Words Of A Jovrlov

[LadyLekku]

The following missive is made available by those who wish to have a copy of it. It is presented as an open letter, a think-piece of an essay, offering some reflections from Jarless Sivrid Sorenvik.​

Tradition is a curious thing; it is both personal, and communal. It is a binding force, yet a claim that many would fight for, and die to protect. When I arrived in this city, my traditions colored everything that I was. They made me foreign to this place, because they guided me in the same way that they would have guided me, were I in my home village, just south of Irvainvik, in a lonely plateau where the cliffs of our meadows overlooked the grey sea.

In this way, traditions are a connection to our homelands, and yet we are a leaky sieve that carries them. Traditions, culture, language- they bleed into everything we are, and the work of our hands, and the words from our lips. Our traditions spill out from us and color all that we touch. And I believe that this is for the better.

I am not alone in this belief. Hardly so. In fact, to "regalize" is to recognize that we, as an empire, are emboldened for our diversity. That we gather what is strong and good from every far-reaching end of His domain, and deliver it to His empire, to our own benefit.

So what is to prevent us from regalizing? What stops me, with my love for this empire, and my loyalty to its crown, from imparting the wisdom of my traditions into the common sphere of its culture?

What if my refusal to regalize has not stopped me from doing just that?

It was not on purpose, I will admit, that I began to make such changes. With my ascendance to nobility, I recognized that I did not see a place in which a woman of my background could serve a noble house, much less serve the state government. It was this longing for direction which led to the creation of the Civics Ministry, in its first iteration as the Alms.

The duties of the position I hold are of social welfare- and this is where I see my homeland's traditions spilling from my buckets, splashing on the cobblestones, watering the grass, as I trod through the city streets. Because, I hold another position in this city, which was not granted to me by the state. That position is of the Jovrlov of the Velheim.

To those unaffiliated with the politics of the North, this position is community-voted. When a crime is committed, the Jovrlov's duty is to mend the soldi of the perpetrator, and to guide their return to society in such a way that all parties feel satisfied. Because of the way the law is handled by the Jovrlov, it means that not all criminals face prison, and instead are indentured to service for the sake of repairing what was broken, including the community's trust in them.

Is this not what has been created with Community Service sentences?

When I realized that I had accidentally imparted the duties of the Jovrlov into the state position of the Civics Minister, it felt as if a bright light began to shine. I began to seek such parallels elsewhere. And to the surprise of perhaps none, they can be seen in every crack and atop every pillar of this city. For those places we have come to inhabit within the city, are influenced by our traditions; and through our work, the city changes. It grows.

This Empire is its people. Not only because of the willingness it has to change, adapt, collect, and repurpose the traditions of our homelands, but because of the inevitable truth that when you become part of something, that something becomes part of you. There is no us and them- there is only this thing that we are building, together. But we cannot affect change, from the outside. And we must not regress, away from progress, away from one another, out of the fear that with the changing of the Empire, we ourselves will inevitably change as well.

To this end I say, we must embrace it. We cannot section ourselves away and hope that the future will be kind to our traditions; instead, hold fast to your traditions, and bring them into something that will grow alongside them. Not in fear of what is different, but in love for what has united us. Become a pillar which this Empire cannot stand to lose. Root yourself so deeply into it, that the imparting of your wisdom feels as natural as a breeze across the grass. We are growing, together. Regalized, or traditionalist, it does not matter; the world will continue to change with or without our input- I believe it wiser, then, to be part of this guiding force.