#whooo boy let's see if this initial pov experiment pays off

[swaps55]

Cover art by the utterly phenomenal @legionofpotatoes!

Mezzo

Pairing: mshenko | Rating: M Tags: Canon-typical violence, trauma, dealing with your problems poorly, body autonomy struggles   Summary: The twists and turns of ME2, through the eyes of everyone but Commander Shepard. Chapter Summary: Death was the only way

Chapter 1: Stars | Read on Ao3

At first, you think you can survive this. Your ship is in pieces, your momentum catapulting you away from the wreck, the planet you call Alchera watching serenely as your life burns. You tell yourself, you’ve faced worse. The first time you fought death was the first breath you took, into lungs that weren’t ready, in a body too small and fragile to survive on its own. You struggled for days in a vessel adrift between our stars, an insignificant speck of heat in our cold universe, determined to burn as bright as a sun. When your mother finally held you for the first time, she showed you to us and asked if we were what you were in such a hurry to see for yourself. You have always been ours. You were ours when your father sang you to sleep while we gleamed through the shutters. You were ours when you rose for the first time on unsteady legs because you wanted to see us. You were ours when you felt our power come to life under your skin and understood that we are part of you in ways you’d never imagined. How many times did you palm the glow of dark matter in your hand and imagine you were one of us? But no matter how bright you burn now, it won’t be enough to save you. There is fear, now, but you swallow it back.    The second time you fought death it wasn’t your life you were fighting for. You begged, pleaded, to march into the unknown and rescue a father who didn’t come home, and when no one listened, you turned to us in the dark and begged to take his place. That was when you learned we could be cruel.   We felt your pain, we heard your anger, we wi ditnessed your tears and did nothing. And you forgave us. We wonder if you will forgive us now.

Read the rest on Ao3 | The Mezzo Playlist