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Language:
English
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Published:
2025-06-10
Updated:
2025-07-18
Words:
1,300
Chapters:
6/?
Comments:
22
Kudos:
30
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N7 Drabbles

Summary:

2025 archives' creators drabble challenges. Each drabble is standalone, marked by a prompt, a theme, and a wordcount (triple-, double-, or plain ol' drabble)

Tags will be updated as I go and any content warnings/changes in rating will be noted in the chapter summaries.

Chapter 1: Last Chance (Sidonis)

Summary:

"The dock was quiet, save for the low hum of systems prepping for launch. Lantar Sidonis stood at the edge of the loading bay, staring up at Ark Natanus, its slate hull lit by sterile light. It looked like salvation. Or a mausoleum."

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The dock was quiet, save for the low hum of systems prepping for launch. Lantar Sidonis stood at the edge of the loading bay, staring up at Ark Natanus, its slate hull lit by sterile light. It looked like salvation. Or a mausoleum.

After everything, Garrus had given him life.

He’d walked away that day on the Citadel—only thing cracked open his spirit. 

Garrus never came down from the rafters. Left him alive, not a single word passed between them. That silence haunted Sidonis more than any shot could have.

When the Initiative opened its gates, he signed up without hesitation. New galaxy, they said. Clean slate.

They didn’t ask many questions. He didn’t either.

Now, a final check from a salarian tech. “Pod 703,” she pointed. “Once you’re in, system handles the rest—won’t feel a thing.”

The cryo-chamber hissed. Sidonis nodded, stepped inside. He lay down, chill seeping through armor, scar-marked plating, old regrets.

He thought of Omega. 

Of hushed promises: that someday he’d be a galaxy away from the station’s relentless gravitational pull.

Of smoke and neon and Garrus’s body against his, quiet and rough, half-drunk on adrenaline. 

Of the first and last times their eyes met, both through the lens of a sniper’s scope.

He hadn’t earned forgiveness. Maybe never would. But in Andromeda, maybe he could build something that made him worthy of it.

The lid closed. Frost bloomed across the glass in spiderweb fractures.

His breath hitched. Panic. He fumbled at his Omnitool, fingers numb. “Vakarian—” he rasped, name fogging his breath. “Garrus—wait, just—just let me say—”

The interface blinked, unresponsive.

He tried again. “I didn’t mean—”

The system buzzed.

Too late.

His body stilled. His eyes wide. Darkness took him gently.

There was no clean slate. Only silence.

And cold.

Notes:

Prompt was "Last Chance," 300 words, angst.

Chapter 2: High Stakes (Sidonis)

Summary:

‘A "house in an Invictus jungle" is a modern turian phrase for an idea that seems like a good idea, but only to the one who came up with it.’
On the eve of leaving Invictus for the Terminus Systems, Lyra Sidonis's son asks for a bedtime story.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Tell me a story.”

Night rain patters against the roof, its rhythm older than words. Inside a modest hillside dwelling, Lyra Sidonis smoothes a blanket over her son’s narrow cowl. Lantar is still small enough to curl beneath it, mandibles twitching with the stubborn seriousness of a child insisting he isn’t tired.

Lyra sighs, amused. “Fine. But not one of the hero tales. You need the other kind tonight.”

Lantar blinks up at her.

“Once," she holds him in her arms, "A turian built a house in the jungles of Invictus. With high walls of stone and seaglass... so grand it had its own weather! Everyone told him it was foolish—too far from civilization, too deep in the wilds, too beyond the spirits—but, he smiled, 'I’ll live like no one else dares.’”

Lantar squirms closer.

“Then, slow and silent, the jungle crept in. Roots cracked the foundation. Birds nested in the eaves. One morning, he woke to find the moss growing across his pillow creeping along his carapace … ”

A shudder passes between mother and child.

“Still, he refused to leave, saying, 'It’s my house! I made it strong.'  

“Until, one night, he vanished. Gone... Some say the jungle took him. Others say he finally understood—just before it was too late.”

Lyra brushes a hand over Lantar’s crest. “‘House in the Invictus Jungle.’ That’s what we call it when someone clings to an idea just because it’s theirs.”

“We live on Invictus.” Lantar’s browplates furrow. “And… he built it. Doesn’t that matter?”

“It mattered, Lan,” She smiles sadly, eyeing their luggage by the door. “We can only try our best.”

Lantar quiets, eyes wide in the dark, listening to the jungle murmur beyond their walls. He wonders which counts more: building something, or leaving before it falls apart.

Notes:

This is another entry for my N7 drabble challenges! The theme was "High Stakes"--it was supposed to be for the "Fluffy" triple drabble category but everything I make becomes Sad. I am however going to keep it in the fluffy category bc baby sid thnx for your understanding

Yes I do have another fic called 'A House in an Invictus Jungle.' If you know me at all you know that I've been fixated on Invictus for forever; I know the meaning of the phrase is stretched a little here, but I love how stories do that and serve multiple morals for multiple people in different contexts... The popular myth (Build on Community) vs Lyra's use of it (know *why* you're making a decision) vs the wrong message Sidonis takes from it (maybe just fucking run away?) which will haunt his choices for the rest of his life...

