#ilsabard

[sirensongsea]

[nothingxs]

Snow

Camp Broken Glass. Celica provides regular aid to the Garlean restoration. There's a few reasons for it—some of it is guilt, that even though she understood that her time at Bozja and the lives she had to take in war were in defense of her home and perhaps even necessary... blood spilled remains blood spilled, and bringing supplies and aiding in said reconstruction is the most proper penance she can think of.

[theomocentarchive]

ruveyda fibers rooftop garden.

[ksilberne]

Ilsabard

[lydiathane]

Prompt #10: Channel

The detritus quickly stacked up as the hours slipped away. It was easy to forget I hadn’t slept, working with monk-focus on the repetitious act of picking up refuse and moving it all to the discard pile over and over again; broken furniture, metal scraps, crumbled brick. I tried to recreate the home in my mind, reverse-engineering the outcome to the origin. Who lived here? What did they want for, what did they hope? The old Garleans were rural bumpkins, the bottom of the food chain. Even knee-deep in their old home, sorting through their ruined bedrooms and chasing mice out of their moldy bassinets, it was hard to fathom that before the iron spires, there was just a rickety bedframe on the old farmstead. There were raised garden beds on the east end, and a well just beside. No ceruleum, no revolution, no empire.

“Hey.”

My head turned swiftly, caught by surprise. My back was turned to the farm, and I was staring at a patch of frosty bramble, clutching a rusted iron pot in my gloved hands. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Go get some rest. I found the cellar, but it will need some work to get the vehicle down there.”

“Wait, when’d you do that?” I rounded to inspect his work and realized that we’d transformed the slouching memory of quaint country life into a picked-over square of bare foundation flanked by trash, that old life fully disassembled by a carpenter and his haggard assistant who apparently, on several occasions, seemed to forget what she was doing in a stupor. I know it’s the hunger. I know. I wonder if he thinks about it, too, like when I offered to take a shift at the wheel so he could sleep. Did he get any rest, or did he just wait to see if I’d lose it when I heard the first deep breaths of slumber? I’ve lived this way before. I was an ascetic, and it crippled me for decades. Memory shot, identity a jumble. All I knew was the military discipline I’d been given, and it was by that grace of purpose that I didn’t become a full-fledged monster. But now, I ask, what’s stopping me?

Arius is staring at me. I’ve drifted again, embarrassing. I know whatever he just said, I didn’t hear a word of it. “I’m sorry,” is all I can muster, my resignation as heavy as the house we just moved. This man’s got kids, and I guess Lydia fucking Thane makes one more. He’s not old enough to be my father, a laughable notion especially on time scales as long as mine, and I can’t remember the first thing about my own to compare, but I what I do know is that I don’t want to disappoint someone who’s channeled so much effort just to get me here, and for what? What’s this man getting out of this except a threat on his life while he’s got daughters who love him, safe in Kugane? I can’t understand this man’s integrity, but I admire the absolute hell out of it. I don’t want to fuck this up. I don’t want to be this way, I don’t want to hurt anyone, and I don’t want to die.

[lyglg-scnry]

Overcome despair

[rivenroad]

A little while ago I took some pictures of my Ilsabardian/Garlean? Roegadyn. Her name is Sathtoum. I don't play her much or have much solid backstory for her but she and one of my other characters, Dmitriy, are an attempt to make more rural Ilsabard natives, taking inspiration from Russia and north Asian cultures that I think work best for the roots of the region and had somewhat confirmed by Hrothgar, lol. Her name (not birth name) is from the Roegadyn language, as I imagine her ancestors crossed the sea from Aerslaent to the northern coast of Ilsabard. I guess with them I'm exploring lives of citizens who did not grow up fully assimilated into imperial culture, but even they are unable to fully escape its influence and were likely eventually driven from their homeland.

[taebeast]

                                 The Diva of Ilsabard, siren of the stage.

                                               ♪~     ♪~     ♪~     ♪~