[Citadel, closed] Prodigal Daughters

Cipritine Hills was listed in guides to the Citadel as among the first turian buildings to come up on the station following the Krogan Rebellions. Over the centuries it had housed generals, primarchs, and diplomats, and it stood as proud now as it did after the last rivet had been placed. Looking at it, and the surrounding neighbourhood, only off-colour paint suggested anything had happened here. A symbol of turian ascendancy and resolve, the Hierarchy had chosen to pin "hope" onto the solid walls of the structure.

For the Illums, the change in address was a move up.

The name Cipritine Hills remained in official documents, but appended to it, most prominently with a sign outside the main entrance and gates, was the equally official new name: Sol Rises Nurturing Center. The artificially-constructed greenspace around the building, once used as a buffer against anyone attempting to tackle the building to get at the VIPs inside, had been dotted with playground equipment and tables. Lamp-posts were added, shining brightly to offset the nights created by the Citadel's new location. The building refused to cater to its new star, though, and at every hour children, parents, and "mentors"- the new titles given to those running the center- could be seen outside. At least in the sounds of the playground, normalcy was returning.

Harrad Illum spent his precious free time outside, with his son. While the boy ran around with his friends, new and old, Harrad sat on a bench and watched, half-smiling to himself. It reminded him of his days back in school at Silona, only from the opposite side. No wonder the teachers and parents encouraged the children to go out and play together. Standing, the man took a puff from an inhaler tucked away, before starting to make his way over to the small clawball field. They were going to need a referee, soon, and Harrad wasn't going to let any foul play slip by him.

Foul play indeed.

Sol Rises--there was irony if she'd ever heard it. She'd been watching the nurturing centre on and off for two days now, watching the comings and goings, gauging the security, running scenarios in her head.

Her original plan had been to dump the bag and its contents on the front door and run. She'd debated leaving a note to explain herself. Decided the note would do more harm than good. Reconsidered when she thought of what might happen without an understanding of the contents' origin. Thought of Keros.

It was hard to do the right thing when it was so difficult to determine what the right thing was. After all, most turians would say without a second thought that obeying one's commanding officer was the right thing. She had obeyed--and innocent commuters had paid with their health, or their lives.

From now on she would listen to her heart's command. Her heart told her now that she loved Keros, and that Harrad deserved an explanation, better than a note on a stolen datapad.

And so, decided, she approaches Sol Rises.

She's a strange figure, the sort a defender would notice in a neighbourhood like this. She wears a stained travelling cloak, well-worn Hierarchy issue combat boots, and baggy military trousers several sizes too big, held up with a belt. A patterned scarf is wrapped around her neck and the lower half of her face, obscuring most of her features from sight. If she has colony tattoos, they're not visible--her forehead is bare of paint. She carries two bags: one loosely in her right hand, long, green, unzipped, and looking as though it has very little inside; the other grey, round, carried over her shoulder, tucked between her left arm and her waist.

Her eyes, amber streaked with grey, fixate on Harrad.

The neighbourhood isn't without its defenders: the Hierarchy isn't so stupid as to leave a place like Sol Rises unguarded. The defences are there, half-unseen, and as the mysterious woman approaches, talons tighten on rifles, and cameras turn to track her. It's a blessing that Harrad notices her before the snare has to be set.

He looks like he's seen a ghost. He is seeing a ghost.

With the game of clawball suddenly forgotten, the man swivels around to face this new visitor, mandibles slack and eyes wide.

It can't be. She died in service. Vindi confirmed that much. So he asks.

"Sica?"

"The good die young; the evil that we do goes on and on," she quips, taking a seat at the table.

Her voice hasn't changed, though her tone becomes suddenly soft and gentle.

"Hello, Harrad."

Inside, her heart is thundering. More than his rejection, more even then death, she feels failure of her last and greatest mission. She cannot delay for small talk.

"I'm here because the Hierarchy courts found someone innocent."

She pulls down her scarf to show her face. Her Solregit tattoos remain, though badly faded and weathered. Her face looks sharp, and it's not hostility--it's the way her skin is stretched overtop of her skull, like leather on a frame. Her knuckles appear swollen, but they're not--it's the meat of her hand that's dwindled to almost nothing.

"Bet you didn't know they could do that, did you? It's usually either guilty or not guilty."

