Looking for Feedback and Advice!

[NineCatte]

Hey there!

 

I'm looking for feedback on my character's lore and information if peeps would be willing to give it a read. I don't mind bending the lore slightly to make things work, but I want to make sure it makes sense overall. Along with that, if there are any general writing critiques people have, let me know as well! I'm always looking to improve my work and get better. 

 

The details can be found here under the lore section of the profile.

 

Thanks for reading in advance!

[NineCatte]

EDIT

 

Since the site can be a bit buggy, I'll post the backstory here. I'm mainly looking for whether or not this story would be plausible within the lore and if it'll be something I can work on and improve in future drafts. Any input or feedback is appreciated!

 

Childhood

Nine’s story begins among the snowy, stone walls of Ishgard. Her mother, Eldeane Demitaux, worked as a diplomat for the Orthodoxy, dealing with Dravanian affairs. Her father, on the other hand, was a Keeper of the Moon Miqo’te living within Tailfeather. He tamed and hunted chocobos for a living, with some shadier dealings on the side. When the two fell in love after one of her visits to the area, The Orthodoxy made things incredibly hard for the young couple. Motions against them returning to the city were called for, even if nothing came from them. They effectively barred them from a great deal of the privileges many of the city’s elite citizens were able to afford. 

Calling Nine’s childhood unorthodox would be an understatement as the result of this mix. Being taller than most miqo’te and shorter than most Elezen put her in an awkward position. Nine took to education well thanks to her parents and proved to be skilled with literature and history. However, being a young scholar could only do so much for her future. Her aspirations lied outside of the stuffy libraries of Ishgard. What she wanted to be was a dragoon. Every night, her mother would regale her with the tales of brave dragoons throughout the ages and the heroic acts they delivered in defense of those living in Ishgard. To Nine, they were an inspiration, and it reminded her of her father, who used a polearm in his hunts with Chocobos. Though he refused to train her initially, wanting her to take up a more peaceful occupation, her father eventually relented and taught her what he knew. Knowing that his daughter would likely face larger or stronger opponents throughout her life, he prioritized teaching her how to use her speed, size, and skill to outperform them with more unorthodox techniques. Along with their wisdom and abilities, her parents also passed on the disdain they held for the current structure of Ishgard, hoping that one day, Nine would shake up the order.

Nine’s parents had worked hard to restore Eldeane’s reputation by the time she was a teenager. They needed to build up their credibility if their daughter was going to be a dragoon. While the other members of the nobility found excuses to bar her year after year, they eventually relented and allowed Nine to join. Of course, being the runt of the litter made things hard for her. It was arduous to compete while surrounded by nobles that stood 3 or 4 heads above her. While she lost her first few spars to the more experienced students, she adapted to their strategy quickly, allowing her to slowly claw her way up the ranks of the class with every meeting. Around this time, Nine met what would be her closest friend, Raitmeaux. Unlike the outgoing miqo’te, he mainly remained introverted, taking on more of a scholarly role. Their mutual enjoyment of the folk tales surrounding the city brought them together, and the two remained inseparable. Nine helped him explore the city and become less shy, while Raitmeaux helped Nine with her studies and education. While the two remained close, as the selection process whittled out more and more of the candidates, Nine stopped spending as much time with him to focus on her techniques. Ultimately, this came at the cost of their friendship, with Raitmeaux rightfully accusing Nine of throwing away their company for the sake of her ambition. Nine bluntly responded that at this point, it was a waste of her time to keep hanging out with him, words she quickly tried to take back. Vowing that he’d one day get revenge on her, he promised that it would be the last time she underestimated him. 

