The One

THREE

He had heard of the Ash, but never seen anyone from there. Their skin was so far from anything he had ever seen he was highly tempted to step up and touch one of them to test if his eyes weren't deceiving him.

They were tall and their skin dark tones, not just dark but they had a lot of variety.
Deep rich browns, gray to nearly blue black.
Their hair long and dark, their eyes suddenly colorful. Brown and yellow tones, there was one young man that had sun like bright yellow eyes that had stared back at Morten as he had stared at them.

Morten blushed violently realizing this, he had been rude.
However..

"The frozen!"

Wolf had steered Morten around to face the other way, scolding him.
Wolf looked around.

The young sun eyed man and two other Ashes were behind him.
"Yes.. we are" said Wolf carefully, unsure if they were angry.

Morten turned at this and saw a very cheerful smile on the young man before him.
The man grabbed Morten's arm and shook it.

"I have always wanted to meet Frozen! Tell me of your lands! Is it indeed white!?"

Morten sputtered in reply, "not.. not always?"

The Ashes eyes became big, "so it's true, you get solid rain? That stays on the ground?"

"S-snow?" Morten offered.

"Yes! That was the word. It's like Ashen rain, but not so filthy!"

Wolf had to change gears for a moment and turned his annoyance with Morten into a friendly gaze.
Making his facial hair twitch.
"You have volcanoes," he said.

Morten looked at Wolf and back at the young Ashen.

"Yes! We do. Currently our eyes are on a very big volcano, she is fit to burst. Our best men are trying to determine the path it might take and the destruction it may cause." Another one of them said.

Morten was trying to imagine their lives,
he had heard the ash was a fertile and rich region. But continuously terrorized by earthquakes and fire coming up from the grounds.
These were things that gave the region such riches,
something about the unrest in the earth made life flourish.
He was mesmerized.

A man from the Ashen males called.

"Oh, that's us. Pleased to meet you, frozen man!" The sun eyes man smiled as he turned away from them.

"I.." Morten hesitated, turning towards Wolf, "I'm sorry about that.."

"It's fine, just, ask about people. Don't stare." Wolf grimaced.

" My experience with Ashes aren't so cheery. But then of course I've only ever met Ashes who fled their own lands. Almost all Ashes have lost someone to the Ash. It is a very beautiful place, but beauty is danger. " Wolf whispered.

Beauty is danger.
Morten repeated the line in his head and remembered the high wolf, his thick white fur dancing around its sharp and long features, the bright eyes piercing him. The cat, prowling around the mountains, almost invisible unless you knew exactly where she was. Head as big as his chest, eyes pools of deep blue.

Beauty indeed was danger.

" Those are the people of the plains" Wolf said, waking Morten out of his reverie.

He looked to where Wolf had indicated.
The lady that had guided them was obviously of these people.
Robust, tall, fair skinned with reddish and deep brown hair. Some of them featured freckles. Like the frozen they seemed very capable of growing facial hair even in their early twenties.