Digressions on Shepard
This is the second in my series of digressions. Each ficlet begins with the same sentence. This one is 'Shepard was lost.' Thanks to Ozey, over at Archive of our Own for suggesting the opening line.
Building
Shepard was lost. The instructions simply made no sense. The fact that a varren had run off with two of the wooden struts for the cabinet he was building wasn't helping. And Grunt's overzealous enthusiasm for hammering in the nails was giving the cabinet a dented, lopsided feel… but on the other hand, that meant it would fit right in with the rest of the décor on Tuchunka.
He looked at the instructions again, then back at the board that formed the top of the cabinet. There was supposed to be a notch in the wood that simply wasn't there. And if the notch wasn't there, then the supporting walls wouldn't hold the shelves steady.
"Problem, Shepard?" Grunt asked. He'd already deferred to Shepard's superior judgment in building the thing – krogan were much better at demolishing things than building them, he'd said with pride.
"Just working out what comes next," Shepard hedged, not willing to admit defeat yet.
Just then, the varren returned, dropping a strut at his feet, now sporting jagged teeth marks and moist with drool. "Thank you, Scratch," Shepard said politely, and the varren wagged its tail.
"Still working on that thing?" Kaidan asked amiably, wandering past with Garrus, a pyjack carcass hanging from each of their hands. "How hard can it be?"
Shepard flung the instructions at him in frustration. "If it's so damn easy, you tell me how it fits together."
Kaidan peered at the instructions, stared at the half-build cabinet, and then looked back at the instructions. Then he turned the paper upside down, and handed it back to Shepard. "Try it that way," he said with a smirk.