When the time came for the final mission barring her from her dream of becoming a dragoon, Nine was more than up for the task. In her eyes, she would go down in history as one of the few, if any, miqo’te that we’re able to become a dragoon. Tasked with clearing out a keep full of heretics, the group departed into the snowy wastes of the highlands. Typically, the enemy would’ve been no problem for the elite team of lancers; however, these were not your typical heretics. Buried deep inside a frozen keep, this group of thaumaturges proved to be more than a match for the aspiring dragoons. While the recruits were able to hold their own against the mages at first, but slowly... one by one, they began to fall. Having sustained plenty of injuries and the rest of her group, Nine did her best to hold off the remaining mages as the Heretics worked together to open a planar fissure to summon voidsent to finish off the stragglers, right as Nine was trying to destroy them! To the horror of the surviving Dragoons, she seemingly leaped right into the darkness itself, quickly becoming enveloped in the inky black aether as it pulled her in. 

The Void

For Nine, the next few months were a blur when she landed on the purple, barren ground of the Void itself. The skies were filled with a constant gloom, as a baleful hazy orb hung heavily in the sky; a twisted simulacrum of her reality. Upon touching down in the land, part of Nine knew that Coerthas was far out of reach now. Even from her isolated position, the young miqo’te could hear the cries of the voidsent searching for the new visitor to the realm, hoping to sup upon its aether as they pushed forward. Shaking. That’s all Nine could do in response as her injuries began to become more and more apparent. The spear in her hands quickly became useless as an Ahriman descended upon her, eager to devour the interloper leaking into its realm.

Courage vanished from the lancer’s heart at this juncture, her lungs greedily glutted on stagnant air of the realm, her legs leaving behind her mind as they carried her beaten body towards the nearest form of cover. Against this backdrop of despair, what else could she do? It wasn’t long before the fell beast swooped down, clawing at Nine’s face before digging its talons into her shoulders. The winds billowed against her face as the pain seeped through her body, each mighty flap carrying her higher into the air with her trusty lance. For a moment, she did feel like one of her heroes, as she plunged her spear deep into the voidsent’s eye, slaying the beast as it soared through the air. In a moment, her trajectory changed, unable to control or stop her fall back to the ground. Nine hoped that this would be her last experience on the hellish plane compared to the bleak existence in front of her.

It was at that moment when her body hit the ground that everything changed. The darkness enveloping her vision soon shifted, revealing a dazzling sight before her. A burning sky full of falling stars and a mysterious voice calling out to her. It reminded Nine that her fight wasn’t over yet and that egress from the Void would come soon. While injury locked her in this vision, time passed around her, giving her time to recover from her injuries. Yet, this recovery came at a cost. The malevolent energy surrounding the rest of the world began to filter into Nine’s very being, starting the slow corruption of her aether. Upon regaining consciousness, the lancer found that her wounds had fully healed and that vision had restored her will. 

Only one idea remained in Nine’s mind now; persist. If Nine could believe the mysterious vision, she needed to hold out against the roaming voidsent for as long as possible. While that in itself remained a tenuous proposition, Nine remembered her father’s lessons and put them to use, soon securing herself shelter, food, and water through foraging the lands. Any voidsent that discovered her found themselves driven back by the fury of her technique, only honed further as the days stretched into weeks and the weeks into months. When almost six of them had elapsed, a calamitous event on the Source weakened the link between worlds as several voidsent flew outwards, departing from the massive planar fissures that erupted in the sky. Knowing that she’d never get another chance like this, Nine secured her freedom, pushing the hellspawn away from the gates before leaping through one of them. Thus ended her stint in the Void, a short trip that would leave her with a lifetime of experience. 

ARR

Staying in the Void for that long proved to have some complications for Nine. While being thrown back into that keep would generally be a death sentence, the mages once occupying it were long gone, converting it into a post for the outriders patrolling the Western Highlands. Many figured Nine was another one of those cultists, given her unceremonious arrival through a portal to get there. Rather than the warm welcome home she expected, Nine instead found herself charged for heresy and treason. With the rabble in Ishgard being loquacious as ever, her accusers postulated that the doomed mission resulted from her being in league with the cultists. Likely a means to further sink the reputations of her mother and father, to the point the Orthodoxy exiled them on the same grounds. Though, upon her arrival into the city, her condition had deteriorated substantially, making her unfit to stand trial for the time being. Thankfully, her family’s connections allowed her to bide her time and recover until Nine could devise something else. 

