. Shepard and/or remains possibly recovered. Check all Cerberus contacts.

The next data is a bioscan from the security checkpoint on Zakera, two years and a few weeks after Shepard had been declared dead. An alert notice. Three grainy stills from the security chief’s office. Not quite clear enough to make out details beyond hair and height. And two figures in Cerberus gear behind her.

He’d just left the Citadel posting for Horizon the week before.

The next file is video only, fuzzy. Clearly from a planted device. Kaidan rubs his eyes before he hits play on grainy footage with biometric data rolling on the outside edge.

A red haired, slender, short figure in black and red N7 armor strides into Anderson’s Citadel office. She walks like Aedan, that rolling ship gait. She draws up short in front of his desk. He speaks, she answers, he speaks again. And he watches her whole body jerk as if she’s been shot.

All formality lost, her hands spread. She’s yelling and Anderson isn’t meeting her eyes as he replies. That square posture droops and hers matches.

She slaps a data drive on his desk, turns on her heel and marches to the door. The bug must be by the doorframe, Kaidan can see details now. She turns her head and there they are, the scars that shocked him, glowing along her jawline pulled open and raw by the awkward position. They look like they hurt. He almost misses the word she asks over her shoulder. “Kaidan?”

Anderson shakes his head and Kaidan can lip read well enough to get, “Classified.”

Her hand clenches on the doorframe. “Two years, Boss?”

“Yeah, kid.”

She jerks a nod, says something else as she turns to go. Her shoulders square before she walks through the sliding door. He catches a glimpse of white and black on a figure just outside. Anderson leans against his desk, head down.

A holo of a Normandy; the SR2. Flying Cerberus colors in the Citadel docking bay.

Biometrics confirmed. SPECTRE Status: Reinstated.

Kaidan closes the file and staggers back to the elevator.

00000

It’s a week of small potato missions before he can trust himself to reopen the file.

Every two weeks, there’s a data dump to Anderson/Hackett, copied and crossreferenced to SPECTRE files. About half include encrypted data that still hasn’t been decoded The Alliance version carries a note dating from nine months ago: Speculation: Code specific to Anderson/Shepard.

The dumps usually come from Illium, shunted through a source with an address he recognizes. Liara.

There’s a pile of data from Omega and then a list of files for her crew: Miranda Lawson. Jacob Taylor. Kasumi Goto (notations from Spectre Jondam Bau). Garrus. Mordin Solus. Zaeed Misoni. Urdnot Grunt. Justicar Samara. Jack. Tali. Thane Krios. He recognizes Tannor Nuara and shuts the file down.

Over a cup of tea in the bustle of Huerta’s lobby, Thane blinks but then smiles. “You were more observant than I expected, Spectre Alenko.”

“It wasn’t my business.”

“No. But I promised her I would look out for you and I clearly revealed more than I intended.”

“You promised Shepard?”

He nods. “You were still bedridden at the time. It seemed a reasonable precaution.”

Well, thanks, I guess.

“It was my privilege. She helped me save my son, once. I was glad to return the favor with her...friend.”

“Can you. Look, I don’t want to put you in a corner. I’m just trying to reconcile the Shepard I knew with what happened last year. Can you tell me...anything?”

“When I met her on Illium, I used her to distract a target.”

A target? You were there to kill someone?

You said you read my file?

You were an assassin.

Yes.

You used Shepard?

She was...a very good distraction. My target assumed Shepard was the assassin, tearing through her guard and the tower like fire through dry tinder. It allowed me to quietly get into position. Shepard got her information and I made my hit.

And Shepard hired you? It wasn’t that far out of character. Wrex came to mind.

We came to an agreement. I was not expecting to be able to work much longer and the Cerberus contract allowed me to set aside money for my son.

Right. How was it? On the ship.

Antagonistic. At first. There was a line drawn between the Cerberus crew and Shepard. It was crossed very rarely. She was. Not warm.

Unfriendly?

Angry. She drank more than I expect was good for her. She spoke rarely, to Garrus most of all. She put her armor on in the morning and we rarely saw her in anything else.

What changed?

We aided Tali, the quarian? Kaidan managed not to snap that he knew her.

Yes. We found her and Shepard made a visible effort to change, Kasumi asked a favor and they dealt with it. She came back...you’ve seen the scarring?

Yeah.

They were almost closed. They’d been healing, reopening, healing.

Garrus needed her help and while we were on the Citadel, she aided me with my son. He was...about to follow in my footsteps but without my training it was...she saved him. She helped me stop him. When she came back to the ship, she went up to speak with Joker and I heard her laughing. I had not. Before.

The drell went stiff before him, his dark eyes revealing stark pupils. “Eyes like ice frozen on the shore, she stands between Kolyat and the ambassador. She speaks with steady conviction and he listens. Eyes like the storms on a sea, she shadow steps between the turian and the bullet waiting for him. “He’s as good as dead, can’t you see that.” Garrus drops his rifle. Eyes like smoke, she laughs like rusty bells on a chain. Joker tells her he’s missed her.”

His eyes darken to see Kaidan before him, scanning him with an omnitool about to wave over a doctor. “Forgive me. Drell have...our memories are revealing. It seemed the best way to answer your question.”

“What just happened? No...nevermind. It got better then?”

“Yes. Until then...She was always a sniper, I assume? “

“Yeah, before I met her”.

“There is a...one has to put oneself in a certain state and a healthy being can slip in and out. She did not. Before that. She was just in the cold, stark place one must be in to pull the trigger. And then, the wind changed. It was Garrus and Tali, who made the most difference. Kasumi mentioned once that Shepard barely spoke before he came aboard, other than mission briefs. After. She would visit. It was…” Thane broke off in a coughing fit. “Forgive me, I need to…”

“No, I kept you too long. I”m sorry.”

Thane stood, his hand not quite clutching the chair for support. “I will...try to write down some things for you. If you’d like.”

“Only if you’re up to it. I got...I got the gist. Thank you.”

#sept writes #aedan shepard #kaidan alenko #thane krios #handwaves and punctuation mistakes

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citadelsushi · 4 years

Text

From the scrap pile.

Tagged by @pigeontheoneandonly @ljandersen @rpgwarrior4824 and possibly someone else I'm missing. Forgive me, it's been a minute since I've been on tumblr for anything more than mindless scrolling!

Thank you all for tagging me!

Here's something from a draft I may or may not ever finish. Set in ME2 after Shepard kills Toombs.

Steam rolls out behind Shepard as she steps out of the bathroom, spreads across the floor and surrounds her bare feet like she’s walking on a cloud. Water trickles down the small of her back, the ends of her hair tickling just above. There’s one improvement in which she can take joy for every twenty she hates about the SR-2; the private shower makes up for sixty.

A soft thud, barely audible over the sound of the bathroom doorway hissing shut. Silent, to an innocent ear. But Shepard hears and she whirls, alight with biotic glow that makes her hair crackle to life like Medusa’s snakes. A blue wave surges down her forearm and bathes her palm in it’s glow.

Directly in her line of fire, the assassin.

Shepard exhales and her biotics extinguish, like blowing out a candle. But the heat remains.

“Krios.”

The drell stands with his hands behind his back, a silhouette against a massive tank of water.

“Shepard,” his voice smooth yet throaty, like he’s speaking underwater, “my apologies. I did not intend to startle you.”

“And what did you intend?” She doesn’t have the energy to make her words bite as she wishes they would.

“We haven’t had a chance to speak since what transpired earlier.”

“It’s been an hour.” Now, her cutting tone is back.

“Ah, that it has.” Thane is unphased as he steps closer.

Krios had been on the Normandy less than 72 hours. She had no intention of his first mission with her being so fucking horrifying. But when she looked in his eyes, inhumanly round and dark, but not devoid of emotion, she found no judgement. Curiosity, yes, loads of it. Genuine curiosity and… something she couldn’t quite put her eye on, something she saw so rarely she could hardly put a word to it.

“And whatever you’re here for couldn’t wait?”

“I am not long for this world, Shepard. I no longer have the luxury of time.” He blinks, every inch of his body always poised for action though he tries to appear casual. “Given our current mission, you might find yourself in the same position.”

For the first time in weeks, Shepard laughs. And she continues to laugh as she thuds into her desk chair, pulls her towel tight around her chest.

“That sounds like a threat, Krios.”

“Threats are not my intention, Shepard.”

“Yeah, well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Again, Thane blinks.

“Human saying.” She explains.

Curiosity seeps into his voice. “Similar to the one you spoke to your friend before you shot him?”

The wound is too fresh, the memory of Toombs crumbling in her grip too close to the surface.

She prevents her chin from falling with the clench of her jaw. “Yeah,” she forces a harsh whisper, “similar.”

#mass effect #commander shepard #avory shepard #thane krios #sorry there's no keep reading!#my internet is too shitty to use a computer and format properly

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forlornmelody · 5 years

Text

Double the Trouble Chapter 6 -- Miss Communication

Rating: Explicit (other chapters are NSFW)

Ship: FemShep x Femshep Clone // Shenko, eventual OT3

AO3 Links: Chapter 1 // This Chapter

Summary: Shep had planned to spend another night alone. Instead she has a surprise visitor--one she had never expected to see again.Unapologetic consensual clone smut.

Note: Well, one year after the most recent chapter, I finally get around to updating this thing. Oops. This is a sequel to Spare Parts, but obviously you can read this without reading the other fic. I’ve spent the year developing the characters and their story arcs, so this smutty crack fic now has plot! Lemme know what you think.

