Of Men and Marytrs
Summary: Patriarch always knew the kid was special. But he never thought the kid would be in a place to take on the queen of Omega, and certainly never thought he’d help her get there.
But if there’s one thing Patriarch knows about Omega, it’s that things always change. [Part 1 of a series.]] Written for ME ladies project rare female characters week.I’m happy I was able to finish this in time, since I’m still working on the fic I tried to write for the first @ladiesofmasseffect week! - - - Patriarch knows. Aria has never seen any reason to distrust him, which makes gathering information easy. Her friends think that he's on her side; her enemies don't see him as enough of a threat to bother hiding much from. Right now, everything says that things are gonna turn upside down, fast, and Patriarch is far too old to deal with everything changing again. At least, not without getting his teeth in.
No one gives him credit, but Patriarch knows. Knows more than even Aria, sometimes.
He knocks on Nyreen's door, doesn't bother waiting for her to say come in – kid isn't the type – and bangs it open.
The turian turns back to look at him, face as serious and resolute as it ever is. She reminds him of Tiamat in that; she's quiet, reserved. She's got all her belongings in the world stacked up, which would seem more imposing, more final if all the possessions she owned in this world didn't amount to one small rucksack slid onto her desk.
“Guess the rumors were true,” he drawls, sitting delicately down on the bed.
Nyreen's back stiffens slightly – her only tell. He hopes the kid isn't leaving the station. There's something in her reservedness, in the way she keeps cool, under control that makes him think there's more power in her than there ever was in Aria.
“What rumors?” she asks, voice carefully neutral.
“That you were leavin'.”
“And who told you that?” Some curiosity in the voice, but not enough to sound panicked. Good girl.
“Oh, you know, an old man hears things.” She turns and walks toward him, standing in front of him with just her hands on those tiny little turian hips. He doesn't know how Aria can stand that. A good krogan woman is thick, and there there's just...nothin' to hold onto. For one brief moment, he misses Tuchanka, but then he thinks of Tiamat, and knows he'll never go home.
She raises one brow-plate.
“Not too hard to deduce.” He shrugs. “Maybe an old man sees you buying a few things, maybe he comes up with some opinions...” “Maybe an old man keeps those opinions to himself?” Nyreen's voice is all quiet control; he can see from the way she flicks her fingers and the air hums that she's trying to get ready to throw a singularity if needed, but he deflects in a smile.
“It isn't like anyone listens to an old man anyway,' he says, lips sliding into a grin as he cracks the old joke. She doesn't smile back, but she nods.
It's a start.
“Thanks,” she says, quietly, as she turns back to the desk, shuffling a few papers into the pile.
“Your mind made up?”
“Yes.” She sighs. “I can't...do this, not anymore.” “Yeah,” he nods. “I understand. Aria's….Aria.” HE still remembers how merciless she is, of course. He's never forgotten his deposition, the way that tiny Asari beat the shit out of him and smiled, and said, simply, “Get up, Patriarch” in a voice that brooked no excuses and held no pity. Aria's like like a krogan, in that way.
He had not been scared of her, but he has accepted her rule, without question. There was strength in Aria, but even from the beginning Patriarch has known there was also fragility. Tiamat had been stronger, had been kind enough to accept his defeat if never her own. Aria did not understand defeat, and still feared it.
Aria is still pitiless, still a scared child lashing out in the night – but one who could do a lot of damage, and often has. He has watched as she took Omega from the shithole he was slowly improving to the slum it is has, how it has gone from a land without a past to a land without a future.
He does not wish to see Nyreen waste away like the ground beneath him. “I love her.” Nyreen says, so quiet, so broken, that he can't help but cross the few small steps to her.
“I know.” He thinks of a time, long ago, when he was loved. He thinks of Tiamat, of holding her thick scaled fingers in his hand, of vowing that they would break the curse that had bound their people for so long.
“Sometimes that ain't enough.”
“No.” She closes her eyes and grabs his hand and he squeezes it. Damn, he's gonna miss this kid.
“Did you…?” She sighs. “Was I wrong to...think that she might love me? Did I just never understand who she was?” “No,” he says. “People change. You've listened to enough of my stories to know that by now, right kid?” In truth, Aria has not changed. He has known her true nature from the moment she came to his lands, had let the ruthless asari stay by his side because of it. But he knows, too, the blindness of love.
He thinks of his Tiamat, once always smiling, thinks of her beaming with joy as the thought of their young. There was a time when he'd believed like the kid, that love had been enough to conquer all obstacles.
