sidequest disorder

Astri Westknight

Midgardsormr (Aether)
Race: Highlander Hyur (max height)
Occupation: Warrior of Light
Class: Dark Knight/Machinist
Patron: Oschon
Birthday: 13th Sun of the 4th Astral Moon (13/7)
Starting City: Limsa Lominsa

A Realm Reborn

Heavensward

Stormblood

retainers

will probably have an art gallery at some point

other XIV character carrds

Triple Threat Trio

XIV OCs

Astri Westknight
(a realm reborn)

Very gentle, friendly, and down-to-earth. Cannot remember men's faces for the life of her. Constantly compelled to be helpful to others, often to keep her hands busy and prevent her anxieties from sticking.Her first memories were of the Calamity striking in the distant horizon as she was harvesting food. Despite her amnesia, she is remarkably uninterested in regaining her memories, instead more engaged in how she can best help those around her. She doesn't have any theories on where she came from, but has a few unusual beliefs that imply that wherever she hails from, it isn't Eorzea.The amnesia came with its downsides, of course. Namely, information just doesn't stick. Comes off as perpetually vacant and dazed because of how little she retains. Her arrival to Eorzea was a bit of a blur to her.

Her helpfulness inevitably led her to the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, which had use of her unique abilities. The sudden influx of new things to Know about was a little overwhelming, but she got enough to know her fighting is the greatest help she could offer. Not to mention the lovely (and lonely) figure of Minfilia at the helm, inspiring Astri to be at her most impressive.She finds friends here, and in them, her new purpose.Until the garleans attack.

Hidden away in Adama Landama's lichyards, Astri's simply desire to help is distorted by her need to escape her grief, and she occupies herself with even the most menial of tasks. She finds kinship in Marcel, who has also experienced his own grief, and he fixes up a Warrior of Light mammet for her that she takes to nurturing.

Alphinaud's rude arrival and the push towards defeating Garuda slowly pushes Astri further and further into proactivity. Seeing actual, tangible struggles that she can save others from having to suffer has reaffirmed her resolve, and Cid and Alphinaud do what they can to keep that energy going (including giving her mammet, little Baby, a mammet heart. The fact it's now taken to throwing anything it can get its little nubs on is a small price to pay).Astri's stress, grief, and hopelessness become small in the face of her need to be the hands of the powerless. The scale means nothing to her.

With Eorzea saved, Astri makes her way through the cleanup as a more complete person, and picking up on quite a few details that didn't permeate as a fresh adventurer. Not to say she has everything in perspective, as Alphinaud's Crystal Braves strikes her as an excellent idea. She makes friends more easily than she did before, finding companions in her fellow explorers of Syrcus Tower, in the Braves, in Alisaie, in even Hildibrand, as strange as he is. The more opportunities she has to reaffirm her identity as the hands of Eorzea's weak, the more confident in it she becomes.Until tragedy strikes once again. And again, and again...

Astri Westknight
(heavensward)

The support of Haurchefant and the safety of her closest friends keeps Astri afloat, and she is happy to be help to Ishgard as she was to Eorzea. Though her habits are suspiciously anxious.
In helping Ishgard, she senses something rotting. A horrible truth, one that sits heavier on its people than even the pessimistic hires on Pearl Lane.

The slums of Ishgard know better. The poor and neglected always do. While investigating, she meets a bitter mentor who tells her what should have always been obvious; she can fight her way through corruption and pain all by herself. If knights are torturing their own citizens, what's preventing her from stopping them? Fray's pessimism opens her eyes to the amount of things no one has been telling her to lend her hands with, but still need helping. The piles of dragon bodies, starting with their smallest. The Dusk Vigil, and the sapphire its guardian prayed to until his dying breath. Ishgard has a disease.Fray says that Astri is baying for blood. Fray can't attack the true complex within Astri, because more than anything, what Astri needs is someone to tell her that this is being "realistic". As her conviction to topple Ishgard builds, Astri spends her time with Alphinaud, Estinien, and Ysayle in the distance, picking apart the tragedy of the dragonsong war one detail at a time. Nidhogg is just a task, a way to end strife. She lets his blood crystalize on her body and moves on.But she becomes familiar with the concept of hatred, an aspect taken on by everyone who needs her to hate.Her chance to manifest it arrives.

A failure so absolute it consumes her more than the deaths of the scions ever could. It isn't just a tragedy, but a question to her reason for being. It isn't only a death of a friend, but a death of her sense of self. Someone wanted to be her hands, and paid the price. The target of her hatred had escaped untouched. Rather than seeking comfort in friends, she loses herself. She escapes to her mentor, fading and sick, the mentor who couldn't put a voice to her pain (save for footnotes in a journal), but wanted her to run away all the same. Away from those who would try to become her hands despite needing her. She can't let anyone else die. Made to do such menial tasks, but she can't let anyone else falter. Not even the part of her in the most agony.She does run away, in the end. With herself close at hand.

