our song of hope, she dances on the wind

the song upon the wind ❧ ARIANE

NAME: Ariane Auravert

CANON: Final Fantasy XIV (OC)

SPECIES: Elezen (Wildwood/Ishgardian)

GENDER/PRONOUNS: female, she/her

AGE: 29 (Dawntrail)

NAMEDAY 13th Sun, 3rd Astral Moon (May 13)

CLASS: bard/botanist(/dark knight)

First Impressions

VISUAL: Roughly 6'2"/189cm tall. Physically fit, with the slender, stretched-out build typical of elezen. Long red hair with heavy bangs, typically braided out of her way and/or tucked inside a hat except for a section of loose ringlets on each side. Vivid green eyes. Fair skin, scattered with freckles. Typically dressed for travel in shades of forest green or deep red, and rarely seen without earrings, ear clasps or both.
AURAL: Don't ask me to pick a voice actress for her I have no idea. Light, clear, middling in pitch. Well-honed singing voice, somewhere in the mezzo-soprano range.
OLFACTORY: Reasonable hygiene, often a hint of flowers from her native Shroud.
DEMEANOUR: Warm, curious and friendly by default. Polite and soft-spoken, rarely raising her voice or swearing. Wears her heart on her sleeve, though reluctant to actually admit to being upset or troubled.

Personality

+ compassionate. loyal. courageous. warm. resilient. doesn't panic easily.
= music lover. curious. protective. thrill seeker. needs time outdoors. cries easily (to her dismay). easy to read.
- somewhat gullible. bottles things up, doesn't want to ask for support. prone to survivor's guilt. needs better boundaries- asks too little for what she gives.

likes small, cute, fluffy things ♡ ginger cookies, rabbit pie ♡ lilies-of-the-valley, carnations, Azeyma roses ♡ stories and storytellers ♡ children (wants a big family) ♡ deep forests ♡ heights ♡ collecting souvenirs
dislikes deserts ✗ Ul'dah in general, tbh ✗ coffee, milk (lactose intolerant), most alcohol (can't hold her liquor) ✗ rude mammets ✗ lying
fears spiders ☠ Ixal ☠ others sacrificing themselves for her ☠ dying with regrets

History

❧ She was raised in a small village in the northern Black Shroud by a single mother, Marielle. She never met her father, an Ishgardian lancer who skipped town when he learned Marielle was pregnant. While she at least knows what he looks like by now thanks to the Echo, Ariane has never made an effort to seek him out. The thought has crossed her mind a few times, but she isn't sure what she would say to him or if she'd be okay with him deciding he wants to be in her life after all. She doesn't know whether he's even still alive.

❧ Marielle never married, despite the hardships of providing for her daughter by herself. Ariane sometimes speculated on whether she was afraid of getting hurt again, unwilling to accept anything less than a love match, or just too damn busy running the household by herself. (The answer is a bit of all three with a side of "might have had something going on with the woman next door".) As a result, Ariane remained an only child, and as a young girl she longed for siblings.
"It takes a village" strongly applied to Ariane's childhood and she learned much from her neighbors, but she and Marielle remained close right through the end of the latter's life. She grew up learning botany and household skills from her mother, how to play the lute from the local bard, exploring the surrounding woods and, once she was old enough, honing her skills in woodcraft and the bow to bring home food for the household.

❧ The Calamity awoke her Echo, though it rarely activated and she wouldn't know what it was until years later. She didn't mention what few visions she got to anyone, even her mother, for fear of how people would react, until finally meeting someone who recognized the phenomenon. (Yda and Papalymo if she's the WoL, a minor/background Scion if she's a regular adventurer)

❧ Her fear of Ixal stems from an incident not long after the Calamity. She and two others from her village were out on a hunting party when they stumbled across an Ixali logging camp. The inhabitants, knowing what would happen if the Wood Wailers learned of their presence, attacked, intending to capture them for Garuda or at least prevent them from carrying word back. Ariane and one of her companions got away; the other took a mortal blow covering their escape.

❧ Having always dreamed of travel, she would likely have set out a few years earlier than she did if not for the Calamity; unfortunately, the combination of Elf Puberty and cleaning up after the disaster put things on hold, and then her mother fell ill, never to recover. After Marielle's passing from her long illness, Ariane couldn't bear to remain in her childhood home alone. Her first destination: her grandparents' home in Gridania; her second: the Adventurer's Guild, which seemed a perfect way to feed her wanderlust, help people, and further improve her skills as an archer. (The Botanist's Guild would be her third stop, somewhere between early adventures.)

❧ WoL Ariane: Events go forward as in canon, with her returning to Gridania between storylines. She picks up the Dark Knight jobstone immediately after the events at the Vault.
❧ Adventurer Ariane: While on a job in La Noscea she encountered someone who recognized one of her Echo visions for what it was and introduced her to the Scions. She joined them, but in a background role, going on less-dramatic adventures and missions that thankfully had her away from the Waking Sands at the time of the ARR massacre.

Abilities

The Echo / The Blessing of Light

A remnant of the power held by the Ancients, the Echo varies from bearer to bearer; in Ariane's case, it grants occasional visions into the past as well as acting as a handy-dandy universal translator.
Accompanying the Echo is Hydaelyn's blessing (not actually part of the Echo itself but a ward she puts on its holders when she contacts them), which protects its bearer from aetheric tampering (e.g. tempering by primals.)

Job Stone: Bard

archer with magic songs and damage-over-time arrows. wip

Job Stone: Dark Knight

tank powered by righteous anger and love. more of a DPS job than a tank in Ariane's case though. wip (note: she only has this as the WoL as she picks it up as a direct reaction to events in Heavensward)

PLAYER: DC insanityprelude

PERMISSIONS: here