abraxasnet | To: Everyone

[What a badass thing to say! Obviously they're going to have to meet like, yesterday.]

That is fucking insane.
Obviously I want a blow by blow account.
...maybe just the highlights or we might be here all night.

Easy there, tiger. I get that you're enthusiastic, but I'm not up for a systemic report on my entire service history.

[Holy shit, they are a Krogan, in spirit if not in the flesh. Shepard wants to meet this kid.]

How about you buy my drinks for a bit, answer a few questions of your own, and I'll tell you all about Torfan.

Sound fair?

[She almost objects. Asks again. But then she keeps reading and sees the suggestion they meet and suddenly those almost-objections bleed away into the ether.]

Deal.
Do you know the Surly Wench Tavern?

I do indeed. Meet you there; I'll be the ginger marine with the scarred up face.

[She knows her audience.

And, true to her word, Shepard shows up in good time, all five feet and three inches of her, scars and red hair and just the right kind of thirsty. How about a table, the one in the corner where you can put your back to the wall. That's perfect.]

Hey. You Gideon? [You look like a Gideon. You have one of those faces.] I'm Shepard.

[Gideon turns when she's addressed, blinks her lambent eyes at the much shorter woman in an expression of mild surprise. It's relatively quiet in the tavern at this time, just a scattering of locals skulking about, the late-night rowdiness yet to set in. And whilst Gideon had been expecting company, she's nonetheless unprepared for being spotted so swiftly.

But the woman is quick to introduce herself, which earns her a slanted grin.]

Yup! What gave it away? The biceps or my dazzling good looks?

[She says, as she openly looks the other woman up and down, tries to work out whether it's rude to ask about someone's cool-ass scars before they've so much as ordered a drink.]

Let's just say that if you don't look like a local.

[Shepard laughs, and signals for a drink— two, actually, and why not? Gideon can drink too.]

So, you first. Necromancy. Really.

[Whilst the barmaid moves to get their order, Gideon rolls her eyes dramatically.]

I swear, if I had a coin off everyone who asked that question first, I'd be a rich woman by now. It's still pretty weird to me even after months and months in this place, you know? Like, necromancy was the cornerstone of our whole civilisation pretty much. Our god is a necro, even. I come from a system of planets called the Nine Houses, all founded by necromancers who served the King Undying like, thousands of years ago.

[She leans back in one of the rickety chairs, and eyes the other woman again.]

How much do you wanna know? Like, are you a total necromancy newb, and want the whole concept explained, or have you got specific questions?

Honestly, I'd say it all sounds fictional to me, if I hadn't died once already.

[Shepard is struggling with the concept, can you tell? No? Good, she doesn't like to look weak in front of anyone, let alone near strangers.]

I'm pretty sure there wasn't magic involved in that one, though. Seriously, a whole society built on bringing people back from the grave? Seems kinda... [How to find the right way to say backwards without meaning something insulting] ...unproductive.

But go on, give me the elevator pitch.

[If I hadn't died once already-- it's a sentence that snags at her insides for reasons, and she quietly files it away to ask more about it later. For now though, it would be kiiinda rude to skip over the other woman's questions. Even if she wants to hear it, and wants the promised tales of battles won even more.

She rolls one muscular shoulder in a shrug.]

Okay. So it's not magic exactly...you're either born with the talent for it or not at all - like me for example, I don't have a necromantic bone in my beautiful body, thank fuck - but it also takes a shit ton of study. Learning boring theorems, reading dusty old tomes...

[And here she exaggerates a yawn.]

Not for me. But basically there was some kinda extinction event a long-ass time ago, and then The Emperor Undying instigated the resurrection, and replenished our system, and when he did that necromancy awoke within his resurrected population. He's the only one who can really bring people back to life though...most necros manipulate the dead, like, with skeletons. Or there's flesh adepts, and spirit adepts, but none of them can really bring anything back from the grave besides hollow constructs. You'd want to ask my necro about that though if you wanted to know more. I'm no expert, and I'm sure as shit not a scholar. But I think the reason we gave up on guns like, thousands of years ago must be to do with necromancy. Maybe they blow the bones into too many bits? Maybe swords create a bigger thanargy bloom? I honestly don't know.

