Kyulili Tanako
 Kyulili Tanako
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 "Save your tears for the pillow, there's work to be done." | |
| Gender | Female |
| Race | Lalafell |
| Clan | Plainsfolk |
| Citizenship | Ul'Dahn |
| Age | At least 37 (but she stopped counting.) |
| Guardian | Nophica |
| Namesday | 14th Sun, 3rd Astral Moon |
Contents
History
♦ Youth
Born to working-class parents in a faraway land, Kyulili spent most of her childhood avoiding other children. She loved the idea of school until she found out there would be other youngsters there. Her grades were good, but socially, it was a real drag.
Her teen years were no better, as her overly timid mother and hyper-protective father inadvertently taught her that the big, wide world was a thing to be feared, and that other people were not to be trusted. With no siblings and few friends, Kyulili cultivated a rich inner world of daydreams and storytelling instead, and it kept her occupied for many years.
As a young adult, she tried her hand as various trades and failed miserably at all of them, but she thought no less of herself, often saying to acquaintances, "Being a well-rounded little person is something gil can't buy!" Unfortunately, gil does buy freedom, and without the income or the courage to go it alone, she languished in her parents' house, day after day, month after month, year after freakin' year.
♦ The White Mage Years
Eventually, she had enough of home life and struck off on her own to seek her fortune, taking nothing with her and leaving a letter of apology to the well-meaning mother and father who had trained her so well in the ways of learned helplessness. She took up the healing arts and earned her keep travelling far and wide, doling out curative magic and making friends along the way. Some of these friendships endure still, having survived distance, long separation, and the Calamity.
It was during these journeys that Kyulili met and fell in love with a soft-spoken bachelor named Mako Tanako. Their bond grew so slowly that they barely recognized it for what it was, until the fateful winter when Mako asked Kyu to meet his family as a sort of pre-engagement ritual. Kyu saw this as the first step on the road to love, security, marital bliss, and all the other intangible benefits of pair bonds that she had read about in popular literature. Mother Tanako, however, had already decided Kyu was not nearly good enough to marry her son, before the meeting even took place. Not only was the engagement promptly called off by Mako at his mother's behest, but the news was delivered to Kyu by third class overland Moogle post. She was rightly devastated. Nonetheless, Kyulili forcibly took the Tanako name as a trophy of the indignity she had suffered.
Kyulili began fermenting popotoes in the garden shed on her municipal allotment, distilling the product, and drinking herself into a stupor night after night for quite a long time. Work as a White Mage quickly dried up as word got around to all the adventurers that Kyu was a lush. Years later at an intervention, two of her adventurer friends, Lasswyn and Nyati, suggested that the three of them depart for a newly-discovered world where nobody knew she had a problem. Each of them had their own dose of heartbreak at the hands of fickle-minded men, and this seemed the best way to move on. So they did.
It left them with only one minor problem: The disposal of Kyu's homemade moonshine. After much discussion, the girls opted to take it with them and use it to barter passage and lodging during the journey. This did not last long. On the third night of pulling a chocobo-cart full of corked bottles from one town to the next, and finding the market already saturated with mead, they got the bright idea that the cart would be easier to pull if they...lightened it a little. First one bottle, then two, then two more...the girls' journey of personal renewal and discovery quickly degenerated into a mobile bender to end all benders. But for Lasswyn's dark magic and Nyati's skill with a short blade, even while inebriated, the trio might have been leapt upon by creeping marauders any number of times.
By the time they reached the ship for the new world, they were utterly trashed. Between the heaving seas and the great drying-out of their livers, it was not a pleasant voyage.
♦ Hello, Eorzea
Kyulili and her travel-mates have no doubt that the Calamity took place, but not one of them has any memory of it, because the first thing they had to do upon reaching the new world was find a pub and stop the shakes. While the war was raging and the moon was falling, they were tucked up in a country inn, gradually weaning themselves off the sauce until they could walk and chew Galago mint at the same time. It was a long process.
There was also the problem of gil. They had spent everything they had just getting to Eorzea, and their prospects in the post-Calamity world seemed dim. Lasswyn and Nyati had tired of combat and desired a more simple life, but Kyulili felt she had plenty of fight in her left. The only real skill she had taken with her, however, was healing magic, and that just brought up a host of bad memories. Nevertheless, she took up a cane, donned a robe, and set about earning a modest living for her and her friends.
About this time, Kyu re-connected with some of the chums she had known in the old world, and with their encouragement, she swapped her cane for a bow, and began practicing archery. She took to it immediately, and has never looked back. In time, she worked her way up to Bard, and finally found a profession she could be happy in. Lasswyn and Nyati stayed on as her retainers, enjoying the security of town living, with the occasional foray into the field, just for old times' sake.
♦ To The future
When not engaged in shooting the faces off fiends, Kyu occupies her time largely with crafting and gathering. Her goal is to find a nice place in Mist for her parents, send for them, and then live somewhere else for the duration of their retirement.
Combat
Kyu likes to think she's competent at her job, and thus far, she has a modest collection of Primal trinkets to prove it. She prides herself on taking direction without arguing, sitting out fights without complaining, and accepting corrections while keeping her knickers in the un-twisted position.
Echo Power
Echo Power:
Description:
★ Recent Kyuchievements ★
She pushed a big old bearded man down the stairs, stole his Ring of Aiming, and ran away giggling.
Tendencies
When speaking, Kyulili occasionally substitutes "kyu" for various syllables without realizing it. It is both the most charming and least disturbing of her habits.
Perhaps it was the war, or the drink, or the failed romance, or the time spent outdoors learning the bardly arts, but whatever it was, Kyu has gotten some peculiar ideas into her head. When pressed, she may speak at length about the "low-aether future" on the horizon. Where she got the idea that Eorzea was on the brink of an energy crisis, no-one knows, but she spends a good deal of her time "prepping for the Kyupocalypse." She seems convinced that only the strongest will survive a future where crystals are scarce, and is stockpiling supplies accordingly. However, though she was once set on gathering as much of every element as possible, she has been stymied by an all-too-real shortage of wind shards, as it appears one of her friends has already gathered them all.
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Related Images
As she glides closer and closer to her 40th summer, Kyu considers herself too old and set in her ways to be anyone's wife. Or, as she would phrase it, "Go sow your seed somewhere else, Farmer Bob."
As for friends, enemies, and acquaintances, she considers everyone she meets to be a friend. Once having learned a friend's name, she shouts it gleefully and throws a handful of "kyufetti" in the air to express her joy at their re-appearance. The exact nature of "kyufetti" is unknown, but it presumed to contain edible cake glitter as the primary component. It id advised not to breathe it in.
Rumours
Player Character Rumours
It is rumuored that Kyu is still no stranger to the bottle. After a particularly nasty dust-up amongst her friends, after which some of them cut ties and fled, she was seen back warming her favourite barstool at Buscarron's Druthers. Another regular, an Elezen male in a long cloak, struck up a conversation with her, and the topic gradually turned to how life experience damages people, and their ability to relate to others. Sources state that Kyulili flew into a steaming rage. "Oh, you're broken?! Oh, poor baby! You're broken! I'm broken! Everybody's broken!! Get the hell over it!!" She then threw her half-empty glass at the wall, shattering it. The other patrons were duly shocked to see such an outburst from a Lalafell. The Elezen stranger muttered something sardonic, to which Miss Tanako replied (and the source, being a religious type, was forced to paraphrase), "Cheer the eff up, or eff the eff off." She left and was not seen for several days. After the incident, she was her old, cheerful self, and has yet to acknowledge that the exchange ever took place.
♦ Footnotes
Alignment: Lawful Good
