Ash wasn’t sure if it was obvious but no matter how hard she tried she could not sleep on the trip back to Coruscant. She lay awake with her mind racing and frozen at the same time, unable to think of anything yet harassed by a million thoughts.

She lay sprawled on her bed, everyone but 4X and N2 resting; 4X powered down on occasion to check his systems. 

Staring up at the ceiling provided no answers. She didn’t know what to make of her existence after being on Tatooine again.

“Thanks for teaching these pups a thing or two.”

“Don’t thank me for this. Don’t ever thank me for this.”

She hadn’t allowed the old man to respond, brusquely asking if they required anything else done. 

Her fingers curled into the sheets of her bed and she sat up, brows knitting in frustration. She never wanted to return to Tatooine ever again, not while her loyalties were demanded by someone else, not while she was still part of this broken, bloated ‘tribe.’

Swinging her legs over the edge of her bed she got up and stretched her body out, finding her hair tie and getting her hair out of the way.

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It was a lot more comforting than she felt it should be, wearing a helmet again in this desert heat. She’d finally relented to the urge and constructed one for herself during some downtime between missions. She’d wear it if only to keep the heat off her skin, she wasn’t a naturally dark person and growing up with her entire body shielded by thick coverings did nothing to change that. The sun had no mercy for a pale hide.

She made it recognizable with the rest of her armour, no matter how much instinct pushed her to make it personally familiar. Ghorfa coverings didn’t have comms and air filtering.

Regardless of her muddled feelings on what should be a simple thing, she was thankful for one aspect. It hid the anger and disgust on her face when she was asked to take the militia recruits of some pitiful trading post out and train them against the local tribe.

She was silent for only a few seconds but her mind raced, her heart felt like it twisted upon itself and her gut froze. She had so far avoided directly conflicting with the Ghorfa, a sense of loyalty to a life and culture she couldn’t return to. She wasn’t one of them any more, she couldn’t be; so who was she loyal to?

“Sir?”

Elara’s voice snapped her back to reality, “I’ll do it.”

The recruits were young pliant things who could barely hold a gun and Ash did not honestly see many of them surviving a fight against Ghorfa. She bit back her sneer at the boast over Vastil’s knowledge of the Ghorfa, she didn’t need his help to fight them; she knew them better than any of these clueless outsiders ever would.

They set out towards the overrun settlements and Ash could feel Elara’s eyes on her. She wondered if Elara felt bad when fighting Imperials, was Elara silently questioning her resolve to help the side she joined instead of the side she came from?

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Oh look the beginning of Chapter 22 for CotS -

It was refreshing to leave the humidity of Zangarmarsh behind them, Terokkar’s air feeling bone dry by comparison and far colder. The trees reminded Keleria of a split between palms and pines with their plated trunks and needle-like foliage. The fact that they dropped cones for their seeds only reinforced the idea.

Outside the confines of its demon tainted areas Keleria actually found Draenor’s broken remains intriguing. It was a different world and not even the birthplace of the Draenei themselves, which only meant there were more out there. Worlds with their own multitude of people, cultures and lands with different creatures and plants to discover, explore and study. It made her feel rather insignificant to think about it.

A shadow passed over head and she heard Ayuri giggle lowly. Keleria rolled her eyes, only half meaning it, and looked up to see E’Tharadar soaring high above the canopy. He was quite happy to spend his time in the air while they trekked to Shattrath and Keleria had no intention of leaving Ayuri behind. Flying beasts had a natural advantage over grounded ones and Shayo would not be able to keep up with the hippogryph’s speed. So they walked.

Of course Keleria could just ride upon Shayo with Ayuri but she was in no distinct hurry. The refuge was not in danger of another attack any time soon and the Naga would need time to lick their wounds and gather strength. She could see Shattrath in the distance and they would be there before dawn. Spending a few weeks among their own kind had normalized their sleeping pattern, at least by Kaldorei standards. Keleria resisted the urge to internally groan at having to flip back to a diurnal pattern, why the other races didn’t have the sense to be awake during the comforting hours of the night was beyond her. Though with no small level of bitterness she supposed that was one of the few things left untainted by them.

“Think you’ll keep him?” Ayuri kept her eyes on the road, idly reaching down to stroke across Shayo’s neck.

“I do not know,” Keleria glanced up at E’Tharadar once more. “Brushal would not wish me to contemplate my navel for any extended period of time; he would swat me for the time spent on that already.”

Ayuri looked aside at her, smiling reassuringly, “you weren’t that bad. Maybe just a little too insular.”

Keleria met her gaze, raising a brow disbelievingly, “a little?”

Ayuri lifted her hand, pressing her thumb and forefinger to together, “just a little.”

