Femshep and a Half

Explicit Category: F/M Fandoms: Mass Effect: Andromeda Relationship: Harry Carlyle/Female Ryder | Sara Summary: When the cold moves into the bones, nothing feels like enough to chase it away. She was fine. She was always fine. She was a Pathfinder and she didn't get to be anything else. Harry, apparently, disagreed. Read on AO3

I Found

She was seven years old, and the lake had no bottom.

That was how she remembered it. Not the pier, not the other kids, not even the moment she went in. Just the water closing over her head and the sudden, terrible understanding that there was nothing beneath her feet anymore. That the world had been replaced with something cold and dark and indifferent, a silence that didn’t care about her at all.

Her arms knew what to do, at first. Kick, reach, pull toward the surface. But the cold moved into her muscles faster than she thought anything could move, and her small body spent everything it had in the first thirty seconds. She remembered the exact moment she stopped being able to fight it. The point where her arms had nothing left to give.

She remembered her throat burning.

She remembered thinking, with a strange and terrible clarity, that there was nothing left to be afraid of.

Then the arms.

They came from nowhere, and they were so certain, no hesitation, no fumbling. Just two arms that wrapped around her chest and pulled, and a voice that followed her all the way up through the dark water and back into the cold air above it.

I’ve got you. I’ve got you.

She had coughed half the lake onto the shore and looked up through streaming eyes at her father’s face. Alec Ryder, a man who almost never gave in to fear, had been afraid. She could see it even at seven. It was the most frightening and the most comforting thing she had ever seen. He was there, kneeling in the mud at the edge of the water with his arms still around her, solid and warm.

He was the sole reason she’d ever gone near water again.

He was the sole reason for a lot of things.

Was.

Chapters: 23/? Fandom: Mass Effect: Andromeda Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Relationships: Female Ryder | Sara/Reyes Vidal Characters: Reyes Vidal, Female Ryder | Sara, Keema Dohrgun, Kian Dagher, Jarun Tann, Foster Addison, Nakmor Kesh, Tiran Kandros, Sloane Kelly, Male Ryder | Scott, Umi Henon, Kaetus (Mass Effect), Vetra Nyx, Nakmor Drack, Cora Harper, Liam Kosta, William Spender, Suvi Anwar, Kallo Jath, Jaal Ama Darav, Peebee (Mass Effect) Additional Tags: My Ryder is called Aeryn not Sara, deep delve, During Canon, game typical violence, alcohol use, Drug Mentions, In fact there is a lot of drinking in this story, In a european way not a oh no they had more than 3 drinks they must be alcoholic way, I’ve taken canon and kneaded it and stretched it like dough that needs time to rise before baking, Adult Themes, Mentions of Death, PTSD, Torture, Blood and Gore, Reyes has a dark past, Canon Divergent, explicit depictions of torture and interrogation

Chapter 23: High Noon

Summary:

Both are dramatic bitches.

I still love this scene from Crow Parties are Murder so much, it needed some art.

Even if Illario's back is still weird.

it will always choose you. you cannot die. you'll always come back because it loves you so much. you are its right and left hand, its eternal weapon. it will drown you in its light. light as horror. darkness as horror. what if it thinks you are its best friend.