And then he watched with bitter eyes as their newborn daughter breathed for the last time.
He thinks of his Tiamat, never happy, Tiamat always pining for another world.
He thinks of the knife in her hands, he thinks of his too-slow reactions, her orange-red blood patching the dirty ground of Clan Weyrloc's ancestral temple. He thinks of Tiamat, dead, buried in the sands of Tuchanka.
He doesn't want the kid to end up like that.
“Where you gonna go, kid?”
“Where is there to go?” Her hand opens and closes. “I don't have a lot of options.” “You don't have to leave.” He can't help but put an arm on her cowl. “There's places you can go. Underground. I know a few people in Eclipse, maybe put you in contact with them – ” “Aria's got her hooks there,” her lips twitch. “I'd be dead in two weeks.”
He wishes he could say that she's wrong, but he knows Aria well enough for that. The kid's better than her.
“Yeah, well...” His hand closes around hers. “We'll think of somethin'.”
She leans her head on his shoulder, and he lets her stay there. It's an odd sight, he knows – turians don't, generally, go to Krogan for comfort, and any proper Krogan with the blood of Shiagur in his veins would die before embracing one of her murderers' kin.
But they are not on Palaven, nor Tuchanka, and out here there's no space for the politics that lie between. Patriarch knows that.
Out here, they're on their own.
“You know, ol' Patriarch still knows a few people back home. I might be able to scare up a ride back to the Hierarchy for ya – far as Tuchanka, anyway.” He tries to think of the contacts that he has left in Tuchanka; not many. He'd never been able to look his people – Tiamat's people – in the eyes, not after what had happened in the temple.
For most turians, going to Tuchanka would be little more than a death sentence. But the kid? She'll get a ride. He knows she will.
“I can't go back.” He doesn't need to be a turian to hear the heartbreak in her sub-vocals.
“Kid, you ain't the first turian to run to Tuchanka. I know your dad is some hoity toity general, but even you hard-headed – “ “I can't go back.” She curls her fingers inwards, allows a soft plume of biotic energy to emanate from her fingers. “Even assuming I'm not tried and killed for desertion – what life is there to lead, in the Cabals?” “Seems better than being dead, kid. And your dad's a general, ain't he?” He snorts. “From what I hear, turians like to keep their promotions within the family, if you get what I'm – “ “Before this,” she whispered, her biotics trailing from her fingers, “I could have been a general; a primarch, even. Now I can only ever be a kabalim. I was a praetor.”
She looked down at her hands. “And now...”
“That doesn't sound so bad, kid.” He shrugged. “What's losing a bit of rank? Your soldiers will respect you.”
Patriarch has lived long enough to learn that society's esteem matters little, not so long as you've got a krannt on your side.
Patriarch had a krannt. Once. Now dead, now gone, a family scattered among the cold and unfeeling universe – Patriarch knows what it is to be alone.
“It doesn't work like that.” She sighs, and he knows that she, too, knows the profound emptiness of the cold and dark galaxy. “My family...I bring my honor to them 'dead' than 'alive.' I can't go back.” “You know, for a council species, you turians are pretty stupid.” He shrugged. “Asari space ain't far beyond Tuchanka. I knew a couple mercs, back in the day, could see if they can give you a ride.”
“I think I've had enough of asari.” She turned away, calming laying her datapad on the bedstand. “I've seen the people who tried to overtake Aria. All of 'em were chumps.” They'd all made the same error he had: they had shown mercy, had assumed Aria was not pitiless. Most had wound up blood splatter quickly hosed off the halls of Afterlife. The one place Aria found value in investing in a clean-up crew. “Even so,” she mutters. “The only way I'll survive this is to be invisible.” And then, in that second, he knows exactly what the kid needs. “What?”
“Grab your bag. Ole Patriarch will show you the way.”
- - -
It's been a long time since Patriarch has led a young woman through a city, and certainly he cant remember when they took the scenic route. He is fairly certain it has never happened on Omega, not even when he held a true, Krogan name, a beautiful name, one long silenced.
“Where are we going?” Nyreen hisses as she follows him through one of the more deserted and derelict parts of the station.
