Veata Aydelotte

DON’T FEED IT,
MY FRIENDS WARN ME.
BUT MY HEART IS JUST THERE.
HOW CAN I STOP THE MONSTER’S MOUTH OPENING?
IT WANTS SO MUCH,
AND I WANT TO BE NEEDED.

The Marionette

FULL CHOSEN NAME: Veata Aydelotte
NICKNAME: Vee
AGE, DATE OF BIRTH: Unknown, 17th Sun of the 6th Astral Moon
PLACE OF BIRTH: Golmore Jungle, Dalmasca Inferior, Othard
GENDER: Female
SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Heterosexual
CLAN: Rava
PATRON: ---FAMILY:

  • [REDACTED]; Father. Status: Unknown.

  • [REDACTED]; Mother. Status: Unknown.

  • [REDACTED]; Sister. Status: Unknown.

  • [REDACTED]; Sister. Status: Unknown.

  • Rithisak Aydelotte; Brother. Status: Alive.

The Heart's Garden

It is at night when children of men slumber that she walks the world and feels almost at peace again -- almost. In those hours, she is other: quiet and distant, of another place and of another time. But when dawn breaks the horizon, she returns to a demeanor much more familiar to those, that know the dark-haired woman. To them she is kind patience and gentle laughter, a silver tongue that soothes with calming words. She dances with a natural elegance that speaks of years of experience. Her touch is gentle and warwm.But then there are the fleeting moments when the delicateness slips. It is not such an unusual thing. Loss is been a burden that has soured the mouths of countless others. She does not speak often of it. To speak of it is to bleed herself by choice. And she is not much for the business of vulnerability.Only her kin -- a dark-haired man with impish grins and reckless abandon -- knows the truth of the heart's garden. He knows the thorned vines ensnared 'neath the vibrant flowers in bloom, and to be known and to be seen by her older brother is a haven. It is the promise of one that understands from that which each hailed from, and that which each could not return to; the path was walked together. Though his are not the only eyes to bear witness to the woman as more than she presents when made placid by the civilization of men.There is a huntress in her blood. Better cannot be known than when the cold, effective intellectualism of a tactician comes forth. Her careful attentiveness to the environment in which she places herself and present company is not for pleasure or connection. It is knowledge. The more knowledge she wields, the more control she exercises. It is not so difficult that she cannot be without control. But enough to pursue the decision that is not the fool's decision shall do.It is difficult, isn't it? To find words apt to describe an individual whether she be a child of man or a child of The Wood. She has cultivated and perfected no shortage of other faces, and the reach of these are cast further and further out. To some she is a dependable companion with a mothering demeanor insist upon doting. To others she is a brusque, distant huntress with little interest for affairs that do not concern herself. And to the person that knows a name given rather than the name chosen? She is a sister -- a girl that once spent her childhood chasing at his heels.

Fret Not, Dear Heart

Lady Veata of the Green Burrow hails from the forests of the Black Shroud.She is said to have first set foot on the cobblestone streets of the Holy See one winter's night. Plucked from the starlight of Halone's skies and life breathed into by the prayers of snow, she charmed their noble-born echelon with a single dance. Letters poured in to her benefactor begging for meetings. Gold. Jewels. Perfumes. An endless stream of gifts to welcome the Lady of the Green Burrow to their fair, beloved see.And yet the good lady, whose eyes shone with the marvel of tributes to her beauty, did not forget the poor and the down-trodden.From her fingers spun coin and from her coin was purchased meals, medicine for those that were without. Their children played at her feet. Their daughters sat with her in the cathedral gardens, working on their needlework together. Their sons praised her holiness, her servitude as she spoke the word of Halone. She came when their gates opened, when their histories changed. Brought into her embrace the change that promised the people a kinder future to come.She was loved as Lady Veata of the Green Burrow.Then, with her engagement and subsequent marriage to an old war hero, as the Lady of House Delair.She charmed those she could reach within the city-state of Ishgard.Or so the tale goes, at least. But things rarely are what they seem to be. Fanciful as yarns of colorful tales are, women are not plucked from starlight and brought to life by prayers of snow. They are born to flesh and to blood, and from flesh and from blood does nature become human. She is a Daughter of The Wood, of The Golmore Jungle, and there are many stories yet to be told by the coy Lady of the Green Burrow.

