N'aelle Phialia

"To ignore the plight of those one might conceivably save is not wisdom—it is indolence. Or... so grandfather used to say..."

Characteristics

Appearance
Short with a somewhat slim, boyish frame, N'aelle is still in her teenage years, a fact belied by her round, chubby cheeks and child-like features. Her dark eyes crinkle upwards when she smiles, an occurrence which is plentiful and often. She carries herself with a boisterous and cheerful demeanor which has become somewhat muted as of late as the many tragedies in her short life have begun to take their toll.Race: Miqo'te (Sunseeker)
Pronouns: She/her/hers
Tribe: Aldgoat
Job: Lancer
Age: 17
Height: 4 ft.
Weight: 90 lbs.
Eye Color: Black
Skin: Peachy
Hair Color: Rosy BrownNicknames
Aelle (Y'shtola and Urianger)
Elle/Ellie/Ella (the Twins)
Peaches (Thancred)
Little Nunh (Louisoix)

Relationships

"I tell stories of my family in a world that I have written
And my family breathes my stories
My love is etched in continents and sеas..."

The N Tribe

N'aemih Nunh: As her birth father and erstwhile nunh of the N tribe, N'aelle adores N'aemih's loving, gentle style of leadership, and hoped to one day replicate the care and nurture he provided his clan.N'onggo Rinha: N'aelle's long-suffering mother. Patient with her daughter's eccentricities, she was heartbroken when N'aelle disappeared before the Calamity, and believed her to be dead for many years afterwards.N'rhabye Aemih: Dutiful eldest daughter of N'onggo, N'rhabye cares greatly for all her family, although she often found herself frustrated when she had to pick up the extra tasks that N'aelle would often shirk.N'yisah Aemih: Third daughter of N'onggo and much to her chagrin, as a child N'yisah picked up too many of N'aelle's less-than-admirable traits. Obstinately stubborn with a somewhat rebellious streak, she nevertheless quickly stepped up to the task of helping to care for the family in the wake of her older sister's disappearance.N'bhem Tia: Barely out of his mother's womb when N'aelle vanished one day, N'bhem grew up with only two elder sisters, but has since garnered the early admiration of his tribe for his work ethic and love for the clan, traits that have led to semi-serious jokes that he is already well on his way to becoming the tribe's next nunh.

N'danya Aemih and N'hya Tia: Fraternal twins who, at only four summers, have never known their older sister on a personal basis. Her memory has become a cautionary tale told to younger generations such as the siblings, and those who think of straying too far from the clan's traditions.

The Phialias

Nolanel Phialia: N'aelle's good-natured, adopted father. Following the Calamity, he ensured that the amnesic girl was well-cared for, despite his own family's precarious safety and well-being as they began their lives anew, away from the carnage of their former home.Iliette Phialia: Iliette was the one who had plucked N'aelle out of the brambles where she had fallen following the red moon's descent upon Eorzea. Since then Iliette has become a second mother to the miqo'te girl, and has spent many a moon fretting for her adopted daughter's safety after she made her way back to the Eorzean city-states in search of Louisoix.Maroile Phialia: The elder of the Phialia brothers, Mariole, is diligent and hard-working, having grown up faster than he perhaps should of in the wake of the Seventh Umbral Era. Now twenty summers, the young elezen man is engaged to the teenage sweetheart that N'aelle and Yvelont used to endlessly tease him about.Yvelont Phialia: Younger than N'aelle, she and Yvelont nonetheless got along like two mischievous peas in a somewhat unmanageable pod, which despite the path of destruction it left in its wake, added some much-needed laughter to the family as they began life anew in an unfamiliar territory.

