[Rannoch] When You Get Here

It wasn't a town, not yet. It was marked on the map as the Broken Ground Grant, 53872-42. There was road access (the road was dirt) and air access (if you counted landing in a field).

This particular piece of the Rannoch resettlement effort had been put down in a river valley, and it hadn't quite taken root yet. The land was rolling, better suited to orchards than fields, but most of the trees were still too small to produce fruit or cast much shade. There were gardens everywhere. All the buildings were pre-fabs, but there were numbers and names painted on the doors and brightly coloured fabric hanging in the windows.

There were people working in their gardens. A boy in a cream-coloured suit was sitting underneath one of the larger trees, a geth drone hovering over his shoulder. And Hansa'Tel nar Devlon had dragged a table and chairs out and was trying to work outside, filling out forms while keeping on eye on the road.

The hovercar was following old and long abandoned roads from Kassali to the farm. The skyways were only connecting a few larger settlements so far, close-to-ground traffic was a thing on Rannoch, the infrastructure being several hundred years old but for some strange reason kept in shape by the geth mostly. It never was clear why they let specific parts rot, if they did. It had led to confusions but by now the quarians had managed to get a road network established again, for use by wheel driven or hover vehicles.

Preeya and Ru’yah were checking the navigation interface.
“I don’t know, it seems to be correct but I am afraid the car will get very dirty.” It was a vehicle she had organized from the botanical institute car pool for the purpose of ‘field work and field studies’ for a couple of days at least.

Eventually, the buildings came into view and the young quarian parked the car a bit off the road and exited, walking the last couple of meters on foot.

She recognized Hansa immediately, her HUD also indicating whoever was close and had their suit ID turned on. She waved “Hello Hansa’Tel! how are you?”

Carefully exiting the vehicle Preeya'Lem took a look around.
It was not what she had expected, since she had imagined the Farm to be a far more lonely and vast place (even by her subjective Rannoch-standards), she nevertheless enjoyed the current sight.
Grabbing for her cane which helped her keeping balance for as long as she felt mostly dizzy - not to mention that it helped disburdening her knee -, Preeya closed the gap on Ru'yah and remained about two feet behind her at first, still attentively looking around.
She spotted colourful small gardens, some yet tiny trees, one young child, houses that appeared rather new and simple compared to what she had seen in and around Kassali and within the Riett house. All in all everything looked like currently work in progress to her, which she considered quite fascinating.
As Ru'yah hailed one of the strangers Preeya invisibly raised an eyebrow. Hansa'Tel. Well, one of the CDN-users she talked to, and more important the one who actually invited her to help out.
Looking at the - yet - stranger for some seconds she finally did a polite hailing bow towards her, as she always used to do when meeting new people.

Hansa'tel stood to greet her guests, pushing her work to the side.

"Yes, it's me. Welcome Ru’yah, Preeya. We don't get enough visitors." She smiled, stepping around the table and extending her hand. "Can I get you something to drink? A meal? It won't be what you're used to, but I promise you it's purified to the same standard."

"...Also present is Acappella...our local Geth." She pointed to the flying drone. "But it probably won't speak to you unless there's some kind of emergency." She hoped it wouldn't.

Preeya again took a bow towards Hansa'Tel, then towards the geth drone.

"Well, hello Hansa'Tel! Hello Acappella!" She said in a neutral but still polite manner towards both, and took another quick look around, before she returned her attention to Hansa and her companion. It did not surprise her that few visitors happened to find their way here. All in all (and especially to someone used to live on the Citadel) the location itself was subjectively remote. Even though Preeya of course realized the reasons behind this.

"I... Do not think I require anything yet. But I can let you know later if you like." She answered calmly towards Hansa'Tel regarding her offer, leaning on her cane slightly nodding corroborating, then looking back at Ru’yah wondering if she maybe had a wish.

After one tiny second of silence, Preeya finally added a diplomatic "Thank you." towards Hansa'Tel in anticipation to let her know that her offer however had been recognized.

Somewhere during the last argument with Maniple, Hansa had quietly assumed that Preeya had a social cognition disorder. This may have been insulting and presumptuous, but she was willing to overlook awkward behavior.

"I'd offer you a tour, but I don't want to tire you out. I can show you the project though."

