Eva Nihil

Eva Nihil is an elf and a bard, the third daughter of the wandering Nihil clan, an elven troupe renowned for preserving an especially large repertoire of songs. Only sixteen and near the start of her career when she first appears, she broke away from her nomadic family (who pressured her to marry into another clan) to make her name as a bard in the capital, Centrale. Novem discovers her there and recruits her, and Eva eagerly attaches herself to Lyle Walt, a supporting member of his growing party, declaring that she wants to witness the deeds of a 'future hero' up close and pass his heroic saga down through generations.

Boastful, dramatic, and irrepressibly talkative, Eva often refers to herself in the third person and cannot resist a good rumor or piece of gossip. Tall and beautiful with pink-gold hair and pointed ears, she is confident and unashamed of her body, treats war itself as a bard's livelihood, and constantly bickers with the meticulous chronicler Clara, whose dry factual records clash with Eva's flair for embellishing a story. She is easily worn out by long marches, hates paperwork, and is famously useless around water and heights. As an elf she is treated as a 'half-human' and faces discrimination, joining events like the noble banquets only because Lyle insists on including her.

In combat Eva is a skilled archer, wielding a small but powerful short bow with exploding arrows and switching to a short sword at close range; she has the sharpest eyesight in the party and can sense approaching enemies. Her bardic Skills are just as valuable: 'Background Music', which lets her produce music with no instruments, and the near-brainwashing 'All-Mind Language' that delivers her voice perfectly to any listener, later used to broadcast Lyle's speeches to hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Off the battlefield she is a superb information-gatherer, using her network of fellow elves to extract intelligence from any town, and she recruits and leads elven allies, including forest-dwelling dark elves who eventually crown her their singer.

Over the story Eva grows from a hired bard into a core member of Lyle's company and one of his romantic partners (their bond sealed with a kiss during the campaigns), taking her place among the group of women who stand beside him. She spreads rumors and songs to shape the political tide in Baim, leads elf detachments through forests and enemy camps, and provides support fire and Skill-backed morale during the great battles against Celes and the wider war, all while faithfully recording Lyle's legend into song.