Summary

Origins: Othard

Like many of his ilk, Howl was born in the Skatay Range of Othard, and spent his youth as the youngest of four siblings, with three older sisters. Even from a young age, Howl sought the approval of those he looked up to, and spent much of her time at her mother's side, helping her with this and that. Though his sisters often found humor in his habit of clinging to their mother as he did, he thought little of it - after all, he sought their approval just as much. Still, his youth was a generally happy one, and he found joy in many little things. Notably, she took to the arts, using her free time to play music with anything she could find that might serve as an instrument, and to draw the various creatures that they shared their home with. As she grew older, her placid demeanor went from being seen as endearing, to being seen as concerning, with many around her feeling that the woods might very well eat her alive. So content with her present was Howl, however, that he did not think to fear for his future.

Indeed, Howl was an individual with much love to be found in her heart. She loved the woods, and the animals that stayed within it. She loved to rest beneath the boughs, and to observe, and to sing, and to create. Though Howl cared little for survival, she cared rather monumentally for living. Nothing was quite as dear to Howl as the simple fact that he was alive, and that so, so many other things around him where alive, too. Every life around him fascinated him deeply; every existence, no matter how small, captured his interest fully, from the leaves on the trees to the passing bee. While not everybody quite understood his way of thinking, he was who he was. And that, in fact, was very much a problem.

Just as his sisters once found humor in his attachment to their mother, they later found it in his gentle-hearted nature, often prodding at her for her habit of shrinking from the tougher aspects of their lives. Though she was content to tend to the woods, she didn't care quite so much for hunting, or for killing things that might be deemed detrimental to their environment. She'd often try, of course, seeking the approval of her sisters, but he'd often find that he hardly had it in him to land a killing blow. Though his own shortcomings came to frustrate him, his mother never seemed to stop finding some sort of charm in them, and often ressured him that there would always be a need for those like him. "Who better than you to love the woods? Who better han you to heal them," she would reassure him. "You've a heart for nurturing, and that is not such a terrible thing." And though Howl found comfort in her words, he failed to see the worry in her eyes. His mother was a fierce fighter, and it seemed that her child lacked that same strength, something that worried her deeply. Dalmasca was a land ravaged by war, and she knew not what the future might bring.

It was around her fourteenth nameday that Howl's life took a sharp turn for the worse. Honestly, it was a normal enough thing - it has, after all, always been the case that men aren't allowed to stay within the villages of the Viera, and puberty revealed that Howl wasn't like his sisters. While he feared the future that awaited him - a future of starvation, isolation, and perpetual struggle - what she feared more than anything was being taken away from her family. She pleaded and bargained with her mother, who seemed every bit as heartbroken by this revelation as Howl himself did, but at the end of the day, there was no changing tradition. Not even her sisters seemed to have any help for her, and ultimately, though he nearly went kicking and screaming, Howl was given into the care of an older Viera man named Alakja.

---

Though he was meant to be his mentor, Howl regarded Alakja with hatred, struggling to see him as anything other than a reminder of his own heartbreak. Though Alakja was generally kind to her, he lacked much of the warmth of her mother, and made no effort to spare her of the simple truth of things: that, from here, things would only get harder. To learn the way of the Wood-warders was to suffer, and Alakja made it very clear that no few Viera perished during the trials that were to come. Though he assured her that he would do his very best to prepare her for her life to come, Howl could only find fear and trepdidation in his heart. "I was never meant to do this," Howl had once attempted to reason with her mentor, to which Alakja had simply answered, "I'm afraid that you've no other choice."

The following weeks were harsh, and Howl found herself struggling to even complete simple acts of self-care, which often lead to him being harshly scolded by Alakja, who hardly had the same patience for him that his mother had. "You do not have the leisure to wallow in this," Alakja would tell her. "The only one who can take care of you is yourself." Over time, Howl's reality began to settle upon him heavier; it was very likely that he wouldn't be seeing his family again. As he thought of his mother and sisters continuing to live together, moving on as if he hadn't even been a part of their lives, he found that his feelings shifted from sad, to something far more bitter. Tradition was tradition, certainly, but at the end of the day, Howl could only feel that he hadn't been good enough for them. What if he'd been stronger? What if he'd been more useful? What if they'd loved him more, as much as he'd loved them?

As time passed, though she spent much time lost in her own head, Howl had no choice but to go along with her training, though she approached it with a great amount of frustration. Her relationship with Alakja was complicated; though she despised him, she also desired his approval. Though she didn't care to spend any more time around him than she was already having to, she couldn't stand the idea of him being disappointed in her. Alas, she found that she wasn't quite apt at many things that were required of her. Though she had a skill for setting traps, gathering resources, and crafting things, she was a poor hunter, and lacked much of the dedication and willpower that seemed to keep her mentor on his feet. Her mind rarely stayed in one place, and she often found herself distracted from her tasks. And that, of course, was hardly her greatest trouble; no, her greatest trouble was, simply, that she was no killer. Though Alakja slowly forced it into her head that she would have to kill to survive, and to protect, she fought against it desperately. Every kill left her feeling ill and upset for days, and it soon became very obvious to him that she would be doing quite a lot of that, in his life. The thought was almost nauseating.

