[Rannoch, Southern Contiental Agricultural Fair] Small, Hard and Sweet [Open]

The population of the outpost-colonial pre-fabs arranged around the shells of a half-dozen grounded ships-had more than quadrupled with the fall harvest, as farmers brought their crops in for processing and captains came in to debate how rations would be distributed (and of course, to argue for their own).

Hansa had ridden more than four hours in the back of an automated (she was not precisely sure how much the Geth resided within, vs controlling the van directly) vehicle, and another three arguing with a nutripaste manufacturer about every quality of her fruit (size, shelf life, sugar content) except taste.

With that done, she tucked her samples back into her bag-embroidered with their logo and Broken Ground Botanicals and began wandering the stalls.

Of course, you are old enough to be going the on your own now, dear! I can't leave the experiments right now and this will be fun, you need to get out of Kassali more often. Here's the ticket....

Ru’yah still heard her dad's voice ringing in her ears when she entered the arrangement of booths that made up the agricultural fair. She wore her usual yellow robes over her suit but also a matching sash over her shoulder and across her chest with many deep and stable pockets for whatever she would find. Dad had given her a list of what to look for but now that she was here she also wanted to find something on her own. If nothing else then to show her dad that she could do stuff like this alone.

After a while she had already purchased a couple of things. Seeds, pastes and a set of nifty gardening tools which jutted a bit from the lowest pocket of her sash. Now she was just wandering and browsing... Something colorful, something with a blossom she needed.

Her eyes found a bag with a very colorful and delicious looking logo. She knew that name... Maybe from some advertising in one of the feeds her dad had subscribed to?

She came to a halt next to the quarian carrying that bag.
"Oh hello there... uh, excuse me but would you happen to know where I can find Broken Ground Botanicals around here? I would like to have a look at what they have."

"We're an outlying property, so we're in a booth just down that way, around the corner. Would you like me to walk you over?"

"I'm actually the owner, Hansa'Tel Nar Devlon." Hansa wore a suit, but it was easy to see that she was taller than average, and built relatively straight up and down. The one daring piece of her ensemble was a clear mask-she was a touch too old to be a Nar, especially if she was owned extensive property. "Is there anything you'd like to know?"

Ru’yah was quite surprised for a moment!
“Oh, great! I am Ru’yah nar Ivass, happy to meet you, Hansa’tel!”

Wait a second, wasn’t this woman too old to be a nar? But since the end of the flotilla, there suddenly was no simple common rule about names anymore. Some went with vas Rannoch or Kassali but some didn’t. In her case it was very easy though, since she just never had even started the pilgrimage so she stayed with her nar name.

“That would be really nice, yes, sure, let’s walk if I am not keeping you from anything. I am from Kassali, I am studying at the botanical institute. Well, more helping my dad technically. Anyway, I would like to pick up some fruits to bring home. Once in a while we make or own pastes, mostly when dad gets surplus examples from the institute. Yours must be much more exotic. I am looking for something that has intense coloring and intense taste.”

"Nothing important." She gestured for the girl to follow.
"It's great to see more people studying botany, and being able to study it here. I had to go to the Citadel to get my education."

"I don't breed for colour, but I promise you that everything we have on display tastes good." She led the younger girl to a stall packed to the gills with produce, not all of it instantly recognizable. Hansa leaned over the desk, waving down the woman at the till "Hey Saes, anything to report?"

"Tomaz hasn't called, if that's what you mean."

“I have never been to the Citadel," she said with a sad expression. “I am too young.” It was a polite way to announce she had never passed the rite of pilgrimage.
“We are rediscovering our home planet’s soil after all. It is almost three years now and we are just beginning to understand how to live on our own. Do you know the Kassali institute? It started with equipment from a life ship, it was supposed to be a research vessel on Rannoch. My dad focuses on non-agricultural botany though; there is so much to catch up on.”

When she had reached the booth she looked over all the exotic produce on display. Ru’yah was amazed by the variety naturally grown fruits developed. Barely two pieces looked alaike, all kinds of deviations, nothing like what lab equipment would produce where everything was trimmed to be a perfect sample.

Ru'yah was wringing her hands, admiring the view, touching would be impolite! She knew most of the things up for sale but some only from holograms or from sample tubes. On some pieces there even were traces of soil! How exciting.

“All of this was grown in the ground, in real soil, right? Did you encounter any problems? How do you guarantee uniform quality and purity for consumption?”

"I enjoyed my time there, but it can be rough as a quarian. There was a lot of harassment, though I hear it's better now." She smiled. "Was your father a captain?"

"Depends on the fruit. If it's for processing, you can blend different batches to keep the mix of sugars and proteins consistent, and the cooking takes care of most contaminants." She picked up one of the dirty roots, pulling a knife off her belt and deftly cutting it open to reveal fibrous yellow flesh and tiny black seeds. [color=#45fa82]"On some, the edible part is well protected. It depends on your immune numbers and if you've had any allergic reactions before. We provide complete information with every purchase."

