Here is the idea:

It is ridiculous that nobody knows what quarians look like if they have only been living in their suits for 300 years. That is not a long time, we have photographs from 300 years ago and we are hardly as technical as the quarians. And why are the masks not transparent? Why have they not learned to adapt their immune system? Why do their eyes glow? So many questions, so little answers. This calls for extensive headcanons!

Prepare for about 14 chapters, most of them have already been written during NaNoWriMo last November. I'm trying to answer all the questions in my little story.

"Hello Tali, how nice to hear from you."

Liara's face was slightly distorted over the long distance comm. Major comm systems were still down after the galaxy wide Reaper war. Surprise was clearly visible on her face, Tali did not speak with the not-quite-so-shadowy Shadow Broker often. While they had worked well together and were connected by that special Normandy-bond, they never developed the tight friendship as some of the other crew had. Tali had to admit that she did not even contact Garrus as much as she should have even though she considered Garrus one of her closest friends.

"Hello Liara, are you well?"

She smiled and was glad that Liara could actually see it. She only wore her hood and the protective faceplate when she went outside, to shield herself from the harsh sunlight on Rannoch. Inside of her small, portable home, she kept it off. It had taken almost a year for the immunoboosters to work and she still sometimes panicked when her fingers touched her skin and grieves on her face.

Her room was dark, the only light coming from the terminal and the starlight that filtered through the windows. She had taken off her hooded coat and the bioluminescent lines on the sides of her face and down her neck shone brightly. Their nervous pulse gave the walls a slightly purple tinge. Tali took a breath, she wasn't even sure why she was so nervous. Even though she just wanted to ask Liara a simple favor, she still felt like this would be a turning point for her. Liara looked back at her, waiting patiently in that serene asari way that had driven Shepard crazy all the time.

"I am quite well, thank you," she said with a smile, looking incredibly beautiful. "Now, what can I do for you?"

"I have found something, here, on Rannoch, underground."

"Have you turned to archeology?" Liara asked with wide eyes.

"I may have, a little," Tali's lines began to pulse in bright luminescence again. She felt quite embarrassed to talk to Liara, who had been an archeologist for a hundred years, about this silly hobby of hers. "I have scanned an area on Rannoch that showed traces of early settlements. When I extended the scans into the ground, I found even more."

"I didn't know you were interested in archeology," Liara said with a surprised smile. "Do you want to investigate that site?"

"Yes, I do but..." Tali's hand went to the top of her head, where her hair had grown quite a lot from the stubble it had been under the hood for so many years. Even though she knew it was there and could touch it, it was still an incredible sensation. "I'm not an archaeologist or a historian. In fact, no quarian is. We have no historians, hardly any documents about our past. We never cared about history, about the past. Quarians move forward, we don't look back."

Liara took a sharp breath as she shook her head. "So much knowledge lost!"

"So of course, we also don't have any archeologists," Tali said. "We know how to scan and collect data but we don't know what to make of it."

"I see," Liara nodded, "So you need a team of experts in excavation and in historical interpretations." Her concentration shifted to a side terminal where she typed in various commands.

Tali nodded, "I thought I'd ask you because you are the only archaeologist I know."

The asari turned back to the screen with a warm smile.

"I will gladly help you Tali. I probably won't be able to come and dig myself, although I sometimes long for that..." she trailed off, looking a bit sad for a second but quickly shook it off. "But I know of a team of experts that would love to work on that. There is not much demand for archeologists at the moment, with all the rebuilding going on." She returned to typing.

"I can't pay them much, in fact, my funds are very limited. The university has only been open for half a year and the history branch is brand new. I don't get a lot of funding."

"'I'?" Liara looked up with amusement playing on her lips, "Did I hear that correctly, you are the head of the history department at the University of Rannoch?"

"The Shepard's University of Lekon on Rannoch," Tali sighed. "Yes, I am." She twitched as her fingers touched the skin on her face, covering up the embarrassing light pulses. "Shepard once told me that the humans have a saying: 'Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it'. I felt like it was time to look at our history, to learn from that so I spoke to the head of the university about it. Ten minutes later, I was the head of the department. I got an asari matriarch for galactic history..."

"Matriarch Telvisia. I had wondered why she moved to Rannoch," Liara murmured and Tali decided not to wonder how much Liara knew about everybody.

"Yes, she is teaching several classes. I even got Samara to agree to come in and give a few guest lectures."

Liara looked very impressed. "Oh, I might even visit to hear that lecture, if I can and the head of the history department would allow me to do so."