Scions of the Seventh Dawn

Alphinaud Leveilleur: To voice one's belief that N'aelle and Alphinaud did not get along at first would be a grave understatement. N'aelle's first few diplomatic attempts at a somewhat working relationship went nowhere, and following the attack on the Waking Sands, she was immediately sure to let Alphinaud know how much she despised his poor attitude, over-indulgent ego, and general lack of sympathy for her plight. For his part, Alphinaud considered her to be gravely and dangerously ignorant, naïve, idealistic, and at best, a useful means to his own ends, which continued in some way until the Praetorium when the rest of the organization quickly became fed up with their incessant quarreling and ordered the two to at least learn to tolerate each other's general presence.The Bloody Banquet, which marked the supposed death of the Sultana Nanamo Ul Namo and the flight of the Scions from Eorzea however, prompted the two to immediately and drastically reevaluate their previous relationship. Wordlessly setting aside any former hostilities, it was not long until they became each other's sole comfort. Having been by her side for wars, revolutions, and even the end of the world, Alphinaud knows N'aelle's heart in a way that even his sister cannot; he has seen both the best and the worst parts of who she is.Alisaie Leveilleur: Nearly as close with Alisaie as she is with Alphinaud, the two girls remain the Scions' singular force of chaotic energy. Despite a tepid first meeting, the two became immediately and nearly inseparable upon Alisaie joining the Seventh Dawn following the end of the Dragonsong War. Reckless and over-confident, N'aelle and Alisaie share a somewhat similarly destructive tendency to feed off of each other's poor choices, whether that be overly-enthusiastic sparring competitions that end with some sort of financial damage to others' personal property, or simply to run each other ragged when there is other, more pressing work to be done. Increasingly aware that her attraction to the hero of Eorzea will go nowhere, Alisaie has opted for the next best thing: fighting her brother for sole occupation of N'aelle's time and attention.

Y'shtola Rhul: For many years the only other miqo'te in the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, N'aelle looks up to Y'shtola in a way similar to how one might view an "auntie," which the stately sorceress continues to find to be less-than-pleasing as she sternly insists she is not that old. Y'shtola finds herself to often be the voice of reason when N'aelle is on the verge of making a particularly destructive choice, which to her chagrin does not unfortunately lend any credence to her claim that she is not in fact the elder of the young woman.Thancred Waters: Initially unsure of what to make of the youthful miqo'te, after many years and two adoptive daughters it could be argued that Thancred is nearly as protective of N'aelle as he was Minfilia (and subsequently, Ryne). Determined to ensure that she makes better choices than he had in his misbegotten youth, without the guidance of Urianger one might argue he continues to set a mixed example at best.Urianger Augurelt: For a very long time, Urianger remained somewhat of a mystery to N'aelle; one that lurked almost exclusively in the shadows and under the hood he consistently wore until their sojourn to the First. Presently, Urianger has taken to doting on her as he has the rest of the younger members of the Scions, and she maintains a closer and happier friendship with him than before.Tataru Taru: Tataru considers it to be her charge, and her's alone, to ensure that N'aelle eats three square meals a day, gets eight hours of rest a night, and to be there, on hand, to offer any of the sorts of advice or admonishment that a young lady might need.G'raha Tia: Once the object of an intense crush by N'aelle that bordered on obsession, G'raha Tia's untimely demise (which proved to be more temporary than anyone expected) broke the young woman's heart, to the point where she dramatically declared (to a skeptical and, eventually correct, Y'shtola) she would never love again. Since their adventures on the First, G'raha has found himself with similar feelings, only to discover to his everlasting regret that N'aelle's had cooled in the intervening years. She now regards G'raha as a close friend and, despite his fervent wishes, nothing more.Estinien Varlineau: Estinien and N'aelle have had a somewhat... strained relationship ever since he had attempted to kill her in Coerthas under the influence of the Eye of Nidhogg. Their relationship has slightly warmed since to a semi good-natured rivalry, much of which can be credited to Alphinaud's efforts to institute a general ceasefire between the two, with neither one of them willing to disappoint the young elezen.

Haurchefant Greystone: For many reasons, Haurchefant was a sorrowful side story in N'aelle's tale. She found his pleasant nature likeable and easy to get along with, and gratefully accepted his aid, especially following the Bloody Banquet. Certain circumstances, however, led her to believe that his help would be contingent upon her responding positively to his increasingly obvious affections, and fearful of what would happen to her colleagues should she refuse his attention, she subtly, but uncomfortably, encouraged his pursuit of her. Following the Vault N'aelle was left devastated, both for the loss of her friend and ultimately for the guilt which weighed down upon her: he died, she feared, believing that she had loved him. Would he have made the same choice if he had known she considered him nothing more than a friend?

