Some fifty years before the Seventh Umbral Calamity, a community of Duskwight in the Black Shroud grew dissatisfied with their treatment by the city-state of Gridania. Interpreting the Seedseers' lack of intervention as a sign that the Elementals condoned their oppression, they chose to leave the Black Shroud entirely. After several moons of travel, they arrived on the isle of Vylbrand, then still a chaotic nest of pirates, brigands, and general vagrants. Reasoning that none there would bat an eye at immigrants of an uncommon race, they settled in a village on the cliffs just outside Limsa Lominsa. Among those immigrants were Aelienor's grandparents and her young parents.
Aelienor, thus, was born in La Noscea, hearing about the life and traditions of Gridania only as stories from her grandparents. Stories, then, became a source of fascination for her, crucial as they were to understanding her own community. From there, she took an interest in history in general, and ultimately moved into the city proper to study history at Mealvaan's Gate, where she also picked up Arcanima and stumbled into thwarting a notorious slaver. This, combined with her parents' warnings about fetching young adults being prime targets for slavers left an impression on her, planting seeds of cynicism in her otherwise idealistic mind.
Ultimately, her city education saved her life, as the cliff her village was built on crumbled into the sea when Bahamut's fury shook the realm. Her mother, visiting the city markets, also survived, but the rest of her family and many of her childhood friends perished, leaving her adrift with no home to return to. On learning the details of the Calamity, she doubled down on her studies of history, believing that the disaster would not have occurred if only the stories of the past were better known. And so, on completing her education, she set out with a cheap bow (unable to afford a grimoire of her own), bound for the home of the tales that had first piqued her interest in history...
Starting her adventures in Gridania's Archer's Guild, she quickly came to understand what it was her grandparents had disliked about the city. As a Duskwight and an outsider both, she struggled for respect despite the bow coming almost preternaturally easily to her, far more so than it ever had helping her parents hunt wild dodos.
Her initial struggles made it all the more baffling for her when the series of events surrounding Yda, Papalymo, and the then-mysterious Lahabrea led to her being given a role of honor in a Gridanian ceremony. Ultimately, leaving Gridania behind was a relief, and after a brief stay in Ul'dah, she chose to join her homeland's Grand Company, the Maelstrom. But while Vylbrand was her homeland, the closest she had come to finding a new home was the Waking Sands, a point of stability in her wanderings, where she could always be sure she could find a soft bed and cold drinks. Thus, returning from her fight with Titan to find every man and woman slaughtered, down to the innocent sylph who had only just arrived as an emissary, shook and angered her to her core. It was then that she discovered the darker side of herself, a furious craving for vengeance that drove her to kill anyone she met who wore Garlean colors, regardless of whether or not they were a threat, and even if they attempted to flee or surrender.
Her choice of Grand Company became somewhat awkward when her multiple successes against Leviathan and the recommendation of Yugiri earned her an invitation to the Rogues' Guild of Limsa, where she found herself on the wrong end of a Yellowjacket commander's ire. Once again, a weapon seemed to come strangely easily to her, daggers and misdirection feeling somehow familiar to her, evoking the same sense of distant nostalgia as that dream of a meteor shower. Yet where the familiarity of the bow had the explanation of having trained with it as a child, she had never once fought with a blade before.
Along the way, her background in both Arcanima and history led to her involvement in two separate investigations into the use of ancient job stones. Unlike the bow and knives, she found no sudden intense aptitude for arcane geometry, and so the magic of the Scholars of Nym and the Summoners of Allag remained largely as curiosities and personal projects, with her archery and daggerplay being what carved a bloody swathe through Castrum Meridianum and the Praetorium, and felled Livia.
In the wake of her success, word spread that she was the new Warrior of Light, and it seemed everywhere she turned, she was greeted with admirers who adored her based only on what they had read in a newspaper or heard at a tavern. Everywhere, that was, except Camp Dragonhead. Though initially wary of Haurchefant due to his aggressive flirting and intensely sexual interest in her, she had quickly warmed to him after he was the first to ask for her help and then fight alongside her, and she welcomed his earnest advances and adoration after the surge of 'admirers' seeking only the prestige of the Warrior of Light's company. By the time of Ilberd's betrayal and the Bloody Banquet forcing her to flee to Ishgard, she had already begun to fall in love with the boisterous knight.