The finest chirurgeons and conjurers tended to her once she arrived in Ishgard proper, pulling her back from the brink of expiration. Though the bevy of injuries dealt with her body remained superficial, the more aetherically inclined became aware of the troubling condition of her aether. With Nine’s form imbued with the umbral essence of the 13th, it had twisted to reflect the sordid state of her soul. Her jet black hair had taken on a purple hue, while her eyes had lost the deep, oceanic shade they once had. Instead, it froze over, leaving nothing but icy orbs forged in the ceaseless motion of the umbral aether. The scars along her body had most vanished with the application of magic, save for two of them remaining on her face. With all of this information compiled, one of the conjurers delivered the news to the miqo’te, explaining that she needed to find a way to balance her aether soon. In the meantime, these healers worked to smuggle her out of the city, using her father’s connections with the Keeper clans in The Black Shroud so that she would be able to live freely and find a solution to her condition.

Her integration into this new locale proved to be a smooth one. Relying on the connections her father had to start with, Nine soon became a prominent member at the lancer’s guild, honing her spear work further and further. Nine undertook several commissions to come up with the funds for her treatment, finding that the adventuring life suited her quite well. Sure, it was fraught with danger and uncertainty, but along with it came a freedom that nothing seemed to match. Along with this, it allowed her to help those in her community, making her efforts that much more fulfilling.

A year or so later, rumors began spreading about a tournament in Ul’dah with a strange prize, a stone that granted its user access to a new type of magic. One that directly channeled aether from within, giving its user control over their aether. In other words, an end to Nine’s condition. While the conjurer’s guild members expressed doubt of its efficacy, the miqo’te ignored their wishes in favor of such a portentous opportunity. She used the remainder of her treatment funds to pay for the airship ticket to Gridania. Once she got there and paid the entry fee, the tournament met her with her most arduous trial yet. Each fight wore on the miqo’te more and more, threatening her mind and body. But with her prize dangling mere inches from her, the conviction she had to win was enough to carry her to the semi-finals. At this point, Nine had fought back everyone around her level of experience. But her opponent for this round, an outrider dragoon, proved her match when it came to wielding the lance. Any tactic Nine tried was known to them and easily countered, the dragoon themselves mocking the miqo’te for imitating Ishgardian techniques. Before long, she was knocked to the ground, forced to surrender after only three minutes of fighting. Just like that, this dragoon had snatched a chance at freedom away from her.

Utterly humiliated by this defeat, Nine left her lance in the ring once her foe knocked it out of her hands. To her, all of the victories she held before no longer mattered. For all her resilience, she remained broken, beaten, and ultimately, hadn’t changed. Slowly taking her time to walk out of the gladiatorial pits, a stranger unexpectedly grabbed nine’s shoulder. Expecting trouble given the city’s reputation, Nine readied herself for combat, only to find the face of a tired man staring back at her. Placing his hand on her other shoulder, he began to lean in closer to her face before mentioning that he could help her. Ushering her aside before her could ask what was going on, he explained that he could sense that the aetherical imbalance afflicting her was of an extraordinary magnitude. Something that could only temper with proper training, rather than just acquiring the job stone of a dead art form. He knew from her display that she was discouraged but reminded her that fighting was the only thing paying for her treatment. What other choice did she have? Hesitant about accepting the deal, Nine couldn’t think of another option at her wit’s end like this and agreed to it. Thus began her descent into the study of the dark arts.

