"Are you going to pick something or just stand around all day long? You're a soldier, you get shot at for a living, I'm sure you can handle a few roots and some bark. And MY job is to make sure you get food that's healthy, if you're lucky it'll taste good too. Your diet is 90% of keeping in shape, so unless you think a few layers of fat will give you armor, I suggest you grab your plate and stop whining!"

Kardain is the squad's cook in the cafeteria, which makes him the minorest of minor characters, but certainly no less important in day-to-day affairs. The military often recruits for non-combat positions from within its own ranks of retired soldiers; Kardain served his time on the front line, lost his eye to a bayonet, got a mechanical replacement and, unlike Saler'in, opted not to return to the field after the bandages came off.

Now, instead, he prepares food for Malgraan and Balloh alike, not that fresh ingredients are terribly easy to come by on Araniir - the Balloh usually have to make do with dried, salted, smoked or otherwise preserved rations, and though the Malgraan have contained, hydroponic domes for growing things on Araniir, a good amount of produce still gets shipped in from off-world.

And like it or not, unless you plan to cook your own meals, you're eating what he gives you.

---

An army marches on its stomach, or so the old saying goes. Keeping soldiers well-fed with nutritious food is an important concern; making it taste half-decent is an acceptable side-effect. Araniir, being a desert planet, is naturally at a disadvantage; though it does have some agriculture, it still has to rely on some imports. Only Malgaria and Eianna (a lush, mostly-tropical frontier world) are self-sufficient for food for the Malgraan.

The Malgraan eat all kinds of plants beyond what an omnivore might consider edible - grass is a staple of their diet, of course, as are fruits, vegetables and grains, but they have the stomachs (quite literally, as they each have two) to handle things like leaves, bark, flowers, roots, stems, husks, vines, and more. They can typically eat anything that's not outright poisonous, but some things still taste better than others; biting into a juicy piece of fruit is always more appetizing than some roots, however healthy they may be.

The Balloh, being carnivores, stay far away from all those and stick to their meat, preserved however it may be. The Malgraan do sell it to them, from full-meal portions to bags of snack-sized cubes, but the Balloh don't have the quite refined tastebuds the Malgraan do and don't make much distinctions on meat beyond whether it was from a fish, bird or land creature and whether or not it's started getting old. Sometimes meat gets stewed or marinaded, and occasionally seasoned, but by and large they simply eat their food and move on.

Character and setting belong to me.
Artwork by  not-fun. Original here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/17122729/