Adonis Simonet is a well-traveled, well-connected, and well-intentioned Elezen hailing from the Brume of Ishgard. From a young age, he displayed a strong capability toward socializing; he made many friends and was popular amongst his teachers. He harbored a sizable group of friends, but the closest among them were a specific pair of step-siblings: Gaelle Carmine and Ciceroix Charledore. Outside of this group of friends, Adonis found much affection for a classmate by the name of Fabien Favagere.
Even while maintaining his friendships, Adonis's marks caught the attention of Scholarch Montichaigne, who later sponsored an education in another city-state: the Sharlayan colony in the Dravanian Hinterlands. For much of his adolescence, he would spend his school months in the Sharlayan city-state, and spend his summers and winters back home in Ishgard.
Having grown to possess both disdain and envy for the affluent population of the Pillars, Adonis found Sharlayan to be a digestible location to be. His polite demeanor and eagerness to learn—and his innate skill in magicks—easily declared him as a favorite amongst the scholars and fellow students. If not for his seasonal return, many of the Sharlayans thought him to be born and raised in the colony. Though he didn't make many friends in Sharlayan despite all his time there, he did become close with Y'shtola Rhul, as their fellow teachers (Montichaigne and Matoya) were friends themselves. Eventually, he would begin tutoring his fellow students.
Namely, Adonis tutored and befriended Adair Solrola: a Keeper of the Moon who lived on a farm outside of the colony. Over time, the Solrolas would become Adonis's second family; he looked forward to seeing them during the school year more than he did the education itself. "Tutoring" Adair became an excuse to spend time together. So close they became, Adair was allowed to stay in Ishgard over their summer vacations.
The first summer Adonis and Adair shared in Ishgard was a fateful one—some time during the school year, a peer from the Brume had become orphaned and refused to remain in the Brume's overfilled orphanage. Though there was possibility for someone in the city to take in Anya Watson, she had already been surviving for months on her own. After working up the will and praying in the ever-familiar Saint Reymanaud's Cathedral, Adonis wrote a letter to the Solrolas, asking if they would take in the girl. With the help of a Sharlayan scholar, Masha and Tweh'li Solrola wrote back that they would accept her with open arms.
Around this time, Adonis had taken note of the growing affections between his friends, Gaelle and Fabien. Despite having an established-but-unofficial "relationship" with both Gaelle and Ciceroix, Adonis knew that his long absences would isolate him from his peers. Feeling as though he lost both Gaelle and Fabien at once, and to each other, was a bitter reminder of what he perceived as a sacrifice he needed to make to continue studying in Sharlayan.
Through a typical bout of teenage shenanigans, a three-way confession was made between them. Despite so much of his time being spent in Sharlayan, Adonis would leave Ishgard for the school year knowing that Gaelle and Fabien considered him a part of their relationship just as they considered each other. With his worries assuaged, Adonis flourished brightly that year, tutoring both Adair and Anya Solrola now.
Life was idyllic, until the Garleans invaded Ala Mhigo. The populace of Sharlayan's city-state made to abandon the Hinterlands colony and return to Old Sharlayan: an island too far away for Adonis's family to allow him to permanently migrate for his studies. Though the Solrolas stayed behind, Adonis was not permitted to visit the otherwise abandoned Hinterlands. He would not manage to contact their farm again.
By then, his peers had finished their schooling in Ishgard, leaving him without an easy way to rekindle the unfanned friendships. It was impossible to ignore that others sensed a change in status within him: he had spent so much of his adolescence being taught by wealthy Sharlayan scholars. Many of his peers viewed him with the same disdain as they did those of the Pillars; those in the Pillars still knew him to be from the Brume, however.
Bourrache Forsemart, a nobleman with a close friendship to Count Haillenarte, saw potential that could not be wasted. Though he would not undermine Adonis's family by funding a scholarship in Old Sharlayan, he would eagerly sponsor him as a Temple Knight to the Holy See. Adonis believed himself to be a fool if he didn't take the offer, and soon found himself training as a squire.
To become a knight, especially beside his friend Fabien, was an easy life for Adonis. So easy, it left him to ruminate upon himself and his life. It was about one year into his squiredom that he used his excessive allowance to purchase a transformation potion—supposedly called a "Fantasia"—from a mysterious merchant. He would drink this potion without any hesitation; euphoric, but now with an obvious change that would need to be addressed should he return home to the Forsemart Manor. Aside from a few bouts of utter confusion, Adonis was readily accepted by both her friends and the Forsemarts. Her easy life became a comfortable one. Living true to herself, she was happy.
But still, she thought of Dravania—she thought of Adair. The love from the Forsemarts and from Gaelle and Fabien were fulfilling, bright, but a shadow was cast over her heart in her separation from this best friend. In everything she did, she wished she could be with him, too.
It was the day of Adonis's rite of passage, as she knelt to take the accolade, that these thoughts of Adair finally pushed her to move. In a clamour, she leapt away from the holy sword before it was to cross her shoulders, and she fled from the Cathedral. She collected what few things she could carry from her room in the Forsemarts' manor, then ran from Ishgard in as little as an hour. She made a point to avoid any who may cross her path of escape; bidding farewell to any of her peers would mean admitting a fault, in her mind.
