(AN: Please do download the document; I use a lot of special formatting in my work, so if you want to properly experience the piece, that's what I'd recommend. I assure you, it won't bite!)

Hey there you all! Hope everyone's having a lovely day! <3

So, this piece... has quite a story behind it.

I met  PalavenMoons here on FA just under a year ago, and the very first character of hers (of which there are plenty) that I "discovered" was Regin Tacitus ( http://www.furaffinity.net/view/19089324/ http://www.furaffinity.net/view/18349061/ ). I was immediately drawn in by his look alone, and after many, many late night conversations on backstories and whatnot, I learned plenty about him!

I learned a lot about his rather tragic backstory and why he is... the way he is. Those of you who are familiar with Pally's work will know exactly what I'm talking about. I learned about his losses, the battles he's seen and went through, both external and internal. I learned about one aspect of his story in particular and, well... I felt completely and utterly compelled to do something with it.

I honestly started writing this compulsively one day, completely out of the blue, and over time, Pally eventually learned what I was up to. We talked about this piece plenty, and although there were some changes to be made just so that it would be "canonical," she certainly seemed very pleased with the results. :3

This is technically an alternate universe piece. This isn't actually canon in her "universe" at all, but having her tell me about what really "happened" in her character's backstories honestly left me inspired, and on a particularly good day, I set myself to work making things right. X3

I only hope she approves of this final version; I have worked so very hard to edit this piece and make it as grammatically correct as I can. There were originally so many issues regarding past and present tense, but with my experience in the English department at school, and Pally's help, I think we've cleaned it up very well. I'm ready to present it. <3

So, without further ado, here you go! Everyone enjoy!

(P.S. If you aren't watching  PalavenMoons by now, then go ahead and get on that shit. Y'all are fuckin' missin' out.)

----

Sliver

(Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5qkHj8GE1k )

He stops dead in his tracks as soon as he sets foot in the haphazardly-arranged infirmary tent.

He’s spent so much of his life steadfastly marching forward, stopping for nothing and not thinking for a second to look back, but naturally, the sight of this manages to freeze him in place where he stands.

Seventy years of moving forward, taking orders, and going wherever life (cold and heartless though it was) took him could not possibly have prepared him for this.

Maybe it’s the dilapidated look of the improvised infirmary he’s in, with various sorts of makeshift medical equipment strewn about and placed seemingly wherever they’d fit, or maybe it’s the soulless, insistent and too-slow beeping of the heart rate monitor that clearly wasn’t made for use by his species. It’s almost certainly the steady and gradual, yet shallow and tenuous way the patient’s chest rises and falls again and again as he struggles for each breath even in his unconsciousness, but Regin can’t bring himself to think about that for too long. Whatever the case, when he finally musters up the strength to take a step forward, he does so gently and with considerable caution, because whatever the underlying cause is, the whole room presents an overwhelming aura of fragility and uncertainty, as if the slightest misstep could somehow spell disaster.

Although he manages to, as always, continue on in spite of himself, each step he takes to the side of the well-worn yet functional cot is agonizingly slow, and each of these steps reveals more and more of the patient’s beaten, battered and heavily-bandaged frame. Their chest still rises and falls in shallow breaths, and while he feels reassurance knowing that the patient is still breathing, Regin finds himself doubting whether their condition is truly as stable as the few medics on duty at the camp had said it was. Usually the very picture of cold stoicism, Regin gulps at that thought; after everything, he doesn’t know if he can bear considering that this particular patient might not make it through the night.

After a few more painfully slow steps, he finally finds himself at the patient’s bedside, their face in full view, although partly covered with a sort of breathing mask which, to Regin’s reassurance, actually does appear to be designed for turian use. This feeling of reassurance does nothing to counteract the sickening feeling that Regin suddenly feels emerging in his stomach as he looks upon the patient’s face, a face which is uncannily similar to his own.

Feeling his knees grow weak, Regin slowly kneels down at the side of the cot, now at face level with the patient. As if to briefly escape the reality of the situation, he shuts his eyes tightly to think. Why was he acting like this? He’d already known exactly who would be occupying this infirmary room before he’d come here. He’d had adequate time to prepare himself for what he might see, but regardless, there was no stopping the debilitating sense of dread that’d overcome him as he’d looked upon the wounded soldier.

Opening his eyes once more, Regin immediately notices a thin white paper band around the patient’s wrist. After looking back up at their face one more time, which is still as limp and emotionless with sleep as expected, he gingerly takes the wristband in both his hands and inspects it, gently turning it with the same practiced care that he’d shown lining up sniper shots hundreds of yards away from targets in his youth until he finds, in black lettering, the name “A. Tacitus” hastily written on its surface.

In just a moment, he seems to completely forget himself, and he finds himself staring at it for what feels to him like an eternity.

He is no stranger to death. He’d grown up in an orphanage; the states of his parents very much unknown with seemingly no way of ever tracking them down, leaving it quite possible in Regin’s mind that they were long gone. He’d repeatedly lost people: subordinates, colleagues, people of all sorts again and again. Multiple conflicts and two major wars only served to add to the great many losses he’d been through in his lifetime. Friends, relatives of friends, and even his wife, Ilsther, had all been claimed by conflict, and the vast majority of these deaths had been completely outside of his control. No, Regin was certainly not unfamiliar with death, but it was so strange, even sickening to him that while it’d so easily taken plenty of the good people that he’d had the pleasure of knowing in his lifetime, people with both the potential and the capacity to do truly grand things with their lives, it’d always ended up refusing to take him with his anger and bitterness and endless list of perceived failures in their place. It was as if death simply didn’t want him.

