Invocation of the Name
Being called Shepard never bothered her. The surname was as much her name as her first. “Shepard” was familial in only the most formal sense– an earth born orphan, she never knew the man it came from or the woman who took it.
She’d seen the formal documents to confirm they’d indeed been married at the time she was born. Those files had been all the connection they’d ever had, a handful of formal headshots, vague profiles of their lives: birth records, education history, notable jobs– of which there were few, her birth, and the footnote of their deaths, her mother’s first and later her father’s. No extended family to claim or be claimed by, no memories of kind hands or soft words, no history to tell. She hadn’t even seen the files until she was nearly 20 years old, pulled up by the Alliance Navy office as she completed her recruitment forms. Long after the years that she’d spent wondering what they would have been like, long after she’d given up hope of anyone coming back for her. Family connotations didn’t really follow when you didn’t have a family.
Her answer to the address had never and would never be, “Not Shepard sir, that would be my father.”
No, Shepard was all hers.
And after all, wasn’t that what she was? A shepherd? The leader of her broken, dangerous flock? A protector of innocents? The guide of an entire universe in the face of something far worse than wolves among sheep?
Unbidden, she had become one. She never asked for the name or the responsibility.
Once upon a time, she had answered to Alida. When she was a little girl in a state sanctioned orphanage, another hungry, unwanted mouth. Alida had been just another moniker– girl, child, brat, Alida. Used to direct her to tasks and scold her for errant behavior. And of that there had been plenty. It was like she had been born lost and angry, a curse on the angry universe that welcomed her.
So when that moniker turned into a slur, echoed from the mouths of predators, jabbed at her by rivals, and wielded like a leash by those she fell in line with, it never felt soiled. Alida had never been clean to begin with.
Recruit. That had been a welcome change. A new type of anonymity, one more intentional than that which came from being just another mouth to feed, another body in a bed. Some hated the lack of individuality that came with military service. Some fought it, but she’d welcomed it. Insisted on who they’d been and where they’d come from. She’d gone looking for it. When enlisting meant being faced with what little history existed for her, she took comfort in releasing it. Being no one wasn’t new to her, it was comfortingly familiar. Whether the moment Alida stopped existing was just an erasure of a name, or of a heartbeat, hadn’t quite mattered when she’d first signed on.
Eventually, Recruit had blended into Soldier, into Cadet, into Commander. Into Spectre. With each graduation, came more responsibility, more lives hanging on each action, every minute choice. With each graduation, came less anonymity. More people began looking to her with expectations. Expectations of just who she would be, just who this Shepard was, just whose face it was they saw on the posters and in the news reports.
She could identify the gradual slide to forced personhood that occurred over the years. There were moments, flashpoints of recognition. Her initial live assignment, where, for the first time she was worried about more than just her own survival. Meeting Anderson, who saw something more than one more Earth brat itching for a fight. Akuze, of course Akuze, amid the death and desperate loneliness. Each successive N rank, where “Shepard” started to overtake “Soldier”. That first shocking time, watching the footage of Eden Prime, moments after being told she’d been suggested for SPECTRE consideration. Realizing the vastness of what lay before her, before them all. Anderson granting her the Normandy and all his trust and belief along with it.
It was the internal change that she couldn’t date. When had taking on every new responsibility become just as much a driving force as living out of spite had once been? When did running from Alida become running towards Shepard?
She thought it was lost somewhere in all the hands she’d shaken. Every fearful and thankful face that had been turned upon her. She thought it might be in Anderson’s faith, and in the loyalty of the souls that roamed the Normandy, despite their team’s ragtag nature and the insurmountable task that had been dropped upon them.
She thought maybe it was in the way they all said it.
Shepard.
Like she could protect them. Like she could lead them. Like it was an invocation.
Shepard would do just fine.
