Despite her small size and huffing and puffing, Odessus didn't seem much deterred in keeping pace with her cousin up the mountain trail. Her seemingly endless list of youthful questions must've been the fuel she needed to match Sana's adult strides under the deep shade of the many-colored deciduous trees surrounding them.
"Cousin, why are asari blue?" she asked in her high, childish trill.
Sana grinned. "How familiar are you with asari blood composition, how an epidermis works, and genetic variation?"
Her counter question made the juvenile pause, but only briefly. She readjusted the pack on her back to cover her confusion and took a few quick, bouncing steps to catch up again.
"Don't be stupid, Odessissi," Hadrian snapped from the other side of Sana. "Blood is blue. That's why their skin is blue too."
"Don't call me stupid!" Odessus did her best to growl, but it came out too high to sound at all threatening. "Is that right, Cousin Sana? Why aren't turians blue if that's true?"
"She has skin, that's why!" Hadrian attempted to explain again. "You can't see our blood through our plates."
Odessus turned a pleading look toward Sana, who only shook her head. "That is an understandable conjecture, Hadrian. A wrong one, but still understandable. Asking curious questions is the first step in drawing accurate conclusions."
"What's a conjecture?" Odessus asked, already moving on to her next question.
"Spirits, Odessissi!" Hadrian groaned his irritation. "Stop talking so much! It's annoying."
"Stop calling me Odessissi, Hadrian!" she snapped, readjusting her pack again, but more angrily this time. "I'm not a fledgling, I'm nine! Don't be such a cloaca!"
"Language, Odessus," Sana warned her gently. "Put your mind at ease, Hadrian. Your sister is not annoying me. I am happy to answer any questions she has."
"She's annoying me," Hadrian grumbled low but loud enough to be heard by both Sana and his sister.
Before Odessus could respond, Sana said in a louder volume than her normal speaking voice, "This is an excellent place to take a rest. It is important to drink enough water on a day as hot as today, especially when you are outside and active."
A small covering with a table and benches stood about twenty meters off the trail, and Sana led Hadrian and Odessus to the picnic area while both of them continued to hiss wordless threats at each other. It was definitely time for lunch.
Sana let her pack slide off her shoulders and opened it to rummage for the food she'd prepared that morning. A nature hike wasn't normally her idea of a fun and relaxing time, but their mother had begged her to take them for a few days while the primarch visited their household with a contingent of high-level advisors and ministers. If nothing else, the hike would tire them out enough to go to sleep at a decent hour and keep them entertained until that time came. Alas, Hadrian and Odessus found ways to antagonize each other regardless.
Both brother and sister grabbed eagerly at their food and hardly had it unwrapped before they bit into it. While they were distracted by their meals, Sana discreetly sat between them, wedging them apart. She suddenly felt how famished she also was and pulled apart bits of her own lunch to eat with a little more dignity than the two preadolescent turians in the middle of their first major growth spurts.
For a few brief moments, there was relative silence. Of course, the moment she turned and saw Odessus looking at her intently while she chewed her food, Sana knew the silence was not to last.
Before she could even invite Odessus to finish chewing her food, she barreled forward with yet another question. "What's space like?" she asked, her small, amber eyes the definition of starry.
Sana suppressed a smile and considered the question. She chewed slowly, half testing the young turian's patience and half wanting to give an appropriately sanitized account of what off-planet life was like. From her peripheral vision, she noticed Hadrian had also turned toward her, eager to hear her answer but trying not to show it.
When she sensed both Odessus and Hadrian were near the breaking point of their curiosity, she said, "It is a bit like this hike. Have you seen many people around?" Both brother and sister shook their heads. "If we walked for long enough, eventually we would run into someone, maybe a small town. If we walked for longer, we would run into even more people, maybe a city. But if we wanted to, we could stay out here by ourselves, and it would be a very long time before anyone found us."
Odessus returned to her food and took another bite, but her attention seemed to turn inward. Both she and Hadrian would find out what space was like in only a handful of years when they started their service. Her curiosity—and Hadrian's, even if he tried to hide it—was understandable.
When Odessus looked up again, it was the look of another question percolating in her mind. "Why don't you have any colony markings?"
"What?" She hadn't expected that question.
Odessus swallowed her food and asked again. "You're a Ravaka, right? Or your dad was? So why don't you have colony markings?"
Hadrian fired a piece of food past Sana and struck his sister directly in the mandible. "You're not supposed to ask adults that question. Take it back or I'll tell Mom."
Sana held up a hand to stop any further squabbling. "That is enough, Hadrian. I do not mind answering her question." She stopped and took another bite of her food, wondering how in the wide galaxy she was going to explain a decision she'd made as a maiden to never pick up a gun, not even for practice or proficiency. She sighed and took a chance. "When I was very young, both of my sisters were in the military, and both were killed when they were still maidens. I did not want to share their fate, and I decided I would never touch a gun. That decision barred me from the basic training it would have taken to complete my service. I could have gone through that training to get to a nonviolent profession for my service, but I did not want that. In the end, my integrity was more important to me than my citizenship."
Both Hadrian and Odessus were quiet for a long time. They all finished their lunches and packed up again, ready to continue the hike, before Odessus spoke again.
"But you're a doctor," she said.
"Yes."
"You save people."
"Again, yes."
"Shouldn't that count? Shouldn't that be enough to be a citizen?"
Sana shrugged. "To be honest, ma'dulcissi, it is not something I think about anymore. I spent my maiden years fixing people, and that is enough satisfaction for me. It is a technicality I know will bar me from my citizenship, but I do not regret it. I can sleep soundly every night knowing no life has expired because I did them harm."
Both Sana and Hadrian had walked a dozen paces before they realized Odessus had stopped. When Sana looked back, she saw Odessus standing there and gazing up at the sky as she clutched at the strap of her pack. It took a moment for her to realize Sana and Hadrian were waiting for her, and then she bounded toward them.
"Don't worry, Cousin," she said excitedly. "I think I know how to help. I just have to ask Mom a few questions first."
Sana smiled and shook her head. There was no point in trying to dissuade her. She'd forget all about it by the time she went home in a few days, and in another fifty or one hundred years, she'd answer the same question from another young and curious Ravaka. The galaxy was always changing, but never that much.