My dearest Zann,

One thing about working at the palace that’s taking me a long time to get used to is the lauran-style privies. The laurans don’t pipe their piss and cack away to mosstone cauldrons; they have another thing they do.

You go into one of their privies; it’s a small room that smells like jonquils and it’s lit by high windows. (If you’re human and it’s nighttime, bring your own light.) There’s a little bridge in front of you that can turn a bit to the left or right. You walk out to the end of it, which is in the middle of the room, depending on where you swung the bridge. Below you, about two or three feet down, is a floor of moist earth covered by short wide plants with red flowers. There’s a low stool at the end of the bridge, with a hole in the middle.

So you sit on the stool, or stand at the end of the walkway if that’s your preference, and you play your tune, and then a couple of things happens. First, the flowers puff out a yellow mist that smells like jonquils. It cleans your hands and your chuff, and then you do up your clothes. Second, down on the ground, the plants grow to absorb and break down your piss and cack and in two minutes it’s like you were never there.

It’s oddly pleasant, or at least it would be if it wasn’t designed for laurans. Seems there’s something about human effluent that’s unwholesome enough to kill these flowers, and they won’t grow back to cover the dead spot until they’ve been fed with lauran plook. Makes me feel guilty every time. Oh, gods, the time I had an upset stomach after some bad river mussels… I killed a quarter of the room and another quarter with my tears.

Love,

Ybel