To Paint Porcelain

She -- as her mother and her mothers before her -- came to be born a child of the woods. To think on those earliest seasons of her life is to remember the warmth of blissful and true happiness. Her mother served Golmore Jungle as one of five elders within the village, and of doting sisters there were many without concern or regard to matters of blood. To be of the same kin was a connection that ran as deep as the countless veins of life that composed their vibrant forest. Sometimes there were brothers too that would pass through, and the large hands of a father as he tossed her high into the skies again and again when she wasn't more than a kit.Perhaps most precious though had been the voice of The Wood itself. The lengths of her leporine ears, cleansed only mere minutes after her birth, had heard her voice and for the many seasons of her life she had walked with her much loved daughter.In the fourteenth summer, the kit presented as female. It was a season of celebration -- another milestone that marked the path she'd take as she came into adulthood. Her responsibilities began in earnest then as her mother and her sisters of their vibrant village taught her their roles within their culture and their tradition, imprinted on her the love and the importance of The Green Word to which her people were beholden. It was an honor that she embraced with the whole of her heart.She learned to dance. She learned to cultivate. She learned to hunt. The seasons passed and with each she carved a place for herself within The Wood. Her mother spoke of her particular awareness for The Mist when she crossed the threshold into adulthood, commenting on her talent and her dedication to it. Such planted the seed of suggestion that when the time came, she might join her then as an elder of their village. But the time was not then yet.The seasons continued in turn. She bettered herself at the arts of the salve-makers and the duties of the wood-warders. She taught the sparing few kits -- only three in number -- that followed after her birth the same lessons she had once been imparted. She walked alone with the voice of The Wood often, culling sickness in her roots and coaxing life from her seeds. Sometimes, too, she crossed her path with that of her sire and her brother with gifts of conversation and supplies.Despite the distinct differences of their nature -- her known to be gentle and endearing, him known to be prideful and rancorous -- her brother had always proven to hold her regard. It was in his company that she was present -- a chance meeting at one of the small shrines to The Wood -- that it happened: The Wood burned. She screamed to the heavens as men of steel marched her lands. Perhaps in hatred. Perhaps in sorrow. It mattered not. Though women did not serve the role of wood-warder in the same regard that the men of her people did, neither were she and the others made gentle. She chased at the heels of her brother as he pursued the violence that dared violate the sanctity of The Golmore Jungle.It was not the first time that children of men had marched on The Wood. It would not be the last either. But it was the first, to a horror that she has not forgotten in the many seasons since, that their kits -- precious and loved of their village -- were taken by the men that bore steel. In the madness that these armored men had brought onto their home, some of their number had found and taken the kits even as their companies were driven back by the ruthless ambushes of her people.She doesn't remember the screams when it was discovered the kits had been taken. Perhaps the voice had been her mother's. Or hers and her sisters. Perhaps it had been The Wood itself, unable to reach for the children, Her Children, as they were torn from the sanctity of her lands. Her brother, face bloodied and hands trembling in the aftermath of a direct encounter with the armored men, again went without hesitation. She followed without her mother and her sisters, without her father and her brothers.If these men had marched on foot alone, it was doubtless that she and her brother would find them within Golmore Jungle. But these men, she had seen as she had loosened arrows into the heads of those that had brawled with her brother, had been accompanied by beasts of steel that traveled entire distances in a single breath that would taken even the most fleet-footed of her people minutes. These were the peculiar tracks that had torn the earth open that her brother sprinted at a blur along. But she could not recognize that then or it would shatter her beyond repair.It was only the sharp wails of The Wood as the siblings reached her boundaries that the pale-haired woman collapsed on herself. The ugly, torn earth as marked by the steel beast led out of The Wood to where she could not reach. But her brother? Her brother did not hesitate until, in vile fear, she screamed his name before he too could leave.She remembers the choking silence as he paused long enough to meet her eyes. Tears had already begun to wet her face then, and when she saw the desperation in her eyes -- a mirror of her grief -- and worse yet, the determination, he spoke. He urged her to accept his breaking of the one sanctity held by their people regardless of their villages of birth. Time was of the essence and the kits were no more than that -- kits. He could return them to their village, to The Wood. Perhaps it was his part for Her: a severance of everything that he was to protect everything that might be. But he had to go then.And she could not let him.Not when she remembered the shape of the youngest kit held in her arms as the child slumbered. Not when she could imagine the sobs of the most timid of the kits when she'd once been frightened by a beast of the hunt. Not when her brother, by virtue of his words, knew the lives those children would never have a chance to know if he was not willing to give his -- if she that had known the love of The Wood so many more seasons than them, could not give hers for theirs.The Wood called for her when she took her first trembling step past her borders. She was her child as much as she was her mother's, and the scrambling desperation nearly drove her back. Her brother tried to when, with widening eyes, he realized she meant to follow. Just as she had done during so many suns of her childhood. But he could not do it alone. Even for as fearsome a warrior as she had known her brother to be, he could not do it alone. And she loved the kits. As much as her mother. As much as The Wood. As much as her sisters. She loved the kits.And he understood.It took many moons to find the men with the steel that sang and carried them great distances. But it took only a single night to lay slaughter to their encampment. She had not known hatred for children of men before. Perhaps distaste. But not hatred like that as she found purchase in the throats of men, reaching without care for how their steel tore at her skin to piece her wicked sharp claws into their soft flesh. Some nights she remembers the screams. Theirs was pained, but there was no grief to them. It did not hurt enough. But when it was said and done as the sun broke the horizon, she stumbled with her brother bloodied through their tents.The kits -- her people's darling kits -- were found caged with scraps of food, trembling and piled together in a single corner of a space already too small to home their three bodies. How monstrous she and he appeared then to them painted and matted in the gore of the soldiers. How much more monstrous the soldiers were to them then when the kits crawled into their bleeding arms with wails that might wake the dead.It took less time to return the kits to The Wood than it did to find them. During their travels, she and her brother weighed with quiet words as the children slept whether The Wood would accept them back after so many moons had passed. The Green Word was a matter of holiness. It could not be broken barring exceptional circumstances. Their choice, no matter the argument to be made, could not be taken back. But the kits had been taken by force. And if The Wood could not bring the kits back into her folds?The simplest solution, her brother had decided as he stroked the hair of the eldest sleeping on his chest, would be to raise the children as best he and she could. He did not appear to worry himself further with the matter that night. It was done. But she sat alone with her prayers that the kits could return, and she carried those prayers when they came to The Wood again.It did not take long for her mother and her father as well as the elders of their village to come then. The kits were swept into waiting arms that crushed them nearly as hard as the children hugged their kin back. For the first hour of the evening, a fire was broken and a camp set as she and her brother spoke of what they had done. However, talks of the futures of the children were not to come until sleep had stolen their exhausted hearts.The kits were not to be punished with exile from their people, but there could not be a promise either that The Wood would accept them back. Only time would tell. But that would be enough. She did not meet her mother's eyes when she spoke of the matter with the slightest tremble in her voice. It wasn't a question of if she and her brother could return too.To see the children she loved with the whole of her heart off the next morning brought her no regrets. Not even when her mother and her brother brought she and her brother into the folds of an embrace that felt very much like it would be the last. She had held onto them for as long as time would permit, imprinting each detail of those that had given her life. If only things could be different. But what was done had been done, and when she and her brother turned to leave it was with their father's lance and the beautiful rings and earrings of her mother.And, she dared to pray, the love of The Wood.