It was inevitable that Alakja and Howl would butt heads, which they did often. Though Howl tried to warm up to him, it didn't take much for her to lash out against him, and though Alakja tried to befriend her, he couldn't afford to be too lax with her. After all, he knew good and well that her survival depended on him teaching her well. Howl understood this, rationally, but despite knowing better, she couldn't help but dislike his company. Even months later, she missed her family. He was angry at them, deeply, but he missed them. He missed having a home, and a place. He missed always having a meal awaiting him, and he missed his leisurely naps beneath the boughs, and his drawing, and his music. Music, in fact, ended up being what made Howl understand Alakja a bit better.

During one of their frequent arguments, Howl broke down into tears. It wasn't terribly unusual for her to do this, but it was what he said that seemed to disarm her otherwise stern mentor; "If life is nothing more than this, then why bother?"
Alakja barely knew what to say. He grew silent rather immediately, before sitting himself near their campfire, and gesturing for the youth to join him. He confessed to her that, at one time, he too had been a soft-hearted little thing with a love for music, and that his transition into adulthood had been strange, and painful. He reminded her that she had things that she enjoyed very much - her music, and drawing - and that, as hard as these days would be, there would be other days in which she could enjoy her hobbies in relative peace. He also told him that he hardly gave himself enough credit for what he was good at. "You're an awful hunter," he told her, "but I've hardly seen another so skilled with their hands." He encouraged her to know her strengths, and to hold onto them as tightly as he could.

Alakja and Howl came to reach a mutual understanding of one another, and Howl grew to regard him with less disdain than she previously had. Still, the ways of the Wood-warders interested her little, and she became desperate for literally any other outcome than the one she was presently working towards. On one particularly fateful day, Howl stumbled across something that would ignite a passion within her unlike any other she had experienced before. Near the outskirts of the wood, she stumbled upon the old remains of some magitek device or another, peeking out curiously from beneath many a fallen leaf. Really, it had might as well just been another part of the landscape. Living in a war-swept land, it wasn't wholly unfamiliar to him; he'd been told plenty of the Garleans and their contraptions, but never before had he seen them in person. Curious, he began inspecting it, and soon found that, much like the traps he had a knack for throwing together, it was only parts - parts upon parts, put together with other parts. Something that could be taken apart, and put together again. There, huddled up at the trunk of a tree with his hands dirty with rust, Howl had the loveliest day that he'd had in a very long while.

Howl's newfound fascination with magitek often lead her to the outskirts of the wood, and Alakja was none too pleased with it. He was still so terribly young, after all, and Garlean soliders were none too kind. Howl would often return to their camp with scraps, and any free time that he had would be spent throwing this and that together. Though Alakja tried to corral him towards his training, Howl only became more and more fascinated with her creations, finding that old techniques could be combined with new parts to create new and exciting things. Though Alakja would tell her that such things had no place in the woods, Howl would only grow irritated with his constant disapproval. "Nothing I do is enough for you," she would tell him. "Why must it always be this way, or that way? I'm sick of tradition."
Despite their many differences, this, ultimately, would be the last straw.

---

Soon, it became the case that Howl shrugged off her training and turned into herself, focusing mostly on her projects. He pulled further and further away from his would-be mentor, spending more and more time at the edge of the woods, scrounging about for any parts that he might be able to find. On a particularly biting evening, Alakja sought him out, having hit the limit of his patience with his unruly ward. "Is this all that you care for? What of your home? Do you not think of your family still? Don't you want to keep them safe?"
"I don't have a home, here. And what of my family? They don't care for me! They handed me off to you like I'm some sort of disgrace."
"It wasn't out of any lack of love for you, child, you know this. This is our way. This has always been our way. This is what has kept us safe for so long. Do you understand that?"
"Why should I have to live a miserable life for people who cast me out of my own home? That isn't fair!"
Back and forth, back and forth, louder and louder, with neither particularly mindful of the volume of their scuffle in the moment.
"You've been a problem from the very moment I took you under my wing," Alakja yelled, "Do you think I'm any happier than you are? Do you truly think that this is the life I want? Spending my days berated by a child who can hardly even land an arrow! It's a miracle that you haven't gotten us both killed!"
Howl seethed, and cried, and went to yell, when gunshots tore through the air. An earsplitting noise, a spatter of blood, followed by silence. Howl had never seen somebody die before. He was frozen in terror, until he heard footsteps, and caught a glimpse of armored figures moving through the trees. All he knew to do was to turn, and run, as fast as his legs could take him.

At first, Howl returned to their camp, but found that she wasn't quite as self-sufficient as she would had hoped. Without Alakja's help, she soon found herself running low on food. Though it stung her down to her very core to admit it, he had been right - no, not only Alakja, everyone had been right. He could barely provide for himself. Alone with the unfinished projects that he'd been so excited about, Howl felt really and truly useless, barely worth the air she breathed. To this day, she's not terribly sure what it was that brought her to her feet - she'd had been content dying there by the fire, but for some reason, she got up and left, and walked, and walked some more, and walked even further, until she was so far out of the woods that the mountains became only a backdrop. It was only so far away that she realized that there would be going back, and that she was as much an outsider to the wood now as any other might be.

