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captainderyn · 2 months

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For the 'hit 'em where it hurts' starters: 'I hate the way that I don’t hate you.'

Oooh thank you for sending this in! This is begging for me to write Judy/V in endgame/right after the final mission.

*Usual disclaimer that I don't really know what my ending is going to be for V yet, so this is just stuffing all the bits and pieces together that I like into one ending. No Phantom Liberty spoilers because I haven't played it yet, but spoilers for the final mission of the main game :)

V/Judy: "I hate the way I don't hate you."

Judy was drowning beneath the neon lights of Night City.

Once upon a time she'd worn the suffocating anonymity of the city like a cloak, sank into the comfort of not being known, and thrown herself into the violent game the city played with its residents.

Now those same skyscrapers that had once promised opportunity were a neon gilded cage and the faceless anonymity she'd graved threatened to suffocate her.

But more than ever V gobbled up the lights and commotion up like a fire inhaled oxygen.

Raging, gulping every morsel of fuel into an inferno. Something that would burn bright for only a short time. Her fuse was lit and she was burning, burning, burning.

Something had happened that day that V called Judy from the rooftop of Vik's clinic. That call haunted Judy, snuck into her dreams and rang in her ears. She'd been distracted, searching for something around her apartment, and it hadn't been until the ragged edge to V's voice fully sank in that she'd tuned in.

So yeah, maybe she'd told V to be careful, maybe she'd told V that she'd be home waiting. But what if she'd said something different? Something that would've kept V from doing whatever it was she was planning, something that would've kept V from coming back a shell of who she'd used to be.

There was an emptiness in V’s eyes now. No matter how often she smiled at Judy, it never lit up the rest of her face. Her laughter was hollow, when it came at all.

She was just going through the motions. Raging through the city wearing the only persona she knew: merc.

With Johnny being gone, Judy would have thought that V would have lit up again. That without the engram eating away at her, she'd come back into the voraciously lively woman that Judy had met before the heist.

But the Johnny Problem hadn't seemed to be a problem at all. V mourned Johnny like she lost her closest friend, like she'd lost part of herself.

It came to a head in V's apartment, the one she'd unceremoniously moved all her stuff into after coming back from Arasaka Tower. V sat in a plush chair in the corner of the room, lacing up her boots. Or had been, but now they lay half laced, as she said the same words over and over again that drove Judy insane:

"I can't leave Night City, Judy, this city is part of who I am."

She hated that phrase, the excuse that V always fell back on. This city had eaten her up and spat her out so many times. There was nothing good in this city left to stay for but V just wouldn't get it.

"I hate this." Judy finally snapped, "I hate that I can't bring myself to hate you when you do this every single time." Judy ducked her head, the chromatic curtain of her hair sweeping over her eyes. She hoped it would mask the way her lips twisted, the way her eyes burned white-hot with tears.

She whistled out a hissing breath from behind her teeth, trying to pour concrete into her words to bolster them, "I want to hate you so much. You are a goddamn ticking time bomb and you made me love you. I could be halfway across the country by now, living outside of this stupid fucking city, but you've tethered me here and I'm going to be here until all that's left of you is an alcove and I'm going to have to pick up the pieces."

The words rushed out, so many armed with a viscous stinger. A deep part of her wanted the words to hurt, wanted them to land like glass shards in V's heart the way that the thought of losing her wedged its way into Judy.

V sank into the chair, eyes wide. Her jaw set. "I never asked you to love me. I've never asked you to stay."

"We talked about leaving!" Judy gestured out towards the skyline before locking her arms around herself, hugging herself in a vice of her own making, "After all this was over, we talked about leaving and yet we're still here."

It wasn't fair, not really, to pull this from the water beneath the bridge. Out of nowhere. But she'd woken up to V in the bathroom again this morning, wiping blood from the corner of her mouth with a towel, looking like hell and with it brought the ticking clock crashing back down onto her.

V stared at her in silence, eyes darting across her face.

Judy sucked in a shuddering breath.

"I think I made a mistake."

If V wouldn't pull the ripcord, then she'd do it herself. Pull her walls back up inch by agonizing inch.

"Jude, what do you mean? Where is this coming from?"

V tilted her head, the rust-worn dog tags around her neck clinking together. Judy stared at those, used those as a bolster as she grit her teeth and pushed forward. Each word fell measured, like stepping on ice lightly to make sure it wouldn't break before putting your full weight on it.

"I'm just...I'm starting to realize that I've never felt right here."

The silence V held for Judy to speak, the quiet patience that Judy had once adored when she was rocked to the core from Evelyn's death and just needed to let words lose grated on her. She'd flung daggers at V with her words, why wouldn't she fling them back? Why wouldn't she make this easier?

"I thought I liked being one among the many. Anonymous. It felt safe for me. But none of that was real. But now I look at this city and I feel..." She rung her hands together, running her thumbs along the ink wrapping across her skin, "It doesn't feel safe anymore, V, I feel alone."

V pushed herself more upright, as if to get up, to come over to Judy. Judy turned half a step away, staring hard out the window and watching V's reflection as she sank back down into the chair.

Leaning her elbows on her knees, V reached out a hand to Judy, "You have me."

And there it was, the crack in V's voice that Judy had been fighting to get. The first chip that would make the rest of this so much easier. She ignored V's outstretched hand, crossing her arms over her chest instead.

"Yeah, I guess. For a little while longer." Her stomach flipped as she spoke into existence the inevitability. The day when she'd wake up and V wouldn't. When she'd have to put her name on a cold concrete niche.

She'd always kept time for herself in phases. Each one ending when she pulled the plug, meeting every disappointment and home-that-wasn't-really-a-home by pulling away from it before it could leave her. This phase ending waking up next to a cold body...

"Listen, V," She spoke the woman she'd loved, no, had loved, if she had any control of her emotions, the only way she knew she'd understand: like a business woman. Maybe if she could pull the long-dormant corpo out of V then she could ignore the wet glisten in V's eyes. "You pulled me back into this city far longer than I should've stayed. I need to find something better, something more...stable."

She didn't pull the corpo out of V. She pulled tears, running thick and hot down V's cheeks in silent streams. It should have twisted a knife in Judy, she should have begged to take the words back. All it did was wash cold relief through her. The more irreparable she left these pieces the less it would hut when she inevitably stopped hearing from V, or worse, received the call that she was too scared to hear.

"I don't want you to disappear, Jude, not now. I need you, I love you. Please." V sucked in a ragged breath, choking down what sounded painfully like a sob. "I've lost everyone else, please don't make me lose you too."

But there was no reconsideration, no miracle 'I'll come with you. Let's get out of this city'. Judy didn't even know if she'd have wanted it even if V had offered. In fact, some coiled part of her eased at the thought of leaving it all behind.

Leaving the brilliantly vibrant women in front of her behind and getting out of the radius before she went nuclear, just like every other good thing in Night City did.

"You have your place in this city, let me find mine outside of it." Judy looked to the ground so she didn't have to look at V's face as she delivered what she hoped would be the fatal blow, "It's been a nice phase, V, you've meant so much to me. But it's just a phase that's destined to end, just like everything else."

V muffled a sob in her hand, drawing her knees to her chest and folding in on herself. She kept her fist there, pressed against the lips that Judy used to kiss with such giddy reverence, and stared hard out the window until her tears were silent tracks down her cheeks.

"Okay." V finally said in the soft rustling of Judy grabbing her things, tossing them haphazardly in a bag, "I...I'm sorry, Jude."

Judy didn't know what to do with that, didn't know where that fit in with the broken pieces of their relationship she'd just strewn across the floor. So she slung her back over her shoulder and let the door hiss behind her in a quiet click of finality.

