If there's one thing Shepard hates, it's starvation. As a child, her entire world had revolved around hunger; how long you could withstand it, how many days you could last without food, how you could acquire it. Nothing mattered more than the next meal, if not for yourself, then for someone else. Getting her biotics hadn't changed that: if anything, it had made the point that much sharper.

Her time in the cave had been— it had changed things.

So when she visits the Horizon she doesn't sequester herself in Normandy, anymore. It's almost painful, somehow, to sit in Starboard observation and try to pretend it's real. Her mind keeps going back to hunger-pangs, thinning wrists, filthy hair. Cuts that don't heal. Shepard simply walks, most evenings, and tonight she wanders into Istredd's library almost without purpose— but then she sees the pets.

"...Hey, there," She says to the nearest bird, gently easing herself towards it, trying to entice it to touch her hand, "What's your name, big guy?"

She likes pets, you see. Ironic for a spacer, but there you have it. When Istredd sees her he will surely recognize her— she startles and turns, visibly embarrassed.

"I, uh... Nice pets."

Nailed it.