Arietis' is best defined by her refusal to think. No, even that's too much. It doesn't even occur to her to refuse to think. She just doesn't! Arietis acts almost entirely on pure ego, pure instinct, the absolute epitome of "fuck it, we ball". She has an incredibly amount of trust in herself: surely her gut is right, and if it's not then she believes she'll be more than capable of fixing whatever mistake she just made! She has a hard time wrapping her empty head around the concept of being anxious, of deliberating, of worrying. All it does is stress you out! Maybe a little strategizing is fair, but why waste precious time putting yourself through mental agony? Arietis just makes decisions and chooses to live with them, and encourages others to do the same. Hell, if she sees someone thinking too hard she'll tend to just make a decision for them! She's helping!

Arietis' other defining trait is her competitive nature. Arietis lives to test herself and test others, aspiring to find her limits and encourage the development of others. She has a habit of disguising herself as a mortal and entering various forms of tournaments throughout Siderea, and while her favorites are combat-related and athletic in nature, she's hardly picky. Cooking, music, art, beauty: if she has the opportunity to compare her skills to someone else's, she's in! This has led to her cultivating all manner of talents, many of which people tend to find surprising given her nature and reputation as a war god. Flower-arranging, writing poetry, knitting... just because she's loud and boisterous doesn't mean she can't appreciate quieter talents!

Despite her intense need to compete with people, Arietis is an incredibly graceful loser. In fact, Arietis actively desires to lose, in an eternal search to find worthy rivals and training partners. She's had so much time to hone her skills over her immortal lifespan that it's getting harder and harder to find anyone who can make her exert effort; her ultimate goal in life is to accrue a healthy band of rivals who can handle her at her full strength, find someone who can both give her a fight to remember and survive to do it again. And again. And again. She gets excited!!

Of course, Arietis understands the gulf of power that exists between her and virtually all of Siderea. She's willing to hold herself back for the sake of a fair - and fun - fight, and it's part of the reason she's increasingly picked up interests unrelated to athletics and magic. Things in the creative realm more often than not are subjective; while she can have a greater knowledge base than others, it's just not possible for her to be too overpowered at writing, drawing, music, fashion, etc.; what styles, techniques, and genres are "better" aren't clear cut and means that it's easy to fail even if she tries her best. It helps that Arietis prefers to remain true to herself in all things; sometimes she has an idea of what judges or the greater populace would prefer and could make sure she made a "superior" product, but she'd much rather make her product and simply see how others feel about it.

Whenever she'd bested or just sees a spark in someone, Arietis gets overexcited and often overbearing, entirely too eager to try and convince total strangers to become her sworn rival, her blood brother, her ultimate friend and foe!!! Then she gets kinda confused when they think she's annoying or frightening. The brains of others are a complete and utter mystery to Arietis, and it's best to be extremely blunt with her if you want anything you say to survive the void in her skull. Though her reckless behavior makes people intimidated to do so, Arietis won't take offense to pretty much anything. Either she'll take it as constructive criticism to work with, or, at worst... best? Best. Fighting words! Put 'em up!

Though she is a god of might and power, Arietis isn't as callous or ignorant as people tend to assume of her. People have a lot of wrong assumptions about her, really! There's the matter of her intelligence, for one; empty as her head might be, Arietis is well-learned and alarmingly crafty, making her formidable to face in just about any arena. Furthermore Arietis is very conscious of her mistakes and does feel guilt when her actions cause consequences. She feels bad when she drives people away, unwittingly makes people feel inadequate, or beats some hapless mortal at something they could have won if she hadn't been there. It's just that Arietis doesn't have anything in her that makes her dwell on things longer than it takes to apologize or otherwise figure out how to make things right, and if she can't fix something at all then she makes peace with it and swears to be better. She is an optimist to her very core, and perhaps at times that's foolish, but Arietis would rather be a fool than afraid. The absolutely unbreakable nature of her will is something to be admired.

Something else that might come as a surprise to mortals is that Arietis has a particularly glaring weakness: cute, innocent girls. She has two types when it comes to romance: her sworn rivals and sweethearts who wouldn't hurt a fly. In the former case her behavior and passion is about what you'd expect from someone like Arietis, but with the latter she just completely falls over herself. When she takes up mortal guise and hangs out in some obscure village somewhere or another, it's inevitable that she'll meet some humble farm girl and babble incoherently at her warm smile. Whatever she was doing before, Arietis will tend to drop it in order to figure out how best to impress her new crush, steaming like a clam in the event she succeeds and gets... a little peck on the cheek, perhaps...? Haha just kidding... UNLESS......?!?!

Likes

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Edibles		Roast chicken, paella, spicy foods, appetizers, burgers (especially with entirely too many patties), pop rocks, salads, hot chocolate, apples, chili, anything on a stick, anything novel, anything you kinda have to wrestle with before eating it, and anything that offers her a high degree of customization.
Weather		Arietis likes all of it! All forms of weather create ideal training weather for something or another! "Bad weather" is just a challenge!
Activities		Competing, fighting (especially in competitions), training (especially for competitions), learning new skills (especially for competitions), traveling (especially to get to competitions), okay you get the gimmick but she likes things in general too! Cooking, baking, sewing, crafting, smithing, building, drawing, fixing things, dyeing things, the list goes on pretty much indefinitely!
Colors		Red: the color of passion! She also likes white, though; it's a nice, clean canvas to create on!
Misc.		Competitions (whoa no way!!!), cute girls, fireworks, geometric patterns, accessories, cool weapons, fire, handmade gifts, hotels and inns, prima materia, dresses that aren't too restricting, braids, cool rocks, dragons, stories of heroism, sheep, animals in general, insects, the outdoors, brass instruments.

Dislikes

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Edibles		Tomodachi Life says her worst is mangos but I don't believe this. They have Arietis energy. Her worst ever is birthday cake but I think that's more valid bc she can't decide what she should wish for. Otherwise... not much, really! If she eats something she doesn't end up liking, she'll find a way to tweak it!
Weather		Maybe it's a little annoying when it's really humid and she gets all frizzy...
Activities		Waiting, getting scolded, being sick, hurting people, anticlimaxes, getting told "no", scaring people off, mishearing things.
Competitors		Sore losers, cheaters (usually), people who are only in it for the prize, people who don't want to be there are all, plagiarizers, people who are all bark and no bite.
Misc.		Death, things that stick to her wool, cancellations, narrow doorways, people with no humility, people with too much humility, overly sterile and pristine places, sycophants.

Physical Characteristics

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Like all Arietians, Arietis has numerous sheep- and ram-like traits. She has typical sheep ears, large curled ram horns, a short tail, copious fluff (particularly on the legs), and hooves. Despite her extraordinary nature, her coloration of these bits are about as average as it gets: she has white wool, beige horns, and black hooves.

Arietis is by far and away the god who changes her appearance the most; in fact, it's rather uncommon for them to change up their "base" at all. Arietis sees herself as a constant work in progress, however, and what she thinks suits herself best tends to vary every century or so. Some things remain constant - white hair, red eyes, light skin, and the coloration of her Arietian parts - but everything else has a tendency to differ.

Her hair tends to change the most; Arietis enjoys experimenting with different lengths and styles, and perhaps dying parts of it - but never all! She's particularly fond of braids and will almost always have at least one somewhere in her hair, finding them fun to put together. The other, perhaps more notable thing that's fluid about her is her body type. Sometimes Arietis likes to make her hard work abundantly clear and lets her body look as absolutely fucking shredded as her training regimen would allow, creating a visage befitting of a god of smithing, athletics, and war. Other times, however, Arietis likes to don a more petite frame to better fit into the kinds of clothes she likes. Most commonly she's somewhere in the middle: small to average (usually somewhere in the 5'2"-5'4" range) with a deceptive amount of muscle beneath all those skirts and petticoats.

