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[attr="id","cerberuscol"]Seraphina‘Sera’ Knox

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Sera is a petite woman who appears soft, gentile, and dignified in her manner and speech. This kind of appearance elicits protective instincts in some and jealousy or disdain in others. The fact that she is blind only adds to this ethereal vulnerability that radiates from her. She is a quiet observer, not shy, but prefers to watch and assess carefully before interjecting in most situations. No one would ever believe she was anything but a noble lady born and raised among the aristocratic elite.
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Despite her demeanor, her nature can be terrifying; she is not the one who should be crossed, betrayed, angered, or irritated. She has no sympathy, empathy, or mercy for those who violate the laws of morality, disrespect or dishonor those she holds dear, or perhaps worse themselves. Those who fall on her bad side are lucky if she treats them with perfect etiquette or deems them to not be worth her acknowledgment, for those who truly raise her ire are dealt with swiftly and mercilessly within a hairs breath of crossing the laws set by law, honor, and dignity.

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Generations of carefully arranged marriages to keep their bloodline pure, close ties to the monarchy, and wealth to rival the king. Those born coming into immense power are younger and younger with each generation. Eventually, that power was too great for the descendant to control, and the awakened like ruptured damn, flooding the room, house, and land surrounding the estate, consuming or corrupting everything in its wake. When the magic was nullified, the entire family save a few weak and impure branches had been wiped out. Those not found must have been consumed body and spirit in the aberrant backlash, or so the official reports surmise. After all, plenty of hungry green-eyed families were eager to gobble up a fallen house's wealth and power. Four years later, the Monarchy of Vale crumbled.
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Sera does not remember anything before the orphanage; she was told she was found at the gate, seven or eight years old at most. Golden hair, a thin night dress, and blind. She heard the whispers, though, so young with such perfect speech and etiquette, she must be a child of an aristocratic family. Perhaps illegitimate. Perhaps a family who was now fallen. Or worse, a failed Ransome abandoned by criminals who didn’t have the guts to kill a child or perhaps left by some morally grey hero who had freed her from such tragedy. To hear others talk, she was the heroine of a tragic novel. Pittied and envied, she was often bullied by others and accused of being haughty and arrogant. Pickin' gon her was fair; wouldn’t she one day be saved by some rich uncle? It was only right to make her feel their helplessness and hopelessness.
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At first, she put up with the teasing and petty pranks, annoying as it was no true harm was being done. She didn’t need friends; she had her familiar, the still tiny butterfly clinging to her or fluttering about her hair like a rebellious speck of light that refused to obey the laws of nature.
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Two years after she arrived at the orphanage, the other children pushed her too far. Pinned to the ground on the far side of the courtyard, the others struggled and scrambled, trying to use a pair of scissors to cut off her golden locks. Nails scratched her skin, her hand tearing at her clothes, and the scissors' blade sliced her cheek and ear in the struggle. She had enough; a flurry of golden wings erupted from the air around them, razor-sharp wings slicing into the other kids relentlessly. As fast as they were swatted away, new ones replaced them. Sera had no intention of calling off the creatures she had somehow manifested; she felt no shame or guilt at the wails of pain and screams of fear. The pleading for mercy and sobbing apologies elicited only a cold smirk. The cries of the orphanage staff trying to shoo the bugs away and demanding she calls them off fell on deaf ears. She will say she did not intend to do any true harm, just scare the others into leaving her alone, but the truth is the only thing that stopped her was another intervention of an outsider. Without their action, she might not have made it into double-digit years before being labeled a murderer. She still has no regrets; they deserved it.
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The demands to know why she had attacked the other children were answered with silence. When the strangers posed the same question to the staff, the answer was guilty downcast faces and stammered excuses. Blame placed anxiously on Sera’s slim shoulders. She was the problem; she was a troublemaker, arrogant, and looked down on others and shunned them. Even a fool would know the lies for what they were, and James Knox was not a fool. Sera left the orphanage that very day. She took only what she was wearing with her since she had arrived with nothing in the first place.
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Living with the Knox family was interesting; Mrs. Knox was cold, while Mr. Knox was warm. Despite not being related by blood, he took an interest in Sera and filled the role of guardian and mentor. The desire to prove her worth and earn her keep made the frequent impediments in her progress caused by scars on her psyche that she was unaware of make her anxious. Despite this and her blindness Mr. Knox seemed to have endless patience with her and secured her loyalty more than his rescuing her from the uncertain fate of an orphan had.
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Though she was never overly affectionate with Mr. Knox, she was quite fond of his sons, and the two often crept into her room at night to cuddle up with her when they couldn’t sleep or were excited to share some new secret. Much like she had played the role of surrogate mother to the boys when they were sick, she also was the one who took on the responsibility of caring for Mr. Knox during his long recovery from injuries sustained in the line of duty. She was quick to intercept any attempts to bother him or the boys with the slanderous rumors of his involvement with the death of his parents and later when the arrest of Mrs. Knox threatened the family's reputation. Much like the bullies in her childhood, her retribution was swift and merciless though she was mature enough now to use subtle political and legal means to destroy anyone who did not take the hint and back off when warned.
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With her mentor home more often, Sera could finally begin working through the mystic scars that had been a constant stumbling block, and in the last few years, she has begun to demonstrate her true potential.
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