Kargad fell back when ordered, but allowed himself the luxury of a leaving prayer just before the shuttle doors were fully closed. Ascending slowly away from the carnage, he caught one last fleeting glimpse of the felled Fiend, and as he did so he wrapped both hands around the hilt of his downturned hammer, and muttered quietly, reverently, to himself. Of gratitude for another glorious battle, and of forgiveness. In death, Kargad didn’t hate the Kett – they were just different expressions of the same thought. It was a pity they had misused the gift of their lives in the way that they had, but there was always next time. In an ideal universe, someday, they would all stand shoulder to shoulder. No more hate, no more war.
Well. Maybe war for fun.

The doors slid shut, and dropped into comparable darkness, they departed. The Kett’s bodies were left to rot in the sun, but their souls, he was certain, were now free.

[hr][i]Two weeks later…[/i]

Freedom was something Kargad desperately craved whenever he was aboard the Nexus. He had never cared much for the Citadel, despite spending a sizable wedge of his life there, working or in transit: it was just too… [i]fake.[/i] There was a clinical, sterile nature to it all that screamed out how [i]unnatural[/i] the place was, all brushed steel and reinforced glass. The stars twinkled dimly from the spaces you could see them, [i]if[/i] you could see them through the glare of the street lights. And the Nexus embodied all of these things, but lacked the Citadel’s wealth of distractions. There were no real bars to start brawls in, no hobby shops to buy tiny space ships in bottles. It was a place of strange, steely stagnation. Kargad spent much of his time pacing the place irritably, making many a passer-by anxious. 

To an extent, he supposed it was because he had never felt comfortable in space. He was a Krogan, at least in body: his biology longed for the taste of iron in the air, and the feel of radioactive dirt underfoot. There was something that fundamentally disagreed with him about spending prolonged periods of time away from fresh air and solid ground. It made him sweat beneath the plates. And the only comfort he could think to seek out, for the [i]n[/i]th time, was denied him by snivelling bureaucrats. He was of the belief that no form of life was inherently worth less than him, but if he [i]had[/i] to pick a candidate, it would have been pencil-pushing pencil-necked cryogenic secretaries. Every few days, Kargad would return and ask them if there was any news on the Asari Ark. If he was anxious about being [i]safe[/i] in space, he didn’t dare to fathom how terrified his baby girls would feel, lost in the dark. 

[i]”I’m sorry, even if it was here, I can’t seem to find those names on the Leusinia’s docket.”[/i]
[i][color=#D54122]"What,”[/color][/i] Kargad had replied, now on his fourth visit to this dreadful office. It was in his incredibly unimpressed, dadly voice.
[i]”I-It’s just, when I… Faoria and Kalayla Cargad aren’t even on—“[/i]
Kargad had leaned in closer, [color=#D54122][i][b]”What.”[/b][/i][/color]
[i]”I—“[/i]
[color=#D54122]"Well they were there [i]four days ago,[/i]”[/color] he smiled tersely, [color=#D54122]"Are you trying to tell me you’ve lost my little girls? Because I helped put some parts of this Nexus together, and I’d be [i]damned happy[/i] to take them apart aga-“[/color]
[i]”A-Ah, wait! Wait!”[/i], the clerk pleaded. He was human, on the young side. Probably only a hundred or so. How long did humans live, again?
[i]”I spelt Kargad wrong. Like a car, get it?”[/i]
[color=#D54122]”no”[/color]
[i]”Maybe that error doesn’t translate so well… um… okay! We don’t have any information on them yet! Which makes sense, there’s none on the Leusinia… but no news is good news, right? H-Hehe.”[/i]
Kargad heaved in a big breath, and for an instant towered menacingly over this young man. Then he exhaled heavily, and in doing so slid slowly and surely to the floor, until he was sat with his hump against the desk, almost laying down. He stared hopelessly up at the ceiling.
[color=#D54122]”Damn it.”[/color]
[i]”Sir?”[/i]
[color=#D54122]”I… I just want my girls to be safe. Did you know, it’s been six hundred years since I last hugged them?”[/color]
[i]”That’s… that’s really sad to hear, Mr., um, Bragus, but you’re… you’re holding up the…”[/i]
Kargad sniffled pathetically. 
[i]”Ohh… oh, please don’t cry…”[/i]
[i][color=#D54122]”I am [b]not[/b] crying,”[/color][/i] Kargad snapped, unconvincingly. 

Twenty minutes later, after tearfully showing entirely too many photographs of his family to the cryogenics clerk, Kargad was sat nursing a coffee near hydroponics. Seeing a little nature around here- albeit unnatural in itself- was soothing. It reminded him that there were living things beyond this dreadful space station, things with which he shared a fundamental connection. And in the dark, someplace far, he knew the blood of his blood was still out there. He had the strange sense that, should that ever cease to be true, he would [i]know.[/i]
And yet still, his stomach was tight. What good was thinking that? He hadn’t felt it when Revixtia had passed. The opposite, even – he had known her presence every day since. And whilst that knowledge filled him with strength, the idea that the same was true of his daughters sapped him of it again.

Eyeing the false sky of the Nexus in silence, Kargad finished his coffee, and then took his hammer’s charm from around his neck. Off duty, when he needed strength more than his weapons did, he would carry this token with him. A purple locket in the silhouette of an Asari’s head. It housed the only physical picture he and Revixtia ever had printed. In it she- with intense eyes but a smirk that still made Kargad weak in the knees- was in the process of wrenching his arm towards the table, in a wrestling match he wasn’t entirely sure he’d actually thrown. They had been so young, back then. So sure they were going to carve their scars into an unsuspecting universe.

He pressed that picture to his bosom, and then lowered his head.
[i][color=#D54122]”Revixtia… you gave our girls every ounce of your strength. But… but [b]I’m[/b] not strong enough without them. If you’re out there… keep them safe. Help them make this home. Help me.”[/color][/i]