Our Veins are Filled With Stories

Potential Past Connections

Potential Present Connections

Ivory and Silk

One of her greatest talents was not for matters of The Mist, but for the particular style of dance cultivated within her tribe. It is an eloquent style that relies on smooth, precise motion and silk veils woven by the people of her village. Hers was a breathtaking performance often viewed at seasonal festivals shared within and without her tribe; a story told within the grace of body, light-footed steps that were as much a part of the music as the beating of drums. She was ethereal. For those that once walked Golmore Jungle it might be remembered she was the lovely dancer draped in rich, colorful silks.

Sing, Sweet Child for Your Mother Has Forgotten How

Once she and he were known by other names, in another place where the boughs of trees came together to form paths and shrines were built to honor the voice of a mother that loved their people as their people loved Her. She came to know the sisters of other villages, the brothers of wood-warders. Perhaps once, just once, she was known to another when her name was that which her mother gave her, and her hair was pale as silver coins. Perhaps some memories do not remain in the past.

Daughter of Silent Watching Stones

The number of moons and suns that passed since their departure from The Wood is not counted. But there were many travels then through the lands of the Near East and the Far East. As tends to be the case, companions came and companions went. Her trade, much like in current times, was most often hunting and though it was her brother that was far more bold and eager to learn the world, there were moments that her eye was caught by the stories and the fashions, the cultures of lands and people she once did not know so much as the names of.

To Be More Like You

Being that she was born of The Wood, the only language she spoke for most of her life was her mother's vieran tongue. Further, within her village oral traditions were more favored than written. As such, when she and her brother left The Wood, there was a plethora of other languages to learn not only in regards to speaking, but reading and writing as well. To say the least, such a struggle became something of an insecurity for the young woman, pushing her then to learn as well she could. However, one can do only so much without proper guidance and kind tutelage.

Rain in the Morning

It has been a short handful of years since Veata has settled into The Black Shroud. In truth, when she heard tales of his forests, it was she that pushed her brother to follow the lure of a land that might help her feel like she was home again. And though it did not bring what she sought -- nothing could -- she has come to like her life there. Perhaps she has been seen in those dangerous lands bordering the Sylphlands, or wandering the paths of The North Shroud, tending to the flowers. Why, if one wasn't mindful, she might be mistaken for a spirit of the forest. Such a distant, private girl.