“Oh, I know what you mean, there are so many extranet sites about ‘my bad pilgrimage experience’. I would love to see the Citadel some day or even study with aliens! I only know all that from the extranet, which is meh…”

“You know, it seems I’m stuck here and only when I have discovered all of Rannoch I will be allowed to leave!” In fact her dad had made it clear that their work here had priority over vacations.

““Oh wow, that’s fascinating!”
she very carefully took the fruit, as if it was something valuable and examined it. “Wonderful… I want to buy some of those, give me… ten? Can you suggest something that goes well with it?”

She chuckled at the question about her father.
“No, no, he was a hydroponic technician on life ship Amtrane. His responsibility was the photosynthesis laboratory, now he is doing research about the distribution of plants on the planet. And oh yes, I had allergic reactions but my counts are increasing!” She hated the bi-weekly examination, especially the geth assistant of the doctor, since it always seemed so distant. But whenever she could keep her mask off for any longer time or didn’t get sick in the cleanroom with a sample of a plant, she thought everything was worth it.

“If you can suggest a specific immune boost to use before consuming this, it would be helpful. I am a bit concerned about, you know, the digestive results.” One of her first experiments with Rannoch grown products had resulted in something catastrophic she had no intention to relive. Her dad had scolded her badly for her carelessness.

"It's a pretty big planet. A friend of mine is serving with the survey team on the Northern Continent."

The woman behind the till mimed linking suits, Hansa dumped an armful of fruit on her, "I have terribly insubordinate crew. I'll give you a sweet and sour soup recipe. All it needs is a food processor and a sealed cooker. Have you had reactions to yash fruit or sour potato? We can make substitutions."

"Immune boosters...If you have a suitrider, you'd have introduced them earlier, right? I am an old woman, I'm always tripping on the etiquette?"
[/color]

“A suitrider? No, no such thing!” She sounded a bit more shocked than she should maybe.
“I just meant regular boosters you know, injections or meds.”

She kept wringing her hands, before hiding them behind her back, for knowing nothing better to do with them.

“My counts are increasing steadily nonetheless and that’s very good! We are sometimes exposing ourselves to plants to trigger mild reactions and to see which plants do what. ‘We’ being people from the institute of course.” She was sounding a bit excited as if being part of a fantastic experiment.
“Did you know that most Rannoch plants trigger only very mild reactions and some even nothing? It is as if the planet remembers us or there’s a trace of the ancestors still left in us. Yeah… you …..probably do know that, sorry.” She caught up with her exuberance and felt a bit silly in front of the much older woman.

“So yes, well, eating food is still something different. It was indeed yash and something called batu’ram. I’d rather not go into details.”

She picked one the fruits she was about to buy, testing its feel. It was soft… a bit rubbery. If her dad would allow it she wanted to touch it with her bare hands if possible.

“Do you have a suitrider? Or geth to help you with your business?” the question sounded very innocent.

Hansa laughed, leaning against the counter. "I used to keep plants in the open air of my cleanroom, and I had the best counts of anyone I knew until....well, this. Now I have to settle for being ordinary."

"I don't have a personal suitrider, but the Geth complex in charge of our settlement area tracks us and monitors our immunology treatments. Acappella."

The Morning Chorus Acappella: deliberately inscrutable, generally rude and dismissive, hardly talks and never explains, doesn't make eye contact when it does stoop to speak, treats quarians like overly demanding aquarium fish, high-Heretic-percentage pain in her suit.

"It's been very helpful."

Ru'yah transmitted a greeting protocol to the geth from her suit. She had learned most geth found this way of greeting more acceptable than just relying on organics' customs.

"So it's the same as with our health department. I do hav eto admit though that the geth 'doctors' -" she airquoted, " - are still lacking in patients psychology. They get the job done with unrivaled precission but you are still freaking out while they do it. That's why by now there is always a pair, a quarian and a geth at a time. It makes people trust the system more."

The girl also leaned on the counter, looking at the people and occasional geth moving about, buying, bartering.
"What do you think Hansa'tel, how long until we see a good portion of bare faces in such a crowd?" This was a question, Ru'yah had been pondering on since the history class where the subject had been ancient quarian customs and dresses.

"Oh, it's not here."

She smiled.
"Our farm is quite remote so we don't have a quarian physician yet. Well, one comes in every couple months for the people who won't trust a Geth. One of the things that's interesting being in town is talking to other Geth, seeing how much is it's actual personality as opposed to..."

"And that came out horribly racist, didn't it?"

She shrugged. "I think in ten years, all the kids will be bareheaded, about half the young adults...but I think some of the older people will need suits for a long time yet. I try to not get my hopes up. I'm blessed at is."

"Remote, hm? I can't really imagine to live somewhere far away from the city. I'd probably freak out if I was alone in a house." She chuckled, but in fact it was only partially funny. she knew she had to get used to having much space. All quarians had to, did they want to reclaim a whole planet with their low numbers.
"Don't worry, I am also having trouble communicating with geth. It is confusing! But I believe most of them try to improve."

"I can't imagine this future yet. I mean it must be awful to be restrained to a suit while people around you start walking around without one." Ru'yah had genuine fear she would be part of those unfortunate never able to walk free, despite the fact that her counts were surpassing those of her father by far already. Or was it fear that she would be able to while her dad would not? She wasn't sure.
"It must be bliss though." She decided to change the subject.