Something of note is that Arietis has a significantly-sized scar on her chest from when Asena obliterated her instantly, as a treat. This scar is made of prima materia: a substance that looks like the night sky and is the physical embodiment of the infinite Chaos that exists outside of Entirety's bounds. Arietis thinks it's sick as fuck, as she should, and is eager to show it off to anyone who asks. It's an obvious tell as to her identity, so she tries to resist when it comes to roleplaying as a mortal, but she's still been thrown out of more than one establishment for excitedly ripping off her shirt...

Given her rough-and-tumble lifestyle, at any given time Arietis will typically have an assortment of other scars, burns, bruises, and bandages. She could heal herself, sure, but she likes having physical proof of her exertion and just lets her body's natural healing do what it will.

Style

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Something that tends to surprise people about Arietis is that she has a considerable passion for fashion. She enjoys making clothes and trying out the creations of other people, which is an interest that's only been fostered by years of poking her head into fashion competitions. Arietis has a preference for bold colors - especially warm ones, and most of all red - geometric patterns, and anything with a high amount of craftmanship. She tends to dress warmly - her outfits often incorporating her own wool - partially because she tends to hang around in cooler areas but mostly because she finds warmer outfits cuter.

Arietis loves dresses and skirts, particularly shorter ones that allow for a lot of freedom of movement, typically wearing bike shorts of some sort underneath. She likes any form of head decoration, commonly rocking some form of headband or bandana and entwining ribbons in her obligatory braids. She less commonly decorates her horns, mostly sticking to hornlets and the like when she does.

Body Language

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Arietis, in a word, is over the top. Okay that's three words but whatever! Her every emotion is exceedingly obvious; she doesn't know how to hide her feelings, helped by the fact that she's never had any urge to try. If she's happy, she's got a wide grin. If she's angry, you can practically see flames spouting off of her. If she's upset, every part of her body droops. If she's excited, her tail wags fast enough to break the sound barrier. She's not very subtle!

Scent

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I think she's got kind of, like, an apple cinnamon thing going on, but with something kinda warmer and deeper in there. Like sweat but not in a bad way...? Cumin...?!

Voice

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Arietis tends to speak loudly, clearly, and with vocabulary that trends toward simple and at times crass. She speaks whatever comes to mind the second she thinks it and is usually very excited to do so. Very shonen protag energy. She uses contractions often, freely chopping off letters from anything and everything. She also happens to be an avid nicknamer, struggling to drop her names of choice even when the victims are annoyed by them.

Also sometimes I feel like maybe she has some kind of vaguely Scottish-adjacent accent. It just feels right. But then also, like, a pirate accent...?

For such a prominent and larger-than-life figure, Arietis had a fairly humble upbringing. She was born to a perfectly ordinary pair of parents, who were perhaps even a bit shy. They struggled a bit with Arietis' rambunctious behavior, but were ultimately a loving family that Arietis takes pride in to this day. Arietis busied herself trying to pick up a thousand hobbies, but struggled to ever latch on to everything, feeling discouraged when she didn't master things right away and overthinking everything she did.

One day, her parents gave her the advice to just take a deep breath and "clear her mind". Arietis, giving her all in everything, proceeded to do this so successfully that her skull instantly emptied itself, her brain replaced with raw prima materia: the nectar of the void, the physical manifestation of nothingness, the space between thoughts. Not only did this act free her from her frustrations and self-doubt, the nature of prima materia also meant that she had become a being of incomparable power.

...That's what legend says, anyway. As feasible as it is for such an event to have occurred for a character as absurd as Arietis, it also remains possible that she just got, like, her ADHD diagnosed and managed. But who knows?????????

Whatever the case may be, Arietis proceeded to live a remarkably successful life in a short period of time. Her parents were blacksmiths and Arietis was more than happy to take up the profession as well, but she branched out into many other pursuits as well. Needing to stay fed led her to develop an interest in cooking, needing to repair her clothes gave her an interest in sewing, wanting to test the quality of her own creations gave her an interest in battling, wanting more opportunities to battle gave her an interest in monster-hunting, so on and so forth. In monster-hunting she found particular success, her growing power combined with her enthusiasm and courage leaving her capable of felling threats even experienced hunters and mages struggled with.

One day, while somewhere in her 20s, Asena - one of Siderea's three Creators and the one who had created the Aries species - announced to the world that she would be hosting a series of trials called the Catasterismi. In order to permit the Creators to step back and let Siderea be reigned by those who were part of it, one person from each zodiac would be ascended into godhood, forming a balanced pantheon who would be granted immortality and power beyond measure. Arietis was immediately interested, less so because she wanted to be a god but moreso because she saw the Catasterismi as the competition of a lifetime. Furthermore, if she did become a god, then imagine who the other gods would be! Probably worthy sparring partners! And if she was that high up on the chain, surely the Creators would accept her summons for a friendly tussle, right...?!

Fortunately for Arietis, she wouldn't have to wait long. The Arietians had their associated month first on the calendar, so they were the first to receive their trial. As the Arietians had a strong culture of fighting and crafting, Asena saw fit to make their trial a challenge to create the most impressive weapon they could out of prima materia. Prima materia, while shockingly common on Siderea compared to everywhere else in Entirety, was still an incredibly rare substance that even Arietis had never had an opportunity to work with. Furthermore, it was well known to be incredibly dangerous. It was more or less Asena's blood, and Asena was the physical manifestation of Chaos; handling prima materia was handling raw potential, and that potential was so overwhelming that it easily corrupted anything it touched. This was in fact how most monsters came into being: animals and other entities that imbibed or otherwise interacted with prima materia would be tainted by its influence and warped into terrifying new forms that sought to consume anything around it in order to become "real".

Though Asena provided the prima materia herself and even promised to heal any resulting corruption so as not to create an epidemic, many were still hesitant to participate. Those who did take the risk struggled, having no idea how to handle a material so abstract. But Arietis? Well.

As it turned out, Arietis and prima materia were a match made in heaven. Though unclear to those within Entirety, on a meta level the nature of prima materia is more or less plot hole filler. If there is something the author has failed to think of rationale for, if there is some sort of mechanic they don't understand how to make scientifically valid, if there is some force even they don't understand, if there is some period of time deeply unplanned, if some paradox arises or plot hole manifests itself, prima materia fills in all of the gaps and allows their worlds to keep turning despite fatal logical flaws that should make their existences impossible. It is only when you look at those gaps too closely that one's works tend to fall apart, much like trying to read in a dream and slowly realizing it's all gibberish and you can't possibly be in reality. On its own prima materia is perfectly safe, stable, and a necessary part of existence; it is only when you question what it truly is and how it can do what it does that a need to be "solved" and become "real" manifests within it, causing it to latch on to whatever is perceiving it.

Arietis, however, does not think, and this renders her more or less immune to significant corruption. She simply trusts the process, trusts what she sees with her own eyes, trusts her instincts and what she imagines she can make. She didn't overthink how to deal with prima materia or attempt to figure out its properties, she just got to work and figured if something didn't work on it, she'd try something else. But her complete faith in her ability handily destroyed any chance of the prima materia worming in through doubt and confusion, and so Arietis' output was decidedly prolific. Her first creation was Vesta, Anvil of Dawn, because she thought that a prima materia anvil would be the sturdiest when it came to making prima materia weaponry. Next she made Mars, Hammer of Glory, because she thought that would be an even more effective tool. With prima materia being raw potential itself she simply figured that it would be capable of crafting anything with a single whack, and so it came to pass. This allowed her to easily craft more weapons, though upon finding this somewhat satisfying she pulled back to do things a bit more manually.