Tali laughed for the first time in days. She had been under so much stress lately that she had neglected to stay in touch with friends. "Of course, Liara, you can visit the... my department anytime. Maybe you could also visit the dig site, for old times sake?"

"Yes..." Liara stared off into the distance, a wistful smile on her lips. "Yes, I might do that. It would probably do me well, to touch dirt again." Her eyes focused again and she smiled at Tali. "I also forwarded you the names and contacts of a few teachers and teaching experts that might be beneficial for your department." Her omni-tool pinged and she brought up the message, "Ah yes, Dr. Deltreva and her team have agreed to help you in your excavation, quite enthusiastically so."

"But I can't pay them..."

"Don't worry about it. I have set up a sponsorship for the project and I promise you that it will be funded," Liara said ominously, sounding like what one would imagine the fearsome Shadow Broker to be. Then, she smiled at Tali and as quickly as it had come, the fearsome persona dissipated. "So what has you so excited about that site? If you can tell me..."

Tali grinned, "As if you wouldn't find out anyway."

Liara smiled even more.

"I found underground structures, " Tali said, "artificial structures. There used to be caves under the mountains of Gelldre Kah, but they collapsed about a thousand years ago, according to my readings. But my scans found an area that is still intact and it's filled with structures. It looks like buildings on stilts, connected by a web of bridges."

Liara looked very thoughtful. "My father told me of stories about the quarians and that they used to live underground. I never believed her, there are no documents about it anywhere. But I also never believed her when she said that quarians have hair. Now look at you and your beautiful hair!"

"Thank you." Tali felt her skin warm and the walls reflected her bright luminescence with purple pulses. Her hand went to the short, dark waves. After having been regulated for most of her life, her hair was still very slow in its growing.

"It really looks lovely, Tali and I love to be able to see your face. Do you not need the hooded mask anymore?"

Tali picked up the modified faceplate and showed it to Liara.

"Only to protect me from the sunlight. See? It's not sealed anymore. We have a filter here for dust but that's just out of convenience. We still get quite a lot of sandstorms in this area. But we don't filter the local bacteria anymore, training our immune system. I still filter most pollen. I have an allergic reaction against them which is quite common actually."

"Yes, I heard about that. Are you being treated for that?" Liara stopped typing, giving Tali her full attention. Suddenly, Tali realized that she had not felt so content and relaxed in a long time. She should put 'talking to a friend' on her to-do list regularly.

"Yes, we use a human procedure called desensitizing. By introducing the allergens slowly in a modified form, our immune system can get used to them and adapt. It has been quite successful for most quarians. It seems to take a bit longer for me." Tali put the facemask to the side. "My doctor tells me it's because of the stress."

"Doctors always say that," Liara said with a weary smile. "But you do look a bit stressed."

"I guess, heading a history department with no knowledge of history and archeology is a bit stressful. I'm a tech-geek! I'm useless in this!"

"You are not useless, Tali, you have accomplished a lot already," Liara said reassuringly. "I... would you like me to visit you? I don't want to add to your stress but maybe..." suddenly Liara looked like the inexperienced young asari from the old days again. Back when she wandered around the Normandy wide-eyed, intimidated by Shepard and everybody else on board. "... we know each other well... and I love talking about archeology... so I thought..."

"We are friends, Liara! I would love for you to come here and tell me about archeology," Tali replied with a smile realizing that she really looked forward to meeting Liara again. She had made new friends on Rannoch and every quarian knew her. Though none of that could compare to the Normandy-bond; the years of working and fighting, celebrating and grieving at each other's side.

"Welcome to Lekon Spaceport on Rannoch," the announcement over the comm woke Liara from a deep sleep. She must have been more tired than she had thought. Around her, the curtains were being drawn back by a perky, young asari flight attendant.

"We have arrived, Dr. T'Soni. Can I help you with your things?"

The young asari smiled at her with all the excitement of the young and inexperienced. Liara automatically analyzed her aura to see how she really felt. Like all asari, she could see a person's emotions reflected in colors if she concentrated on it. This young woman looked genuinely happy, her aura shining brightly around her. Those auras had become rare in the last few years. The darkness of the Reaper War and it's losses weighed heavily on everyone's soul. This young asari either repressed those dark times or decided to ignore them. Liara suddenly felt very old, more than her true years weighing on her in memories and experiences.

Sunlight filtered brightly, white and purple through the windows of the shuttle. Maybe catching a bit of sunlight would do her good, chasing the dark shadows from her mind.

"Thank you, I think I can manage."