The drone did not come down to greet them. Instead, it flew in lazy loops, the child below scrambling to his feet chasing it.

Preeya tilted her head looking at Hansa already opening her mouth to start replying when she suddenly was distracted by the child that joined the group an appeared to try to play with Acappella.
Invisible to the others Preeya smiled for some seconds, just looking at the child and encountering temporary amusement and happiness by doing so, until she finally forced her attention back to her interlocutors. She did not want to let her recently discovered soft spot for children distract her from why she actually was here: To do something useful and help Hansa'Tel.
"Actually I would... Appreciate a tour, but you are right.
Maybe we can do this later: The drive had been exhausting." She spoke and took a deep breath while already carefully planning of what to say next, since she at least tried her best to make a positive impression.
"If you could show me..." She looked at Ru'yah again. She did not wish to appear as if she was not recognizing her escort anymore. "...Well, us the project, that would be... Just fine."

Ru'ya had kept a bit back and let two oder women get to know each other. She curiously observed the geth Accapella and transmitted a greeting signal.

"Thank you Hansa, I don't need anything." She recognized the gesture but of course her suit was well equipped with pasts and water supply. Later on she sure would like to taste the products of Hansa's farm!

She opened her mouth for a replay that she would of course like a tour but then she realized Preeya's leg and the cane and... oh well. Not right away.

"Yes, that would be interesting! we are here to help you out, in case you still need any help that is? You have a cozy place.... it is very peaceful." Children chasing geth around in the sunshine on a farm on Rannoch. If it wasn't for the suits one could think of the old days of innocence. Ru'yah stepped up and followed Hansa's lead

"Don't be fooled. There's as much drama and gossip as any ship, we just have more space." She grinned. "Follow me."

The greenhouse was up a hill. Hansa powered up it easily, opening the door with a key. The building was exactly the same shape as some of the storage sheds, built on the same frame, except for it's transparent skin. "This is probably my favourite place."

Trays of tiny, tiny seedlings, each bar-coded, were stacked on shelves almost to the ceiling. Though they couldn't feel it through their suits, fans kicked up to deal with the excess heat, and condensation rain in tiny streams down the walls.
"Some of these plants are being bred for their virals-all the "V" strains. And the rest are food. We start by breeding two promising strains..." She pulled one of the racks down, then grabbed a small tool. "Take a sample, load it into the computer to be analyzed, make sure it's tagged and entered into the database, cull according to the computer's directions."

The boy stuck his head in the door. "Going hiking with Accapella back tomorrow afternoon." And then he ran.

"Hey, wait a..."

Ru'yah was totally excited, this greenhouse, despite being much smaller than those at the institute, had the distinct purpose of producing food, just like the halls on the lifeship the quarian had been growing up on. Everything hat the sole purpose of feeding the Flotilla.

She looked around "Whoa!" she bounced her heels, while the climatic data was showing on her HUD and the condensing water was building a thin layer on her visor.

The quarian girl took a closer look at the samples Hansa was showing them. "Looks easy enough! that's kind of the work I am used to as an intern!" she laughed. It was true though, she wished she eventually could move on to having her own project but her father insisted on her following all the educational steps.

"What do you say, Preeya, we can do that in a short ..." Then the boy interrupted

Hearing the word "Drama" Preeya gave Hansa a (luckily invisible) surprised look. She could not think of any reason for any of the inhabitants here to feel bad enough to even start what people used to call drama... (Even though she at least remembered a CDN-Thread where Hansa told about difficulties between some of her quarian and some of her geth personnel.)
Even though not being able to express it herself, Preeya felt like Ru'yah: She considered this place very beautiful and peaceful, and was already very glad she took the offer for the visit.

Curiously staring, Preeya attentively followed each of Hansa's explanations and steps of procedure.
As other people tended to be fascinated (and a few ones utterly confused) when Preeya talked about theoretical physics because most of them had little to no idea what she was talking about, Preeya now almost felt the same as audience.
As someone who never even had the chance to visit one of the life ships, her visit on Hansas farm was not only fascinating but something very special. Just as Hansa finished her sentence Preeya wept some of the condensing water off her visor and turned around on her own axis looking at every little detail as she - again - was distracted by the small child.
Looking at him she stopped for some seconds and waved at him, before she precipitously turned around again as she realized that Ru'yah had addressed her previously.
"Yes, I do." She answered eagerly, nodding at Ru'yah, then walked a step back so she also could see Hansa and Acappella.