Hydaelyn: N'aelle was only six when Hydaelyn first reached out to her, drawn to the almost imperceptible familiarity of her warmly-colored soul. Her voice faded in and out for years as Hydaelyn too struggled to hear Etheirys through the growing darkness. During the Calamity, however, N'aelle's plea for help echoed so profoundly with the voice of Venat's long-dead disciple that in desperation Hydaelyn pushed her power beyond the veil to protect her student. The burst of light she loosed was too much for either of the two, however; nearly killing N'aelle in the process, the effort the Mothercrystal expended left Hydaelyn shorn of desperately-needed strength, which inhibited any further contact between the two for years.Azem/Atropos: Joyous and free, Atropos was in may ways the spitting image of her successor. Possessing of a boundless spirit and love for her world, the End Days threw her into emotional turmoil as she contemplated a finite existence, not only for herself, but for the world she loved so much. It was only after N'aelle threw a Bravura of pure light through Hades' darkness-stained heart that Azem's shadow began to follow her own, dogging her footsteps and appearing on the other side of every mirror. Terrified she was losing herself to Azem, or that she had never belonged to herself in the first place, both find their joys, and their fears, in the existence of the world and their own place within it.

Others

Louisoix Leveilleur: There are few things in the world that N'aelle loved more than Louisoix Leveilleur. Taking in the young miqo'te during the final months of the Calamity, the elderly elezen provided her with guidance and support she had desperately lacked back home. Jovially referring to her as "Little Nunh" after her somewhat idealistic desire to follow in her father's footsteps, despite the ever-worsening situation he found time to teach N'aelle the rest of her letters, often over tea and cookies, and to sit patiently with her when the Echo's visions became too much to handle. After Dalamud descended upon the realm, N'aelle was left with few of her former memories: the strongest was of his face, which eventually guided her back to the city-states and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. She holds his words in her heart, and in his memory, is determined to lead the realm to a brighter, newer dawn in his stead.Minfilia Warde: Unlike many of the former members of the Circle of Knowing, Minfilia recognized N'aelle immediately when the young miqo'te returned to Eorzea following the Calamity. With Louisoix gone, Minfilia tried her best to counsel her on the Echo, although she often felt an inadequate replacement, unable to fill the void in the girl's life that the elderly elezen had left after his death. It was only with her own passing that N'aelle felt most keenly the loss of her wisdom, and struggled to comprehend the enormity of the sacrifices she had made.

Background

Just as she spied the spiky, rotund mammal clamber over a nearby hill, the song of insects suddenly died. A roiling cloud of ashy black swept across the sky, and the cry of the crickets became the wailing of thousands of voices in unison as the sky burst in flames. And amidst the screams and cries of pain, a voice, barely audible above the din of falling stars, whispered to her just before her mind faded to black. Hear, feel, think.By the time she awoke the sky had returned to normal. Terrified of what she had seen, she scampered home, not giving a second thought about the chastising her mother would give her upon her return, less for the failure of the hunt and more for the lateness of the hour at which she reappeared. She tried to explain herself, and the strange vision, but ceased upon noticing the look on her mother and father's faces.

As a child, to be nunh was to be everything to her. It was her love for her family, it was her desire to look after them. It was a recognition to be able to do what she had once been told she could not. The N tribe, the aldgoat clan, which straddled in those days the line between tradition and modernity, dwelled on Vylbrand's westernmost coast, somewhere between the balmy shores of La Noscea and the frigid temperatures of Coerthas and Abalathia's Spine. To the outside world they were merchants by trade, although not strictly, for they operated in a similar way to most other miqo'te tribes, in a self-sustaining fashion rarely touched by the lives of those belonging to the myriad of city-states that surrounded them. They formed partnerships with few outsiders, tenacious travelers who brought goods and words from far away, goods and words enough so that the outside world, by the time of N'aelle's birth, had begun to lure away the clan's children with tales of adventure and the promise of a life very different from the one that had raised them.N'aelle had one mother, one father, and six full siblings, of which she was the second-eldest. Like the rest of her brothers, sisters and cousins, she was raised to hunt and to care for her youngers: the former to which she approached with a fascination verging on fixation, the latter with a lackadaisical attitude, much to the frustration of her eldest sister. Through it all, she would watch her father in admiration as he bartered with strangers and consulted with the clan's tias; she yearned for the same respect they showed him, and the wisdom that he wielded to earn it.She was six when it happened. A summer's eve, the kind of nightfall where the insects chirped loud enough to pierce the moisture in the air for yalms around, which had lingered long after the rains the previous day. It was later than she should have been out, but towards the hour at which her mother had sternly ordered her to return, she thought she spotted a hedgemole on a yonder dune, and, foolishly telling herself that her tardiness would be forgiven in return for a successful hunt, pushed onwards across the gentle slopes of prickly, sun-dried grass.

