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My fate was sealed

  • they/she/fae

Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky ~ disaster queer ~ autism & cptsd ~ 43yrs
housecat irl
I play a yinglet on the internet
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WoLQotD
@WoLQotD

Question of the Day!

It's been a bit. We have a lot of new people hanging out. Introduce your WoL/OC! Give us the brief lowdown!


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@contextual

Aquila Ila (ah-quee-lah ee-lah)
Lalafell - Plainsfolk, mid 40s, 37 ilms tall, maybe 50 ponzes of locally sourced Gridanian chaos given breath and weapons.

Realistically, Aquila is just one of the Gridania local folks. She's a regular at the markets, hangs out at the Carline Canopy, and spent twenty years declining Miounne's invitations to join the Adventurers Guild on account that she was by and large not an adventurer. She used to have a place out in the East Shroud, a nice little spot by a pond where she could fish and fetch water for her garden. Then, one fateful stormy night her home was destroyed when Odin himself came through on one of his regular rampages. As if the increasing Garlean incursions weren't enough, now the home where she was raised was a heap of lightning-shattered splinters and burning wreckage. She herself was left with only the clothes on her back and the bow and quiver she had taken out hunting when that blasted thunderhead came barreling through. Everything she owned burned to cinders through the night and all she could do was craft a shelter with some scrap wood close enough to the flames to stay warm until morning.

Dirty, beaten, and cold she walked for malms until she caught a carriage bound for Gridania in the early morning hours. Finally, she accepted the invitation to the guild and got about rebuilding her life. These days she's built a new place, now in the central Shroud and not far from the back side of the Canopy. On still, quiet nights you can just hear the splashing of the paddle wheel from her back room window. She's not far from the stream that drains the lake behind the inn, and her home is a modestly constructed place tucked out of the way. It is ringed by a low fence and flowers grow by her gate. Vegetables grow in a sunny patch to one side, and much to the dismay of the Wood Wailers there is a deck gun mounted to a balanced swivel in her front yard.
It is a spoil of conquest, as she calls it, a weapon "liberated" from a "ghost ship" aside an island halfway to Hingashi. Having mastered the Machinist trade in Ishgard, she refurbished it at the Ironworks and brought it to her new home. A week after she perfected the mount, the gun fell into service. Not for a Garlean or poacher incursion, as they don't dare stray so close to Gridania proper. In the dark of night during an unsettling thunderstorm she blew Odin off his horse with a single shot and personally finished the job where he fell.

Since that fateful night and when she was asked by the Scions to see about a summoning by the Sylphs, she has personally killed Odin twenty-seven times and counting. Every time she gets word of a summoning, or that there is one of those trademark electrical storms rolling through Gridania, she goes home to remind that so-called god where he belongs. Every time she drops him, she digs a hole and buries his sword without ever laying a hand on it. Eventually he comes back, such is the will of artifacts and gods, and every time he does he faces the unyielding fury of a Lalafell scorned.

That business aside, she claims generally to be an average citizen of little importance. She brushes off the whole "Warrior of Light" business despite everything that has happened, insisting that anyone with a good heart would've done the same. Disregard the number of times she has welcomed various Padjals and heads of state for tea on her front porch, or that time someone caught a photo of one intoxicated Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn pretending to fire the yard cannon with Aquila sat atop it waving her hat like an old gunslinger. Also if you could, pay no mind to the way that sword glows when she comes near, the one ironclad closet full of guns, or the various sets of Nouliths on display in her sitting room.

She does well to dodge her fame, just a sweet local woman always ready with grilled fish or baked goods at home, fancy far-eastern tea on hand, and fanciful tales to tell the young adventurers who inevitably stumble across her property as they head out into the world at large. If you hear something clicking in the back yard or digging holes, that's just Mr. Snips. Don't ask where she got a blue crab that tolerates fresh water and behaves like a dog, it's a long story but he follows her everywhere.
Also she will refute any accusation of being a bard, none of her personal bows (that you can see) have instruments built in (never mind the relics in the cellar that's not your business). She is an Archer by task and trade, as is evidenced by her plain woodfolk garb and lantern, and her simple bow which definitely isn't an aether-fused enchanted weapon made from the bones and feathers of a fallen Ixal deity. Just know that the rumors, the terrifying stories you have heard are probably true. That fire has never left her eyes. Waiting ready behind her sweet smile and friendly wave is the legendary boundless ferocity of her people. You may see it if you catch her just right or if you have truly terrible luck.


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