#captainderyn writes #prompt fill #hit em where it hurts prompts #cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk 2077 fanfic #judy alvarez #judy/v #female V #cyberpunk v #cp2077 #oc: V #otp: Borrowed Time Beneath City Lights #I think that's my final choice for their ship name lol #look at me giving myself feels over them ahaha this hurt to write #sorry not sorry this is another cyberpunk piece :)

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inyri · 25 days

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❛ why does it feel like this is goodbye? ❜ from the sentence starters 👀

(I’m not sure if we’ll get here in long form- I’d thought so once, but given the current pace of my writing I suspect I’ll bring Equivalent Exchange to a natural close before we reach this point in the story, then continue Nine and Theron’s tale in shorter pieces. It's a bit of a cheat, but that's authorial prerogative for you.

Something lost is found. SWTOR. Nine/Theron.)

She sits on the edge of the bed, looking up at Theron as he scuffs nervously at the floor with the toe of his boot. (Stars, she’s missed this bed, missed this whole apartment even if she doesn’t miss the Kaasi rain falling in sheets against the windows or the periodic assassination attempts- but ah, the view from the balcony toward the sea-)

“You look,” she finally says, considering his expression carefully, “like the tooka that ate the bulabird. What exactly did you do while I was off with Acina?”

He turns to make sure the door’s closed before he answers. “Oh, you know. Took a tour of the place. Sliced a few things- databases, mostly. Census data. Population records. The Intelligence database, for about ten seconds.”

“You-” she chokes. The fact that he’s still standing here means he probably got away with it, but- “I thought I told you to behave yourself. If they figure out what you did- I know you’re not keen on parallel work with the Empire, Theron-”

“I didn’t get caught.” He rolls his eyes and rummages in his jacket pocket for his commpad. “I didn’t get caught last time either, for what it’s worth, but I did find what I was looking for.”

(Last time? That’s- oh, lovely brilliant reckless idiot boy, he’s going to get himself into far more trouble than she can fix one of these years.)

She raises an eyebrow as he holds the commpad out toward her.

“I found you.”

She gestures up and down along her body. “Of course you did. I’m right here. I know that mess with Lorman looked like a near enough miss, but-”

Theron shakes his head vehemently, pressing it into her hand and curling her fingers closed around it. “No, you don’t understand. I found you- pre-Cipher you. In the archives.”

“Impossible.” Or it ought to have been; after Hunter she’d watched the Minister purge her file with her own eyes and even then there was nothing left of an old life in it, nothing left but a ghost. The Ghost. “Not in the Intelligence database. They burn all that out when we CIpher.”

“Not in the Intelligence database, no.” He crouches down next to her as her heart twists in her chest. It ought to have been impossible. It ought to have been. “But I followed a thread from the personnel records, and then another and then another and then I found this. Imperial Academy prospective cadet interview number 00-828317. Locked subfolder, but-” he shrugs.

The number doesn’t hurt. They didn’t take that from her, before, but there’s a pressure building behind her eyes- too close to something that they did, then. Far too close. She takes a deep breath. “Did you see it?”

“Only the first few seconds, and not with audio- didn’t want Lana to notice before I could pull it off the network. She looks like you, though.”

“I suppose she would.” She lets the commpad settle on her lap, looks down at it like it might bite. (It might.)

After a moment Theron stands. “I should go. You don’t have to decide if you want to watch it now- I shouldn’t have assumed-”

“No,” she says, reaches up for his hand without looking and her fingers lace through his. “Stay.”

He sits down beside her; she presses play.

[she is eleven years old.

she is eleven years old and wearing a white blouse and a black skirt and her hair in two neat plaits down her back and she is standing, hands folded, in front of a table where four men and a woman sit in identical uniforms, backs to the camera.

we’ll begin, says the man second from right. please state your name for the record.

she nods, and opens her mouth. mustn’t smile too much or they’ll think she’s silly, mustn’t pull at her plait or at her shirtsleeves, mustn’t-]

(oh Void oh Void oh Void it HURTS and he holds on to her- should I stop it? I can stop it- and she shakes her head furiously so he just keeps holding on)

[yes, sir, she says. it is important to show respect, father said. my name is N-]

It’s impossible. It’s impossible.

It’s her name.

She does stop the recording then, not because she wants to but because she’s going to bleed all over his damned commpad if she doesn’t. Her nose drips down onto her shirt until she pinches it closed and then she turns her head toward Theron as he mutters apology after apology into the top of her head. “I had a feeling,” she murmurs, “that was going to happen.”

“So that’s your name? N-” he almost says it aloud but stops himself, free hand pressed against his mouth. “Stars, I'm sorry. I don’t want to hurt you again.”

“It may get easier with time. We can try more of the video later- I only remember a little bit. I thought it might all come back at once, but-”

Theron nods. “I hope so- that it gets easier, I mean. That it comes back. But your name, it… it suits you.”

“Does it?”

“Yeah.” He kisses her hair, then her forehead, then the tip of her nose beneath her still-pinching fingers. “Though it’s weird- why does this almost feel like a goodbye?”

“To Cipher Nine? No. it's not-” she shakes her head. “It’s- hello, Theron Shan. My name-” she breathes in and the pain lessens and it wouldn’t matter anyway, all the pain in the universe would be worth it to see that look on his face again and again- “is Nyriala.”

#inyri writes #swtor #captainderyn #thanks for the prompt!#nine/theron #equivalent exchange outtakes #swtor fanfiction #imperial agent #she keeps using Nine with everyone else #even Lana #the only people who ever call her by her name are Theron and (much later) their daughter

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greyias · 3 months

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People You'd Like to Get to Know Better

Tagged by @commander-krios -- thank you for the tag! ♥

⟡ FAVE SHIPS ⟡

Gale x Tav

Terra Branford x Locke Cole

Theron Shan x Jedi Knight

Draike x Lyra

Ben x Rass

⟡ LAST SONG ⟡

Weeping Dawn by Borislav Slavov

⟡ LAST FILM ⟡

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

⟡ CURRENTLY READING ⟡

Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree, a backlog of Gale/Tav fics by @keldae, who is writing far faster than I can read 😂

⟡ CURRENTLY CRAVING ⟡

Some croissant toast but all the local stores are out of it rn 😭

The leftover bulgogi tofu I made for dinner last night

Writinggggg -- have been doing quite a bit of background/planning work this week on some really long neglected WIPs but not been able to manage real words yet

My Tadfools I miss them

Tagging: @storyknitter, @keldae, @elveny, @aki888, @honekitteh, and @captainderyn

#thank you for the tag!#tag thing #meme thing

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elveny · 3 months

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Okay, this one is fun 😁 Thanks for the tag @awordwasthebeginning ❤️

Rules!

Take this quiz

Take this picrew

Tag some people!

Tagging @greyias @stinalotte @curiousthimble @pikapeppa @thevikingwoman @barbex @captainderyn @storyknitter @johaerys-writes @lynmars79 @cecilyacat and all who want to grab it 😁

#tag game #picrew #uquiz

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queen-scribbles · 10 months

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Tagged by @rannadylin no-pressure tagging @greyias @eluvisen @haledamage @captainderyn

So, wanted to get some hiatus rec lists going and encourage some self promo in my friends so how about sharing your top fics no matter how big or small - give us the links to your wonderful words with the Most hits/Most kudos/Most comments/Most bookmarks/Most words/Least words.

I have so much to play with, just on AO3 I’m up to 984k words wtf.

