Aranea Highwind

Commodore of Niflheim's Third Army Corps' 87th Airborne Division. Born and raised in the western continent, she first proved her prowess in the field as a mercenary. She excelled in combat, putting her impressive athletic abilities and spatial awareness to good use. Yet Aranea was unsatisfied with her de facto superiority: she desired a greater challenge. She then turned her gaze to the skies—and the rest is history. With her trusty magitek lance in hand, she leaps into the air, soaring to and fro with the aid of an inertia-controlling deice built into her armor. This incredible midair mobility has earned her the moniker "the Dragoon," and she has become something of a legend across Eos.

Aranea has long held doubts about the empire's devotion to its daemonic research. It is only when the imperial army's failed assault on Altissia leads to countless civilian casualties that she decides to officially cut her ties. Now, she has turned against her former employer, hunting down the daemons and magitek troopers they created while saving innocents from harm.

stoss spear

She finds Prompto camping out in the wilderness and joins him. Aranea urges him to return to his friends, but Prompto hesitates because he has learned that he is a clone born in an imperial magitek facility, destined to be made into a magitek trooper. He only escaped that fate by being kidnapped by Lucis and raised in the Crown City. Aranea insists that his origins don't matter and Prompto himself must decide what he wants out of life.

The next day, they infiltrate another magitek facility to destroy Verstael's newest magitek creations. They defeat Unit SAS-0822: Barbarus together and Aranea rides the snowmobile as Unit XDA-1002: Immortalis chases after them, with Prompto downing it with a backseat-mounted machine gun. At the end of their adventure, Prompto declares that he is heading to Gralea to meet up with Noctis and the others to tell them the truth about himself. Aranea watches him ride the snowmobile into the distance, smiling.

Aranea dedicates her life to helping the populace against daemons that run rampant as daylight disappears from the world. She posts herself to areas ravaged by daemons and war and travels to Lestallum, mankind's last outpost. She stands beside the former Lucian marshal, Cor Leonis, and all who stand up for mankind's survival. She helps a member of the Kingsglaive take down two Niduses that spawn outside Lestallum. In the decade following, Aranea makes a name for herself by hunting daemons and saving people in danger.

When Noctis returns to bring light back to the world, Talcott tells him that Aranea was once feared far and wide as a warrior dragoon, but is now revered by the people of Lucis. Along with Biggs and Wedge, she leads her own army.

Aranea declares her resignation to Ardyn in person, decides to make it her mission to get the refugees to safety, and commands her unit to protect Tenebrae. She unexpectedly runs into Brigadier General Loqi Tummelt under special orders from the late emperor to transport an eight-year-old girl and she takes her under her wing. What is left of Aranea's Airborne Unit 87 downs the transport ship carrying the Diamond Weapon and she destroys the monstrosity by taking out its magitek cores. They take the refugees to Tenebrae by train and Aranea learns that the girl now in her care is the late emperor's secret granddaughter, Solara Aldercapt Antiquum, though he officially had no successor, having planned to transcend mortality and become an eternal sovereign. While in Tenebrae helping the displaced citizens in a relief effort, she meets Noctis, Gladiolus, and now-blind Ignis. She explains that she had nothing to do with the empire's attack on Fenestala Manor and that she and the soldiers under her command have left the empire. Aranea lends her aid to Noctis once more by arranging for Biggs and Wedge to take the party to the imperial capital of Gralea. She notes that one of Noctis' friends, Prompto, is missing from his party.

During the events of Episode Prompto, Aranea infiltrates the First Magitek Production Facility in a remote arctic region to find the truth behind Verstael Besithia's magitek project. She fights the monsters in the facility, busting through the main room, and is surprised to find Prompto. She has read the notes and blueprints around the facility, realizing what Verstael is planning. She gets Prompto to his feet and gives him a snowmobile to escape the facility.

Aranea stands before Emperor Aldercapt in the aftermath of Insomnia's invasion, with the emperor imploring them to kill Prince Noctis and capture Lady Lunafreya. Aranea attacks Noctis when his party infiltrates an imperial base, but leaves upon defeat, claiming that she doesn't get paid after a certain time.

When Noctis is looking for mythril in Vesperpool, he gets help from the chancellor of Niflheim, Ardyn Izunia, who has Aranea join Noctis' party as they raid a temple to "train them under cover". Aranea is suspicious of the empire's recent activities and reveals that the empire is harvesting "specimens" to make into daemons for warfare, such as the magitek troopers. She disagrees with this practice and is considering leaving the army and returning to mercenary life. She does not approve of the emperor and the new high commander and especially detests Ardyn.