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timeasmymeasure
Backstory+A Realm Reborn
Date: 2022-07-15 04:57 am (UTC)Backstory and A Realm Reborn
Some fifty years before the Seventh Umbral Calamity, a community of Duskwight in the Black Shroud grew dissatisfied with their treatment by the city-state of Gridania. Interpreting the Seedseers' lack of intervention as a sign that the Elementals condoned their oppression, they chose to leave the Black Shroud entirely. After several moons of travel, they arrived on the isle of Vylbrand, then still a chaotic nest of pirates, brigands, and general vagrants. Reasoning that none there would bat an eye at immigrants of an uncommon race, they settled in a village on the cliffs just outside Limsa Lominsa. Among those immigrants were Aelienor's grandparents and her young parents.
Aelienor, thus, was born in La Noscea, hearing about the life and traditions of Gridania only as stories from her grandparents. Stories, then, became a source of fascination for her, crucial as they were to understanding her own community. From there, she took an interest in history in general, and ultimately moved into the city proper to study history at Mealvaan's Gate, where she also picked up Arcanima and stumbled into thwarting a notorious slaver. This, combined with her parents' warnings about fetching young adults being prime targets for slavers left an impression on her, planting seeds of cynicism in her otherwise idealistic mind.
Ultimately, her city education saved her life, as the cliff her village was built on crumbled into the sea when Bahamut's fury shook the realm. Her mother, visiting the city markets, also survived, but the rest of her family and many of her childhood friends perished, leaving her adrift with no home to return to. On learning the details of the Calamity, she doubled down on her studies of history, believing that the disaster would not have occurred if only the stories of the past were better known. And so, on completing her education, she set out with a cheap bow (unable to afford a grimoire of her own), bound for the home of the tales that had first piqued her interest in history...
Starting her adventures in Gridania's Archer's Guild, she quickly came to understand what it was her grandparents had disliked about the city. As a Duskwight and an outsider both, she struggled for respect despite the bow coming almost preternaturally easily to her, far more so than it ever had helping her parents hunt wild dodos.
Her initial struggles made it all the more baffling for her when the series of events surrounding Yda, Papalymo, and the then-mysterious Lahabrea led to her being given a role of honor in a Gridanian ceremony. Ultimately, leaving Gridania behind was a relief, and after a brief stay in Ul'dah, she chose to join her homeland's Grand Company, the Maelstrom. But while Vylbrand was her homeland, the closest she had come to finding a new home was the Waking Sands, a point of stability in her wanderings, where she could always be sure she could find a soft bed and cold drinks. Thus, returning from her fight with Titan to find every man and woman slaughtered, down to the innocent sylph who had only just arrived as an emissary, shook and angered her to her core. It was then that she discovered the darker side of herself, a furious craving for vengeance that drove her to kill anyone she met who wore Garlean colors, regardless of whether or not they were a threat, and even if they attempted to flee or surrender.
Her choice of Grand Company became somewhat awkward when her multiple successes against Leviathan and the recommendation of Yugiri earned her an invitation to the Rogues' Guild of Limsa, where she found herself on the wrong end of a Yellowjacket commander's ire. Once again, a weapon seemed to come strangely easily to her, daggers and misdirection feeling somehow familiar to her, evoking the same sense of distant nostalgia as that dream of a meteor shower. Yet where the familiarity of the bow had the explanation of having trained with it as a child, she had never once fought with a blade before.
Along the way, her background in both Arcanima and history led to her involvement in two separate investigations into the use of ancient job stones. Unlike the bow and knives, she found no sudden intense aptitude for arcane geometry, and so the magic of the Scholars of Nym and the Summoners of Allag remained largely as curiosities and personal projects, with her archery and daggerplay being what carved a bloody swathe through Castrum Meridianum and the Praetorium, and felled Livia.
In the wake of her success, word spread that she was the new Warrior of Light, and it seemed everywhere she turned, she was greeted with admirers who adored her based only on what they had read in a newspaper or heard at a tavern. Everywhere, that was, except Camp Dragonhead. Though initially wary of Haurchefant due to his aggressive flirting and intensely sexual interest in her, she had quickly warmed to him after he was the first to ask for her help and then fight alongside her, and she welcomed his earnest advances and adoration after the surge of 'admirers' seeking only the prestige of the Warrior of Light's company. By the time of Ilberd's betrayal and the Bloody Banquet forcing her to flee to Ishgard, she had already begun to fall in love with the boisterous knight.