Kiara woke in her lavish room, alone in her lavish bed, just as she preferred. She took her breakfast in her room, seated at the table near the window, where she could overlook the garden. The ivy needed trimming; she’d have to ask someone to see to it later. She could not bear to feel as though she were being closed in. It made her breath catch in her chest.

When she’d finished moving the food around on her plate, eating only a bite or two, one of her servants took it away at her bidding. From thence she took her bath, and let her maids dress and coif and lightly paint her features. Without the paint, she looked too tired, too sad. Or so she was told. She rarely looked in mirrors, herself.

She spent the day much as she spent every other day–the appropriate amount of philanthropy, the requisite number of social calls. She was expected at a gathering in the evening, and so returned home earlier than usual. Another meal she did not eat. A pot of tea she drank to the dregs. A glass of brandy that became two. A new gown, of gold-embroidered green silk. She’d been pleased when she had it made, but now it hung a little too loose on her frame. New coiffure, more formal, with a chain of emeralds woven through it, sparking against her red hair. New cosmetics; without an afternoon rest, she looked more tired than usual.

At the Viscount’s palace, they stumbled over announcing her and added insult to injury by not apologizing. She hid her displeasure behind a sharply fluttered fan, and beckoned over a servant whose tray was laden with fine Orlesian wine.

She engaged in the appropriate amount of small talk; the requisite number of polite inquiries and pleasant laughs half-hidden behind her gloved hand. She could not yet leave–it wouldn’t be acceptable–but she’d done her duty, so she and her wine drifted toward the fringes of the twittering crowd. Finally, finally, she reached the open door to the torchlit terrace.

The air smelled of roses instead of cloying perfume and drunkenness. Lifting her eyes to the stars, she inhaled deeply.

A softly cleared throat told her she was not alone. She stiffened, fixing her expression into its usual polite, moderately-interested mask, and turned. The gentleman sharing her private moment bowed his head. 

“Forgive me, my lady,” he said, his accent rich as Starkhaven whiskey. “I couldn’t slip past without disturbing you and did not wish to startle.”

You know, this is such an interesting question. For a character who only showed up so briefly, Aleena Kylos was quite real and vivid in my head, and it really upset me that she died. 

Do I think they would have hooked up and stayed together and gotten married and had five cute little turian kids? I doubt it. But I do think their relationship would have been something more than it got to be. They were friends, after all, and I think as friends who became lovers, they might’ve let their relationship linger on even after the first or second natural parting point. They’d have fallen into a kind of rhythm, a kind of habit, where being together was easier than not being together. In this timeline, I actually think Aleena would’ve been the one to eventually break things off, not because things were wrong, but because they weren’t really right. 

But in my Just Like Old Times timeline, her death was part of the catalyst that had (my version of) Garrus leave the military in favor of C-Sec. I think he’d have stayed with the military longer, if not stung by Aleena’s loss. So, even if he did eventually leave the military and join C-Sec, he might’ve been way too low in the pecking order to have been the guy given point on the potentially-rogue-Spectre case. He might’ve still been a beat cop on the Wards instead of joining up with Shepard.

He might’ve been caught by falling debris while helping civilians during Sovereign’s attack. He might have been one of those people who went into work on the day of the Cerberus coup and didn’t come home again. Hell, in a world where he missed meeting up with Shepard, maybe the Reapers blew into the Apien Crest and caught the entire turian fleet with their pants down because the turians had no Expert Reaper Advisor.

Also playing the what if game--I really do think there’s no Shepard without Vakarian in my timeline. Or, rather, my Shepard wouldn’t be who she is without her Vakarian. Garrus’ appearance in ME2 was a huge part of what brought Grace back to herself. He was her true north in a lot of ways, especially in the beginning, when she was so uncertain of herself and doubting what she was post-Lazarus.

It’s like a very upsetting Jenga tower, where Aleena’s life is the block that got pulled, but the tower kept standing. Start pulling out other blocks, leaving hers in, and maybe it all falls down.

Anagapesis: The feeling when someone no longer loves someone they once did.

When she was a little girl, her mother taught her the best way to remember something was to tie a string around her finger. “That way,” Mama said, “when you look at the string, your mind will fill in the blank so you don’t forget.” Her mother smiled as she looped a red ribbon around her index finger and tied it in a bow. “Now you’ll remember to clean your room.”