Arietis wondered what Asena would find most impressive, leading her to ultimately settle on a suite of 14 different weapons, magical focuses, and a shield - Mars included. Altogether she had forged Vesta, Mars, an axe, a spear, a shield, a pair of gauntlets, a scythe, a sword, a misericorde, a bow, a whip, an astrolabe, a scepter, a staff, and a trident, all with fancy names and titles and unique special abilities. She dubbed her collection the Astral Regalia and was quite proud of it, but for some reason felt unsatisfied. She'd worked hard and blew her competition out of the water - only a few scant people had managed to forge one thing out of prima materia, much less two or god forbid more - so why didn't she feel like she'd truly won once Asena chose her as the obvious winner? Could she truly accept godhood when there was this hole inside of her?

Just as Asena was about to cement her victory, Arietis stopped her, having realized what she truly needed to do to be happy. Use the weapons she created! Prove their worth! Let them experience the glory of combat! She immediately challenged Asena to a duel; if Arietis won, then she'd become a god as planned. If Asena won, then she could go ahead and pick someone stronger instead. Asena warned Arietis that no mortal could hope to compete with someone of her power, but this only served to stoke the fire. Arietis demanded Asena not hold back and, furthermore, hide nothing: Arietis wanted to face against Asena's rumored true form and nothing less! Thoroughly bemused by Arietis' suicidal ambition, Asena accepted and arranged a time and place for the duel.

Once the day arrived - the final day of the Arietian trial - Asena whisked Arietis away to a vast and empty plane appropriate for a postgame superboss battle. Arietis summoned the depths of her magical ability to successfully juggle all of the Astral Regalia at once, eager to test their limits. Asena, as promised, shed her humanoid visage and devolved into her true, incomprehensible form, but Arietis simply comprehended it and launched into battle with gusto. At long last she had her chance to face off against a Creator, and now she would get to see what she, Asena, and the Astral Regalia were truly capable of...!

Asena obliterated her instantly.

...Of course, Asena wasn't so cruel as to kill Arietis permanently. Asena resurrected her just as quickly, only for Arietis to immediately spring back into action. Asena obliterated her instantly again, and this continued for a bit as Arietis switched up which weapon she focused on each time. After she felt the bit had run its course, Asena at last restrained her and informed Arietis that the duel was over and she had lost, and quite thoroughly at that. Nonetheless, she was impressed by Arietis' moxie, entertained by the thought of keeping her around, and had already planned to ascend her, so Asena elected to give her the job anyway. Though disappointed that she hadn't been strong enough to give Asena a real fight, Arietis accepted with the knowledge that her newfound immortality would allow her infinite time to become a worthy opponent.

Until all of the other gods were selected, Arietis had no actual duties nor any particular rules to follow. She tried moving her parents into the Cosmos - the invisible-to-mortals satellite orbiting Siderea that served as a home for the Creators and gods - but they found themselves a bit overwhelmed and rather liked their humble lives. They were proud of her, of course, and perhaps it was time for their little bird to leave the nest, so Arietis decided to make the Cosmos her home and just make sure to visit!

Despite the Catasterismi being a work in progress, Arietis found she wasn't alone up there. In addition to meeting the other two Creators - Frenzael and Humilia - there happened to be two others hanging around the Cosmos as well. The first two Sidereans created - by Frenzael, as an example to their peers to teach them how to create new life as well - happened to just sort of... live there, apparently? Cetia, as a Cetus, was inherently capable of traveling through space and somehow had free access to the Cosmos, which she took advantage of to freely transport her peer Ophius back and forth. Not sure of what else to do back during the dawn of creation, the two had taken up serving as messengers of the Creators who did their best to try and service them while simultaneously preaching about their excellence to fellow Sidereans. As a show of good will, like some sort of reverse house-warming gift, Arietis bestowed upon them two of the Astral Weapons that she thought fit them. Though, disappointingly, neither of them seemed interested in fighting to the death or anything like that, although Cetia was at least cooperative whenever Arietis wanted to do some lifting...

As each new god trickled in, Arietis decided to keep up with her generosity and gift each god another piece of the Astral Regalia, distributing each of them until she was left with just Mars for herself. She was excited to find some famous names among her peers, like retired mercenary Tauri and decorated military captain Cancri, and several of the gods were even willing to spar with her in order to test their new god powers, Astral Weapons, and each other! Of course, Arietis had a hard time explaining to everyone what the limits of each weapon were, how to fully control their abilities, if they could just be used normally, so on and so forth... "just try 'em out for yourself!" was what she settled on, not entirely sure how they were managing to overcomplicate something Arietis found quite simple.

Once all of the gods were set in stone - of note, it seemed like Asena liked the idea of the gods having matching weapons, figured Ophius and Cetia were good enough picks anyway, and just skipped those two trials entirely - they started defining rules and specialized duties for themselves. Most of these meetings weren't to Arietis' interest nor did most of the rules matter overmuch to her, so perhaps it was unsurprising when it became apparent that she didn't pay much attention. The second she was free to go she got to granting every wish mortals prayed up to her, dropping out of the skies to decimate monsters instantly, and showing off for mortals at every opportunity. She stopped just short of telling mortals to come and try to take her on, eager to see if anyone would manage to best her, and even then that was less because she lacked the intent and more because Capricoris - god of the Capricorns - physically dragged her back to the Cosmos to scold her.

Capricoris would prove to be a particular thorn in Arietis' side, but Arietis instantly liked that about her. Defiance was a trait she liked in a person, as was honesty, and Capricoris had both in spades. Of course, Capricoris didn't seem to exactly reciprocate, finding reigning in Arietis and trying to drill their rules into her head frustrating. Arietis did try to behave, she really did, but sometimes it was just such a hassle! What was the point of telling mortals to pray if they weren't gonna just give them everything they wanted? What was the point of power if they weren't going to use it on every monster and upcoming villain? Capricoris did her best to explain things: the duty of the gods was to maintain stability and help mortals grow on their own, not do everything for them and leave them weak. Her brain understood it, sure, but her heart didn't. How was she supposed to just stay on the sidelines when people were calling for her, or when people clearly needed help? How do you answer prayers without just giving people exactly what they asked for? Over time Capricoris helped her better understand what was acceptable godding and what wasn't, but even to this day Arietis doesn't feel like she has a very good grasp on it.

Still, things were going well enough for her! Though her personality meant she didn't get along with all of the gods, there were still some who did. In particular she became close with the Sagittarius god, Sagittaria, whose energy level rivaled her own. The two hung out and sparred frequently, with Sagittaria telling Arietis about various contests and challenges she encountered across the world. Arietis developed a habit of donning mortal guise and nerfing herself to enter these competitions, eager to help any rivals she made shine to their fullest potential. Of course, Capricoris wasn't always happy about this, but Arietis got increasingly better and controlling herself and finding ways to convince Capricoris that ACTUALLY she wasn't just here for fun she was subtly urging mortals in the right direction like a good god!

Arietis' happy life hit a bit of a bump when Frenzael announced that they were abdicating their position as Creator in order to enter the reincarnation cycle, ready to move on to a new life, leave Entirety in the hands of its people, and become one with their creation. The vast majority of the gods were emotionally torn by this, but Arietis was a notable exception. She was sad, sure - especially since she'd never really gotten a good fight against them in! - but moreso she respected their desire for a new adventure and the lengths they were willing to go to follow their dreams, to embrace their true self despite the lofty expectations people had of them. Furthermore, this wasn't her first brush with death; her parents had both been mortal and rejected both her offer of immortality (even though she knew Sagittaria had gotten in trouble for giving immortality to a couple of her own friends) and the idea of Arietis using her position as god to get them into whatever afterlife they desired. She'd found this hard to accept at the time, but eventually came to understand the dignity of accepting impermanence and facing fate without fear. Really, the more painful part was Asena deciding to strike out on her own to make her own solo planets, depriving Arietis of further opportunities to bother her with impromptu battles. Still, even that was just a sign to keep training until the next time she visited, right?