Becoming proficient at expelling said umbral aether, especially for the uninitiated like her, proved to be a daunting endeavor. Even more so when Nine put her life on the line. For the next few months, the mysterious stranger wandered the forests of Gridana and the cold outskirts of Coerthas with her, righting wrongs when possible and unwaveringly rekindling the confidence Nine needed to help other people once again. Though his regiment remained unflinchingly strict, he allowed her to wrest control of her aether. The art Nine learned was a strange one, but it granted her far more perspective regarding battle. For a while, her view had been limited to that of a skirmisher, wielding a weapon great for putting her enemies down from a distance. However, introducing a greatsword as her primary implement of offense and heavier armor as a defense forced Nine to reconsider her perspective. Now, combat had a rhythm to it, an ebb and flow that would measure who lived and who died based on how well one could use that to their advantage. Timing the heavy swings of her greatsword with her own defensive magic, Nine became attuned to the rhythm of combat. She could now contend with the enemy head-on, clad in the heaviest armor one could find. With this on, he’d remind her,  she not only had the burden of the plate to contend with. Nine now carried the lives of those she needed to defend; the proper burden of a knight.

At the end of this training, he gave Nine one last item; the job stone of her instructor, though she never received his name. To him, the value of his actions overrode personal glory, something that he hoped the young miqo’te would learn in time. He explained that as one of the last wielders of such a stone, it came with the duty to uphold the peace outside of the law, as virtue itself was the most critical ideal to keep. With that, her mentor seemed to vanish into the wind itself, lost to the gales of Coerthas.

At last, with her condition able to be maintained, Nine took the words of her instructor to heart. Joining back up with the adventurer’s guild, she began to take jobs with other people who shared her passion and motivations. Guiding her companions through dungeons blossomed into connections with both adventurers and the communities she helped along the way. All of this cumulated in her participation in Operation Archon, working with the Maelstrom and the Scions to take out Castrum Marinum and the defenses at Cape Westwind. Of course, as word of her deeds spread, those in Ishgard investigating her disappearance soon began to pick up on her trail, forcing her to keep up her nomadic lifestyle. It wasn’t long before the miqo’te had nowhere else to run, being pursued into the highlands of Coerthas and cornered by an entire squadron of knights. Rather than risk the lives of her pursuers, the miqo’te came quietly, allowing them to apprehend her and bring her back into Ishgard on the charge of heresy. 

Her trial was held almost immediately after her capture, having to face down the many inquisitors of the Orthodoxy in this court of law. Unable to indeed defend herself with a proper lawyer, she instead requested that she prove her innocence through the rite of combat. They did not want to waste any time with one of the Knights of the Round Instead; they decided to go for a more surefire method of victory. Their champion happened to be the same outrider that had bested her before, now with the permission to kill her. Noticing that she wasn’t using her lance anymore, he expressed how little that shocked him, only proving that Nine lacked the conviction to become a proper dragoon. This comment was enough to throw her off balance, giving the opening of the fight to him as he flung insult after insult to her. Pathetic. Weak. Second rate. All of them continued to layer on and break her down further. 

Right as all seemed lost, Nine remembered the cold embrace of the Void. In particular, the voice she had heard in her vision. No, she could not fall here. Grasping onto that feeling, Nine endured while not allowing her foe to maintain their distance. Biding blow after blow, she endured the shame she had faced in the arena and waited. One miscalculated leap send her sword through his armor. Flicking the blood off her blade, she dared not turn herself around, as the court declared her not guilty. But that freedom came at the cost of her opponent’s life. The mysterious dragoon removed his helmet, at last revealing his identity as none other than Raitmeaux. While this wasn’t the first time, she had to slay someone, Raitmeauxwas different. Holding her flying friend in her arms, Nine tried her hardest to use her restorative abilities to keep him alive. Deep rivers of his ichor began to spill onto her body as she held him still, while he spent his last moments tightening his embrace around her; perhaps a final sign of forgiveness, as he gave the soul stone he possessed to Nine. Nine had traded her old shackles for something much heavier as the judge declared her innocence. 

HW

Following her trial, Nine found herself spilled onto the streets of an entirely different Ishgard. No longer having the net of her parents to fall back on, she now lived in the Brume, performing meager assignments to afford passage back to Eorzea. Of course, with the news of the Scion’s alleged betrayal of the alliance, this too was put on hold as Nine fended for herself on the cold streets of Ishgard. Her time in the Void had hardened her to the reality of this sort of survival, leaving her a capable member of the community that a few people still remembered fondly from her helpfulness as a teenager. As a result, there were many eager to support her with what little they could offer. All the while, she continued to dwell on her killing Raitmeaux. It was not something she could forgive. But what had killed him was the same beast that exiled her parents, the same beast that accused her of being a heretic after buying time for her allies to escape: the Orthodoxy itself pitting the people she loved against her. Her motivations seemed more apparent than ever from that day forward: expose the crimes of the system that had been holding her back all her life.  

