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This was a mistake.
Liara pours omni-gel into the lock on a door, opens it, and shuts herself in with the mops and buckets. For the first time in… a while, she finally feels like she can breathe.
A family reunion had seemed like a good idea at first. She'd been intrigued by her father's tales of other children, of aunts and uncles and cousins. Her mother had raised her alone: she'd never known her extended family.
There are just so many of them.
Her mother, it turns out, had been one of many sisters, and her aunts had had more children than her mother had. Her father, it turns out, has both fathered and carried numerous other children, both before and after her, and had also kept in touch with her krogan relatives from her father's side of the family.
The guest list had spiralled to triple digits including multiple species, and though asari had been among the first in this new synthesised world to master mentally shielding their thoughts and politely ignoring those around them, it's overwhelming out there.
Light from the hallway floods her vision as the door opens, and Liara is face to face with one of her sisters. She thinks it's the one her father had referred to as 'half-hanar', with skin just a touch pinker and a face less expressive than most asari she's met and an oddly floaty way of moving. Unfortunately, there's a food stain on her name tag.
"This one apologizes," says her sister, confirming herself as hanar-raised. "It was looking for the comfort room."
"The – what?" Liara blurts out, puzzled.
Her sister stares at her for a moment, and then says, "Ah. The–" Though it speaks Illiī without much of a Kahjit accent, the Illiī word for "toilet" sounds foreign on its tongue.
Liara accesses the maps of the venue she'd been sent by both email and the strange digital-mental connection they now all share, infinitely faster than both memory and bringing up her omni-tool and email program. "Down the hall, second door on the right."
"This one thanks you," it says, and with that it shuts the door on her again.
Alright. That wasn't so bad. Maybe she can do this after all, at least one on one.
Liara has survived both mercenary and terrorist attacks. She's survived thresher maws. She's survived ship crashes. She's survived the previous Shadow Broker. She's survived killing her own mother. She's survived Reapers and their war. She's survived the entire world being rewritten to make synthetic and biological beings so much more similar to each other and all connected at all times. She can survive her family, as surprisingly large as it is.
She puts her hand on the door knob.
And wilts. It's going to be hard to ask for just one relative to talk to at a time. Everyone had been so excited to meet "Nezzy's girl", "one of Aethyta's youngest", the war hero decorated by the asari military after the war despite never enlisting, their niece/sister/cousin who had travelled with the Commander Shepard. She is welcome in any group of relatives out there and will be pulled into one the second she is spotted.
Maybe she can ask Glint for help taking someone aside: fake some sort of emergency. Lying is more difficult with their connection these days, but still possible, and she has some practice at it from her Shadow Broker work.
The door opens again, and her half-hanar sister lets herself into the closet, now very crowded with both of them among the mops, but not what Liara would call dark, what with the soft green light tracing through circuit patterns in her and her sisters' skin.
"This one finds crowds somewhat overwhelming," it confesses, and Liara could cry with relief that someone feels the same way. "It thought about making itself inconspicuous in the comfort room after it finished its business there, but Miloceen has eaten some levo-amino food and is making her displeasure known."
Miloceen… Ah, yes, the turian father of one of their other half-sisters. "Is she alright?" She should be a good party host about this.
"Yes, or at least she will become so: your drone has dispensed amino allergy medication," her sister says. That's right, she'd activated Glyph's party hosting protocol. "There is, however, still… a strong odor, if one may be so crude."
Despite herself, Liara chuckles, and her sister cracks a hint of a smile in return.
This is progress.
"This one–" she starts out of unconscious mimicry, and then catches herself. "I was also surprised by the number of people who came."
"This one suspects this was not a trait inherited from your shared parent," it says, using an Illiī plural word for "your" which includes someone in the third person - Liara takes this to mean "our".
"No, it looked like Dad was enjoying herself," she says. "I don't know how she does it."
"Neither does this one," says her sister. "This one grew up in a small rural community on Belan you've likely never heard of. New Plentiful was the closest city and it was hours away. There were few people. And now, none."
She's heard that planet name, Belan. It was in the news, the previous Shadow Broker had had an agent there – Liara winces. "I'm sorry about the comet."
"Perhaps the comet was better than the Reapers," it says softly. "A quicker end. But, ah – this one gives its thanks."
Belan, Liara thinks, desperate for something positive, and blurts out the first ping she receives. "I hear the Reapers are starting to repair the damage from the comet."
"Yes, and they have shared some absorbed memories of Belan from… before," says her sister. "An unexpected, though pleasant surprise."
"It has been very strange, learning about past peoples from the Reapers," she says, grasping for a change of subject from her sister's devastated home planet. "Sometimes, when I can't fall asleep, I find myself accessing their information about the Protheans. What I would have given to have had that access when I still had time for archaeology, instead of rebuilding the universe."
"This one read some of your work on the Enkindlers," it says, and Liara's surprise must show on her face because it adds, "It looked up your name after your shared parent reached out to invite its family. The curiosity was overwhelming."
There's something else they have in common besides not enjoying too many people around. Liara had also looked up her family members after her father had helped her with the guest list, though she suspects her sister did not have the same access to a galactic spy network and hacked databases.
"One of my academic advisers once said – when she wasn't calling my theories outlandish – that my writing style could be a little dry sometimes," she admits. "I'm sorry if you found it boring."
"No, not at all," says her sister. "Interest in the subject matter soon grew greater than this one's curiosity about the writer. Then, surprise at how close some of your theories were to what is now known."
It goes on to cite enough of her papers that Liara quickly realizes 'some of your work' was something of an understatement, which is oddly flattering. Of all the interest her family has shown in her today, very little has been about her as an archaeologist, the work which took up so much of her life before meeting Shepard. Plus, her sister turns out to have religious views on the Protheans she'd only ever read other academic work about, never heard from primary sources, and it makes for a fascinating lens on her work.
Losing track of time doesn't happen often these days now that they all have very precise internal clocks thanks to their partially synthesised minds, but she loses track of time here in the closet, discussing the Protheans with her sister. They're both startled when Glyph materializes between them to let her know one of her aunts is looking for her.
"This one apologizes for taking up too much of your time," says her sister, with a little flare of biotics over her skin which she takes as mimicry of contrite hanar bioluminescence. "Though it did enjoy this conversation."
"So did I," says Liara. "But, ah…" It's so awkward to ask now, after a talk both unexpectedly emotional and intellectually stimulating, but at least she has the excuse of its food splattered name tag. "What was your name again? I'm so sorry–"
She gestures vaguely towards her sister, and it looks down. "Ah: the soup was delicious," it says, explaining the stain. "In any case, it only listed this one's face name."
"You don't have to share your soul name if you don't want to," Liara says quickly. "I know we've only just met today."
"This one wants to," it says, and it tells her its name, lyrical and fitting for what little she knows of her sister.
"Thank you," she says, overwhelmed in a wholly positive way now. "What a beautiful name."
Her sister smiles, still small by asari or human standards but the widest she's seen it today. The smile looks like it's taking an effort – and she supposes it does, after growing up on a hanar colony – but it also looks bright and genuine. "I look forward to getting to know each other better after this party."
"So do I."
