Numair Nazou

The wayward Kazoku boy

When your father is away from home for weeks and months at a time, and your mother is the Kazoku elder with a ton of hangups about being a "pureblood," it does things to you.

Numair had always been aware of his family being a little different from the rest of Clan Nazou. As far as he knew, his mother's side married into the clan, and then his mother herself also married an outsider. As for his father, Evrent was your basic Wildwood-type Twelveswood-born Elezen who was a crack shot with a bow, enough to get scouted by the Twin Adders. As nice as that was, Evrent being away on Twin Adders missions left him blind to his wife's increasingly unusual behavior and its impact on their son.

Numina took her position so seriously, it effectively became her identity, and one she wanted to transplant onto Numair. To that end, she pressured him into being peerless at conjury and archery. There would be no deviations, as the expectation would be that Numair would be in the perfect position to effortlessly sweep the election and succeed his mother someday as the head of the Kazoku division. The thought that Numair may have wanted to do something else never even entered the equation.

And so he did what anyone in his position would do: he rebelled.

It's not that he was bad at either of them, or sabotaged himself on purpose. Numair was more of the "I know how to do this, so it bores me" sort. And like most boys, boredom meant goofing off. With conjury, it took the form of him using earth magicks to create mud pits and quicksand, and wind magicks to topple lumber piles... and scatter clothes hanging out to dry.

In fact, using Aero-type spells to blow laundry around became such an infamous event, it became codified as a story touted as a warning to beginning conjury students at the Nazou Estate. Having learned Aeroga by thumbing through one of his mother's textbooks, Numair tested it on a neighbor's clothesline right after they had pinned up much of their undergarments. He smirked in amusement as nearly a dozen pairs of briefs and a few brassieres fluttered in the whirlwind, landing in bushes and on rooftops and some even high in some tree branches.

Of course, the neighbor was far less amused, and Numair made the mistake of admiring his handiwork up close. Before he knew it, he was getting a biting lecture from both his neighbor and his conjury teacher (who happened to be on his way to the grocer) and being sent to retrieve every last article, even if meant having to climb trees.

When it came to archery, Numair was considerably less bored to the point of distraction, and actually delighted in outdoing his peers at the range. But merely shooting with plain arrows became dull and trite. He recalled in one of his father's letters mention of another Twin Adder bowman who had fashioned a "trick arrow," in this case an arrow that had a glue sac attached that would burst on impact. The idea was that the arrow's payload was meant to inhibit and debilitate rather than simply incapacitate the target. He experimented with a number of materiel, including syrup, tar and even chocobo dung.

Numair was much more careful with his trick arrows, making a point of conducting his trials at a range near the outskirts of the Estate. However, one of his arrows, which had a pouch of chocobo dung attached, greatly overshot and landed in an unattended cart full of gysahl greens that was to be delivered to the stables in Bentbranch. The pouch burst, spoiling the gysahl greens, and once more he was on the receiving end of a lecture for having forced the Estate into a very expensive refund.

A Sealed Memento

The Nazou Estate, in its seclusion, was well-guarded against the immediate impact of the Seventh Umbral Calamity. Bahamut's flames never reached the Estate's perimeter walls.

Unfortunately, Numair's (immediate) family was not so lucky. Some few weeks after the Calamity, some of the surviving Twin Adder commanders arrived at the Estate and petitioned to enter, claiming to have the remains and personal effects of someone bearing the clan's paraphernalia. As the only member of Clan Nazou who was known to have specifically joined the Twin Adders was Evrent, the elders immediately granted the Twin Adder officers entry.

The Estate ground to a sudden silent halt as the Twin Adders officers were followed by a half-dozen soldiers carrying a simple casket. The elders convened for an emergency audience to receive the Twin Adders, who formally identified Evrent and handed over his bow, the Raijodo, to Numina.

Expecting his mother to break down as anyone would do in her situation, Numair instead saw his mother quietly taking Evrent's bow and quiver, her face virtually expressionless. Even after the meeting concluded and the two of them returned home, Numina spoke nary a word, only taking off the sash that had been given to her over 20 years ago.