Howl doesn't quite recall the details of how she found herself amongst Garlean soldiers. With nothing to eat, he'd walked until he could walk no more, and eventually, he fell, and slept. It was a sleep unlike any other, and one that he was shocked to have woken up from; and when he'd found that he'd, indeed, woken up from it, his first thought was that he'd wished that he hadn't. Inside of a tent, she'd found herself across from an armored individual. He couldn't make out the first thing about them, but it was easy enough to tell that they were with the Garlean military, as their armor couldn't be any more distinct than it was.
"Who are you?", Howl asked, groggily. The soldier, already watching him, steepled their fingers, and spoke in a voice that sounded steely, but young. "What can you do?"
"What do you mean, what can I do?"
"What skills do you possess? What can you do?"
Howl thought, long and hard. She had no skills, she felt. She had fumbled everything she ever attempted. Closing his eyes, he sunk into his thoughts, and finally, only one thing came to mind. "I can build things. I'd like to learn more about your magitek."

Thus began Howl's stint in the Garlean military. He'd had no desire to join, but was rather enlisted against his will. His apparent savior made it very clear to him that he had two options at hand - cooperate with them and see another day, or rebel and be left in worst shape than he'd been found in. Speaking of his apparent savior, she introduced herself to him as Gloria pyr Valens, a recently promoted officer who lead a squadron in this particular camp. Howl had made it quite clear to her that he wasn't terribly happy about being dragged into the military, and Gloria had made it quite clear to him that she could had simply left him for dead. When Howl told her that he would had preferred that, all Gloria had to tell him was a simple, "Wouldn't we all?"

---

After some number of conversations that Howl wasn't privy to, Gloria had him added to her squadron, and true to her word, put him to work with any sort of magitek that captured his interest. And, for a fortune, quite a lot of it captured his interest. He found that he picked up on the workings of it rather quickly, and that Gloria was quite happy to provide him with what ever she might need for her work. She, too, had a fascination with such things, she told her, and explained that she'd been interested in becoming an engineer, when she was younger. Howl thought this a rather funny thing to say, as he realized that she couldn't had been all that much older - or younger - than herself. Still, she made no mention of this, as, despite their similar ages, Gloria was a bit... well, scary, frankly, and Howl had no desire to aggravate her.

Howl lost track of the time, admittedly. Days, nights, weeks, months - it all seemed to blur together, and Howl found that she felt much as if she was moving through a dream. Nothing felt particularly good, or bad, but in the back of her head, she always saw the red on the snow. Alakja never truly felt dead - often, when she fumbled some minor task or another, she expected to see him there, eager to scold her. Truly, Howl only really came to understand the gravity of her situation on a particularly dreary night, when the moon was shielded by the clouds, and their camp came under attack. This, too, blurred together, with none of it feeling quite real until Howl found herself faced with a terrible reality; they were under attack by a small band of Viera, and among their numbers was a face that she recognized all too well, but had not expected to ever see again. Indeed, the disappointment and grief in his sister's eyes was truly crushing. Howl truly thought that he might crumple beneath the weight of it - maybe he did, after all.

Even today, he barely recalls the long and bloody throttling that his sister had given him - he had never been much of a fighter, after all, and she'd not-so-gently reminded him of that. She'd called him a traitor, over and over, and while Howl tried to explain himself between his sobs, nothing had quite gotten through to her. Really, she thinks she'd had about killed her if it hadn't been for a certain Gloria pyr Valens, who, unlike Howl, was a force to be reckoned with.
"Don't hurt her," Howl had spat, hardly able to pick himself up out of the dirt. "Please."
He was barely able to see straight, but Gloria must had listened. The last Howl ever saw of his sister was her back, as she turned and fled. Somehow, despite it all, what hurt him the most was that she didn't look back. He wanted to scream, and wail, but not a sound would come out. All he could do was be dragged up to his feet.

It was a battle that they won, though at a great cost. They'd lost no few soldiers, and Howl had spent most the battle not terribly certain where she was, or what she was shooting at. It all felt like a horrible dream, and at the end of it all, she'd simply dropped her bow and stared, longly, at the fallen. The scene only began to come into a terrible and unwanted focus when a figure stepped directly in front of her, blocking her line of sight. Howl went to look past them, when a set of gloved hands reached forward and grabbed either side of his face, forcing him to look directly ahead of himself and into the green eyes of the individual standing before him. Without her helmet on, he'd barely recognized her - Gloria. Looking upon her made him realize, numbly, that neither of them could even be in their twenties, as of yet. How bleak.
"You mustn't look," she commanded. "You'll look only at me. Are we clear? Nowhere else."
Howl nodded, silently, his face wet with tears. How long had he been sobbing? He couldn't tell. It was, after all, only a blur.