Now, his own son, his only child, lies wounded and seemingly in critical condition in a ramshackle infirmary on a foreign planet, having just barely survived what’d looked like the end of days and yet here he was, once again alive and well and taking full breaths with someone far worthier of life in his eyes struggling to even take small ones. To Regin, it is a twisted sort of irony, and in any other situation like this he knows he’d be angry, his fists clenched and fangs gritted knowing that once again, good people were dying for worthwhile causes while he lived on in place of them.

Not this time. Right now, he can only feel terrified.

With a tenderness that he is surprised to find he still possesses, Regin lets go of the paper wristband and takes Agin’s limp hand in both of his own, noting not only that the lengthy, slender fingers greatly resemble his, but also that they somehow feel too cold to belong to a living person. With his son’s hand in his grasp, he solemnly bows his head and closes his eyes in prayer, speaking to the Spirits with all the strength he can muster. Deep down, a small and carefully-hidden part of him feels that there may be no point in doing so, but considering the circumstances, he can’t bring himself not to at least try; anything to potentially help his son keep breathing.

Besides, he knows he must bear in mind that, sooner or later, faith in the otherworldly may be all that he has left.

For quite a long time, he keens to the Spirits for some semblance of hope. Regin notes that he hasn’t felt anything resembling real, proper hope in a while, but between his miraculous survival, the apparent end of the war they’d all been struggling with for so long, and of course the fact that his son, although wounded, is still managing to cling to life after everything, he can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, things might really and truly be looking up for them. The skeptic in him doubts it, naturally, but if only for Agin’s sake, he tries his best to hold on to the sentiment in some fashion.

If for nothing else, he just hopes for his son’s life.

Finishing his prayer, he opens his eyes once again, and as he slowly regains awareness of his surroundings, Regin finds that, for once, he’s thankful that the insistent beeping of the heart rate monitor and the clicking from the breathing machine are still so prevalent in his ears. With some regret, he lets go of his son’s hand at long last and gently lays it flat on the bed, taking care to make sure that the name on his wristband is still clearly visible should one of his caretakers come by soon. After a few moments, he laboriously hoists himself up off his knees and onto his feet, his legs aching as he does so.

He takes a deep breath and rolls his shoulders, stretching them to relieve at least some of the tension within him before looking back down at Agin, who is still very much unconscious. Clearly, no prayers he can utter will magically remove all of the cuts and burns in his frame in an instant, but when observing his son now, Regin thinks that his breaths seem to look at least a little fuller and less tremulous than they had when he’d first walked into the tent. His eyes wander back up to his son’s face, and he finds himself fondly remembering how positively giddy Ilsther had always sounded whenever she’d brought up his pointed jawline or elegant cheek-plates or some other notable physical feature that Agin had obviously gotten from him. Regin’s mandibles flick nostalgically; to her credit, she’d certainly never been wrong in that regard.

He realizes that, even now, there are more pressing matters for him to attend to, but this doesn’t stop Regin from bending down and craning his neck to softly lay his forehead against his son’s, bringing a hand up against the smooth, dark hide of his neck as he holds the gesture there, taking care to make sure his breathing mask stays in place as he does so. He finds relief in the fact that the surface of his flesh here is considerably warmer than his fingers had been, and for a while, he simply doesn’t want to leave, as his son is one of the only sources of warmth for him in the cold, damp air of the surrounding camp.

Regardless, he eventually manages to part his forehead from Agin’s, and though he would never have made it obvious to an onlooker, he immediately yearns for the lost intimacy he’d so briefly held there. It takes him no small amount of time to do so, but once he finally tears his gaze away from his son’s battered frame, he looks over to the heart rate monitor, which is still beeping in a steady, consistent rhythm. To his pleasure, the breathing machine appears to be functioning at full strength as well, and now (mostly) assured that Agin is well taken care of, he turns back towards the entrance to leave, striding away from his son’s bedside with the same hurried, practiced gait that so often served to prevent others from bothering him. In another moment, he seems to have effortlessly transformed from the helpless, distressed father and widower to the cold, focused and authoritative Hierarchy agent with little to lose. In spite of this, he can’t resist stopping at the edge of the makeshift doorway to look back at his son one more time, a wistful look in his eyes.

To his reassurance, his chest continues to steadily rise and fall with each breath, the machines giving him life support keep clicking and beeping at the same pace, and above all, Agin remains alive. It doesn’t completely assure him that he’ll stay that way, but whatever the case, his son is fighting, and knowing that, Regin feels able to hold onto the sliver amount of hope it gives him for the future, however limited it may be. With that in mind, he mutters a quick “thank you, Spirits” under his breath, and, with renewed vigor in his steps, he leaves the tent.

----

Turians and Mass Effect belong to BioWare
Regin and Agin Tacitus belong to  PalavenMoons (WATCH HER, I DEMAND IT!!! >:D )
This work belongs to yours truly.  ErkTheWanderer)