Numair would find out in the coming days that both the sash and the Raijodo had been placed in a lockbox. In fact, every shred of physical evidence of Evrent's existence had been removed from the household, consigned to a handful of chests and storage bins. Considering that clan tradition was to assemble a shrine to the departed in a prominent part of the home, Numina erasing everything that would remind her of her husband and even refusing visitors who came to offer their condolences was something that Numair could not ignore.

The Man from Ishgard

Some five years after the Calamity, word spread of Ishgard allowing those from outside to enter its gates. One would think this might have inspired Clan Nazou to do the same, but if anything, the decision led its elders to dig in their feet, Numina especially. The years following the Calamity led to her becoming more resentful of anything that deviated from tradition, and especially wary of those who could upend the Estate's order. As if predicting future happenings:

"Let us hope, for their sake, that Ishgard doesn't send anyone into our territory, for the last thing we need is to have our people being seduced into joining their mad conflict."

Unbeknownst to Numina, Numair was already having serious thoughts about quitting the Estate. The thing is, he didn't really have a clear plan as to what he would do after. While going to Gridania was an idea, the cultural reverence to the Elementals and nature itself was too similar to the clan's traditions for his liking. Ul'dah would have been a fun change of scenery, if it weren't too damn hot and dry. He didn't know enough about Ishgard to have an opinion either way, and even less about Vylbrand and Limsa Lominsa.

Numair had taken his experiments with his trick arrows outside the Estate's perimeter, often venturing to either North or East Shroud to test his prototypes on the local monster populations; surely those who lived in the settlements there would at the very least be somewhat appreciative if his arrows culled some of the known local threats. On one daily outing, he had gone to North Shroud to try out his latest batch of his erosive arrows on the seemingly never-ending supply of stonekin that wandered nearby. When taking a break at Fallgourd Float's inn, Numair happened upon an Elezen wearing clearly Ishgardian colors. Despite Ishgard having opened its gates to outsiders, most Ishgardians tended to favor passing through Mor Dhona rather than the Twelveswood. Numair noticed the Ishgardian man had a strange mechanical contraption on his belt, as well as some manner of firearm. He considered approaching the man, but the latter got up to leave, having finished their meal.

As the sun was starting to set, Numair resigned himself to returning home for the day, but about a half-hour after leaving Fallgourd Float, he would find himself encountering the Ishgardian man again, this time strung up in an Ixali net and with his gun and box having fallen through to the ground. The Ishgardian man called out to him:

"Hail, friend! You were at the inn just recently, weren't you? Saw you eyeing my gear. I'm Stephanivien de Haillenarte, a Machinist from Ishgard! ...I don't suppose you might have a means of cutting this net?"

As Numair opened up his toolkit to retrieve his craft knife, he and Stephanivien heard the unmistakable sound of a dozen Ixali's footsteps converging on their location. The task of cutting Stephanivien's net would have to wait; Numair drew his bow to rout the raiders, but their shamans cast wind barriers upon their fellows that would surely deflect his arrows. Stephanivien told Numair to put on the aetherotransformer-- the strange mechanical box that Stephanivien had been wearing earlier-- and using the aether gun, as surely ammunition made of aether could penetrate a wind shield.

The transformer was just a bit too heavy for Numair to clip to his belt, so he held it under his left arm while shooting at the Ixal raiders. Even though he had never handled a gun before, he found it far easier to use than aiming a bow. As predicted, the bullets sheared right through the barriers, and the two raiders that survived wisely chose to flee. Numair then set about cutting open the net so that Stephanivien could free himself.

After Numair returned the gun and transformer, Stephanivien commenced with more proper introductions, explaining that he had come to the Twelveswood to seek out those who might be interested in learning the ways of the Machinist, as Ishgard had but recently chosen to open its gates to the outside world. Certainly Numair more than met Stephanivien's qualifications.

Here Numair was, already considering leaving the Nazou Estate but not yet having a clear plan, and Stephanivien was handing him one on a silver platter. But simply up and leaving was sure to come with fallout, and so he asked Stephanivien to come with him to the Estate grounds first, if only to make some token attempt at softening the impact.

As expected, the elders bristled at the arrival of another outsider (and an Ishgardian at that) but seeing an opportunity to be rid of their homegrown troublemaker, nearly all of them voted to approve Numair's departure. The only holdout was Numina, who attended but chose not to cast a vote. When approached afterwards, she wistfully opined about another family member leaving her behind, and retreated to her bedchamber for the night. It would be the last time she and Numair would speak for several years.

