#ffxiv asks

Hear and heed the call of weary bones and spirit Take refuge 'neath gentle boughs Watch fireflies dance in shade's delight Feel eternal wind 'pon thy face. Sink onto softly shifting sands Far from tumultuous waves and wicked white's fleeting rays. Think not of duty or burdens bore. Rest, gentle warrior, for a day will come when there's naught else but forge ahead, as heroes do.

Short answer: Yes, Midori often absconds to nature to rest and recharge.

As a Werlytian Au Ra, Midori grew up with the understanding that to maintain the foothold of the Auri population in Terncliff when the time came, she would find herself an Auri man. Assimilating to the dominant culture of a region was one thing, but mixed relations were... frowned upon.

Having escaped from Terncliff and relocated to Eorzea, Midori did not have much interaction with Auri males until she traveled to the Far East and the Azim Steppe where she met... Magnai. While he did not encompass all Auri males, she... had a similar perception of him as Y'Shtola.

Midori's lover is the Manager of Suites. (My headcanon is his name is Theodore) As such, she's picked up some habits like stripping down the inn room bed before she leaves or saying "anything you require" when Alphinaud or the other Scions make a request. Sometimes she says it sarcastically.

A pure white room is a canvas or a prison. The two women, nearly identical to one another save for the horns and scales to fleshy ears, silently evaluated the other occupant in the room. Neither were the type to initiate conversation with a stranger, but the blanketing silence was suffocating.

The hyuran woman with steel gray hair and matching eyes silently wished for her knitting needles and yarn. At least it would give her something to do. Such a strange place, she thought when the very thing she wished for appeared in her waiting hands. Casting on a row instead of questioning the magic, she began to knit.

The rhythmic slide of the wooden needles and flow of the yarn twisted around her fingers eased the tension in her shoulders. Her heartbeats synced with the steady click of wood counting time and stitches in tandem. The child in her womb settled in the comforting cradle of her hips as fragmented measures of a haunting lullaby passed through her pursed lips.

The Auri woman watched from across the room as the knitting woman's stress unraveled with the yarn ball at her side. She wondered if the woman was a powerful mage able to conjure anything she wished. Her eyes lowered to the swell beneath the woman's dress. Her fingers flexed and crept to her own womb, forever ignorant to the joy and pain. Yet, the press of her hands filled that barren landscape with phantom warmth.

Sweat pebbled on the back of her neck; the trembling of her hands intensified. Her vision narrowed to the other woman, watching her yarn, like the life in her womb, grow and take shape. The hyur made this room her canvas, but to the Au Ra, this plain white room was a prison. She needed to calm down, to write. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to calm her breathing.

A shimmer of magic washed over her; she cracked open her eyes a sliver before they were blown open wide. Before her sat her unending journey and a quill. How? She picked up the writing utensil and flipped to the next blank page. Suddenly, empty expanse didn't seem so terrifying. With a deep inhale, she began to write. Words flowed as rushing rapids, babbling brooks, and tired trickles. The ink bled the stress from her heart and onto the page, safe and contained.

Hidden away but looking in from above, a formless figure shuffled through cards, discarding some and filing away others while they muttered under their breath.

"To specific. To vague. To triggering. To shallow."

Finally, the figure held up a card and smiled, "Yes, this one."

In looping font, the card read, "Do you have strong feelings about musical theater?"

5. What did your OC think their life would be like when they grew up? Has it lived up to that expectation?

Midori grew up thinking that life would be quiet and totally ordinary. She had grown up under Garlean rule; the only viceroy she could remember was Gaius. You close your eyes and pretend you don't see the oppression and prejudice. You go to school, keep your head down, and just try to get by. Don't stand out, don't make noise, get a job, and try to make some happiness. Then the epidemic came and their mother died.

Midori: ... nowhere.

Kuro: We're from La Noscea

Aka: Technically, the story was we were originally from Yanxia.

(The interviewer asks for clarification.)

Aka: Dori, it's an interview in a nebulous, timeless space. Surely, we can be honest?

Midori: Fine. (After a heavy pause.) We hail from Werlyt... the Auri settlement in the mountains outside of Terncliff.

Aka: Mayhap you wonder why we are rather reserved about our history...

Kuro: It was Dori's idea. To protect us. (He wraps his tail around her waist.)

Midori: (through gritted teeth) Because we fled from the Garleans! Because you two were barely 14 summers old! Just young enough to be taken away from me if we were caught. We had to... (hands clench into tight fists.)

Aka: Be at ease, dear sister. We are in no danger here. (He places a hand on her shoulder)

Midori: Someone who's never fled down the side of a high cliff face in the middle of a moonless night can't fathom the desperation of our situation. How could they possibly understand?

Kuro: Then enlighten them, Dori.

Midori: (with a burdened sigh) Our father died in the uprising to overturn the first Garlean viceroy. Then ten years ago, our mother died to the epidemic that saw so many younglings orphaned... It was just we three. (grimacing) I was old enough to be drafted into the Garlean army. Aka and Kuro were not. If... If we had stayed, they would have separated us. They would have sent me to a battlefield. I could have died. Then...

Aka: We would have been drafted when our time came.

Kuro: We would have done anything to be with her.

Midori: (blinking away tears) I wouldn't allow it. So we escaped. We fled to La Noscea where we posed as refugees from Yanxia. We shed our original names and took up the names you know us by. We built a new life.

Aka: You ask if we feel connected to Werlyt? Hmm.. I miss the mountains, the forests, the animals, but we have nothing tying us there now.

Kuro: I like the life we have here. I wouldn't go back unless Dori wanted to.

Xeranthea: In my youth I yearned to be a elder sister.

Midori: *blanches* Truly? It's not all it cracked up to be, mind you!

Xeranthea: *chuckles warmly* Oh, but you and your brothers have such a lovely relationship. I wanted that. I was rather lonely in my youth as the only daughter of a pair of former vagabonds.

Midori: Hmm, full aware am I of loneliness, but surely siblings weren't the only answer?

Xeranthea: Tell me, did your contemporaries have siblings? All of the other children in my village did except me. *smiling sadly* The experience of siblings was my way to connect with other children -- to fit in.

Midori: I see! Though I confess to never having thought of it that way before... And did it work? To help you fit in?

Xeranthea: ... That dream was never realized. *eyes misting over* He did not survive his birth. Neither did my mother -- mentally at least.

Midori: I- I know not any sufficient words of comfort. *reaches out to squeeze Xeranthea's hand*

Xeranthea: *sighs shakily* There is naught to it but to move forward. I bestowed on my son the name my brother would have had. Mayhap in memorial or as a way to reclaim the joy of its sound.

Midori: ... *brows furrowing* Wait, isn't your son ill?