#i might expand on this even more (re: hw through ew identity thoughts) but she's through the worst of her issues by the end of arr

[crowdsourcedloner]

okay so nailah has a whole ~thing~ about people using her name and how she’s perceived so here’s the long explanation/story about it (covers pre-arr up through the end of base arr)

(it gets heavy - this is your warning. also ~1k words. sorry.)

As a kid, her mother Tasya would rarely use Nailah’s name, choosing instead to just call her “girl” or “child” the majority of the time. In the very rare times she’d praise her daughter, Tasya would say it quietly, and only ever in private. Nailah internalized the idea that a name is a vulnerable thing - something delicate, reserved only for people one deeply trusted. She projected this rule on others as well, picking up the habit of calling people by their job or title on the few occasions she was allowed to speak.

Once Nailah’s started having visions, she lost the privilege of having a name. Tasya immediately switched to referring to her with insults, ranging from “thing” to “half-mad beast” to “disappointment” and the like. Nailah’s potential was mourned far more than her presence was tolerated. The rejection and denial carved a weeping hole in her heart, and she spent an incredible amount of effort trying to be good enough again for Tasya. It never was.

After her mother finally abandoned her, she wandered nameless through the wilds. She thought of herself as a wild, half-mad beast, fit only to scavenge the very fringes of society. Yet when she’d encounter a stranger in the woods and they’d ask her name she never knew how to respond. Should she admit to her brokenness? Tell them she was a monster? Someone better left forgotten? She settled on simply being called “wanderer” - it was the truth, if anything. A mask to hide how she saw herself. She quickly realized it could be used to set people’s expectations of her on her own terms.

Once the wanderer discovered she could manufacture a social mask, she took up the mantle of the mercenary. She kept to remote villages, appearing and disappearing as suddenly as the wind, often only noticed by news of some local threat being quelled. Few people recognized her, and fewer still heard her speak. She hid as much of herself as she could, staying hidden under a thick cloak of silence and only answered to her moniker. She thought nobody could reject her if she rejected herself first, but her relentless visions haunted her. She felt, through other’s hearts, the warmth of lovers greeting one another, the affection in well worn childhood nicknames, the joys of long lost friends reuniting. The aching loneliness she was so used to grew more overwhelming with every vision. Was this truly what she wanted? To be forgotten and alone? Who was she really, hiding under her mask? 

She wandered town after town, road after road, using her title as a statement of being. She was just a Mercenary. Little more than a weapon to be pointed at a problem. People were kept at an arms length distance with professional ease, and she could still be useful to those she came across. There was comfort for her in how simple it all seemed, though simplicity was a poor answer to her loneliness. Every solitary morning she drowned in silence, every new horizon was greyed by her sorrow. She stopped trying to answer the cloying doubts that clung to her, their despair staining her thoughts more than she could bear. Who was she, under everything? She gave herself one last chance - go to the closest city and try to find an answer - or fade away, lost and forgotten.

Ul’dah held much more than just an answer for her, though she didn’t know it at the time. The adventurer’s guild asked for a name - she told them Nailah. She couldn’t remember where she heard it. Familiar as it was, she refused to let anyone call her such. She was Mercenary. Adventurer. The name was a formality, nothing more. It wasn’t a mask she wanted to use. Much to her displeasure, the guild used her name frequently enough for it to become common knowledge among their clients.

When the Scions took notice of her abilities, she asked the same comfortable distance of them she was so used to. In response the Scions gave her their names - Thancred, Yda, Minfilia - and she couldn’t understand. Why tell a simple mercenary the names of Scions? Did she not deserve scorn for her visions? The visions have a name? Their responses were acceptance and support and Nailah could not understand. She called them by titles instead - Scholar, Scion, Antecedent - though her echo didn’t let her miss the disappointment they felt. She tightened her masks and hid behind a new one, one given by those who accepted the mercenary - the Warrior of Light. 

Tales of the Warrior triumphing over Titan and Garuda spread through Eorzea like wildfire. Her new allies respected the distance she desired, though they had the odd habit of confiding their worries to her. The Warrior supposed she made a good listener, quiet as she was. Would they listen to her? Should she risk that vulnerability? She didn’t know what answer she hoped for anymore. She didn’t know what she would say. She kept her silence.

Her mask started to chafe. Strangers made assumptions about who she was, remarking they expected her to be bigger or a man. Few expected her to be as quiet as she was. Fewer still, a mage. She felt choked by their expectations - who she was wasn’t what they seemed to want. The desire to abandon her masks and nascent bonds writhed inside her whenever she heard new voices. What more did she need to do? Was the Warrior not enough for them? Scions noticed her frustration, offering short words of encouragement. She did her best to listen.

Once the Ultima Weapon was destroyed, she took a look at herself. The Scions - Papalymo, Yda, Urianger -  stood by her every step they could. Did they not deserve to see who their Warrior was? One quiet morning, once everything was moved to Mor Dhona, The Warrior met Minfilia in her solar for possibly the most terrifying request of her life - she asked her first new friend to call her by name.

Nailah. 

As long as they were in the solar. Alone. Where nobody else could hear. 

It was a start, at least.

#its nailahposting hours #cw abuse #cw depression #just to be safe #for everything surrounding her mother is not healthy #nailah's got some rough mental health stuff goin on but i dont know how much i want to go into it >.> #mostly out of fear of missing a cw tag #sorry this is so long ;-; #cecil gets carried away talking about blorbos ;-; #idk im just fascinated by the concept of identity #if you can't tell i have a lot of fic ideas surrounding nailah's struggle with identity - every paragraph is a potentially different fic #i might expand on this even more (re: hw through ew identity thoughts) but she's through the worst of her issues by the end of arr #...i'm gonna tag this as a writing thing bc it gets kinda fic-y #cecil writes