Maki Rui

Maki Rui
Gender	Female
Race	Elezen
Clan	Duskwight
Citizenship	Unaffiliated
Age	20
Nameday	9th Sun of the 3rd Astral Moon
Place of Birth	Unknown
Home City	Limsa Lominsa
Guardian	Rhalgr, the Destroyer

Basic Info

Maki was raised as part of a small tightly-knit Duskwight tribe that placed family and kin above all else. They lived by their own customs and traditions with little to no tolerance for the outside world. Yet after the Calamity the changes that impacted Eorzea reached even their homestead. The world that Maki knew changed forever and after undergoing a coming-of-age ceremony the young woman began to grow into herself and with growing up she began to question the wisdom of her Elders and the ways of her people. Going against tradition and the wishes of her own Mother she decided to leave the caves and set out for adventure. In her travels, Maki has become a collector of stories and experiences and embracing many of the taboos her people have shunned. In spite of Maki's outward appearance as a cool, collected Elezen woman wise beyond her years. At times Maki is confused by the mannerisms and culture of the 'city-folk' and at others she is a cool and collected Elezen woman wise beyond her years. The struggle between the haughty, sheltered Duskwight and the world-travelling Bard is a thin one and the struggles of her own psyche is something she tackles every day.

Personality & Behavior

How Maki acts and reacts to others greatly depends upon the environment and the nature of whom she is dealing with. She feels at home out of doors in the peace and quiet or on the road to adventure. She can be plied easily with a drink or two. When she is calm and at ease she has a quick wit, a charming smile and an eloquent attitude toward life and the world around her where she might express her views and passions eagerly with ambitious conviction. In contrast when exposed to large crowds, particularly those of city-folk type gatherings, she becomes far more reserved and introspective prefering to be the observer rather than the center of attention.

Maki will not openly talk about her past or her family without ample pressure or enough liquor to shed her walls. She is very sensitive when it comes to matters of the Duskwight and her zealous beliefs can be drummed up into zealous preaching if pushed to it. Her choice to become an adventurer is a double-edged blade that fills her with both guilt and hope. She never had the encouragement or support from her loved ones in this choice and it is a fear in the back of her head always that she will come to regret or be proven wrong in her decision.

In general, Maki is a good person who is fiercely loyal to those she considers kin and ally. Since her acceptance into the Driftwood Coast she has chosen to treat its members as she would members of her native clan. It does not matter the nature or reason of the trouble that a fellow Coaster gets themselves into if needed she will always have their back. She is beyond laying judgement for unscrupulous trade so long as it does not take advantage or harm an 'innocent'. She will not suffer racism or bullies yet has no real conviction against thieves or bandits as long as they do not cross paths with her. For example if she meets a bandit on the road actively robbing she will not hesitate to cut them down but if she met that same bandit in a tavern she would just as easily share a drink with them. In short, Maki does not see the world in black and white but she has chosen a more righteous path--most of the time.

Appearance

Height: 6 fulms 1 ilms

Weight: 150 ponz

Hair: In tight, neat braids with breadwork woven in

Hair Color: Black with blood red highlights

Eye Color: Violet, yet her right-eye is mottled blood red. She often keeps it covered with an eyepatch when in the city to prevent frightening others with its demonic look.

Body: Toned, lightly muscled

Maki Rui (Maa-key Roo-e) is a tall, dark-skinned Duskwight with a soft, shapely face. Her face is marked with the faint tattoos of her birthright. Her teeth have been filed sharper than average with her dark complexion and red tinged hair she appears at first-glance a little tribal or demonic. From the standpoint of a Duskwight she is very beautiful though compared to the more common races of Eorzea she is often too tall, too thin compared to most. She stands a good head taller than even most Hyur men. She has the capacity to run in absolute silence with a very keen sense of hearing and perception.

Family & Relations

Family

Lyorelle

Maki's mother is a very strong and able-bodied Duskwight woman. Like many Duskwight females she can be very passionate and emotional. It was not unheard of for Lyorelle to go into blind fits of rage causing destruction and pain to anyone (or anything) that came near to her. She had a love-hate relationship with her mate and Maki's father as the pair would fight like cats and dogs yet never would dream of doing a dishonor to the family. When Hubairtin died to a cavein Lyorelle became even more emotionally charged and though she would never admit to the grief she felt nothing was ever the same again.

Lyorelle was an alchemist and utilized her skills with potions to create concoctions to aid and heal the sick and wounded of the tribe. More than her healing daughts however, she was reknowned for her poisons.

