It's Difficult, But All Things Worth Keeping Are

This is part of a series of Original Trilogy Appreciation Weeks put together by @omegastation. You can find the masterpost here. Your host for this week is @keita52.

From February 19th-25th, this blog will be promoting and reblogging content related to Captain/Major Kirrahe, Special Tasks Group. All types of content are welcome – fanfic, fanart, manips, videos, meta, anything you can come up with!

If you want to be featured on this blog, please be sure to use #kirraheweek2018 in the first five tags of your post. You can also directly submit content to have it featured.

Rules

Above all, be respectful and considerate of others. This week is meant to celebrate everyone’s favorite active member of the salarian Special Tasks Group, so let’s keep the focus on positive aspects.

No racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia/transphobia or any similar content will be reblogged.

Please tag your content appropriately. This includes NSFW and anything that might be considered triggering.

All NSFW content should be consensual and go behind a “Read More” cut.

Themes

These themes are meant as a guideline only; any type of content related to Kirrahe is welcome at any point during the week. I will also post some prompts themed around each day to get the creative juices flowing.

February 19th: Early life and STG days February 20th: Relationship with Mordin February 21st: The mission on Virmire February 22nd: Hanging with the Normandy crew February 23rd: The Reaper War February 24th: Post-War February 25th: Wild Card

After that, the duty to hold the line will be passed to @minigiantspacehamster and @charomiami.

I wanted to do all sorts of drawings for #thaneweek2018 but I ran out of time and energy. Here’s 2 drawing I managed to complete within this week (krhm, today).

Art by @zanephiri

(Here’s a thing I started writing a million years ago about dreams, deserts and making things.)

Let us start with a planet that has been dead for centuries. Let us tell some fictions and some realities about it. It is up to you to believe which ones are true.

What about a woman who dreams of the deserts of Rakhana? Deserts carpeted with purple weeds that are inhabited by silvery lizards she has named the afa’el. In her dreams, the afa’el sing – no, that’s not what they do, the old melodies once sung by burning stars echo in them. Sometimes it sounds like they are humming and others, they appear to be reproducing three songs at once. She watches the ira, cactus-like succulents, glowing in announcement of the dawn of a new season as the cavernous voices of an ancient creature or a sinking sun make their way across the planet, from afa’el to afa’el and finally they reach her.

She hears and understands their wordless mellow stories.

They tell her of the Endu, the biggest flower to ever exist in any world, which according to legend had bloomed in an unforgiving desert and was encountered by a group of nomads who sought it as a symbol of Arashu and built the biggest civilization around it.

She learns of how Rakhana came to be. How it was once a frozen egg, drifting away in the Sea of Stars, and how a maiden made of gold nourished it back to life.

The woman, whose name is Shepard, visits the great desert of Alasere religiously. She enjoys standing there, sinking her feet in a golden ocean, listening to the afa’el murmur words in Rakhani long forgotten.

She learns of fihanda, which roughly translates to the guilt a child feels when they recognize dishonesty in their parents or in an older authority figure. There is amuefto, the gift of finding beauty in a person and seeing it reflected in their faces, regardless of their looks. Taverena, an expression of gratitude only used when someone has made a true impact one’s life, making it out of the ordinary. And then, tah-sehe.

“I will miss you, Shepard. Tah-sehe,” had been the last thing she heard from Thane’s lips before he left the Normandy. For a while, she whispered tah-sehe to herself while embracing the mundane. It would fill the room in the form of a silly melody muttered while she watched the rain pour; or as a gurgling sound while she took a shower. It was imprinted on her mind. It isn’t until the afa’el sing morosely about the last chapter in their planet’s history, that she discovers tah-sehe is not a word to be said lightly.

She comes to understand why Thane, who turns the simplest of sentences into splendid verses, had felt it necessary to utter that word – because I will miss you was but a fragment of what he wished to convey. Tah-sehe meant more than to miss someone; it was a profound emotional state of infinite yearning, of not being able to experience life to the fullest, of having lost the most significant part of oneself. The concept originated during the great exodus of the 1980s, as the first generations of drell settled in Kahje carried the name of the tah’sehen, the ones who dwell in what’s lost.

