we make our own gravity to give weight to things; and then things fall, and they break, and gravity sings [x]
Leaning on each other, the twins trip over unsteady feet and fall to their knees in unison. So close, so near to the end, but the space remaining seems like miles.
Shoshana’s hands slip on the blood-slicked floor, seeking traction to help stand up again. They take a breath, shaky and shallow. Their lungs burn and chest aches, and through the struggle they have their feet underneath them again. But their sister’s still lying on the floor, a pool of blood beneath her.Â
"Yael." Their voice is thin, nearly gone. Shoshana swallows and tries again. "Yael, please. Get up." They kneel down next to her, knowing they might not get up again, and touch her shoulder.
"Go," Yael says. Everything hurts, even seeing is excruciating, but she opens her eyes. Shoshana’s still kneeling before her, gun lying on the floor forgotten. "Sho," she coughs, "you have to finish this."
They shake their head. “No, come on.” Soldiers know when they’re done, when there’s no coming back, and Yael’s eyes, normally bright and piercing and focused, are dimming fast.Â
The Butcher of Torfan. They hear about it on the news. The Butcher of Torfan is their sister, and she’s being held in Vancouver until the Alliance can figure out what to do with her.Â
Once the shock wears off, Shoshana’s the least surprised of anyone. People look at the two of them and see identical copies: orphaned biotics with concrete-rough edges, not fit for polite company and medals and being paraded out for the cameras, but a perfect fit for the Alliance’s more questionable missions. The Shepard twins get it done.
But they aren’t copies. The cold mathematics of combat freezes Shoshana in their tracks. Give them a target and it’s gone, but give them an impossible choice and they’ll crumble. Yael’s always been the one to shut down, lock her emotions away, and make the call.
So Shoshana isn’t terribly surprised. Yael had a horrible decision to make and two minutes to make it in, and she made the right one.
"Please," Shoshana begs. Their strength is fading like the light in Yael’s eyes, but they dig down deep for their last scraps of energy and stand up, Yael’s arm around their shoulders. They nearly lose their balance again, supporting two people on one set of weak legs, but push through and remain standing.
The sudden movement jostles broken and ripped pieces inside of her, and Yael whimpers. Blood drips into her mouth and she focuses entirely on holding onto her twin. If she falls again, Shoshana falls, and she doesn’t think Shoshana could get up again. She knows she couldn’t.
The Hero of Elysium, the news is saying. Yael’s in a bar when she hears it. The Hero of Elysium is her twin, and the 24-hour networks are showing nonstop footage of the battle’s final moments: Shoshana holding up a biotic field they were never trained for, pushing back the straggling batarian forces.
In the aftermath, Shoshana tries to hide from the cameras, duck out of the bright lights to fade back into the shadows. Reporters call their evasiveness humility and grace, modesty in the face of true heroism.
But Yael knows better. It’s shame. Something happened on Elysium that Shoshana isn’t proud of, that they don’t want anyone to discover, that they think will tarnish the victory.Â
Finding a way out, finding the key to change everything, has always been Shoshana’s specialty and they don’t even realize it. Where Yael sees two paths with body counts behind them, Shoshana sees a third option. Yael doesn’t ask, and Shoshana doesn’t tell.Â
But everyone survived, because of Shoshana.
By the time they’re close to the glowing red conduit, Yael’s no longer awake. Her breath is faint, maybe not even there at all, maybe just wind on Shoshana’s burned skin. Shoshana’s own breath is coming shorter and shorter, the world beginning to spin.
They came into the world as a team and they’ll leave the world as a team, so Shoshana doesn’t stop to check Yael’s thready pulse or pause to try to wake her up. Yael carried them both this far, Shoshana’s portion is comparatively small. Three shots will do it.
Shoshana braces against the creeping darkness around their vision, holds their sister, lifts the gun, and fires.
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Let no man bring me harm, I bear the marks of the Lord (Yael and Shoshana)
small musings on all of my Shepards
They don’t know which one is older, only that one of them must be older because that is how things work, so they alternate years.
Yael’s the oldest the year they run through the streets of Tel Aviv after breaking out of yet another foster home they hated, laughing and glowing blue. Sho charges into a trashcan and Yael lifts it up, lets it soar a few feet before setting it down again. They end up in a temple that night and for many nights afterward, the rabbis and cantors long ceased asking questions about the stray children that sleep within the holy walls.
Rabbi Daniel decides that the payment for sleeping under the temple’s roof is education. Yael’s more eager than Sho, soaks up every word and prayer and story. Her Hebrew becomes better than her English.
(They can both curse up a storm in Yiddish)
Sho’s the oldest when buying a binder that fits and Yael shaves their head for them.
Sho’s still the oldest when Yael ends up in jail and Sho bails her out with money neither of them have.
(They join the Reds together)
Sho gets into an argument with the Reds leader, throws a shockwave so hard he flies ten feet into the air and lands flat on his back. He’s the first person they’ve killed.
Yael’s the oldest as she grabs their hand and the twins run as hard as they can, leaving everything behind.
They stay in a shabby temple on the other side of the city for a few nights, coming up with a plan. The Alliance recruitment office next door has free coffee and occasionally bagels, and they take informational pamphlets each time they take food or coffee, just to be polite. Their plan isn’t forming at all, but the pamphlets look promising. They’re both strong biotics, and there’s even a special pamphlet just for them.
They join the Alliance together, go through boot camp and basic together, even have their first assignment together. They’re split up after that for years, seeing each other only when shore leave schedules match up in time and place. They make do with the extranet and video chat on High Holy Days.
It’s only after Torfan and Elysium that they’re working side-by-side again. They’ve stopped worrying about who’s older, and instead worry about staying alive.
They’re the only two in their class to make it to the end of their N7 training.
(They’re the same age when they beat the reapers together, bloodied and burned and barely alive, shooting their last bullets into the red target at the end of the line)