Most hits: Of Wardens and Pariahs, the joint AU fic for my Trinne Amell and errantgoat‘s Harvey Cousland running DA:O. It is... 46 chapters long so far(done Circle Tower and Redcliffe round 1, so... about halfway? phew) I’ve been working on this sucker for a long time. Twelve years, I think? Maybe thirteen? Between it taking a couple weeks to write/edit each chapter and doing other writing in between it’s slow going. But I still love it and our kids and there’s some stuff upcoming I am so looking forward to writing and inflicting on sharing with people >;3

Most kudos: Unspoken (Endrali/Arcann, SWtOR) is the champ that finally unseated Third Time’s the Charm(Tavi/Aloth, Pillars of Eternity) by two whole kudos, assuming they cleared out all the bot kudos from when that was a problem, bc my Ardrali fics got hit hard by that one. (seems to match with the typical hits/kudos ratio tho)

Most comment threads: Technically Of Wardens and Pariahs again, but second place is Moorings Lost & Found(Emiri & Aloth & Edér), my Pillars of Eternity minibang fic and that one’s near and dear to my heart like you wouldn’t believe, so we’re gonna give it some love, too. (Emiri and Aloth’s friendship means so much to me, y’all.) Tl;dr-- 9 chapters of Aloth and Edér rescuing Emiri after the slavers she’d escaped recaptured her. Well, they threatened to kill Aloth to get her to surrender to them. And then stabbed him anyway. She might spend 3/4 of the fic thinking he’s probably dead. I got to really explore Emiri’s character and her friendship with Aloth especially but also Edér in this, and I got to write Aloth being a badass and give a platonic slant to a lot of usually-romantic tropes, so it was great fun. (My beloved Aloth icon comes from a goofy bonus comic my artist partner made. Part of why I can’t let it go. Good memories <3 Also skeptical Aloth is great)

Most bookmarks: Eventually(Keme/Jorgan, SWtOR) Reunion fic for my Cathar babe and her husband, set mid- and post- KotFE ch 11. People have fabulous taste; I am very proud of and attached to this one. Partially bc I wrote it immediately after writing 6k of Jorgan denying processing her “death” while she was in carbonite, so it was basically the happy ending that wasn’t included in Never Give Up. But there’s established relationship fluff. And banter. And I just plain ol’ love Aric Jorgan, so all my stuff for him and Keme is a piece I love for one reason or another xD him

Most words: Of Wardens and Pariah(213,183 so far) Shocker(/sarc), with how long running it is and how much I’m trying to cover with it. XD

Fewest words: A Good Story(422) Varric musing about his own words biting him in the ass (”It’s not a good story unless the hero dies” :)))) ) as he gets ready to write Sebastian and tell him about Astrid (Hawke) staying to fight the Nightmare in HLtA bc I’m a terrible person. (tho that new Mallory & Mason thing I wrote is 360, I just haven’t posted it over on AO3 yet)

#tagged #queens fic #LOOK i know i say ''i'm proud of X fic'' or ''i really love Y'' a LOT but i AM and i DO #i love and am proud of 98% of my writing #and that 2% is stuff where the way i visualized it was a bit above my current skill level so it dodn't come out as good as i wanted #but it's still a solid fic #(ps if unspoken really did genuinely surpass tttc i'm SO PROUD of my blueberry #taviloth's had that on lock for like eight years #but it's seriously like 92 vs 90 kudos so they're still close)

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tiredassmage · 10 months

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Okay, I love my shitpost introductions to actually serious thoughts, headcanons, 'verses, what have you, but also... big, pretty post with (some semblance of) context (primarily in one spot instead of scattered in asks). That might be cool.

Okay! So! I made a shitpost about Tyr and his... growing list of aus and other shit I've made him do. So now because there's a lot of lore in my goldfish bowl of a brain about it sometimes and so hopefully anyone who is like, "Dot, what the Fuck are you smoking?" can find some semblance of an answer to that, I have made a slightly less shitpost (maybe...), more written guide to The Bullshit I Am On.

This brought to you by uh... there are several of you that are enablers. You know who you are. Blows you a kiss through the screen.

The rest of you? Welcome to my shitposting. I am only partially sorry. But get comfortable because I'm not about to stop. : D

Imperial Agent, moniker: "Cipher Nine"

The man, the myth, the legend, the og. Tyr Deckard, formerly Cipher Nine of Imperial Intelligence, double agent for the Republic Strategic Information Service answering to code name Legate.

Eventually turns Commander of the Eternal Alliance.

Primarily, if I'm talking about this bad bitch, it's as his og agent self. This is the foundation upon which all of my following nonsense came off of, which is why "ch: tyr" still talks about mostly this bad bitch, and all these other bad bitches that are and aren't him at the exact same time have other weird tags I have banged into existence with, like, a frying pan.

I love him and he needs to retire.

His character page is about this. I promise.

related tags; ch: tyr

Actually he has a pinterest board i haven't been obnoxious about in public yet either. merry crisis!

Smuggler; known alias: "Oliver Daxton"

A companion au as much as a Tyr in the smuggler campaign in general-au. Reimagines Tyr as an ex-Imperial agent that defected out of Imperial Intelligence to the SIS, former Cipher Ten turned SIS Agent Oliver Daxton.

Started as an ask from @captainderyn that I just decided to be a little insane about, I guess.

Joins the titular Smuggler on Hoth as their contact point for the White Maw job and can potentially act as their right-hand. For fic writing purposes, I pair him with one of my other smugglers, Cee, and I primarily discuss Oli in that lens.

If Risha is Cee's right hand woman, Oliver is her left-hand man. In the smoke and dust after Corellia, Oliver and Master Sumalee pull a few strings with the SIS and have him reassigned with the new Voidhound more long-term, to protect the Republic's latest investment in underworld logistics.

In a potential edition of KOTXX events, when Cee goes missing in the wake of Marr's destroyed fleet, Oliver takes over her contact network and assumes her moniker as Voidhound, attempting to run supplies through Eternal Empire blockades initially in tandem with SIS efforts, before the straining relations between the Republic, Sith Empire, and the Eternal Empire of Zakuul break Oliver's overall faith in the Republic's true goals, and he takes the Voidhound's fleet to act independently until he is later contacted by Theron Shan to come home to the Alliance and reunite with Cee.

related tags; vs: king and lionheart [smuggler!tyr]

Oli does not have a pinterest board. Yet. Sorry to set a trend and expectations and then immediately throw a wrench in it.

Bounty Hunter; known alias: "Kyranthe Rayne"

Shared au verse with @hyrohkaah; primarily focused in on the five year gap preceding KOTFE and following. A "Valkorian hot potato" role swap to shared verse events with Tyr & their Jedi Knight, Hyroh Kaah.

Involves a bit of timeline fuckery because timelines are a playground and this is already an au.

The short & sweet; Tyr adopts the alias "Kyranthe Rayne" and becomes a bounty hunter and assassin primarily for-hire following Hyroh's disappearance with Marr's fleet. Struck hard by the loss of a best friend, confidant, and lover, as Ky, he has already cut ties with Sith Intelligence earlier following the events on Ziost and now employs his former skills as a Cipher agent for his benefit first. And also to seek a little vengeance on the corrupt systems and parties that put him through hell as Cipher Nine.

Runs into Mako on the course of one of his hunts and basically adopts her. They are friends and partners now. They, in turn, also eventually adopt a stray former Jedi padawan named Ezekiel (also @hyrohkaah).

Ezekiel and Tyr got that sad, neglected, bonded, do not separate shelter dog rizz together. Eze essentially becomes his daughter. Bc it turns out Eze was also once a Sith Acolyte, so they share Imperial Abandonment Trauma (TM) and probably much to the stress of both of his now-adopted daughters, Tyr will kill people for them without so much as blinking.

In short, a Tyr who very nearly managed to get out and have a life beyond being an agent with Hyroh, lost that in the Wild Space expedition, spent approximately five years beaten down by the galaxy's assumption Hyroh had been killed, and who thus became a bit harder and a lot more stubborn about his boundaries in the aftermath of it all.