What the hell are you doing here, Shepard? She stood in front of the door, boring holes into it with her gaze. Maybe if she stared long enough the hammering in her ears and chest would fade. So far no luck. Shepard needed to not panic. First step—control her breathing. Deep breath in; deep breath out. Her chest felt like lead. Second step—stay grounded. The door is green. There are six rows and six columns of rings in that grate. That would make—36 diamond…thingys. Yeah. We’ll call ‘em thingys. Just as her stomach slowed its churning, someone tapped her shoulder.

“You gonna say the password, bitch? Or are you going to just stand there all day?”

Shepard whipped around, grabbing him by the wrist. She didn’t waste time before bending it the wrong way. “Get your hands off me.” So much for keeping things under control.

“Hey! Let go.” He reached for his pistol.

Fat chance, big guy. Shepard took a breath, channeling her adrenaline towards her eezo nodes. Her eyes glowed, and she lashed out with just enough force to knock his pistol out of his hands. It barely moved. Shit.

___________________________________

“What would you like to talk about today, Shepard?” Her therapist leaned back in her chair, balancing a datapad on her lap.

“I need you to authorize a new biotic amplifier.”

“Mm. Are you ready for a new amplifier, Shepard?”

Narrowing her eyes, Shepard tried to keep her voice level. “I’ve been ready for months, Doctor.”

“Please, call me Susan.”

“Authorize the damn amp, Susan. We’ve talked through everything—“

“About your military service, yes. Your recent personal relationship with Major Kaidan Alenko, even. Your brief association with Thane Krios. But what about your childhood?”

“I dealt with that shit years ago. No need to bring it up.”

“Your insistence on avoiding the subject is telling, Shepard.”

_____________________________________________

Shepard stared down gun’s barrel, bracing herself as she heard the safety click. Maybe next time don’t pick a fight with only half your body working, dumbass.

“Your amp short out, freak?” The thug’s finger slid towards the trigger.

She held up her right hand. The left remained stubbornly at her side. “Must’ve left it at home.” Shepard put on her most winning smile. I’m so sorry, Kaidan.

BANG!

Shepard fell to the ground. The door slammed behind her, and Shepard caught herself with her right hand. She groaned as her wrist cranked under the full weight of her body. A twitch in her left arm.

“What the fuck is going on out here?” Jane shouted from over Shepard’s shoulder.

The thug dropped his pistol, backing off. “N-nothing Jane. I—we—”

“That’s Ms. Doe to you, asshole. Now get out of here before someone calls the cops.”

“Yes Ms—“

“I said out.”

The thug scrambled out of sight. Shepard looked up, half-expecting her to offer a hand. Of course, she had forgotten who she was dealing with. Jane glowered down at her, folding her arms. “What are you doing here?”

Grabbing onto the door, Shepard dragged herself up. “We need to talk.”

“If I wanted to talk, I would’ve returned your calls.” Jane turned around, ducking back inside, but leaving the door open.

Shepard followed, rotating her wrist. “Could we talk somewhere else? A park? A different bar? Hell, we could even go back to my therapist’s office and I wouldn’t even—”

Jane stopped, looking over her shoulder with a smirk. “This place not good enough for you?”

Shepard clenched her fist. Oh no, this place would be perfect. Discreet. Dim lighting. Loud televisions. Full of private rooms for its loyal customers. Well compensated and well armed bouncers in case shit hit the fan. Plenty of alcohol. If only Shepard could breathe in this fucking shit hole. “Too many memories,” she managed to spit out.

“That’s one thing about not having a past.” Jane stepped inside one of the private rooms. Shepard noticed with relief that it had a desk, not a bed. “No baggage.”

Despite all the alarms needlessly blaring inside her head, Shepard followed. “Jane, please. I can’t—”

Jane whirled around, her eyes dark with hate. “Do you have any idea how many people begged the Alliance to send you back to Earth during the Invasion? But you were too busy kissing alien ass to even bother.”

Shepard knew she should keep her voice down, that Jane only knew how to push her buttons. “You think it was easy for me to leave? I had to! We couldn’t fight the Reapers on our own!”

“You owed the Council nothing! They covered up your death. Conveniently forgot about Sovereign.” Shepard’s pulse pounded in her ears. “Ignored the Collectors. Allowed the Alliance to arrest you after Bahak.” Shepard’s throat closed in on itself. “And then,” Jane jabbed her finger in Shepard’s face, “they all came groveling, asking for your help when the Reapers showed up. Not once lending a hand to our system or its colonies.”

Shepard backed up into the door closed behind her. Her body shook. “Is that what Brooks told you?” Something flashed in Jane’s eyes. “Or what did she call herself at Cerberus? Rasa?”

Jane’s arm collided with Shepard’s throat, pressing her up against the door. Not enough to cut off her breathing, but just enough to hurt. “Don’t you dare talk to me about her.”

She should’ve probably held up her good hand in surrender. She should’ve backed down. Instead, Shepard stared down her clone, even as she started to see stars in her eyes. “What did she do to you?”

The clone dropped her so she could storm off to the other side of the room. “What’s it matter to you? She’s dead.”

Taking a few gulps of air, Shepard rubbed her throat. That’ll leave a bruise. “Shit. Jane...whatever...whoever Brooks was, I’m sorry you lost her.”

Jane snorted, pulling a small rubber ball from her jacket pocket, and bouncing it off the wall. “You’re a real trip, you know that?”

“What are you talking about?” Shepard must have hit her head on the way down.

Her clone spins around, her eyes flashing with rage. “You kill my...partner, and then you have the nerve to say you’re sorry??” She stretches out the O, as a reminder of just how different their origins were. Streets and a lab. A womb and a test tube. A homeworld and a space station. “Is that how you won over the tribunal? By apologizing?”

“Cute.” Shepard rubbed her face, trying to think, replaying the Clone’s words in her head until they made sense. “Hey. Look. This may be hard for you to believe, but if Brooks is dead, I had nothing to do with it.” She snorted, using her good hand to gesture at her body. “I mean, look at me. I can hardly dress and feed myself as it is, how the hell am I taking out hits on people?”

“You didn’t kill her after the war, genius.” Jane leaned against the wall, bouncing the ball harder and faster. Her fists started to glow. “Guess it was hard to notice her body with all the other mercs.”

Shepard’s face jerked up to look at her. “On the Normandy?” She blinked. Jane nodded. “She didn’t...Oh. Of course you don’t know. You didn’t see anything after you...fell.” She swallowed hard, the look of horror on the clone’s face after she dropped from the Normandy still burned in her brain. Breathe. “We arrested her. Sent her to some top-secret facility with other terrorists...I don’t even know where it is.”

Jane finally deigned to look at her, her mouth hanging open. “Brooks is alive?” The ball fell from her hand, bouncing several times before skidding to a stop. “Rasa is alive?”

Shepard took a deep breath, rubbing her bad arm. God, it was cramping so bad. Like pins and needles. “As far as I know, yeah. I mean, for all I know the Reapers took out the facility along with everything else. But I had nothing to do with it. I can swear to that.”

Stepping towards her, Jane asked softly. “Do you know where she is?”

Shit. “I...I don’t. Even if I did….I I don’t have the authority to release that information.”

Snorting, Jane nodded her head, unsurprised. “You don’t trust me. That’s...fair.”

God, she wanted to. “Two spectres and a councilor have to approve visitors. Doesn’t happen to often.

“You’re making that up.”

“Nope. Read that section of the Spectre manual the night after we...ran into each other.” Shepard swallowed, the taste of her still in her mouth.

“Repeatedly.” They both snickered. Jane kicked her foot back and forth. “What do I need to do to get that information? Money? Information?” She took Shepard in slowly, reading her, probably. “Sex?”

Shepard turned abruptly to hide her blush. “Bribery? Really?” She scratched the back of her neck. “I’m not even sure I count as a Spectre anymore.”

“Bullshit. You saved the galaxy, how many times? They’re not going to fire you over an injury.”

“I’m not exactly battle ready, Jane.” Shepard sighed. “I’ll talk to Kaidan about, okay? He’s still active. He’s on better terms with the politicians, anyway.”

Jane watched her closely, arms still folded.

“You don’t believe me.”

“Trust is hard to come by these days.”

This room really could use a few windows. Anything to keep the walls from closing in. Shepard cleared her throat. “Is...is this about the other night?”

This time, Jane blinked at her. “What?”

“...I thought you were mad.” She could feel the heat burning in her cheeks. “Me and Kaidan….Kaidan and I...we...we kind of lost track of you after.”

“After we fucked, you mean.” Jane smirked at her discomfort.

“Well, yeah.” Shepard chewed her lip. “You didn’t get any aftercare from us and---”

“I’m mad about Brooks, not being your unicorn. Because I’m. Not. Anyone’s. Unicorn.” Jane pulled the ball back into her hand biotically, passing it from hand to hand. She shook her head. “I’m mad that you never brought up Brooks.”

“...With the way things went down...I didn’t realize you--”

“--Cared? Please, Shepard. I’m not the monster you think I am.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” Moving towards the desk chair, Shepard slipped and out of her pockets fell two small boxes. As she fumbled to get to the floor, Jane picked one up.

“Dental dams? Latex gloves?” Jane quirked an eyebrow as she watched Shepard turn as red as their hair. “You sure know how to charm a girl.”

“This sounded way more smooth in my head.” Shepard leaned against the back of the chair, sliding her index finger across the lid of the box. “What I’m trying to say is...I don’t want to use you. I mean...if you want to be exlusive with us, that’s fine. But if you want to see other people, that’s cool too.”

“So smooooth.” Jane traced her fingers across Shepard’s, laughing softly, only to frown when she saw the whites of her knuckles. “Shit. This place...it really fucks you over, doesn’t it?”

“LIke the underside of a thresher maw.” Shepard said quietly, starting to pull her hand back.

Jane grabbed her wrist. “Hold on.”

Looking up at her, Shepard swallowed hard.

