Forum

It was 147 years ago on a Windsday and the connection was questionable...My butler had brought us cups of steaming hot chocobo-latté for my sister and I that had been gathered from a nearby jungle. We heard a rumbling from beyond the horizon as tiny shadowy figures rose from a distance. As they marched closer I could see their brown treebark skin moving at us with great speed, breaking through the wind which then sounded like continuous thundering. My father just returned from his daily harvest. He picked us up in his arms with a mortified look in his appearance. We were small in size so he hid us inside of a hollowed-out tree in a remote field. He began to tell my sister and I that all these years of logging and harvesting had greatly angered the Plant Kingdom, whose newly elected king had decided to eradicate all who took from them for so long. He left us in the hollow tree to go back and defend our estate, fighting alongside our butler. My father was a level 39 Botanist and our butler was a heavyset level 35 Pugilist. After 11 hours of swinging hands and hatchets at the oncoming waves of tree warriors, the Plant Kingdom's commander had suffered too many casualties and ordered a retreat. Surviving warriors heard wooden horns blasting in the background and scurried back behind the horizon in the direction they came. My father barely had enough strength to keep his axe lifted at his enemies and was overcome with relief to see the army leave his estate. In minutes, he lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground with one hand still gripping his weapon. Our butler dragged father back into the house and prepared the finest herbs and alchemy had to offer, but father knew he was too ill to be saved. Sister and me ran to the house from the fields and saw the blood-drenched floor leading to the bed. Sister's eyes squeezed tightly but cried out almost instantly as she saw father nearly lifeless. My breathing stopped when father called us over to him. He warned us that the Plant Kingdom may return, and that I must take my sister far away from all natural territory. We needed to go live with mother and her sisters in Limsa where the city was fortified by stones and guards. Father's hand loosened as he dropped his axe to the side of the bed, and that was the last breath he took. Butler took us to a boat that went to Limsa but he went back home to take care of our estate and we never heard from him again. Sister caught sight of mother who had been waiting at the docks in Limsa and they embraced each other for the first time in several moons.

I knew if mother saw me she wouldn't let me ever leave her house...and I always wanted to venture on my own and be just like father. I took a long look at sister and went my own way for now, back into the jungles of the Plant Kingdom. Nobody had noticed it but I brought along father's old hatchet by hiding it under my doublet.