Eventually turns covert operative for the Eternal Alliance and is Hyroh's very fiercely protective guard dog of a boyfriend and personal advisor as Hyroh is thrust to become Commander of the Alliance.

relevant tags; vs: my mind is a place i can't escape your ghost [bh!tyr]

woe! pinterest board be upon ye!

Sith Warrior; known alias: "Tyr Kyrane"

I'm blaming this one mostly on @hyrohkaah because this is a take I said I'd never do for Tyr and now look what we're doing.

Full, actual, proper hot potato between Hyroh and Tyr, aka actual role swap where Tyr's the Force-sensitive one and Hyroh is the Imperial Agent. Crunchy Sith and Imperial power dynamics. Just as much devotion in blood. Just as much stupid displays of affection (eventually).

Partially reimagines Tyr's origin, of course, as adopted into the Sith Kyrane family following his parents' reported deaths (I'll neither confirm nor deny if this incarnation is still related to Keeper. Let's all suffer with the uncertainty. >:3), but not shown to be Force-sensitive until his early teens.

Thus struggles with alternating pressures of never being good enough for the family because he wasn't Sith, then because he wasn't of their own blood, and then especially because he's not of their blood, so any failures will be his own weakness, but could absolutely disgrace the house. Rigorous dance training eventually translates into dual training in dance and the demand to master the art of wielding a dual-bladed saber.

Connections with Overseer Tremel through the family bring him to Korriban slightly ahead of schedule, but Tremel takes over his training personally and paces it... far more evenly than his family. So you can imagine what Baras's later request for him to strike against the one man who perhaps gave half a damn about his well-being is like.

But, long story short, will attempt to use his eventual position as Wrath to curb some of the Dark Council's infighting and will take a particular interest in the remains of the Empire's Intelligence operations, thus adopted former Cipher Nine Hyroh Kaah as a personal agent in weeding out the remaining security risks of Baras's network of intelligence assets and informants.

Power couple shit, to be honest.

The babies of the aus because Joel and I had to make me bargain with myself to fucking finish his bounty hunter playthrough first and also maybe my Consular I've been neglecting on Satele Shan for fucking months, good god someone stop me.

relevant tags; vs: no stranger would it be [sith!tyr]

and bc i'm insane, perceive my madness about them: pinterest

Republic Trooper, Commanding Officer - Havoc Squad

An edition of Tyr that grew up in Republic space under the care of his single mother. They bounced around a fair bit between her work, sometimes moving planets entirely.

In his mid-teens, Tyr picked up work at a mechanic's shop - the latest in a series of odd jobs to help his mother make ends meet. As a side to that, he also got into racing swoopbikes. And accidentally ended up sort of in the middle of an SIS op that ultimately concluded in a staged accident in one of his races when he was sixteen. Tyr still has the scars on his chin and left shoulder.

Officially recruited into the Republic Strategic Information Service at 18, when he promptly moved out. His relationship with his mother had always been a bit strained and a touch distanced, so Tyr rarely saw much of her after the move. He did, however, continue to send her parts of his paychecks back to help her stay above board.

Ends up in SpecForce as an SIS plant with the goal of investigating rumored SpecForce unrest, desertions, and other unusual activity. Was never meant to stay assigned to Havoc Squad, but then... the whole squad turned to the Imps in front of him and... the rest is kinda history.

Has a tight, but somewhat up and down relationship with fellow Havoc recruit turned pilot in Hyroh. In short, Tyr isn't always the greatest fit as Havoc's CO, nor do him and Hyroh always see eye to eye based on differences in experiences with Republic loyalty.

Ultimately, however, Hyroh, Aric Jorgan, Elara Dorne, and Tyr are pretty ride or die. Despite the rocky lows and through the highs, they are consistently the people left around, the ones looking after each other. Tyr learns a lot about what he values and what truly matters: the people right beside you.

relevant tags: vs: kiss with a fist / self-control in locker room showers [trooper!tyr]

also has an edition where I made him suffer as the Outlander in KOTXX, which. exacerbates his issues developed as a Republic soldier in the thick of the war. that gets its own tag: vs: all their words for glory / they all sound so empty [outlander trooper!tyr]

pinterest!

#dot talk #ch: tyr #vs: king and lionheart [smuggler!tyr]#vs: my mind is a place i can't escape your ghost [bh!tyr]#vs: no stranger would it be [sith!tyr]#dare i tag this...#across the tyrverse #??? i think i do

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thetrashbagswasteland · 1 year

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Holiday Harbinger piece for @captainderyn, because who can resist the mood-boosting power of cute puppies? Ryn is adorable and I just loved that bit of backstory for her so much that I was compelled to write this. Hope you like it!

#holiday harbinger 2023 #mass effect fanfiction #shakarian

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storyknitter · 1 year

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15 Questions

Tagged by both @captainderyn and @starknstarwars a while back. Again, open-tagging anyone who hasn’t done this yet and wants to!

1. Are you named after anyone?

Not specifically, though I share a name with a character from a popular late 70′s/early 80′s tv show

2. When was the last time you cried?

Yesterday

3. Do you have kids?

Yep! An almost 10-yo sass monster that I love dearly, though I sometimes debate selling her on Etsy

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

Me? Sarcastic? Never!

5. Favorite time of day?

Evening, when everything is settled and I can get some quiet time

6. What’s your eye color?

Brown

7. Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings. I’m a big chicken when it comes to scary stuff

8. Any special talents?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

9. Where were you born?

Midwestern US

10. What are your hobbies?

Writing, reading, gaming, knitting, sewing

11. Have you any pets?

One blue heeler/pittie rescue mutt named Oreo

12. What sports do you play/have played?

Tennis & softball when I was younger, martial arts in college

13. How tall are you?

5′5″ if I stand up straight

14. Favorite subject in school?

Music and history

15. Dream job?

Traveling! There’s so much world out there to see!

#15 questions meme #thanks for tagging me!#sorry it took a while #knitter shows up 15 minutes late to tag memes with starbucks

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anchanted-one · 1 year

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Writer’s First Line

tagged by @jbnonsensework and @captainderyn . Thanks guys! This is a chance to go down memory lane. Sorry this is mostly swtor. I think I have a problem. A small one.

Tagging anyone who’s interested.

edited slightly

Rules: post the first sentence of your last ten fics. If you haven't written ten fics, share as many first-sentences as you have.

I’ll be breaking the rules, since *I SUCK AT WRITING FIRST LINES*!

1. Children of the Storm, Prologue to the Records of Heroes Past.

The skies turned a pleasant shade of purple with the deepening dusk.

2. Book of Storms, Legend of Lightning

“Hold!” Lieutenant Taura Serris screamed at the top of her lungs. “HOLD, DAMN YOU! REINFORCEMENTS SHOULD BE HERE SOON!”

3. Book of Respite: Chapter ?: The Informant

Book of Respite is my book 2, which will be an anthology about my other leads. So although they’ll be one book, they’re each a separate story.

This one isn’t out yet, but it will be someday soon. I love how it’s come out; it’s a brief story about Cipher Nine set a short while before she’s dispatched to Hutta for the SWTOR Agent’s prologue (Okay this is crazy... just as I hit ctrl+v, one of the most badass Naruto Shippuden themes started playing on Youtube (’Martyr’). This is destiny. This chapter was meant to be written!)

Mercei Tanniels always took pains to arrive forty minutes before any meetings.

4. Book of Respite Chapter ??: The Poltergeist

This one’s about my Jedi Consular.

Devel Nirol always got picked last.

5. Eternal War Part 1: Arcann’s War

The low hum of the Silver Pilgrim's Hyperdrive was as familiar and comforting to Arro as that of his Lightsaber.