She grabbed her small bag and shoved the datapad she had been trying to read into it. Stepping out of the shuttlecraft, she pulled the hood over her head and adjusted the dark screen in front of her eyes. Rannoch's sun was harsh, even to the tough skin of an asari and it was recommended to shield the eyes from it. The quarians still wore protective suits and masks against it, despite their immune systems having adapted quite successfully.

With her visor darkened, Liara stepped out of the shuttle. The hot, dry air of Rannoch sliced her like a knife to her lungs. The filtered and moistened air of her ship had spoiled her and the winds of Rannoch reminded her of that. She coughed lightly. The flight attendant handed her a moist cloth to hold in front of her face. It had two clasps to fix it to the hood and Liara saw many other visitors and quarians walking around with moist cloths hanging from their hoods. There must be a technological solution to this available, especially for quarians that still wore a variation of the enviro suits with the masks. But it seemed to have become a fashionable accessory as Liara noticed the different colors and fabrics worn all around her.

Rannoch was still rebuilding, not only from the Reaper war but also from the decades of geth occupation. The spaceport was plain with a few buildings scattered around it connected by silvery sunsails. Liara quickly stepped under one such sail, to get out of the direct sunlight. Her bags were delivered to her on a hovering transport box. She easily spotted Tali in the crowd. She still wore a purple suit with the familiar pattern of white swirls decorating the fabric. She also still wore the familiar face mask, not the moist cloth like almost everybody else. Her hood did not sit as tight as before, as the rest of her clothes looked more like a loose dress and less like an enviro suit.

"Liara!" Tali called out and waved at her.

Liara felt relief untensing her shoulders and she realized how much she had missed the simplicity of friendship. She wasn't lonely. She was hardly ever alone but being with your bondmate was something entirely different than being with a friend. She walked up to Tali, hugging her tighter than she usually did.

"Tali, it's so nice to see you."

She released her, Tali's aura shifting through different colors, showing her nervousness. They strolled over to the side of the path, staying under the sunsail. It was getting closer to evening and the sunlight was beginning to fade but it was still bright enough to keep the visors darkened. Tali let them over to a skycar, it's windows and roof darkened. Pleasantly cool air touched her face when Tali opened the door for her to throw her bags in and climb in.

Tali drove out of the city, pointing to buildings and institutions along the way. Lekon was growing fast, it was the largest city on Rannoch. It still looked a bit ramshackled with prefab buildings stacked on top of each other and the sunsails fluttering between them. There was construction everywhere, buildings rising up with a more quarian aesthetic and the main roads had solid sunroofs. In the long run, the whole city would one day be covered with these, Tali explained.

They left the city behind them, passing fewer and fewer buildings on the side of the road. Tali had gotten very quiet. She had taken off her mask and Liara could see the lines and greaves on her face and neck glimmering with her luminescence. It was incredibly beautiful. Liara had always thought that Tali was beautiful, even before she had ever seen her face. Her body language, defiant stance and beautiful voice combined with the colors of her aura, had always made her beautiful.

Around them the last buildings shrunk into the background, the desert stretching around them towards the horizon. In front of them, a mountain range rose up with a sudden rise, jagged cliffs with deep valleys in between. Tali steered the skycar to a lonely prefab container at the edge of a roped off dig site, right at the foot of a smaller mountain range.

Liara tried taking off the visor that was still shielding her eyes but obviously Tali's eyes were better adjusted to the bright light on Rannoch. The sunlight had become dimmer and Liara could at least set her visor to a lighter setting, finally seeing the desert sand in the light of the setting sun with it's pink shade.

She had read that a lot of people considered this part of the day the most beautiful on Rannoch. In fact, most quarians slept during the hours that the sun was at it's highest to avoid the harsh rays and used the evening through the night until sunrise for work and leisure. Quarian cities were lit with blue and purple lights all through the night. Energy was not a scarce resource from collecting the sun's energy through photovoltaics during the day.

Tali opened the door to the prefab building and Liara got a glimpse of a sparsely furnished room with a large desk, bed, couch and small table with two chairs. Every single piece of furniture was covered with datapads, boxes with rocks and sand and unusual pieces of thick, paper-like fabric. The room would have looked ugly and uncomfortable were it not for the pictures and curtains on the walls, showing beautiful quarian art. Tali took Liara's bags and placed them just inside the door and ushered her out again towards the dig site.

"I want to show you something first while the sun is still up," Tali said.