[She casts a glance at Shepard, and there's something eager in it.]

But do you know what's more interesting than unwholesomely messing around with dead things? The battles that cause people to be dead in the first place

I'm gonna call bias on that assessment. But fine, I get it.

[You're a whole-ass attitude problem for the people you work for, ain't you, Gideon Nav? On the other hand, it's exactly that kind of attitude problem that Shepard finds most common among her people so... Pot, meet Kettle.]

Alright, alright, alright. Torfan.

Torfan's this shitty little moon out in the verge. It hasn't got an atmosphere and it was mined out years before I even got my commission, so it's abandoned. Problem is, all those airtight tunnels make for a nice place for Batarians to set up shop.

Now in Batarian space, slavery is legal, and at the time they had an embassy on the citadel, when we did not, so picking a fight with the Hedgemony outright was a stupid idea, even if they were systematically dismantling our colonies and kidnapping all our people. [Shepard feels that this is a perfectly justifiable cause for war, personally, and would not have minded seeing a few nuclear blooms over Batarian cities, but that's neither here nor there. She clears her throat, and continues.] So, the Alliance sent in a couple of units to raid the bastards. Scare them off, was the idea— with as little lethality as necessary.

Tunnel-fighting's a bitch, especially when you're blind past ladar-range. It's cramped and dark, and the enemy always has the upper hand. Works best when you bring cover with you, but they kept pulling back, and there wasn't enough time in the world to keep pressing without taking losses. Major Kyle, my CO, caught a bullet in the chest after an hour, had an emergency medical evac, and I took charge.

Brutal fight. Worst of it was, we went through this cavern; they'd had a shipment of people there, in chains and collars, but mostly in cages. Anyone they could easily move out had been taken, but most of them were still there; they'd vented the atmosphere from the room, and killed the lot rather than let us have them. [The drinks arrive, and Shepard takes the moment to drink with gratitude. Yes, that had been the worst of it. Some things you never stop remembering.] I think they were trying to break our morale, which was very Batarian of them, but I decided right then and there that the politicians and the mission parameters could kiss my ass; they had to die.

Funny thing about the real monsters of the world, I've found that they must think we give a damn about the word of law, just because they don't. So when you corner them, they always wanna talk; we surrender, you have to take us hostage. Like I'm just gonna throw them in the brig, let them get ransomed home and walk away from what they did.

So I lost a lot of men, that day, and as a result I've rightly been called a ruthless butcher— but I got the job done, and that's what matters most in my book.

[Is it a bias? Maybe. But she chooses not to mouth off about it in favour of settling back in her cheap wooden chair as the story she's been waiting for begins. And it's-- something. She's rapt, honestly, as she listens to the tale of battles she finds hard to envision - the cramped crawlways of the tunnels, how impossible it would have been to swing a sword in there - and the ugly horror of what had been done to the slaves.

Her face, ever expressive, reflects the points in the story where she feels disgust, or excitement, and as Shepard talks she leans ever forward until both elbows are on the sticky table-top and her chin is in her hands.

Shepard is fast ascending to Top Tier Badass in her estimations.]

Fuck yes.

[She announces loudly as the story comes to a close, fist slamming down on the table and eliciting a few dubious looks from some of the other patrons.]

Screw those guys. It sounds like they needed to die.

[She may just have some rather personal feelings about indentured servitude, even if her own situation had been a far cry from the one described.]

That's always been my opinion. I'm sure they saw it some other way; but I had better soldiers, and more bullets, so in the end their opinion was irrelevant.

I almost got court-martialed about that one; explicit disregard of orders, violation of war convention, yadda yadda. [It's war, Gid. Shepard does think there should be lines not to be crossed, but none of those came into play in the dark under Torfan.] In the end, they pinned the N7 on me, handed off a promotion, and told me to stop being such a pain in the ass. Which I of course was, ever after; hazard of the job.

[This is why we drink.]

So, what's a Chevalier do? Professionally speaking.