6. Eternal War Part 2: Mission Scorpion

The bunker was nestled in the bowels of the Undercity.

7. Eternal War Part 3: Phantoms in the Ether

My mental health took a nosedive as I was writing this, so I abandoned it in favor of a full rewrite, which is Records of Heroes Past. You can still read this, but neither it nor its sister part ‘Wrath of the Dead’ will be updated. Not to mention, it will take a long time for me to reach this point in the rewrite.

It was evening on the newly resettled patch of land on Ossus.

8. Eternal War Part 4: Wrath of the Dead

Jaesa meditated in the Force Enclave in Odessen. Something was calling her, something whose voice teased the outside edges of her hearing, and her gut told her it was highly important. But all her inner eye could see, for miles and miles, was an ocean, dark and deep, stretching out infinitely in all directions. It frightened her, but her resolve held.

9. Deciphered Diaries

This is from a one-shot for my Cipher Nine in both Eternal War and Records of Heroes Past universes. It’s set around the time of the Prequels. It ‘unveils’ my Cipher Nine, but at this point I’ve told everyone who’d listen who she really is, so it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Archivist’s notes: This cache of datafiles was discovered by the Jedi many years ago, in the abandoned command center of a military Outpost, of the planet named “Odessen”.

10. Shikar Company--The Exiled Hunters

This one is... A CLONE WARS FANFIC!!!!! How crazy is that?! Well... not very, since it’s behind Record of Heroes Past on my list of priorities. But still, this is a hint of what I have in store. Sorry for making this such a long exchange instead of one line, but it felt more appropriate.

From Chapter 1: the Shame

“Aahhh… Welcome, my dear. At last you’ve arrived.”

“Dooku,” Sumana hissed. Her men surrounded both herself the cornered Count, who looked quite content to let himself get hemmed in.

“I admit, you knocked me off balance back there. Remarkable! I did not know there were Jedi quite like you. That controlled rage, that walk along the razor’s edge between Light and Dark, one which I thought was too blurred to see. Oh well. Forgive me, my child. But it ends here.”

Sumana shook her head in disbelief. “Is this your idea of a surrender?”

“No, my child. It’s my farewell. Captain Shikar? Execute Order Sixty-Six.”

#first line tag #first line tag meme #star wars #swtor #The Clone Wars #jedi knight #hero of tython #imperial agent #cipher nine #jedi consular

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barbex · 1 year

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Six Sentence Sunday on Monday

Listen, I'm on vacation, I barely know what day it is, it's glorious!

@mclavellan tagged me for this and I can't even decide what to post from. I have so many docs open, I'm writing where ever the muse takes me. I'm tagging for Six Sentences Any Day: @dismalzelenka, @realace, @musetta3, @lesetoilesfous, @captainderyn, @deannajacksonauthor, @mareebrittenford.

Here's my six random sentences of filth. It's that time of the month, I guess:

His breath comes too fast and she slows her strokes. "In and out, keep breathing. Your arousal, your unfulfilled desire will be a constant presence in your mind, an ache spreading over your body, a pressure in your stomach. It will be frustrating, even painful, but you will accept it."

His back arches away from her, his hips humping. "Yes, Mistress."

Hah, I bet you want to know where that is from. It's a secret!

#six sentence someday

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kunstpause-archive · 5 years

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📚 from the fic ask c:

I am gonna do this for The Hands of Fate Are Your Own bc it’s the thing that is the most recent and most persistently on my mind.

So five facts:

1. The first draft of the story is over two years old and it went in a massively different direction back then. I wanna post some ‘what if’s’ and outtake chapters on day bc damn things have evolved… It had a “magic made them do it” trope chapter that I personally found hilarious but that didn’t fit into the story anymore after a rework

2. This is the first of three stories we have planned. Part one is finished. Two is in the middle of the rework and three was half finished before we started reworking stuff so that one will probably have to be written totally anew.

3. All of this more elaborate writing actually started bc @elveny, another friend of ours and me dared each other to write a short story/chapter in the most cliched romance novel style ever. Elveny’s original chapter ended up in her Solavellan story as far as I know, mine is actually still in this story, though in a more serious version and slightly less over the top.

4. We threw out 150k words that were already written earlier this year bc we had an idea when Elveny was at my place for a relaxing writing weekend - and it spiralled. It went like this: “Wouldn’t it be super bad/fun if..” - “We are not really contemplating that, we are just doing a thought experiment…” - “We are doing that, but it’s just one small change, how much rework could that be?” - “Fuck!”

5. In the original first draft Cassia was a blood mage. Her story went vastly different and certain romances never happened. Though I wrote a very short “20 years later” epilogue (which actually spawned the whole disaster that is her now canon relationship…)

And bc why not: Five headcanons

1. Cassia has always idolised her twin sister. She never took her father’s “Why can’t you just be more like Adriene” as something negative because she always asked herself the same thing.

2. Carver and Bethany are actually the ones that got all the common sense in their family. Bethany is tough as nails when she wants something and Carver actually turns into the level headed, responsible Hawke in his time with the Wardens in Amaranthine. When my warden leaves for finding a cure for the taint he becomes the new Warden Commander.

3. Cassia loves bright colours and dressing up in things that draw attention. She grew up constantly hiding and trying to be as unremarkable as possible and the more distance she has to her parents, the more she does the exact opposite.

4. Cassia has a perfect poker face when she doesn’t care or even dislikes a person. But she is completely incapable of actually straight up lying to people that she cares about. The only reason she can keep some of her secrets from the people that she loves is because they are not asking the right questions.

5. I actually wrote one of the DAI multiplayer characters into this story at a later point. They have a super minor role but I have a super extensive headcanon for them, backstory, early life, career and how they ended up in first Kirkwall and later Skyhold.

#Kunstpause writes stuff #The Hands of Fate Are Your Own #headcanons #Dragon Age Fanfiction #DA2 #captainderyn

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captainderyn · 1 year

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Misfire [Shakarian Fic]

Rating: Mature TW: Injury, Mental Health Summary:

Ryn Shepard doesn't want to die. But she's not doing what she should to keep herself alive. To herself, she's a machine of the war, no longer a person.

A mission against Cerberus goes wrong, and Ryn's blood is on Garrus' hands in order to save her.

Or, Ryn struggles hard with what happens on Thessia, Garrus struggles to support her, and Chakwas is pissed off with Shepard's sacrificial attitude.

AO3 LINK

Ryn was exhausted. Her shotgun felt like lead in her arms, her helmet a brutally heavy crown atop her head.

The eight hours she'd slept the previous night did not count; they'd been anything but restful when all she could do was roll from side to side, trying to banish thoughts of Thessia from her mind.

She couldn't.

At this point, sleep was just a formality. She was never going to recover the hours of sleep debt she was in.

"Shepard, you good?" Garrus' voice rumbled over her inter-helmet comms system and she nodded, taking a needed breath before responding.

"I'm all here, Vakarian." She looked towards him, perched at a vantage point facing their final communications station left to retake. Tali stood on her right, her attack drone pulsing and bobbing beside her.

Ryn added, "Let's get in and out, easy, alright? We can be home by dinner if we're quick."

"Mm, ship rations, my favorite." Garrus chimed in as Tali groaned at the bright, brutally sarcastic optimism Ryn poured into the latter half of her sentence.

Despite the weight that felt like it was pushing her into the ground, Ryn couldn't help a snorting laugh, "Don't worry, you'll get your good food, we're aiming for the Citadel after this."

"It's about damn time." Tali muttered before perking up at movement ahead, "Looks like Cerberus finally decided to show up."

One of the Cerberus troops spun and fell to the ground before they'd cleared the crates that amassed into scattered barricades.