"We're pulling back," Gloria explained, as they sat late into the wee hours of the night, gathering themselves best as they could. Their camp was in a state of mass disarray, and an odd, faint metallic scent hung in the bitingly cold, night air. "As it turns out, establishing a camp so nearby the Skatay Range has proven perilous. This is hardly the first attack we've come under from your people."
Silence. Howl had hardly a voice to speak with. Everything felt bland, and strange. Gloria glanced her over, and grimaced, just barely. "... Would that it had been the attack that you weren't about for, however."
The two sat in silence for a long while yet, and when they were alone, Gloria set her gaze upon him once more. "By the morning light, we will be setting off back for Garlemald. You should go. Now, while our numbers are low, and our attention is scattered. Not a soul will be looking for you, and for my part, I've not seen you since the battle."
An escape. She was offering him an escape. Abruptly, her attention snapped onto the other, and leaning in, she spoke, a bit more intensely than intended. "Take me with you. I want out of here."

Interlude: Ilsabard

Howl's time in Garlemald was brief, but strange. The city was unlike anything that he'd ever seen, or imagined - aside from the snow, which she was very familiar with - and Gloria made it a habit of keeping him close by. She made it very clear to him that not a soul was to be trusted, and that he would need to keep his head down, and follow orders. Really, he didn't hate his time there, but truthfully, Howl didn't have it in her to hate much of anything. Life felt as if it were nothing more than a haze. Sometimes, she imagined that she'd awaken beneath the boughs once more, and that she'd awaken a little younger, and a lot happier. Though sometimes, in the quiet hours, the hollowness would constrict, and crush, and she'd nearly wail in grief and frustration, for the most part, she felt fine. Eerily, strangely fine. And despite it all, a little shimmer of something remained within her when she worked with magitek. She loved seeing a project come together, and Gloria seemed impressed with her abilities. She was so very impressed, in fact, that they were exactly why she sent her off upon a ship to Aldenard, late at night.
"Have you truly grown so sick of me, Gloria pyr Valens? Am I annoying you that badly?"
"I have, and you are," she lied. "Also, you've a brilliant mind, and I wouldn't see it wasted here."
Howl couldn't help but smile, despite it all. "Do you think so?"
"I do, and you'll be taking it elsewhere. Have you heard of Ishgard? A peculiar place, but they value their neutrality. Any nosy soldiers would be turned away at the gates. Is that not interesting?"
"It's very interesting, Gloria. Thank you."
"You've nothing to thank me for, and I've nothing to thank you for. We've never met. Isn't that correct?"
"It is. Who are you, again?"

Aldenard: Past

Howl wasted no time setting out for Coerthas, as long and grueling of a journey as it was. It was, also, the first time that she'd found herself truly alone, without anybody to guide her along. Though it was an odd and sad feeling, it was also, somehow, a momentous relief. Though she was left to grieve alone, she found some slight joy in the sights she saw along the way. Stopping at taverns, coming across new and strange machinery - lackluster as it often was, compared to what she'd seen in Garlemald - and seeing new fauna unlike any she'd seen before, her journey to Ishgard was the most alive she'd felt in quite a bit. It was nearly enough to push everything else to the back of her head, but not always enough. Howl found herself constantly keeping busy, living her life loudly and brightly and with little downtime, all in an effort to keep herself from thinking far too hard.

If Garlemald had been a confusing place, Ishgard was even moreso. While Garlemald had many a rule to follow, they were obvious, if not terribly in your face. In Ishgard, however, Howl felt that a single social mishap might lead her to disaster. Still, it shared one advantage over Garlemald: it was no place for Garlean soldiers. As an escapee of the Imperial army, Howl found safety there, though starting anew proved to be a baffling experience for her. And starting anew was quite the process - one that spanned over years, in fact. Years that were strange, and difficult, and sometimes fun, in unexpected ways.

Days, weeks, months, and then years passed, and at the age of twenty four summers, Howl had earned a place for herself amongst the machinists of the Skysteel Manufactory, where, under the leadership of an Elezen man named Ilmaut, she poured herself into a particular project, one unlike any other that she had experimented with before. Indeed, this project had become one that had ignited a passion in her heart unlike any other, for it was, truthfully, one that was mostly of her own making. Years of careful and meticulous planning, experimentation and research had lead her to this point, and though it had been Ilmaut's concept, it had been Howl's almost obsessive work that had seen it so far.

It was a cannon unlike any other, meant to be capable of striking down even the largest of dragons with a single blow, and yet, having the ability to fire multiple rounds of ammunition in quick succession, without needing to be reloaded. It was sleek; it was lethal. In fact, some worried that it was, perhaps, a bit too intense, its theoretical firepower raising concerns from some of her peers. Howl thought that, perhaps, the reasoning for their concern could be traced back to the rather questionable origins of this project... of which, admittedly, there were many. Indeed, Howl had pulled inspiration for this design from many places: from the goblins of Idyllshire, to what one could glean of the mysterious technology of the equally mysterious ancient Allagan empire, Howl considered no source of inspiration too strange to be used... and of course, while not everybody else in his team quite liked this, she pulled much of her inspiration from the Garlean magitek that he'd spent so much of his time with. Her time in Ishgard had gained her the reputation of a bit of a mad genius amongst her peers, with some being more open to her eclectic designs and ideas than others. While a cannon in and of itself was a rather uninspired idea, it was Howl's own twist on it that made it as - rather literally - explosive as it was. And it was, as often, what ultimately caused Howl many an issue.