...Of course, things got a little more complicated when, just as the other gods were starting to heal from their grief, Frenzael's corpse got back up again. This caused all sorts of drama among the pantheon, but once more Arietis was more or less immune to this. Either Frenzael decided to force their way back to life or their corpse decided to take on a life of its own, and both of these seemed pretty cool to her! It became evident that the latter was the case and they started calling themself Istra and everything, and Arietis approved of the idea of them just being their own weird person. They were pretty quiet and sluggish, though, and their lack of interest in godly combat or basically anything other than eating and staring meant Arietis overall didn't interact with them much.

It turned out fellow god Scorpius was pretty mad about the whole "Humilia not calling up Asena and telling her about any of this" thing and decided to throw together a makeshift summoning ritual to tattle, and Arietis was pretty impressed with his ingenuity! She had just enough tact to recognize this wasn't the time to challenge her to another battle, though; Asena decided to take Istra away with her so they could live a life free from Frenzael's shadow, causing the other gods to begin grieving all over again. Though she hadn't been paying altogether too much attention, it seemed the many years Istra had been in their lives had strained the relationships with several of the gods and generally left an overbearing feeling of awkwardness and sorrow over every meeting, which Arietis just didn't get. Being sad was one thing, sure, but why didn't people just... talk it out? Move on? Do something about it? Hell, Cetia did! She wasn't happy with how things turned off and went off into space with a bunch of other Cetans to go track down Istra and Frenzael's reincarnation to make sure they were safe! It wasn't a decision that any of the other gods were happy with - not even Arietis; she liked Cetia! - but she was doing something about her feelings, wasn't she? Wasn't that a good thing, in the end?

Well, whatever. It wasn't her fight, in the end, and people had a tendency to brush her off or get mad when she offered her thoughts on things. Figuring everyone else would just need time and space to get back to normal, Arietis went back to her typical life more or less unfazed. She hung out more often with Sagittaria - who shared pretty similar opinions in regards to the whole Istra debacle - and increasingly got to know Sagittaria's friends. In particular she found herself chumming around with her best friend, Orion, who had been the runner-up in the Sagittarian trial of the Catasterismi. Despite being disappointed with his loss in the moment - especially because, long story short, Sagittaria jokingly derailed it by challenging Asena to a drinking contest that she proceeded to win - Orion had taken it in stride and just embraced his life as it was. He even got immortality as a consolation prize from Sagittaria, so there wasn't really even anything for him to be mad about! He was just as energetic and jovial as Sagittaria, making him just as fun to hang out with.

Needless to say, when Orion one day stopped at her workshop of the moment and asked if she'd forge him a set of armor to compete with the Astral Regalia, she thought nothing of it. Orion said he just wanted to be a better training partner for Sagittaria, and, hell, Arietis if she wanted to! And of course she wanted to! It'd been a long time since she'd worked with prima materia, too, so it all added up into a project she was eager to jump into. In little time at all she'd created Galaxias, Armor of Amendment, something to shore up Orion's fleshy non-god bod and make up for his lost shot at divinity. It could take a hit from anything like a champ, including the Astral Regalia, so neither Sagittaria nor Arietis could just pull out their Astral Weapons and get a quick win! It was pretty much unbeatable, but Arietis was looking forward to getting the opportunity to prove herself wrong! She called Orion up to come try it out and demanded she get the first spar, and Orion eagerly agreed. Arietis got the chance to confirm that Mars did nothing to Orion while he was wearing Galaxias, and then-

Shrrk.

Where did Orion get Jupiter - Sagittaria's bow - from? Did she let him borrow it? Arietis didn't even get the chance to finish her light pondering before her consciousness cut out.

The power of Jupiter was an interesting one. It was the bow that was the Astral Weapon; any arrow someone used with it would automatically become "tainted" by it and carry its unique effects. When struck by a Jupiter-launched arrow, the victim would become overwhelmed by the prima materia it carried, their existences becoming overwritten by "garbage data" and frozen them in place. They would be unconscious, unfeeling, and incapable of being affected by anything around them, simultaneously helpless and invincible. It was a great tool for containing threats, especially ones the user didn't want dead; when the arrow was removed from the victim, they would instantly be just fine again, with a little temporary disorientation at worst.

Arietis found herself experiencing this first-hand, abruptly coming to to the inexplicable sight of Scorpius wearing Galaxias. When she asked what the hell just happened, noting the remains of a hastily-abandoned camp that definitely hadn't been there a minute ago, Scorpius just gave her the bitter answer of: "You happened."

As it turned out, Orion had actually not taken his loss back in the Catasterismi lightly. In that moment he'd developed a vendetta against not just Sagittaria, but Asena and all of the Creators. Seeking to make them answer for their irresponsibility, Orion took advantage of his granted immortality to weave a grand conspiracy to strike down the gods with Jupiter and get Asena in particular's attention. He would demand either a complete restructuring of the pantheon or the dissolution of it entirely, as the gods were barely qualified at best and promoted as a joke at worst. Mortals didn't need them; it would be better to rule themselves than be reigned over by a bunch of overpowered but otherwise normal people who clearly had no idea what to do in the absence of their precious Creators. Take Arietis, who was so easily and devastatingly tricked by Orion! Arietis, who forged a new member of the Astral Regalia without any oversight, without checking with the other gods, without thinking for a moment, then gave it to a mortal and made him unkillable! They were lucky that he showed them mercy and used Jupiter!

While all of this and more was explained to Arietis and the other gods - many of whom had been attacked by Orion themselves, leaving the remaining few to cobble together a strategy to stop Orion - she suddenly understood why it hadn't been so easy for the other gods to move on from the events of Frenzael's "resurrection". It wasn't that they didn't want to repair their relationships and make things better, it was the paralyzing nature of the shame and guilt that came from being wrong, from hurting people you never wanted to hurt. Not only had she nearly destroyed the pantheon, but Scorpius had to resort to using his Astral Weapon - Pluto, Misericorde of Oblivion, which eradicated the very soul of its victims - on Orion in order to stop him. Orion was dead beyond death now, all because Arietis had trusted him enough to do something she didn't even think was a problem. Her own friend! And, worse, Sagittaria's best friend! The look on Sagittaria's face when she learned of Orion's fate and the resentment he'd been harboring all along was heartbreaking, and her inability to look Arietis in the eye was even worse.

Arietis was harshly reprimanded, and she understood she deserved every minute of it, but, fuck! She already felt horrible! Did they think she didn't? Sure, she'd been stupid enough to cause this situation, but did they really think she didn't understand what she'd did wrong? Nevertheless she took every shout and glare cast in her direction and accepted the decree - which, among the pantheon, functioned like a geas - that she never again forge anything like the Astral Regalia without explicit approval from the rest of the pantheon. Upon the suggestion of the Creators when they later heard of the incident, the best Arietis got was modifying the Astral Regalia to be unusable by anyone outside of the pantheon. Why hadn't she thought of that earlier? Why didn't she think any of this might happen? She could feel herself backsliding right back into old habits, thinking too much and doing too little.

Feeling more unwelcome in the Cosmos than ever but unable to stomach the idea of going back home to the place where this disaster began, Arietis noted how Sagittaria went off to travel on her own in search of something she didn't name and decided that maybe she should do the same. Refusing to let herself slip into despair, she forced herself to confront every negative thought with the question of "how do I fix this?" Determined to redeem her name, Arietis dismantled Galaxias as much as something of its caliber could be, entrusting important pieces to the other gods, keeping one for herself, keeping some pieces in the Cosmos, and scattering the remaining pieces across Siderea to ensure that even the most determined mortal could never hope to reassemble any useful amount of it.