Anyways this WILL come back to haunt him, on Omega, when he returns to Invictus during the war, and when he finally sees Palaven. :)

 

Please enjoy this song that I've got on repeat thinking about Sid thinking about Lyra during the Archangel catastrophe.

 

I *promise* not all of these drabbles are going to be about Sidonis

Chapter 3: War and Peace (Kal'Reegar/Shepard)

Summary:

After the war, Commander Shepard and Kal'Reegar attempt to find balance and comfort in the face of stillness for the first time in their lives. Prompt was "War and Peace," 300 words, and "steamy." :)

Chapter Text

The Rannoch desert stretched wide and gold, wind stirring slow waves in the sand. Kal’Reegar sat stiff-backed on a sun-baked rock, suit vents humming. Shepard lounged beside him, grinning up at the sky.

“Peaceful,” Shepard said. “In an empty, vaguely soul-crushing way.”

Kal didn’t look over. “Humans spent the whole war screaming for peace. Now you’ve got it, and you're miserable.”

“You’re one to talk, soldier.”

“Didn’t think it would feel so... anticlimatic.”

“You wanted quiet. You got quiet.” Shepard turned his head, smirked. “You always this cranky out of combat?”

“Only when I’m bored.” Kal’s tone sharpened. “And itchy.”

“So scratch the itch.”

Kal’s head turned—slow, deliberate at the heat in his voice. Shepard was already closer, propped on an elbow now, fingers drifting toward Kal’s shoulder. Their eyes locked through the visor. Tension, once buried in dry wit and battlefield memory, surged to the surface.

“You’re sweating,” Kal murmured.

Shepard traced the seal of Kal’s chestplate. “Wanna make things more climatic?”

Kal caught his wrist—gloved hand around bare skin, firm but not resisting. “You know I can’t breathe your air yet.”

“Didn’t say anything about breathing.”

A beat. Then Kal surged forward, pushing Shepard back into the soft sand. Shepard went easily, laughter low in his throat as Kal settled above, armored thighs straddling him. The weight, the heat, the hum of Kal’s suit vents rising—it was all pressure, building toward a promise of something more.

Shepard slid his hands to Kal’s waist, teasing palms gliding to squeeze the backs of muscular thighs through thick cloth. “This what peace feels like to you?”

Kal’s voice rasped through the modulator. “Closer than anything else I’ve found.”

Shepard’s mouth curved, inviting. “We can do better.”

Kal answered with hiss of seals loosening—just a little.

Just enough.

 

Chapter 4: Endkindlers, Forgive Me (OC)

Summary:

And now, for some reason, the prequel to An Unexpected Enkindling.

Prompt was "Enkindlers, Forgive Me," drabble, angst column.

Chapter Text

The turian’s body crumpled, gracelessly twisted, blood stippling the floor like ink. The drell disappeared before the echoes did.

The hanar hovered in the balcony, light dimmed to a grief-stricken dusk. It had claimed righteousness, spoken justice, recited the names of the wronged, weighed the offense with sacred measure.

But now. The unmoving body looked too alive. Confused.

Regret bloomed, slow, searing, every nerve remembering too late the divine warmth of compassion.

No vindication. No peace. Just the cold echo of a life ending.

“This one… miscalculated.”

Trembling pulses shimmered across its skin, a prayer unraveling.

“Enkindlers, forgive this one.”

Chapter 5: Thresher Maw (OC)

Chapter Text

They called him mad—Olorus the Maw-Whisperer. Alone in the ice-bitten wastes of Altakiril’s pole, he lived in a bent prefab shack warmed by firestones and sheer stubbornness. Each morning, he hobbled to the cliff’s edge with a satchel of frozen varren meat, tossing it into the shadowed valley below. Snow hissed. Ground shuddered.

The maw rose like a nightmare—chitin scarred, eyes fathomless.

“Morning, girl,” Olorus rasped, breath fogging. “Eat well.”

The beast devoured the offering gently, as if indulging a child.

Then sank again.

Olorus smiled. No Hierarchy, no war—just a maw who hadn’t eaten him. Yet.

Chapter 6: Unexpected Guest (Macen Barro/Avitus Rix)

Summary:

Prompt was "Unexpected Guest," 200 words, and Angst. This one is NSFW.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The heat between them pulsed like a solar flare. Macen’s breath ghosted over Avitus’s mouthplates, fingers curling beneath his thighs like had every right to be there—like nothing had gone wrong, like he hadn’t died.

“You always take things so seriously,” Macen murmured, voice low, teasing, his hand sliding lower. “Still wound that tight, Rix?”

Avitus didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His body reacted first—arching, desperate—mind chasing the sensation like a drowning man reaching for shore. Macen pressed into him, deep and slow, like he wasn’t a ghost, like this wasn’t some cruel trick. Their bodies tangled, all friction and ache and the need to forget this whole galaxy burning around them.

"Let go, Avi."

Then came the silence.

The warmth evaporated.

Avitus jerked awake.

Cold quarters. The hum of the Nexus around him. His hand clutched at empty sheets.

He sat up, breath ragged, hide flushed with memory and loss. Macen had been there—but now he was just another ghost in Andromeda, another casualty.

Avitus curled forward, pressing his face into his hands. The heat lingered, maddening.

“I can’t let you go,” he whispered into the dark. “Where are you?”

The silence, as always, gave no answer.

Notes:

SPOILER ALERT: Macen is alive uwu