{personality.

Taiki Unryu is, by most accounts, not a man who lives up to the tales of the Warrior of Light. To hear the bards tell it, he'd have to be ten feet tall, clad in armor of shimmering gold and riding into battle astride a great wyrm- admittedly, that last one actually did happen once, but he hardly made a habit of it. In person, however, he appears as a fairly unassuming viera, shorter of stature than most, with a welcoming smile and a penchant for chattering away with people he's only just met as though they were old friends.

He is, by nature, a generous soul, the sort of person who would empty his pockets for someone if he thought they needed the coin more. He is, unfortunately, notoriously bad with money, to the chagrin of his friends- not because of any lack of economic acumen, but more because he's easily won over by anyone with a sob story and a remotely sympathetic demeanor. It comes, he asserts, from the culture he grew up in. There is little concern over who owns what resources in viera society- those in need receive without question. Money, time, a friendly ear- they matter little to him, in his mind, and means so much more to the people who need them.

As much as these drives turn him to heroic action, however, there's a part of him which he cannot deny which is ever in pursuit of challenging himself. He loves exploring distant locales, climbing to places he Very Definitely Should Not Be, pushing himself to the limit by taking down dangerous monsters- For the joy of the new, of finding his limits and improving himself. Left to his own devices, he'll often try to pick up a new trade, or study a new style of combat, just out of curiosity, for the satisfaction of learning something new and expanding his horizons.

He trusts easily, as well, Taiki. A large part of what made him unsuitable for the solitary lives that so many of his kind lead is a drive and desire for companionship, present since a very young age. He's always tried to offer people the benefit of the doubt, to offer them the hand of friendship if they scarcely know him or even a second chance should they have wronged him in the past and now express remorse. It's a trait that has, in the past, caused him to be taken advantage of, but in recent years he sticks to it to an almost religious degree.

Part and parcel with this openness to others is something that often takes people who don't know him by surprise- Taiki is... an emotional person. He wears his heart on his sleeve at all times and, in situations where absolute honesty may not be the best policy, he often has to make a conscious effort to not speak his mind. He's prone to displays of affection with those closest to him, and in the words of a spear-wielding friend, there are 'newborn babes who weep less readily', with raucous laughter and soft encouragement coming just as easily. There are plenty who find it endearing, and just as many who find it tiresome, but one thing all who've met him can, at least, agree that Taiki Unryu is honest and open in everything he does, to a fault.

If he has a significant personality flaw, it's that part of him which has been described charitably by some as a 'steadfast determination' and more accurately by others as a consuming sort of bloody-mindedness that makes actually moving him from a chosen course of action a near-herculean task. More than once has he seen a venture to disastrous ends propelled by sheer spite and the notion of backing out being a form of 'defeat'. On more than one occasion has he required being physically restrained by friends from doing something that would either cause himself grievous injury or an international incident, and to this day he has in him a vitriolically anti-authoritarian streak that frequently clashes with the dignitaries that have been thrust into his life.

{abilities+skills.

This section contains spoilers from the expansions 'Shadowbringers' and 'Endwalker'. you have been warned.
From his pre-Eorzean life, Taiki was already capable of rudimentary thaumaturgy as well as a weaver of reasonable skill. Since coming to Eorzea, of course, his skillset has... diversified somewhat.

Though he's dabbled and moonlighted in all manner of styles of combat and trade, the skillsets where Taiki truly shines include the arts of Black and White Magic, the Dark Knight, and the Paladin. His passions in the arts are mostly to do with either tailoring or cookery.

However, it can be reasonably assumed that he has, at least, become skilled enough in the use of any available Job Crystal to a point of at least passing familiarity, though by no means would he be a master of any of these.

