they would be impossible to tell apart. However, I noticed that their eye color was different. Olvar’s eyes were bright red, just like their dad’s. Zun’s were vivid orange, which was the mix of the Colonel’s red with the golden-yellow of their mother’s.
“I’m so happy your dad brought me along today.” I smiled, offering my hand to Olvar, who happened to be a little closer to me. He appeared to be a bit more daring than his brother. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
With a serious expression on his face, the boy took my hand in both of his, lowering his head in a perfectly executed formal bow.
“It’s nice to meet you too, Madam...” He gave his father a questioning look, as if enquiring about the proper form of addressing me.
“Daisy,” I rushed out. “Just call me Daisy, please.”
“What’s a daisy?”
“It’s the name of a flower from Earth, the planet I come from. But it’s also my first name.”
“Are you a grownup? Because it’s not proper to address a grownup by their first name, unless they’re a family. Are you a family?”
The Colonel’s brief cough sounded from the side.
“I’m a friend,” I said to Olvar quickly. “Friends call each other by their first names, don’t they? You’ll call me Daisy, and I’ll call you Olvar. Deal?”
He blinked, glancing at his father then back at me again.
“Deal.” He nodded somberly, shaking my hand between his two.
“And you must be Zun?” I offered my hand to the second boy, who lingered behind his brother.
“Yeah...” He scratched his shoulder.
“Zun.” Olvar shoved an elbow into his brother’s side.
“Oh, um.” Zun came closer to me, grabbing my hand with both of his in the Voranian greeting. “I am very pleased to meet you...Daisy.”
“Great.” I fluffed the fur on the back of his hand with my other hand. Zun’s fur was much finer than his father’s. It stood up on top of his head and curled above his ears in the same fashion as his brother’s. “Guess what we’re going to do, now?”
“What?” Zun tilted his head to the side, pulling at his ear. Curiosity shone in his bright orange eyes.
“We’re going outside.” I smiled.
“Where outside?” Olvar hopped closer. So close, I had to shuffle backwards in my crouch, lest he stab me with his little horns in excitement.
“You’ll see.” Compared to the Colonel’s, their horns were tiny, barely three inches long, if that. I noticed a ring of characters carved on Olvar’s right horn. His brother had a similar design, too. “What does the writing on your horn mean?”
“Olvar Shula Kyradus. Cadet #397576-H of the Voran Military Academy,” he recited proudly, without tripping over the long number.
“Dad has more,” Zun pointed out.
With a kind expression in his eyes, the Colonel ruffled the fuzzy fur on his son’s head.
“Those chosen for a military career get their first carving shortly after birth.” He took Zun’s hand in his right hand, catching Olvar’s with his left, then led all of us toward the parking hangar. “As the career and rank advance, the record expands.”
Walking next to him, I studied the long spiral of carvings on his right horn. It started from about three inches from the top, swirling down to the base, with barely a sliver of clean space visible above the fur on his head.
“What happens if you run out of space?”
“The horns grow. Much slower with age, though. The trick is to rise through the ranks at the same rate as the horns grow, I guess.” He laughed. The deep sound pleasantly resonated through my chest.
“Could there be some electronic records, instead?” I asked.
“There are. This is just an old tradition to publicly display one’s accomplishments,” he said, then added casually, “And a good way to identify a dead body of a soldier fallen on a battlefield. Especially if the rest of him has been destroyed beyond recognition.”
“Dead?” I gaped at him then glanced at the children.
He intercepted my gaze.
“My sons are future soldiers, Daisy. They’re aware of the risks that come with their occupation.”
“Are you okay with that?”
“If there is an untimely death in their future, I can only hope it’ll come with honor and dignity. We all die, sooner or later. An honorable death on a battlefield is better than many others.”
“OH NO!” I DUCKED, AVOIDING a snow ball thrown my way. “I need a break.”
Panting hard from running through snowdrifts in the deserted outdoor park, I plopped on my butt into the nearest snowbank. I’d laughed so much this morning, my facial muscles