Hubairtin

Maki's father was a very mild-mannered and tempered man. A complete contrast to his mate, Lyorelle, he was a very calculating and inquisitive sort who taught Maki to question everything in the world and constantly find joy in the answers to even the smallest mysteries. Maki and her father were very close, far more so than she was with her mother. Lyorelle would often accuse Habairtin as 'having a little Green in him' referring to their Wildwood cousins since Hubairtin was a perplexing contrast to most Duskwight. It could be said that perhaps a great deal of the reason why Maki eventually decided to leave home for the live of an adventurer was caused by her father's early lessons coupled with his eventual demise after the Calamity.

Davielle

Maki's elder sister, the first born. As the eldest daughter Davielle had a lot of responsibility riding on her shoulders and though it was never spoken it was obvious that she was Lyorelle's favorite child. Much to the annoyance of Davielle she was held to a higher standard than Maki ever was which bred a small bit of rivalry and discord between the two when they were younger. In spite of their early angst Maki adores her elder sibling and the two of them share a very deep, loving bond that cannot be surpassed. Personality wise Davielle comes off to most as a very cold, distant figure that has little to no sense of humor. She is always about getting things accomplished in the most efficient means possible. She is also a very ruthless mercenary who has no problem torturing someone to extract information. Among her peers she is a feared rival and celebrated ally. Her only true soft spot is for her younger sibling, Maki.

Background

Birth

• “I remember the day the walls of our homestead shook and we all thought for certain that Rhalgr, destroyer of worlds, had come to bear down upon the mortal plane His wrath for the fall of Ala Mhigo. To this day I am not certain if perhaps the primals brought forth that day were not the tools by which the gods enact their justice but I am certain the events changed our world forever. When all was over the Elders took note of the changes but they told us young-folk that everything would be fine. They lied to us.

You lied to us.

I have the utmost respect for our ways and our traditions but there has to be a point when change is allowed into our lives or we will cling to our traditions until the hollows of our mountains are littered with the bones of our dead and our great people will be nothing but a footnote in the history books.

It has only been a year since I took up my birthright and returned from my First Hunt and told you of my encounter with the Lalafell in the woodlands. Less than one cycle of the seasons that I told you of my decision to leave the homestead in search for more information and in just that short amount of time so much came to pass.”*

Maki paused her hand in the letter and read over the words on the page. There was so much that she desired to express to her family but she knew they would simply not understand. Her fingers crumpled the letter into a ball and tossed it across the room to a pile of similar scraps on the floor. With a new sheet she stared at the empty page trying to will the right words to come out. Her people were a stubborn race, reclusive and proud; as unyielding as the cold, hard caves they called home. Maki could not blame them entirely –a lot of the city-folk customs and manners were beyond her filled with hypocritical notions and selfish actions that often seemed to do more harm than good but even if she did not always agree with their culture there was knowledge to be had.

• “I still believe that ignorance will be the death of us. I know you do not approve, but please have faith that what I do—I do for the benefit of our tribe and all of Elorzea. It is ultimately not for the city-folk, it is for you. For my sister Daeniera, for you Mother, for all our kin.”*

Two sentences sat upon the otherwise empty page and Maki struggled to express what she wanted to say. Most recently she had taken up the mantle of a Bard on top of becoming a rather skilled Archer but the ways of song, story and poetry had been more the passion of the sailors she spent time with than anything her own people would comprehend. They would not understand the point of it, a useless talent to wield a song when one could simply put an arrow betwixt their enemy’s eyes.

• “All knowledge is worth having,” she wrote, “and the knowledge I have gleaned thus far is far too much to express in letter light enough to be carried by Moogle. To put it plainly, I have grown. In spite my early expectations to find my answers in Gridania amongst our woodland kin it was in Limsa Limosa that I found my true calling. I have joined the Maelstrom and the Driftwood Coast to find kinship in brothers in arms and expand upon my knowledge of the world. There is a darkness brewing behind the scenes, one that wishes to bring upon the world the primals. It is a threat that does not know race or borders or tradition. I am sorry I will not be coming home. ” *

Mika set down the pen, staring back at the words and rose out of the chair making her way to the bed. The words escaped her on how to convey how much she felt the torn guilt of turning her back on her family for a selfish quest for knowledge. She was so certain in her convictions, so passionate about her purpose and yet her own kin had not seen the light of it. After the Calamity when everything was turned on its head and evil began to take root in the darkest corners of Eorzea her people were well aware of it. Her people had always been misunderstood by the rest of the world, the racism and prejudice ran deep with some and Mika had suffered in silence for those narrow-minded folk that placed all Duskwight in the same bucket of brigand and cutthroat.

It did not help that Mika herself looked much the part. With one eye blood-touched and red, her canines sharpened to points and skin as pitch as coal she embodied every notion of wickedness the good ‘wholesome’ city-folk came to fear. There were plenty of Wildwood who would claim that their reclusive cousins had a bit of beast-blood in them and while on the surface Mika presented herself with a sense of decorum she knew how close to the mark such accusations landed.

Present Day

(WIP)