Chapter Text
[2076 CE]
Shiala hadn’t realized it was their last argument until it was too late.
Preparations for dinner were running behind, disrupting everyone’s routine. Sitting with her legs crossed on a cushion, she had listened to the priestesses’ gossip for twenty minutes amidst the bubbling and clatter of the kitchen before realizing the head of the table was still empty. Aethyta skipped a meal on occasion to have a quiet drink instead, but Benezia was always punctual, even in her own household.
A chorus of, “Shiala, don’t get up, it’s almost ready–” followed her out through the living room. She was halfway up the stairs when the door at the far hall opened, revealing Benezia hastily donning a necklace. Aethyta stood behind her like a shadow, wearing a dark dress Shiala had never seen her in before. Nine decades in this house led to noticing fine details she would have dismissed in her military years. Here, life could be broken down to the smallest elements, hints of inconsistency.
“Auma.” It was announcing her presence as much as a greeting.
Shiala saw the tension bleed from Aethyta’s shoulders at the honorific, arms relaxing by her sides. Benezia kept her careful stride as she closed the clasp of the necklace, letting a sculpted band of Armali silver hang just below her collarbones. Her stomach was just swollen enough to break the lines of a golden yellow blouse, but it would be another year before the newly titled matriarch saw the birth of her first daughter. Shiala tried to dismiss the thought of complications; enough doctors had been in and out of the house of late.
“I’m very sorry for the delay.” Benezia said. “I assume the table’s already set.”
“Yes, but the food’s still a few minutes behind.” Shiala frowned. Aethyta still hadn’t moved an inch from the doorway. “Hessa hasn’t quite adjusted to the schedule yet.”
“She’s young.” Benezia’s smile was subdued, but genuine. “University life left her accustomed to sharing space with one or two other maidens. A commando unit and a dozen other acolytes living in close quarters must be overwhelming.”
Shiala nodded sharply. Hessa was terribly young, but the letter she had sent to Benezia upon graduating had apparently been enough to receive an invitation. Atamna were in and out of the house every year; some wanted a recommendation to well-known temples, others romanticized life serving a powerful matriarch, and others were driven by Benezia’s message. It was the latter that stayed decade after decade, finding their own way through her words. The commandos living on the estate were here for different reasons, but Shiala trusted all of them with her life. More importantly, she trusted them with Benezia’s.
She began descending the stairs and Shiala was quick to follow, keeping lock-step with the matriarch. The rhythm of each step had shifted since the pregnancy, Benezia’s fingers brushing against the guardrail to ensure her balance didn’t falter. Noise carried up from the dining room, a clatter of voices and dishes that grew louder until Benezia crossed the threshold.
Farizah, observant as always, cleared her throat to silence the room. Shiala noted a faint flush of exertion behind the priestess’ prominent violet markings; whether or not it was her role, Shiala could be sure the matron had waded into the chaos of the kitchen to make up for lost time.
There was a faint flicker of anxiety through the atamna before Benezia moved to take her usual seat at the head of the table. Aethyta’s place was to her left, Shiala diagonally to her right. She could tell they had been waiting for some announcement to explain Benezia’s absence, but the matriarch resuming the routine without a word seemed to have put a halt to the questioning looks. At least, for now. Shiala had fielded plenty of complaints from her fellow soldiers about the acolytes’ propensity for gossip, as if they didn’t have their own rumor mill on patrol.
Benezia broke the silence with a broad smile. “Aethyta will be down in a moment. She said she doesn’t mind if we start without her, as long as there’s enough wine left for the evening.”
There were a few hums of knowing amusement before the evening banter returned in full force. Shiala heard a debate about Ulee’s capital temple on one side and a discussion on the finer points of Siano’s treatise for democracy on the opposite end resume, all standard fodder in a house of philosophy. She saw Benezia’s gaze linger on the arch leading to the stairway for just a moment longer, only to be interrupted by dinner carried in on a slow caravan of trays.
The bitter smell of ifera wrinkled Shiala’s nose as a steaming bowl of soup was placed in front of her. It was traditional with spring approaching, but too many ration kits packed with dry algae bricks during her years in the service had left some habitual recoil to the stuff. The chef Benezia kept on staff could work wonders with anything, though, and the large mussels soaking in a bed of the thin green strands and spiced broth were making her mouth water.
“Wine, Shiala?” Farizah asked from her right.
“Is it Janiris?” She replied with a small smile. “Water, please.”
Shiala took the ice-cold jug passed to her with a soft thank you, filling her glass close to the brim. Her eyes flickered to Benezia and the empty cup by the matriarch’s bowl.
“Are you drinking water or calos tonight?”
The latter was a blended fruit juice and one of Benezia’s favorites – especially now that alcohol was out of the question – but Shiala didn’t receive an answer until she quietly said the matriarch’s name.
That got the attention expected when Benezia blinked and looked her way. Shiala held protocol as her first and last standard, almost without exception. Addressing the older asari directly without a title had been a calculated choice.
“I apologize, Shiala.” Benezia said, fatigue weighing down the words. “I seem to have a lot on my mind tonight. Water is just fine.”
“Of course, auma.”
She filled Benezia’s cup and set the jug in front their bowls, careful not to disturb the plate of freshly sliced melon that had just been set. No one else at the table had noticed the lapse between them, not amidst the idle talk and clatter of utensils.
They were halfway through the meal when Aethyta walked in, wearing the same dress Shiala had seen upstairs. A few approving comments echoed from around the table, answered by the matriarch’s characteristic grin. She sat down next to Benezia like things were the same as always, but Shiala saw a hint of hesitation before Aethyta’s hand rested against her bondmate’s stomach.
“Everything doing alright in there?” She asked.