“You uh...have plans tonight?” With Kaidan? She asked without words.

“Well...Kaidan’s out of system right now.” Chewing her lip, Shep pulled out her phone, shooting Kaidan a text.

Hey.

Got time for a vid call?

Jane leaned her chin on Shepard’s shoulder. “You flirt like this with everyone?”

Shepard glanced at her with narrowed eyes. “You want to fuck or not?”

Both of them stared down at the phone, waiting. “What if he’s on duty?”

Chewing her lip, Shepard brushed her nose with hers. “How about dinner?”

“Sushi?” Jane smirked.

“Are you going to blow up the fish tank this time?”

“Only if you ask nicely, Shepard.”

#mass effect #femshep #shepard clone #femshep clone #kaidan alenko #poly dynamics #melody writes #hey guess what #the crack is baaaaack #pfft #who am I kidding #no one cares about this crack but me

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autodiscothings · 7 years

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Prayers for the wicked must never be forsaken.

I jokingly tag all my Thane Krios reblogs and posts as ‘Sad Murder Lizard,’ but I think it sums up my thoughts on him pretty well.

When you first meet him, it’s very cool- neck snapping, vent crawling, sauntering down darkened ducts to casually take out guards, starting a gay awakening in salarian janitors… as introductions go, it’s great.

And then you learn he is dying. And holy shit, is this the trait in which his entire character is built upon; death and redemption. He tells you this, several times over:

The universe is a dark place. I'm trying to make it brighter before I die.

And later, during his loyalty mission trigger:

As I face the end of my body's time here, I find myself dwelling on my mistakes.

Well alright, it’s a suicide mission! Hop aboard, sad murder lizard, you’re recruited. Plenty of room on the Normandy with similarly inclined folk staring at the end of a barrel.

So Shepard sits and talks with Thane over tea, and the first conversations are surface- religion, his sickness, where he’s from. Given what choices you make, he can be quite dry in wit- not Garrus levels of snark, but it’s there.

The second conversation, however, is when the fucked up shit starts surfacing. You learn he’s been an assassin-in-training since he was six, given to the Compact by his parents to the hanar:

They were training me. I was not to be used and thrown away. I was an investment.

Oh but don’t act shocked- sorry, did I mislead you? They saw me as a person, honest. And anyway, I didn’t really kill my first man until I was twelve. This is normal, yes?

And if you fire back that it sounds like slavery, he gets very defensive:

They rescued us – some of us- from extinction. We owe them our lives. Don't insult me, Shepard. Anyone can refuse to serve. Few do.

So let’s talk about that Compact. When I first started writing about drell, I was trying my hardest to see it from the hanar’s point of view; that their intentions were honourable and good, and to some individual hanar, perhaps. Thane gives a mauldin Thomas Hobbes quote about the drell homeworld:

“When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, when the last remedy of all is war, which provideth for every man with victory or death.” As Rakhana died around them, my people slaughtered each other for mouthfuls of water.

Out of the billions left to die on Rakhana, the hanar took 375,000 drell to the ocean homeworld of Kahje. Later on, thanks to Kepral’s fucking them up, their life expectancy actually decreased: out of those 375,000, Thane tells you:

There are only a few hundred thousand of us left, after all.

I’m going to assume drell are not a mono-religion culture, but to Thane’s religion, where the literal goddess of the afterlife carries you across the sea, it’s very easy to imagine the deep effect it had to most. We the lucky ones have been carried safe and sound, and placed on welcoming shores by our saviours.

The drell at the time weren’t even space faring, nor had they discovered the Relays. They had “no fusion power,” which given the janky space science the writers are prone to can either be taken to mean actual (still a theory) fusion power, or (already proven, thanks Manhattan Project) nuclear power.

If drell were pre-nuclear power, that means Rakhana fucked itself over during their version of the industrial revolution; the hanar literally took a race that barely made aeroplanes and cars into a world full of Mass Effect relays and made them their servants.

And this fits in very nicely with what Thane tells you the third time you speak to him. That his accountability for his actions are not his own, because drell do not think of their body and souls in the way humans, asari and turians do. So when he kills, it’s on whoever ordered him to make the kill- he was the gun, not the one who pulled the trigger.

My body is merely flesh. Flesh whose reflexes were honed to kill. My body was only the tool they used. If you kill a man with your gun, do you hold your gun responsible?

As lines of defence go, it’s fairly shit, isn’t it? You can’t argue anything back to him, the game won’t let you.

It’s also of note that during this conversation he lets slip his infamous “sunset eyes” solipsism, and his Wife In The Refrigerator is mentioned.

Irikah at least gets to speak in the Foundation comic, and I like some on the things they introduced about her. We learn she was a scientist, and worked researching a cure for a hanar disease; that she really did stand defiant in the laser dot of his sniper rifle.

But it was still her role to die, and I did not get the impression she was her own person in either the comic or through Thane’s dialogue. In a 24 page comic about her husband I would understand this can be hard to achieve, but she still was a prop created for Thane.

Her death is glorified, too. There’s an entire panel of Thane kneeling in her blood; her attacker goads Thane by telling him she “tasted sweet” when she died, and of the “unspeakable” things they did to her.

And so Thane went after them all in a suitably badass manner. It’s a common storytelling trope: John Wick, Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Logan/Wolverine, The Punisher… Revenge yarns are fun to watch, but the reason for the revenge always seems to be an afterthought.

All of this could be dealt with Thane telling you what he loved about her; perhaps the pride he felt because she helped people with her work, not like him, he was just a killer- that she was a good mother; how she liked her tea- just something other than- defiant, wife, murdered.

Fridging aside, we learn that Thane tried to be a family man. In the comic, he flat out states he didn’t know how to be a husband or a father, but did it anyway. When he asks Shepard for help finding his son, we see he starts to contradict himself:

My body is blessed with the skills to take life. I didn't want that life for Kolyat. I hoped he would find his own way. If he hated me, so be it. He would not have shared the path of sin.

He calls it sin, his life. Gone is the “it was a honour, Shepard” defence and in its place is a man who knows the paths he walked down were dark:

I'm trying to make it brighter before I die.

The loyalty mission hinges on finding Kolyat so his son doesn’t make the same mistake. What’s interesting here is two things introduced to underpin this. The use of Captain Bailey, who looks the other way to help because he sees a parent who gives a damn and knows what estranged father feels like, and Mouse.

Mouse the drala’fa, the forgotten duct rat. Mouse who Thane gave chocolate to, but not Kolyat. Mouse who he took a photo of. Mouse who he used for his wetwork, to spy on his targets. Mouse, who is more observant than he lets on:

Whenever you talked about your kid, your eyes got like that. Like they was someplace else. Sad. He had that holo you took of me, you know. That's how [Kolyat] proved who he was. But when he turned it on, his eyes got like yours do.

Interestingly with Thane, I find the Renegade options reveal meatier options (and snarkier responses.) It’s through Renegade Thane begs Kolyat that he knows no other life:

I was six when the hanar began to train me. I didn't know any better. Your mother woke me from my battle sleep.

That’s him admitting it was a hard life, a life no child should have. There’s no honour of the Compact there, but a lonely man trying to reach out to his son to not make the same mistakes he did.

If the mission is a success and you slap/shoot Kolyat, Thane tells you about Irikah (in an offhand manner I take issue with, as mentioned.) But the main takeaway I get from this conversation with Shepard is this:

It is difficult. All things worth keeping are.

That’s him realising his mistakes, and having some semblance of hope for the future. The last conversation you have before the last mission, no matter if you romanced him or not, is Thane telling you he walked to his death with open eyes. That when you met him snapping necks in Dantius Towers, it was his last target, because he knew without Shepard there, he would’ve died.

If you fail the loyalty mission, Thane walks to his death again, because taking bad is not that same creating good, and that:

Entropy always wins.

If you romance him, you know he’s now terrified he’s woken from his battle sleep and had a reason to live again (Kolyat, Siha) only to have the ticking time bomb in his lungs and the Collectors remind him what little time he has left:

[I will] take the time left given and praise all I know for allowing me to walk my final days with hope and certainty that I am worthy of more than my cold isolation, solely because you believed.

So Mass Effect three happens; Thane is a bit of an afterthought here. From a cold logistical gaming writer POV, I can see why it happened, but it still sucked to endure if you: 1) romanced Thane and 2) actually liked the character.

The writers seemed that take the letter to a romanced Shepard from the Shadow Broker dossier and used it to shape Thane’s narrative for the third game, as well as for the Citadel DLC. Kepral’s isn’t magically cured in the space of six months; no space magic happens for Thane to return to the Normandy and be at your side again.

If I’m honest, I like this aspect of his story; Thane Mod exists for those that do not. In my opinion, death has always shaped his character; it is his constant companion, still.

The reunion you have as a romanced Shepard is very much him “letting you go,” in some ways. After apparently getting it on in a hospital (classy, Shep- classy) the second conversation is him telling you that:

Live well with the time you have. Perhaps we shall see each other again.

No tu fira here yet, that comes later. To fit in with the narrative of the DLC, you can perhaps argue he’s keeping himself out your way as his sickness is worse than he’s letting on. Thane knows Shepard’s role in the Reaper war is important; he would only hold them back.

Which of course means that the game codes you as single there after, and you can’t tell Vega to get jumped when he’s all flirty, or brush off other advances.

Cerberus coup time, and Captain Cutscene (aka Kai Leng and his silly sword) is here. Thane goes out in the way he wanted; not coughing in a hospital bed, but trying to do some good saving a Councillor.

Thane is at least given a goodbye here; he dies with his son and either his Siha or his “only friend” by his side. He prays for you, not him. He wants the last thing he hears to be Shepard’s prayer, not his.