With the dark arts being an undeniably taboo practice, Nine needed a place with more gainful means of employment. Around this time, the Skysteel Manufactory had opened its doors to insiders, allowing them to get a look into the new practice of being a machinist. Once again, that thrill of a unique fighting style drew Nine in, hook line and sinker. While only average when it came to maintaining the automation and other creations of the Manufactory, she excelled in using these various firearms and weapons against her opponents. Of course, it took some time to get used to reloading her gun was a relatively new concept to her. On top of that, she learned how to use some of her weapons to purge the aether from her body, in case her stints without magic would need to continue for a while longer. 

During her time as a hired hand, Nine was quick to listen to the gossip floating around the workshop surrounding the Knights of the Round, especially when she learned that some of the Scions had made it into the city. The stories about mysterious correspondences between the Archbishop and these newcomers was enough to arouse her suspicions and actively lend her services to the Scions and House Fortemps in more of an auxiliary role. Eventually, when the true nature of Thordan’s deception came to light, she was quick to take the fight to oust the Orthodoxy from those loyal to Thordan in the ensuing chaos. Helping the Warrior of Light raid The Vault, she took it upon herself to ensure that those within were responsible for their actions. 

Now, with her friend properly avenged and his armor in her possession, she set out once again to become a dragoon proper. Wielding the lance of her fallen friend, she once again entered into the rigorous final selection process from among the candidates, a tradition that ad changed to a tournament where only the victor could join the ranks of these elite warriors. While the prospect of losing once again began to plague the miqo’te’s mind, she reminded herself that she needed to achieve this not just for herself but for the memory of Raitmeaux as well. Having spent months learning the techniques and jumps from the memories locked inside the soul stone, Nine had become a machine when it came to wielding the lance. Using unheard-of thrusts and methods to evade, bait, and decisively strike her opponent allowed her a swift rising through the ranks and finally allowed her to achieve her dream from childhood. Bestowed the title of Outrider Knight, Ser Thena could ultimately serve her home like the heroes in her stories.

She wasn’t on patrol long before the Nidhoogs’ brood members began to attack the outskirts of Dravania, causing her to come to Tailfeather’s aid to prevent the settlement from being overrun by dragons. This dispatch went far more successfully than her first, allowing her to secure the borders of Ishgardian land for the duration of the war. While there, she reunited with her parents, who had feared that she had died during her trial. For the next few months, she spent her time dealing with the occasional dragon attack and helping those around the village. Compared to her other life, this relative peace brought her journey into perspective so far, as her parents recounted stories from her childhood around the table with some of her comrades in arms. All of this came to an end when Nidhogg’s brood seemed ready to attack the city one last time, forcing Nine to return, this relative peace compared to Ishgard with the rest of her unit. On the Steps of Faith, she helped hold the line against that final assault, joining the Warrior of Light in confronting the final opponent of the war: Niddhog. Their fight was long and arduous, with this last bastion of heroes barely pulling through to defeat the wyrm. 

When the flames and fire had died down once more, Nine remained behind to help restructure the government for a time, but she couldn’t resist the lure of adventure for long. While continuing to fight as a dragoon and an outrider for the nation of Ishgard, she instead began offering her services independently, working with the guild or on her own accord to help people with their problems. However, the neglect she had given her aether had reared its head once again, forcing her to deal with new symptoms of her condition. Along with this, the sense of something fragmenting inside of her returned once again, but now, it had more than just a sensation tied to it. It had a voice. Her voice. This revelation would mark the start of a new chapter for Nine, as well as the dawning of a new obstacle for her to face.