"How come you have been able to study on the Citadel? I thought that was not possible until now."

"We still have extranet."

"I don't see why it would be worse than...right, you've never been around aliens." She shrugged again. "They don't seem that much happier than we are. And if you need to wear a suit longer, well, it still lets you do things."

Hansa frowned, folding her fingers. "Years ago, my captain made a serious error in judgement that resulted in me loosing a lot of my career prospects. So she pulled some strings on my behalf. Once I got there I was good at making friends."

Ru’yah understood that she probably should not press the issue of Hansa’s captain, although she tried to remember what she knew about the Devlon which was nothing really.

By now she had also received the wrapped fruits over the counter, she had not stashed them away yet, instead she was playing with the bag on the counter absent midedly.

“The extranet…. It is so full of horrible things. Some of it is hard to understand. I know that not all that’s written there is the truth or gives you an exact picture of how the galaxy is working, it’s greatly biased and… yeah, there is really gross stuff as well!” she said that last part with an audible disdain. “What sites do you use to get good information?”
Hansa was travelled after all, she should know. Ru'yah's friends were only using it for games and music, information wasn’t that much of a thing in her age group it seemed.

“But I am so curious about the Citadel! Nobody I know went there on their pilgrimage. Well, two did but refuse to talk about it, it was a long time ago. How did you like it, how did you make friends with aliens? Do you still have contacts?”

"I subscribe to botanical and agricultural journals, mostly. And this one forum that I know is biased and crazy."

"Aliens? Just people for the most part. They can seem very selfish, but its really that they don't have to worry about their species. An asari woman knows that the asari are going to be alright. Or at least she did."

She began restacking some of fruit to hide the empty spots..

"I liked it superficially. I liked how many creative people live there, I liked looking out on the nebula, I liked the diversity. And there are very good people there. I hired most of my original crew out of a rehabilitation effort run by the Citadel Anti-Slavery League."

"The fleet was so limited, so geared towards the Evening War. They wouldn't let me onto a Liveship because of those problems I mentioned. The Citadel was our second-best place. But obsessed with money and power, and incredibly racist. I never want to hear the phrase 'You're not like other quarians' again."

She got a little quieter. "I do my best. But a lot of my connections just...vanished into the war. The Citadel was very hard hit, remember."

"A friend sent us pictures of where we used to live. There was nothing left."

The Devlon had been shot down and burned up in-atmosphere.

Ru’yah wondered what other forums Hansa'tel meant but let out a small gasp when she mentioned slavery! She had only heard hushed rumors about how this had been a thing ot there in the galaxy, hushed rumors about people going missing forever. it was the absolute worst nightmare for Ru’ya and always the moment where she liked to withdraw into the quarian community.

Going out on pilgrimage, facing such dangers on your own was changing you. She never underwent that rite, she was no real adult. Well, in this day and age she still was considered one but she knew a part was missing, a part she could not relate to in others that had been pilgrims once.

Hansa seemed excited and a bit angry about the memories and her lost past. She herself had lost someone very important in her life and maybe her mother’s death was a reason why her dad had not pushed for her to start a pilgrimage just yet.
“I know, so much was lost. Everywhere are connections lost.” It was a sad topic really.

“I hear the Citadel University is holding extensive online courses and I have been looking at some on the extranet but in reality I want to go there myself. But you know, I would feel better if I had some company…”

“Did you set up your business all on your own? I mean, do you have any connection to the Kassali botanical institute by chance? I guess figuring out how to grow all these plants in soil properly is a time consuming effort until you achieve a great result like this.” she was pointing out all the crates filled with a great variety of fruits and vegetables.

"I can't imagine having enough time to for for anything but a business trip. But I'll keep my ears on for anyone else who's going?"

"I'm not associated with anyone, and I enjoy running my business as I see fit."[/color] She sat down on the counter. "I got my seed money from a very rich businessman with a very quarian wife. Two of the people who...I haven't heard from them. But we're willing to trade plants."

Ru’yah laughed a bit.
“Thank you for the offer! But first I would need my dad to be okay with this. Hm, thinking about it, being asked to accompany someone could make this look much more important and he would probably like it. Do you do business outside Rannoch as well actually?”
While it didn’t seem obvious at first, now Hansa’tel made the impression as if she, the well traveled and experienced (and obviously well funded) woman would at least try and find a market outside the Rannoch community.

“You totally should get into contact with the institute. Maybe they can even learn something from you. Some of the scientists can be so theoretical. They could talk all day about nurturing a plant but never actually dig a hole and plant one. I could not live without having real plants around the house anymore. I do prefer those which develop brightly colored leaves.” The absence of insects had Rannoch plants develop other, yet similar methods to attract ‘public transport’ for their seeds.

Ru’yah opened her Omnitool and sent a databurst with her dad’s business info and her own private one.
“I am sorry, I am not allowed to have my own business ID yet. I am here on a private basis actually.” She was beaming though, being hilariously proud of all of this.