No one in the game recognises the sacrifice, and you need to buy a DLC to be allowed to grieve. When Garrus stands by the memorial wall to talk about the Virmire survivor -if they died, if they didn’t- Thane isn’t mentioned. All the headcanon in the world can create a reason why, but it’s still a dick move from the writers.

The DLC memorial scene is interesting. It has a stilted, awkward Kolyat not understanding why he has to have it (which, for a race built on memories, is hilarious, and I head canon that some drell don’t see the point of memorials, since they never forget anyway.)

Even if you don’t romance him, he sends vidmails to you, his only friend. You know he tried to reach out for you, but circumstances meant you couldn’t connect.

The main interesting thing I take from the funeral scene, is that the Council want to make Thane a recognisable hero. Thane Krios’s name would be associated forever with an act of good, not his “path of sin” as an assassin. He became his wife, defiant in the sight a scope. Or rather, a Cerberus sword.

So, to summarize: Thane Krios- death becomes him, death defines him; in his sacrifice, he will be remembered as a hero, not as a villain: Your mission gave me purpose. A cause to die for. A chance to atone. I was able to speak to my son again. I can leave my body in peace.

NOTE: Despite someone who has so far written a fanfic about Kolyat and has a lot of thoughts about sassy lizards, I’ve been very quiet on Thane/Kolyat’s dynamic in this little essay. It’s an interesting one to talk about, but it deserves its own separate post, which I’ll get around to at some point.

#thane krios #I have feels about him #sad murder lizard #not quite character critical but maybe?#writer critical though holy shit #mass effect

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fanfic-rants · 6 years

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What is Your Story`s Soul?

Without a soul, it doesn’t matter how interesting your story`s characters, settings, world(s), or situations are. Your story will fall flat.

So what do I mean when I say “a story`s soul?” Remove the setting, the names of the characters, and most of the details of the plot of a story. What is left? The story’s soul; what the story is truly about.

Peter Docter (a director who has been involved in many of Pixar’s famous movies) gives this example of a story`s soul when describing Monsters Inc.

“A man becoming a father for the first time.”

That single sentence is so simple, yet is also so powerful! The fact that that story is being told using a setting of monsters who make a living out of scaring children easily provides conflict to make the story interesting, and the characters themselves add even more to it (as well as providing the wonderful comedy).

This concept also applies to fanfiction. I’ll provide an example using a fanfiction I’m looking forward to seeing update: Chipped Sapphire and Brewing Hellfire by lordofire.

As far as I (the reader) can tell, this story`s soul is, "A boy who seeks to become a hero to the world, and a fallen god who comes to discover the value and beauty of the world.”

That is a soul of a story that can really draw people in. We all enjoy a good story of an aspiring hero, and that of a former villain discovering the wonders we ourselves love and enjoy. How is that story told, though? That`s where the context, the setting, and world of the story come into play. Fanfiction just makes creating all of that so much easier because most of it is already there. All the author has to do is tweak or overhaul it.

So what`s the context of Chipped Sapphire and Brewing Hellfire? What tweaks has Lordoffire made to RWBY to tell his story? The one key tweak he has made is one that only fanfiction authors would make. Jaune Arc’s soul is merged with Sauron`s. Yes, the same Sauron from Lord of the Rings. Makes you pause, doesn`t it?.

Sure, the fanfic idea sounds interesting, but without the soul of the story in mind, where is it going to go after the author manages to set it up? Without that soul of the story driving it, the story would quickly flounder.

How many stories have you encountered that seem to have such great potential, but stops before it can even get started? Why did the author stop? The idea behind the story appears so interesting. I haven`t spoken to these authors myself, so I can`t give a certain answer. However, I would be willing to bet they stopped because they didn`t know what to do with their idea. It was so fantastic when they came up with it, but it wasn`t until they started writing it out and setting it up they realized that they didn`t know what kind of story they wanted to tell, what the soul of the story using that idea was.

One fanfiction that illustrates this very well is Bound to Crimson Wings by Hysterical Clerical Hijinks. Set in a fantasy setting, Weiss gets bonded to a dragon partner, appropriately referred to as bonded, named Ruby. Read this final passage of the first chapter and tell me (again ignoring the grammatical errors) that you wouldn`t be interested in reading more.

Meanwhile Weiss was staring down her own Dragon, but not nearly as calmly as Blake. Despite having gotten the attention of the smaller of the two, Weiss was not reassured.

The larger dragon was far less intimidating.

It glided toward her, each step startlingly silent. It was moving very quickly, deceptively swift and snakelike. Weiss felt her pulse pick as it approached, looking dark and dreadful. She fought to retreat, to simply flee in the other direction from the predator in front of her.

Eventually it was right next to her, and Weiss could feel the cold sweat dripping down her forehead. She was pretty sure that even if she did want to flee, her body wouldn`t follow her orders anymore. The Dragon`s face lowered to face Weiss, warm breath puffing over Weiss. She gulped, staring at the deadly looking teeth. She looked up, dread pooling her stomach, and stared into a pair of large, slitted silver eyes…

Then it licked her.

Right in the face.

Weiss was stunned into unfeeling silence, drool dripping down her face and her fringe stuck in the air, unable to comprehend that said Dragon had just breezed past her mental shields.

‘My name`s Ruby and we`re going to be the best Bonded ever~!’ She exclaimed cheerfully unto Weiss` mind. Her voice was young girl`s, mid teens at most if Weiss was to guess. It was incredibly chirpy. She was getting heavy sensations of pridejoypridefriendhappinessjoyteamfriendteam. Coupled with gleeful silver eyes, and a massive wagging tail.

This wasn`t a Dragon, it was the biggest puppy on Remnant.

Weiss could feel her headache coming back with a vengeance already.

And that was only a part of the whole chapter. The idea of Ruby being a puppy in the body of a lethal, terrifying dragon on top of being Weiss`s partner is such a wonderful idea full of potential, and Hysterical Clerical Hijinks writes this story very well. There`s just one major heartbreaker about this story.

That first chapter is currently [December 11th, 2017] the only chapter, and it was posted January 28th, 2015. At this point, it is in the unofficial hiatus hell.

How could Hysterical Clerical Hijinks do this? Why would he begin such a wonderful story, only to stop at the very beginning just as we`re all hooked? If we were to message him, I`d imagine his reply would be along the lines of “I didn`t know what to do with it.”

Yes, he had an amazing setting. Yes, his writing was good. he even did an excellent job of staying true to the RWBY characters he was recreating for his story. His problem came from lacking an actual story to tell with all of that. His stories lacked a driving soul.

Knowing the soul of a story greatly helps in giving the author direction; even if the creative juices have ceased to flow for a bit, and the possibilities offered by the setting have run out. Wondering what to do next in the story? Look at the soul of the story, throw a wrench of some sort at it, and write out experience the protagonists have, while maintaining the integrity of their setting, as they try to deal with the conflict and stay true to their soul.

For example, let's look at Bound to Crimson Wings again, give it a few different souls, and then throw some wrenches at them.

“A girl, isolated in her home for her whole life, seeks companionship.” Some wrenches to throw at this? Her teammate is an enemy of her family. Her bonded is so different from her. A situation arises that demands she returns home.

“Two girls, running from their own pasts and prisons of a home, seek to better the world.” Some wrenches to throw at this? One of their homes is in danger, and they have the option of returning to save/protect it. One or both of their pasts threaten their current life/lives unless they abandon it to return. One or both of their pasts pose a threat to the world, and they are capable of doing something to stop it/them.

These wrenches allow the author to create the conflicts that bring readers in. Even if encountering a writer’s block, or just simply not knowing where to go next with the story, the story’s soul can allow the author to figure out where to go next. Of course, the author should also realize when to simply allow the story to be done. If there are no more potential conflicts, no more viable wrenches to throw at the soul of the story, then the story needs to be brought to a close.

Luckily, if the story is well thought out, there may be multiple “souls” operating within a single story that can allow multiple wrenches to be thrown at it.

How can a story have more than one soul? Wouldn’t they conflict with each other? Not necessarily. A good story should be a lot like real life. Every character that shows up, from nameless background people to the main protagonist, has their own story, and those stories have their own soul.

When telling a story, however, the author should pick a “dominant” soul, and allow all the other souls involved to support it. If a particular soul does not support the “dominant” soul, then the author should not bother revealing it more than necessary.

For example, in the video game Mass Effect II, there is a mission you can perform for a crewmate of yours, Thane Krios, who wants to stop his son from walking the path of an assassin like he has. The story for the mission is a good one, but there is a soul that really shines out in it that is never explored: that of Captain Bailey, the Citadel Security officer who acts as a supporting role in the mission. It is never specifically spoken, but you can see and hear, in almost every word spoken by the captain, that he feels a personal connection to this mission. Perhaps the most notable can be found on TVTropes’ page of Mass Effect II quotes:

"You think he's [Thane] the only man who's ever messed up raising a son?"

Even for those who are not experienced at reading between the lines can tell that Captain Bailey bears a personal tragedy on his shoulders whenever he speaks about Thane trying to save his son.

So why is this soul not explored? Because the soul of the story for Captain Bailey and his son does not pertain to the dominant soul of Mass Effect II: Commander Shepard seeking to save the galaxy his (the player’s) way. As interesting as that story would be, it would be unnecessary baggage that would have bogged down the game. So, it had to be left out.

With that example of a soul that does not support the “dominant” soul of a story out of the way, how about an example of a soul that does support the “dominant” soul?

For the official RWBY anime by Roosterteeth, I believe the “dominant” soul can be identified as “four girls who seek to make the world a better place.” (Please correct me if you think that’s wrong or inaccurate).

