Fill: Glory of the Darkest Winds (Part 1/?)
anonymous
April 10 2013, 19:03:50 UTC
I’ve done a lot of research on humans.
At first, it was just to figure out what the hell I’d gotten myself into. I’d been arguing with Pallin -- again, still-- and this human female arrived just in time to watch him hand my ass to me -- again, still, whatever.
Not the most auspicious of introductions, but she let me join her team. Even if she hadn’t, I would have found a way to go with her, because no one was taking Saren down without me there.
So I started researching humans. Being on a ship full of them meant I had ample opportunity to observe them -- and to observe her.
Commander Shepard.
You have to understand. She was already a legend when she came up those stairs, even if she wasn’t a Spectre yet. She’d survived horrors that made even krogan pause, and her head was filled with ancient blood and old death.
I knew her name, and her history -- what was public, that is. She wasn’t much older than me, just a year or two, but I remember how forceful I tried to sound, how authoritative and proud. I tried to sound like a good turian.
Which, of course, I’m not. I didn’t know that then. Turns out I had almost as much to learn about myself as I did about humans.
Nothing about the mission was easy. Sometimes, I still dream of Ilos. But we won, and brought home a warning.
And then Shepard died.
I didn’t hear about it until much later. Liara sent me a message, Tali sent me a message, even Wrex sent me a message (even though that one consisted mainly of variations on the phrase “Alliance bullshit”), but she was gone, and words were dust.
They said she suffocated when her suit ruptured. They said she burned up in the atmosphere.
They said a lot of things, but all I heard was Shepard is dead.
For two years, that was almost all I heard, even over the gunfire and the screams of tearing metal.
The plan was always to join up with her again, after I became a Spectre and wrapped a few things back home. Back then, I still thought it was just about finding the right leader, and being willing to follow her anywhere, to whatever end. It was a good plan.
The plan. I always had a plan. Even after she was gone, even though it was a hasty one, I still had a plan. Destroy evil. Save people. Leave the galaxy brighter and cleaner than how you found it, because there’s already enough darkness and filth out there. It’s your job to clean it up.
After Sidonis, the plan got a bit shorter. Build yourself a pyre with your guilt and your failure, Garrus, and ignite it. Take as many mercs with you as you can when you burn.
Bit poetic for a turian, but like I said, I’m not a good one.
Turns out, not even death can hold onto Shepard long.
This time, I understood things a bit better.
No matter what Kaidan said on Horizon, it was still her. And when we got to the Omega-4 relay, I went to her cabin. I had a plan then too -- offer comfort, silence, wine, myself -- but the sight of that closed door scared me away. I was still too much like that turian she’d met on the steps in the Citadel, too brash and too young, for all that I was older than her now. She’d never fraternized before; why should it be with me?
Yet again, we lived, and we won, and then she was gone for six months.
I felt it, like my hand was gone, or my eye.
When I got home, for lack of any other option, I went to my father, and it turned out that other people had plans for me.
I got promoted, and when I yelled, people listened to me. Heady stuff, especially for a failed C-Sec officer whose sister still wasn’t speaking to him. I got a task force, and we worked.
The humans have a saying, something about being forged in the fires of battle. The thing is, the forging changes you -- your shape, your strength. I was no exception. The raw potential Shepard saw in me was honed into a weapon. I can say, with no small pride, that when the Reapers came, burning my home, my world, I held the line against the fire.
Re: Fill: Glory of the Darkest Winds (Part 1/?)
anonymous
April 10 2013, 22:54:21 UTC
Wow, I must say, that's really well written. I liked the prompt, I'm glad it lured me to your story. Had this been a fic for a prompt I had not liked, I'd still be glad. This is gonna be good. Thank you :-)
Fill: Glory of the Darkest Winds (Part 1a/?)
anonymous
April 10 2013, 23:03:23 UTC
A!A here -- so, I'm going to be telling this from both Garrus' and Shepard's POVs, so we get the full experience. They'll alternate parts, and once the first two parts are up (they're establishing that yes, Shep loves Garrus, even if she thinks he doesn't return her feelings), we'll get into the actual action of the story. These parts are short, but don't worry -- there's much more to come!
I don't know what it is about the kink meme but these prompts write themselves.
***
Garrus
It goes without saying my plan did not include being waylaid by Primarch Victus on my way to the main battery.
“You look terribly pleased for a turian who just left Menae in flames.” There was no reproach in his voice, only a simple statement of fact. I had to fight not to duck my head all the same. Only one rank and a few names separated us now, as easy as it was to forget that fact.
