Girl in the City, Hidden in a Corner

The Girl in the City, Hidden in a Corner (Rockallian: Cáilin i'n Cháiteair, i Chuinne Fáobhéig; Fernolian: Mercha i'n Dinis, i Chúibhoirr Cúidhion; Astrallic: Chaillina t-ín an Cóibheateairr, ín Cheauinnu Féadheí) is a in Rockally mythology, belonging to The Thirty-five. She is associated with castaways, beggars, thieves, assassins, the homeless, the ignored, and the forgotten. Her followers are known as the Forgotten Ones.

Name
The real name of the goddess is never given in the Legendarium, wherein she is always referred to as either "Girl in the City, Hidden in a Corner" or simply "Girl in the City". However, the tale O diarmi ta or "To be forgotten" from the Prose Legendarium contains the following passage:


 * ... but only few know that I was called Forgotten, a name granted to me when I came into existence, and which I have, counter to what it means, never forgotten, unlike That Ghostly Girl at the End of the Road, who did indeed forget her own name.

It is therefore believed that, canonically, is called Forgotten, or Diarmi in Old Rockallian.

Appearance


Girl in the City, Hidden in a Corner does not have a particular appearance as described in the Legendarium or Prose Legendarium, other than that she is a young girl who sleeps on the streets and is ignored by passersby. In art, she is often depicted as an obscured, dark-haired girl crying in a corner, despite her never once being described as crying in either book.

Notable about her is that her appearance is not described in detail, but, unusually in Rockallic mythology, there is great focus on the feelings that are associated with her presence. As described in the Legendarium:


 * Always felt
 * But never seen
 * By those without a home
 * But she is there
 * And when she is
 * You are cold, forgotten, alone

Associated with her presence are feelings of loneliness, forsakenness, forgottenness, bleakness, and freezing cold, as well as a general loss of joy and an empty feeling. This has given her a modern association with.

Nature and functions
Girl in the City, Hidden in a Corner is a member of The Thirty-five, but does not live in the Home of the Thirty-five. Instead, she is one of the deities that can travel between worlds, and indeed can be found in every world.

She serves as the protectress of castaways, which includes thieves, beggars, and assassins. She is also the protectress of the homeless and those who are generally ignored. Lastly is a function which entails all previously summarised protectees, namely that she is the protectress of those who have been forgotten. A side-effect of this function is that once you fall under her protection, you are in almost all cases irrevocably forever forgotten; the fortunateness of this side-effect is debatable.

Legendarium
Girl in the City, Hidden in a Corner appears 21 times in the Legendarium. Her most notable appearance is not by her, but by one of her Forgotten Ones, who is visited by That Ghostly Girl at the End of the Road 'who wants her to become a Silhouette, in the chapter Ialm. The sub-chapter she appears in, called Aon Ril Eilasa or "One Last Time", describes her interaction with the Forgotten One, and how the Forgotten One refuses her advances. Though at the very end it describes the one instance in which the Forgotten One will accept the advances:


 * But one time at Afternoon
 * The Forgotten One will agree
 * And become of two Deities
 * Both forgotten and unknown
 * Never visible
 * But as a silhouette


 * And as she agrees
 * That Ghostly Girl at the End of the Road will know
 * Girl in the City, Hidden in a Corner will know
 * And Hidden will know
 * That at the end of the cycle
 * The Forever-Silence will commence

The verses are the first reference to the Forever-Silence in the Legendarium, the predicted end of everything. The life cycle of the All-Tree is said to come to end with the Forever-Silence, and that all Deities will disappear with it, and the Forever-Silence is heralded by the Forgotten One accepting the offer to become a Silhouette as well. The reason for this is given in the next verse:


 * But one will survive the Forever-Silence:
 * The girl both unknown and forgotten
 * For she is forgotten and unknown
 * And thus nonexistent
 * So she cannot disappear
 * And will be left behind alone

The girl who is both a Forgotten One and a Silhouette will be, by virtue of being both unknown and forgotten, in a state of nonexistence that is even more non-existent than Nothing. Why this is the case is not exactly known, though scholars generally agree that it is because it is common knowledge that Nothing exists, whereas nobody knows that the girl exists — only that she will exist or may already exist, and that by virtue of her state being unknown and her life forgotten, she does not exist at all.

Cultural attestations
A long and widely held belief was that Girl in the City, Hidden in a Corner resided in the Inner Back Alleys Ward of An Bhá nan Éirith Ghréine, somewhere in on the streets or in one of the many chaotically constructed houses. She has also been the unofficial "protectress" of the ward since the 11th century.

Her more modern association with depression has given rise to the expression "is e le'n Cháilin i'n Cháiteair" in Rockallian, which translates into "he/she is with the Girl in the City"; it is used as an idiom for sadness or depression.