In the Steyliff Grove, they fight through legions of daemons and defeat the temple guardian, Quetzalcoatl, and retrieve the ore that it protected. Afterwards, she promises to train the party more if their paths cross again and gives them a ride to the industrial town of Lestallum on her personal aircraft. Aranea continues to patrol Lucis at night, sometimes swooping down to aid Noctis and party fighting daemons or hunting marks in the dark. Prompto becomes smitten with her and wonders if she has a boyfriend.

After the empire's attack on Altissia results in countless civilian casualties, Aranea cuts her ties and starts working against them. As depicted in Final Fantasy XV -The Dawn of the Future-, she had helped with recovery and clean-up in Altissia, but the empire's poor treatment of its human troops frustrates her. Upon returning to Gralea, Aranea finds it under attack by Diamond Weapon. While Biggs and Wedge evacuate the citizens, she continues alone and discovers that the emperor has died and that Ardyn had unleashed the Weapon upon the city and is now having it transported to Tenebrae.

As told in Final Fantasy XV -The Dawn of the Future-, when Aranea had been a child, her village had been attacked by daemons and she and the other children had been sheltered in the local church while the adults went out to fight. Aranea had wanted to join the adults, feeling that if she got separated from her parents now, she would never see them again, but had been told that she was too young and that she should stay back and look after the other children.[5]

Aranea worked as a mercenary hired by Niflheim due to her unique fighting abilities. She is the commodore of Niflheim's Third Army Corps 87th Airborne Division and reports to the high commander.[6] Her service record in combating daemons and Astrals for the empire earned her the use of her own assault craft. Perhaps due to her distaste for the magitek infantry, her unit is composed only of humans.

Aranea has been described by her English voice actress, Kari Wahlgren, as "edgy" and "street smart",[4] though her loyalty at first remains ambiguous. Though she holds the rank of commodore, she prefers that people speak to her in a casual manner. She disagrees with immoral practices, such as the empire using daemons in their war efforts. Owing to her military background, she, in at least the English localization, speaks in a blunt manner.

As a free-spirited woman, she encourages Prince Noctis to not let anyone tell him how to walk his path in life. She displays a mischievous side when she flirts with him in battle. She claims to not like working after hours when she withdraws from her fight with Noctis. She is implied to be a strong leader, as her subordinates, Biggs and Wedge, follow her loyally no matter which side of the war she wants to support.

Aranea is skeptical of the empire and voices her distrust of the emperor, the new high commander, and the chancellor, mentioning that she "really can't stand that guy" on the latter. She eventually defects to save innocent people and hunt daemons rather than harvest them for the empire as she had been doing before. In Episode Prompto, she alone sets out to defeat the empire's newest magitek monster and to look for Noctis' friend. Though she is hard on Prompto and threatens to abandon him if he doesn't keep up with her, it is implied that she is doing it to snap him out of his indecisive state. She encourages him to decide his path in life and is pleased when he takes initiative to return to his friends.

Final Fantasy XV: Comrades describes her as never the one to obsess over birthright and rank, having a pragmatic and forward-thinking attitude, a no-nonsense approach, and a confident demeanor. According to her profile in The Alchemist Code Aranea-Highwind-The-Alchemist-Code-FFXV , Aranea becomes embarrassed if "treated like a lady"

Aranea has fair skin, green eyes, and shoulder-length, silver-blond hair. She wears a suit of armor dubbed the "Dragon Mail"; it is red and black leather armor that has a "scaly" appearance to allude to dragons. Her long white cape with a red symbol also somewhat mimics the appearance of a dragon's wings. She wears a black helmet and wields the Stoss Spear, described as "beyond the handling of all others.". She wears red-brown boots with unique high heels. Aranea's bestiary entry records her weight as ???.

During Episode Prompto, she wears a "Women's Snowsuit" due to the cold area surrounding the First Magitek Production Facility. She wears leather trousers and a long fur-lined black coat and a muted red scarf with matching fingerless gloves. She has no headwear with her snowsuit and wears long heeled boots. The zipper of her jacket has a large round accessory with a red gem. In Dawn of the Future, some artwork depicts Aranea wearing black leather trousers and a white officer's coat with imperial emblems. She also sports a new magitek weapon that can open up to shoot electricity. She now wears a side ponytail and wears fingerless black gloves.

She's a 30 year old 5'5 human women