“I’m glad to be going where I’ll be of use,” I retorted. “If anyone can bring the fight to the Reapers and free Palaven, it’s Shepard.”
“Your faith in her is touching.” The Primarch folded his arms and gave me a long, measured look. It was a trick of his to unnerve people into telling the truth, and just because I was familiar with it didn’t mean I was completely immune.
“I’ve been through hell and back with her, twice. If she hasn’t earned my faith by now, there’s no way she’ll ever get it.” The Primarch’s mandibles flared in a question no human would recognize. I stared back without blinking.
"You'll have to excuse me, Primarch. I'm sure someone's messed with the cannon without me there to guard it. I'll have to recalibrate everything." Victus blinked. That non-answer was answer enough for him.
“She’s earned more than your faith, Vakarian.” I shrugged carefully, and the Primarch huffed out a laugh.
“I see,” he said, but before he could clarify what, exactly, it was that he saw, Kaidan rounded the corner and stopped short when he saw us.
“Vakar -- Garrus -- oh, God, Primarch Victus, I didn’t mean -- “ I’d never seen Kaidan so badly wrong-footed before. In all the time I knew him, he was nothing but capable and controlled, and it was a bit satisfying to see him fumbling. I wasn’t just a bad turian. Sometimes, I could be a bad person.
“Major Alenko. Kaidan,” I said. Kaidan gave me a grateful look, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the Primarch melting back into the War Room. There was a flicker of movement from the vid room, and Liara stepped out, talking over her shoulder at Shepard.
Shepard.
It was my first time seeing her outside of her armor in more than six months. She’d gotten paler and thinner, her scars just suggestions, but her hair was still the same, and so was the brisk way she handed the datapad back to Liara.
“Primarch Victus,” I heard her say. “We need to talk.”
Kaidan was talking at my elbow, something about my old spot in the main battery still being open, and I had to shove down a flash of annoyance. He hadn’t been there. He’d cut off all of us on Horizon, and now he wanted in on those memories?
Not a chance, said the loud, eager young turian in my head, the one I could never shut up. He abandoned us.
I was older now, and kinder, if not more patient.
“Thanks, Kaidan,” I said. I still hadn’t looked at him. I was watching Shepard. “I think I’ll go get settled in.”
She turned her head to answer Liara's question, her fine bones moving high under the skin, and I understood why humans licked their lips.
Re: Fill: Glory of the Darkest Winds (Part 1a/?)
anonymous
April 11 2013, 00:50:41 UTC
ohohohohoohohohoh this is going to be good! I like how Victus is totally onto Garrus, lol.
She wasn’t much older than me, just a year or two
You know, I headcanon that Garrus is younger than Shepard (though by more than he is in this story), so it was kind of nice to see this. I used to assume he was older 'til I replayed ME1 and realised just how young he acts.
Re: Fill: Glory of the Darkest Winds (Part 1a/?)
anonymous
April 11 2013, 01:06:04 UTC
A!A here!
Yay! I'm glad you're enjoying it.
My headcanon says that Garrus is coming to the end of his compulsory service when Shepard meets him in ME1, so he's probably 26-28 years old. Their ages even out after she's revived by Cerberus, but in many ways he's still a lot younger than her and doesn't really "grow up" until he's put in charge before ME3.
I LOVE that I have people to talk headcanons with! This is such a great fandom.
And Victus is the best. I love the turians and quarians most and Victus/Kal'Reegar are my dearest loves.
Re: Fill: Glory of the Darkest Winds (Part 1a/?)
anonymous
April 11 2013, 01:13:13 UTC
This is so awesome I don't even have the words to describe how shamelessly excited I am. I look forward to more with the eagerness of a teenager whose spirit has not been crushed by the harsh realities of the world. In the meantime I'll re-read your other awesome fill. Again.
Re: Fill: Glory of the Darkest Winds (Part 1a/?)
anonymous
April 11 2013, 01:46:53 UTC
*OP takes several more deep calming breaths*
I love it. Already. Completely adore it. Your Victus characterization has me smiling like mad, as does your description about how Garrus DOES still have to fight to control his gut subordinate reactions. That fits his personality so well.
And that last line is killer! *is in a happy place*
I am eagerly awaiting the next installment, and getting a glimpse into Shepard's head.
Victus is a badass and he has NO TIME for any of this romance crap.