While Howl had a solid understanding on the workings and limitations of his creations, Ilmaut didn't understand them quite as well, though he seemed just as excited about them. Ilmaut had become a figure that Howl had complicated feelings towards; she liked him, and he was generally kind to her. If not for him sticking his neck out a bit for her, he wasn't sure that he'd had ever landed the position that he had. He was an outsider to Ishgard, after all, but Ilmaut had seen her potential. But despite all of his kindness, the experience of an older fellow giving her orders could only bring to mind her mentor of many a year ago, and the familiarity put a pit in her stomach. She didn't like it much, and try as she might, he was unable to disconnect the association from his Elezen friend. What irritated him the most, however, was that he soon found that he was searching for his approval, too.

... However, unlike many previously, Ilmaut seemed perfectly happy to give it. Even when he didn't quite see eye-to-eye with her on her methods, Ilmaut had made no secret of the fact that he thought Howl spectacularly talented, and Howl felt as if she could be walking on air over it. Howl was, admittedly, terribly nervous. After all, things going right didn't mean that they didn't have the potential to go terribly, terribly wrong, and he was reluctant to let himself be too happy... however, despite his better judgment, he slowly settled into the idea that, maybe, things could be good. In an act that, today, he considers horribly foolish, she got comfortable. She enjoyed spending days working alongside her peers and spending evenings around fires, and spending her free time exploring the surrounding lands of Coerthas and Dravania to her heart's content. She had a place of her own, and things of her own. More importantly, however, as her project came together, Howl let herself become familiar with something she hadn't known before: success. It was only a cannon, but he liked to think it just the beginning of more to come. If he made something that could protect them so well, surely they'd have more and more for him to do, and to create. Surely, he would be needed. The idea of such a thing was terribly exciting.

Howl's biggest mistake, perhaps, was forgetting that it was not her own project, but Ilmaut's. For every dinner shared together, every nod of approval, every long night spent hunched over some draft or another while they smoothed out the details, Howl forgot that Ilmaut was not his friend, but his boss. Perhaps Ilmaut complimented him and gave him just the right amount of admiration, and perhaps he would speak to him of his life and family as if they were friends, but to this day, Howl wonders if Ilmaut had ever really seen him as anything more than a means to an end. Howl had liked him enough to shrug it off when he openly took all credit for the design of the cannon, and the other members of his team seemed to do much the same. After all, she already had the approval of one that she'd looked up to - she didn't really need anything more. "It was his idea," she'd convince herself, if ever she found herself wishing for more. "He did come up with it."

---

As the project was in its final steps, it became the talk of the Skysteel Manufactory, for a bit, with some thinking that it could very well go on to replace the Dragon Killers upon the Steps of Faith. Ilmaut seemed proud, even before it was quite done, and Howl drank in the excited praise heaped upon his mentor as if it were for himself. With such excitement surrounding the project, it was decided that its abilities would be put on show before a larger crowd, and with expectations so high, Ilmaut and his team made certain to test it thoroughly. With no small amount of effort, it was rolled across the Steps of Faith and to the Coerthas central Highlands, where it was fired before a large team of knights. Howl knew that it would work; she'd checked every detail, and then checked it twice, and then a third time, going over it so obsessively that he hardly slept for days. And, indeed, it worked. In fact, it worked splendidly. It was so loud and so bright that Howl was dazzled by it, and its firepower struck down a number of things with a frightening level of ease. It was the first weapon that Howl had crafted, and he couldn't had been happier with it. The following day would be the day that they showed its abilities before a crowd and made a show of it, and Howl slept that night with her ears ringing, and a smile on her face.

It was a morning in Coerthas like any other, though having such a large crowd was rather out of the ordinary. Around the cannon huddled Ilmaut and his team, and a very excited Howl, who felt confident that her years of fiddling and building was going to add up to something that could, perhaps, protect many an Ishgardian citizen, in the future. With preparations in place, the show was ready to begin - and it began, frankly, as poorly as it possibly could had. Howl could tell that something was a bit amiss when the cannon didn't immediately fire. The tension that fell over their group was so thick that one could had drowned in it, in that moment, but it didn't last for far too long. In fact, there could had never been enough time to possibly prepare for what was to follow, and by the time it was obvious that something was wrong, it was too late.

Even with the safety precautions put in place by the knights, there was no preventing the catastrophe that would follow the cannon's explosion. When the back of it erupted, Howl's only fortune had been that he'd had the mind to get down, as soon as he'd noticed something was wrong. The same, unfortunately, could not be said for many of his peers, nor could it be said for those who'd had the misfortune to be at the front of the crowd, and nor could it be said for the various knights standing inbetween. In that moment, surrounded by flames, shrapnel and screams, Howl found himself in Othard again, and he could see nothing but the disdain in his sister's eyes as the flames ate at his skin. Those who had been too close burnt to death, if they'd had the misfortune of being killed quicker by the shrapnel, and that barely went into the amount of those around them who were grieviously injured. And for all of the horrors that had befallen Howl that day, perhaps the worst of all was that Ilmaut, too, survived the explosion.

