The Yukata Plains are the former homeland of the Ahfal Oma, the People of the Fire Horse. Their transformation under Zolian rule links the region’s agricultural settlement to a conflict over land, introduced crops, and the survival of its original inhabitants.

Homeland and Conquest

Before the Zolian takeover, the plains belonged to the Ahfal Oma. Zolian invaders took control of the area to pasture sheep and cultivate rye and beans. The new settlement was part of a wider frontier policy: poor farmers and herders from the edges of the Zolian realm were sent into conquered territory to establish Zolian-style communities, raise familiar crops and livestock, and help turn the region into Zolian land.

Rye, Conflict, and Expulsion

The introduction of rye had consequences beyond farming. Many fire horses died after eating it, and the Ahfal Oma responded by setting fire to a village of immigrant farmers. Zolian soldiers suppressed the uprising, and its instigators were executed. The punishment fell on the wider people: the Ahfal Oma were driven from the plains and left without a homeland.

The episode also exposes a conflict between agricultural change and local knowledge. Kiya suggests that the Ahfal Oma may not have known rye could become toxic. Van considers whether Aquafa wheat, formerly grown on the plains, might affect horses differently. In Oki, meanwhile, people valued the immigrants’ crops as food. The same agricultural transformation could therefore be experienced as useful provision by one community and as a threat to another’s animals, livelihood, and place.

Later Reports and Significance

Much later, during discussion of the spreading disease associated with dog bites, Tohma reports deaths among people in settlements on the southern Yukata Plains, as well as on the south side of the Oki Valley. The plains thus recur not only as the setting of an earlier displacement, but also as one of the places touched by the wider epidemic.

The region’s history joins territorial conquest to changes in settlement and cultivation. Zolian rule brought immigrant communities and new crops, while the costs of those changes were unevenly borne: the Ahfal Oma lost their homeland after conflict over the consequences for their fire horses. The later reports of disease add another pressure to a landscape already marked by upheaval.