#perahn

“Hey now, sweetheart,” Ereba touched at the tear welling upin the corner of one eye, but tried to laugh. “Don’t get too excited, it’sstill a month out.”

“I’m going to tell everyone at school that I’m going to visit my dad’s homeworld!”She stood precariously on the back of the easy chair, arms akimbo, like she wasstanding on top of the world. “Stacy is going to freak out: she says that I getmy temper from dad, but I told her that’s not how it works, but I don’t knowhow it works, so maybe she’s right. But she thinks if I go to Tuchanka, I’mgoing to come back a real krogan!” She leapt from the back of the chair.

“You don’t get your temper from your dad,” Ereba rolled hereyes, which only made a tear trickle down her cheek. “You get your temper from me.”

Rosey stopped mid-scury and stared, little eyes wide. Thatlook, that wide-eyed, hungry-for-life look. That she had gotten from herfather. And, not for the first time, Ereba swallowed a sigh as she consideredhow little she’d told her daughter about Charr.

“Your dad didn’t have a ‘krogan temper,’ he was a great bigsweetheart. Just like you.” Ereba shook her head. She had let Rosey stomp androar all these years because it made her feel close to her father. Almost allRosey’s friends had lost their mom or dad ‘in the war’ just like she had, andall of them had heard plenty of stories. But Rose had had to go on stereotypesfor so long. It had been easier than telling her about the poetry and thesecret dates and the obscenely long trip out to Kergul Plateau because it wasthe only place on Tuchanka to see a ‘real sunrise’…

She’d been mourning Charr for longer than she’d known him. Ifasari were supposed to need longer to grieve, how was Ereba supposed to explainthat asari also don’t fall desperately in love after just a year and a half?

She held out her arms, and little blue Rose walked into herembrace like she was in a trance. Ereba hoisted her up onto her lap.

“Your father,” she cleared her throat, “Was a poet. And he was a warrior. He had morepatience than anyone I’d ever met. It used to make me so mad at him.”

“Why… did it make you mad?”

“Oh sweetheart,” Ereba smoothed one of her daughter’scrumpled sleeves. “It’s hard to understand right now, but as old as your momseems, when I met your dad we were both… very young. Just like it’s hard foryou to wait so long when I’m running late at work? Well, sometimes it was likethat for me. Your dad taught me a lot of patience. The only thing he was in arush for?” She bounced Rose on her knee. “Was meeting you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. Your dad wanted to settle down, and he wanted todo it now. He couldn’t wait to meetthe beautiful baby girl he’d been seeing in his dreams.” Someday she would showRose all the poems her father had written to her in those last days on Tuchankabefore the Reapers and Charr’s deployment. But today, goddess help her, Rosewould have to make do with Ereba’s feeble attempts.

“He would’ve wanted me… to live on Tuchanka, right?” Roseylooked like she might be about to cry. “He would’ve wanted me to be a krogan.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Ereba tried to smile. “Yourfather and I made a beautiful home on Tuchanka we had to abandon right beforethe war. Charr—your dad—loved Tuchanka. But he was special. I met him on my homeworld, Illium. Your dad waspeculiar for a krogan. He’d been to more planets than he’d killed mercs—errrm,I mean… than… fights… he’d been in.Anyway…” Ereba bit her lip. “What I’m trying to say is that he was like you: heloved to see the universe. And the further he traveled, the more it made himappreciate his home.”

“Why didn’t he… want to have a krogan baby, then?” Roseyasked, wide-eyed. Ereba almost couldn’t contain her gasp. It wasn’t the firsttime her daughter had surprised her with a question that cut straight to herheart like this, but she would never be ready for the way it disarmed her.

“Because he loved me even more,” Ereba said, another warmtear trickling down her cheek. “He wanted to show me his home. He wanted us tohave a baby—to have you. That’s why.”

Rosey didn’t understand, and she wouldn’t for a littlewhile. But it was no reason not to tell her. To try to explain. Some day shewould get it—maybe when she read her father’s poetry, or suddenly realized thereason why Ereba had visited all those Earth deserts when Rose was a girl, ormaybe it would take falling in love herself.

“Momma,” Rose hugged Ereba’s chest. “…we don’t have to go toTuchanka, if you don’t want to.”