Each of the souls for the members of the primary cast, the members of team RWBY, are able to support this soul. For Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna, they practically state the souls for their stories in Episode 25 of Season 2, Search and Destroy, and Episode 26 of Volume 2, Mountain Glenn; and Ruby Rose states hers in Episode 3 of Volume 1, The Shining Beacon, Pt 2. For Ruby’s soul, it is the most reflective of the show (which, I suspect, is why she is the first character to be introduced in it): “A girl who seeks to fight for what’s right and those who can’t protect themselves” (see transcript for episode 3, Volume 1: The Shining Beacon, Pt. 2) For Weiss, her’s is: “A girl who seeks to redeem her family name.” For Blake, its: “A girl who seeks to fight for equality and justice.”

Now, upon reading those souls, one might be inclined to think, “these all sound more like the character’s motives than their stories’ souls.” This is mostly because their motives help shape and create their souls. Because of that, they can be easily confused to the point where they can be used interchangeably. However, by examining the final member of team RWBY, Yang Xiao Long, we can identify the difference between a character’s motive and the soul for their story.

Yang’s surface motives, the ones that govern her personal and outside actions, are many. In Search and Destroy, Yang states that she wants to live a life of adventure “not knowing what tomorrow will bring.” However, in episode 21 of Season 2, Extracurricular, Yang reveals that she is still looking for her mother who left her shortly after she was born. While these motives do shape the soul of her story, the actual soul of her story is quite different. Thus far [December 11th, 2017] it can be identified as this: “A big sister who seeks to be present when those she loves are in need.”

All of those souls are not only compatible with the dominant soul of RWBY, they also support it. Thus, by exploring these souls, the author, Roosterteeth (following the death of Monty Oum), also explores the soul of RWBY. There are bound to be many more potential souls within the world of RWBY, but if they are to be explored, they must be done so outside of this anime series in order to prevent the bogging down of any of the souls involved.

So much more can be said about the soul of a story, and I’m certain that much has already been said about it (just in different words). However, I hope that upon reading this; you will at least be much more aware of this concept, and be able to fill the world with even greater stories than before.

Also, I have a separate post that links to a list of potential souls that I have collected. If you’re interested or are just looking for a few writing prompt ideas, follow this link to check it out. Please message me if you have any ideas for potential souls that I have not already included on my list as well as (if you can) the sources of inspiration you got the souls from.

If you liked this post, please hit the like button. If you have anything to add to this post, please reply to or repost it. If you know of anyone who you think would appreciate and/or benefit from this post, please share it with them. If you want to see more rants by me as I come up with them, please follow me. I hope to not disappoint.

#fanfic #Fanfiction #RWBY #writing #story #Stories #storytelling

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zet-sway · 3 years

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Spiritual Shrios Summer Fill: Godless

PROMPT WORD: GODLESS | WORDS: ~1800

Rated: "G" - General Audiences AO3 Link: "The Frozen Sea" Pairing: Thane / FemShep Summary: The ocean licks at her knees - not to claim her, but to mark her. 'One foot in the grave,' as the human adage goes.

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Shepard looks forward to being the first one up and awake.

Her cabin is suffocating. There are nights when she appreciates the privacy, but the silence of her isolated quarters makes her insides itch in an uncomfortable way. Just before the common area lighting begins to grow from the dim cadence of the night cycle, she leaves her room and greets the morning, intangible as only time on a starship can be. First she checks on the night crew, then starts coffee for Gardener. Finally, she makes her way down to the shuttle bay for PT. Alone.

It's unexpected when she has a visitor one quiet morning.

"Sere Krios," she says, rising from a deep stretch on the mat.

He smiles warmly, equally as surprised to see another soul at this hour. "Commander, good morning. And please, just Thane if you wouldn't mind."

Thane is the newest member of her crew and they've only spoken twice before. Maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise that he has his daily rituals as well, given his condition. He's dressed simply. Black pants, a sleeveless shirt, his defined, green chest exposed for all the world. Drell and humans share some attractive qualities. He's easy on the eyes.

She's staring, she realizes, and looks away. Thane takes his place on the mat and begins his own warm-up.

Day after day, he joins her, and they build a routine. Together, they begin with stiff, groggy stretches; then there's cardio, sweat, and strength training. Their conversations are light and technical. He respects her silence. She respects his discipline. On leg day, they limp back into the elevator in tandem. If she's lucky, she has time to join him and the crew for breakfast after her shower.

When she's alone, she quietly recalls how the light bends around the contours of his body.

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He's there as usual when she steps off the elevator and into the shuttle bay. Fully armored, helmet under one arm, weapons holstered, but ready.

"Shepard. No training today?" He rises from his place on the mat where he's been exploring the human practice of yoga, per her suggestion. It suits him. Yoga is all about breathing.

"I was beginning to think you tired of my company."

She gives him a weary smile and shakes her head.

There's a new, abnormal tension between them and by his gaze she knows he feels it too. She likes Thane. She knows hardly a damn thing about him, but he's a comfortable presence, follows orders... doesn't ask intrusive questions. However, she's breaking their routine unexpectedly, and in the moment, his gaze is almost painful.

"Is there something I should know about Alchera?"

Okay, maybe he does ask intrusive questions.

His voice is a hot knife through her muddy thoughts. The detour to Alchera hadn't been on their flight plan, but somehow, he knows. Times like this, his eidetic memory puts her on edge. She asks herself how many other kernels of obscure knowledge are locked away in his mind.

Stepping up to prep the shuttle, she weighs the consequences of lying to his face. Only six people on the ship know where she's going and why, and she doesn't want to talk about it with any of them. The words are too hard to say out loud. This is where I died.

"Alliance HR," she says finally. A partial truth.

His brows rise and his posture straightens just a bit. "Human remains." Fuck if he isn't perceptive, but if he has questions, he keeps them to himself.

She nods once, happy to have stopped this conversation in its tracks. Then she changes the subject.

"PT tomorrow," she offers with a smile. "I can't be lifting without my spotter."

"Of course, Shepard. The pleasure is mine," he responds with an acknowledging nod. She feels bad for interrupting his training as he leaves on the elevator, but she doesn't want to face her team until her task is done.

Let's just get this over with.

Alone with her thoughts, she exhales a breath she didn't know she was holding and starts her pre-flight checklist.

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It's well past dinner when she comes to him. The doors at his back swish open and she stands quietly inside the threshold. A fistful of clinking metal dangles from her hand and he knows she's come to have the conversation she avoided earlier.

"Did I catch you at a good time?"

"You did," he says smoothly. "Was there something you wanted to discuss?"

She sits across from him and the metal spills from her fist. Dog tags. Twenty of them. Her gaze is fixed on them and she appears shrouded in a fog of thoughts.

"Did you know them?" The question is gentle, he's almost afraid to know the answer.

Shepard takes a deep breath and blinks slowly. "Yeah. They were my crew."

Thane can feel a chill, as though the icy surface of the planet is still clinging to her long after she's left it. "Your ship went down on Alchera?"

She nods.

"...and you were among them."

"Yes."

He realizes now why she brushed off his words earlier. It strikes him as odd that she would bring this to him instead of Garrus, Tali, Joker, or Chakwas. All of them served on that ship with her, although he isn't sure if they were on board during the attack. She chose him for this, maybe because he'd asked, unknowingly, down in the shuttle bay. Regardless, she's here now and he struggles to understand her needs.

Thane refocuses. There's a pile of dog tags before him and each one represents a human life, now in the arms of Kalahira.

"May I read them?"

She glances up at him then, surprised. "Won't you remember them forever?"

"I'd like to."

Her lips twitch just slightly in the most cautious of smiles, and she nods. "Knock yourself out," a quietly uttered and somehow charming human expression.

Thane picks up each tag one by one and passes his eyes over them. Every name, a life extinguished. Stories unfinished. Loved ones mourning for years without closure or a body to bury. Memories percolate in his mind and he pushes them back because now is not the time. For each name, he offers a silent prayer to the goddess for their eternal peace. When he finishes, the tags are a neat horizontal stack before them.

Hands folded, he looks at her. "I don't see your name."

It's less of a question and more of an observation, but she dips one hand into her shirt collar and produces a pair of clinking metal tags. They dangle from a new chain but the metal scorched and scuffed almost to a state of illegibility. One from the Alliance, the other from the Spectres. Her name is heavily embossed into each one.

SHEPARD DECEMBER HUMAN SYSTEMS ALLIANCE

His expression lifts and he smiles, hopeful. "You survived."

Shepard shakes her head. "I was spaced."

"But you must have-"

"No, Thane." Her tone is firm, unwavering. "I was spaced."

Her intense green eyes pierce through him. There's a twinge in her voice that makes his insides clench. "I read the data on Project Lazarus. I died."

It feels like the air has been sucked out of the room. Thane tries to control his features but her assertion shakes the very foundations of his faith. Many had said she died, but he'd always understood it as a metaphor - a near death experience.

He reaches into himself for calm and a memory rises, unbidden. "Jesus and Lazarus, from the Christian bible. '...I am the resurrection and the life.'"

"Kalahira..." he breathes. "Shepard, I didn't know."

She grunts out an ugly, short laugh and tears her eyes from his. "I can't believe you read the bible."

Her words fly past him without acknowledgement. He sees her as though through fogged glass, thoughts spinning. "Kalahira released you from the sea." When the words leave his mouth, they sound like irrefutable truth.

There's silence while she fidgets across from him, and then she asks, "Do humans go to the sea too?"

"We believe all life does."

He has a thought, then. "What do you believe, Shepard?

Her expression is mildly uncomfortable. "Before or after I died?" But then she shakes her head, reconsidering. "The universe is grand enough that maybe it is god's design. But I don't think god gives a damn about us. Agnostic, I guess." Shepard pauses and looks at him, but her eyes are distant. "Maybe I'd like to believe in your sea. Right now it feels easier to accept."