[Lines like their opinion was irrelevant and explicit disregard of orders send a little shot of glee racing the full length of Gideon's spine, this whole conversation is so damn cool. Real warfare. Real battles. Probably a ton of babes looking really hot in tight fitting uniforms...or perhaps she just felt like adding in that last little bit, don't spoil the moment.

She reaches for her ale, almost disappointed to have to answer a question when she has so many more of her own.]

So on one level I'm the brawn to Harrow's - my necromancer - dark arts. Like, she pulls off the necromancy, which can take a shit tone of energy and leave her vulnerable to close range attacks, and I see to it that no one can get close to her. We kind of thought that was the whole deal, and that the one flesh, one end pact was just a weirdly kinky way of saying we'd be prepared to die defending each other. Sounds likely, right?

[She waits one hot second before making a rude noise with her mouth and jerking her thumb downward.]

Wrong. Turns out in the event of being called to Lyctorhood by the King Undying, the cav is meant to sacrifice themselves and become absorbed by the necro, to create like, an near-immortal weapon. Basically Harrow's gotta eat me and we become one, only it's not neeeaaarrrly as hot as it sounds.

[A pause just the length of a heartbeat, and then--]

Yeah, yeah, I know. I come from a weird place.

So you're like a body guard with a side of power supply. Charming.

[There is a moment that a less tired person might punctuate with a sigh. Shepard, who has lived to see her basement for the behavior of sentient beings continuously dig a new and deeper hole in which to bury the high bar for acceptable... takes a drink.]

Y'know, Gideon, I'm not even surprised anymore. Of course you come from a world where people are acting like Reapers. Why not? Everything else is fucked, might as well start eating our own kind. [There is a beat] What d'they need a weapon like that for, anyways?

Edited 2022-05-11 00:29 (UTC)

That's pretty much a perfect summing up of the situation, yeah.

[She says, before knocking back a swig of her own drink. Sometimes you just get dealt shitty hand after shitty hand...but she wouldn't take back the way things had played out. Not now. Not for anything.]

And I didn't get that far along. We were only told that the Necrolord Prime was in great need of reinforcements because some of his old Lyctors had kicked the bucket over the last ten thousand years, or something like that. If I'm honest he sounds like kind of a dick. Like, why not just tell us from the outset what he expected us to do? But I'd put my money on some big cosmic battle that would probably be awesome if it wasn't for the whole one flesh, one end thing.

[She wipes the foam from her lips on the back of her hand, makes a vague motion with her shoulder that suggests it's all irrelevant now. They're here, not there. Personally she has no intention of ever going back.]

What's a Reapers, anyway?

Reapers are, uh...

[Hoo boy. How to explain Reapers? Start at the beginning, or just throw it all out there? Shepard considers a moment, and then make a face and simply launches into it.]

So, your basic spacefaring race; it evolves somewhere, builds a society, makes tech, finds a way out of its solar system, eventually it joins the bigger galaxy, right? Basic progression. Asari did it, Salarians did it, Turians, Krogan, Humans, all of us.

But, we're all looking at the same old ruins, the same ancient tech. It's valuable, it's got a lot to teach us, but— where did it come from? Scientists figure there's a precursor race, we called them Protheans. [Pause for dramatics, always important.] ...But they were wrong.

See, there were lots of precursor races. And every fifty thousand years, the Reapers show up, these huge, kilometer-long, half-organic synthetics, and they kill every species that's put a toe into space. Then they go back home, and wait, then come do it again. It's been happening for thousands of cycles, who knows how many trillions of dead people every time. And, get this... [she laughs, and it's so bitter.] Nobody believes me. They're on our doorstep, we've already fought actual battles against their vanguard, but—

[She cuts herself off, and Shepard takes a drink. A long one, longer than is really necessary. Give her a minute.]

...Anyways. I'm going to save the Galaxy or die trying. If it's the last thing I do, then at least I'm goin' down swinging. Except... then I showed up here.

That's why you're paying for the drinks.

Edited (spelling error :c) 2022-05-11 19:29 (UTC)

[There's the subtle widening of Gideon's eyes, and she whistles low through her teeth.]

