#shareyourshep

[lonesurvivorao3]

Eris Shepard Snippets: 16 / Basic Training

Early in her career, she learned that people often tended not to take her seriously. As an Earthborn stray, she learned fast that making an impression required a measure of arrogance and the willingness to go a little too far.

“There used to be minimum requirements to join the Alliance,” murmured Jackson, his blue eyes sweeping over the skinny girl wandering down the transport shuttle.

Still exhausted from the events in Vancouver, she ignored the sniggering and walked to the back. Speaking louder now, he gestured with his thumb. “Short stack over there. It won’t be long before we find out what else those natural genes failed to do correctly.”

“Please save me the exertion by slamming your head into the nearest brick wall at your earliest convenience,” she sighed, tip-toeing to shove her rucksack on the storage rail above.

The stacked Spacer unsnapped his harness and rose with a snarl, barreling towards the mouthy Grubber; he didn’t see the delighted sneer flash across her face or the hat pin she thumbed at the edge of her jacket sleeve.

Off to her left, the lanky, long-haired nineteen-year-old Deschain noted Anderson’s voice, along with a few others, drawing nearer to the ramp into the transport shuttle.

[lonesurvivorao3]

Dossier: Eris Shepard #1

Earthborn bastard of Admiral Hackett, who is not a nice man. In 2175, he discovers her relationship with Kaidan.

Eris knew Hackett was old money, but seeing it firsthand was something else. After the brute of a Turian took his talon from the bundle of nerves at her elbow, she looked around. Shaking off the pain, her rapt attention on his extensive collection of books was only partly feigned.

“I believe congratulations are in order on your recent completion of the N7 trials.”

She arched an eyebrow. The butler offered her a cigarette, and she took it, allowing him to light it. She met her father’s unrelenting stare and asked. “Do you bring all your bastards to their ancestral home?”

Hackett settled further into his chair, unperturbed. “You’re not some sentimental spacer or colonist; you don’t dither over moral quandaries; you see what needs to be done and do it.”

After a long pull on the cigarette, Eris shrugged.

“The things you have achieved so far are remarkable. I would like to see you continue on this trajectory.”

Neither broke eye contact as she mulled over his calculated, flattering remarks; she flicked cigarette ash onto the parquet floor and threw him her own shark shit grin. “Spare me, and get to the fucking point.”

Most of their Black Ops were orphans, their solitary and untethered status making them ideal candidates. They were fearless, having long abandoned any sense of virtue or morality. Their deaths, often gruesome, elicited no public outcry.

The recent news of her fraternisation - that stretched back two damn years - was a problem Hackett needed to fix. “When a rising star in my ranks breaks their usual patterns, I must ascertain why.”

He knows. Eris laughed, evading rather than admitting. “So I like to blow steam off with a familiar face, what of it?” They were no longer, and likely never would be, in the same chain of command again.

He told her she was lucky it had gone undetected for so long, watching her hand tremble a little as she reached for the glass of bourbon, a clear sign of her stupid temper rising. Good. Hackett leaned forward. “Pay attention, Shepard.”

[lonesurvivorao3]

Eris Shepard Quotes

Snippets and one liners from Pandoras Box.

“A lie is of no use unless someone trusts you enough to believe it.”

Having defeated a second Reaper, this time on Rannoch, Eris had no trouble confronting the finger in her face steadily. “Your accusations are demonstrably false.”

“She who hesitates is usually fucked.”

“Can’t be all temper and no timing when there are children are crying,” she said again, as if that were explanation enough.

“I’ve never had any respect for bureaucrats.”

Despite knowing she’d acted beyond all logical reason, she barked at Garrus. “You don’t have to agree with me; it’s called the chain of command, and I’m at the very top.“

“Did I seem to give a fuck about that?”

After a few minutes, Eris placed a bookmark then put it on top of the pile. Her hand raked through her hair, effortlessly parting the waist-length ringlets. “By way of an introductory remark, you should know I am extremely miffed about your intrusion into my life and book.”

“You’ve read the stories. You know who I am. Nobody has ever stopped me.”

When asked what happened in the tower with Mordin, she sucked in a breath facetiously and said, “I did the math and found the reproductive rate unsustainable.”

“I watched Fleet and Flotilla with Tali. Let us never speak of it.”

She wept uncontrollably, all of her despair and every ounce of bitterness leaking out. “How many hours I have spent staring up at the sky wondering if there were other choices I could have made, some other path I should have taken.” 

“Lies! You’d fuck this moment if you could.”

Eris asked where the bathroom was and shut the door behind her; she leaned against it, her eyes rolling rapidly under her eyelids. “Don’t make me see it; I don’t want to see it.”

“The best way to pull people together is to give them a mission in which the stakes are so high that the odds don’t matter.”

“I’d wager they did not have subordinates incessantly asking questions and hindering the progress of the task at hand,” grunted Eris, side-eyeing Vega in a way Kaidan hadn’t seen since the days of the SR1 and Williams.

“Faulty logic postulated on imperfect data collection!” 

Lowering himself to a crouch in front of her, Kaidan opened the case and placed a cigarette between her split lip, lighting it with practiced ease. After taking a couple of long drags, she flicked the ash and gestured outside. “There’s a terrible confusion amongst the stars.”

“Do not interrupt me, ever.”

“Well, as they say,” she said, helpless to stop the prick in a suit doing whatever he wanted but determined not to show an ounce of fear nor answer anything he might ask. Besides, what could he inflict upon her that hadn’t already been done at one time or another? “Duh.”

“Rather less than bloody optimal, no?”

“Doilies?” she questioned, striding across the room and waving one underneath Anderson’s nose. “What sort of monster have you become since I last saw you?”

“Are you pulling rank on me, Major?”

But it wasn’t enough to help her find her bearings, stop the furious, frightened tears or make her refrain from asking for the impossible. “I don’t want to. Please take me home. Please.”

“Everyone looking to me as if I know what I’m doing. I can’t afford the cost of a conscience.”

“The volume of your voice and the validity of your arguments always exist in inverse proportion,” sighed Eris, succumbing to the exhaustion that continued to wrack her body. She collapsed onto the bed, still fully clothed.

“The time for careful consideration has long since passed!”

“Forgive my foolishness,” she said, wiping her cheek with the back of her thumb. “I know it’s not possible; I know what I am. A wretched thing, monstrous, barely human.”