The morning after, when Numair was to meet Stephanivien at the Estate's gate to leave for Ishgard, one of Numina's attendants slipped an envelope under the door to Numair's room bearing the key to the lockbox containing Evrent's bow and sash. As much as he wanted to take his father's bow with him, Numair was already carrying an unexpectedly heavy pair of satchels, and thus he decided on just taking the sash, hastily removing the embroidery of the clan emblem and fashioning the sash into a neck scarf. With his knock on Numina's door to inform her of his departure receiving no response, Numair left his childhood home and met Stephanivien at the entry to the Estate.

The Manufactory Newcomer

Numair had never set foot into Coerthas before, and was definitely not used to walking in thick snow; he lost his footing a few times during the trip to Camp Dragonhead to secure his entry into Ishgard. When he asked if his being an outsider would make it difficult to find lodging, Stephanivien winked, saying that the Manufactory takes care of its own.

One of the perks of being a Manufactory employee, as Numair would find out, was an apartment, fully paid for as part of his salary package; the Manufactory, as a property of House Haillenarte, had a block of apartment rooms on reserve for those who had to relocate to Ishgard. Stephanivien meant every bit of what he said about wanting to embrace the talent of outside perspectives, and certainly it couldn't skimp on ensuring that its employees were well cared for. In outfitting his new apartment, one of the first pieces of furniture that Numair bought was a large feather bed; after having to make do with Hyuran-sized twin beds for as long as he did, it would be nice to finally have something that would give him stretching room.

He would also meet his new coworkers, a blend of both Ishgard-born and those recruited from outside. Among them were Joye, who was as fiery as she was sweet, and Aurica, a Far Easterner with a very discerning taste for spirits.

Though Numair had no background in engineering, Stephanivien assured him that it would be no issue, as the Manufactory's platform was using technology to elevate the common man; where before one would have to sink multiple years into training to possibly earn their way into Ishgard's knighthood and upper class, the Manufactory sought to expedite such things through machinery and firearms, so that even the least experienced could partake. Surprisingly, Numair's experiments with his trick arrow development proved useful in learning how to work with the more advanced tools and reverse-engineering Magitek odds and ends that had been plucked from numerous Garlean Empire outposts.

One of his earliest tasks at the Manufactory was the cleaning and maintenance of the aetherguns used at the firing range. At first, Numair was diligent about ensuring that he kept his dismantled guns separate so as not to mix up the parts, but he accidentally began dismantling a second gun without realizing he hadn't reassembled the one he had taken apart earlier. Because the guns were similar in appearance, he unwittingly mixed the parts and used some from the first gun in reassembling the second. After realizing his mistake, Numair sighed and was about to dismantle the second gun, when he stopped to address a sudden stray thought: would a gun with mixed parts function at all? Would mismatched parts impact its ability to siphon from its associated aetherotransformer? Despite it being well past midnight, Numair found himself taking the "mongrel" gun and the second gun's aetherotransformer to test at the Manufactory's firing rang just outside Ishgard's front gates.

The gun not only functioned, but had a shorter delay between shots and did not appear to impact the rate at which it accumulated heat. After exhausting two test mannequins and a nearby tree, Numair brought the gun back to his corner of the Manufactory to disassemble it again, this time making note of which parts had been mixed in from the first gun so that he could pinpoint what was contributing to the differences in firing rate and heat generation. By the time he had finished his assessment, he was nearly falling asleep at his desk, only realizing it was morning when Stephanivien tapped him on the shoulder and jokingly asked if he ought to bring Numair a pillow.

Settle Down, Aevis

As typical for junior machinists, Numair was often tasked with making deliveries to other settlements in Ishgardian territory. Most of the time, he would be sent to Camp Dragonhead or Cloudtop to drop off small devices that the Manufactory had repaired, or to collect others to be brought back to the Manufactory to be serviced. One such job, however, saw him traveling to Tailfeather, which was not explicitly under Ishgard's purview. The village often traded and had other friendly interactions with Ishgard, and would make service requests of the Manufactory. They had placed an order for replacement incubators, several of which had been damaged when a bandersnatch broke into the Chocobo stables.

