#phalia

16: What would your characters be for Halloween?

HANDILY I’ve done this:

They’re meant to be ‘Popular Gothic Human Couple,’ but who knows if The Addams Family is rebooted in the 2190s? This party was just casual talking and boardgames- definitely happened after Sirens & Selkies, Kolyat wouldn’t invite anyone from work to his home around Repetitions. The other guests:

Bats would be something half-assed, like turns up in a bed sheet and says it’s Athame’s handmaiden, where’s the booze. He’s also secretly pleased about the Bats decorations Ori made and steals them after

Hoorik forgets and/or runs out of time, but she would turn up late with good whisky she hides from Bats.

Fish got to the highest point of the apartment to watch it all, and hissed at anyone who dared to approach her. Kolyat was very nervous about her being upset, and thought about shutting her in his bedroom- but she was quite content to people watch in safety and put the peasants in their place.

Patel goes all out, to an embarrassing level. Full on handmade Dracula with plastic cape and theatrical yelling, even refusing to take out his fangs to talk.

Vitacus joins in on the fun and is the kind of costume he always has to explain as no one gets it, an obscure background character from a turian movie. He also turned up with fun boardgames (ones you can play drunk and in groups, not stuffy chess and patix like Kolyat plays) which saves the evening. Ori even calls him her hero!

Phalia does something amazingly perfect, like a professional recreation of a Fleet & Flotilla costume, and probably recycles it after for her son’s many after school activities.

My HC for 2190 Halloween is that it just isn’t celebrated much anymore, Ori certainly doesn’t, but because it’s a fun theme most races understand (candy? Costumes? Fun!) humans throw the occasional party in interspecies gatherings.

Turians aren’t so keen on the parading of the dead- so zombies/spirits are a very strict no at Halloween functions. But dressing up as the equivalent of 2190s Batman? A-OK, that’s fun.

17: Does your WIP have any themes or motifs?

Yes, and some of them just happened:

Immigration guilt filtered through being a minority in C-Space

Construction and rebuilding

Moving on from trauma

I’m not in love, so don’t forget

Loneliness in a busy Ward city, and making connections in it

Background hum of politics: drell, Council, C-Sec

The usual homicide and violent crime, this time a curious case of a mould that kills

19: Post a picture or gif that describes your WIP

I tried to mash a gif with all the covers but it didn’t work, so have the last chapter covers:

20: Post a brief excerpt:

The holotape of a crime scene perimeter glimmered over the apartment door. Behind it, Phoy Calisi had crammed the walls and surfaces with dusty knickknacks and hand-made mementos, hardly keeping to the fanatical Siarist beliefs about limited possessions.

A mass of plain frames in the living room took up most of the space, though the holos were switched off. Even the furniture bent to face them, a mute congregation set around an altar.

“Happier times,” Patel said, tapping the glass to wake up the screens. Images of Phoy and her children scrolled by in holo, a pre-war life of colony vacations and outdoor hiking. “Her daughters were on Thessia. Didn’t make it.”

“So it’s a shrine,” I replied. Other species were strange about the remembrance of their dead; even Ori thought of her parents in odd ways.

-the cursor blinked. I had to send out invitations to people Father knew for his memorial service, a weird fucking custom. What was I meant to say?  Who would know- Shepard, she would. Did he even have other friends but her, what-

If you could forget the face of your family, would drell think the same?

Survivor was a prettier word than leftovers. The war was still recent history, but the symbol made a popular remembrance pin, worn for the solemn parades and mandatory moments of silence across the galaxy. 

There would always be an allotted time and space for an universal grief, but the badge was something Sergeant Latis Phalia wore everyday. It remained in view on her C-Sec uniform, a frivolity that even a good turian could bend around regulation. 

Because on the cold days when the enviro-filters of the Ward were low and you could see your own breath form in the air, Latis felt the scars of her own to her bones.

Sometimes she smiled, an odd thing. To her, the pain was a good reminder, a reason to be grateful. She was here with her son on the Citadel, free to enjoy the simpler things in life.

Like clawball.

Augulus held her hand and pulled her forward through the crowds of the school, impatient to reach his team. He was desperate to play, and held their team’s centre defence. It’s a big game, mom. Real big. 

She stopped as her scar twinged, a sharp pain that radiated up and down the nerves of her arm. “Mommy?” Augulus dropped her hand in an instant. 

 Latis had hissed in pain at the yank, even though she didn’t mean to. Her son knew what the noise meant, and fidgeted with his uniform. “It’s fine,” she told him. “Nothing a bit of gel won’t fix.” 

Her teembling fingers twisting his numbered tabard back in place, righting it once more. “I’m okay, momma,” he said.

“Are you now?” Latis leaned forward, her brow against her son’s. “You know where your team is, I can see your coach from here. I’ll be in the stand watching to cheer you on, don’t you worry.”

“Take vids please.” Little talons crept around the mottled scar of her arm, hidden as it was under a sleeve. Augulus never had one of his own, too young. Children were born everyday with no memories of the war, just the aftermath. 

It was a good thing, she thought. “If I can manage it. Off you go now, you do your best.”

Augulus didn’t do as he was told right away. He had his father’s softness, something Latis was grateful for. His mandibles twitched in thought, and she could see his eyes narrow at something. “Are we still having fried maxxa for dinner?”

Latis laughed, a rasping sound. “Is that all? Yes. Now go.”

Augulus took off in a smile, limbs askew from the manic joy of running only the young  possessed. Latis watched him go, pain forgotten.

She would always wear her pin.