Ašaţ'ōḑḑy'ah

Now there will be a sudden post about... my last name.

In my passport it is written as Ашасоззьа, and in my thoughts I have to go and change its spelling to something like Ашасъоззьа. In Roman orthography it will look like Ašaţ'ōḑḑy'ah; yes, I agree, it’s better not to try to transcribe it at all, but that’s not my fault.

Now I'll explain why it's needed at all and what it means. My great-great (great?) grandfather migrated to Retsinia from the New World; why - the devil knows. My last name came with him, and if translated very roughly, it means something like "sun, the blackest of stars." I used to think that this story would plunge girls into a state of indescribable delight, but most of them usually just look at me strangely. And some - who know a little about the history of Aznatanian jewels in general - sometimes even start to avoid me.

The thing is, to put it bluntly, that almost all Aznatan Jeart tribes… ate people. In the absolutely literal physical sense. And at first, they hunted them, just like the predators from the movie of the same name. What is characteristic, but not very explainable - not the elves or dwarves, but specifically people.

It is clear that people were not their main diet, since the prey is not the easiest and most accommodating. But all sorts of initiation rites, holidays and similar things almost always had a successful hunt for humans as an integral element - sometimes it all ended with the slaughter of even entire tribes. It is due to this, among other things, that it was not possible to colonize the central territories of Aznata for so long - there were the most Jearts there. Even now there are tribes there, in which the great-grandfathers of the last living generation did not disdain to taste human flesh.

I think there is no need to explain how the local people treated the Jearts, even those who had nothing to do with this whole man-eating movement. That is probably why that distant relative emigrated. And even now the Jearts from Aznata are slowly flocking to Orova: here no one has ever eaten people, but rather the opposite.

This is such a sad story with a not very happy ending.