User:Momi

Momi Zaya
Gender	Female
Race	Au Ra
Clan	Xaela
Citizenship	Unaffiliated
Age	25

Momi Zaya

Born to the chief of a relatively wealthy and underpopulated Doman clan, Zaya. The Zaya clan trained its clan members, male or female, from a young age the way of the lance and horse. Once fully-trained and grown, these men and women would travel to bordering clans at war with each other and join the conflict as mercenaries in units of 60, usually on both sides, perpetuating wars and returning to their clan with profit by doing so. As a result of this lifestyle, the Zaya clan is heavily nomadic, traveling in large numbers and following Doman frontlines in silence. At any given time, over half the clan is fighting for another clan's army.

Momi's father had ambitions for a more united and less warlike clan, wishing to end their questionable, dishonorable, and unethical ways. In order to secure reliable leadership for this reborn clan, he made sure that his daughter was properly educated in the strategic side of war and governance of a clan. As a result, Momi spent less time in a saddle with a lance and more time at a desk taking lectures from one of her father's strategic advisors. Though she did become very capable as a rider and lancer, her place as planned for her was as an army commander and chieftess. Not long after she had entered adulthood, her father was assassinated in his sleep by an agent of unknown affiliation, and Momi found herself in her first real leadership position. By this point, the clan had mostly ended mercenary work, sending out less troops over time to organize and prepare a sizable army to carve themselves a border. Once all available troops (that didn't desert for personal riches) had returned, the army was organized, and with the persistent urging of her late father's strategic advisors, immediately began marching to lands of a nearby clan to which they often sold their services.

While most Zaya clan members had a great respect for their clan due to pride of their skill in combat, as mercenaries, they had little respect for authority. Unproven, Momi suffered the brunt of this. Subordinate commanders often disobeyed orders, plundering where they could on their way through hostile lands, and cursing Momi behind her back.

By the time her first large battle had come, her soldiers' loyalty was only to their direct commanders, and the commanders' to personal profit, power, and clan social status. The night before the battle, Momi had awoken in her tent at lance-point to a small group of her own soldiers, led by her spymaster. Out of respect for her father, they gave her the option to leave with nothing other than her horse, lance, and armor. While skilled in duels, and almost over-trained, she had almost no real combat experience, and no choice in the matter, accepting their deal. She planned to ride out a short distance away from where the battle was met, but due to the (possibly deliberate) inaccurate mapping by her former army's scouts, lost direction in the dark, overcast, and unknown territory. Frustrated and bitter, she wandered until she found a port belonging to a nearby clan. It was there that she happened across a few Zaya clansmen planning on taking the next ferry. Hiding, Momi learned that her clan had been almost annihilated in the battle due to poor leadership making risky orders, and that the army was told that she deserted.

With her spirit crushed and nowhere to go, Momi snuck aboard a merchant vessel docked at the Doman port, headed for unknown lands. She survived by hiding among and stealing from the vessel's cargo. Eventually, the ship docked, and she was able to sneak out in the bustle of the disembarking ship and rushing dock workers. Momi later learned that the city she docked in was Limsa Lominsa, learning this only because the word "Eorzea" was always at the tip of her mercenary soldiers' tongues.