Chapter Text
When Liara felt them for the first time, her soulmate, she was crouched over a overly verbose text detailing theories of Prothean social structure. At first it just felt like a pinch in her chest, but then it turned into a flood: the raw emotions accompanying someone who had just been born. Liara’s mother had warned her it could happen. In fact, most asari felt the moment of their soulmate’s birth simply because few but other asari had their long lifespan. So when Liara felt her soulmate at the tender age of 77, she couldn’t help but be openly devastated.
How many times had she wished for a soulmate that would be born later in her lifetime? Hundreds of times at least. It would be better that way, she told herself. She didn’t want to be forced to live on centuries without them. That, or she had wished for her soulmate to be an asari, but somehow Liara just knew that her soulmate wasn’t an asari either. Doubly devastated.
Liara looked at the date on her omni-tool: April 11, 2154. And so the race began.
“What are you guys talking about?” Shepard asked, throwing her gym bag on her bed before letting her exhausted body follow it.
“Ryan found his soulmate yesterday,” a dark haired woman Shepard had never bothered to learn the name of said. Her fellow soldiers-in-training looked up at her with eyes glossed over in romance and hope.
Shepard scowled. “Well, bully for him,” she replied, turning away in her bed and ignoring the offended twittering of the other women in the room.
Shepard knew her soulmate was alive already the same way she knew that her soulmate was an asari: she somehow felt her there, a light presence always floating in the back of her mind. But she also knew the odds of her even finding her soulmate were slim to none. All the crazy stories told in the barracks—the long time favorites were even repeated almost daily—never failed to send her into a foul mood. They were tales of impossible romance: guy finds girl in a dark movie theater while on a date with another girl. Girl knows girl their entire lives, but they don’t figure it out until one of them is sent off to war. Much tears ensue. No one wanted to talk about how only one in five people would ever even set eyes on their soulmate.
Who knew having a soulmate could be so abusive? Liara thought as she rubbed at her forehead. A splitting pain had run through it a few days earlier before stopping abruptly, but only hours after, it had begun to ache and seemed content to continue to do so across her entire skull. What in the world are you doing?
Liara shook her head to try and dispel the throbbing in her head again without success. The sensation was making it hard to concentrate on what she was doing, namely her careful investigation of some Prothean ruins. She was poking around a control room, hoping to try and power some of the ancient systems back to life. It was unlikely, but this particular ruin had been wonderfully resistant to the ravages of time. Liara had even managed to get the lights on yesterday.
Her head gave a particularly nasty throb followed by a sharp pain at the joint of her shoulder. Liara hissed and clenched her teeth, jerking her hand just as she’d gone to type a command into the Prothean console. She noticed only at the last moment the whirring of the Prothean machine as it powered up, and a security field suddenly encased her.
Liara’s eyes looked around in panic, her head all the way through her legs thoroughly trapped. She had come here alone; none of her colleagues had thought this ruin worthwhile. By the time someone noticed she hadn’t checked in and actually worried enough to come to this planet to find her...Liara gulped.
“Commander, why do you keep doing that?” Ashley asked, her mouth twisted up in annoyance.
“Doing what?” Shepard replied, not looking at her. She was too distracted by this burning in her throat. Shepard had spent all morning chugging water, and now even her travel canteen was empty. She knew it wasn’t her thirst that was doing this to her; it was her soulmate, wherever she was, but Shepard couldn’t help but keep drinking in an attempt to soothe it.
“You keep making that noise in your throat,” Ashley answered. “It’s annoying.”
Shepard brought her empty canteen to her lips, hoping to shake out even a drop. “What’s annoying is you talking to your commanding officer that way,” Shepard shot back. Ashley snorted, shaking her head as she walked ahead, and Shepard glared at Garrus when she caught him smirking too.
They rode up another elevator and shot some more Geth, then Shepard heard a small voice cry out.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” The voice sounded scratchy and weak, but there was something about it...Shepard scurried under some collapsed walkways, and her eyes landed on an asari held high in the air by a blue circular field.
Shepard never worked so fast in her life, using a mining laser to punch through the the chamber below and deactivating the security trap by hitting the buttons the asari indicated. When the field shimmered out of existence, Shepard caught the asari in her arms. Glazed blue eyes blinked up at her.
Shepard motioned for Ashley’s canteen. “Here. You must have been in there a while,” Shepard said, bringing the water to the asari’s lips. She smiled gratefully and gulped greedily, and Shepard’s throat stopped burning.
Shepard looked at her with wide eyes, and all she could think was one in five. She was one in five . She mentally apologized for all the times she’d frowned at even the mere mention of soulmates. And for all the Valentine’s hearts she’d ripped up spitefully over the years.
“What’s your name?” Shepard asked, cradling the woman even closer to her as she continued to hold her up.
“Liara.”