sinvraal:

I would call you my first born, but he went to the Void before he had the chance to draw breath. We could pave all the continents of this blasted world threefold deep in the bodies of the ones who never even opened their eyes. Neither are you my second born. The clansmen relish their sons, the continuity of blood. They fought over me before I knew even myself.

Things are changing. Already some clansmen clamor for revenge. But they must learn to dig, to build, to create. They will grumble and fight, they will strut and demand, drunk of their new bloodlines. I must teach my sisters to speak and be heard. To shout and headbutt if necessary.

I will teach you patience, my daughter. I will teach you the power of “no”.

Will I send you to the caves one day, my daughter, to live or die in seven days? I do not yet know. I gave away my crystal to one who needed its light. You would have to find your own. I gave it to a… hero.

We already have many words for hero, figures of war and slaughter to a one. The human was also a slaughterer, but even so frail and brief she still saw in us what no other would dare. What none but the long dead believed. A hope so fragile you could not speak of it too loudly or risk loosing it in the wind. But she spoke, my daughter, fought and bled and told truths when lies would have served her better.

Wrex can bluster and thump his chest. Shout about his heroes. Let him. I will whisper to you, my first daughter, the secret histories, of trees and rivers and lives and the power of words. I will tell you of the human who pulled us from the Void.

Heroes we have aplenty. For Shepard, I will call you Hope.