Yeddaw | |
---|---|
Drawing by Ben McSweeney | |
Type | City |
Location | Tashikk |
Inhabitants | Tashikki |
Yeddaw is a city in Tashikk, and the closest one can come to seeing Sesemalex Dar. It is a majestic city that was cut out of the ground a hundred years back by the hired Imperial Shardblades of Azir. This makes its appearance unusual because huge trenches within it interconnect like a huge maze making a vague spiral toward the center, which has a large mound-like building atop it that rises over the surface of the ground. This building is called the Grand Indicium.[1][2]
The city's inhabitants live inside of the trenches, but farming is done above them in in the spaces between the trenches. These trenches are varied in width and were cut so that water drains out of the city during highstorms, with the Grand Indicium being the highest central point from which the rest of the city slopes downward.[1]
On a prominent wall is displayed a grand mural of Tashi and the Nine binding the world.[3] On the tops of the city's walls are the gardens. Between some of them are bridges that cross over the trenches, but they're not common enough to traverse a circumference.[3] They are bowl-like depressions in the stone with exits down different roads. Vines coat the leeward side of a wall, but slowly give way to brittles on the other side.[2]
The city is comprised of many different sectors. The immigrant quarter is a slum-like area of the city where live the city's poor. (Rich people don't enter the city here, only the ones without papers.[4]) It is implied that the area surrounding the immigrant quarter has lower property values by proximity. Many of the homes in this sector are wooden and raised on stilts to avoid the runoff during storms.[5]
The buildings are cut right into the stone - doorways, windows, and everything bores out of the rock. The walls of these are painted bright colors, often in columns to differentiate one building from another.[5]
The shanties in the city are confined to smaller roadways, which stick out like spokes from a larger road, connecting it to the next large road in line.[5]
The city is all up on stilts. Even the most rickety of constructions is up four feet or so in the air. One need walk up three or four steps cut into the stone to get in to a structure. This serves as protection from the storms.[5]
The confines within the city aren't completely cramped as many of the larger streets have plenty of space. But the walls do enhance the feeling of being boxed in.[3]
Lift finds the city to be impressive, majestic, yet she'd come there to hide.[1]
Characteristics[]
Yeddaw has pancakes. Lift claims to Wyndle that this is why they are there.[1]
When initially there, neither Lift nor Wyndle can see smoke trails in the alleys; only the occasional pinprick of spherelight. It is supposed to be the Weeping, and most spheres are then dun.[6]
Lift notices that people within the city keep their spheres in rows, strung on long strings, even if they put them in pouches. All the spheres of currency she sees have holes in their bottoms just so one could do that.[6]
Lift does not see many beggars in the city.[2]
She observes that people there love to write things down. And, that they love information, and trading it with one another, to which Wyndle agrees, indicating that such information would be kept in a safe place.[2]
The seasons have gone insane. It is supposed to be raining constantly, but it hasn't rained for days.[7]
Tashikki[]
The people wear a variety of attire. Mostly Azish patterns or Tashikki shiquas. Some are mercenaries, probably either Tukari or Emuli. Others wear rural clothing with a lighter coloring, probably from Alm or Desh. There are even a few Reshi, wearing little more than rags.[5]
Anyone can come and cook in the communal ovens. (The people can't have fires in their own places. Early in the city's life, a fire had blazed through various slums and killed tons of people.) The communal ovens are a vast, hollowed out cavern in the wall of an alley cut upward. There, they burn rockbud husks from the farms.[6]
People in Yeddaw keep their spheres in rows, strung on long strings, even if they put them in pouches. All the currency Lift sees has holes in the bottoms of the glass spheres. She wonders how the people count exact change, but is relieved that they use spheres.[6]
Further, the people there expect some measure of jostling as they move through the streets.[3]
Children at their lessons sit in rows and listen to a teacher while doing some menial task, like sewing, to pay for the education.[3]
Some of the people Lift notices have parshmen slaves.[3]
Having survived the Everstorm, the people work to clean it up. They live their entire lives in the shadow of the highstorms. They adapt and will continue to adapt.[8]
References[]
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