Scouting For Romance

Entry 60

Day 3, Month 1, Year 573

I sat with Tytus, looking out the window, reading previous entries in my journal, occasionally making small talk.

I like trains, but I'm getting sick of them.

"I never asked," Tytus said, "but where are we going now? What's our destination?"

"The Crown of Peldor." I responded.

"Which is?"

"The north pole of Peldor is covered by mountains. It is the only place spaceships can enter or leave. I do not understand the science behind it."

"Hmm. So we're going all the way north."

"Yes. We went this way on all our previous deployments." I think I failed to properly convey the Crown of Peldor to him. The top of the planet is covered in mountains, thousands upon thousands of miles of nothing but mountains. Some mountains have forests, some have jungles, others are frozen, there's the occasional plateau or sandy desert valley between, and there's a lot of volcanoes dispersed throughout. There are also a few monastic temples, some castles, and vacation spots. Considering there's just one location where ships can enter the planet, and this world is the capital of the Protectorate, there's a mess of railroad tracks crawling through the crown, carrying all sorts of goods and personnel back and forth.

In the last year of pre-Protectorate dating, King Arus led an expedition further north than anyone had gone previously, all the way to the very top of the north pole. It was a hard trek, but when they arrived, they were greeted by a 'starship' full of dark-skinned aliens, the sayran. King Arus greeted the leader of these aliens with a hug, and the alien returned the gesture with a smile, as if they were old friends finally reuniting. King Arus's expedition then brought the sayran on a grand tour of the world, which had only recovered from the vampire war in the previous few decades.

With the tour done, they went all the way back to the starship, then left for the world of Sayar. King Arus and his entourage spent a few months on that desert planet of theirs, and that's about where I lose interest in history.

The only thing I know happened afterwards was that we adopted the sayran calendar. A year on Sayar is 360 days, each with 24 hours that are 60 minutes a piece, and 60 seconds per minute. One cycle on Peldor (the amount of time between volcanic eruptions) is exactly 3 years, funny enough.

Now, if you divide 360 by 24 (the number of saints who founded Pelda), you get 15. King Arus loves the number 15, and while nobody knows why, it's a rather auspicious number that keeps popping up around him. So, with this storm of perfect factors, King Arus immediately adopted the sayran calendar, and named each month after a saint. 24 months with 15 days each, and each month has 3 weeks that are 5 days long. Everyone said King Arus should get the first month, but he named the 15th month after himself instead.

By adopting that calendar, he tied our worlds together. Two people, the peldaks and sayran, united under one banner.

This event was, officially, the founding epoch for our calendar. It happened 573 years and 3 days ago.

Now, I was going to explain this fun historical event to Tytus, but Lubomiła walked up to our spot and leaned against the seat in front of us.

"Heya, how's it going you two?" She raised her eyebrows a few times. She seemed to glow, a beacon of positivity as everything was going her way.

"Good," Tytus said, bringing his elbow up to nudge my arm, "just hanging out with my shield sister."

"Hm." She hummed with a smile, even though she understood my pain.