THE ECHO

Hooo boy. The Echo is a complicated beast, a power that was until only recently barely understood. It was thought that its power was merely limited to the power to witness past events through the eyes of others, though it has manifested in Taiki and in others as an ability to communicate with any sapient creature without the boundaries of language getting in the way. Most rarely, the Echo appears as a mild form of precognition, allowing its bearers to predict events fractions of a second in advance, allowing them a seemingly-preternatural ability to dodge incoming attacks but not much else of use-

And, rarest of all, the capacity to survive injuries that would kill others outright, to transcend even death to rise again and again beyond all reason. There are limits to all of these, of course- a dedicated foe can and has caused this last gift to be tested to its absolute limits and bring Taiki to within an inch of death's threshold. Additionally, many also seem to hold a power which is separate but referred to as the 'Blessing of Light', which renders them mostly immune to corruption of their aether by external forces, though extreme concentrations of corruptive influence have been shown to exceed the Blessing's capacity to protect, and had it not been for extenuating circumstances Taiki would have almost certainly suffered a fate worse than death.

These mysterious powers stem, it seems, from a world in the distant past. The shortest explanation is, simply, that the world was once whole, and has now been sundered into one Source and thirteen Shards, shattering the worlds and the people who dwell within them into fourteen pieces. Seven shards have since been Rejoined with the Source, and those individuals who have become more whole as a result have, occasionally, manifested the 'Echo' as a remnant of the natural abilities the Unsundered once wielded. The 'Blessing of Light' is, in fact, a magic spell designed by one such individual, still alive in the form of a revered goddess, reaching out to her chosen to protect them and awaken in them the memories that would trigger the Echo.

THE SOUL CRYSTAL OF AZEM

The last and, possibly, most dramatic of Taiki's powers is a soul crystal that, previously, belonged to Azem, one of the Unsundered Ancients who, when their soul was sundered and subjected to reincarnations over the ages, found its most recent home in Taiki himself. Reuinited with the soul of its owner, Azem's soul crystal bestowed the power to summon individuals with whom the bearer shares a bond to render aid. Those summoned are by no means obligated to stay, and the enchantment is easily broken by simply desiring to return- but if there is an outer limit to who and what can be called forth, it has not been discovered. The rift between dimensions, the vast expanses of space and time, and even the veil of death itself, apparently, have thus far shown themselves to be little obstacle to Azem's powers.

{history.

On the world of Etheirys, far to the East of the realm of Eorzea, there exists two nations, neighbors in the continent of Othard. Yanxia and Nagxia, split apart by the One River, known for their lush rainforests and rich wetlands. Situated along the border between these two states, straddling the river as it wends its way out to the Ruby Sea, is a patch of Wood which, for centuries, has been regarded as belonging to the people of Unryu. A small coven of viera, they guard their borders with a polite but immovable request to be, simply, left alone. The people who lived in Yanxia and Nagxia had been all too happy to oblige this- after all, the viera kept to themselves, and a patch of jungle with no particular strategic or resource value was of no interest to anybody, much. It was in this tiny village that Taiki was born, under a name he no longer uses out of respect for the dead. He was raised by his mother, a woman who raised silkworms and wove as a passion. As a young child, he often sat by her side as she wove, watching her movements and listening enraptured as she sang. Other children in Unryu were few, but he reached out just the same, finding in them friends and companions that showed him how to fish the river with a bamboo pole, how to climb and explore and get into places he absolutely should not have been.

It was not to last forever. Viera sons are, as a rule, taken from their village to live in the woods as a Warder, an important- but solitary- life of protecting the wood from invaders, redirecting lost travelers, and maintain the protective enchantments surrounding the village itself. To this end, from the time he started to show signs of male puberty until the age of fifteen, he was apprenticed under another Warder, learning to manipulate the aether of the land, learning to live, for the most part, alone. It was a life that many viera over the centuries had taken to with no issues whatsoever, but Taiki, an intensely social child, found quickly that he lacked the temperament for it, and the thought of only seeing others by chance or by arrangement months or years apart, the prospect filled him with a fear greater than any he'd yet felt. Perhaps for the better, the life of a Warder afforded him a far greater degree of freedom than a life in the village might have, and in his restlessness and drive to see others he announced he was leaving, when by so many metrics he was still considered a child. It was not, in itself, a decision he regretted- the doctrine of the Green Word had been historically isolationist and, without leave to return to the village and finding the isolation of the Wood to be unbearable, he sought solace in the world outside.