"To bring comfort in dark places is the purpose of spirituality. It does not matter what you believe as long as it brings you peace."

"Some humans would disagree with you."

Aware of the myriad of human religions and their conflicts, he brushes off her statement. "This is my truth. Their opinions don't concern me."

Shepard's gaze is searching, revealing the cracks in her armor, slivers of well-hidden vulnerability. "So I went to the sea. And now I'm back."

"If I am to accept what you say, I can offer no other conclusion." He doesn't ask what she remembers, he knows he might not like the answer.

"Then what am I now? Besides a soggy, undead cyborg?"

Her voice is laced with sarcasm but Thane thinks over her question carefully, aware he will be turning it over in his mind for days to come. Kalahira, Irikah, Siha, the gods and their angels, his lover and confidant, memories and oaths... regrets and comforts.

A heavy veil of epiphany descends on him, awestruck, painfully aware of his mortality, and prickling with a primal, deeply buried fear. Once human and now something in between, she is Commander Shepard, avatar of the Sea, chosen of Kalahira. The ocean licks at her knees not to claim her, but to mark her. 'One foot in the grave,' as the human adage goes.

The fist of tension in his gut calls to mind the image of Irikah's eyes in his scope all those years ago. I thought she was the goddess Arashu. But it's not Arashu who sits before him now, but Kalahira. Her icy breath howls across the inhospitable surface of Alchera, her unfathomable currents gathering those courageous enough to follow her into the abyss. How appropriate that she appeared just as he sought his demise in the Dantius Towers. She will be the one to ferry him into the unknown when they finally breach the relay. He prays she will be merciful.

Placing one hand over hers, Thane squeezes reassuringly. He doesn't linger, the gesture is as much for him as it is for her; he wants to know that she is real, as he finally answers her question.

'Then what am I now?'

"A woman with a purpose so great, the goddess herself answered the galaxy's cry for your return."

#spiritualshriossummer #thane krios #shrios #fshrios #zet writes things #december shepard #for now i'm calling the series 'approaching lightspeed' after a song i really like #spiritual shrios summer #this is one of several tricky conversations i need to write #and its probably the easiest one too so i have my work cut out for me x-x #TLDR shepard is a soggy undead cyborg

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saltywintershe-wolf · 6 years

Text

My last minute contribution to N7 day!!! My old fic: "Fading Memories"

(Spoilers for Mass Effect 3)

"Farewell, Thane. I will meet you across the sea."

In a small, closed off room of the Citadel hospital, a human woman turned away from the medical bed that took up the middle of the small, enclosed space. She blinked away tears for the drell that now lay motionless on the covers.

Wordlessly, Commander Shepard turned away, leaving the drell's son, Kolyat, to mourn over his father's body. The last she saw of the young drell was him bending his head over the form on the bed, tears beginning to spill down his cheeks.

Shepard stepped out of the room, barely hearing the door sliding shut behind her. She began moving down the hall before her, which was full of the wounded beings that had been caught in the crossfire of Cerberus' attack on the Citadel, which had occurred a mere few hours before.

She ignored everything around her.

Right at that moment, for the first time, nothing mattered to her: not the sound of children crying, the moans of the wounded, or the wails and pleads of the families of those dying or dead.

Everything was crashing down around her, the walls closing in on her.

He was gone, gone.

Thane Krios was gone; he had crossed over the sea, leaving her there to continue alone.

Shepard had never dreamed that she would find love in an alien, let alone a drell, a drell that was a highly skilled assassin.

Over two and a half years before, she had thought she had found something in the human Alliance member Kaiden Alenko. They had grown close during the weeks that they, along with the others aboard the Normandy SR1, hunted down the rogue turian Spectre Saren. But after the defeat of Saren, the Normandy was attacked and destroyed by a Collector ship, killing Shepard in the process, and Cerberus ended up bringing her back to life through something that was called the Lazarus Project.

For two years Kaiden had thought that she was dead, and so the day that they reunited on the human colony of Horizon, which was under attack by the Reaper-controlled Collectors, Shepard had thought that he would be happy that she was alive – but she was wrong. He was angry that she had been working with Cerberus at the time, and had refused to listen to Shepard as she tried to explain that she was only with Cerberus to take out the Collectors, who had been abducting whole colonies of humans. Not even the words of Garrus, the turian who had been on the first Normandy with Shepard and Kaiden during the hunt for Saren, could get the human biotic to listen.

They had parted badly, leaving Shepard angered and broken, as well as feeling unwanted.

Soon after that day she had met Thane on Illium, where he had targeted an asari named Nassana Dantius. The head of Cerberus, the Illusive Man, had wanted her to recruit the drell for the fight against the Collectors.

Throughout the time that the new crew of the new Normandy spent hunting the Collectors, they had grown close – the broken commander who was expected to show a brave face and the drell assassin who had lost the mother of his son years before. They found peace in being near each other, calming each other's wounded minds.

Shepard had known from the moment that they had met that their time together would be limited, for Thane was months away from dying of Kepral's Syndrome. She knew that the disease would slowly take him away from her, making it hard for him to breathe, and she accepted it, enjoying every moment she had with him, but this, this…

He had been ripped away from her on the blade of a Cerberus assassin called Kai Leng.

Shepard wondered if this was the true definition of cruel irony. Cerberus had brought her and Thane together when the two of them most needed the other, only to tear them apart now.

Thane had always said that he didn't want to waste away in a hospital, unable to do anything. He was a hero, for defending the salarian councilor and managing to hold off Kai Leng so that she could get away, but the Cerberus assassin –

All Shepard knew was that she would make Kai Leng pay and kill him as painfully as possible, as well as bring down Cerberus with her, including the Illusive Man himself.

Just then, someone bumped into Shepard, knocking her out of her thoughts.

"Watch it, human," A turian snapped at her, before continuing on his way.

Shepard supposed that her face was so blood-stained and dirty, and that her eyes were so red from tears that she was unrecognizable. It wasn't as if that this face was the one that the media was fed. She was actually glad that no one was recognizing her; she didn't want people swarming around her, asking questions when all she wanted was to get to the Normandy.

Trying to focus on where she was walking, she headed towards the docking bay, where the Normandy was waiting for her to say the word to leave. Only, there was a slight problem in the fact that the door to the ship was blocked by an unwelcome face.

"Hello, Shepard," Kaiden said in his husky voice, standing straighter as she approached.

"Now what do you want from me?" Shepard asked sharply, her voice hoarse.

Kaiden's brown eyes widened slightly at his reception, but he bowed his head. "I heard about the drell, Krios. I…I'm sorry, Shepard. From what I had seen of him, he was a good man."

"Yes, he was," She said pointedly, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes, "But you aren't here to talk about that. What is it?"

"I…. I was….wondering…hoping, really…that there was a place on the Normandy for me…like old times."

The way he said 'like old times' sent a flash of anger through her. Did he really expect that after all of the pain he had put her through, and after all of the doubts about her loyalty that he had thrown in her face while in front of other squad-members that she would allow him at her side like that again? Especially right after Thane –