The staring doesn't stop when Sica confirms her identity, it just changes context from shock to horror. This is not the woman he knew on the Citadel, this is the woman he met back on Taetrus, magnified and turned into a caricature of hunger. Whatever she mentions about guilty or not guilty fades off, as grievances are forgotten and Harrad rushes towards her.

Just a few steps of rushing. He immediately falls short, coughs, and walks the rest of the way.

"Are you alright? We should go into the kitchen, I can get you some soup."

His eyes roam over the tight carapace, the bones jutting and obscene.

"I thought you were dead. Vindi said so."

"Not so sure I ain't." She eyes Harrad carefully; this wasn't the reaction she expected. His generosity shames her. "You sound like shit...did you say soup?"

She ought to decline. She doesn't deserve to sap his resources.

Her stomach knots. It feels wrung out, as though it's started to devour itself.

"I'm hungry enough to eat my own cooking," she admits with a weak smile. She shoves the loose bag into his hands. "Here, it's a machete. Don't want anyone getting the wrong idea."

The unzipped bag in fact contains only one thing: a human weapon, a crude blade attached to a wrapped handle.

Sicaria follows him, dutifully, like a child. "Seriously, you all right? That's a nasty cough."

When Sica hands Harrad the bag and tells him that there's a machete inside, actually seeing it doesn't surprise him in the least. Nevertheless, the bag is quickly closed.

"Where's your blade?"

Waving over one of the other mentors- there's no uniforms, but each has a badge, and even here the Hierarchy has ranks- Harrad begins to pull away from the makeshift playground, and towards one of the nurturing center's side entrances. He tries to brush off Sica's question.

"It's just a cough. I'll be fine."

The inhaler comes out, though, and he sucks in a deep breath.

"I'm getting used to dealing with it."

If Sica had ever grown up in what could be called a "traditional" turian way, she might identify with the hallways. Although the sterile touch of the Hierarchy couldn't be shaken, it could still be brightened up with friendlier colours, and with inspirational posters. The topics are bog-standard Hierarchy: duty, loyalty, and thinking about others first, but with graphics and slogans geared for younger eyes.

Harrad doesn't talk as he walks, even though he's got so much on his mind. The smell of a hot kitchen grows stronger.

Sicaria shrugs. Strange, how she hadn't thought about the fate of her holy weapon in so long. She shifts the grey bag from its place at her side, electing instead to cradle it in both her arms as she walks.

"Gave it to Caecilia Corvax before they shipped me out. Was tryin' to give it to Lepantis, but I couldn't reach him. Told Caecilia she could give it to him if she saw him--I kinda hope she did. Thing's a curse. He deserves it. She doesn't. Or didn't. If I were her, though, I might be in the market for a little vengeance."

Her mandibles flick. "I might go by Sniper's Touch later, see who's around."

Which suggests that she hasn't been to see Vindi yet.

Her eyes search the hallway. There had been posters like this in her own childhood, nailed to the walls of a one-room schoolhouse made from logs. Ah, mass-produced homogenous culture--the same everywhere. At least they'd updated the graphics.

She raises an eye ridge, "Getting used to it, you know that's what I said about getting my left arm half blown off by a rocket." She doesn't push him on it; she just wants to let him know, that she knows, that he's not what he used to be. It's his business if he wants to tell her.

She's trying not to run for the soup.

Duty. Family. These aren't just Hierarchy values. They are, in fact, part of the one reason she's still alive, but she knows a virtue that trumps them all.

Love.

"You, ah, you got any baby food, Harrad?"

Harrad finally stops, outside of the kitchen door, and uses the pause to speak again.

"This isn't a blown off arm. Well, blown up arm." He smiles gently at her, as if he'd forgotten that the last words he gave her were orders to get out of his home. Her follow-up question even pulls a chuckle out of him, although it's not as strong as it was back before the war.

"Baby food? Of course. We are well-stocked here."

All this time around children has given Harrad an opportunity to learn basic theatrics, and he swings open the door. To a kitchen. Turians are busy throwing things into pots, processing vegetables, and salvaging food from stacks of MREs. Sol Rises Nurturing Center might have the same kitchen as Cipritine Hills, but not in spirit. To a starving woman, though, spit stone soup might as well be a seven-course tasting menu.

"It's a step above your cooking, too. Just wait out here and I'll get you a bowl of soup. What do you need the baby food for? We can just give you some nutripaste instead, you know."

Sicaria cringes back from the bustle of activity, as though expecting all the cooks to turn as one and point their condemning talons her way. For a moment, it looks as though she's going to bolt and run; then she steadies herself, her expression returning to neutral.

