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Solana Vakarian had always been a little on the small size for her age. She didn’t notice it for most of her life. After all, she lived with her parents and her big brother, so everyone had a good reason for being bigger than she was. Her big brother doted on her the same way their mother did, and Solana often found herself tucked up into his cowl, his high view of the world made her own.
Garrus was always nice to her. He was four years older, but he didn’t mind if she tagged along with him and his friends, even if they teased him for it. She didn’t understand when she was little, but once she learned enough to know their words were meant to hurt, she got mad for him. He seemed to let it roll off his carapace with unflappable calm, though.
He started letting her watch him tinker on daddy’s weapons bench when he was nine and she turned five. He taught her what all the tools were, how his child-sized pistol fit together, and even let her help him screw some of the pieces back together. He carefully explained how the mass effect core worked but didn’t let her touch it. He never touched it either except to take it out to clean its housing, so that didn’t bother her too much.
When she was six, her baby cousin came for a visit from her mother’s home colony of Aephus. Solana dimly remembered meeting Tyna when she was a baby. Her father had insisted she be born on Palaven for some adult reason that escaped Solana’s understanding at the time. But Tyna was only four to Solana’s six and the younger girl had to look down when playing with Solana.
That’s when Solana started to wonder if maybe something was wrong with her. She asked Garrus, but he scooped her up and seated her behind his head to lean back against his cowl like he always did.
“No, little star flower,” he reassured her, “nothing’s wrong with you.”
He always called her that. It was her favorite flower in mommy’s garden because it was the one that smelled the prettiest after the sun set. When they were in season, Garrus would cut one for her in the night and leave it in a glass jar by her bed so she could smell it while she slept.
She left the crèche and started school when she was seven. It was a disaster. That’s when she found out there was too something wrong with her. She didn’t even come up to her age-mate’s shoulders! Garrus had lied to her.
She confronted him when they both got home.
“You lied, Garrus!” she cried, beating her fist against his keel. It was as high as she could reach on him.
He gently caught her wrist, grasping it carefully as he knelt down in front of her.
“What did I lie about?” he asked softly. His subvocals vibrated with love and affection. Hers keened with embarrassment.
“I’m small!” she hiccupped.
“And is there something wrong with being small?” he asked. He cupped the back of her head to press her face into his neck. It immediately brought back faint memories of being curled up in his cowl to take a nap. “I miss when you were even smaller than you are now. Do you know how hard it is to pick you up now?”
Despite her anguish, she couldn’t help but giggle. “Am I too big for you?”
“You’re just right, star flower,” he assured her. “And you’ll always be just right.”
Garrus taught her to hold her head up high. Not because it made her seem taller, but because it made her feel better. She noticed eventually that he’d dropped the ‘little’ from her nickname, but it was too late to tell him it was okay if he used it. He was her big brother. She would always be littler than he was, so it was all right if he called her little.
When she was ten, a new boy started at her school. No one seemed to care before he came that she was small. Garrus had coaxed her into self-confidence over months, but the new boy eroded it in a matter of weeks.
“What a disappointment to your clan you must be,” he muttered in her ear the first day. She ignored him the way Garrus had taught her.
“They let babies into this school?” he asked on the fourth day, just loud enough that her closest friend caught what he said. She looked at Solana a little funny, her subvocals rumbling in confusion.
“I thought the Vakarians were supposed to be impressive,” he said even louder after a week. Several other kids were playing with her, but the way they looked at her – like they’d never seen her before – made her subvocals hitch in uncertainty.
By the end of the second week, no one was really looking at her when creative play started. No one invited her to play tag-the-varren or base-build. No one volunteered to partner with her during partner obstacle course battles, and her teacher had to assign someone to her. It was a different kid every time.
One day, Garrus was waiting for her when she got out of school. He walked her home and explained mommy was in the hospital.
“There was an accident,” he said. “She’s going to be okay, but she told dad not to come home.”
“You promise she’ll be okay?” Solana asked him anxiously. Garrus was supposed to leave tomorrow for some program that he’d been talking about for weeks. What would she do if he left and mommy was in the hospital?
“I promise,” he said solemnly. “And I’m not going to that exchange program. I’d rather be here to take care of you.”
That was the first and only time in her life that she knew her big brother lied to her. He tried to hide it in his subvocals, but he couldn’t.
In the fifth week, her teacher assigned the new boy to her for the obstacle course. Solana didn’t think she could really call him ‘new’ anymore. He ruled the classroom like a king.
They were just finishing the final obstacle – a wall they had to scale – when he shoved her with his shoulder. She fell ten feet and snapped her forearm, the sickening crunch and white-hot pain silencing her brain.
Garrus sat with her at the hospital while they applied the cast, holding her other hand. He took her home and tucked her into bed. He fed her while she was floating in the haze of whatever pills they had made her swallow. She babbled about what had happened when he put her to bed.
“I’ll make it all better, star flower,” he soothed. She drifted off in safety of his reassurance.
When she woke up in the morning, her arm throbbing, there was a star flower in a jar next to her bed.
Mommy was still in the hospital, but Garrus let her stay home the next day from school. He sat beside her while she watched whatever shows she wanted, fetched anything she asked for, and made sure she took her pills on schedule. Her arm felt much better when she went to sleep that night.