"This is a most fascinating place. I am very... Glad you offered the chance to me to visit and help." Preeya finally managed to say - Obvious to everyone, that she did not exactly have an easy time expressing personal thoughts.

""I have not given you permission..." Hansa dropped her hands, sighing as the boy and the drone zipped off. "Clever robot. Acappella knows me just well enough to bet that I won't start an argument in front of you two."

"You're very welcome. We actually have some of these growing big." She picked up a plant. She did not seem to have as much trouble with the condensation-her suit was probably built for this. "This species. I remember these from a painting I saw on a little screen."

Ru’yah was glad she had a water rejecting visor. Every drop of condensation was forming a drop in an instant and was running downwards. It was a typical suit for life ship personnel and it had come in handy for the lab work now.

She now remembered that Hansa had mentioned a boy only having geth as friends… could that be the one? She had not really understood everything Hansa had written on the extranet but she claimed her inexperience with the Citadel and all that as the cause. Where was the boy so troubled about other quarians? But playing with that drone seemed like fun, she had been playing drone chase with her friends herself as a kid. And hat caught scoldings afterwards for entering areas of the ship she should not have.

“Will he be okay? Drone chase was fun, we played it on the ship as well.” She bounced her heels again. “Not always to the amusement of father or the Captain.” She cleared her throat and turned her attention back to the plants.

“It is a bit like child daycare isn’t it? The tiny planties I mean…. Yes, there are many artist renderings or old pictures from Rannoch before the Flotilla. They were stacked away on the life ship though….” She shuddered a bit, more out of habit than actual fear. It had been deemed a bad idea to dream too much of a lost planet instead of working for the food and supply source of the Flotilla. “I am glad this has changed. We actually look at old pictures too, to understand better what was growing together and how nature used to be arranged. You find out a lot about symbiosis that way.”

"That is...well, he's changed his name three times since we got down here, but Jhan. Good kid." She leaned against the table. "And he'll be fine. He'll miss another day of school but Acappella does make him do remote lessons."

"Considering how often I cull the plants, this would make for a very dark daycare."

Listening to Ru'ya's explanations about re-arranging Rannoch's plant life Preeya leaned over from behind her shoulder and looked at the little plant in Hansa's hand.
"...May I see it?" She asked sheepishly - Almost like a curious child and hesitantly reached out one hand - which was almost a weird irony considering how insensitive Preeya used to appear towards most others -, then looked back at Ru'yah again. "Taking paintings as references might prove to be rather unreliable considering factors as "artistic freedom"... I would rather recommend asking Geth for specific records."

She waited for some seconds, listening to both women and gently leaned against a table to give her knee some rest.
"...Wait. Was he... The boy you were writing about on CDN?" She asked hesitantly towards Hansa.
Of course she remembered that conversation, as she used to remember most of them even if she did not participate...
(Even the one where Hansa wrote about Acappella and it's passive-aggressive behaviour...)
She remembered considering herself able to relate to the boy's situation, which was something rather rare, considering Preeya's rather pragmatic nature. But then again it also just might have been her soft spot for children temporarily blighting her personal competence to judge.
"...Does his current name have a meaning?" She finally asked straightening herself up again.

"Oh. Yeah, that'd be him." She stepped aside, gesturing for the other woman to go ahead. "He's gotten a little better. It means...um, this archaic instrument." She mimed pulling a bow across her lap. "And it shares a symbol with his mother's name."

“I didn’t mean paintings, Preeya, of course we use either scientific layout plans or holopictures. Of course some of these come from artistic sources and have filters and whatnot applied.” Painting had been a largely unpracticed art on her lifeship beyond what counted as useful markings on walls, maybe that had been different on Preeya’s mother ship.

She looked at the doorframe where the boy had been for a bit before conrinuing walking.
“A symbol of his mother…” it was half question half muttered. She didn’t dare ask about the boys mother. She didn’t remember the full story or if Hansa even disclosed enough to make sense to her. Didn’t she say she picked the kids up on the Citadel? But obviously his mother was dead. But he was so small, how could he have been away from the Flotilla…