Nene Ishano

Botanist/Herbalist
♀ || Au Ra || FFXIV


Nene Ishano (Cactuar)
Nene Azem (Hyperion)

About Nene

Born: 1544, Doma
Job: Botanist/Herbalist
Race: Au Ra, Raen
Likes: Plants, helping people, rainy days
Dislikes: Garlemald, war, heat

From a young age, Nene's mother taught her to find and use plants to use in medicine and cooking.
She frequently would walk with her mother through the lands of Doma and Nacxia, and learn about plants.

She was just 8 years old when the Garleans attacked and razed her village to the ground. Her parents dead, she fled with some survivors, becoming separated from her baby sister in the process.

A ship full of refugees set sail to avoid the Garlean armada, by taking a stopover at Thavnair. The docking at Thavnair was successful, but they capsized on the second half of their trip, just offshore from Eorzea . Nene washed ashore and wandered alone into the Black Shroud.

A sylph scout found her curled in a tree for shelter, and brought her back to Moonspore Grove.

She lived there for a short time before being taken in by a childless couple who lived near the Hawthorne Hut.
She apprenticed with the Moonspore sylphs in this time, and learned a great deal about Eorzean plantlife.

1561: A 17 year old Nene moved with her foster parents to Gridania.

1572: When Nene was 28, the sylphs were ousted from Moonspore by a faction of Sylphs who summoned Ramuh to fight the invading Garleans. Nene was heartbroken, as the same people have basically been the cause of two of her homes to be destroyed.

Suffice to say, Nene bears a lot of ill-will towards Garlemald.

She now runs a small herbalist business, mostly by word-of-mouth and out of her home, selling potions and tinctures, and sometimes the fresh herbs she collects.
She still has contact with the sylphs and visits often. Her foster parents still live in Gridania and she enjoys stopping in with them to catch up.

She remains unaware that her younger sister is still alive in Doma, but dreams of her often.

Me

Just boring stuff about the woman behind Nene...
• PST (Pacific Standard Time): UTC-8
• Artist/animator
• Canadian
• Bisexual
• Female
• Married (male partner)
• atheist

• Game crushes: Emet-Selch, Nero tol Scaeva, Aymeric, Cirina

Othard, 1552

A child crouched down beside an old log and reached out her hand.
A frog within the safety of the wood let out a small noise and hopped away.
“Nene!” a distant voice called to her.
“Just a moment, Mama!” the girl stood, brushing the leaves from her knees. She was a slight pale figure, with the cream coloured horns natural to her race sloping gently back from the sides of her head like fins. A spade tipped tail swayed gracefully behind her as she turned to walk back to the beckoning call of her mother.

She was Au Ra, of the Raen. Her family lived here in a small village among the woodlands of Doma. Running through the brush, she caught up to her mother.
“Stop running off, Nene,” her mother smiled even as she scolded her daughter, “You’re never going to learn your plants. And then what will you do when you go to eat what you’ve picked!”
“Sorry, I just...” Nene frowned, her red eyes squinting, “I saw a frog.”
“We can’t have the frog for dinner,” Shima, her mother shook her head,
“Take your baby sister for a while, I need to get this cudweed.”
Passing over the infant that had been on her back, Shima knelt to pull up the plants gently and place them in her woven collection basket. Nene hoisted her baby sister Saki on her hip.
All three of them had pale white hair, but while Nene’s was bound up in braided buns, Shima‘s rested on her shoulder in a loose ponytail. Saki’s was nothing more than a pale downy fluff barely covering the small horns at the sides of her head.
“Ugh, Saki,” Nene whined as her sister squirmed to be put down, “Cut it out...”
Tiring quickly, Nene glanced over at her mother and decided it was safe enough to put Saki on the grass nearby.
She sat down with her baby sister and pulled a long stem of grass to tickle Saki’s cheeks.
The baby gurgled happily, her purple eyes crinkling up in joy.
Shima glanced up at the sounds of both of her daughters laughing and smiled to herself.

It was then Nene saw the smoke coming from the direction of their village.
“Mama, there’s smoke there,” she pointed back the way they’d walked.
Shima placed one last plant in her basket and stood. Turning to look in the direction of her daughters’ gesture, she looked stunned at the sheer amount of smoke billowing into the sky from behind them.
Her lips tightened.
“Nene,” her mother sounded more serious than Nene had ever heard, “Take your sister and go to the Matsuzaki’s farm.”
“But that’s so far!” Nene protested as Shima wrapped the baby sling around her chest and secured it.
“Don’t argue, Nene,” her mother replied, “Bring Saki there, and stay there until your father and I come.”
“Okay,” Nene agreed sombrely, with a strong sense something was terribly wrong.
The feeling intensified when her mother pulled her into a tight embrace, kissed her forehead and said, “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Nene awkwardly stepped back as Shima slipped Saki into the sling across Nene’s back. Once the child was safely bundled, she handed Nene the basket of cudweed.

Then, Nene’s mother grasped her by the shoulders, spun her and pushed gently.
“Go,” she sounded choked up, “Go quickly.”

Nene heard something in her mother’s tone that brooked no argument, so she set off at an oblique angle to the way they’d come from the village.
The Matsuzaki family had a homestead and farm a ways out from the village proper. Nene would sometimes accompany her parents to the farm to trade various supplies. The family who lived there was four generations under one roof, and the youngest boy was a regular playmate for Nene.

The girl couldn’t help but look back in the direction she’d left, but her mother was already gone, set off back to the village.

• no sexism/racism
• no godmode RP
• fanart is welcome

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