Ara

Ara is an Ego in Ego Breakers. She is bound to the Protagonist.

This page contains MAJOR SPOILERS for every Ego Breakers route. Viewer discretion is advised!

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Origin story

Ara's life began when many more ended: the origin of her existence can indeed be traced to the Bloodbath, at Alma's last breath.

As she lay dying, a blade meant for Ego lodged in her bosom, Alma's gaze met his, and with a smile she passed in his arms. 

The air about him was already crackling, ready to conjure a rift that would wipe such a rotten world from existence, when he noticed movement from the body that was supposed to lay limp in his grasp.

Dumbfounded, Ego found himself witnessing a miracle.

Her head rose, as if from a deep sleep, and looked about with a mightily confused expression on her face: confusion that then turned into abject terror when she noticed the blade sticking out of her chest.

Her gaze met Ego's and he understood: she was not the Alma he knew. With a newfound surge of panic he felt her life slipping: he would have lost her, whoever she was, once again.

"Who are you, child?" he asked of the face of his old friend.

"Ara." she sputtered.

"Help."

And thus, Ara was in pain no more. Her corpse, now nearly immaterial, began to slip from Ego's grasp.

He let it fall to Naluund below, a newfound glimmer in his gaze. And as the glaciers of Mor'Gul creaked under the impact of her divine corpse, Ara's fleeting first life began to set in motion terrible happenings; for the only thing scarier than a mad god is an hopeful one.

Character profile

Ara is a wholly unique creature, a quasi-omnipotent goddess born of the perception of the Strongholds themselves: although she has no real lineage, she can be traced back to Alma, whose corpse served as a template to give her substance within the Material World; as such, it could be argued that Faust is a descendant of hers.

Her body in life was most comparable to that of an Empyrean, possessing traits like their enhanced physical qualities, innate propensity to most facets of Oniric Magic and most importantly their Imperfect Resurrection. It has to be noted, however, that Ara's enhanced physique seemed to be heavily skewed towards resilience and healing, and her strength and speed, while superior to what one would expect from her appearance, were at best above average and in no way dwarfed those of a mortal.

In life

Early Undeath

As discussed in her Origin Story, Ara was not born, but rather came to be due to influences across time. Her existence was, in fact, brought forward by the Obsidian Strongholds themselves. Unbeknownst to themselves, their actions within the First Naluund brought Ara into existence, overlapping her consciousness with Alva's and partially overwriting her at the moment of her death.

Despite being a god, having been born with a knife through her heart Ara's first life came swiftly to a close, and she plummeted down from the heavens, landing on top of Cronodia's corpse, a place that would become known as the Mor'Ghul Chain, separating the land of Obsydia from the rest of Naluund.

Owning to the Empyrean heritage of her body, given mettle from Aamon due to Alva's importance to him, she eventually raised and began to wander the land, lost and without a mind to call her own. It is unknown when she awoke exactly, and thus for how many years she wandered the frigid peaks, but eventually she was found and captured by the Western Yeti tribe. Finding her regeneration and lack of food and water amusing, they tied the still mindless Ara to a rock and proceeded to test their strength and weapons upon her, delighting in their screams of pain.

This went on for an undisclosed amount of years, until, after much toil, the yeti El-Ur managed to secure the throne (view The Horde's page for more in-depth information about him and his faction).

Where his fellows saw a bizarre, screaming toy for children, El-Ur recognized a golden opportunity; a bargaining chip that, if used properly, could guarantee the Horde's survival forevermore.

By this time the Empire's conquering war of the rest of Naluund was all but over; the Obsidians were proving an extraordinarily hardy bunch, but anyone could see that, past their initial wave of successes, the alliance of the Naluundian factions was just too much to handle for the Obsydian empire.

It was at this time that El-Ur sent for a representative of the Obsidyan army... One that was none too pleased with the Emperor himself, he was sure to specify.

When Koreya Fauner flew in on his wyvern Shina some months later El-Ur knew he had struck gold; there was barely any need to tug on the heartstrings of the young general. An alliance, with conveniently uncertain terms, was secured for the price of a blank Empyrean, ready to be molded into an unbeatable champion... Or whatever else the man desired.

When Koreya and Ara met she had the physical age of a child of about thirteen, and once he managed to break her out of her stupor she showed a disposition fitting for that age; and without even noticing, Koreya Fauner became the father to Arapina Fauner.