Of course, “deserted and derelict” means “crawling with vorcha” but he ignores them and Nyreen keeps her eyes forward, and the vorcha ignore them both. “You'll see,” Patriarch says. She says nothing in response, just folding her arms, and he guffaws. “What?” She asks. “Nothin'.” He shrugs. “You just remind me of someone I used to know, 's all.” It takes them a little while until they reach the true dregs of the station, the area where no one goes, not even Aria. He knows they're close when the indigent and the poor start hiding from them, the only people they see just quick shadows of various species who don't turn to look at them, not wanting the attention of someone who knows the business end of a gun. “Spirits,” Nyreen whispers. “Don't say nothin',” he responds. “Pity ain't any currency here.” “You're right,” she nods. “That there are communities down here, I never knew–“ “Yeah, well, Aria don't like people thinkin' about the underbelly.” She's no different from him, in that respect. She flicks her eyes to him. “Has it always been like this?” “More or less.” he shrugs. “You shoulda seen it back when ole Faustus was in control. You turians know how to organize, I'll give you that. He had those people minin' 24/7; when one died, he already had another ready to take their place.” Nyreen is silent for a long moment. Then: “What happened to him? Faustus?” “I killed him.” He snorts. “And wore his skull as a crown.” “I….see.” She says, eyes narrowed, and he knows she thinks he's trapping her. “And you were hailed as a liberator, no doubt.” “For a time,” he replies. “But when you lose power, those accolades don't mean shit, kid. These people don't take pity, and they don't give it neither.” “I...see.” She keeps her arms crossed and says nothing more, but she still follows. They go down, down, impossibly down; they pass the poor, the poorest of the poor, and then nothing. It's been totally abandoned – he knows he's reached the limits of the station when his fingers grasp old mining equipment, abandoned here since at least Faustus' time, and probably more – nothing here looks Council made. He triple checks three times to make sure no one is around and then, he opens a sewer grate. “Get in,” he nods. She looks at him like he's insane. “What?” “C'mon.” She shakes her head and he sighs. Only one way to convince the kid it's not a trap. He jumps in, winces at the tight squeeze – ole' Faustus or whoever sure didn't make these krogan sized, but they never counted on krogan strength of will. His boots hit the sewers with a loud splash. Nyreen stares at him from the manhole above, and for once he wishes he had slim turian hips. She won't have a problem getting down here. “C'mon!” He waves his arms. “And close the cover behind you!” With great resistance, Nyreen sticks one boot into the sewer, then another. He nods in approval as she closes the cover. “I don't support you're going to tell me why we're in a sewer?” “Cover,” he grunts. “C'mon, it's not far ahead.” She follows him, though he catches one hand on her gun. Smart kid. Ansharr – had she not died in Tiamat's arms – would have done the same, he thinks. “I ain't gonna kill ya, kid.” “It's not for you. If you wanted to kill me,” she whispers furiously. “you would have done it upstairs. Aria would have wanted my corpse.” “Planning for the unknown, eh? Smart.” It had been ol' Faustus' downfall, he never expected some krogan merc to just burst into his throne room and smash his skull in. Of course, it had been his too, in the end. More than once, he thinks, sourly. And perhaps – he thinks – Aria's, one day, as well. He finds the familiar jettisoned console, now well-rusted, and grns. They're here.
“Alright, stop.” He says, shaking his head.
“Here?” He wades out of the foul water and onto the sudden walkway, then up a long abandoned flight of stairs, and grins. Home sweet home. “Yeah,” he reaches for a crevice in the wall, grins as he pulls a door wide open. “Spirits,” she mumbles, as she steps into a well-furnished I room. “What is this?” “Used to be water control for the minin', back before this was sewers.” He grins. “Now, well, a paranoid krogan a few hundred years ago might'a made this a little hide-out, just in case things got a bit too hot. Course he never got a chance to use it, but he always kept it up….just in case.” “It's huge!” She walks through the apartment he's fashioned, the couch and the bed and enters the kitchen. “Turns out there's more space in one of these if you take the minin' controls out.” “I...spirits.” She blinks. “Aria doesn’t know about this?” “Never felt the need to tell her about it after she put a boot to my head, no.” He scoffs. “Never got a chance to use it though. My krannt fled from my side, and like I said...the people on Omega, the real people...They don't give pity. Ain't got no reason to die for someone like me, and I ain't dumb enough to launch myself at Aria in some suicide strike. Noble but pointless deaths are more a turians kind of thing.” She snorts. “True enough. But why are you showing me this?” “Cuz it's yours,” he shrugs. “Lay low a while; you can make some coin for food helpin' in the underclasses, and Aria ain't gonna be none the wiser. Then in six months when she's got some new chew toy and the heats off, you can just...take a ship out of here, your choice on where. You just send old Patriarch a post-card.” “Why are you doing this?” She asks, head tilted. Fucking kid. Always asking the hot questions.