Shepard turned away from him, rubbing her temples and closing her eyes for a few moments. It wasn't as if she could turn down someone willing to fight the Reapers. "I don't care, Alenko, come aboard, don't come aboard. Do whatever you want, but get this in your head – it won't ever be like old times again."

~~~

After Shepard had told Joker to get them far away from the Citadel and closer to someone she could legally shoot, she went up into her quarters, locking the door behind her. For the next few hours, she wanted to be alone, at least for a little while, not wanting Liara or Tali or even Garrus to come in; she also instructed EDI to not notify her about anything unless it was urgent.

Shepard spread herself out on the double bed and stared at the ceiling, watching stars flit by through the window above her. She wished for the perfect memory of the drell; there were now many memories that she wanted to remember.

Every mission with Thane, every word he had spoken, every look he had given her, every subtle nod and bow, every touch, every kiss – Shepard wanted to never forget them.

It alarmed her that already some things were starting to fade. She tried to snatch them and hold them against her chest to keep them from slipping out between her fingers.

She loved Thane.

It was so obvious to her, then.

And now that she knew it, she could never say it to him.

She supposed that he could have known a long time before she did, but it wasn't the same. She wished for just a few more moments with him, so that she could kiss him one last time and say the words.

She had wanted to retire after – if – they ever defeated the Reapers, move to a dessert, where he could have breathed easier, where they could have been happy. He had wanted to live, wanted it so much. He had told her as much when he came up to her quarters a few hours before Joker had flown the Normandy through the Omega Four Relay.

Shepard knew the odds of everyone surviving the war against the Reapers were very, very slim, so maybe there was hope for her after all. A small hope, but hope none the less.

Tears slid down Shepard's face as she closed her eyes, feeling exhausted from everything that had happened, and murmured, "I'll fight, that I promise, as hard as I ever have. But after…when this is done…I'll cross the sea to be with you again, Thane."

She slowly drifted off into a dreamless slumber, and so she never felt the light, gentle hands brushing back her tangled hair, never heard the voice speaking in a quiet whisper:

"I'll be waiting for you at the shore, siha."

(note: sorry for no cuts, as I don't know how to do that, and I posted this years ago on fan fiction.net under Okamistormblade, but I wanted to move it here and fix some errors. Thanks for taking the time to read!)

#n7 day #n7month #fanfiction #spoilers for mass effect 3 #mass effect #mass effect 3 #commander shepard #shepard and thane #thane krios #feels

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kingofthebottleshooters · 7 years

Text

Carve Their Name With Pride

Written for @cactuarkitty‘s MERweek. It’s one of a few one-shot ideas I’ve had for a while, so this was a good opportunity to get it written. It’s set in the aftermath of the attack on the Citadel by Cerberus in ME3, and revolves around the tragically short relationship between Shepard and Thane. It was also largely written between 3am and 5am while I was watching the UK election results, so bear that in mind when reading!

Garrus lay on the med-bay bed, talons drumming against the covers, the only sign of his impatience. Dr Chakwas had patched him up pretty well, but she was adamant that he wasn’t going anywhere without her permission, and it was grating on him. He didn’t need to be there anymore, and there was too much that needed doing. Not on the Normandy, for a change, given that all the fighting had been ground side, or what passed for it on the Citadel, but the clean-up had been bad enough after Sovereign; he shuddered to think what it would be like after Cerberus had attacked the entire station. At least with the geth, most of the damage had been collateral.

Shaking his head to try and get rid of that dark thought, his mind drifted to Thane. The Drell had been stabbed by one of Cerberus’s more efficient drones, and last Garrus had heard he was in surgery. It was not a happy situation, but Thane had been through worse even before he joined the Normandy. If anyone could laugh off such an injury, it would be…well, probably not Thane, now he thought of it; for all that he had a dry sense of humour, the assassin treated events with the weight they deserved. He would be calm about it though, Garrus was sure of that much. Perhaps it helped having Shepard there to worry about things for him, took the pressure off somewhat.

The med-bay doors swished open. Garrus turned his head a little, and let out a theatrical groan.

“Spirits, who let you in?”

“Heard there was someone crying like a baby over some chicken-shit scratches,” Vega said with a broad grin. “You know anything about that?”

“I’m here purely on medical advice,” Garrus replied shortly. Vega smirked, but said nothing. He was intimately familiar with rule one of military service: don’t piss off the doctors.

“Any word on how long we’re sticking around? I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to help with clean-up, but I’d have thought Shepard would have better things to do.”

“Haven’t heard anything specific, but it’ll be a couple of days, I imagine.” He didn’t explain why. He wasn’t sure if the Alliance knew about Shepard’s relationship with Thane, and if they weren’t it wasn’t his place to say. “The Council’ll probably want to debrief Shepard pretty thoroughly.”

He realised what he’d said as soon as Vega started chuckling, and he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I’m dosed up on painkillers that’d kill you, Jimmy.”

“Whatever you say, Garrus, whatever you say.”

The doors swished open again, and Dr Chakwas strode in, her face troubled. She set about freeing Garrus from the battalion of monitors he was hooked up to before saying so much as ‘hello’. It wasn’t like her, and Garrus shot Vega a worried look before addressing her. “Doctor? Thought I was in the for long haul – not that I’m complaining, of course…

She shook her head. “Ideally yes, but I think you’ll need to be up and about, I’m afraid. I’ve just heard from Dr Michel. Thane didn’t make it.”

Garrus stared at her for a moment, speechless. “He – what?”

“There were too many complications with his Keprals,” she elaborated. “The blade went through his lungs. If it had just been that, or if the wound had been somewhere else…”

Garrus tossed the wires aside, clambering to his feet. “Where is she now? She knows, right?”

Chakwas nodded, her eyes starting to shine a little. “Yes, she…she was there at the end, at least.”

“Sorry, I’m confused,” Vega chipped in, his gaze flitting between them rapidly.

“Thane Krios – he was one of our team against the Collectors,” Garrus said shortly, pulling on his armour. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Chakwas looking at him curiously, but she didn’t say anything.

“Oh, the Drell that Cerberus asshole stabbed? Dios, that sucks. I didn’t know he was a friend of yours. I’m sorry.”

“He…” Garrus trailed off, then sighed. “He wasn’t just a friend to Shepard.”

“Oh.”

He supposed that was all that needed to be said, really.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Garrus and Vega had combed all of Shepard’s usual calling points on the Citadel looking for her, but to no avail. Her comms were off, and Traynor had been unable to track her through the station’s still glitching systems (Garrus suspected EDI would have had better luck, but the AI was busy lending her assistance to C-Sec). Inevitably then, it was when they returned to the Normandy that they found her, talking stiffly with Kaidan Alenko.

Garrus growled a little, unsure whether it was sub-vocal or otherwise, and not really caring either way. He didn’t really have anything against the major – for all that he’d hurt Shepard back on Horizon, it was fairly understandable under the circumstances – but of all the times for him to try and talk to her…

As he and Vega drew near, Kaidan broke out in a wide smile, and hoisted a duffle bag to his shoulder. Shepard nodded at him, then made her way onto the ship, the major falling into her wake like he’d never left. Garrus increased his pace to catch up, and Kaidan looked over his shoulder. His smile was a little wary.

“Garrus, good to see you!”

“Major,” he acknowledged before brushing past him. He reached out and placed a talon on Shepard’s shoulder. “Kate…”

She shrugged him off. “Get Kaidan set up somewhere, will you? I’ll be in my cabin.”

She disappeared into the elevator, leaving the trio gathered awkwardly around it.

“I’ve missed something, haven’t I?” Kaidan said, regret in his voice. Garrus sighed.

“It’s good to have you back, Kaidan, but…this might not have been the best time.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

One day stretched into two, and they should have left the Citadel, but Shepard hadn’t yet left her cabin. It seemed like half the crew had tried to visit her at one point or another, only to be ignored. Dr Chakwas had forced her way in, persuading EDI to override the doors on medical grounds, but she would only say that Shepard needed time. There was no-one aboard who begrudged her that, but Garrus and Kaidan had had a quiet discussion about which of them might have to field the call from Hackett, if it came.

It was in the early hours of the morning, or at least the night shift, when Garrus heard it. He was still awake, tweaking a minute misalignment on his rifle, when the sound of drilling reached him. He cocked his head, startled and curious, then picked up his sidearm before leaving the gunnery. The mess was empty, but the drilling was louder. It stopped as he made his way through the mess, and as he rounded the elevator shaft he heard the doors closing again, and the faint whine of the elevator moving.

There was an addition to the memorial wall.

He approached, reaching out to brush his talons over the rough plate. The other names on the wall were laser-etched, neat and professional. This one screamed of the personal touch. He wasn’t entirely sure that the name hadn’t been carved into the plate with a knife, going by the marks. It was messy, rough, but spoke far more for what the plate meant to someone than the official ones.

It would be the only outward sign of Shepard’s grief, Garrus was sure. She might, eventually, confide in someone, maybe even him, but the crew as a whole would never see her blink. He wasn’t sure that was a good thing. He knew there wasn’t much he could do about it.

“So long, Thane,” he sighed, coming to attention a little sloppily. He was out of practise. “I’ll keep an eye on her for you, as best I can.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Months later, the carved plate gained a twin.

That one was a team effort.

#MERweek #shrios #thane krios #fem!shep #kate shepard #garrus vakarian #james vega #karin chakwas #fanfiction

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ferociousqueak · 7 years

Text

Okay, so @bloomingcnidarians asked about how my Cassandra Shepard and Thane got together, and I have criminally little written on them, so I decided it was time to rectify that :D

It doesn’t happen right away.

In all honesty, there’s something about Thane that bothers Cassandra at first. He’s so . . . still. In her experience, the only people that still are predators, killers. But then, he admits it, completely unabashed. He’s a killer. Just like she is.

So why does that get to her?

It would be cliché to say he’s a mystery she needs to solve, so she doesn’t say it. Also, it’s not true. Thane is many things, but a mystery isn’t one of them. He’s open. Honest. Forthright. She could ask him any question and trust the answer he gave her, even—especially—if it’s not something she’d prefer to hear.

After a while, it’s like she goes to Life Support out of muscle memory. She stands for only a moment as the elevator door opens. To the left: a stoic warrior who would kill her without remorse if she knew even half the things Cassandra had done. To the right: a stoic warrior who would kill her without remorse for a sufficient paycheck.

It wasn’t so easy in the beginning. The first time she went to see him, it was an exploratory mission. She would be able to tell if he was lying, and if he didn’t meet her standards of trustworthiness, she’d kill him herself. Cassandra had already died once. She preferred not to do it again.

As frustrating and unexpected as it was, he was unerringly honest. He admitted to his role in his wife’s death. He didn’t try to justify his absence from his son’s life. But something still ate at Cassandra.

“How can you say it’s not your fault,” she said one day.

