The first and only child born to E'zehla Yarel, one of the few menders of the Eft of the Burning Wall, E'vahn's youth was shaped beneath the Thanalan sun, hunting among the cliffs and rocks of his tribe's ancestral territories. Fiery and outspoken, he was among the most vocal of the Tia in the tribe: when stepping away from his practice with the blade and from the cliffs of his favored hunting grounds, the young Tia was one of the faces of the Eft's next generation beside a young E'kalani Malha. 'Was' being the key word, as an era of the Eft fell with Dalamud itself: a swath of their hunting grounds and the life of one of their nunhs wiped out in an instant, and with them any sense of certainty of what would come next. Amidst the dwindling numbers of their tribe and the tightening grip of E'malha, the tribe's remaining nunh, and the fear of a tomorrow unknown, Vahn challenged the reigning leader of the Eft. Vahn lost, badly, his own stubbornness resulting in injuries that should well have killed him, and instead marred his face and voice for life. Having lost his challenge - and nearly his voice along with his looks - the Tia left the tribe in disgrace to brave the wider world.
Donning a mask to hide his shame as he drifted through Thanalan, the quiet Seeker found his way, as many do, to the grand city of Ul'dah, where for some three years he lost himself to the constant training and fighting of a gladiator's life, learning the use of longer blades for the arena's more open battlefield, and honing his talents to a more dangerous skill. It was there that he fell in with an aspiring and ambitious gladiator, one Destry Barlow, Vahn's growing stoicism and trouble speaking seeming to do little in swaying the other man's fascination with the tribal Miqo'te. In return, Barlow served as one of E'vahn's few connections to the wider world beyond the tribe and beyond the arena's walls: helping him take his first fumbling steps to learning his letters, and teaching him the lay of the land in 'civilized' society. Vahn spoke of Eft and their stories, when he could, in exchange, and when he could not he made up for it in providing his services as training partner (and oft-silent recipient of Barlow's love to talk).