Arapina Fauner

Shina was not a fan of the addition, and flat-out refused to fly back home with Ara on her back; this forced the reluctant general to walk back home with his companions, as the wyvern also stubbornly refused to leave him alone with the child... Or rather, leave the child alone with him.

Throughout the month-long trek Ara passed the time playing and chatting with Koreya and being flung away by Shina, who had in the meantime realized she didn't really have to hold back against her.

He taught her how the world at large worked, of the nations they could one day visit together and of the family they could join once the war was over; although on this point he was less talkative, as if he regretted ever bringing it up to her. She managed to pry a few names: Geol and Dominique, some kind of siblings of his (whatever that meant), and Serine, the daughter of the former who was supposed to be around her age by now. When she talked about all the stuff they could do together the man wore a cold smile Ara didn't really know how to take.

The trip, in Ara's mind, was the best thing that had happened to her; able to run around on the ashen grass of Obsidya as much as she wanted and endlessly curious about her surroundings, she was blissfully unaware of the significance of her existence.

They eventually reached Obsidya's bleeding heart, a place more revered than even the castle at Obsidya's End: the Obsidian Stronghold, the true symbol of Obsydian might.

When Ara saw it she though it ugly and misshapen, and she wasn't really wrong; the whole building looked from afar like a badly drawn cube, covered in ugly plaques of volcanic rock, and getting near it only highlighted how utterly utilitarian it was, with absolutely no regard for decor whatsoever.

Koreya announced his name and the drawbridge slowly started to lower; she noticed a lean boy with white puffy hair staring at her from the top of the structure, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly agape. Excited about meeting even more new people she started waving furiously at him, the biggest smile she could muster plastered on her face; his arm started to rise, but after a quick glance to her left the boy fell back and scampered away. As Koreya was the only one beside her she couldn't imagine what could have spooked him so, so she resolved to look for him as soon as they had settled in and her dad was done with all the grown-up stuff he kept alluding to.

Life at the Stronghold was a complicated network of formalities and etiquette, most of which Ara adapted to but didn't really understand; she understood she had to do it for Koreya, and that was enough for her to learn enough to not embarass him and herself. Whenever she could sneak away, however, she would hunt for that fair-haired boy that had spotted her. 

As she learnt more and more about the details of the world, she figured out he was a part of the Stronghold's armed forces, and due to his young age he couldn't have been much more decorated than a foot soldier. When she went around asking for him, however, she was always met with chuckles and "he just left"s, and the occasional streak of white bolting it out of there.

This went on for a couple of months: then one evening Koreya came back to their rooms a little grumpier than usual. He cryptically told her to "be good and be careful" and then took an early leave; for some reason, the next day she found the boy awkwardly sat near her favourite spot in the internal courtyard, his every muscle tensed like the string of a violin.

He clumsily introduced himself as "Sirius, just Sirius", and at first he seemed very on edge; but as the two spoke he seemed to forget himself, and the two became fast friends. He was, as she had guessed, a foot soldier stationed at the Stronghold due to his young age: his parents had apparently been killed in one of the first Empire's skirmishes, and a soldier had found him and elected to take him in and raise him as one of his own. Ara, for her own, dutifully recounted the version of her life Koreya had drilled into her since they had first met, which was much the same as the what the boy was telling him: as she spoke, his eyes lit up with an renewed flame of an emotion yet unknown to Ara.

That evening Koreya spoke with her with an urgency and pathos she had never seen before, especially not behind such mundane questions. She answered honestly, but felt that something was amiss within him. When she asked him what it was he finally popped, and with a slight sigh he chocked out a "he's... fine".

After that she would sometimes spot the white boy and Koreya sparring in the courtyard: she would join them frequently, but just as often she would just hide somewhere and watch them fight.

For some reason, watching their grimaces turn into smiles fight after fight made her very happy indeed.

The Child of Ink

Years passed, as they often do.

The two kids had grown into two teenagers, and thanks to his prowess on some defensive operations and some heavy string pulling and puppy eyes, Sirius was placed as Ara's personal guard. During this time the boy had sensed something was very special about his Ara, but aside from an uncanny resilience to sickness and bodily afflictions (he had seen her scarf down clearly rotten food on several occasions and be none the worse for it) he was still none the wiser to her true nature.

That was, of course, true until the day that would come to be remembered as the Glorious Usurpation.

For all the two knew, this was supposed to be just yet another visit from the emperor; uncommon, especially since the front lines were pushed all the way into Obsidyan soil, but not unheard of.

In death

Ego abilities