Niarra

Pre-Guardian

Niarra grew up as an Awoken in the Reef with her family. When some of the citizens decided to leave to go help Earth with the aftermath of the Collapse, Nia’s two sisters went with them. She wanted to go too, but they convinced her to stay and take care of the rest of the family. Time passed and Nia eventually couldn’t take the worry anymore and found a way to leave the Reef to find them.

She headed to Earth in search of them with only the last message she’d received to go by. It took her a long while, but she got a lead on their last known whereabouts. Her search took her near the Cosmodrome in Old Russia. When she arrived, all she found was a graveyard of debris and rusted vehicles.

Before she could get back to her ship, a group of Fallen found her during her search. She was able to fight one off before making her retreat, but as she approached her ship she tripped on something and fell. The Fallen Captain caught up to her and shot her in the back before she could get up, killing her.

Early Guardian Years

Nia’s first memories as a Guardian consisted of waking up to a Ghost floating over her. She was scared of him at first, but soon realized that he was friendly. He explained that she had been dead for possibly hundreds of years and that he was her new companion. Seeing her trip over things for a few minutes made him concerned that it would be difficult for her to defend herself before getting to the Last City. But he was pleasantly surprised to see that she was more than capable.

Many things happened to Nia upon becoming a Guardian. She was eager to fight any foe that threatened the City and made many friends among the Vanguard. Eventually, the Red War started and the Last City was taken over. It was difficult to be without the Light, but Ghost encouraged her not to give up and they eventually got their Light back and defeated Ghaul.

Nia’s journey didn’t end there. She ventured to many places and stopped many foes. It got to the point that she felt everything was routine, but it didn’t last forever. What once was routine work for her became extremely personal when her friend and mentor Cayde-6 was murdered by Uldren Sov and his Scorn Barons. Her rage and grief fueled her to temporarily go rogue from the Vanguard and hunt Cayde’s killers despite Ghost’s objections. When her rampage was complete, she found that she didn’t feel better. Her demeanor became more reserved and less outgoing. Still, she tried to ignore her feelings and continue with her work. She and Ghost had a heart-to-heart conversation after everything that happened where he admitted what he had been feeling. Afterwards, she finally decided on a name for him. She called him Amor to represent the love she had for him.

Later, she was called upon to assist Eris Morn. They discovered the lunar pyramid and an abundance of Nightmares to defeat. Throughout her missions, Nia helped Eris overcome the Nightmares of her old fireteam. By the time her work on the Moon was complete, as well as her missions beyond that, The Black Fleet closed in on the Sol system. She returned to Earth and witnessed the Traveler as it healed itself from its damage from the Red War. However, something strange happened within the strong burst of Light let out by the Traveler. Nia felt dizzy and fell unconscious. She woke up to Commander Zavala, Ikora, and Amor leaning over her, but she didn’t recognize any of them. Somehow, her memory had been completely wiped. Investigations couldn’t find how or why it happened or why she was seemingly the only one affected. Theories popped up that it may have had to do with one of her previous missions, but no one knew for sure. Ultimately, they decided to re-educate her on everything she needed to know so she could continue her work.

Post-Memory Loss | Beyond Light

The weeks following Nia’s memory loss were difficult. Ikora did a wonderful job getting her up to speed on everything and helping her get used to her Light again, but she still felt out of place. She didn’t feel as confident as she thought she should be and worried that she wouldn’t be as great a Guardian as everyone said she was. Still, she put on a confident face and tried to keep up with the expectations of the Vanguard.

Nia’s first mission upon being a reintegrated Guardian was to investigate the pyramid activity on Europa. While there, she and Amor got a distress transmission from the Eliksni named Variks. She went to help and discovered information about the House of Salvation wanting to use the Darkness. The Exo Stranger, Elsie Bray encouraged her to learn Stasis, a Darkness power. At first, she was nervous to commune with the Darkness. But despite Commander Zavala's warnings, she pursued it anyway. Nia felt that the best way to defend herself against it was to learn how to use it. Along with her allies, she managed to learn how to wield Stasis and defeat Eramis and her followers.

Soon afterward, she was called upon to meet Osiris on the Moon to help him deal with the Wrathborn. During this time, she met Crow, who was Uldren Sov now reborn into a Guardian. Although she didn’t remember him personally, Nia knew who he used to be. She was cautious around him at first and wasn’t sure what to expect from him even though he didn’t remember his past life. Throughout their work together, they got to know each other a little and began to form a bond of friendship. At the end of their mission, she asked the Spider for Crow’s freedom as payment for her services.

Throughout the rest of the year, Nia helped out in forming an alliance with Empress Caiatl and the Cabal by serving as Zavala’s champion in multiple Rights of Proving. She also assisted in stopping the Endless Night and rescuing lost Techeuns for Queen Mara so that they could perform a ritual to extract Savathûn’s worm and get Osiris back from her.