“Like I tol' ya, you remind me of someone I used to know. I couldn't help her, but I can help you.” “Thank you,” she whispers. “Keep a low profile kid.” He snorts. “I'll check in on ya next time I'm off Aria's leash.” “Looking forward to it.” She smiles, and he closes the doors behind her, taking the route back through the sewers toward the part of Omega anyone gives a shit about. - - - It takes him several hours to hike through the labyrinth of sewers in time to emerge on the other side, then sneak back into the small shithole Aria has assigned him. A few minutes of cleaning, a change of clothes, and he's back in Afterlife, just sitting on a sofa telling stories of long ago glories. No one notices his absence, and no one cares. He hears a rush of feet, and Aria commanding, and does nothing but sip his wine and wait. A few hours after the roar settles into a dull roar, Grizz comes in. “Shit man,” Grizz groans, sitting on one of his couches. “Pour me a drink.” “I ain't your bartender, Grizz.” “Aw, come on.” Grizz cocks his head. “Ain't you heard what happened upstairs? Take pity on a man.” “They don't tell me shit down here.” He pours a whiskey, making the trade smoother than he lies. “What's upset everything up there?” “Remember that little biotic bitch upstairs that Aria's been sweet on? She did a runner.” Grizz tilts his head back and swallows, and Patriarch remembers that the sweet spot on a turian is right under the cowl, and that he could murder Grizz with little effort. “Ah,” Patriarch buries his grin behind a drink. “Not taking the break-up well, is she?” Grizz holds out his cup, and Patriarch sighs, pouring him another shot of the cheap stuff.
“Understatement of the year.” Grizz knocks back his drink. “She's fuckin' mental. Got a bunch of squads running around to stop and kill the bitch before she gets her story out to the press about fuckin' the queen of Omega.” “Doesn't seem the type of thing she'd do,” Patriarch murmurs. “Maybe she's going quiet.” “She goes back home?” Grizz laughed. “That'd be even worse. What's to say that biotic bitch wouldn't sell out all of us for a bit of Hierarchy approval?” “That happen a lot?”
“Fuck yeah,” Grizz grumbles. “Those barefaces will do anything for some fuckin' paint, and that desperation goes double for biotics. Their kind’ll do anything for a bit of approval.” “Damn,” Patriarch says. “Well, I'll keep an eye out for her.” “You ain't gonna see shit, old man.” Grizz chuckles. “You're lucky for that. She doesn't expect you to do shit.” “It – “ He starts, but then he hears Aria bellowing, and his mouth closes on instinct. “Grizz! The fuck are you! Get up here!” “Shit,” Grizz stands, hands him back the glass. “Guess I'm back on duty.” Patriarch waits to grin until the man goes back to Aria, his stones tucked well under his lams. And then, Patriarch treats himself to a drink of the good stuff. - - - As it turns out he doesn't get to see the kid for a while; Aria keeps Afterlife on lockdown and he's as trapped as every other one of her playthings is. Except one. It's not that long until he hears certain rumblings from the underground – some up and coming gang. At first, he doesn't think much of it when Grizz or Bray come down to bitch about these Talons. Been a lot of small time groups who think they can take on the big three– and if Archangel's team couldn't break through these shitheads sure as hell ain't going to challenge her. But then, abruptly, the stories change from red sand to vigilantes hunting down some missing folks in the underground and there's too much of a touch of the kid's self-sacrificing nature for his tastes. He tries to find time to break away from lady Aria, but she keeps a tight leash on Afterlife . And then, as so rarely happens, Aria calls him for an audience. - - - “Yer majesty,” he drawls, as he stands next to Aria. He won't sit on the fucking coach she reigns on. In his day, it was a throne, and never in something so cheap as a nighclub. “Patriarch,” she twirls her fingers as she gestures for him to sit and, after a moment's hesitation, he does so. He's pretty sure that Aria has somehow found out about their walk through the backslums and half-filled in caverns of Omega, but he keeps his face austere. He wont give her anything she hasn't given him. “I have an assignment for you,” she smirks. “Get you back out among your...populace.” “Not like I can say no.” “Indeed not.” She straightens her spine. “There's a group down in the deep underbelly making trouble. I want you to show up and straighten them out. They're making trouble with some…investors.” “Why send me?” He leans over. “Ain't like I got any pull out there.” “Because, frankly, I need someone whose face they'll recognize,” she waves a hand at him. “And someone expendable. You fit