That's pretty fucked up. Any idea why they just keep strolling in and killing everyone? Like, why wait fifty thousand years every time? The fuck is that all about? Why doesn't anyone believe you?

[Do her people fall within the extinction zone? She supposes it's possible, that this may somehow be linked in with the Resurrection-- but she never paid enough attention to the decrepit old nuns who attempted to teach her from their stuffy old tomes to have an answer for that. No pictures of women with their tops off? Not interested.]

But hey, lucky for you I'm good for a couple of rounds. I've been here a while.

I did have the chance to ask one, once. I think all it had for me was something like puny mortals, you'll never comprehend...

[It had been one of her worst days, honestly, and for all its condescension, Sovereign hadn't been pretentious. It's disregard, its notion of superiority, had come from real threats.]

...Something like that. [Too sober for this.] You know, I've spent a lot of time asking myself that. The only answer that makes sense, is, they're scared. Because if I'm right, then they've all spent the last three years doing fuck-all about the looming threat of complete galactic genocide. And if I'm full of it, then I'm just another crack-pot they can disregard, and go on with their lives.

So which one is an easier pill to swallow?

[Gideon snorts in dry amusement, reaches again for her drink.]

Did you tell it to get better lines? It sounds like a comic book villain talking like that.

[She knocks back another swig of ale, and thinks she kinda gets it. Easier, certainly, to bury one's head in the sand. A stupid move if annihilation if on the table, sure. But in her experience, those in power tend to make stupid decisions that she won't pretend to understand.]

Heavy shit.

[She concedes, eventually.]

So I guess you wanna get back to where you were? Finish what you started?

[Unlike her, who has nothing much to go back for. She and Harrow are here. Fuck all the rest.]

Look, assuming this is some kind of alternate dimension...

[She gestures vaguely upwards, indicating the ceiling so as to signify the universe entire, as well as their situation here, as summoned.]

It's possible that I never actually left. Like, some kind of split timelines thing, where I'm both places and neither one is the real me unless the whole... quantum thing gets collapsed. I'm not an engineer, I'm a soldier, I don't pretend to know how it works.

But I do know... That there's a friend of mind here, who's months out of synch with me on what the date is. And I know that whatever the singularity is, it's not a joke. And I know that if I'm not there to kick the galaxy's ass into gear, they are all gonna die, so... [She lifts her drink, toasting Gideon with it in a vague approximation of a salute, and then downs the last of it in one incautious chug.] ...No point in getting existential about it. I'm here now, and that's the problem at hand.

Work the problem, not the solution, as they say.

[Gideon listens, but the look on her face is one of vacuous uncertainty. There's a certain glaze to her gold-coin eyes that suggests too much more of this kind of language and Shepard will have thoroughly lost her. Alternate dimensions? Split timelines? Quantum thing?? These concepts are all beyond her area of expertise (which is swords, and hitting things with swords), perhaps touched upon in a comic she may once have perused, but she was more interested in the depiction of voluptuous women in tight outfits than the storyline, if she were to be entirely honest.

Even if this is an alternate universe timeline dimension or some shit like that, wouldn't they still be the real version of themselves? Would it mean there are just multiple real versions of themselves? Would this mean there are multiple versions of Harrowhark Nonagesimus skulking around various other universes? A terrifying thought--

--and one that suggests she's getting side-tracked. The toast, at least, is one she understands, and she's swift to knock her own drink back in kind.]

Now we're talking. We're here, so may as well settle in for the ride. And speaking of rides, I'll get another round in. It sounds like you need it. And maaaaaaybe you could tell me about some of the other battles you've been in while we're at it. You know. To lighten the mood.

You're not really officer material, you know that, right?

[She likes you very much, kid. That fond sort of a smile, shaking her head, definitely shows it.. But, this nerd shit has a use, and you do gotta learn it if you wanna fight properly.]

But thank you. I'll never say no to a free drink. [Shepard laughs] Alright, then. Let me tell you about the time...

To: Everyone

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sorry I'm so slow at the moment!! Work is kicking my ass ;;

nooo it's fine! you're good

<3

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fin.