The following days made short work of digging up any roots that Howl had put down. With so many dead, and many more horrifically injured, Ilmaut came under metaphorical fire from the knights of Ishgard. After all, with such successful testing, how had such a thing been allowed to happen? To which, Ilmaut gave them a clear story: it had been the fault of Howl. Ilmaut showed them all of Howl's drafts, and designs, everything that could tie much of the work to her, and went on to explain that Howl had put so much work into the project that he didn't like it very much when anybody else on their team had any adjustments they wanted to make to it, especially any adjustments suggested by Ilmaut himself, who had seen the final touches to it done. He went on to theorize that Howl, out of spite, tampered with the cannon last minute, believing that he could do it better than his own project leader, leading to the tragedy that followed.
... Of course, not a bit of this story was true, but with Howl's other teammates dead, it was his word against Ilmaut's. And, unfortunately, while Ilmaut was a long-standing and respected member of the Skysteel Manufactory, Howl was an outsider to Ishgard, and already a notorious eccentric. It had been almost comically easy to heap the blame upon him, and Howl, who was already struggling from the mental, emotional and physical side-effects of the incident - his back had been left covered in horrible burns - was hardly in any position to defend himself, when justice rained down upon him.

The families and friends of those who'd died demanded something be done about Howl, who was promptly taken into custody and tried at court. Though he pleaded, and cried, and bared the most vulnerable parts of himself before the hateful gaze of many, Howl could barely make a case for himself. For a small fortune - perhaps, in hindsight, the greatest fortune he's been spared - some few from the Skysteel Manufactory felt it strange that Howl would sabotage a project that he'd worked so hard upon for so long, and ultimately, it was unable to be determined whether or not what had happened was anything but an incredibly tragic accident. Though not all were happy with this outcome, Howl was exiled from Ishgard, rather than executed. To some, they would leave well enough alone, but Howl could only think of Ilmaut's eyes upon him as he was removed from the court. In the past, his anger had always been accompanied by grief; it had been something sad, little more than the desperate lashing out of a child. In this moment, however, as crushing of a betrayal as it had been, and as horribly as it hurt, something in him twisted, and bent, and finally snapped, and Howl decided that he would tell him the truth, even if it meant cementing himself as the criminal he'd been branded as.

---

This became Howl's singular goal, after he was cast out from the only place she had to call home. Barely even allowed to take the clothes on his back, Howl found himself much as he had upon his arrival to Aldenard: with nothing. That night, alone by a fire that he'd scraped together, he gazed long into the flames and thought very hard about everything that had brought him to this point. He thought of how willingly his family had cast him from his home, of how his sister had vilified him and beat him within an inch of his life, and he thought of how, most assuredly, his family would only ever see him as a traitor. He thought of how Alakja had only seen him as a burden, and of how he had, perhaps as Alakja had feared, gotten him murdered. When he thought of the way that he'd fled and left his mentor's corpse on the ground, he didn't feel quite as bad as he thought that he should. He thought of Ilmaud, and his stomach nearly flipped. Ilmaud, who he'd so willingly given his all to, who had eagerly thrown him to the wolves rather than take even a smidgen of blame upon himself. And at the end of it all, he thought of Gloria. Gloria who was sharp, head to toe, like a weapon of her own.
Everyone had always thought him too soft, Gloria included - and there had been much truth in that. Simultaneously, he had always been a burden. It felt as if, everywhere he went, some manner of disaster was never far behind. There hadn't been a single person that she hadn't let down in some enormous manner, and perhaps that had even gone for Ilmaut. She had to know. She was desperate to know.

---

It was a plan that came together with a worrying amount of ease, despite how long it took. It was a process of weeks, maybe even months, but it was simple, beyond the patience it took. Fortunately, that was something that Howl had quite a bit of. Perhaps some part of him felt guilty, as he went about getting his ducks all in a row, knowing how it would end up, should he get them as he wanted them. Some little part of him hoped, in fact, that he was far too inept to see it done. That, perhaps, her curse of misfortune might, as it often did, come along and throw her plans into disarray.
She started by establishing a little base for herself, in the ruins of an old home in the western Coerthas highlands. From there, he did something else that he'd previously not made much of a habit of: he stole, and he found that he was quite good at it. He picked what ever he needed from any surrounding camps, and would sometimes go so far as to visit adjacent lands and cities to get a hold of what ever he needed. For better or worse, Howl had always had a way of being able to slap together something he needed from anything else that he could get his hands on, and it wasn't terribly long until he had the building lined to what remained of the ceiling with some trap or another. And the most important detail of all was one that, perhaps unwittingly, Ilmaud had handed her too easily.

Howl had, if nothing else, an excellent memory, and he recalled enough details regarding Ilmaud's chattering about his family that they'd had might as well been her own family, too. His wife, Adione, had passed away some couple of years ago, and had been buried a small ways outside of the Holy See, in a patch of flowers that the two had frequented, in their younger years. Together, they had a son, Siofort, who was a knight that sometimes stood guard at the Steps of Faith. Howl had found it comical how simple an act kidnapping him had been; sleep darts were quite effective, and made quick work of both guards. One would act as his messenger - leaving him with a note for Ilmaud was a simple thing - and the other, her target, would be her hostage. As she hauled Siofort off over her shoulder, she thought it a fortunate thing that Ilmaud liked his child more than her own parents liked her. It was easier to laugh at things, wasn't it?