Benezia’s hand moved to cover Aethyta’s. “She’s fine.”
“Then why is my glass still empty?” Aethyta looked down the length of the table, smile mostly intact. “You girls didn’t get through all the wine already, did you?”
The jug was quickly passed over, with more than enough to spare. Shiala returned to her soup, focusing to tune out the conversation that was soon to follow. Benezia scarcely had any privacy, between thirty people in and out of the house, not to mention the aggressions of the media and various guests throughout the year. It was a small thing, but at least Shiala knew Benezia could share a meal with Aethyta and avoid anyone eavesdropping.
---
Two centuries of getting up with the sun had never made it any easier. Shiala stepped into a stretch in front of the window by her bed, guided by the light filtering though the privacy glass. This was one of the only hours when the house was quiet. Nika and Jinan were on patrol somewhere around the estate, but it was a poor commando whose footsteps carried through a courtyard.
Once her shoulders were warmed up, Shiala dropped to the floor with one arm behind her back. The rhythm of the push-ups was easy to fall into; after fifty, she switched sides, keeping her eyes centered on the window and the high wall in the distance. The house was built for peace instead of war, but Benezia drew her share of detractors. Some of them had made it necessary to keep a kinetic barrier installed under every pane of glass.
Shiala finished the last repetition and kipped up to standing. Blood flowed warmly through her limbs, chasing the last vestiges of fatigue away. Her leathers were already laid out, but she needed a shower first.
After a surreptitious check to make sure the rest of the house was still asleep, she slipped into the stall in her bathroom and turned on the water. The shower was large enough for two people, if not three, but her quarters had been a guest room first. Shiala would have been content to sleep downstairs with the rest of the unit, but she had relented at Benezia’s request.
Rank was so malleable here, a hybrid between civilian and militia. She was a security specialist by asari law, a commando in practice and superior to the unit as a whole, even though her captain’s stripes had been retired after leaving the Thessian service. Sometimes it complicated things.
Footsteps outside the bathroom made her go still beneath the cold spray. Shiala turned off the water and waited five seconds. Whoever it was had stopped moving too.
“Lady Benezia?” She asked aloud.
“It wasn’t my intention to interrupt your shower, Shiala.” The matriarch’s voice was muted by the door, distorting tone. “When you’re finished, I need to speak to you.”
Shiala frowned. She structured her schedule so she would be in top form before the matriarch woke up. The number of times Benezia had been awake before her in the last ninety years could be counted on half a hand.
“I’ll be out in a moment, auma.”
She stepped off the slick tile and grabbed a towel, drying off as quickly as she could. There was a faint creak from outside the bathroom; by her guess, Benezia sitting down onto the bed. Her leathers were still folded over the footboard, well out of reach.
Shiala hung the towel back up and walked into the bedroom, making a beeline for her closet. A glance towards the bed revealed that Benezia was still in her nightclothes, a pale blue robe that could still close over the swell of her stomach. She grabbed a pair of underwear out of one of the drawers – standard black – and donned them quickly. The compressive fabric of the bra made haste a little more difficult when she pulled it on over her head, but it was the only support she had besides the leathers themselves.
“You still have the scars.” Benezia said quietly.
Shiala’s hand instinctively went to the small of her back. The difference in texture was subtle; twenty years hadn’t smoothed out the dozen or so razor-thin lines courtesy of a floor of broken glass. There were more on her feet, from when she had run through the remains of Benezia’s shattered skylight to waylay an assassin in the middle of the night. Thessia plunged into almost impenetrable darkness after sundown, and without the light of a moon to guide her steps, wrestling the mercenary into submission had been a painful exercise.
“They’re barely large enough to be called scars.” Shiala replied, turning on her heel and striding past Benezia to retrieve her uniform. “Besides, every soldier needs a few nicks in their hide.”
The small hum of amusement she was expecting didn’t come. Resisting the urge to look over her shoulder, Shiala unzipped the leathers and stepped into each leg. The rest was simple after that, the tight sheath of each sleeve, the clasp at her neck. Her gloves and boots waited by the door, the latter recently polished. She decided the rest could wait. If Benezia wanted her armed and ready to move, she imagined the matriarch would have said so.
“Sura should be informed that Aethyta won’t need her services as of this morning.”
Shiala slowly turned in the direction of the bed. Benezia had been chasing sleep with varying degrees of success since the pregnancy, but exhaustion had set itself deep into the matriarch’s expression. Both hands were laced low over her stomach, as if she could grip nothing else for support.
“Is she-” Shiala cleared her throat. “Pardon me, auma. Did Sura do something to upset Aethyta?”
“No, of course not.” Benezia said, eyes shifting to look out the window. “But our bond has been broken, and it wouldn’t be appropriate to keep her under guard.”
Her wrists were bare. It wasn’t somewhere Shiala often looked; Benezia only wore the bracelet Aethyta had given her to bed. Their relationship was never up for public spectacle, even with a daughter on the way. When pureblood became a word used to derail careers, Benezia had spent centuries walking a careful line.
“Broken?” Shiala asked. In nearly a hundred years, she’d seen Benezia and Aethyta have their share of arguments. The house could be bearing the tension for days – even weeks – but they had always reconciled.
“The estate is in both our names,” Benezia continued, as if Shiala hadn’t spoken at all, “We agreed it would be sold and the credit split evenly between us.”
The matriarch turned just enough to meet her gaze. “I’m sorry to place this burden on you, Shiala. I know how much you’ve done to make this house safe.”
“It’s no burden.” The lie came easier to Shiala’s lips than she had ever imagined. “Your will is done, as always. I’ll speak to Sura.”
Benezia’s fractured smile brought little comfort.