Yuera (FF1)

Yuera is a young woman who spent most of her life living in the forest, and thus doesn't have a very wide social circle or a strong grasp of "polite" society. She is a skilled healer, and while she is capable of standard White Magic, she prefers to use her knowledge of herbs and berries and such. She grew up in a small cabin raised by a single mother, Caelynn. For pretty much her entire childhood it was just the two of them - Mama taught Yuera everything she knew about medicinal plant usage. She did have a book with some basic Cure spells, but Yuera wouldn't come into possession of it for many years. Instead she learned things like which leaves were good for brewing into tea or tying into poultices, which berries were toxic and which were good for killing pain, how each plant around could do different things to the human body.

Caelynn was a kindly lady, opening her home up to anyone who made the long journey out seeking help. These visits were a good learning opportunity for Yuera, not only for the medicinal aspects, but also about how the larger cities worked. She came to the conclusion that the only healers that were considered "okay" were the White Mages ordained by some church, and that their services cost a lot of money that was hard to come by. Anything else was shunned, which is why Caelynn moved them into the woods. Her mother had been training her to keep the practice going, to try and help people who needed it, to spread kindness despite what the tyrants in charge say.

When Yuera was 16, armored guards kicked the doors to the cabin down. Word had spread of Caelynn's "illegal" healing, and orders had come to arrest the both of them. Caelynn fought back, screaming for Yuera to run. The child stopped only to grab something really heavy to improvise a shield, before jumping out a window and running away into the forest. That was the last time she ever saw her mother. She spent the night hiding in a cave, praying for the sun to rise safely. And in the sunlight, she realized that the heavy thing she'd grabbed was the White Magic book. She stayed in the cave with the book, spending days painstakingly memorizing everything she could read.

She decided she would do exactly what she had been raised to do - taking Caelynn's lessons  of kindness to heart, Yuera started traveling around as a wandering physician. She had made it along for a couple of years before her first arrest - she couldn't avoid the knights forever. One had lured her in by discarding his armor and faking injuries, and a couple of his teammates grabbed her when she offered help with the wounds. She was brought back to the nearest city and put on public trial, and eventually sentenced to months in prison doing physical labor. This would become a pattern - she developed serious problems with authority figures and decided "fuck you, I'm still gonna help people and you can't stop me." The next few years would see her in and out of prison on bullshit charges like "illegal substance distribution" and "religious subversion", whatever that meant. While in prison, she developed a surprising amount of physical strength and learned how to wield a hammer as a weapon.

At age 21, the people in charge had finally had enough of her and were looking to have her hanged. The trial was public, the outcry was loud, the judge was about to pass his verdict - and then Yuera was hit with a spell of dizziness and collapsed. While she was out cold, she had some kind of dream that talked about a prophecy and the rising of heroes. She had no idea how long she was out, but the attending nobles were all but rioting when she came to. In her hand was a crystal glowing faintly blue, marking her as a chosen Warrior of Light. The arguing lasted for what felt like hours to her... finally, though, the decision was made to set her free and see her (escorted by guards, naturally) to Cornelia. Either she helped save the world and earn her entire police record being erased, or she was killed by the fiends and no longer their problem. Yuera was not given a chance to speak or a choice in the matter.

Her escorts saw her to the gates of Cornelia before completely ditching her, leaving her to wander aimlessly around the city until she came across a young man. He showed her a glowing crystal of his own and introduced himself as Minn. They kept each other company for the next few weeks, and though she was slow to warm up to him, warm up she eventually did. After some time, it got to the point where he would provide food and money to those in need, and she started helping meet their medical needs. By the time they meet with Leucis and Iehraine, she and Minn are very close, and because of him she feels secure enough to open herself to the others. They don't judge her for her prison time and show her true, genuine gratitude for her knowledge. While the three of them have formed powerful bonds with her, for anyone outside of the group she doesn't initiate, standing back and letting Minn or Leucis deal with stuff.

She is the only one who has seen under Iehraine's mask. He asked her for help with his scars, but he was burned so horrifically that there was nothing she could do. She feels guilty about this.