both counts. If they're capable of taking down a battle master, then they're a threat worth considering sending more force against.” She rolls her eyes, as if this is obvious. “Ain't you worried that's gonna cost you all of my fans?” “What fans?” She laughs, and for a moment he even joins in, but the second he does, her eyes narrow. “You have your orders. Get going.” With a sick stomach, he mockingly salutes her, and then he's gone. - - - It's not hard to find the talon’s base; the moment he hits the underground he sees the flags flying. He ignores the villagers, marching straight ahead through women and men hanging out in the streets, most of whom are wearing red talon marks on their face that downright mimic the kids pattern. Shit. Kid. Some low profile. He makes his way to the sewer, hoping the kid at least isn't dumb enough to have left it and isn’t out advertising her presence. He squeezes back through the ridiculous sewer, stalks up the stairs with anger in his heart, and throws open the door. Nyreen Kandros looks at him. He expects her to look sheepish, but no, she's too much of Tiamat: she looks powerful, serene. She holds a kafa mug but it might as well be Tiamat's knife. “Shit, kid,” he runs a hand over his hump. “What the hell?” “These people needed help.” She places the kafa mug on the stand and stands up. “Like you said, they don't respond to pity. But they do respond to justice.” “Justice?” “Yes.” She pulls a datapad out from a cache, and hands it to him. “Play that.” He hits the button, sees a small human child, covered in rags, and an ominous clank in the background, and doesn't need to see anymore. “Look kid – “ “That child was from here. Was taken – from here.” Nyreen's eyes glow with eagerness, with hope. “Just vanished, without a trace. And she wasn’t the first -- ”
“Hey, I get that, but you're supposed to – “
“Keep a low profile. I know.” She looks at him and smiles. “But you know, an old friend taught me that sometimes people are worth helping.”
“That's not the lesson I wanted you to pick up, kid. You can't help these people – Aria's already taking an interest here, and she ain't never taken any interest before –”
He thinks of Tiamat, bleeding out as he strokes her hump, helpless to do anything more than comfort her in her last moments. He thinks of Ansharr, born dying, and how he could do nothing to save her as she choked her last breathes. He thinks of Faustus, his face a pitiless snarl, and no one coming to his aid; of Aria, of getting up silenced and knowing he could do nothing as the asari upstart plunged his kingdom into a shithole.
And Patriarch knows that some patterns are too cruel to repeat one more time.
“You said to help the locals. I intend to. These kids – there's something going on here. I can't turn my back on them.”
“Kid,” he says softly, voice suddenly horse. “Yer gonna – gonna get yourself killed. Aria – “
“I can't turn away from them. There's people worse off down here, people who need a leader. People who need someone to stand up for them and build schools and hospitals and find lost kids and – “ “And martyr themselves?” He paces the long floor. “People don't need a martyr. Enough of those around here. You're not gonna do any better than Archangel. He tried to clean this town up and --”
“Archangel killed.” She flares a soft web of biotic energy between a finger. “I will create. It's different.”
“Ain't gonna be to Aria, kid.”
“I know.” She picks up the kafa, calmly sips it as if they're discussing anything less than her impending death. “But no matter what I do, she'll be after me. I don't intend for her to catch me, but...at least this way, if she does, it's...something worthwhile.”
“Shit...” He throws his hands up in the air. “For a female tur, you got some stones. Krogan sized.”
“Thank you. Now. What will you tell her?” Her eyes flicker, and he knows this is a test.
He closes his eyes. Shit. Damn kid. Always asking the hard questions, just like – just like Tiamat used to do.
“Nothing,” he says, opening his eyes and placing his palm in hers. “You need a lieutenant? This Krogan ain't fast, but...he's a good shot.”
“Of course,” she says, picking up her cafa and standing serene in the light. “Looks like we've got work to do.”
Patriarch has seen a lot of pretenders to Aria's throne come and go through the years but, looking at Nyreen, her armor glimmering in the fluorescent light, he's pretty sure he's looking at her successor.
And Patriarch knows that it's always a safer bet to stay on the side of the queen. The queen is dead. Long live the queen.
She pulls out a warm cup of levo caf, and he takes it and smiles and desperately hopes that for once, he is on the right side of history.
A turian wearing an asari's fronds, he thinks with a grin, might be a damn good sight.
