Before coming to Eorzea, she was set to become a working girl in a Doman brothel - destined to live a likely short and shameful life under Imperial rule there. Her salvation came as a Hyuran merchant named Harrowden stumbled into the brothel. Eager to please such a wealthy-looking customer, the headmistress decided to give him a choice of any girl that night. The young Auri girl caught his eye...
And that sight made him angry.
He caused a scene, prompting a fight between himself and the other customers. Once he had stirred up enough troubled and turned the other patrons against each other, he took the Auri girl into the night with him. They spent several days and nights on the run from Imperials, before finally managing to smuggle themselves away.
Upon their arrival in Eorzea, he adopted the girl as his daughter and she thus became Hakori Harrowden. Harrowden affectionately called Hakori his 'little Castle' and always emphasized that there was no one who'd govern her fate other than herself; that she was the Castellan of her own castle. The latent Echo in the girl made this morsel of nonsense make perfect sense.
One day, Harrowden fell deathly ill. In search of a cure and the power to protect the person who protected her all those years, Hakori set off towards Gridania.