The warrior scoffed, amused, and looked to the sky again. “He is proud, energetic and ferocious, a fine example of his kind,” she managed a smile. “He would make a fine companion.”

Ayuri tilted her head, “and you have yet to ride him.”

“There is that. I know how to fly a hippogryph, it is merely…”

“You think of Brushal.”

“Precisely.”

“Did this happen with your previous companions too?”

“Usually there was more space between the time of their deaths and when I met a suitable candidate. There are personalities to consider if you do not raise the sabre yourself, some will simply not mesh well with certain Kal’dorei and it has always been the case both ways.”

“I guess you really wouldn’t want to be around a sabre that hates you.”

“No you would not. You see what they do to your enemies; they could just as easily do that to you.”

Ayuri looked at Shayo and leaned down, hugging the sabre around her shoulders. Shayo gave a brief snort in response, her tail flicking up and brushing the young woman’s leg. Keleria chuckled briefly, “she would have made it obvious if she did not like you.”

Ayuri smiled, her cheek pressed against Shayo’s fur, “I know. I’m just appreciating that she’s here with me.”

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

Can be found on AO3 and FF.net.

(current editing and adding the previous chapters to AO3 so they’re not all there yet but WHATEVER.)

Fucking finally.

Welp, there it is.

Any of you paying attention to my weird little corner of the internet may remember I was trying to write a oneshot set during my post-ME3 headcanon called “Close to Home” and the main point of it was my space-born Shep’s mother meets Samara.

Now I do have an idea of how Samara should act during this exchange [read: super stiff and formal because this is Shepard’s mother. Shepard’s mother.], I know how Ashira (my shepard) will act and I know how Hannah Shepard will act.

But for the life of me I cannot churn out this dialogue as easily as I thought I would. I figured I would write the dialogue and then just fill in the scene around it, I’ve done this before, it’s worked for me, yet this dialogue just does not want to get written. I am going to lazily blame this on the fact that I have never had a girlfriend myself and thus have never had this kind of interaction. I also don’t recall having watched this kind of interaction in a show, video game, film or read it in a book.

I have considered asking my mother for help, like what would she say in the situation and I might just to look at that as another option anyway but uh…here’s what I have so far -

Hannah: “Ashira!”

Ashira: “How do you get the same table every time?”

Hannah: “I think the family name helps.”

Ashira: “I’ll bet.”

Samara: “Rear Admiral Shepard, it’s a pleasure.”

Hannah: “Please, call me Hannah. You’re Samara, yes? I almost expected Ash to stall this.”

Ashira: “Mother.”

Hannah: “You know I’m joking. So I suppose it would be a little pointless to ask how you met? Or is it not that obvious?”

Ashira: “Well I was actually looking to recruit Samara on Illium and an Eclipse merc went flying by my head…”

Samara: “I was working.”

Ashira: “True, but even with the interruption you went straight to business.”

Hannah: “So not your conventional meeting, but I expected that.”

“Keleria.”

There it was.

Keleria sighed lowly and stopped on the path they were travelling. She wandered to the side and knelt down, sinking her blades into the shallow water of the marsh’s many pools. Naga blood was a slick decoration upon them and she kept them out in case of ambush.

“What is it?” she could almost hear Ayuri’s brow furrowing.

“You know this isn’t the best way to deal with it.”

“It is the most isolated and least affecting of others.”

“What about yourself?”

“I am not incapable of dealing with my own grief.”

“But you are incapable of asking for help.”

“I do not need any.”

“You’re not even talking to me about it; you only spoke about it the same day it happened and then nothing. All you’ve been doing is brooding quietly and then slaughtered Naga.”

“I am not allowed to vent?”

“I didn’t say that but you need to do something other than violently taking it out on other living beings.”

Keleria stood and turned to face her, sheathing her blades. “Do you fear I will hurt you?”

Ayuri blinked, momentarily off guard from the question, and quickly frowned, “no.” She spoke firmly, “no, you would never hurt me. But it still isn’t good for you to keep it inside like you are only to release it by killing others.”

Keleria rubbed at her brow, eyes looking elsewhere, “what do you expect of me? Brushal was my first friend in this…this existence.” She let her hand drop to her side, the humidity of the air caught on her skin and dripped briefly from her fingertips. There was no frown, merely a look of solemn acceptance, “I do not interact with the vestiges of my former life. I do not seek out what few friends and allies remain alive to see me in such a poor state. Brushal accepted me as an ally and as a friend.” Her eyes fell shut, “and now he returns to Cenarius.”

“You will see your pathetic ‘Mother’ soon enough, wretched Kal’dorei!”

Naga exploded from the water around them, their powerful, coiling bodies pushing them forwards in a frightening surge of speed and strength.

Okay so there is actually some writing going on with this, it hasn’t been forgotten -

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