With everything lined up, Howl returned to his little base of operations and waited, patiently, whiling away the hours by putting the final touches on his first latest project. And, for better or worse, just as Howl had expected, Ilmaud loved his son a bit too much not to follow his the instructions she'd left for him very, very precisely.
Ilmaud arrived, pulling along a cart full of Howl's things, as requested; her tools, her clothes, her various this-and-thats that she'd collected over her years in Ishgard. Howl, sitting at one end of a long, rickety table, watched as her guest walked in and sat himself down at the other end. They'd eaten many a supper together, back at their workshop, and seeing him across the table from her once again made her eyes sting. She wanted to hate him, she did. It should had been easier than it was. It wasn't fair that he had to care about him, even now. He couldn't cry - not yet. She needed him to take her seriously. She was desperate, just this once, to be taken seriously. And so, she cracked a smile. Slowly and easily, all the while hoping that Ilmaud failed to notice the glassy sheen of his eyes.

"You're a smarter man than I thought, Ilmaud. You showed up! Just the way that I asked, too. And you've brought my things? They're outside?"
"Yes, every one of them," he answered, his voice steady, and his expression stern. It irritated Howl, seeing how calm he looked. "Tell me what else you want."
Though she smiled even still, Howl clenched her teeth as she leaned forward in her seat, placing her palms upon the tabletop. "You and I both know that I put my all into that project, and you and I both know that I hadn't touched it after our initial test. Prior to our little incident," he began, his voice cracking ever so slightly, much to his disdan. "You'd been so very eager to take all the credit. What changed? What did you have to lie about, hm?"
"Where is my son, Howl? Your letter said that he would be here," Ilmaud stated, composed as ever. But, Howl, unfortunately, found her composure slipping, even as desperately as she tried to dig her fingers into it.
"Your son," Howl hissed, "Is right nearby. I'm not asking anything too complicated of you, Ilmaud. All you have to do is answer my question. That's all. Don't tell me that's too difficult for you?"

A long silence fell between them, as they stared each other down from across the table. Ilmaud was an older man, with a face that looked kind, even when his eyes quite didn't. Oh, Howl hated that look in his eyes. She was sick of being looked at that way. The silence felt overbearing, and finally, Howl snapped, leaning further into the table and baring his teeth. "Tell me!"
"Howl," Ilmaud began, suddenly and calmly. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "I meant it when I told you that you're a genius. Aye, that was never in question. But do you know what your problem is? Truly?"
Caught off-guard, the snarl on Howl's face dropped rather immediately. He fell silent, as Ilmaud continued without waiting for an answer.
"You've not a single care for your work, though you think you've a love for it; no, what you've a love for is the praise that you pray somebody might grace you with for it." Ilmaud weaved his fingers together and placed his hands upon the tabletop. "I saw what I thought might be a useful edit to your design. A small thing, simple enough to switch about last minute. Perhaps the simple truth was that I'd realized I'd put so little work into the Gods damned thing that I felt a need to leave some mark upon it, and that mark, most assuredly, was what the issue was."
Howl could barely breathe. He felt so tense, head to toe, that he could hardly even get a sentence out. And yet, he did, though he practically had to force it through his teeth. "Then why, exactly, did you blame me?"
"You were never from Ishgard, Howl. The work that I had put into things... those years of establishing a place for myself, despite everything. I was from the Brume, did you know? To go from living in the Brume, to having the respect of so many above you... no, I couldn't lose that. I've a son, Howl, and that is... not you. You are no family of mine, much less are you a friend. We worked together, Howl, and that is all."

Silence, again. Howl stared him down, before, slowly, slumping forward, placing her forehead against the tabletop. She thought that she could stay like that for a while, if only she'd the time. Strangely enough, the searing, gut-rending hurt that she'd felt, suddenly, felt much like... nothing at all. He couldn't help but laugh to himself, shortly and quietly. He couldn't help but sob to himself, shortly and quietly. Just once. Nothing more. "Of course. I misunderstood. Silly me," she muttered into the wooden planks. Giving the tabletop a single, firm smack of her palm, he pushed himself up and rose from his seat, approaching his old mentor. Ilmaud went to stand, as well, and Howl, as if to show that she meant no harm, held his empty hands up at his sides. "Don't you want your boy, Ilmaud? You've given me what I want, so let me do the same for you. All we have to do," he explained, circling the other, closely observing how he whipped his head about to keep his eyes upon him, "Is take a short little walk outside, down the path, to the neighbor's. I didn't want the two of you outnumbering me, you see, so I hid him. Would you like to take a walk with me?"

Ilmaud was silent. Indeed, he'd recalled seeing the equally delapidated, neighboring house, just a ways further from this one. Howl offered him a smile, and extended a hand towards him, slowly. "Give me your gun, Ilmaud. I'm not risking you shooting me in the back, seeing as you have already stabbed me in it once."
Ilmaud scoffed. He thought it over, very hard, before taking his gun from his belt, and aiming it straight at her head.
It all happened in what had felt like seconds. A click, and her hand was on the barrel, and arm was yanked to the side, and he pulled the trigger just a hair too late, sending a bullet through what remained of a nearby window. And in only seconds more, Howl's elbow slammed into his face, and the last thing he noticed was a hand in his hair and his face bouncing against the cobblestone floor.