"Heh, scoped and dropped." Garrus hummed over their helmets' comms.

Ryn's mouth quirked up in the barest hints of a grim smile as she focused her biotics around her, shooting off towards the nearest trooper in a storm of energy. She slammed into the soldier, sending them staggering backward. Another pulse of energy dropped the soldier's shields.

She repeated that familiar rhythm, charging and expelling the energy in a brilliant purple nova, bouncing around the battlefield in streaming light.

She could sustain this pattern for long enough to get them through this battle, she insisted with herself. She was far more powerful with her biotics than she was with her guns. Guns could only get her so far when Cerberus had their troops increasingly armored.

Guns needed to reload. Her biotics would last until her brain short circuited and melted out her ears. And if they reached that point in a fight, well, then shit was already so far gone they would have bigger problems to worry about.

Garrus and Tali's voices carried on in the back of her awareness, calling out warnings to each other as Garrus kept an eye on the troop movements from his higher location.

Ryn zeroed in on a Phantom prowling the battlefield, marking their location just before the soldier's invisibility mechanism clicked on. She hit the Phantom like a freight train, sending them both staggering as her exhaustion waned her raw strength.

Grimacing, she began to pull her biotic energy back around her in an increasingly tight coil, poised to charge again. The amassing light and energy around her sputtered out as the Phantom slammed into her first, pushing her back up against the wall of the communications tower.

She struggled, pulling on that energy again. It fizzled inside of her, her implants screaming like burning knives in her temples at each failure to expend the energy she'd gathered. The Phantom's grip on her was vise-like, forcing her back against the wall.

Her biotics would last until her brain short circuited and melted out of her ears…her head blazed with enough pain that she wondered if she was approaching that point at the speed of light.

Ryn's teeth snapped together as the Phantom's grip shifted, hammering her head back against the wall behind her. Blood filled her mouth in an iron-tinged deluge and she gagged.

This was a mistake, her struggle doubled. She tried to cry out, choking as the Phantom slammed her back again. Stars filled her vision.

Images of what had happened to Ashley on Mars flashed through her mind. She was trapped, cornered. Her shotgun was pinned between them; she was as likely to shoot her own head off as she was her assailant’s if she fired.

"Garrus! Tali!" she gasped, hoping her comms system wasn't broken. "Help."

"I can't get...shot...hitting you, Shep..." Garrus' voice was muffled and every other word broke off as the delicate comms systems in her helmet took damage.

Jaw aching with how intensely she clenched her teeth she took all the amassed biotic energy she had left and let it loose, Her vision darkened for a moment, lighting-like shocks running up into her temples.

It bought her a moment.

The Phantom was a Cerberus abomination, moving faster than anything ever should. Before Ryn could so much as roll to the side to put more space between them, her back pressed against the metal wall, the Phantom's hands were back on her, fumbling with all their strength. Ryn dropped her gun, grappling with the soldier.

She didn't realize the way the Phantom had skewed her until searing pain ripped through her. Ryn grunted, the shock ripped all the air from her lungs. Faltering, her legs went to jello beneath her as her body rebelled against the sudden sharp agony from somewhere she couldn’t identify.

She’d been punched, hit, shot…stabbed was a new one. And it hurt like a bitch.

Focus, focus, focus! She chanted in her head, gasping. She couldn't make out the chatter going through her comms, it was all static now.

She tried to charge again, only to find nothing left to expend. Fuck.

Chest heaving, she partitioned off all the pain raging through her from seemingly everywhere in her body for later, diving for her gun. She'd have to do with that now.

The Phantom, also heaving for breath now, she realized with some grim satisfaction, caught her, slamming their shoulders together. Ryn careened into the wall with an, "Umph!"

She could make out one word blaring across her comms as she watched the Phantom's helmet explode in red.

Her name.

Garrus ran not for his life, but for Ryn's.

Tali sprinted into the communications tower, a drone trailing behind her, to enable it. Once the disruption was gone they could call the Normandy down, or at the very least get back into contact with Cortez to bring the shuttle.

They were lucky their comms between the three of them hadn’t been jammed with only one functioning disruption left. Even if they’d been garbled at best and barely functional the closer they’d come to the tower.

Garrus’ legs ached as he leapt from his vantage point, joints protesting the height. Shouldering his sniper rifle, he sprinted across the open area that had become their battlefield. He dodged the fallen Cerberus soldiers, boosts clanging and slipping against used thermal clips.

Ryn slumped against the wall, a patchwork of blood splatter behind her. The Phantom lay crumpled at her feet. Garrus pushed the body out of his way, dropping to his knees in front of his commander.

A torrent of curses flooded from him as his eyes flitted about for where to look. Guilt roared in his mind, clenching in his chest, at the neat, puckered hole in Ryn’s armor where the Phantom had used her body to block his shot. The shot he’d made with specialty armor piercing ammo Ryn had got him the last time she’d been on the Citadel.

There was no way for him to change the path his clips took midair but...spirits...

He’d shot her.

“Garrus...” Ryn gasped and he couldn’t help the way relief stuttered its way back into his mind at the fact she was still alive and conscious, “Helmet...off.”

“I don’t think...” Garrus began, wracking his mind for all the basic military medical training he had. He was pretty sure removing helmets wasn’t part of standard protocol for any of what was happening. Especially not when he’d watched her get slammed against the wall several times.

“Please.” Ryn coughed, sounding awful, “Can’t stand it.”

There was enough rising, raw panic for him to throw away that barest medical training. Especially as her hands began to tug at it herself, eliciting a cry of pain.

Her helmet was a wreck. It was banged up at the back where the Phantom had slammed her repeatedly into the wall, Garrus noticed as he gently cradled her head to undo the clasps. If she hadn’t been wearing a helmet…now was not the time for what-ifs.

She gave a ragged, sucking breath as he pulled it from her head. Blood coated the lower half of her face in a grisly smear from where it poured from her nose, the corners of her mouth.

Ryn leaned over and spat, red tinged and brutal.

“Bit...tongue.” she explained, as if that was the most pressing and normal issue at the moment. She wiped at her mouth with her forearm, only smearing blood further across her skin.

Garrus caught Tali’s voice with more clarity over his comm; she’d breached the final comms disruption and was hacking into the last lock.

Ryn went rigid in front of him.

“Garrus.” she said with the sort of calm that put him on immediate high alert. All the color had drained from her face, leaving her eyes wide and stark against her pallid skin, “You need to call the Normandy.”

“Tali’s working on it--” Garrus followed Ryn’s hands, body going unnaturally still.

The Phantom had worked a long, black blade between the fibrous parts of her armor and the carbonized plating. It blended into the dark metal of her armor at a first glance.

Ryn’s hands flitted around it, “Suit deploys medigel.” She reasoned with that too-calm voice, “Medigel can’t fix that.”

She hacked again, spitting out another glob of scarlet spit. Her teeth and tongue were stained as she grimaced, hands settling on the blade, “Heh,” she mumbled, “Chakwas is gonna be pissed.”

Garrus gave himself a shake, pulling himself from his own icy shock that had frozen him in place. He forced calmness onto himself, bringing down like a shield.

Her questionably coherent babbling was either a good sign or a bad sign. She talked when she was nervous and trying to keep herself together. And she was talking a lot right now.

His voice stayed shockingly neutral as he said into his comm, “Tali do you have the comm hub back up?”

“Yes,” She was quick to respond, “Systems are coming back online now, why?”

“Get the Normandy or Cortez down here asap. Tell them to have the med bay ready to go.”

The ‘It’s Shepard’ went without saying.

“Vot,” Tali swore harshly and he heard her sharp breath, “Sending now. What’s the timeline?”