Next Arietis looked to the warring that had broke out among mortals due to Orion's ambitions and resolved to end it. She focused on prayer more than ever, empowering those who fought against Orion's lingering forces and giving said forces the courage to know when to lay down their arms. Instead of using mortal disguises to take part in competitions, she instead used them to play supporting roles, teaching people how to craft and smith and believe in themselves above all else. Every once in a while she would appear as her true self to help people rebuild after the ravages of battle, being open about her desire to make up for her mistakes, and Capricoris - recognizing that Arietis needed to rebuild trust between herself and humanity - seldom tried to stop her.

As things calmed down, Arietis shifted her priorities to Sagittaria. It was Arietis' fault that Orion was dead, and it was obvious Sagittaria blamed her for it. Every time they had a chance encounter and Arietis tried to apologize and make up, Sagittaria would just brush her off with a quiet "I don't really want to talk right now" and leave. Arietis respected her need for time and space at first, but as time went on it became unbearable to leave their relationship so broken. The next time Arietis saw her she refused to let her walk away and demanded they talk about things, telling Sagittaria that if she hated her and never wanted to see her again that she at least say it outright and end things. The two got into an argument, but not for the reasons Arietis expected: Sagittaria, as it turned out, was going through something similar to Arietis. Though she did blame Arietis a little, she moreso blamed herself and hated herself for harboring any resentment toward Arietis, especially as she shouldered most of the blame for something that was ultimately her fault.

Arietis accused their entire situation of being ridiculous. If they were blaming themselves, shouldn't they blame Orion for betraying them in the first place? Shouldn't they blame Asena for promoting them both in the first place? Shouldn't they blame the other Creators for not vetoing her choices? Shouldn't they blame them for creating Siderea in the first place? How far back were they going to go to find a singular source of blame? The fact of the matter was that both of them had fucked up, and so had several other people. What good was it doing to dwell on that fact? Were they really going to ruin their friendship blaming themselves for the other's problems? Wouldn't it be easier to talk about their pain and bond over it, to accept what happened, to leave the past in the past and focus on the future? They were immortal, after all; did they want to spend eternity awkwardly dancing around each other and being miserable for no reason when they could just... get back to being friends, make each other stronger?

Sagittaria accepted that Arietis had a point, and the two apologized to each other and resolved to not let their mistakes get in the way of their bond. They at last each had someone they could talk to about the whole situation without judgment, someone who would support them rather than make them feel worse, and someone who they could openly mourn Orion with. At last things felt like they were really getting back to normal, like they were on an upswing and everything would be alright.

Unfortunately for Siderea, Arietis and Sagittaria weren't the only ones mourning Orion. Rigel - one of Sagittaria's friends she'd granted immortality to and, of note, Orion's boyfriend - had suddenly reappeared after having gone missing shortly after Orion's defeat. Problem was that he'd somehow become a prima materia monstrosity, the epitome of a monster and yet still more or less in full control of his faculties. He began laying waste to everything around him, corrupting the land wherever he tread, tearing open the earth so that the prima materia in the core could burst forth. He was a threat as unexpected as he was unprecedented, and though the gods immediately sprung into action they found they could only temporarily drive him back. Normal magic couldn't do much against the sheer level of corruption Rigel was controlling, and the Astral Regalia consisted of a bunch of prima materia weapons; they were more effective than normal weapons, certainly, but their unique effects meant nothing to someone made of the same stuff. How could you corrupt corruption itself?

Arietis had an idea, but she knew the gods wouldn't like it.

Rigel and Arietis weren't so different, in a sense. Arietis was difficult to corrupt because she didn't think too hard about prima materia's nature or fear its possible effects. Rigel, meanwhile, was so filled with grief and rage at Orion's demise that he simply marched into the center of the planet and convinced himself he could use it to take vengeance. While Arietis didn't think of this specifically, as unaware as anyone else of how prima materia truly works, she did come to the same conclusion of "prima materia not only isn't useful against Rigel, but he probably won't even succumb to his corruption and die at any point". The only possible way to stop someone with such an unimaginable amount of corruption would be to fight against them with the opposite substance: anima mundi.

Anima mundi was like Frenzael's "blood"; raw Creation made physical, even rarer than prima materia. Though Sidereans struggled to discern the mechanical differences between it and prima materia, on a meta level anima mundi is a force representative of the author's direct hand upon their works. If prima materia is what the author has failed to consider, anima mundi is what the author has actively considered. Prima materia is a force of raw potential, but anima mundi is pure actuality. It is a substance capable of literally anything because the author has specifically deemed it so, serving as a fix-all. While the finer points were beyond her understanding, Arietis had experimented and seen enough over her years to have witnessed the ability of anima mundi to "resolve" prima materia, "filling it in" and converting its infinite potential into a single truth of reality: itself. Her proposal, therefore, as such: create a set of weapons out of anima mundi that mirrored the Astral Regalia.

She expected her proposal to be shot down after the disaster that was Orion, but to her surprise the other gods approved so long as she was able to ensure that the Celestial Regalia - as Arietis dubbed them - would be unable to be used by anyone but the gods... and the Saints they intended to give them to.

The Tragedy of Orion had made the gods realize that mortals desired more autonomy and felt that the gods were both apart from them and against them. They felt either coddled or neglected with little in-between and the gods sought to remedy this. The gods would continue facing off against Rigel whenever he arose, but in the background would select a hero of their choosing to give a Celestial Weapon, their Blessing, as well as the guidance they would need to take down Rigel's worshipers, the many monsters he'd summoned, and ultimately Rigel himself. Scorpius and Sagittaria - both feeling responsible for Rigel's rise - would serve as the Saints' overseers, trainers, and aides, while it would be Arietis' responsibility to forge the Celestial Regalia and then join the other gods on the front lines. Arietis was more than happy with this, as if she could pull it off then it was the perfect opportunity to put her guilt from the Tragedy of Orion to bed once and for all.

Though Arietis didn't have much experience working with anima mundi and getting enough of it to make a whole new suite of weapons was a challenge on its own, Arietis' complete confidence in herself once more let her accomplish this impossible task with little trouble. Next was selecting her Saint, and she chose someone named Chrysomallos who is by far away the least-defined of the Saints so I get to skip the whole segment where I talk about their relationship and her reasons for picking them, yippee...!! She gave them Ares, Hammer of (ah fuck this is also undefined!), then left them in the care of Sagittaria and Scorpius while she jumped into Rigel-bonking duty.

And bonk she did: Arietis wound up being probably the most useful of the gods when it came to fending off Rigel until the Saints were ready to take him on. Her sheer ferocity, stamina, and resistance to corruption were so unmatched that the other gods were given the opportunity to focus more on aiding mortals and the Saints than they anticipated. Even Arietis herself was able to make time for this, empowering the many people who prayed to her for strength and courage in the wake of Rigel's rampage. Her sheer visibility and competence during what would become known as the Vengeance of Rigel skyrocketed her popularity, bolstering her confidence even further.

Eventually the Saints succeeded in besting Rigel, but elected to use the power of the Celestial Regalia to eradicate as much of his corruption as possible and ultimately spare his life. Arietis was pleased with this result; it was at least partially her fault that Rigel lost it, and she was a firm believer in a person's capacity to change. She wished the best for him as Humilia arrived for a conveniently-timed visit and offered to take him offworld to help him heal both physically and mentally, then Arietis set out to remedy the damage Rigel had caused.