The dig site looked shallow from the outside but as they got closer, Liara could see that it was actually a rather deep and narrow hole that turned into a tunnel at the bottom. She felt her perspective change as she looked around, her old training as an archeologist taking over. She noticed the different layers of soil that the dig went through. The topsoil had the familiar pinkish color that repeated a few times on the way down in different layers. Close to the bottom of the pit, blue and green layers appeared. Liara also saw layers that looked rougher, promising debris of some kind in them. She itched to go down there with tools and a brush; unearthing artifacts of forgotten civilisations again. It had been such a long time that she had felt dirt on her skin.

"You see it, right?" Tali asked quietly.

"You mean the traces of debris in those deep layers? Yes, I do. I'm also intrigued by the blueish color down there." Liara switched on the enhancement on her visor to get a better look.

Tali nodded. "I had the soil examined at our brandnew biochemistry department. The blue and green stems from vegetation that had been covered by a landslide over 900 years ago. They said that the vegetation is very different from the vegetation we know on the surface now. The cells looked to be extremely efficient in converting sunlight. They would have burned up here."

"So these plants may have lived underground?"

"Yes, that's the theory. But," Tali covertly lowered her voice, "we also found traces of people."

"Quarians?" Liara almost held her breath. There was so little known about the history of the quarians.

"Well..." Tali hesitated because she knew that the findings were not quite solid. She couldn't just jump to conclusions. "We don't have anything to compare our readings to. We're just starting in finding traces of our past... but I think that those are from quarians." She stood straighter, conviction in her voice, "I believe, it's quarians that lived underground, more than a thousand years ago."

Liara felt a shiver run up her back. Very little was known about the ancient quarians. There was proof that they had once lived on the surface, moving on all fours. Those ancient quarians had been essential for Rannoch to develop an eco-system. The lack of flying insects made the spreading of seeds dependent on wildlife and quarian ancestors. However, there was a gap in the history, hundreds of years with no historic documentation, nothing on how the quarians lived in those days. The theory that their ancestors used to live underground had been rejected by many quarians, not wanting to be connected to cave dwelling lizards.

Liara slowly breathed out and placed a hand on Tali's shoulder.

"By the goddess, that would be an incredible find. A quarian civilization underground, that would cause a huge commotion, correct?"

Tali nodded. "Yes, that theory is hated among many. We don't like thinking about our history anyway, we look forward, not back. Living underground - like lizards - quarians don't like to think of themselves that way."

"Maybe it is time for the quarians to learn about their history," Liara said thoughtfully. "Who knows how many things are hidden in your history, how much wisdom you could gain? The quarians need to know themselves."

Tali let out a long sigh, her shoulders falling forward. "Well, I am the head of the new history department on our university, so who else but me? Not that I really know how to convince people to listen to me."

Liara let out a chuckle, "Tali, I have seen you stand up to admirals, I know you will be fine!"

Tali smiled at her, her luminescence shining beautifully in the lines on her face. "I hope you are right, Liara, I'm going to cling to that thought."

Liara looked back into the cave, the sunlight had sunk so low now, that the bottom of the pit was in darkness.

"So these structures you told me about..."

"We have not reached them yet. Dr. Deltreva and her team started this dig two weeks ago and they are constructing a tunnel to the cavity my scanners showed inside the mountain. We stopped to preserve the traces of plant life, the remains of pottery and some metal alloys. It will take weeks, months to analyze all of it but Dr. Deltreva wants to continue digging the tunnel tomorrow. She estimates two more days until they reach the structures."

"I'm looking forward to seeing them," Liara said. "So what do you have planned for tonight?"

Tali pulsed nervously. "I'm not a very good host, I'm sorry. I didn't even prepare... the couch converts to a bed and I have levo-food and drinks but if you would rather stay in a hotel in Lekon..."

Liara tilted her head to the side, using some quarian body language to calm Tali down.

"I would love to stay here with you, Tali, I don't need a lot of luxury except for my tea."

"Tea?" Tali stared at her in utter panic and Liara laughed out loud.

"I brought my tea with me, don't worry. It will be fine, let's go inside, make some food and talk about the old times and the new."

Tali's lines dimmed down in relief and she led her into the prefab building. She cleaned the table and made a half-hearted attempt at cleaning her desk until Liara stopped her. The rest of the evening was spent reminiscing about their time on the Normandy and about Liara's old archeological research.

This is just the intro, a bit of Tali and Liara. In later chapters, we will travel into the past and meet the ancient quarians.

I'm making this all up, headcanons, hurray! My idea is that the quarians used to live underground, in caves, about 1000 years before the events of the games. I imagine them as having bioluminescence and having lines on their bodies that light up and using those lights as part of their communication. That's why their eyes glow, you see?

I hope you will like my ideas.

Biggest thanks go to illusionsfire76 for editing this story.