Leaving behind her all-consuming mission, Astri returns to her old habits of helping others in small ways. She makes herself at home with the Vath, and spends her time trying to care for the needs of the Dravanian Forelands in a twisted nostalgia. She finds her ability to use her Warrior's soulstone impossible now, and trains more with her swords to compensate, becoming close with the grieving Constaint as she did with Cid the year before. She reconvenes with Ysayle, who shares her sentiments of taking on the hatred of others, and helps apply a tattoo in the same colour as the stolen sapphire of Dusk Vigil. They are familiar to one another, though they haven't had any time to become close as friends.The Forelands are not desperate, though. They have their own ways. Their needs are of managing, not saving. Deftarm's adventurer's guild is growing stronger with each passing day. That man who would stand at the top of Ishgard and order the failure of those she cares about, who she was so insistent on destroying, is waiting for her. She is missing a part of herself by hiding here. She wasn't planning on staying forever, but...Of course, this is what we do, isn't it.

Though her appearance (and related disappearance) is alarming, Astri's return marks a relentless push towards the Archbishop. She allows herself the support of others, because she has something only she can do. She's mindful of her companions now, and careful to protect them with the might of her blade.Her pursuit takes her to Azys Lla, and the second loss - not nearly as close, due to Astri's serial absences on their travels, but in the same name - leaves her cold. She pushes past it, high on how close she is. There's so many things to hate. The ascians are nothing to her. Even the archbishop's own 'arm' who did the deed himself is nothing but an obstacle. She can't save anything if she can't do this much.

What's left, much like the aftermath of the betrayal of the Crystal Braves, is the fallout. Astri joins in the attempts to undo what the archbishop and his line has wrought. Her extended stay in Dravania proves useful. She meets Sidurgu and Rielle, who are also reeling from their own fallout. Even reuniting with Hildibrand leads to another ancient loss, and while investigating with Briardien, another hidden tragedy. Sharing and helping in each small aspect of what is left behind reminds Astri of those they have lost, and those she can yet save.She takes her confrontation with Fray and her travels with Sidurgu and Rielle to heart. The base urge to help, to take on others' pain, to be the hands for others who don't have them; instinctive reactions she depended on to validate her desperation and anxiety become a choice she makes. She does this because she wants to. Hraesvelgr parts with his eye, and his aether sings through her body, dyeing the forgotten crimson crystals on her body - mirroring the stain of Estinien's armor - a brilliant gold.She has no sense of 'duty'. She wants to save those who can yet be saved. It's always been her nature.It is a good mentality to bring to a war.

Astri's resolve becomes superhuman, at this point. Failure cannot stop her. She must simply march towards a point where she will no longer fail. The hatred that kept her moving when pursuing Thordan becomes an unflinching apathy. Zenos' slaughter of Rhalgr's Reach becomes a need to grieve, collect, and march onward. For those you can yet save. She doesn't intend to give Garlemald any reprieve.She is more careful, though. After her soulstone shatters, she trades her blade for a gun in earnest; what used to be a trade she took on to help Stephanivien is now a way of fighting without putting others in harm's way. (Or herself, for that matter.)The effects of imperialism are a far-reaching and intense source of grief, of escape, and of anger, the kind she is intimately familiar with. Astri moves through each community tainted by this trauma and helps them, piece by piece, inspired not by hatred but by the knowledge these systems need to be destroyed for people to recover.Alisaie and Yda act as Astri's hands, as those she lost once did, but they return as her companions to the next push onward. They prove to her that they can be trusted to take care of themselves. A trust in others, in mutual aid, reaffirms Astri's determination, even as her enemy is torn apart.

Push after push, the rebels coalesce together, the Domans, the Azim Steppe, and the Alliance. Yda, once as absent-headed and pliant as Astri was, sees her exponential growth and strives to match pace with her. Small tragedy after tragedy, without stopping. She brings with her her greatsword, to take on all the violence that pushes back on their movement. Her soulstone, still not whole, sings to her all the same.It seems insane to Fordola, who had become consumed in the same way Astri's deepest pessimism attempted to consume her. Inspired by the same rage and anger that had consumed her. Desperate in a way that destroys her sense of self. A hopelessness that feels like power. Astri's calmness is madness, Yda's determination is childish. What else is there but blood?This isn't something Zenos can understand, either. He too reads Fordola's rage into Astri, but doesn't recognize the lack of bloody-mouthed fury, the need to punish. To his last, he doesn't recognize that Astri sees him as little more than one more obstacle to save others from in order to heal those Garlemald has hurt, his death an incidental necessity.This pain isn't something one can recover from until its source is cut away like rot.

Retainers

S'Rovu

Nature: Rough
Occupation: Miner, monster storageAn ex-pirate who was impressed with Astri's handling of the local pirates, and followed her around La Noscea until he could impress his desire to work for her while she was fishing in Aleport.As an only recently reformed career criminal who hasn't had the best luck in bosses, he isn't used to being respectful, and isn't sure how to approach Astri's lackadaisical attitude. Regardless of his awkwardness, he's loyal to a fault, and would do anything for her.

Tsunahiki

Nature: Serious
Occupation: Botanist, gathered storageHand-picked for Astri by the scions to help introduce her to retainers. She's whip-smart, highly educated on the markets, and knows the ins and outs of doing her taxes. Most people who want an intelligent, unbiased take on Astri or the things Astri knows go to her first.Despite her professional attitude, she's a fairly relaxed person.

Sarantuya

Nature: Carefree
Occupation: Machinist, knick-knack storageOriginally hired by Francel, and almost put to death with him when Astri saved her. She decided that if she's still allowed to use her skills as a sellsword, she'd rather hedge her bets with the retainer industry.While her arrest in Coerthas was wrongful, it seems she's associated with an awful lot of criminal cases. Surely she isn't...?