The Careful Step of a Huntress

In addition to trading plants grown in their garden for coin and other necessities, Veata offers her services as a huntress as well to provide game for those in need. Being mindful and respectful of the elementals within The Black Shroud, she will refuse requests that would threaten the balance of the animal life and the plant life of the forest.

O' How the Mist Calls

The reputation of her people is one of a peculiar sensitivity for aether -- better known as the Mist in her tongue. But even measured against such a reputation, Veata is particularly sensitive in these matters and has been since she was a child. Once, it might've meant she'd become learned as a Hearer and an Elder like her mother before her. But here, her sensitivity plays a different role. It attunes her to the lands, to the elementals. And, most important, to the people that might cross her path.

The Lady of the Green Burrow

In more recent summers, a leporine woman of snow-white hair that once wandered only the woods of The Black Shroud has been seen on the winter-fed streets of Ishgard. Her name traded to House Delair, and her debut to the social-political scene of Ishgard heralded and celebrated by her husband of many months. From those once low-born and those once high-born, she is glad to meet them all.

Rithisak Aydelotte, Reckless Lion

He isn't much like yourself. Not at a glance.You share a mother. You share a sire. You share the same blessing of having once heard and honored Her voice. There are other things you share too, but these are the ones that matter most.But your brother is loud. Not only in his voice, but in everything that he is. He is loud in his boisterous confidence. He is loud in his roaring laughter. He is loud in the thump, thump, thump of his heart beating always like a war drum.And he is yours, Daughter of Wood.

Anneli Auclair, Dearest Songbird

Do you know what it means to remember, truly?Do you know what it is when a hurricane spun from sunshine and sunflowers tears into your life and forces the breath back into your lungs?It is Anneli Auclair, and she reminds your hollow bones that once you were a sister, once you were made a matriarch. She thinks you need her, but you have known from the minute she was carried into your warren with a single, blue flower clutched tight in her hands.It is you that has always needed her.

River Rehw-dvre, Fearsome Wolf

You would have worn flowers in your hair for him. Each season that brought jacks into your village, you would have titillated with heart in your throat as you braided the lovely blooms in.And he would have looked to you, knowing by the whispers of The Wood that you were made for each other.Except those seasons never came.Each of you was cast out never knowing the sweetness of love that should have been, and when you came stumbling into each other's lives by chance, there were no whispers.Yet miracle of miracle, you've found him with gums that bleed and wild, feral eyes that warn he'll sink his teeth deep into your hand if you reach for him.You do because you love him.

Yisun Kha, Summer Child

She made you whole.In spring, you would gather her onto your lap, and teach her numbers and letters. She was a bashful thing that barely reached your waist then, but to watch how quickly she'd take to the learning was to see only the potential of a mind too big for her body.You were proud.And you wish you'd had the chance to tell her farewell at least before the greed of a reaching hand forced you to flee and in doing so abandon the little girl that lived in the home next to yours.

Richelieu Rosseau, Lord of Spiders

It is the pale violet tint of his eyes that haunts your nights.How much did you struggle not to drown in them when you found a man with a heart too much like yours underneath the monster you'd made of him? You should have known. Even then you should have known you'd tumble into madness with him.Because you tasted him, and found that he understood what it meant to burn for the love of another. If you are a matriarch, then he is a patriarch in his hedonism, in the dark, ugly things that he feeds, in the people he bleeds himself for.Now you are the nightshade in his gardens.And the grievance you can admit to none is that perhaps you were cast from the light and the love of Her because you were always made to be his poison. As surely as you were made to run with wolves.

Out of Character

Thank you for your interest!My alias is Naga and on Discord I can be reached at Naga the Manatoo#2588. I have been writing for quite a number of years now on various platforms including JCINK and Tumblr. My preference is for paragraph, and multi-paragraph with medium to heavy in terms of Final Fantasy's lore. I do admit, I love blending in lore from the other Final Fantasy titles where there is a lack of lore in-game.Discord tends to be my preference for writing as it lets me do multiple paragraphs and move at a pace that better suits my tastes. However, I am happy to schedule ahead to do scenes in-game as well if Discord doesn't work. If you'd like to see how I write, please refer to the Indie RP blog I attached in links at the bottom of the page.There is nothing in particular I am squeamish about or opposed to writing whether it's darker stories or more light-hearted encounters. I do, of course, have the standard expectations of minimal drama out of character, and the understanding that we're here to create fictional narratives.My availability, for the most part, is scheduled at this time. However, I can always be reached on Discord. I only ask for, in return, as much patience given as I have offered.Please, feel free to DM!