336 Greener Grass

Ashdale had dark clouds hanging over it. Not stormclouds, though. It was smoke.

When Alani and her friends arrived, every city on the great isles was hard at work putting up factories and coal power plants. Entire convoys of the black stuff were being carted around from port to port, supplying every major metropolis with the fuel. The Pegasi escorting Alani and company were particulary irked to see so many horses put to the cart and the whip for the sake of the wagons filled with black.

Even as they went looking for their contact, some Deutero officer named Charlie, Alani fell into fits of coughing. "We need to get those face masks the locals use. I'm not sure we'll survive the trip otherwise."

It had been odd seeing people walking around with cloths tied over their faces and nobody screaming for the police to catch robbers, but with all the smog over the city, it wasn't hard to figure out why.

But while face masks in the smog made sense, the existence of the smog itself baffled them.

Jamie asked it first. "Why are they doing this? Why are they burning the black stuff? Isn't that precisely the thing Remian wants to avoid?"

"Yes it is." Alani nodded. "And it's not hard to see why. I would hate to have all this smoke over my home."

They rang the bell at an old, vintage mansion, and a maid came out. Jamie asked for Charlie, and the maid brought them in and had them wait at a stone garden table.

"It's a nice garden." Juni commented idly.

"Yeah, too bad it's half-dying under all this smog." Gary snorted.

"So, who's this Charlie?" Jamie asked.

"An old friend of Remian's. Should be an Ashdalian guy about his age. Wind Mage, I think?" Alani thought back. "He works for Deutero."

"Right. So a young man, then." Jamie nodded sagely.

But instead of a young man, a woman greeted them. Jamie jumped. "M-Mandy?!"

Back when they were orphans with the Circling Ravens, she was the one taking care of them. That is, until they got sold off as slaves…

In their group, only Alani (and the terrapin in her hands) hadn't been one of the Ravens orphans. She instead, knew Mandy only by reputation, and as far as she could remember, this Mandy was, in fact… "Remian's ex-wife!"

"What?!" the others yelped.

"She left him! Left the Wildlands!" Alani snorted, glancing around. "For THIS!"

This left them all bewildered for a moment, and Mandy's face turned red.

Juni repeated the words slowly, as if he couldn't understand them. He looked around at the country completely covered in smog, broken off from the mainland, barricaded against Wilds, widows and orphans everywhere begging in the streets after the world war. "Mandy… you left Remian, left us and the Wildlands… for this?!"

At that, Mandy's jaw dropped. Her face turned white.

"Come now, it's a nice house…" Jamie tried to speak on Mandy's behalf.

"It's not hers." Alani shook her head.

"It's not?" Juni repeated again, frowning, as if uncomprehending. ���Then whose is it?"

"It's Charlie's." Alani explained.

"Why is Mandy living in Charlie's house…?" Jamie asked suspiciously.

Meanwhile, Juni's eyes lit up in understanding. He started rubbing his fist. "This Charlie… now I really want to… meet… him."

"Forget it." Alani said shortly.

"But…"

"Just forget it." Alani turned back to Mandy and handed her a thick envelope. "Where's the parts?"

Mandy closed her mouth, bit her lip, and checked the envelope. At last, she handed out a slip of paper. "Airport warehouse. Hand this over to the warehouse staff. They'll load the crate directly onto your airship."

"Thank you." Alani said a bit curtly, and then turned and left.

The others followed her, some frowning, some giving Mandy curious looks, others simply not looking at her any more.

Only Gary hesitated for a moment, then quietly advised Mandy. "You shouldn't have left us. This place… it really doesn't seem worth it."

He left with that, leaving Mandy shellstruck and looking at the smog-filled sky, left only with memories of the endless green of the Wildlands.

***

"They're heading back." Mindy reported to Remian, based on what Carrie said. "It seems they didn't want to look around Ashdale after all. They'll be camping out at the Neutral Zone with the Storm Pegasus Lord tonight."

"That's such a waste." Remian shook his head. "There's so much they could see and learn there."

"They didn't like Ashdale. Apparently there's coal fires and smoke everywhere. The whole island is covered with smog. They all have to wear face masks and can hardly breathe."

"That bad?" Remian blinked. "I guess… it's a bad time to tour Ashdale. Maybe we should have sent them to Bellas or Germat or something."

"If you want them to see a big city and other cultures, you can forget about it. They've already been to Ecclesia." Mindy said shortly. "They won't be impressed with the Midlands countries. Especially now that mana is drying up."