Gently, Howl took his gun from his hand. Silently, he sat on the floor near his unconscious guest, and watched him lay there for what felt like quite a while. Howl slouched forward and went to sob, but stopped himself, biting his lower lip and sucking in a sharp, shaky breath, before letting his shoulders relax and hanging his head. For just a moment, he sat there, limp, and made peace with the decision that he was about to make. Perhaps she had never been meant to be anything but trouble. Perhaps this was exactly what she was made to do. Perhaps, at the end of the day, Howl had been born to be despised. Perhaps the best thing that Howl could ever do for people would be to give them a common thing to hate together. Perhaps she would never gain their approval, but she could gain their hatred, and she would take every shred of it she could get. Anything. Anything at all.
Pushing herself to her feet, she went about dragging Ilmaud up, as well, and sitting him in his chair, which she chained him to. Heaving a sigh through his nose, he eyed the traps that he'd set so meticulously - explosives, tucked away anywhere they might not be too terribly obvious. She wondered what would had happened, had his bullet not went through the window, and hit the wall instead. Perhaps they'd had died in there together. That could had been funny, she thought.

In the crumbling home just a way down the road, Siofort laid bound and gagged on the rotting floor. His most desperate attempts at freedom hadn't amounted to much of anything, and all of his writhing had served only to wear him out, at the end of it. All was silent, excruciatingly so, and then it was anything but.
Gunfire, and an explosion so loud that he felt it through the ground beneath him. Aghast, he could see the orange flickering of flames through the window, and he prayed, in this moment, that it wasn't the Viera from earlier who found him next.
Howl watched the house burn for a bit, until it meant nothing more to him, and took the cart of his belongings in one hand, dragging it with him down the road. Siofort was right where he'd left him: on the ground, looking not all unlike a worm, with the way he was tied up. Squatting down, he rested his elbows on his knees and stared the other down with a strange little smile on his face, before pressing the barrel of the stolen gun against the knight's forehead.

The two were dead quiet for a moment, with Howl's finger resting over the trigger. She tilted her head, before, with a short laugh, she gave his head a small shove, and returned the gun to her side. "You know, I'd thought about killing you. But... well, I did tell your father that I'd let you live, if he just brought me my things, and gave me the answers that I wanted. And he did! He really did. And, Siofort..."
Howl leaned in, giving him a brief pat on the head, as if he were a child, and not a grown man. "Your father was, truly, a worthless piece of shite." Unceremoniously, she yanked away the layers of cloths that'd gagged him, tossing them aside. "Scream loudly enough, and perhaps somebody, or something, will find you. Or maybe they won't. I think... that I've had my fill of you and your family."

Aldenard: Present

If only out of spite, Howl spent the following years of her life in Coerthas and Dravania, where she witnessed the rapid freezing-over of the land following the calamity, and found some delight in the hardships that Ishgard faced, as a result. Following the murder of Ilmaut and the eventual discovery of his barely-alive son, Howl was no longer simply an exile, but a wanted criminal, one who managed to evade capture for so long and caused so many problems the entire way that it eventually became the case that the knights of Ishgard avoided her, rather than sought him out. In her small, underground home, hidden so far into the Coerthas Western Highlands that it'd might as well be closer to Dravania than Ishgard, he picked back up his various hobbies. He drew the local fauna, practiced new songs on his harp, and built any new things that might come to mind, venturing out to pick what ever supplies he might need from anybody unfortunate enough to be about. All the while, he grew quickly in skill with Ilmaud's gun, and found some joy in the fact that he was able to claim something of his, at the end of it. Living as he did meant that she often had to go toe-to-toe with other unsavory sorts, and it was through this that she honed her own edge, no longer the soft and bending little thing that he'd been in his youth.

Eventually, when it became the case that people were sniffing around a bit too close to his base, he abandoned ship and took up a nomadic lifestyle, only returning to his little spot in Coerthas when it was fully necessary. As a result, he's gained a rotten reputation in the adjacent lands, most notably in the Black Shroud. Despite his reputation, he's known to be rather reliable if one has need of someone to handle some manner of unsavory task for her, be it thievery, smuggling, or even assassination... and, of course, a variety of other not-so-unsavory tasks, such as playing bodyguard, making traps, or engineering/repair work. Really, it's a matter of how willing one is to trust him, what with the growing list of crimes attached to him - robbery, arson, destruction of property, manslaughter, grievious injury and various other trickeries seem to go nearly hand-in-hand with his name, at this point. Mostly, however, he follows his passions, as Alakja had advised him to do many years ago. With a nearly perpetual smile on his face, he lives in a miserable sort of happiness, knowing that nothing good awaits him at the end of what ever road it is that he's been making his way down. He's unloveable, and unfortunate, and has managed to accept that for what it is - all is well, as long as he manages to find some fun in it all, until he finally decides that he's had enough.