Garrus shot a look to Ryn, who was staring back at him with eyes wide as saucers. Sweat drenched her skin, her breathing starting to come sharper and sharper; whether it was from mounting panic or onsetting shock, he wasn’t willing to roll the dice on.

“Urgent.” he decided.

His comm went quiet as Tali switched to paging the Normandy.

Garrus caught at Ryn’s hand as she gave a tug at the blade and yelped, “Do not do that.” he said with a bit more intensity than intended. Ryn dropped her hands back onto her lap, flexing them from open to closed fists.

“The Normandy is on its way. It’s going to be fine.” Garrus kept talking, feeling the weight of Ryn’s eyes on him. He just needed to keep her with him as long as possible.

He began working on the straps to her chest armor, loosening it just enough to give her more room to breathe. The heat radiating off her skin was disjointed with the pallor in her skin.

“I’m already impaled, Vakarian, now’s not the time.” Ryn’s voice was feeble, on the cusp of losing it entirely.

Garrus squeezed his eyes closed, taking a very long breath, “I’m going to give you a pass on that one given the circumstances.”

An eternity seemed to pass before Cortez appeared with the shuttle, hovering as close as he could get.

Ryn grit her teeth and held her breath long enough that the parts of her face visible beneath grime and blood started to go pink as Garrus hauled her as carefully, but quickly, to the shuttle as he dared.

“Breathe, Ryn.” Garrus reminded her, crouching at her side as Cortez started them back to the Normandy.

“Fucking hell.” She wheezed out in response, squeezing her eyes closed with every jostle of the ship. At least the colorful words got her to let out a breath.

He’d take what he could get.

“What happened?” Chakwas demanded.

Ryn was still conscious, barely, if the way her eyes rolled around beneath fluttering eyelashes could count as consciousness when he tried to set her down on the medbay’s cot.

Still, she grasped him with surprising strength when he tried to hurry from Chakwas’ way, and it took his distressed mumbled pleas to let Chakwas work and the doctor’s firm tugging to finally get her to let go.

Chakwas gave him a sympathetic glance as she barked at him, “Out, Vakarian, not enough room in here for all of us.”

It was only because he needed to explain what happened that she amended her statement and shoved him deep into the corner by the door. His voice failed him when he explained the shot to Ryn’s shoulder and he cleared his throat, mandibles flaring as he struggled to get the words out.

He’d shot her. Accidentally yes, but guilt raged in his chest in a burning fire, sweeping all of his breath away.

“You can’t change clips mid air.” Chakwas said shortly, “Better her shoulder than anywhere more vital. If that Phantom had moved her any further, it might’ve been her heart or lungs. Leave the what-ifs as what-ifs.”

Harsh, but true. Chakwas directed a glance over her shoulder from where she peeled layers of bloody armor from Ryn, scissors laid on the tray within reach to work Ryn’s under armour away.

“She’s going to be fine.” she added, “Shepard is too tough for her own good.”

It took him a moment to realize he was being dismissed for real this time. He hesitated, rocking his weight. Leaving her felt like inviting the worst to happen. It was every time he’d left her behind that something bad had happened.

He blinked, bringing himself out of the spiraling of his mind and back into the medbay. Blinked at the lights, glinting off the metal all throughout the room, back into focus. Formed Chakwas’ voice back from meaningless noise into words.

“I’m going to stabilize her,” she was saying, “And then we’re going to have a talk. Confidential, between us.”

Their “confidential talk” echoed throughout the crew deck. Penetrating the shuttered windows of the medbay and the sealed door as if Ryn was standing in the middle of the deck.

Ryn rarely yelled when it wasn’t to make her voice heard in combat. Especially loud enough for Garrus to hear from the main battery, where he’d sealed himself away to fiddle with calibrations while he retreated deeper and deeper into his mind to parse through what had happened today.

He’d used the shared crew bathrooms to wash Ryn’s blood off of him. Had scrubbed his armor on the stand he kept in the battery. Going into her quarters without her right now felt wrong, as if he was awaiting her judgment on him when she woke up.

She was awake now.

“Find somewhere else to be.” he said sharply to the crowd milling about, eavesdropping on the muffled shouting. When several pairs of eyes just stared at him, he growled, “Out. This is the Commander’s business.”

Respect for their commander broke through morbid curiosity and everyone slinked away, finding somewhere else to be. He probably should’ve done the same thing, but then Chakwas raised her voice louder than he’d ever heard her address Ryn before.

Worse yet, she used her first name. Chakwas never used Ryn’s first name.

“Commander Ryn Shepard you will sit down, shut up, and listen to your medical officer!”

Against his better judgment, he pressed the control pad and the door hissed open.

Ryn sat on the edge of the bed, face flushed a deep red that splotched down her neck. She clutched a crumpled piece of paper in her hand, held so tightly that her fingers were beginning to rip the material. Beneath an Alliance-issued, loose fitted black t-shirt a bandage crept above the neckline from her shoulder.

Her eyes jumped to her, the muscles in her jaw jumping as she clenched her teeth. But something deep in her expression deflated, a light flickering into something bleak, as if she’d been caught doing something she’d never meant for him to see.

Garrus held up his hands under the pressure of her stare, trying to work exactly what it was, and the ire he felt radiating off of Chakwas.

“I just wanted to make sure everything was okay.” he explained, inching back towards the door.

Chakwas shot a look towards Ryn, once again filled with something imperceptible to him, “Want him here?”

Ryn averted her eyes but gave a subtle nod, “Garrus can stay.”

Looking towards the ceiling for a long moment as if collecting herself, Chakwas motioned Garrus in, “Maybe you can calm your commander down.”

He let the door hiss closed behind him, but kept himself pressed against it, the same place he’d relayed today’s events to Chakwas hours ago.

The doctor crossed her arms over her chest, “Do you want to continue?” she sniped, “Perhaps in a quieter tone?”

Ryn grit her teeth, eyes flaring. Her voice was clipped, each word sharper than the last, as she glanced down at the wadded up paper in her hands.

“Did you seriously hand me a fucking psych eval? I’m fine.”

His stomach dropped to the floor at the words alone. The implications.

Though her tone still made Chakwas press her lips together in a thin line, she said, “It’s standard procedure for service personnel who display reckless or careless behavior in the field. What happened out there today was a severe error--”

“It was a mistake. That Phantom caught me off balance--” Ryn started, only to snap her mouth closed as Chakwas held up a hand.

“You know as well as I do that I am not talking about the Phantom.”

Ryn looked at the paper again, smoothing it out across her knees. Her lips twisted, “I’m not trying to…” she broke off and repeated herself instead, “I’m fine.”

Dr. Chakwas looked towards a datapad propped on her desk, the screen crisscrossed with graph lines. “Preliminary data analysis from your suit suggests--”

“That I’m under more stress now than during the Skyllian Blitz.” Ryn finished the sentence with a guttural edge to her voice that Garrus had never heard before. Then her voice got tired, so very tired, “I’ve been told that already.”

Even if that piece of data sent a chilled zap through his mind, conceptualizing exactly how much stress Thessia and this war were putting on her. He hadn’t known her during the Blitz, had only seen the drone footage of her fight on Elysium when he’d first met her and curiously looked into her service history during his days of C-Sec.

This war was hard on everyone, the whole universe falling down around them, but the front she put on, even to him, never revealed just how much it weighed on her. How much was she hiding?

“You put more stress on your implants today than they’re rated for, and that’s the newest tech on the market. Frankly, I’m surprised you weren’t brought back a brainless shell.” Chakwas’ voice had softened, the edge coming off, “Your suit noted higher levels of fatigue, slower reaction times, and dangerous levels of power output from your biotics.”

Ryn remained silent, staring hard off to the side.

