mägdlein

ayah mhakaracca

profile

at a glance

Ayah stands 5'1" (154 cms) tall and has a slender dancer's build. She is Miqo'te - a feline race, smaller and narrower all round than the average human, with the ears and long, eloquent tails of cats. Her hair falls in waves, and is shoulder-length when loose. Ayah's tail is fluffy, the same shade of soft pink as her hair, and curls up at the tip. She has pale white stripes on her cheeks and a darkening of the skin about her nose, and when she smiles or laughs small fangs are visible in her mouth. She has freckles, but no visible scarring. Her ears are pierced. She is graceful and light on her feet, walking and running with a spring in her step; a lot of her body language reads as feline. She is lively, expressive and easy to read, with emotions showing in the set of her ears and tail as well as on her features. When Ayah speaks, and it is very difficult to stop her when she has a mind to, her accent is hard to place, but clearly Germanic.♡ Appearance: Headshot | Full BodyWhen not dressed for adventuring, her personal style is rustic, feminine, and a little old-fashioned. She takes care of her appearance and is particular about her clothing. Where possible, she wears skirts and high-heeled boots or shoes. She favors soft colors and floral patterns. Aside from the traditional ear clasps of the Keepers of the Moon, Ayah wears necklaces, long earrings, and rings - partly as a simple preference, but also because for an adventurer the right accessories could be all the difference between a critical hit and an embarrassing fumble. Frequently, she paints her nails.♡ Clothing: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05

personality

Upbeat, determined and tender-hearted, Ayah is a kind, even selfless person, who often goes out of her way to help other people. She is enthusiastic and driven, though she can be naive, sometimes even dangerously so, and her passions can occasionally prove to be misdirected. She is extremely earnest and consequently very easy to tease, often blushing and becoming flustered when she believes that she has embarrassed herself, and finds it difficult to handle unexpected or awkward situations without clamming up or starting to cry. Normally, though, she comes across as cheerful and friendly, with an open nature and a ready smile.Ayah is a straightforward girl whose emotions run very close to the surface: she is not the kind of person who could ever be accused of hiding her feelings. When she's happy it's obvious just to look at her, and it's almost a running joke how easy it is to provoke her to tears. She's the girl who cries over a tragic ballad or love poetry, the one who tears up over praise, or because her friends are just that wonderful and she simply doesn't know how else to handle it. It's an embarrassing tendency she wishes she could grow beyond, not least of which because she'd like to stop being teased about it. It's not something she feels is very becoming of a hero: she quite desperately wants to be seen as strong, reliable and reassuring, but she can't easily hide it when she's on the verge of falling apart herself. Despite her gentle nature and slightly prim appearance, however, Ayah is not squeamish: her upbringing in the Twelveswood put paid to any notion that she would be able to get through life without getting her hands dirty.A natural sidequester, Ayah is the kind of person who will gladly stop what she's doing to help a lost child, retrieve suspiciously couerl-like kittens from high places, deliver misplaced mail, and chase coblyns out of the ceruleum. Though she is easily disappointed and reacts very strongly to bad news and bad luck, she is damnably difficult to actually discourage. No matter how upset her trials and tribulations may make her, they ultimately serve to do nothing but make her try again and try harder. She finds it very difficult to leave well enough alone, experience having so far taught her that she absolutely can find her way to overcome her troubles, no matter how insurmountable they may seem, if she simply worries at them enough. Ayah is, however, not the kind of person who insists that she has to solve all of her problems herself and, very much aware that there are many things she is incapable of or doesn't understand as she is, is more than grateful to rely on the talents and experience of her friends and allies if they are willing and able.Gentle by nature, her experiences since leaving home have proven to be something of a baptism of fire. Her continued determination to believe the best of people is as much a product of stubbornness as is is genuine optimism about the nature of man. Ayah doesn't think it fair on the people she will go on to meet to assume they will let her down simply because she has been let down, and badly, before: she would, quite genuinely, rather be constantly disappointed than cynical. Though she was unthinkingly so at the beginning of her journey, her continued idealism is the product of a conscious and concerted effort to hold onto it in the face of sorrow and strife. Difficult though her journey has undoubtedly been, it has also taught her the value of striving for better, and living in hope.Perhaps fortunately, given the destiny she's inherited, Ayah has a strong sense of right and wrong, and works tirelessly to atone for and overcome the mistakes that she makes. She wants to be looked up to, both as an ideal and as an individual, but more than that she wants to be worthy of being looked up to, and she feels she's a very long way from being that. Her desire to improve her world is surpassed only by her desire to improve herself, and though she's not always sure how she should be going about achieving that ambition, it's not going to keep her from trying.