Thane tilted his head at her as his secondary eyelids blinked. “What is supposed to be my fault, siha?”

“Don’t call me that,” she sneered. “You’ve killed more people than you can count. You haven’t even bothered to count them. How can you say their deaths aren’t your fault?”

He nodded. “Their deaths are not your fault, Commander.”

She shook her head and rubbed two fingers against her temple. “I’m not talking about me, Krios. I’m talking about you.”

“Of course, Commander.” He paused and hummed, considering his next words. “The hanar trained me to kill effectively. Mercifully. I fulfilled my first contract when I was twelve.” He took a deep breath. “Looking back, I was too young for that assignment. But I didn’t know better. All I knew was that the people taking care of me needed me. Even if the way they needed me wasn’t . . . conventional.”

Cassandra snorted. “Even a kid knows what’s right and wrong.”

Thane nodded again. “They do. A child also knows what’s necessary. He knows what he needs to do, not just to keep his room and board, but to maintain the affection of those who keep him. And those who keep him know this much.” He paused for a long moment before continuing. “If the ones who keep him direct him to behave in a way he wouldn’t have normally . . . the responsibility is with them, not him.”

“That’s bullshit,” Cassandra said, almost without pause.

“Is it, Commander,” Thane said, tilting his head further. “If a child is about to starve and she does something unfortunate to stay alive, who is at fault? The child, or the person who asked the child to do the unfortunate thing, knowing full well what the stakes are?”

Cassandra pushed away from the table and stood, pacing the small space. “Of course the child isn’t responsible,” she said. “But eventually that child becomes an adult. They can make decisions for themselves.”

“Yes,” Thane agreed. “They can make decisions. Including taking contracts that kill people.” He leaned forward and pressed his mouth against his clasped hands. “There will always be people who can’t do their own killing. I can offer a service that both achieves the inevitable and affords the target minimal pain and discomfort.” He turned his gaze toward Cassandra. “I might kill professionally, Commander. That does not mean I enjoy it.”

Cassandra continued to pace. How could he . . . how did he think . . . no. If you killed a person, you were responsible. End of story. Trying to say otherwise was an equivocation. A justification. She was responsible. No. He was responsible. He’d been paid to kill people and he’d done it.

“You could’ve said no at any point,” she said, her arms crossed as she carefully looked away from him.

“That’s true,” Thane agreed. “And I could’ve starved at any point. I could’ve alienated myself from anyone who meant anything to me at any point.”

Cassandra finally looked at Thane. “Yeah? Do you think Kolyat would buy what you’re selling.”

Thane started, visibly taken aback by her words, and she immediately regretted them. “That’s not,” she shook her head and looked away. “I mean . . .”

“You said what you meant, Commander,” he said. Already, she felt a twinge in her chest that almost felt like she missed him calling her siha. God, why did she want to hear him call her that? “It’s a fair question.” He paused as he considered his answer. “I suspect Kolyat would be as suspicious as you are. That’s not something I can control.”

Cassandra wanted to take the question back. She didn’t want Thane thinking that . . . she wasn’t sure what she didn’t want him thinking. She’d upset him, that much was clear, and she didn’t like how that made her feel.

“What I mean to say,” he said after a moment, “is that it’s not your fault, Commander.”

Cassandra stopped and turned toward him, unable to move toward the empty chair across from him.

“You have spent a significant part of your life . . . what is it humans say? Taking out the garbage for people who had no respect for you,” he said. “But just because they had no respect for you, doesn’t mean you don’t deserve it.” He paused again. “You deliver death, that’s true. But you do not relish it. It is something you deliver quickly, cleanly, and painlessly. That’s something to be admired, siha. I apologize. Commander.”

She sighed. She could get used to the nickname, if she was being honest, and didn’t correct him.

Cassandra couldn’t look at Thane. She wanted to sit across from him and look him in the eyes, but she didn’t want to sit. She needed to bleed off the energy building up inside her. “I just need to . . . I need to think.”

Thane caught her hand as she moved past him. He didn’t lean forward. He didn’t look at her with any kind of smoky gaze. He just ran his thumb down her palm and across her wrist and focused anywhere that didn’t meet her eyes.

“That’s good, Commander,” he said, his eyes still on the hand he held. “Taking the time to know one’s own thoughts is important.”

“Siha,” she said before she realized it. Thane looked up at her and she felt her heart jump. “It’s okay if you call me siha.”

Thane nodded and pressed his thumb against her palm before leaning back again.

After a moment, she slowly pulled her hand back. Without a word, she headed toward the door. Something inside her was . . . still. She hadn’t felt that before.

She needed to figure it out.

#Mass Effect #Cassandra Shepard #Thane Krios #Shrios #my fic #bloomingcnidarians #long post

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crystallinearts · 7 years

Text

Thane Krios x Reader - Okay

My first real venture into the Mass Effect fandom. I’d imagine that you (probably in the role of FemShep) would have a hard time adjusting and would be likely to freak out if Thane started coughing. Even if it’s nothing serious, it’s the main symptom of Kepral’s, and it brings back memories even though Thane is perfectly healthy now.

Enjoy!! <3

When you wake up to the sound of Thane coughing, it’s the most terrifying thing you can imagine.

You’re alert in an instant, hands reaching toward the love of your life, tears in your eyes as possibilities flash across your mind. The Kepral’s is coming back. His transplanted lungs are failing him, or his body is rejecting them. Some new, equally fatal illness is starting to ravage his body, and he’ll have to suffer all over again. Memories, too -- ones that leave you shaking. Thane being hooked up to life support, too weak to get out of bed. He’s struggling for every breath as his son prays for him. He’s coughing so hard, it makes him vomit into the nearby waste bin.

You’re not sure that you can watch him go through that a second time.

“Thane!” Trembling fingers grasp at the sheets, trying to untangle them from warm flesh. Is it your imagination, or is his temperature running hotter than usual? “Oh, my God! Thane? Thane!” Your own breathing becomes erratic as the tears begin to stream down your cheeks. Everything has been perfect for the last year. Suppose it’s all going to come crashing down on the two of you; out of nowhere and after what feels like a brief reprieve. You’d never, ever abandon Thane, but if he got as sick again as he used to be, you just can’t imagine watching him have to go through that when he’s already fought through it once. It just wouldn’t be fair, and you’re so tired of living in a world that isn’t fair.

His arms, lean and still thick with muscle, circle around you even before you’ve said his name. His grip gets stronger with every word that falls from your lips, and his chest roils with more coughs that he tries to suppress. “I’m here, siha, I’m here...!” There is no echo in his voice that speaks to fluid build-up. No wheezing that alludes to tightness in his chest. There is congestion that you can hear, ragged breath... not coming from his lungs. “Siha? It’s alright... what’s the matter? Did you have a nightmare? Here...” He moves to draw away, slipping his fingers around yours. “Come, we shall pray together. Take deep breaths--”

“Thane!” you interrupt, yet your hand squeezes around his regardless. “That’s not what this is about! Are you crazy?!” The way you lean in to his touch makes it seem like you’ve not been with him for years. All you want is to feel him here, to believe that, yes, he’s okay, and your life together isn’t going to crumble to ash. Even this isn’t really enough. You’ll never be close enough right now to satisfy your panic. “Why are you coughing?! Are you okay?!”

His breath catches in his throat, and as soon as he gets a clear look at you, it clicks. He’s quick to let go of your hands and draw you back into a protective embrace. “Oh, no... no, siha, don’t worry, please. It’s just a little cough. I’m just... a bit under the weather today. It’s so early -- why don’t you try to get some more sleep? You know I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“But what if you’re wrong?!“ The words come out before you can even think to stop them. How does he know it isn’t serious? He can’t possibly. Plenty of horrible diseases can start with innocent symptoms like just a little cough.

Almost immediately after you say that, you feel guilty. That’s an awful thing to say even if you’re worried about him. “Thane... I don’t want to lose you... I’ve almost lost you so many times already, and -- and you don’t deserve to suffer, and... and...”

“Shh, shh, siha. Oh, my siha...” You feel his lips press against your head. It’s not surprising that his touches suddenly get much more gentle, with soft kisses lingering over your forehead and fingers stroking down your back. Things have been hard to adjust to; domestic life is wonderful, but it’s not exactly easy to turn off your battle-ready reflexes like a light switch. It’s been difficult for you both, and you know Thane isn’t trying to invalidate your concerns. Your entire party’s lived with ‘worst-case scenario’ as the only scenario for so long, it’s a challenge to remember that not everything is like that now. He understands. You know he does. “It’s just a cold, my love. My angel. Really. I’ve had colds before, and trust me, this is just a cold.”

Almost as if to prove his point, he turns his head to the side for a few seconds to let out a sneeze. It does make his chest and arms shudder, but it’s not the full-body-racking that accompanied his Kepral’s cough. “Mmmmnn... excuse me...”

Before the transplant, something as simple as a sneeze like that would send him into a violent coughing attack. The fact that now all he does is clear his throat and mumble something in Drell eases your mind a little. “... Bless you.”

For some reason that makes him chuckle. His arms give you a careful squeeze before he lets his lips rest flush against your hair. “Thank you, siha. You are forever looking after me, aren’t you?” He sighs softly, rustling some strands of hair across your forehead. “Listen -- I am confident that this is nothing but a cold. But, if it will make you feel better...” From your position, you can feel the rise and fall of his chest; robust expansion that’s the sign of healthy lungs. “Then I will go see a doctor. At a more reasonable hour,” he adds with an unmistakable edge of dry wit.

“Well... that... I guess that would...” You still don’t want to let go, though. The problem is that you’re really no use to him if you’re clinging. “For now, I think I’m actually pretty awake. Go figure, but you need your rest.” So you move out of his arms slowly, savoring his touch. (Honestly, the sensation of his fingertips is probably the only thing you’ll ever be able to recall as well as a Drell can.) A kiss is left to tingle on Thane’s lips before you slip out of bed and fuss with the covers around him. “Try to relax. I’m going to go make you a cup of tea, okay? The heat should help that stuffiness and the lemon will help your throat.”

The look on his face is absolutely indescribable. An awestruck smile sits faintly on his lips, and big inky eyes sparkle at you. It must have been so long since someone took care of him like this, besides doctors and his son. What he’s thinking is pretty obvious to you. That he still doesn’t understand why you care about him so much, he thinks he doesn’t deserve it, yet he’s grateful for it all the same. “Ah... truly you are too good to me, siha. If that is what you wish to do... I’ll admit I am in no real mood to get up and stop you.”

“Good answer, baby.” Your fingers run over his scaly cheek, then you give him one more kiss. “I love you, Thane. I can’t imagine my life without you. You mean so much to me, and I’m always going to be here for you, whether it’s a little cold or a broken bone.”

The corners of his mouth quirk up more. “You are determined. Stubborn. Sometimes a bit foolish.”

“Guilty as charged.”

His fingers stay wrapped around yours, as if he never wants to let go. “And thank goodness for it. You would not be my siha if you were not. I love you, too.”

Everything is okay.

#anxiety tw #Mass Effect #Thane #Thane Krios #Thane x Reader #hurt/comfort

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