Having never been to Tailfeather or even crossed the frozen Western Highlands, Numair was concerned about getting lost on the way there, especially since he was making the trip alone. To allay such worries, Stephanivien arranged for him to borrow a Black Chocobo from the Temple Knights' stable, particularly one that had routinely been to Tailfeather and other parts of the Dravanian Forelands. Though Numair had some experience riding a Chocobo at the Nazou Estate (with particular memory of Evrent taking him to Bentbranch when he was a child), a flying Chocobo was an entirely new experience for him.

First-time nerves about flying Chocobos aside, the delivery to Tailfeather itself was otherwise uneventful. The return trip, however, was a much different story. Shortly after leaving the village, Numair's Chocobo was rattled by a flock of dragons flying dangerously close by, forcing them to land so that the two of them could get their bearings. He brought the Chocobo to a nearby stream so it could drink and calm down before attempting to mount up once more, but a Bone Aevis suddenly descended, pinning down the Chocobo with murderous intent. Without a moment to lose, Numair drew his gun (a Mythrite-barreled Arquebus) to fight off the aevis before it could kill the Chocobo, not in the least because it was his ride home. Unfortunately, this particular aevis had especially thick plates, and by the time Numair had blasted off enough to land a killing blow, it had already snapped the Chocobo's neck.

It was his first time fighting and killing a dragon. The experience was stressful enough to bring Numair to his knees, not to mention the realization that his ride home was dead and that he wasn't sure how Stephanivien or the Temple Knights would react to the loss of a borrowed Chocobo.

As Numair used his gun to push the aevis' corpse off of the Chocobo to assess the damage, Estinien landed a few yalms away. Numair knew of the then-Azure Dragoon, but only in passing, and was still on edge from having been ambushed. Estinien calmly asked if Numair had seen a black Bone Aevis nearby, and the latter gestured to the nearby aevis' corpse. Estinien would then explain that it was a mark he had been pursuing, but even though he had been denied his kill, he considered the death of another of the Horde's dragons to be satisfying enough.

Estinien then suggested that Numair make use of Tailfeather's aetheryte to travel back to Ishgard; having never used teleportation magicks before, Numair never considered using aetherytes as he had presumed that such things were for those with advanced magical aptitude. He recalled how Stephanivien made him attune to Ishgard's main aetheryte but never understood the significance of it, nor did he make use of its internal aetheryte network to get around the city, having gone everywhere on foot. Though Estinien himself did not frequently make use of teleportation, he suggested it as it would be a more expedient method of returning to the Manufactory rather than attempting to obtain an unfamiliar replacement Chocobo for the return trip.

After returning to Tailfeather and attuning to its aetheryte, Numair attempted to teleport using it for the first time. Before he knew it, he was standing in Ishgard's plaza, as if he had simply blinked his eyes. Still somewhat rattled from what just happened, he took his time walking back to the Manufactory, barely catching Stephanivien before the latter had taken off for the day. Stephanivien assured Numair that he would not be personally held liable for the death of the Black Chocobo and promised to smooth things over with the Temple Knights' stable handlers; the fact that Numair killed the aevis and kept proof would especially work in his favor. Stephanivien further apologized that the first long-distance delivery job unfolded the way it did, and noted that with dragon activity on the uptick, it might be prudent to request defensive escort from House Haillenarte's knights in the future. Mirroring Estinien's sentiments, Stephanivien too quipped that Numair would be given at the very least a commendation for having slain a dragon, and bade him to go home for the day.

Remembering Estinien's suggestion, Numair looked at his aevis tooth; if the slaying of a dragon was that significant, especially for someone who themselves weren't a Temple Knight or of the Order of the Knights Dragoon, then he ought to hold onto such a memento. Simply storing it on his desk at the Manufactory wouldn't suffice, nor would displaying it on a shelf in his apartment, but if he were to bore a small hole at the base of the tooth and thread a cord through it, the aevis tooth might serve as an accessory of some sort. On his way back to the Ingleside building, Numair bought a small pouch of assorted beads and a length of braided black cotton cord, and carefully used one of his fine-pointed picks from his toolkit to prepare the tooth. Among the beads, he deemed two flat black beads and a round jade bead fitting to accompany the aevistooth. The resulting necklace was light enough that he would wear it for days at a time, forgetting it was on his person.