As the years passed, the visions continued, and she rapidly learned not to mention them to the rest of the tribe. They showed her fleeting glimpses of the future and echoes of the past, sometimes clear, but often opaque. Her skill at hunting became unmatched, which almost made up for her habit of running her mouth off about her misbehaving siblings. By age 10, the Echo was simply something she had learned to live with, a blessing and a curse to a small child with no guidance save for a small, persistent voice that would often linger in the back of her mind since that fateful day.Just before her 12th nameday, the visions suddenly intensified with little to no warning. The misdeeds of her siblings and the future strikes of her prey were consumed by blazing infernos that alighted upon a blackened sky, rains of fire and ash that scorched the firmament. The red moon, Dalamud, bursting apart to sweep death and destruction in its wake. When she could bear it no longer, she went to her mother, and begged her to listen, who in turn could offer no comfort beyond that which might soothe a common nightmare. In desperation, she recalled her cousin N’welhi, who had long since departed the clan to study on Sharlayan’s fabled shores. If she could not reach Sharlayan, the Eorzean city-states would be the next best thing. Early one morning, while her mother and siblings slumbered unawares, she awoke and, silently packing her small hunting bag, left the only home she had ever known.Reaching Limsa Lominsa was not a difficult feat; after all, her clan had traded with select merchants hailing from the port city for years. Finding someone who could help her was another. Her early inquiries were met with puzzled shrugs or concerned questions as to the whereabouts of her parents; at last, a sympathetic tavernkeep told her of a man who led an organization that might know something generally of her visions; they had come around asking similar questions once upon a time. With nothing but a name, a location, and an airship ticket, she made her way deeper into Eorzea, to the ancient boughs of The Black Shroud and the city-state of Gridania.

By this time, Louisoix Leveilleur was a busy man. Despite a recent success on the part of the newly formed Grand Companies of Eorzea, the death of Nael Van Darnus had proved unsuccessful at stopping the red moon’s descent upon the realm; the Circle of Knowing had begun to prepare for the worst. So when a young miqo’te child of barely 12 arrived on their doorstep, begging to be heard, there was little time to spare for distractions. It was the fortuitous arrival of Louisoix, having just returned from a meeting with the Elder Seedseer, that finally allowed N’aelle the chance to speak. Recognising her visions to be manifestations of the Echo and concerned about sending the child back from whence she came at so late a juncture in the struggle against Dalamud, Louisoix opted to keep her at his side, hearing her concerns when he had a moment to spare, and attempting to give her some semblance of normalcy in a turbulent time, which included ensuring that she learnt the rest of her letters and ate her vegetables. N'aelle developed a great affection for him, and although she struggled with the foreign concept of a grandfather, she loved him as much, if not more, as her elders back home.

Once she could walk, N’aelle helped in any way she could, her still exceptional hunting skills bringing the family sustenance when their meager rations ran out and giving them the strength to carry on in an unfamiliar land. And so it continued, and as the years passed, N’aelle slowly began to recover her memory, until she remembered most of who she was and her earliest years by the La Noscean shores. Unable to recall much of what occurred immediately before the Calamity however, she could not remember how she arrived in Eorzea in the first place. Although for many years she set aside such concerns, one memory, the face of an elderly elezen, tugged at her mind, and one day, a small voice, pulling from the depths of her memory, whispered the name “Louisoix.” Sensing their time together had slowly come to an end, the Phialias gave her their blessing to return to Eorzea, comforted by the knowledge that both they and she had reclaimed much of what they had lost that fateful day. With many tears and parting words, to a passing chocobo cart they paid the merchant a fare to carry her back to Gridania, consoled by the belief that her own destiny awaited her there. One that, perhaps, was even greater than any of them could have anticipated.

