Five Stolen Cities app

[yourbirdisgonnafly]

PLAYER

player name: Alex
pronouns: She/her or they/theirs please
age: 23
contact: moxana


CHARACTER

character name: Zia
character title: the Forsaken Songbird
age: 19
gender: Girl, standard she/her pronouns
species: human, un-bandaged, from the tomb colonies.
strengths: very watchful, a little persuasive. Not at all dangerous or shadowy.

canon history:
Under "transcript" is all we know about her canon history before the Calamity. Under "plot" are the events that happen to her during the game. Evacuation is assumed to be the true ending.

AU history:
Zia grew up in the Tomb Colonies, one normal and very alive looking girl surrounded by bandaged, decaying people. Perhaps that's why she's so comfortable with death and darkness and strange appearances. Her father himself spent all of his time wrapped up like the Colonists, despite being mostly intact. His own daughter rarely ever saw his face, and rarely even saw him at all. He was often away from home, saying that being separate was safer for her, though he never told her why. There was very little structure for her in the Colonies, no formal schooling, and no mother to look after her, so she had to build it for herself. She found some books and learned to read with the help of some kind acquaintances, and with a little haggling and finesse, she managed to get herself a small travel harp.

Music came far easier to her than words, and she soon left the books behind in favor of finding scraps of written songs to learn, and making up some of her own. She even transcribed songs she knew by ear. Her harp became her closest and at times only friend. Her and her father never stayed in one place long, "for their safety" always being his mantra. Eventually Zia learned to stop questioning it, though her curiosity was never truly quashed.

Once, she did make a friend, or so she thought. He was someone else in Venderbight who wasn't wrapped, and he was kind and gentle and actually seemed interested in her as a person. Zia was entirely charmed by him, especially since he claimed to know things about her and her past. He said that she had the look of someone from the Fourth City. When she asked if he had seen it himself he only chuckled. Before anything of any actual substance could be learned from him, her father discovered them together and fell into a rage, chasing him off and screaming. Zia had never seen him so upset, or so emotional at all before. Everything changed after that. They travelled further and faster, sleeping in more secluded places. Her father started dropping cryptic hints both in his conversations with her, and when she caught him talking to himself.

It was pretty obviously some sort of paranoia that had it's grip on him. Zia did her best to keep him calm and keep their family together, but he grew harder and harder to deal with. His actions grew desperate and haphazard, and even Zia started to be on edge from his worry. He took them back around in circles, looking for something. Eventually he found it, an underground safehouse. Well, it was more like a tunnel leading into a cave, but it had a series of very secure doors. Then the strangest thing of all happened-they stayed there. For more than one night. For a week. For two weeks. Her father pulled into himself, barely speaking, barely eating. He was constantly writing in his journal and looking through books.
One day while Zia was out collecting mushrooms for a meal, her father found her once again in a desperate panic. He told her to go back to their den and lock herself in. He said he would be back within 24 hours, and if he wasn't, she was to take his journal and run. Wrap herself up like a regular tomb colonist and never show her face and never tell anyone who she really was.

Zia followed those first instructions to the letter, locking herself up in the den securely and staying there. She stayed for longer, hoping, knowing, that he would come back and that she wouldn't be alone. It was denial and not truth, however, and eventually she had to admit that something had happened. Numb from the realization and from shock, she gathers everything she can find of importance, prepared to start her life over again as a living mummy-when something catches her eye on her father's desk. His journal.
She knows she can't read it, but in that instant a decision was made. She grabbed the journal and ran... to the Fifth City. She was going to find answers, safety be damned.

personality:
Voice sample

Zia's personality is a very understated thing. She doesn't take up a lot of space or demand a lot of attention. She is quietly curious about everything around her and gently polite with anyone who approaches her. The only time her presence grows into anything worth talking about is when she sings or plays her harp. She expresses herself best in music and poetry, so that's where all of her emotions and thoughts end up channeled to. In a way, music is more of a first language for her than any spoken or written word. You can get to know her best by listening to her songs.

She has learned how to express herself in conversation over the years, too, even if conversation partners were harder to find. She isn't socially awkward so to speak, but she does speak very softly and has very little experience with reading facial expressions. Intonation she can understand most of the time, but she's far more used to speaking to bandaged faces or just her father's worry-lined features. It's going to be a challenge to overcome for her to learn how to play the Great Game and gather information from other people. It's a challenge she is very much looking forward to.

Zia has wanted to leave the colonies for the Fifth City for as long as she can remember. She's fascinated by it, and would dream of bustling busy streets full of living, open faces. There's a force that draws her to it, even more so now that her father is missing and she has the journal. She's absolutely determined to find answers and understand what happened to her family. That determination is going to be the drive behind her slow transformation into a proper citizen of the Fifth City. At first she is going to stand out like a sore thumb, entirely unsure of how to act around actually alive people.

Neither her curiosity nor her intrinsic caring personality were lost to her upbringing. She will be learning with great enthusiasm how to gain information in the Fifth City, starting with Veilgarden. She wants to know everything and learn how to blend in. She's getting to live her dream... right? If only the circumstances were better. At first she's going to hold out hope that her father is still alive somewhere and that he's just staying away from her to "keep her safe". She feels a small amount of guilt over disobeying his orders, but she's too determined to get to the bottom of whatever he was researching and hiding from, and finding both him and her mother again, to be burdened by it.

Having had to be the caretaker in her house much of the time, cooking and cleaning and generally making sure her father remembered to do basic human functions, Zia very easily falls into a caring role with anyone who seems to want or need it. She trusts far more easily than many other residents of the Neath, at least as much as to want to feed the hungry and care for the weak. She keeps secrets, though, because the last year of her life has taught her just how dangerous the Neath can be. It took most of her life for that to sink in, but sink in it did.

In summary, Zia is a quiet and polite girl who watches everything around her with great interest. She loves making music and cooking above almost all else, and tends to give strangers the benefit of the doubt while also getting used to guarding her secrets closer to her chest. She's housing a bravery and enthusiasm just below the surface behind her unobtrusive smiles, but fear and time with the unquiet dead have left them hidden up to now. She has a lot of potential to be a player in the Game, and to actually succeed in her goals, but she has a ways to go and work to do.

samples:
[one]
[two]
The Forsaken Songbird had been worried at first that the payment for passage across the underzee would be more than she could afford. Neither job nor currency were not prolific in Venderbight, but she got lucky in her search near the docks. An old Zailor with a love for music spotted her playing, and approached. She was able to barter passage in exchange for her playing, which she was more than happy to do.

So the Songbird played and sang her way across the zee, even making a little extra pocket change when one of the zailors on board would tip her. They were all very kind, she thought, despite their ragged look. She was almost put into a false sense of security concerning the citizens of the Fifth City, which was quickly set to rights when they put down anchor at Wolfstack Docks.

It was intimidating, to put it lightly. The little Songbird wilted under the gaze of so many dangerous and heavily tattoos people. Even with her unrefined social senses she could feel the tense air, and almost hopped right back on to the ship back to Venderbight. A little trip to a quiet corner to breathe and pluck out a lullaby set her to rights and gave her just enough courage to ask the least intimidating person she could find where a young musician might be able to make some money and find a place to stay. She was gruffly send in the direction of Veilgarden, and given vague directions. So, Veilgarden it would be. Journal and harp wrapped up safe and hugged close to her chest, she begins to follow the signs to Veilgarden, and the start of her new life.