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History

background

A child of the Twelveswood, Ayah was born and raised in a Miqo'te hamlet in Peacegarden in the North Shroud, around a bell's walk from the town of Hyrstmill, the largest settlement in the area. Comprised of four Keeper of the Moon families and their children, it is known by its inhabitants only as home or the community; outsiders refer to it as the Clowder. An almost exclusively female enclave, it is made up of a series of small treehouses connected by rope bridges, above a forest clearing containing their workshops and storehouses, a well, and a communal fire pit.Nocturnal and largely self-sufficient, the community hunt, catch game and forage for plants, fungi and berries in accordance with Trappers' League guidelines, with responsibility for gathering food falling in the most part to the older daughters of the hamlet. Deciding that the best way to avoid the unwelcome attention of the Wood Wailers was to make themselves too useful to trouble, many of the adult women have taken up trades, allowing them to barter with or sell to the local townsfolk. The community is known for producing woven cloth and blankets, clothing, leather accessories, dyestuffs, soaps and tinctures, and herbal remedies.Ayah is the oldest daughter of Cemi Mhakaracca, the settlement's alchemist and herbalist, and was brought up by her mother and her wife Pelhi Tayuun, a self-taught conjurer. In the traditional Keeper of the Moon fashion her father, a man named Sahja'a Molkot, does not live with them and was only ever intermittently present in her life, something that both she and her family considered entirely as to be expected. She has younger sisters on Cemi's side, twins Rinh and Hawu Mhakaracca; on Pelhi's side she has an older sister, Khuja Tayuun, and younger sister Nahgo. Nahgo is not only the closest to her in age, but also the blood daughter of Sahja'a Molkot.

biography

Ayah's childhood was happy, peaceful, and largely unremarkable. She was an outgoing little girl, physically precocious, and fond of ballads and traveler's tales. Though she was never very intellectually-inclined, and far keener on playing with her sisters or helping out gathering herbs or in the kitchen than curling up quietly with a book, the girl was possessed of a prodigious memory for songs and verse. Ayah's love for music (and nigh-constant harassment of every adult in the community who could play an instrument) eventually led to her taking up the lyre and, a year or so later, the flute. The love Ayah had for dance proved more troublesome.It's hard to dance when you have no music to dance to. Ayah did her best, singing and dancing as best she could, inveigling people to play for her. One evening, however, while collecting a damaged kettle from the Hyrstmill forge, she heard the most fascinating music she had ever heard - complex, multilayered, many-voiced - coming through the open windows of a shopkeep's otherwise unremarkable home. She stayed to listen, only leaving when the music stopped (and getting quite a scolding for it: didn't I tell you to come straight home?). From then on she was a regular presence at the windows of the shopkeepers' home - to the extent that the shopkeeper himself noticed and, growing anxious, reported it to the Wood Wailers.It's never a nice feeling to have two tall lancemen in armor show up at your home in the middle of the day. The Wailers however, realizing that the girl the shopkeepers had seen haunting their home was a mere seven summers old, opted to be kind, gently questioning Ayah about what had drawn her there. When she stammered out that it had been the music, the men simply nodded: the shopkeeper, one Joseph Weaver, had recently obtained an orchestrion, and he made a habit of listening to the rolls after dinner. With the misunderstanding cleared up, and Joseph Weaver declaring that she could listen to his orchestrion just as well by his fireside as shivering by the shutters, Ayah soon became something of a fixture in the Weaver home. It was in his parlor, under the watchful eye of Meriel Weaver, that she took her first dance lesson alongside their daughters Keelty and Keitha, and in Keelty Weaver that she found a friend for life.Though she and Keelty often dreamed of leaving Peacegarden, the first time the outer world intruded on Ayah's quiet, measured existence in any way other than occasional visits from travelers and merchants was during her eleventh summer, when the lesser moon Dalamud fell from the sky. Unable to do much more than watch, Cemi, Pelhi and the girls were reliant on rumors, hearsay and what news made it to Hyrstmill to understand the calamity at hand. As Keepers of the Moon, who had long revered Dalamud - seeing it as their guardian Menphina's loyal hound - the idea that it could be responsible for their destruction was almost unthinkable. Then came rumors of a war with the expansionist Garlean Empire, and news that the Order of the Twin Adder was to be dispatched to the Cartenau Flats.As disaster loomed ever closer, Cemi and her daughters clung to their community and one another, at first scarcely venturing outside of their enclave, then their houses. Finally, even their homes in the treetops grew to feel unsafe: fearing the worst, the four families that made up the commune took what shelter they could find in the lowest and sturdiest of their workshops, gathering bedding and all the food and medicines they could stockpile. As the noise increased and Dalamud swallowed the sky they huddled together, praying to the Twelve for deliverance, bracing themselves for what they were all but certain would be the end. Miraculously, it wasn't.The Calamity, for Ayah, was loud and frightening - but also confounding. Just as she was sure the world would shake itself apart, everything dropped away. In this sudden stillness she heard a woman speaking to her, whispering that she would be all right. And that, it turned out, was all it would be. When the shaking stopped and the noise died away, she was left with nothing but the dawning realization that they all - she, and her family, and the women and children of the community - had survived largely unscathed. Her first thought, once the shock of it had had time to wear off, was for Keelty Weaver. Running from the house, she met her friend on the road to Hyrstmill: Keelty, after learning that her own family was okay, had come after her.Immediately there was work to be done, and all who had been spared the Calamity's worst effects were pressed to service. There was cleaning, and mending, and tending the wounded who, remembering the commune's reputation as healers, had come to them for help. The days and weeks following passed in a blur: many had been less fortunate than they, and Ayah would find herself enlisted to help gathering herbs and formulating medicines with her mother and delivering them to the needy, errands of mercy that took her away from Hyrstmill and Peacegarden for the first time, to areas far worse-off than her own. She grew, though somewhat guiltily, to enjoy these journeys for their own sake, and it set her to thinking seriously about traveling beyond the Shroud when she was of age.Though she left home hoping to find work as a dancer - believing, with some justification, that her skills as a musician and performer are by far the most valuable things she has to sell - Ayah was realistic enough about her ambitions to have backup plans. It was thus that she set her sights on Gridania as the place she would choose to strike out alone from. Not only was it close enough to home that she could, in the event of an emergency, get back there with comparative ease, it also housed the Archers' and Botanists' Guilds, both of which disciplines she had prior experience in, if no formal training. This would, or so she hoped, allow her to earn her keep while practicing her art. Bidding her family and friends a fond farewell and promising that she would write, she set out for the city, completely unaware that a far different fate awaited her on her arrival.