By that evening, she was on an airship to Ul'dah.
After settling into a vagabond life within Ul'dah, Adonis stumbled upon a scene of a man attempting to sell a supposedly magic stone. Having an innate skill with magic, the concept sparked her curiosity. His stories held true with his theatric displays, but it was easy for her to see that his tales regarding the stone were unfounded. After saving him from choking on a giant sardine, Adonis became quick friends with Martyn Goodfellow. She heard all too clearly the plights he claimed, of the Whalaqee in Tural and their illness, and made a vow to assist him in his efforts to gather funds to help them.
She would debut in the traveling Masked Carnivale as Adonis Simonet: The Starlight Sensation.
Some years after her debut, Adonis was met with Martyn's proposal to bring the Masked Carnivale into the walls of Ishgard. The initial motivation was simply to milk the money from the upper class, but she knew the great impact it would have on the city as a whole. She faced her fears of returning, but remained within the Masked Carnivale's tent for days until the night of the first show.
Despite recognizing many of the faces in the crowd, Adonis gave a show just like any other. As she made a charming speech regarding her nervousness to return to Ishgard, a quartet of slimes burst into existence, encumbering her feet and preparing for simultaneous explosions. Just as the audience was understanding the point of the show, a pair of pink-haired children attempted to enter the arena, crawling over the barrier—Adonis had to act quickly. It was a well-practiced and easy task to evade the slimes on her own, but a different tactic would be needed to protect the children and keep the audience from worrying.
Rather than teleporting away from the wobbling slimes, Adonis teleported toward the children, and swiftly manifested a gust of wind to take them atop the structure of the arena and away from the slimes. Then, she was able to complete that part of her show without issue. Martyn would handle the interruption with equally flying colors, changing his role as the villainous Azulmagia to be a sillier character who threatened to eat Ishgard's children. Thanks to the impulsive behavior of the pair of children, Adonis was able to appear more like a true hero, rather than simply putting on an entertaining show.
When Adonis attempted to reunite the children—Caius and Ambrose—with their parents, they revealed themselves to be twin orphans who were gifted their tickets to the show. Remembering how Anya was treated when avoiding the orphanage, Adonis felt a burning desire to figure out a house and home for these two children too, before she left Ishgard with the Carnivale.
Immediately, Martyn insisted that they couldn't come with, striking down Adonis's unspoken plan. But she assumed it to be for the best—she couldn't simply take every orphan from Ishgard and relocate them outside of the city they'd known their whole lives. Would she remain in Ishgard herself and take in the children? For all the nostalgia she held, she knew it would be impossible to abandon her dreams of traveling and her promise to help Martyn.
Adonis spent much time with Caius and Ambrose for the whole month that the Masked Carnivale was visiting Ishgard. She reconnected with Gaelle and Fabien, and the children they had in her absence; with some convincing, she made an attempt to reconnect the same with the Forsemarts and their children. Though meeting with the Forsemarts was far more awkward than it had ever been before, a valuable piece of information had been discovered: they had officially adopted Ambrose just that week, and wished to do the same with Caius.
It was not as though Adonis thought the Forsemarts were a bad family. They had done much for her, and would have done more if she had not squandered the opportunities they gave her, she felt. But for a rich family that already had so many children, to now want two more? All she could do was trust her instincts, however distrustful it made her seem.
Caius, too, expressed a distrust toward the people that "took their twin" from them. With this, Adonis knew that she had to take Caius with her, and hopefully retrieve Ambrose when she was able to return to Ishgard. This had to be the best course of action.
But on the night that she and the Masked Carnivale were to leave the city, Caius in tow, Adonis was confronted by Bourrache Forsemart. The distrust proved to be mutual—neither of them believed the other to be good for these children. However, Adonis was vindicated by this encounter: as their confrontation grew more and more heated, it was Bourrache who turned it physical. Electricity flew through Adonis's eye and into her body, inadvertently reaching Caius from where they clung onto her.
Adonis later woke flanked by Martyn and the Masked Carnivale's healer. She would claim to not remember exactly what had happened beyond arguing with Bourrache, despite the vivid memory of the Ishgardian stone and the low view she had of the man. Martyn would tell her how the whole of Ishgard heard the rumor of how she accidentally killed Caius while fighting with a nobleman.
Decades later, Adonis remained as the Masked Carnivale's main act, her false reputation not spreading too far beyond the walls of Ishgard, and held back even further when the city closed its gates. Though the Masked Carnivale eventually decided to remain firmly planted in the city of Ul'dah, Adonis continued to travel even beyond Eorzea, making a name for herself as a sociable, affable, and considerate person. She dedicates herself not only to learning about the places she goes, but assisting its people with their plights.
Eventually, Adonis becomes a close friend with the Circle of Knowing and the Path of the Twelve; following the Seventh Umbral Calamity, she remains an ally to the Scions of the Seventh Dawn.
