keplercryptids:

Before he was reduced to one name, the gnome called Davenport had seven.

“Davenport” was, of course, his clan name. He was never called Davenport back home, for the simple reason that there were a hundred Davenport gnomes in his village.

A gnome’s names are their currency, the story of a well-lived life. Davenport’s grandfather had twelve, all given to him by important people or loved ones, all used interchangeably. Earning names was more important to the Davenport clan than earning gold, property or titles.

“Druby” was the name his mother gave him at birth: a simple gnomish name that meant springtime rain. His siblings and cousins called him Dru, with an affection that never failed to make him smile. 

Before the age of ten, his father named him “Orryn” after his famous, many-named grandfather. “You come from a long line of good, strong gnomes,” he told Davenport. “Good, strong fathers. Remember that for when you have your own children.”

When he came of age, the clan elder named him Camma, the gnomish word for stone. “Your head is always in the sky, Druby Orryn Camma Davenport,” the elder said during his naming ceremony. “You need to come back down to earth. I hope this name will refocus you.”

Davenport’s friends collectively called him “Scrapton,” because it was an effortless gnomish name that suited him. And when Davenport left home to find his own way in the universe, his mother gave him yet another name: Lumin, a word that meant starlight. “I know you’ll find your way,” she told him, tears in her eyes. “Just don’t go too far away as you do. Think of us now and again.”

When Davenport made the decision to leave his clan and join the Institute, to embark on an adventure hardly imaginable, he also made the decision to shorten his name. Most other races had one or two names, and that was all. He wanted to fit in. He wanted a seamless transition to the real world.

But despite leaving, he couldn’t bear to give up his clan completely. So he decided to go by Davenport. It was his oldest name, his longest name. The name he was proudest to carry.

He introduced himself to his crew as Captain Davenport, and nobody blinked. Over their century together, his new family developed nicknames for him. They called him Dav, they called him Captain, they called him Cap’n’port, and it felt a bit like home. Like returning to who he truly was: a many-named gnome. A gnome with a well-lived life, a gnome with stories to tell.

He only told his names to one person that century: Merle. He listed them off like secrets one night, forty cycles into the mission. He wasn’t sure why that night, of all nights, he decided to share who he truly was. But Merle smiled and listened and it felt right, all the same.

When everything else was taken, the name remained.

He said “Davenport,” and the echo of a hundred gnomes answered inside him. He didn’t know what else to say.

He said “Davenport” and he saw flashes of an uncle, a grandmother, a second cousin twice removed. Their names were lost to him now. The clan as a conglomerate was all that remained. Roots, holding him down to nothing. Chaining him to a single name that echoed, and echoed, and echoed inside him. 

He said “Davenport” because that’s who he had chosen to be. A one-named gnome, aboard a ship, bathed in starlight. On an adventure to nowhere, following a map he could not read.

The first thing he remembered, when the voidfish’s ichor slid down his throat, were his names. They hit him like hailstones, reverberating around his mind. Druby Dru Orryn Camma Scrapton Lumin Davenport. It was all he could do to keep from screaming them aloud. Reclaiming them once and for all.

He turned to Lucretia and asked, “What have you done?” And what he meant was: what have you done with my names? How had she hidden them, when she hadn’t even known they existed? Where had she put them?

Looking into her eyes in that moment, he knew: she didn’t understand. With all her books and observations and plans, there was still so much Lucretia couldn’t understand. He closed his eyes, listening to the approaching storm. Listening to his names, echoing; names he had only spoken aloud once in a hundred years. Then he opened his eyes, and he spoke. His voice, returned. His mind, back on the mission. His head, back in the sky.

“Where’s the ship, Lucretia?”