For Day 6 of Leather & Lace (Friends/Enemies to Lovers) I decided to also write something for Thane week being hosted by @rock-paperback-scissors on @lizardassassin. So I wrote some friends to lovers for Thane and femShep! ^_^

Saying The Words

“Siha?”

Thane’s voice was soft in the darkness, almost too soft to be heard, and Jane turned to find him watching her. His dark eyes reflected the light of the stars from the observation window, and they seemed to glow softly as he sat forward and rested his chin on his folded hands. His expression was neutral, almost unreadable, but she could see a tightness to his jaw and some tension around his eyes that spoke of … nerves?

Surely not; Thane didn’t get nervous.

“Siha, do you still consider us to be friends?” he continued in the same measured tone, though there was an edge to his voice.

Jane froze for an instant, the question throwing her. They were friends. In fact, there were times when she felt closer to Thane then she did anyone else on the ship. His stories about his family had touched her so deeply that she’d felt safe enough to share stories of her own family. And when she was around Thane she didn’t feel the need to be Commander Shepard all the time; she could relax and be herself.

But … there was more to it then just that. More to it than just friendship. She felt drawn to the drell in a way she had never felt drawn to anyone before. She ached to reach out and feel the texture of his skin for herself, to feel the strength of his muscles, and had woken from one too many dreams in which Thane featured in a very amorous role.

Were they friends? Yes. But she wanted more.

She nodded slowly and sighed, unable to keep a lack of enthusiasm from her voice as she answered. “Yes, we’re … friends.”

Thane tilted his head, and his eyes shimmered slightly as he reached forward and caught one of her hands with his. “I’m not sure I can be … friends.” Jane blinked in surprise, but he just smiled. “There is something building between us, Siha. I can feel it. I believe you can too. It is making it hard to be friends when I wish to be more.”

The rest is under the cut!

- “You are the light across my horizon” is a common romantic saying to a significant other. It refers to the sun at the edge of the sea. As someone sits on the shore and waits for their loved one, they always see them across the water and will wait for their arrival. Like saying “You are the love of my life and I will await you in death.”

- During weddings the couple will share poetry they’ve written one another as their vows. Then they place a necklace with bottled glowing algae around each other’s necks and declare them their “guiding light in life”.

-”I look forward to the memories.” Saying this to someone is the ultimate compliment. It says I will hold onto this memory of us, visit it often with perfect clarity, and look fondly on it. For drell, this is a sign of affection and devotion. It is never said lightly. 

- A drell diet is mainly meat with minimal veggies. Their bodies actually require a more meat based diet in order to function properly. Vegetarians don’t exist to them.  

- Because of their excellent memories, drell are incredibly deep thinkers and have a strong connection to emotions. Powerful poetry and art came easily to them and there are many ancient texts saved from Rakhana. They are considered to be some of the most beautiful poetry ever written.

- Drell society was primarily the arts and sciences. Education thrived because of drell memory. They were able to absorb knowledge quickly and comprehend complex theories which sky rocketed their technological achievements. Unfortunately, the technology was later used in bad ways against other groups of people.

- Being so connected to emotions and their religion, different religious groups were seen as the political figureheads of society. Emotions ruled these groups and as a result there was friction between religions. 

- Instead of losing their memories as they age, drell will actually start creating artificial memories of events that didn’t happen. It’s called having a ‘loose memory’. The disease has a range of intensity. The memory can be as simple as having breakfast that morning with a loved one who has been dead for years or it can make one believe in something that isn’t there. It can be incredibly dangerous in it’s final stages as the person can become irrational, even violent. 

-Religion has always been a focus in the drell culture. In the past, those with ‘Loose Memory’ disease have said that the gods actually spoke to them. Because of their perfect memory, many would believe these individuals and follow their teachings. This lead to wars between cultures and zealots that later branched away and formed similar religions. Most wars were religion based. 

Thane’s praying