Iridia World Building Wiki

Backstory: Threadbare

Author: Sylieth
Location Found: Personal journal, Red Palm Hall archive copy (non-circulating)
Date: Unknown
Access Restrictions: Personal reflection, read only with Sylieth’s permission

Contents

I wasn’t born into anything soft.

No name, no crib, no gentle cooing or lullabies—just breath, cold stone, and the press of the city’s underbelly above me. Some say the Armour of Or hums, like the scale it rests on remembers the Collapse. Maybe that was the lullaby I got. A rumble, a warning, a promise: You’ll have to earn every moment.

I don’t know who left me, or why. I tell myself they had no choice, but some nights I wonder if they just couldn’t stand to look at me. The horns, the tail, the skin—people always assume the worst of a Tiefling. You learn quickly how to look smaller than you are. How to vanish. How to hide your hunger and your hope in the same place, so no one can steal either.

I survived by being useful. Dottie Copperlocks—mad as a sky-squid, paranoid as a goblin with debt—ran a little wreck of a bookstore called The Inkblot Bindery. If you were quiet, fast, and knew when not to ask questions, she’d give you food. I became her errand ghost. Slipped through markets, alleys, into courthouses and steam vents and lecture halls. I didn’t know what half of it meant, and I still don’t. I just knew she trusted no one—but she used me.

Then came the bottle.

It broke. Fell right out of my bag near the edge of The Brazen Burp. I was hungry, distracted. I thought I could outrun the voice that called out to me, but it wasn’t the guard’s voice. It was… warm. Musical. Infuriatingly gentle.

Miss Terry.
She crouched down like I was a stray kitten. I expected her to haul me to the council or bribe the guard or hand me back to Dottie with a warning. Instead, she held out her hand and said, “You look like someone in need of a little kindness… and a long nap.”

I didn’t trust her. Not then. But I followed.

She took me to Brother Ienor. You’d think a man that handsome would be insufferable. But he wasn’t. He didn’t flinch at my horns, didn’t squint at my skin like it was something to fix. He asked my name. I told him I didn’t have one. He just nodded and said, “Then let’s find one together.”

They let me stay at The Red Palm Hall. They gave me work, food, a bed with a blanket that smelled like dried herbs and old books. The first night, I slept with one eye open. The second night, I didn’t sleep at all. The third, I cried and didn’t know why.

That’s when I found the thread.

A scrap of red cord, torn from a bandage I’d used to bind a boy’s hand. It stuck to my sleeve. I meant to throw it away. Instead, I kept it. Wrapped it around my wrist. It felt like something important. That night, while the others prayed to names carved in Etherian stone, I whispered into the dark and asked if anyone else was listening.

Someone was.

Not from this world. Not from Iridia. But he listened. And I listened back. His name was Ilmater—not from here, not known by the monks, but known to me. Through pain, through mercy, through stillness. I don’t know how he found me. I only know I feel him when I take someone’s pain into my hands, when I shoulder their grief and leave nothing behind. That red thread tightens around my wrist like a pulse. And I know I'm not alone.

So now… I heal.

Not because I think I’m holy. Not because I think I’m good. But because I know what it is to break, and I’d rather be broken than watch someone else shatter.

That’s all I am.

Threadbare. Bound. Unbroken. Sylieth