Miranda

Miranda is presented in The Sacred Star of Milos as the composed figurehead of the Black Bats, a Cretan-born Milosian who takes to the skies on a hang-glider during raids. Her arsenal marks her as a hardened combatant: a Gatling gun, a knife and an assortment of firearms, backed by skill in close-quarters fighting. She makes her home in the bleak reaches of Death Valley within Milos.

Steady nerves define Miranda even when circumstances turn desperate. She shoulders the guardianship of the Black Bats and of every Milosian as a sacred charge, and she is honest enough to admit that her rebellion barely registers as a nuisance to Amestris and Creta and that genuine independence lies almost beyond reach. That candor never dulls her resolve. She weighs opening the Gate of Truth as a possible weapon despite the heresy, approaches the ostracized Crichton family without shame, and refuses to dismiss the blood-soaked Sanguine Star as a route to victory, prepared to spend the lives of willing Milosians to forge one.

Raised amid the oppression of Death Valley, Miranda grew weary of watching her homeland serve as collateral in the endless quarrel between Amestris and Creta over the settlement that became Table City. Whether she founded the Black Bats or merely rose to lead them is left unclear. She first strikes at a train thought to hold captured border-crossers, a trap that forces her to fly her comrades clear, and she repeatedly tries to pluck Julia Crichton from danger before a stranger calling himself Ashleigh Crichton saves the falling group with alchemy.

Back in the Bats' cavern she recruits Ashleigh for the war and learns the terrible cost of the Gate. After the group escapes a Cretan wolf-chimera, she leads them to the Requiem Room, hears the grim truth of the Sanguine Star, yet still lets the Elrics leave in peace. During the assault on Table City her most trusted subordinate Alan and Ashleigh both betray her: Ashleigh stabs her from behind to power his transmutation circle. Dying, she summons the strength to sink a knife into him as he moves to kill Julia, only for him to impale her with an alchemical icicle. With her last breath she begs Julia to live, and Julia and Vatanen mourn her once Milos reclaims the Cretan base.