Sha'ira: the asari Consort of the Citadel and her gift of words

Sha'ira, known across the Citadel simply as the Consort, was an asari whose clients included some of the most powerful people on the station. She offered company, entertainment and conversation, and her own description of the work put the emphasis elsewhere: advice to some, comfort to others. Getting in front of her could take months and cost half a year's wages, and the queue never got shorter.

Who is the Consort in Mass Effect?#

Sha'ira is the asari known as the Consort, an influential figure on the Citadel who sold advice, company and discretion to famous and powerful clients from her chambers on the Presidium.

The chambers themselves ran on a simple layout. Nelyna met arrivals at the entrance, which turned a corner into a lounge where the acolytes attended to clients Sha'ira had no time for, and a staircase at the back led up to her private rooms. The acolytes were mostly asari, though a human had joined them recently.

Her reputation is the thing that spread furthest. People in the Embassies discussed her constantly, and she was famous enough that describing her as an oracle felt reasonable to Commander Shepard on first hearing about her. Nelyna's correction is the more useful description: a woman with rare compassion and a generous spirit.

Septimus#

Sha'ira's problem when Shepard reaches the Citadel is a friend and client named Septimus, who has been spreading lies about her, and she asks the Commander to go and talk to him. If Shepard is travelling with a romantic interest who is present for the conversation, that person is openly suspicious of what Sha'ira wants the Commander for and asks her to explain herself.

Where it goes from there is up to the player. Telling Xeltan, the elcor diplomat, that Septimus was the one leaking his secrets earns Shepard a strange trinket from Sha'ira, which turns out to open up the secrets of a Prothean ruin on Eletania.

She calls the trinket a gift of words, and if Shepard reacts to that with disdain, she goes to bed with the Commander before handing it over anyway.

A gift of words, two years later#

If Shepard spoke to Septimus on her behalf in 2183, Sha'ira writes in 2185. Her contacts have told her Shepard is alive, which she is glad of, having assumed her gift of words had been badly aimed and found the idea embarrassing.

The message is a warning as much as a greeting. She senses Shepard heading into something darker than before. Against Saren only the Commander's resolve was tested. This time, she writes, Shepard cannot rely on personal strength alone, and should take whatever steps are needed to make sure the people fighting alongside the Commander do it with clear minds and glad hearts.

Aboard the Normandy in the same period, one of the crew has an appointment with her booked three months out and is visibly pleased about it. Another crewman calls her a prostitute, and the first objects strongly to the word.

Leaving and coming back#

A news report in 2185 suggests Sha'ira may be leaving the Citadel after years of bad press and rumours of intelligence leaks. She did.

Shepard can find her again on the floor of the Silver Coast Casino during the Citadel events, among the guests, and she confirms the story. She retired to a small colony in the Silean Nebula and came back once the Reaper invasion began, on the grounds that one does not run from the heart of the galaxy in desperate times, and certainly not on account of some scoundrel with a video camera.

Keep going back to talk to her and she is flattered by it. She will explain how a person becomes a consort if Shepard asks, though she keeps it short, because she has a potential client waiting and excuses herself.

The name and the model#

"Sha'ira" comes from an Arabic word meaning poetess, which is the neatest explanation of the gift of words she offers Shepard for helping her with Septimus and Xeltan.

The role she occupies has an older parallel. Giving pleasure to mind and body alike, turning away even very influential people, wielding real influence and attracting scandal in equal measure all line up with the hetaera of ancient Greece, and her name may point at one of them, Neaira.

Two footnotes from the games themselves. Unused news audio in the original release of Mass Effect 2 had Sha'ira predicting which species would join the Council very soon, and the Legendary Edition restored the report. And in the first game's internal data she is referred to at one point as "Isauria". Gwendoline Yeo, who voices her, also voiced Shiala.