When the location of Dalamud’s descent was finally ascertained, she begged to assist the Circle of Knowing and the Path of the Twelve. Louisoix, however, would not send a child to certain death, and while the rest sallied forth to meet Dalamud where it would land, she was left alone in Gridania to watch as the very heavens raged against the firmament. Unwilling to heed his wishes she set off for Castrum Oriens, determined to assist the Adders in restricting any support the other imperial legions could offer the XIVth. Keeping the Garleans well-occupied for a time, when Bahamut burst forth from the confines of Dalamud, sending its shards raining down upon the city-states, the warfront was thrown into chaos. Ruptured aether consumed the battlefield in a matter of seconds and as Bahamut’s gigaflare decimated Eorzean and Garlean forces both, with the last of her strength N’aelle instinctively cried out for help from someone, something she had never truly known. In the moment where Bahamut’s final attack engulfed the realm completely, she heard a familiar voice call out her name, and then everything went black.She awoke to a deafening silence and a deafening dark. As the smoldering remnants of the warfront crept slowly outwards, she dragged herself, barely conscious, on arms and legs through the charred bodies of soldiers and warmachina and into the forest. At last, exhausted and near death, she collapsed on the side of the road, to be found a few moments later by a family of elezen fleeing the destruction that Bahamut’s gigaflare had wrought upon their home. Despite the confusion and terror, upon noticing the strange child with pure white hair unconscious in the brambles, they pulled her out and dragged her onto the cart which held the family’s few remaining belongings, and continued on their way.When N’aelle awoke days later, she could remember nothing of her past, save for bits and pieces of the final moments of the Seventh Astral Era. The Phialias, as they were called, tried their best to glean any information they could out of the miqo’te, but even her name, which she had known all her life, now eluded her. Making the difficult choice to start life anew elsewhere rather than return to the shattered remnants of their former home, Nolanel, Iliette, Mariole, and Yvelont slowly began to rebuild what they had lost before Dalamud’s descent.

Statement of Characterization

N’aelle is an attempt to understand issues raised by Frantz Fanon in his seminal work Black Skin, White Masks. Having been born in an isolated society that does not possess any significant inter-cultural exchange with the rest of Eorzea, her sudden and forceful removal from Miqo’te society alienates her socially from her family and culture. Her tacit acceptance of Eorzean society during her teenage years in some ways fatally transforms who she is, to the point where her connection to N tribe societal norms fractures and she can no longer return to her home. In some ways the Scions too are complicit in this: the twins refer to her in Eorzean terms (Elle/Ellie/Ella); Tataru spends years in a mistaken attempt to ensure her comfort by trying to bring her physical appearance in line with Eorzean standards of beauty. The first time she became subconsciously aware of this was the first time she had felt shame.This schism primarily manifests itself in the differences between Miqo’te and Eorzean gender norms, wherein a latent desire to be the “protector” of her home, so to speak, exposes a conflict between her preconceived status of woman-as-follower and her desire for man-as-leader. Although Miqo’te gender norms differ significantly from our own, the rigidity of their boundaries is more prone to disaffection than a more flexible but no less gendered Eorzea. Eorzea ultimately, therefore, offers her what the N tribe cannot: woman-as-leader, which no amount of cultural reform on the part of Sunseeker hierarchy can satisfy. This mostly takes place at the subconscious level; although she feels no dysphoria, she has difficulty recognizing herself as a woman even as others do not hesitate to do so. She does not meet on an identity level the inherent characteristics of either male or female in Miqo’te Sunseeker society: she simultaneously both and neither.

"I appealed to the Other so that his liberating gaze, gliding over my body suddenly smoothed of rough edges, would give me back the lightness of being I thought I had lost, and taking me out of the world put me back in the world. But just as I get to the other slope I stumble, and the Other fixes me with his gaze, his gestures and attitude, the same way you fix a preparation with a dye. I lose my temper, demand an explanation. . . . Nothing doing. I explode. Here are the fragments put together by another me."-Frantz Fanon