Garrus had spent enough time among turians on warships to recognize the signs of a soldier who had checked out. Surprisingly, it stirred a flicker of irritation in him, a similar fire to when he’d but heads with Ryn over her relentless idealism in the days of Saren.

It was one thing to watch her in the field; there wasn’t time to truly worry for her in the heat of battle and he trusted her implicitly as his commander. Something else deeply turian took over him in those moments, the deference to his higher up that had been instilled in him since he was old enough to grasp that concept. In the field they were not Shepard and Vakarian, but a soldier and his commanding officer.

It was quite another thing entirely to meet that cavalier attitude back on the ship, where those dividing lines of rank receded. Quite another to watch her disengage from the dangerous statistics Chakwas shared with her about her well being.

No. Garrus took a quiet, steadying breath, watchful eyes darting across Ryn again. Disregard wasn’t the right word. She may have turned her face away, her body language giving off the air that she wasn’t engaged anymore, but her eyes flicked back towards them. He’d seen that expression before, where her lips tightly pressed together.

Shame.

He blinked, finding Ryn’s eyes fixed on him now. The dark circles beneath them coupled with the intense overhead lights alit them like liquid silver. Her shoulders rose, then fell, and she looked away.

Taking a deep breath, Dr. Chakwas snatched the datapad from her desk and crossed the space to Ryn’s bedside. Held out the datapad and gave it an insistent shake when Ryn just raised an eyebrow.

Ryn shifted her energy back towards them, grabbing the datapad, “What am I looking at?” That deep emptiness had settled into her voice, drained of all the rage that had filled every word mere minutes ago.

Chakwas traced her finger along a graph that Garrus couldn’t quite make out from his position.

“That’s the strain that your current stress levels are putting on the cybernetics that Cerberus used to put you back together.” She explained, “And you are functioning at at least twice the level they are rated for. Project Lazarus’ tech is almost completely unknown, leaving us with only best guesstimates.”

From here he could make out the image mapping all of Ryn’s cybernetics, the leylines of technology that kept her alive. Her eyes were locked on that, her lip curling with disgust. It left a pit in Garrus’ stomach.

Ryn sighed, long and low, “What do you want from me? The Reapers won’t stop just because my body can’t keep up. Planets won’t stop getting destroyed, people won’t stop dying, just so I can sleep.”

“And you can’t keep fighting a war if you're dead.”

His mandibles might as well be locked from how little he was able to find the words, any words, to buck against the cavalier way Ryn spoke about driving herself to the breaking point.

The literal breaking point.

He’d never thought too hard about the cybernetics that kept her ticking. He’d comforted her through bouts of severe disgust and anxiety, where she’d gouged long, red lines from her nails into her skin, swearing she could feel them.

But whenever his own mind had dwelled too hard on the specifics of bringing her back, his own mind threw up an error code, refusing to go any further. While he could listen to Ryn, provide whatever she needed as best he could, digging any deeper into what happened in his own mind may as well have been trying to bend a plate of metal with his own hands.

The closest he’d come to truly conceptualizing what had happened to Ryn had been in Liara’s apartment, staring at the battered remains of Ryn’s armor from the crash. That had pushed him far too close to that gaping hole where her loss had been.

He gave a viscous shake of his head to dispel the rabbit hole he was careening towards, finding Ryn and Chakwas silently staring at each other in a stalemate.

Ryn broke first, sighing and easing herself back. The look she shot Chakwas was exhausted. It seemed to pull down on her face, on the corners of her eyes, the edges of her lips.

“Can I at least go back to my cabin to rest?” She murmured, quiet enough that Chakwas had to step closer to hear, “I’ll sleep better there than on this cot.”

The doctor’s lips pinched together and Ryn made a noise painfully close to a pleading whimper, “Karin, please.”

Chakwas stepped away from the door, gripping the datapad tightly, “Only if you assure that you will be back in here at 0800 sharp for reevaluation or if there are any issues before then.”

The ghost of a smile touched Ryn’s lips, “0800? Letting me sleep in. Fine. ‘Sides, I won’t be alone. Garrus will be with me…” Her eyes slid over to Garrus, brows drawing together, “Maybe?”

He gave a slight nod, a quiet, “Of course I will.” even as his heart gave a painful lurch. As if he’d leave her alone after the day’s events unless she gave him the orders.

Karin unloaded Ryn onto Garrus with a series of orders and instructions that went through one ear and out the other. Her head pounded; her brain might as well have been melting out of her skull.

All she knew was that her body felt too heavy to move and that she hurt all over. Every single muscle was shouting displeasure at her. She was pretty sure that Garrus’ hand around her waist was the only thing keeping her on her feet as the motion of the elevator swayed them back and forth, each jolt sending another wave of nauseating aches through her.

The door to her cabin hissed open and she tumbled out of Garrus’ grasp, the allure of her bed far bypassing the pain it took to take more than snail-steps over there. She thunked down onto the mattress in a puff of the black duvet.

She nearly groaned at the soft comfort on it, but ended up biting her tongue to stave off a yelp as she twisted her ailing shoulder, her side barking in discomfort.

Right. Her injuries. She pushed herself up with effort into a sitting position, locking her eyes on Garrus. He lingered by her desk, fingers tapping the glass that partitioned off her model ships.

She motioned for him to come over. He lingered. She turned to roughly patting the bed beside her, “Sit. Please.”

Garrus sat.

Ryn took a steadying breath, shoving her exhaustion to the other side of her mind. She could wait a little longer. Needed to wait longer.

“I’m sorry, for a lot of what happened today.” She scrubbed her hands across her face. Damn she was tired, “I let you and Tali down in the field and fucked the situation up, down, and sideways. And I shouldn’t have said what I did, there in the med bay.”

She watched recognition flash across his face, watch his mandibles flare, before his face dropped back into careful neutrality, “What’s done is done for what happened in the field.”

“But you are, or were, upset with me. I saw it in the med bay. For reasons that I understand but…I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want you to hide those things from me.”

She wanted to curl in on herself, tuck her knees tightly up against her chest, but her body wouldn’t let her. She settled for wrapping her arms around herself, “If I let those things show…what’s that going to say to the rest of the crew?”

“I’m not the rest of the crew.” There was an uncharacteristically intense firmness to Garrus, an unyielding wall of…something that she couldn’t parse out.

She squeezed her eyes closed, “I know. That’s not how I meant it…I just--don’t know how to put this burden on you. I don’t even know what to do with it myself.”

Garrus moved closer and she tentatively leaned against his shoulder. When he slipped his arm around her in silent permission she melted against him. The silence between them softened.

“Thank you for saving my ass today.” She bit back a yawn. Her eyelids might as well be pulled down by leaden weights.

Resting his chin against the top of her head, Garrus’ voice rumbled through her, “I shot you.”

“Because that bitch used me as a shield.”

Garrus breathed a long, slow breath, “You should rest.”

She desperately needed to. Her thoughts were jumbling in her head, slipping through her fingers. But they needed to talk, there were still so many things she had to explain.

As if her thoughts were written across her face, Garrus murmured, “Later. It can wait.”

“But…we’re okay?” She murmured, voice breaking. His kiss to her temple soothed that part of her, terrified about shoveling too much onto him, and she let out a sigh.

“We’re okay.” Garrus assured, “Now please, get some sleep.”

Even getting under the covers felt too big an effort, but with Garrus’ help she shimmied beneath them. When he crawled on top of the covers, datapad in hand, she tucked herself close against his side.

The toll of the day dragged her under, and she just prayed it would be restful.

#captainderyn writes #mass effect #mass effect fanfic #shakarian #femshep #garrus vakarian #shepard/garrus #oc: Ryn Shepard #otp: Keep Me Grounded #I really hope this readmore works #lmk if it doesn't and i'll repost

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