In keeping with the gods' aim to let the Saints be heroes who tied mortals and gods together, it was the Saints who were tasked with handling the remaining monsters and lingering Rigelian forces. Arietis couldn't just stand by and do nothing, though, and was very obvious about aiding rebuilding and defensive efforts, at times teaching mortals how to deal with corruption in person. The other gods, busy with trying to remedy Siderea's dire state in their own ways, made little to no effort to stop her, cementing her redemption arc in the eyes of the people.

In the wake of Rigel's apocalypse, a new set of aides to the gods suddenly appeared. It turned out that, having seen the stress the gods were under, Humilia had blessed a set of souls across time who, upon death, would transform into an Archangel and become a personal assistant to their respective god. The first five came all at once, and Humilia personally requested that Arietis create a new suite of weapons to be given to the Archangels. These would be made of viriditas, Humilia's "blood", which lacked the significance and limitless nature of prima materia and anima mundi as Humilia - merely the personification of emotion rather than existence or non-existence - had only created it to "complete the set", so to speak. Nonetheless it was still an immensely useful and far less dangerous material with unique purifiying and healing properties, so she thought it a useful tool for the Archangels to wield. The other gods trusted Humilia' judgment in this matter and permitted Arietis to go ahead, which she did with aplomb, creating the Empyreal Regalia and granting the associated weapons to the existing Archangels.

Things were proceeding as smoothly as they could; the Saints had succeeded in stabilizing the planet with the help of the gods, an era of peace set in, and all in all Siderea's situation was improving. Problem was, all of the corruption led to mortals trying to research prima materia in order to figure out its properties and eliminate it without needing to rely on the Saints, the Gods, or the rare sources of anima mundi they uncovered every now and then. Not satisfied with anecdotes of Arietis telling people "just don't worry about it!", researchers instead chose to worry quite a lot as they became increasingly aware of the paradoxical, nonsensical nature of prima materia. They determined that nothing about it made sense, and therefore magic didn't make sense, and therefore their own bodies didn't make sense, causing an apocalyptic chain reaction. Publishing the results of research led to panic which led to doubt which led to people losing their abiltiy to cast magic and even literally falling apart, the prima materia within and inherent to the world resolving into the reality of "can't possibly exist, therefore does not".

This was an unprecedented disaster the gods struggled to deal with, worrying that even they might not be immune. Arietis, however, cut in to go "why the hell are you all worrying about that when we've been perfectly fine since day one?" and overall insist the gods believe in their own power and stop doubting the building blocks of reality. She preached this truth wherever she had the opportunity, especially when prayers were made to her asking for salvation. If they couldn't just trust their own existence, or prima materia, or even Asena, then just believe in Arietis herself! If you want to make it through life, sometimes you have to take chances and trust the process!

To the surprise of the other gods, Arietis proved to be a critical player in making the End of Magic not the end of Siderea. The situation was ultimately resolved by Capricoris - who happened to be Siderea's god of time - patching the best parts of alternate timelines into the canonical timeline and the gods subsequently engaging in a misinformation and censoring campaign to more or less erase the End of Magic from history, blaming the disasters that occurred as a consequence of the corruption Rigel had brought. Still, it was Arietis' efforts that left the gods with so much to salvage and her words that gave them the faith not to fall apart themselves or give up hope.

In the aftermath of the End of Magic, as the gods gathered to figure out how to prevent such a thing from occurring again, Arietis once more proved her worth. Mortals needed something to believe in, but also had an innate curiosity that led to them trying to make science out of unscientific forces. Why not, then, develop a structure for magic? She proposed Asterismorum: a language mortals could use to cast spells and perform rituals with. If they became dependent on Asterismorum for magic, they would choose to analyze it as the source of magic and would ultimately conclude that it was the gods who blessed the words, and with no ability to analyze the gods the bulk of "magical science" would focus on how best to craft spells. The other gods agreed it was worth trying and quickly got to implanting it within society, letting the seeds grow over generations until they were able to create the illusion that Asterismorum had always been a part of Siderea. Though some people still looked into the nature of magic and prima materia here and there, they were now better educated on how to steer them away from these subjects and how to prevent an apocalypse from arising in the event they failed to do so in time.

All was well for a long time, and the curiosity mortals had was successfully directed away from a material that was becoming increasingly hard to find in favor of developing Asterismorum and pursuing harder sciences. Though much of technology had been based on magic before, the independence the gods were fostering drove mortals to develop more Earth-like technology. Arietis took pride in watching mortals make new things from Siderea's natural resources, finding novel ways of fueling novel machines.

The pursuit of Earth-like technologies eventually drew mortals into falling into Earth-like traps, and over time mortals - at least the ones in power - stopped caring about sustainability and pollution. The latter was proving to be a particular problem, as the deeper mortals mined the more the fossil fuels they attained were tainted with prima materia, causing the Aquarians and Virgos who tried to maintain the atmosphere and biosphere to become ill and, increasingly, corrupted. The Aquarius god Aquari had been vocal on the negative effects this was having on the planet and its stewards, and while the gods acknowledged this they also didn't wish to stifle mortal development. Arietis was among these, wanting to figure out ways to instead purify pollution or prevent it from happening outright, giving mortals new avenues to pursue advancement. Problem was, society was at a point where those with power and wealth were keen on keeping it and preferred not to divert resources or make themselves look bad, so the rest of the pantheon's efforts at subtly guiding mortals toward positive change wasn't going as quickly or looking as promising as they'd hope. While they tried to play nice the rest of Siderea continued to suffer, and Aquari utimately declared they'd had enough.

Going more or less on strike, Aquari ceased controlling the atmosphere for mortal development and their departure encouraged most other Aquarians to do the same, wreaking even further havoc on the climate and causing natural disasters to spring up everywhere from the abrupt change. Aquari encourged the Virgo god Virginis to join them, as he was even worse off physically due to directly interfacing with Siderea's flora through the great tree Yggdrasil. What drove Aquari to finally say enough was enough was Yggdrasil withering due to Virginis' poor health, and his condition was so dire that he couldn't bring himself to resist giving up despite not wanting the inevitable apocalypse his failure would cause to transpire.

Upon seeing just how bad things were for the two, Arietis came to understand their decision even if she disagreed with the idea of giving up. Mortals made a mistake they would just have to pay for, and the gods held blame for not doing enough to divert them. While many of the other gods tried fruitlessly to get Aquari to reconsider, Arietis knew there was no point in wasting her time when the real fight was down on Siderea. She immediately jumped into trying to save people from natural disasters, and in their wake once more helped people rebuild and taught them about cleaner, safer, and more renewable ways to get energy. Her heroism throughout the Death of the Sky even further cemented Arietis as a favorite of mortals, spawning countless legends about her acts during it that happened to be mostly true.

As things calmed down, the planet began to recover, and Aquari and Virginis became willing to resume active work, the gods met to once more plan to ensure nothing like this ever happened again. Among the changes they made was the implementation of the Incarnation Program. Librae, who was in charge of death and afterlives, would use her Astral Weapon to cleave off a small fragment of the gods' souls and independently reincarnate them into a mortal with no knowledge of their true identity. Once this mortal died, the soul fragment would be returned to the god and they would re-experience the life they just lived without ever having needed to leave their post, allowing them to understand the plight of mortals and - perhaps even more relevantly at the moment - the struggles of other zodiacs. Furthermore, this intimate look at everyday life would help them pinpoint where their machinations to change society weren't working, how mortals perceived the gods, and what nefarious actors might be plotting.

Arietis was a firm supporter of this idea; her long history of being on the ground gave her a good idea of mortal suffering, and she often felt that some of the other gods kept themselves too disconnected from the people they were supposed to be serving. Though the gods weren't allowed to know who their current incarnation was - or anyone else's, for that matter - Arietis' had the tendency to be quite obvious. While the other gods' incarnations would tend to have some similarities with their respective god, Arietis blew everyone else out of the water. It seemed Arietis couldn't be kept from being Arietis, competing with everyone and everything around her with boundless optimism.