Witch Queen

Savathûn returned and Ikora sent Nia to her ship to figure out what she was planning. She ended up in Savathûn’s Throne World and found that she had the Light and that there were Hive Guardians. With the help of the Hive Ghost, Fynch, they were able to stop her plan to capture the Traveler. Although they were able to kill the Witch Queen, her Ghost managed to escape. During her missions to stop Savathûn, Nia also assisted with the Coalition between the Vanguard and the Cabal and defeated Rhulk, Disciple of the Witness.

When Calus’s Leviathan ship showed up by the Moon, Nia was sent to investigate. She participated in the binding ritual with Eris, Commander Zavala, and Crow to bind Nightmares to the Crown of Sorrow. The following weeks, she assisted in Crow and Zavala’s severance rituals. The others didn’t think Nia had her own Nightmare at first, but later learned that she had kept it a secret so that she could help her friends through their battles. It took the appearance of herself, or an idealized version of herself, as the “perfect and successful” Guardian she thought she couldn’t live up to. It brought up her failures in not completely killing Eramis or Savathûn. It told her that she was a traitor and a disappointment to Zavala for using Stasis. The rest of the team realized what was happening when Nia had a breakdown on the Leviathan. The others helped her through her own severance ritual before she could continue on to help Empress Caiatl and face Calus in their final attempt to stop him from merging with the Lunar Pyramid.

Soon afterward, Eramis broke free from her Stasis prison by the Witness and was tasked to acquire the Relics of Nezarec. With the help of Mithrax, Eido, The Drifter, and The Spider, she led as Captain to conquer Eliksni pirate ships and get the Relics before Eramis did. The relics were then used to make a tea that was able to get Osiris out of his coma.

She then worked with Osiris and Ana Bray to reconstruct Rasputin using subminds gathered from bunkers in various locations. They succeeded in bringing him back, but as Xivu Arath and the Witness’s forces were trying to use the warsats to destroy the Traveler, he concluded that the only way to stop them was to destroy himself. After fighting through enemies and completing her mission on the Seraph Station, Nia watched in horror as the Traveler rose up from the sky of Earth and into orbit.

Lightfall

Once the Black Fleet arrived and the fighting broke out, Nia found herself having to go after Osiris when he followed the Shadow Legion ships to Neptune. In the short amount of time they had, they discovered so much: a city, the Cloud Striders, and a new Darkness power among other things. It was overwhelming, but she focused on her task to protect the strange object known as the Veil from the Shadow Legion. While she managed to wield Strand with the guidance of Osiris and ultimately defeat Calus, Amor was taken over by the Witness at the last minute. Empress Caiatl ordered her to shoot him. On impulse, she brought up her weapon and aimed, but when she realized what she was doing she instead ran for him and attempted to use her Strand powers to catch him instead. But, she was too late. The Witness made the connection to the Veil and the Traveler was lost.

Nia was grateful that Amor was safe afterward, but couldn’t help but blame herself for failing. She didn’t have much time to process her feelings, though, because Earth needed her again. The Shadow Legion were taking prisoners and together with Queen Mara, Mithrax, Crow, and Devrim, she rescued Amanda Holliday and other human prisoners. Nia’s work took her between Earth and Neptune so much that she barely had time for anything else. The pressure and stress started getting to her. But she didn’t hit her breaking point until Amanda’s death. She was holding in her emotions again until one night where Crow confronted her. They had a short argument before she opened up and he helped her. A few weeks later, the team boarded the lead Shadow Legion ship and stopped them once and for all.

By the time Titan returned, Nia and Crow had a discussion about their feelings for each other and decided to start a relationship. The Vanguard found Sloane and helped her protect the proto-worm, Ahsa, from being taken or killed by Xivu Arath. When she was safe, Nia helped Eris take the fight to Xivu herself and have Eris become powerful enough to transform into the Hive God of Vengeance and stop her.

With Xivu Arath taken care of for the time being, Nia discovered the clue they needed for Savathun’s final wish from Riven by a pattern on her wings. She shared her findings and they set off to temporarily bring Riven’s spirit back so she could grant the wish and give them a way to follow the Witness. Riven wanted them to gather her remaining eggs and protect them from harm before she helped them. As they did so, it was discovered that only one person could go through the portal to make the connection they needed. Nia was prepared to do it herself, but Crow volunteered instead as he had a connection with Queen Mara that they could use to track his whereabouts. Nia tried to argue against it, but ultimately couldn’t deny that it was their best option. While Crow was gone to form the connection, the rest of the Coalition worked to fight back the Witness’s remaining forces and clear the path for their arrival to fight the final battle.