With all your talk about Garrus being super-confident and him aggressively pursuing Shepard, I thought about how turians are basically apex predators and then I thought how much fun would it be if I played that up in his pursuit of her?
I think you'll appreciate this -- it's one of the notes I left for myself last night when I was half-asleep:
"shepard doesn't take garrus on a mission, so he occupies himself by asking her things like "what are you wearing" when she's trying to bypass stuff. but she's just like "uh, my armor that you have seen a million times" and he's all "underneath that" and liara is coming unglued next to shepard because garrus/femshep is her OTP but shepard is just like GARRUS NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR JOKES, GET OFF THE COMMS AND CALIBRATE SOMETHING because she has no idea he's trying to get her all worked up. then liara is all nooooooooo stop put your faces together and victus is there like "you two are our best hope oh shit we are actually fucked""
I can't even handle how happy this prompt is making me.
At first, it was just to figure out what the hell I’d gotten myself into. I’d been arguing with Pallin -- again, still-- and this human female arrived just in time to watch him hand my ass to me -- again, still, whatever.
Not the most auspicious of introductions, but she let me join her team. Even if she hadn’t, I would have found a way to go with her, because no one was taking Saren down without me there.
So I started researching humans. Being on a ship full of them meant I had ample opportunity to observe them -- and to observe her.
Commander Shepard.
You have to understand. She was already a legend when she came up those stairs, even if she wasn’t a Spectre yet. She’d survived horrors that made even krogan pause, and her head was filled with ancient blood and old death.
I knew her name, and her history -- what was public, that is. She wasn’t much older than me, just a year or two, but I remember how forceful I tried to sound, how authoritative and proud. I tried to sound like a good turian.
Which, of course, I’m not. I didn’t know that then. Turns out I had almost as much to learn about myself as I did about humans.
Nothing about the mission was easy. Sometimes, I still dream of Ilos. But we won, and brought home a warning.
And then Shepard died.
I didn’t hear about it until much later. Liara sent me a message, Tali sent me a message, even Wrex sent me a message (even though that one consisted mainly of variations on the phrase “Alliance bullshit”), but she was gone, and words were dust.
They said she suffocated when her suit ruptured. They said she burned up in the atmosphere.
They said a lot of things, but all I heard was Shepard is dead.
For two years, that was almost all I heard, even over the gunfire and the screams of tearing metal.
The plan was always to join up with her again, after I became a Spectre and wrapped a few things back home. Back then, I still thought it was just about finding the right leader, and being willing to follow her anywhere, to whatever end. It was a good plan.
The plan. I always had a plan. Even after she was gone, even though it was a hasty one, I still had a plan. Destroy evil. Save people. Leave the galaxy brighter and cleaner than how you found it, because there’s already enough darkness and filth out there. It’s your job to clean it up.
After Sidonis, the plan got a bit shorter. Build yourself a pyre with your guilt and your failure, Garrus, and ignite it. Take as many mercs with you as you can when you burn.
Bit poetic for a turian, but like I said, I’m not a good one.
Turns out, not even death can hold onto Shepard long.
This time, I understood things a bit better.
No matter what Kaidan said on Horizon, it was still her. And when we got to the Omega-4 relay, I went to her cabin. I had a plan then too -- offer comfort, silence, wine, myself -- but the sight of that closed door scared me away. I was still too much like that turian she’d met on the steps in the Citadel, too brash and too young, for all that I was older than her now. She’d never fraternized before; why should it be with me?
Yet again, we lived, and we won, and then she was gone for six months.
I felt it, like my hand was gone, or my eye.
When I got home, for lack of any other option, I went to my father, and it turned out that other people had plans for me.
I got promoted, and when I yelled, people listened to me. Heady stuff, especially for a failed C-Sec officer whose sister still wasn’t speaking to him. I got a task force, and we worked.
The humans have a saying, something about being forged in the fires of battle. The thing is, the forging changes you -- your shape, your strength. I was no exception. The raw potential Shepard saw in me was honed into a weapon. I can say, with no small pride, that when the Reapers came, burning my home, my world, I held the line against the fire.
And when I saw her on Menae, I had a plan.
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I liked the prompt, I'm glad it lured me to your story. Had this been a fic for a prompt I had not liked, I'd still be glad. This is gonna be good. Thank you :-)
Reply
Reply
I don't know what it is about the kink meme but these prompts write themselves.
***
Garrus
It goes without saying my plan did not include being waylaid by Primarch Victus on my way to the main battery.