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The unsundered

at a glance

Standing at a mere 17'5", Calliope is considered by her peers to be relatively petite. Since ascending to the seat of Azem she has been entitled to wear the black mask of the Traveler - which, combined with her height, leaves her immediately recognizable even when dressed head to toe in the long, concealing robes of the Amaurotines. Her body language is loose, boyish and expressive, and she almost invariably talks with her hands.As an Amaurotine, Calliope considers her true age to be largely irrelevant. She maintains the appearance of a russet-skinned woman in her early twenties, with a slender build, startlingly bright teal-blue eyes and a scattering of freckles. She has long black hair, most often worn pulled back in a loose bun or braid of never more than adequate tidiness. Her smile is wide, bright and frequent; her enthusiasms many. She talks quickly and volubly, especially when talking about something she is interested in - and she is interested in just about everything. Curious and vivacious, she seldom stays still for long, and is restless, even fidgety when forced to sit or wait for extended periods. Calliope has a fast, spritely gait, and frequently has to be reminded to slow down when walking with friends.

personality

Calliope is a quick-witted, strong-willed and capricious woman of unorthodox views and uncommon power, whose friends and family suspect her of having been promoted to the seat of Azem simply because nobody knew what else to do about her. A tomboy since childhood, fond of rough-and-tumble, she was from an early age a curious and perceptive girl for whom no explanation was ever quite enough. Though her ability with creation magicks is second to none, she is too whimsical and unfocused to truly succeed at concept design: she simply lacks the patience for iteration and refinement that she would need to master the art.She is cheerful, lively and intrepid, prone to flights of fancy, and idealistic to a fault: a dreamer who believes in a better world, one she has taken it upon herself to build. A wanderer by nature, prior to her appointment to the Convocation Calliope was notorious for never staying in one place or position for long. It's in her nature forever to be dreaming of the next horizon, and never to be quite satisfied with the way that things are. She loves novelty, and is constantly on the lookout for new things to see and do, new places to visit, and above all else for new people to meet. She has no talent for solitude and finds it easy to make friends, though her forthright nature, bohemian opinions and sheer energy don't always go down so well with the proud and the proper.A kind-hearted and empathetic soul, the only thing that Calliope can truly be said to hate is indolence - she finds deliberate cruelty almost easier to understand than indifference. As Azem, she is drawn to the unusual and uncanny, and is renowned for turning up in just the right place at exactly the right time: should trouble be at hand, she is quick to get involved, eager to lend her aid, and unafraid to get her hands dirty should the cause demand it. She considers Venat a mentor, Hythlodeus a kindred spirit, and Hades... well, she loves Hades. Why else would she hide souvenirs from her adventures all over his apartments and offices?

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Player

about me

Hello. My name is laila, and I'm far too old for this.I am an FFXIV superfan, catgirl main and general Eureka obsessive; I am also something of a lore nerd, though hopefully without becoming too inflexible and toxic about it. I am a A Realm Reborn advocate, hang out in Gridania, and am that one person you know who won't stop talking about how much they love Stormblood. I am an appreciater of all things Ancient, but not an Ascian apologist; I am fascinated by the Garleans, but in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire way, not the Triumph of the Will way. Alisaie is my favorite Scion.

contact

If you need to contact me ingame, please either send a /tell or a message via Delivery Moogle to Ayah Mhakaracca@Seraph. Should, for whatever reason, you wish to get in touch with me outside of FFXIV, here's how to go about it.

As my character is under 18, I do not involve her in NSFW RP.