The people of Yanxia were welcoming, surprisingly enough, if under undue duress. The city-state of Doma was fighting a losing war with the encroaching hand of Garlemald, but in the further reaches of tiny villages and farms it was easy to forget the war. Weaving had always been something he'd enjoyed- and in his good fortune he met an elderly man who was willing to take him on, to help him hone a boyhood fascination into a worthwhile skill. For close to three years, he found contentment and community in Namai. It wasn't quite home, but it was something like it.

The first clue that something had gone wrong was smoke on the horizon, followed not long after by a flood of fleeing refugees, people who'd lived near Doma proper, who'd claimed to see the castle fall. Garlemald had come from the west, through Nagxia. And, as Taiki realized what, exactly, had lain between Nagxia and Yanxia, he raced home, to Unryu. It was not easy- the closer he got to Doma and the border, the more he saw signs of how the war had increased in intensity, encroached upon Yanxia. But he had, after all, some experience at least in traversing the wilderness.

What awaited him in Unryu was barren trees and charred sticks where homes had been. The Empire called it 'defoliation'. The practice of dumping poison into the wood from an airship, to kill the trees and force any who might have used them as protection out of hiding. Some bodies he found, but so, so many others he never did. There was nothing for him in Unryu, that much was clear, and Doma was no longer safe. So he fled, to the Ruby Sea, and when that wasn't far enough he fled to Hingashi. This, it turned out, was probably a mistake, in the grander scheme of things. Having never interacted with coin in any serious fashion before, it was, unfortunately, quite easy for the businesspeople of Kugane to take advantage, and within his first year in Kugane he managed to sink himself deep into debt, a bill that was only fully explained to him after it was far too late to protest or back out. It took him the better part of three decades and a combination of mercenary work and aid from others around him to extricate himself from the predatory lenders who had seemed so friendly and welcoming at first. It was not lost on him, either, that twenty-three years, while a drop in the bucket for a viera, spanned the length and breadth of the prime of his comrades' lives. People who had been hale and hearty when he'd started were graying by the time he'd finished. People who'd been old when he'd begun were dead of natural causes. Here were people, suffering so much while those around them had so little- and still those in power refused to help. To say it was a formative experience would be gross understatement and he grew to hate Kugane, somehow, even more than he hated Garlemald. But what could he do, save run? Run as far as he could from that gilded city and its vipers- and put more distance between himself and Garlemald, besides. Eorzea, he'd heard, had repelled Garlemald, was not perfect but at least better. He traded work aboard a vessel for passage to Vylbrand, and when he heard that there was work for weavers in Ul'dah, the last of his gil for a carriage across the desert. He could do what he'd wanted since he was a child, and until such a time as he could support himself... there was always adventurer work, which was always available and always lucrative.

There, too, it might have ended. There it might have ended, had the carriage he'd booked not been attacked by Ifrit-worshipping cultists, intent on dragging its passengers away for fresh converts. Alongside a pair of elezen twins he hadn't spoken with, he helped repel the amal'jaa and their thralls. A merchant named Bremondt, his only other companion on the trip, commented how well he'd done in the fight, and offered to introduce himself to the proprietress of the local Adventurers' Guild, a woman named Momodi. Not long after, Momodi's work introduced him to a man named Thancred Waters.

The rest, as they say, was a matter for the history books.

{a realm reborn.

For a more complete synopsis of the plot of A Realm Reborn, consider reading this article. In broad strokes:

• Taiki's journey began in Ul'dah, beginning as a Thaumaturge and a Weaver. As a result, he's worked with Thancred the longest among the Scions.
• However, he spent some time learning conjury and the spear, which he found himself taking to with surprising ease.
• During the military campaign against Garlemald, he worked closely with the Immortal Flames and was granted the rank of Second Lieutenant during Operation Archon, working closely with his immediate subordinates for the sieges on Castrum Meridianum and the Praetorium.
• It was with the aid of this selfsame squadron of adventurers (alongside Alisae Leveilleur and, to a lesser extent, Alphinaud and Urianger) that he also tackled the threat posed by Bahamut and, with a greater contingent from the Alliance, the looming threat of the Crystal Tower.
• He bonded quite easily with Raubahn and Nanamo, who seemed for all their position of authority to despise the state of affairs in Ul'dah and aspire to change it. He found himself growing quite fond, as well, of Ilberd, in whose struggles with the occupation of Ala Mhigo he found a kindred spirit.
• Taiki's relationship with the Scions was, at least initially, cordial but ultimately more of a working relationship than a friendly one. If pressed, he might have confessed a closer bond with Y'shtola, with whom he'd commiserated on at least a few occasions, particularly during the Titan Incident. In a strange way, it was Moenbryda's arrival and her insistence on dragging him into social gatherings with the Scions that caused that relationship to improve. She was impossible to dislike, he found, and he soon found himself existing in the center of their close-knit circle, rather than at the periphery. To say that he didn't take her death well would be an understatement.
• Not long after that, of course, came the Bloody Banquet. Formally, Taiki was accused of regicide in the poisoning of Nanamo, people he had considered close friends like Ilberd and Laurentius had turned out to be traitors, and one by one he watched people he'd only scarcely begun to grow fond of be scattered to the wind, their fates unknown but presumed dead. With only the company of Alphinaud and Tataru, he fled for Coerthas, the one place he still had allies- though at the time, dealing with the trauma of loss and betrayal, he found himself expecting yet more at any moment.
• Happily, the expected betrayal never came, and after close to a month of Haurchefant and Aymeric's petitioning, the three were granted entry into the Holy See of Ishgard.

{heavensward.

For a more complete synopsis of the plot of Heavensward, consider reading this article. In broad strokes:

• In the aftermath of the Bloody Banquet, Taiki's arrival in Ishgard was not as welcoming as he might have hoped. Ishgard was hostile to outsiders, and chafed against his sensibilities in a way few other places he'd seen had done. Though he had tentative allies in the form of House Fortemps, this connection was stymied by trauma and betrayal. Unable to bring himself to trust any others than the two remaining members of the Scions, he found himself wandering the Brume at night while they gathered intelligence, a meandering path that led him to... Fray.
• Fray was a fast friend, someone whose words were harsh but never false. He showed Taiki how to take the helpless rage he'd felt since Moenbryda's death, harness it, turn it into a weapon and force for protection both. To tap into his 'Darkside', a force of darkness borne of anger at injustice. In a time when he knew the Holy See to have consorted with Ascians and left so many to die at Carteneau, he found it easy to turn that nigh-incandescent rage into something more constructive.
• Over time, however, Taiki's suspicions about Fray began to deepen. He said things, sometimes, that were off, people reacted to things he'd said as though Taiki himself had said them. Knew things that nobody else should have. It all came to a head when Fray revealed the truth: Taiki and Fray were one and the same. Darkside was the fear and resentment he'd buried, the thoughts he'd censored for the sake of preserving the peace. Darkside was, in every sense, the 'darkness' inside. And, more worryingly, it had had enough.
• The aftermath of the confrontation left Taiki... emotionally drained, but feeling somehow... not quite happier, but more... at peace. Better able to cope with the challenges of adjusting to life in Ishgard. He threw himself into aiding House Fortemps as best he could, in an effort to repay them for their hospitality.
• Aiding the count's sons, Artoirel and Emmanelain, Taiki had a third encounter with Lady Iceheart, the leader of those branded heretics by the Holy See. Though she had, previously, tried very hard to kill him, he was forced to concede when she pointed it out that he had been an invader, both of those times, and the fact that she was not allied with Nidhogg surprised him. While he did not want to trust her, she pointed out that he had gamely trusted the Holy See when it came to her allegiances, and his shock at the observation was enough for her to escape. Not long after, Alphinaud and Tataru were branded with the same moniker as she - heretic - and Taiki was forced to reconcile with the notion that, perhaps, Iceheart was not the enemy she was supposed to be.

{stormblood.

For a more complete synopsis of the plot of Stormblood, consider reading this article. In broad strokes:

{shadowbringers.

For a more complete synopsis of the plot of Shadowbringers, consider reading this article. In broad strokes:

{endwalker.

For a more complete synopsis of the plot of Endwalker, consider reading this article. If you don't mind massive spoilers ahead for the storyline up to 6.0, in broad strokes:

( Tales of loss, and fire, and faith... )

{notes.

NOTES GO HERE