Speaking of, on an ordinary day in a new workshop she'd set up in some obscure mountain or another, Arietis encountered a ram of such remarkable vibes that she wondered if it might be her current incarnation. It seemed that it had been chewing away at various grasses that had been fed by raw prima materia, anima mundi, and viriditas, making it increasingly intelligent, emotional, and - what Arietis found most funny - magically adept. It didn't seem to appreciate Arietis' presence in its territory and kept wrecking her shit, which Arietis found even funnier. Arietis being herself, the two began to butt heads incredibly literally, with Arietis declaring an actual genuine just straight-up animal as her sworn rival. She urged it to grow stronger, telling it that if it wanted to taken on a god it was going to have to do better than that!

So, the ram did. Smart enough now to recognize which grazing spots made it feel more powerful, the ram hastened its technical corruption until it evolved into a full-on faunal Aries, which Arietis thoroughly applauded. She dubbed them Ariel and took them under her wing, training them in whatever felt right at the time while Ariel mostly continued knocking over her things like a cat. Arietis encouraged their further development, which led to them evolving into a Piries - a Pisces-Aries hybrid - who even somehow had functioning cords, allowing them to access the Dream Sea so that they could tend to the dreams of animals. This was the most inexplicable evolution yet and at last drew the attention of Capricoris, who scolded Arietis for playing God with nature and also how the fuck was this possible. Arietis determined that anything was possible as long as you believed in yourself, and Capricoris told Arietis to please not make anything else believe in itself so hard that it became imbued with sapience because there was not enough ibuprofen in existence to help her cope with what the world would become if she continued. This conversation only served to confuse Arietis, who promptly went back to being one-sided besties with Ariel and generally failing to introduce them to polite society.

Upon Ariel's eventual death, Arietis found that they weren't her incarnation, but did happen to be her Archangel, somehow! She was excited about this and granted them the Empyrean hammer Mangala, hoping they'd tussle her with it and their newfound powers in general... but to her disappointment, it seemed like Ariel took more interest in Virginis. Ariel was concerned mostly about nature and the welfare of animals and had developed so rapidly out of a desire to better serve them; they more or less ignored Arietis' domain in favor of punishing mortals who harmed animals or otherwise disturbed nature. Arietis thought that was cool and all and was proud of them, but couldn't help but feel disappointed that she'd finally gotten an aide and they kinda never really hung out with her...

Fortunately for Arietis, she'd have another chance as the gods received their last set of aides: the Facets. The gods were called to an emergency meeting one day after they all felt the same strange sensation of someone taking a crumb of their power. It turned out some sort of conspiracy had flown under the radar where a group was raising a set of people called the Facets to become attuned with the Holy Gems and ultimately channel and trap some of the gods' powers. They would then serve as foils to the gods, taking responsibility for parts of their domain that they believed their respective god was neglecting or doing an otherwise poor job of attending to. Though it turned out the Facets' overseers were rather nefarious, they were already dealt with and the Facets were both helpless - having essentially exploded into piles of gemstones from trying to take in so much divine energy - and more idealistic than the people manipulating them. The gods elected to spare them and give them a chance since they'd already gone to the trouble of bonding their souls to them, and Arietis helped aid the efforts to get them some bodies again.

Arietis was excited by the idea of the Facets and eager to meet her own. Her Facet was an Aries named Trepein, and he couldn't have been more her opposite. He was a woman of noble standing who hailed from an esteemed family of Facet candidates, all of whom were firm believers in Arietis' disgraceful nature. She was reckless, crass, and an outright danger to Siderea. Trepein had lofty ambitions of replacing Arietis outright, believing she had little to contribute that Trepein could not replicate and do better. Trepein had even forged an Astral Weapon of her own! Deimos, Rapier of Castigation, had the typical Astral Weapon traits of being indestructible and able to piece anything, but also carried the ability to strike fear into the hearts of whoever fell victim to it.

Arietis' response was... to immediately be in love!

Finally, a worthy opponent! Trepein was firmly committed to reining Arietis in and surpassing her, which was exactly what Arietis liked in a woman. He was fearless, poised, talented, and above all else put up a good fight. Trepein was shocked when Arietis handily defeated him during their first duel, and Arietis couldn't help but find it a funny flip of when Asena so handily defeated her long ago. She offered to help train Trepein, but Trepein insisted he just wasn't used to his new Facet body yet and rejected the idea that Arietis had any real help to offer. Being connected to his soul now, Arietis could tell the truth: Trepein was ashamed of losing and placed big expectations on himself, but Arietis was eager to knock them all down... in a good way!

Over the years Trepein became increasingly cooperative as he adjusted to his role and came to understand the various duties and burdens of the gods, as well as just how much Arietis had contributed to Siderea. Though he refused to admit it outright, he begrudgingly accepted that Arietis had value and it would be more beneficial if he got along with her rather than got rid of her. They became closer, but were ultimately limited by their dramatic differences in character; while Arietis enjoyed their company, Trepein came to view himself as Arietis' handler, struggling to keep her out of trouble and focused on her duties.

The next major event for the gods was the sudden appearance of a 15th god: Arachne. She just crawled out of the earth one day spouting prophecies about the death of the gods and the end of times, which Arietis immediately took as a challenge. Unfortunately Arachne was incredibly good at running away and hiding, and once the gods finally did manage to capture her they insisted Arietis not fight her. While they debated what to do with and about her - Arietis was personally eager to test this supposed new god's mettle and see what she was made of, surprising no one - Scorpius went ahead and freed her. He insisted she was of no threat and in speaking with her believed she was speaking mostly in metaphor; all this talk of dead gods and endings was referring to how Siderea had entered an age of true mortal control, and Arachne had been created by the collective mortal desire to secure control over their own fates.

From what Arietis could understand, Arachne was another weird-ass entity like Ariel who just sort of forced her way into existing and achieving the impossible, and Arietis liked that about her! When Arachne appeared again, this time with an entire zodiac of her own in tow, Arietis was among the first gods to insist they accept her and the Araneans as an authentic god and zodiac, respectively. This push ultimately succeeded and Arietis welcomed Arachne with gusto, though couldn't help but be disappointed that she wasn't the sparring type. She was, however, intrigued by the fact that Arachne had an Astral Weapon of her own: Earth, Tome of Revelation, which allowed her to write anything into existence. Arietis was eager to learn more about it and test its limits, but she struggled to understand Arachne's enigmatic manner of speech and they just sort of left it at that...

The most recent major world event was another where Arietis took stage: the Great Cetan Invasion. Cetans who had left way back during the Great Cetan Exodus suddenly began returning en masse... but in greatly corrupted forms, often dropping in populated areas and destroying everything around them in feral confusion. Arietis jumped into action as mortals prayed for assistance, only to realize what these giant alien monsters actually were. She and the other gods coordinated to try and contain them and bring them elsewhere in hopes of healing and interrogating them about what the hell was going on, but soon enough they'd get their answers from a reliable source.

Cetia at last returned to Siderea, much to the gods' delight: it turned out she had realized the error of her ways and decided to return, using her Astral Weapon, Eris, to cut across space and get everyone home. Most of the Cetans were, in fact, fine; the influx of corrupted Cetans were the result of some of the Cetans disobeying Cetia and rushing ahead and getting corrupted by the prima materia and warped reality on the fringes of the "tunnel" home she made. Arietis felt kinda bad about beating the shit out of a lot of them now, but it wasn't like she'd had much choice! Like there was this one time a Cetus was about to land on Astra, Siderea's world capital, so she had to use Mars to bat 'em out of there like a baseball, and that was pretty sick, what do you mean "Arietis please stop talking you're going to make her feel even worse than she already does"?