"I keep forgetting about that." Remian confessed. He was practicing Psionics now, not magic, and did not require the use of mana. Plus, even with the dwindling mana, the occasional slip into old habits still resulted in magical results. The comms crystals, for example, still worked, though at shorter and shorter ranges. When he called out for light, it still appeared. When he drank water and found it too warm, and called for a bit of it to freeze, it froze. Small magics like that still seemed to function, somewhat.

But as of this morning, the Sky Fortresses began to lose power. Scroll-casting and chanelling mana into the engines could keep them in the sky temporarily, but moving around would soon no longer be feasible. Both Damien and Lisa Vin were hurriedly looking over places to land… permanently.

"Just land at Three Pines and Kara-Goth." Remian advised them. "Unless you want to teach at Fal'Herim?"

"But…" Lisa hesitated. "What about Dragon Lake, and… Craggy Falls?"

"Craggy Falls is mine. I'll take care of the schooling there." Remian said shortly. "Don't interfere. As for Dragon Lake… you can ask Darian, but I doubt the dragons would be pleased."

They weren't. Darian flat out told his parents not to land there. "Also, you should avoid Kara-Goth. It won't be long before the next Beast Tide erupts."

"B-Beast Tide?! I thought that was all over and done with!" Damien Vin gasped.

"Nine thousand, eight hundred and fifty-six dead." Darian said shortly. "That was the count as of last night. This includes the number of Wilds killed in the Spectre War, a war that resulted from the actions of humans."

"B-but… aren't you the King of the Wilds around here? Won't that be invading Kor'ag-dras' territory?!" his father protested.

"I am, and it would." Darian nodded. "So? It's still going to happen. The Beast Waves have already been happening. You can ask the Song Clan about that."

"The fighting at the Great Docks… those were Beast Waves?!" Damien gaped. "Then the next Tide… it's going to hit them, right?"

"The Great Docks and Kara-Goth, both." Darian shrugged. "But Three Pines will be untouched. Probably Craggy Falls too."

"But… but why? Why Kara-Goth?!" Lisa Vin asked.

"Too many trees felled. Too many polluting factories and mines. Too many Wilds hunted and killed." Darian said. "I told them already, but the refugees and even the Temple Knights wouldn't listen to me half the time. They seem to think I would protect them regardless. They will soon realize I meant what I said."

"Have you told George?" Damien gulped.

"I've warned him. He didn't seem to take it to heart."

Lisa Vin suddenly turned on Mom mode. "Now, listen here, son, you can't just go around and kill people because they don't take you seriously…"

"Relax, Mom, I won't be doing anything. I'm just letting you know what the Wilds are up to and why." Darian shrugged, and then zipped away before they could say anything else.

"Darian? DARIAN!" Lisa fumed, then picked up her comms crystal. "Darian, you come back here, young man!"

Oddly enough, they heard her voice coming from their feet. Looking down, they found a comms crystal in the dirt.

"Is that… Darian's comm crystal?!" Lisa gaped.

"Yep. I think it is." Damien grimaced. "I don't think we're going to be able to call him any more."

"Why?" Lisa threw up her hands. "Why did we ever come to this place?! Now we've lost both the boys! We should have gone to Ashdale with Mandy and dragged them along, before all this happened!"

"Pretty sure we've lost the girls too." Damien pointed out mildly. "They've all found their own footing here and they don't need us any more. Children grow up so fast."

"No! We're not losing the girls too!" Lisa jumped. "We're taking them with us and we're going back to civilization! As for the Beast Tide, if Darian won't do anything, maybe Remian will! He's good friends with the wolfcats, right?"

"Even if he could do anything, I don't think he would."

"Stubborn…! Maybe our daughter-in-law can talk some sense into our son! Let's go see Mandy at Ashdale!"

"With what? Last I checked, our airships couldn't make it any farther than Kara-Goth. I don't think we'll even be able to reach Fal'Herim."

"These piles of junk we call airships could hardly move to begin with! No, we'll need to use the Red Fang for that. Surely Remian won't begrudge us that much!"

"It's Mindy's airship, but sure, let's ask if we could borrow it." Damien Vin chuckled to himself. "At the very least, there's no harm with visiting Ashdale after all this time."

***

Meanwhile, in Ashdale, Mandy watched Alani and the others as their airship took off from the airport with their cargo on board.

She whispered to herself. "Maybe it's time I go visit Kara-Goth."