"I can wait," she says, though she certainly doesn't look it, and she unzips the grey bag.

With another quick glance around--nobody seems particularly interested in her save Harrad--she sets the bag on the floor, and lifts something out of it. This, it is immediately apparent, is her answer to Harrad's question.

There's a change of clothing and a tattered blanket left in the bag, but the bag's contents are not of interest considering what Sicaria now holds.

"I said they found someone innocent on all charges, you didn't think it was me, did you?"

She's about three months old, a baby turian, her hide a warm slate grey colour, as one might expect from a mother with pale grey-brown hide like Sicaria's and a father dark charcoal like Keros Mehedra. As if to confirm the theory, the little one wears paint--not true tattoos, not even good facepaint, merely red sap in a crude sunburst pattern on her cheeks, and white powder in a smeared V on her forehead. The baby is unsettlingly silent, and watches Harrad through mismatched eyes, one amber like her father's, one shot through with grey like her mother's.

Sicaria seems embarrassed. "This is Kythera. Kythera Mehedra Perihelion."

Spirits.

If Harrad had been holding anything, at that moment it would have clattered on the floor. The drop in his jaw will have to suffice, as well as the return of those wide eyes.

Silence.

There's a clatter from the kitchen, unrelated to the surprise sprung upon the pilot, but it's enough to shake him out the state of shock.

"What was she doing in a sack?"

Sicaria raises an eye ridge, "Keeping her safe, portable and defendable. You know how many desperate people there are these days?" Of which Sicaria might, in fact, be one. "Earth's got its share of assholes, too. What kind of sick fuck tries to rape a pregnant woman? You think I want to go hey shitheads, here I am with a vulnerable baby?" She gives him a look that suggests he's the crazy one here.

"Look, some of Earth is okay, but that's not the part I came from, all right? There's some places that are total anarchy down there."

And she was in them, because the Hierarchy wouldn't be looking through them for its escaped criminal. She'd felt awful about that. Kythera would be safer if...but first she had to...

...Almost done, Sicaria. Mission almost completed.

"I can tell you more while I feed her, okay?"

Kythera, it might be noted, seems plump and happy, like any normal, healthy baby. It's rather obvious where the dextro rations have been going.

It would almost be a relief, seeing that it's the same old Sica, if she wasn't holding a happy, tiny turian in her arms. Harrad can't pull his eyes away from the unexpected infant.

After another long moment of stunned silence, he finally nods.

"Alright. Alright, just... ah, just wait a second." And into the kitchen he disappears, returning shortly with a bowl of soup sloshing over one hand, and a pair of baby food canisters in the other.

"Let's go to the cafeteria," he says, moving before she gets the chance to protest, the smell of the soup acting like a fisherman's baited hook.

Sicaria allows herself only one long swallow of soup--straight out of the bowl, thankfully it's not boiling hot--before she gets to work feeding Kythera. The little one seems quite perky, and hums with pleasure as Sicaria spoons food into her mouth.

"I'm sorry to impose on you like this, Harrad," Sicaria says softly. "I..."

How is she to tell him what she's about to ask of him, when he already owes her nothing? When she's already taken so much from him? She remembers, very well, his last words to her. She can only hope he can forgive Kythera for her mother's sins.

Sicaria takes a deep breath. "I didn't take the Hierarchy policy on parenting very well when I heard. The kids at Sniper's Touch, well, their parents aren't Hierarchy. It doesn't apply to them. But Keros is, and as of the war, in a legal sense, so am I. And we weren't married anyway. I said they were taking her from me over my dead body, and then I thought...I thought...."

She draws in a shuddering breath. "Look, Harrad, if I gave her to Vindi, the Hierarchy would take her away. She's the child of Hierarchy citizens. And then I thought there is exactly one person in the Hierarchy I would trust to raise her, one person who would let her grow up knowing Vindi, and her own culture. And one place where Keros, if he survived the war, would come to look for her. And one person who might be able to find one or two decent things to say about me. Like that I loved her. And that's why I had to get her here before anyone found me."

Sicaria's eyes are pleading. "She didn't do anything wrong, Harrad."

There's only one person in the entire Hierarchy, and Harrad has no doubt who he is.

He looks at little Kythera, happily gulping down the food, oblivious to the deal that's going on around her.

"I..." he starts, staring at the baby.

He swallows. His mouth has suddenly gone dry.

"She's really yours and Keros's?"

