Scouting For Romance

Entry 56, Part 1, Final Test

Day 10, Month 24, Year 572

Hey, journal.

It's certainly been a while, for me at least.

We only just got back from hell and I didn't really have a good moment to write anything.

So I guess I'll catch you up on what happened in the Ashlands, though my memory of some details is a bit fuzzy, given the exhaustion, constant pain, and fear of death.

We rode the train for another day before reaching the outskirts of the Ashlands, where the landscape was covered in a soft grey blanket. There were small homesteads and ash-farms everywhere, with the farmers having wide-brimmed hats with hanging tassels of glowing bioluminescent vials hanging from the rim. The wide brim keeps falling ash out of their eyes while they work, and the vials are bright enough to illuminate their fields while they wait for the crops to start glowing themselves. The ash makes the soil very fertile, so farmers typically toss seeds all over and have them grow wherever fate decides they land.

It took one more day before we reached the interior of the Ashlands. It was a bit hot, and there were some glowing volcanoes in the far distance, but we arrived in a town full of Ashlanders. Their hair was pure black, their skin was this dark greyish-black, like soot, and their eyes were a piercing white that seemed to glow due to the contrast of their skin. Their voices were also raspy and thick, a consequence of inhaling ash and the habitual smoking of azwari leaves. But other than that, they looked like peldaks, pointed ears, two hands, everything. They tended to wear light clothes as winter never comes to those lands, and some of them had patches of lighter skin here and there, usually on the back of the neck, just beneath the hairline.

To prevent this, towns in the Ashlands have various spas dedicated to ash-tanning. Typically open-aired, walled off sections where you can lay around during ash-storms to let it soak into your skin. Some homes have walled-off balconies on the second floor to provide a similar, more private service.

Their complexion is a result of the ash soaking into their flesh. They're proud of this look and the rich history it symbolizes, so they never dye their hair and eyes the classic peldak brown and grey. On the contrary, most Ashlanders who leave these volcanic wastes will periodically return in order to freshly dye their skin. The Ashlanders states have even gotten Protectorate law to give special exemptions to their people, so military personnel can return and renew their ash-tan once their skin begins to fade.

We stayed in the town for a few days and helped the locals with a few chores. Sweeping ash from the streets and rooftops, walking miles to the nearest source of clean water, working at the train yard and bringing in and out packages. The purpose of this training wasn't to work our muscles, but to improve our stamina while training our lungs to breathe the polluted air.

As it turned out... I was mistaken.

I told Tytus that you smoked azwari leaves to protect your lungs from rotting when breathing in the Ashlands air. You... don't, actually. Smoking the azwari leaves is just to get high. Ash does indeed mess up your lungs, but it just makes it hard to breathe, it doesn't make your lungs rot.

I swear I heard it somewhere though. Maybe, since Ashlanders smoke a lot of azwari, I figured they were related?

Either way, I brought it up to the Ashlanders, "when do we smoke azwari?" then they laughed in my face since they thought a soldier was asking to get high on the job. Tytus helped me clear up the misunderstanding, then they told me the truth, but then our 'comrades' laughed at and teased me for getting it wrong!

Oh, sorry, I guess having memorized nearly the full breadth of pre-protectorate history was a bit too much for my brain to handle, and I got one small detail wrong! Whatever.