Summary: Mia; hiding my burden with a smile of summer.
Notes: We really don't get to see much of Mia's background in the game, even with support conversations. So, I decided to make something up based off of the fact that I kept on giving her the Wo Dao.
Rosary
Mia fingered the beads that were, next to her Wo Dao, her most treasured possession. When the Commander said to pack light, all she grabbed besides her weapons and a few food packs was the beaded necklace that she had managed to salvage from the place that had once been her home.
When the indigo-haired swordswoman had been a child of eight, her extended family—all of whom had lived together in a villa in the middle of nowhere—had been attacked by bandits looking for the Wo Dao she still carried to this day. Mia had barely escaped, clutching sword and beaded necklace, lashing out at anyone she saw until she reached a major city and was taken in by an orphanage.
Mia knew she would never forget her family, not when she had the sword forms they had taught her and the sword they had died to protect, but sometimes their faces grew fuzzy. And when that happened, the young woman would finger the necklace that she had taken, clinking the perfectly spherical opal beads, and would pretend that each bead was a different member of her family.
Mother had told her that the necklace was a memory chain, made so that each bead was a different person, and Mia figured that they wouldn't mind if she replaced them with her own family; after all, these were her ancestors, so they wouldn't mind sharing with their descendents.
This bead was mother, her dark violet curls pulled back by a pale yellow kerchief and her cheeks lightly dusted with flour…Grandfather, old and wrinkled, teaching her sword forms with the slender practice sword that was the same weight as his real one…Nina, form elegant as she danced with her sword under the moonless sky…Rane, green eyes blazing with determination as he cut down a group of intruders…
Please forgive me for living, and bless me for my attempts to carry on the family style and line. Mia clinked her opal beads, before tucking the necklace back under her clothes and heading out to the battle with her Wo Dao in hand and a smile on her face.