Category: Mass Effect Fanworks

Second Round of Fics

This week I’ve dug out some short Elder Scrolls ficlets, and some Garrus/Shepard love stories:

Fruit from Palaven – this one has a special place in my heart, being the first Mass Effect fic that I managed to finish. It’s a good story, all things considered, especially the fact that I hadn’t written for years prior to taking this plunge into fanfiction. It’s an intro into the ingame romance with Garrus.

A Game of Cards – an indirect sequel for Fruit from Palaven, this story is one of the few where I tried to engage a larger group of characters in a meaningful interaction. It’s also a stage for my critique of certain tropes within the fandom that I find distasteful.

First Kiss – what it says on the label. Garrus and Shepard, and their first kiss.

And now for something completely different:

Rural Witchcraft – or, as the working title went, “Glaber Heights” (Glaber is the name of a character from Spartacus, and at the time of writing I was reading Wuthering Heights, go figure). This is a piece of… regional lore, I suppose, for High Rock, that I submitted, among many other short texts, to Temple Zero. It’s just drabble, but it happens to be one of my favorite snippets.

Inverse Riddles – or, in its original version, “The proper way to converse with a Breton sorcerer.” Same as above, only this one I never actually submitted because I thought it too lame. Now I think it’s kind of cute.

And, that’s about it. At this pace, I’ll put up everything I have in… a year?

Kidding.

First Kiss

Shepard came over to talk about the weapon upgrades. His favorite subject, really, and Garrus had been listening very carefully in the beginning. But the longer she spoke, the fewer words got through to him. The idea that it was a translator glitch occurred to him but he dismissed it quickly. He understood the words. Those that he could catch.

“Great job… secondary cannons, so… efficiency up to… just love to hear… like purring.”

The lips, the lips were the culprit. They were a constant source of distraction, moving, as they were, in such a fascinating manner. He’d spoken with hundreds of humans before but never quite noticed how limber, mobile and flexible the lips could be, under certain light. From certain angles. In certain magnification levels when studied through his visor. He had done his homework. Humans needed to coordinate hundreds of muscles to form facial expressions and perform the seemingly effortless act of speaking. It sounded profoundly exhausting, but Shepard could do it for hours unending. Perhaps lips had the sort of muscles that never tired, kind of like his…

Continue reading First Kiss

A Game of Cards

The little observation room was already crowded when he came in. Kasumi and Tali were sitting on the floor with their backs against the far wall, and Jack was crouching in front of them, looking at a data pad that occupied the trio’s attention in full. Zaeed and Thane were mixing drinks at the bar. Some music was on but he couldn’t quite place it; and there was a familiar scent of alien food in the air… popcorn. The word came to him with almost no effort at all. He was getting used to living on a human ship.

Continue reading A Game of Cards

The Hearing

Chapter 11 of Ghost in the Machine


The hall echoed with their heavy footsteps in the perpetual violet twilight. Nihlus felt as if he were walking through a dream. Everything had a halo of unreality about it. The ancient trees with leaves of gold and brown, never touched by the autumn winds. The deserted paths, watched over by ghosts of countless generations. The glass chasm dividing the pleaders from the judges. But the most unreal of all was the life-sized holo of Saren in the witness stand, shimmering in the distance.

Continue reading The Hearing

A New Mass Effect Fic – Directed

Check out my latest Mass Effect fic, Directed. It’s a very short, slice-of-life story, possibly the first of a series, and my first venture into Saren’s pre-Nihlus history. Young Saren reaches an important milestone in his biotics training, but at what cost?

Image: Catwagons @ DeviantArt