Chapter Text
Commander Shepard has often been lauded as an exceptional leader. Her superiors commended her for her effective fire squads, the special touch she had with civilians, and her laser focus. They didn’t realize that she was just following the threads.
Shepard could always see the threads that connected people. They came in different colors. Green for family, blue for love, and yellow for friendship were the most common. Sometimes she saw people with a shimmering white thread stretched between them; she thought they might be soul mates. Then there were the red threads. She saw those most often in battle. She couldn’t quite figure out what they were.
She would watch sometimes as threads were formed between two people, see the color and make guesses about the people being tied into each other’s webs. She always followed the threads. It’s what kept her sane as her parents transferred from one posting to the next. Friends are easy to find when you can already see the bonds. The threads kept her alive after thresher maws slaughtered her unit. A scarlet thread brought her to Anderson.
Shepard had dozens of threads shooting out from her. She was the center of a crimson web with one ethereal white strand that reached throughout space. Her soul mate was out there somewhere. She didn’t have time to find them. The universe was a big place. They’d find each other eventually.
For now, Shepard had to focus on the connections she could see. Kaidan. Joker. Jenkins. Nihlus. When Nihlus boarded the Normandy, Shepard felt all of the threads in her web quiver. Something was about to change and all of her threads felt tenuous, ready to snap as the knife of fate sawed away at them. Her white thread was always steady, though. Immovable, unchanging.
She thought about who could be at the other end. What were they like? They’d have to be pretty damn unique to put up with everything Shepard did to survive. The constant travel and talking, so much talking. Her terrible driving, her model ships. What would she have to put up with?
Eden Prime
As her ground team landed on Eden Prime, Shepard felt uneasy. The threads connecting her to Jenkins and Nihlus were thinner than usual, almost transparent. Shepard shook the threads from her sight and drew her pistol. Something was about to change.
Alenko and Jenkins followed her hand signs, but she wasn't fast enough to signal as a geth drone appeared and shot Jenkins down as he moved from cover to cover. She felt the thread between them snap, mirrored by a sharp pang in her heart. Feeling a thread break never got easier.
She forced her anguish down into the depths of her stomach. Grieve later. Survive now. Alenko needed her to push forward. As she pulled him away from their young teammate, Shepard saw a new thread shoot out from her. It stretched ahead, constantly moving. It connected to someone on the planet.
Shepard kept an eye on her pistol barrel and signaled Alenko to follow her as she followed the thread. It was a red connection, red as Jenkins’ blood. She trusted her web.
Rounding a corner, they entered combat with more Geth machines. Shepard saw the soldier at the end of her thread, a young woman in pink and white armor. She smiled—most women refused to wear the Phoenix line of armors. It was nice to see someone who just didn’t care. Shepard brought her along. She’d fight to have her transferred to her ship if she had to. The threads didn’t lie.
It wasn’t long before Shepard felt that terrible pain in her heart again.
Nihlus. Shepard drove her team on, aware that it was too late. Their thread snapped and he was dead. She tried to ignore the new thread forming. Instead of a new red thread like the one that affirmed her faith in Ashley, this thread made Shepard feel cold with dread. It was thicker than her other threads, thick and black like a snake come to wind itself around her. It stretched away from her, toward Nihlus. She pushed forward, lobbing her biotics at Geth along the way. Following the threads never failed her.
She saw a network of yellow threads leading into a bunker. Inside she found citizens of Eden Prime—farmers. Innocents. Well, almost innocent. Shepard shamed them into turning over the goods from their smuggling ring and convinced them to share the name of their contact. She could be very convincing.
Together, her squad ripped through the Geth guarding the space port. Shepard knew that Nihlus was dead; she knew it when his thread snapped, but seeing him on the floor was still a shock.
“Something’s moving, over behind those crates.” Shepard’s gun went up before Ashley could finish her sentence.
“Wait! Don’t—Don’t shoot! I’m one of you! I’m human!”
Shepard noted a yellow thread leading back to the farmer’s they had found earlier. This must be Cole’s contact. He had fallen asleep before the attack. Saved by his laziness, he was in the perfect spot to watch as Nihlus was shot in the back by another Turian. The sound of the shooter’s name made that new black thread quiver.
“He called him Saren. I think they knew each other.”
Now that Nihlus was dead, there were no threads leading away from his body. Shepard checked the black thread that formed after Nihlus’ thread snapped. It pointed her toward a tram. If Shepard followed the threads, she’d find what she needed.
It was a brief fight to the port but Shepard wanted to scream. Every Geth, every bomb, was another obstacle. By the time they cleared the port, there was no sign of the mysterious Saren. Only the beacon. Shepard kept her calm, but her heart was anything but. Nihlus believed in her and now he was gone before she could prove him right. This was a disaster.
Captain Anderson had questions. All Shepard had was the beacon. Suddenly, one of Shepard’s threads tugged at her sharply. She turned and saw Kaidan, drawn in by the Prothean artifact and clutching his head in agony. Shepard pushed past Ashley, yanked Kaidan away from the beacon, but in doing so got caught in the field.
Her mind was flooded with violent imagery. So much death. A tapestry torn apart by careless claws. A single white thread drifting off into space.