“You look terribly pleased for a turian who just left Menae in flames.” There was no reproach in his voice, only a simple statement of fact. I had to fight not to duck my head all the same. Only one rank and a few names separated us now, as easy as it was to forget that fact.
“I’m glad to be going where I’ll be of use,” I retorted. “If anyone can bring the fight to the Reapers and free Palaven, it’s Shepard.”
“Your faith in her is touching.” The Primarch folded his arms and gave me a long, measured look. It was a trick of his to unnerve people into telling the truth, and just because I was familiar with it didn’t mean I was completely immune.
“I’ve been through hell and back with her, twice. If she hasn’t earned my faith by now, there’s no way she’ll ever get it.” The Primarch’s mandibles flared in a question no human would recognize. I stared back without blinking.
"You'll have to excuse me, Primarch. I'm sure someone's messed with the cannon without me there to guard it. I'll have to recalibrate everything." Victus blinked. That non-answer was answer enough for him.
“She’s earned more than your faith, Vakarian.” I shrugged carefully, and the Primarch huffed out a laugh.
“I see,” he said, but before he could clarify what, exactly, it was that he saw, Kaidan rounded the corner and stopped short when he saw us.
“Vakar -- Garrus -- oh, God, Primarch Victus, I didn’t mean -- “ I’d never seen Kaidan so badly wrong-footed before. In all the time I knew him, he was nothing but capable and controlled, and it was a bit satisfying to see him fumbling. I wasn’t just a bad turian. Sometimes, I could be a bad person.
“Major Alenko. Kaidan,” I said. Kaidan gave me a grateful look, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the Primarch melting back into the War Room. There was a flicker of movement from the vid room, and Liara stepped out, talking over her shoulder at Shepard.
Shepard.
It was my first time seeing her outside of her armor in more than six months. She’d gotten paler and thinner, her scars just suggestions, but her hair was still the same, and so was the brisk way she handed the datapad back to Liara.
“Primarch Victus,” I heard her say. “We need to talk.”
Kaidan was talking at my elbow, something about my old spot in the main battery still being open, and I had to shove down a flash of annoyance. He hadn’t been there. He’d cut off all of us on Horizon, and now he wanted in on those memories?
Not a chance, said the loud, eager young turian in my head, the one I could never shut up. He abandoned us.
I was older now, and kinder, if not more patient.
“Thanks, Kaidan,” I said. I still hadn’t looked at him. I was watching Shepard. “I think I’ll go get settled in.”
She turned her head to answer Liara's question, her fine bones moving high under the skin, and I understood why humans licked their lips.
Reply
She wasn’t much older than me, just a year or two
You know, I headcanon that Garrus is younger than Shepard (though by more than he is in this story), so it was kind of nice to see this. I used to assume he was older 'til I replayed ME1 and realised just how young he acts.
Reply
Yay! I'm glad you're enjoying it.
My headcanon says that Garrus is coming to the end of his compulsory service when Shepard meets him in ME1, so he's probably 26-28 years old. Their ages even out after she's revived by Cerberus, but in many ways he's still a lot younger than her and doesn't really "grow up" until he's put in charge before ME3.
I LOVE that I have people to talk headcanons with! This is such a great fandom.
And Victus is the best. I love the turians and quarians most and Victus/Kal'Reegar are my dearest loves.
Reply
Reply
Reply
I love it. Already. Completely adore it. Your Victus characterization has me smiling like mad, as does your description about how Garrus DOES still have to fight to control his gut subordinate reactions. That fits his personality so well.
And that last line is killer! *is in a happy place*
I am eagerly awaiting the next installment, and getting a glimpse into Shepard's head.
*pulls up a chair and waits patiently*
Reply
With all your talk about Garrus being super-confident and him aggressively pursuing Shepard, I thought about how turians are basically apex predators and then I thought how much fun would it be if I played that up in his pursuit of her?
I think you'll appreciate this -- it's one of the notes I left for myself last night when I was half-asleep:
"shepard doesn't take garrus on a mission, so he occupies himself by asking her things like "what are you wearing" when she's trying to bypass stuff. but she's just like "uh, my armor that you have seen a million times" and he's all "underneath that" and liara is coming unglued next to shepard because garrus/femshep is her OTP but shepard is just like GARRUS NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR JOKES, GET OFF THE COMMS AND CALIBRATE SOMETHING because she has no idea he's trying to get her all worked up. then liara is all nooooooooo stop put your faces together and victus is there like "you two are our best hope oh shit we are actually fucked""
I can't even handle how happy this prompt is making me.
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