Sicaria nods. "Didn't matter what I'd done," she admits, "they weren't gonna sentance a baby to death. And I'll swear to you I never slept with anyone but Keros since the swamp. If you..."

She bows her head. "If you read the old CDN you'll hear me bitchin' about the need for a medical exam before a suicide mission. I...I didn't know I was pregnant, we weren't tryin' to...I mean, it was an accident...not that I didn't want her, it's just...the war, you know, ain't responsible to have a kid durin' a war..." Her words become disjointed. "It saved my life, an' then, an' then there were the Reapers, an' then, an' after that...I had to get her looked after. Before anythin' else. Before I found Keros, before the law found me, before anythin', I had to get her looked after."

Her eyes meet his. "Are you gonna call C-Sec now?"

She isn't sure she cares if he does. All she cares is that Kythera is safe.

"No..." he says.

He's not sure what he's going to do, but at this moment turning Sica into C-Sec seems like the worst idea in his mind.

"Dad! There you are!" Laelix's voice comes as a shock, making Harrad jump. "Nallus said you went inside with someone and-"

The boy stops. He's grown since Sica saw him last. Thinner, but not unhealthily so. His carapace still shines, and his blue eyes still sparkle. Recognition dawns in them, as he sees just who it is his father went inside with.

"Sica! You're back! And..." He gasps audibly, before his voice drops down to a whisper. Like his father, the boy's eyes are fixed on Kythera.

"Is she your baby?"

Sicaria smiles at Laelix, and the smile is completely genuine. "Hey there," she says gently. "You've grown."

And he has. Sicaria has no doubt that Laelix is going to become a fine turian. Even if he joins the Hierachy. A good man is a good man. It took her more than forty years to learn that truth.

"Do you want to hold her?" she asks Laelix. "Her name is Kythera."

She turns to Harrad. "Kythera, after Keros' wife. Mehedra, as a middle name, because they wouldn't let me make it her surname since we weren't married. Perihelion because I'm on paper as a single mother." Her jaw sets. "Keros is going to know she's his, with me or without me."

She takes the time to drink another long swallow of soup, straight from the bowl, before she continues. "She's a Sundowner kid--doesn't cry. If she paws at her mouth, she's hungry. If she tugs on you, she's in distress. Probably won't vocalize until she's talking. Normal." It comes out in a rush, as though she expects someone to bust down the door and drag her away at any minute.

It might also suggest what type of history has caused Sundowner genetics to favour silent babies as a dominant gene.

And she still watches the doors, frightened, unable to let her guard down even now.

"Uh huh!" Laelix stands up straighter, proud of the inches he's added over the years. The words are followed by an even more enthusiasic, second "uh huh" as he reaches out to hold the young turian. Despite his age, he's careful with little Kythera, cradling her in his arms, one hand underneath her, the other gently at the back of her head. "Hi there, Kythera," he says, "I'm Laelix."

His father watches the moment and smiles, lingering before Sica gives him a short list of what could only be counted as instructions.

There really is no way he's going to get out of this.

Nobody bursts through the door. Cooks, staff, and children move through the cafeteria, but there are no guns, no guards bearing down to capture one worn-out, spectral Sundowner.

"Sica," Harrad starts, "we're not going to turn her away. We couldn't. I couldn't." He chuckles. "She wouldn't be the first child someone's left on our doorstep. At least you stuck around."

As Laelix coos softly to the woman's daughter, Harrad sighs.

"I've done a lot of thinking. About what I said to you... and what you did. I'll never be able to... I'll never accept what you did as anything but terrible. But I can't be a good turian if I can't accept you back into our lives if you want to be there, and you're trying to, ah, be better."

He hangs on those words, eyes on Sica.

Sicaria looks at him...through him, as though there's something else standing in his boots and only she can see it....then her eyes come back into focus.

Sicaria had never even considered forgiveness as an option, and now that it's here, she can't help but wonder whether he's mad to offer it. And yet this fear is not the heaviest thing weighing on her mind right now.

He seems so sure that she's stuck around, that she will stick around, how is she going to tell him that she has no idea what she is to do with herself now? She's been so fixated on getting Kythera to him, then on convincing him to keep her--she was so privately convinced that she would fail--that she does not dare look at the future. She finds another desperate cause and latches on to it.

Her talons wrap around Harrad's wrist, like a skeleton's grip, and when Laelix is occupied with Kythera she mouths the words:

"Where's Cour?"