Since Cetia's return and the subsequent end of the Great Cetan Invasion, Arietis has returned to a relatively peaceful life. The whole big-long-term-appearance-of-tears-in-space thing led to Siderea being discovered by offworlders, no longer fully hidden from the rest of Entirety like the Creators had arranged for. This caused a headache for most of the gods, but Arietis, as always, was excited about this change in the status quo and what new challengers it might bring into her life. She's eagerly competed with offworlders whenever possible, and although she has the official new role of "designated god sent to defeat any threats to Siderea" she hasn't yet gotten to use it. Part of her is glad Siderea hasn't had to deal with alien invasions or whatever, but part of her does kinda want an excuse to fight against foreign gods and see what they're made of...

In recent years she's handed out Blessings to a few people, always the sort to be entirely too liberal with her Blessings. Two examples were the lovely couple of Lycianthes and Datura, two ostracized Fadelikes that she took a liking to. Most recently she's Blessed Laphystia, a fellow Aries who had made a holy pilgrimage up Mount Olympus, where Arietis' most recent workshop is located. An avid Fadist, Laphystia sensed Asena's energy in Arietis and nearly died trying to reach it. Admiring her dedication, Arietis allowed Laphystia to stay with her indefinitely, helping her out with various rituals and telling her all kinds of stories about Asena. She thinks it's kinda nice to have a roommate, and all the peace isn't even boring! Despite the grand pattern of existence, she can't help but feel like nothing bad will ever happen again, and SURELY nothing's about to go wrong to change th-

RP History

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IT'S ORCHID TIME, BABY!!!!!!!

...Alright, rewind a little. Arietis was attending the Siderean Offworld Festival as she did every year, eager to partake in the numerous contests available there. She was dunking all over her competitors in a hot pepper-eating contest up until a particularly pink offworlder chided her for bragging and handily defeated her in the next round. Immediately obsessed, Arietis handed over all of her winnings and then demanded Ansaiele be her taste tester in the baking contest she was also entering. Arietis dragged Ansaiele over to her baking tent, past fellow competitor and mortal-living-amonger-god (real word) Tauri, as well as Tauri's mortal girlfriend Cassie.

Getting a bit too complacent and lost in the sauce, Arietis whipped out Mars in the interest of time and slammed her ingredients directly into batter, then set them on fire until they were fully-baked cupcakes. One would forgive Ansaiele for being confused, but instead she seemed quite the opposite. She seemed to recognize Mars for what it was and scolded Arietis for being so reckless with it (and also wasn't it cheating to use it...?). She proceeded to drop a bunch of red flags, "not everyone is so nice" this and "what if someone stole it?" that, which Arietis was exactly smart enough to interpret as a threat. She told Ansaiele to get on with it if she was here to challenge her, at which point Ansaiele dropped the act and revealed she was actually Alison in disguise. This meant nothing to Arietis up until Alison blasted her in distinctly Asena-like fashion, leaving her a crumpled mess on the ground.

Alison explained that Mars was currently a grave threat to Entirety due to being at risk of being falling into the hands of an undefined enemy, mostly because it was clear to her that Arietis could not be trusted with it. She assured Arietis she had no intentions of keeping it forever but advised her to avoid crafting another, imploring her to consider "what an unfathomably large army of Orions wielding armaments more destructive than Pluto could do to Siderea [and] the rest of Entirety" before vanishing. Tauri entered the tent shortly thereafter to check what all the commotion was, horrified to find Arietis was now down one Astral Weapon and grievously wounded.

Arietis explained what had transpired, telling Tauri that her attacker was without a shadow of a doubt Asena... but a different Asena, she could feel it in her scars! She recovered without much issue to rant about how Alison was right to call her out and that she'd fucked up again. Tauri insisted she focus on the real problem; they needed to call for an emergency meeting immediately. Tauri was forced to leave Cassie behind with her Archangel and take Arietis with her back to the Cosmos, giving the offworlders she'd been talking to the excuse that Arietis burned herself badly enough to need to be taken to a hospital.

The two arrived in the Cosmos to find the other gods already in the process of filtering in, nearly all of them there to call Alison-related (or at least Alison-adjacent) emergency meetings themselves. As the meeting commenced Arietis explained what had happened and the gods exchanged information about their own experiences. No one else had gotten their Astral Weapons stolen, but more pressing was the information that Alison was indeed the Asena of another Entirety. Long story short this was thought to be an impossibility, and indeed it was surmised that what was truly happening was that their Entirety was being merged against their will with Alison's invading Entirety. This was not the fault of Alison, but rather Orchid: Frenzael's reincarnation in En2rety who had reunited with its version of Istra and obtained ultimate power. Orchid was unfortunately blatantly evil and slavishly loyal to an even more blatantly evil overlord named 2gnis who demanded Orchid use his newfound power to get him access to a new Entirety to conquer.

The gods are currently still in the midst of this meeting, about to interrogate an Alison lookalike who conveniently got isekai'd into the Cosmos at the worst possible time. Well, for her, anyway; the gods are pretty eager to figure out what she knows about Alison. Unfortunately for them this is a resounding "nothing", but the gods sure don't know that yet!

Willpower		Charisma
Dexterity		Perception
Knowledge		Craftiness
Teamwork		Patience

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"If you really wanna know what I'm capable of, lemme show you firsthand!"

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Arietis has all of the standard abilities inherent to the Sideran pantheon, so give that link a peek for more details! Of course, Arietis has her own specialties and plenty of skills she's cultivated that aren't related to her divinity. Pretty much no one would argue that Arietis is the strongest god in terms of raw martial prowess, but let's not get ahead of ourselves!

First and foremost, Arietis specializes in fire magic. She's capable of all forms of magic and does her best to keep herself from getting rusty in any given school of it, but ultimately she prefers good ol' fire above all others. She's immensely, superhumanly strong and capable of incredible athletic and acrobatic feats. Wielding Mars, Hammer of Glory is among these feats: it's a giant hammer that's larger than she is, and yet she can swing it around like it's nothing.

On that note, Mars has the power to turn anything into anything else, which Arietis often uses for crafting and forging when she doesn't feel like making things the old-fashioned way. It works on inanimate objects and living beings alike, and can even turn one category into the other. This is decidedly less common for Arietis to take advantage of despite of the advantages it could offer in battle. In battle she just kinda uses it for what it is: a giant fuckoff hammer. The transformative effects only trigger if Arietis has the specific intent to "forge" something or someone into something or someone else, so she usually doesn't have any funny incidents in the heat of combat.

Aside from magic, Arietis is a master of just about every weapon and martial art under the sun. That's to say nothing of her many other skills, from survival to music to sewing to underwater basket-weaving. And there's the horns, of course, and her hooves, and the fact that her unshakable nature and empty head give her access to nigh-unlimited power and resistance to corruption...

What makes Arietis the strongest god isn't simply physical or magical strength, but rather the fact that if she puts her mind to it, it seems there is quite literally nothing she's incapable of.

For information on what these stats mean, click here!

Element		Fire
Species		Beast, Divine, Humanoid
Positioning Skill		Leap: Moves user to the opposite side of unit.
Passive Ability		God of Fervor: Gains +5% ATK for every enemy within 3 spaces.
Personal Weakness		-20% SPD through next turn when hit by a Water attack. Stacks.
Friendship Bonus		+5% ATK

Stats

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HP		SP
ATK		DEF
MAG		RES
ACC		SPD
TEC		LUCK
MOV	5

Resistances

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Paralyze		Poison
Solidify		Sleep
Curse		Fury
Seal		Dread
Charm		Panic