He made her go to school the next day, though.
“I’m scared,” she told him quietly as he walked her to school.
“I’m here,” he told her, gripping her free hand tightly.
He walked her all the way into her classroom. She sat down at her desk, eyes casting over her peers. No one would look at her.
No one except the new boy. He was glaring at her in triumph. He’d knocked her down, broken her arm, and nothing had happened.
She looked down in defeat.
Eventually, she looked up when she realized Garrus was arguing with her teacher. The teacher was getting increasingly angry and pointed at the door. Garrus swung his eyes over the class and spotted new boy staring at her. He looked at her and tilted his head at new boy in silent question.
Yes, she nodded. He nodded back, then turned and left the classroom.
She thought Garrus would meet her right after school, but he wasn’t waiting for her. She sped off in the direction of home, hoping no one would spot her. It was futile. New boy and two of her classmates followed closely on her heels.
“What’s the matter, tiny?” one of them jeered. “Afraid you might trip and break another bone?”
“Stop,” she whispered. The boy who jeered had been someone she called a friend last year.
“I think your other arm is looking as delicate as the broken one,” new boy called. “Maybe you should be careful.”
He darted in front of her, blocking her path. The other two were closing in from behind. Panic clogged her chest.
“I think someone should have cleaned you from the gene pool a long time ago,” new boy sneered.
Solana’s panic was overwhelming as new boy leaned into her face.
He was abruptly jerked up and out of her vision, his head snapping to the side as he was slammed into the building wall beside them. The still-growing points of his fringe bounced, the longest one chipping. She watched the bit fall in brief, shocked fascination.
“And I think someone should have taught you manners a long time ago, yet here we are,” Garrus said calmly as he held new boy against the wall. He looked over Solana’s shoulders at the two boys who trailed her. “If you think following an idiot like this will get you anywhere, you might want to reconsider.”
She could hear them scrambling to run away, but she couldn’t take her eyes off new boy. Garrus didn’t even look at her as he swung his gaze back to the other boy. New boy was squirming helplessly against the hands that held him against the wall by his cowl. Garrus looked him up and down, then pulled one arm back to place a precise punch into new boy’s gut, making him crumple in half.
Garrus let him slide down the wall, then grabbed him by the throat to slam him back again.
“Touch my sister again, and I’ll make that feel like a love tap,” he promised. His subvocals radiated menace and he shoved new boy once before releasing him.
He stood and turned to Solana, his face and subvocals shifting into affection. He held out his hand to her. “Let’s go home.”
She took his hand and let him lead her home.
Things were much better after that. New boy didn’t look at her. Her classmates started talking to her again. Her best friend came to sit by her at lunch again the next day.
Everything was great until their father came for a visit from the Citadel when her mother got settled back in at home. Solana was cuddling with her in her bedroom the first night when she thought she heard elevated voices from the living area down the hall. Her mother continued to doze as Solana slipped out of bed.
She peeked around the corner to find Garrus and their father yelling at each other in the living room.
“Well, you certainly weren’t going to do anything about it,” Garrus yelled furiously.
“And you think extra-judicial violence is appropriate?” daddy asked, his arms crossed over her chest. His voice was quiet but firm.
“You wouldn’t do anything. Mom couldn’t do anything. Her teacher refused to listen to me. I solved the problem. She’s been much happier at school since then. Not that you’d care,” Garrus said, his subvocals vibrating with a bitterness Solana had never heard from him.
“You think I don’t care?” daddy demanded.
“No, I know full well you don’t care.”
“Garrus—”
“You’d be here if you cared,” Garrus said. The bitterness was colored with anguish now.
“The rules are there for a reason, Garrus. And I’m in C-Sec for a reason. I enforce the rules. The laws. Imagine how it feels to hear your own son beat up a child—"
“Because he broke your daughter’s arm,” Garrus interrupted. “Imagine how she feels, why don’t you? Or better yet, don’t try. I don’t think you’re capable of empathy anyway. Might hurt yourself if you tried to put yourself in her boots.”
“You’re grounded,” daddy growled. “No going out with your friends while I’m home.”
“What do I care? I haven’t been out with them since mom’s accident.”
Solana scooted backwards when she realized Garrus was storming away from their father and straight for the hallway. She’d only made it a couple meters before he rounded the corner and spotted her. His steps only slowed for a couple seconds as he assessed her. He quickly overtook her and scooped her up into his arms, cautious with her cast.
He walked with her all the way back to his room, and she didn’t protest once. He kicked the door shut behind him and carefully sat her down on the bed.
“How much did you hear?” he asked.
“A lot, I think,” she said.
He took her good hand into both of his. “I’m sorry, star flower. You shouldn’t have had to hear that.”
She shook her head at him. “Do you really think daddy doesn’t care?”
He sighed but then was quiet for a minute. “I was just trying to hurt him, Sol. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it.”
She felt a wave of adoration for her big brother. Garrus had always been so good to her. She knew he lashed out at daddy because he was worried about her.
“It’ll be okay, Garrus,” she said. “And thank you. What you did for me…it worked.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, his mandibles flaring into a smile as he looked down at her. He never made her feel too small, even when towering over her. “Lesson learned for when the rules don’t seem to work, I guess.”
Garrus tucked her into bed after that. In the morning, she found another star flower waiting for her.