Muireann had the kind of face that drew attention even when she wanted to disappear. Her pale hair fell like poured light, her skin was almost translucent, and her eyes were the washed-blue gray of winter sea. She looked fragile in a way that invited projection and in that people saw in her whatever they wished: purity, obedience, vulnerability, or weakness. Muireann herself never felt like any of those things. She simply existed with the self-contained smallness of someone who had learned early that noise invited danger.

She remembered little of her parents, though she had been plenty old enough at 12 to hold real memories. What remained came as fragments: her mother’s hand tightening around hers, the low murmur of adult voices arguing in the next room, the hush that fell whenever she approached. And sometimes, drifting through the haze of recollection, the image of a well-dressed man with the type of face that made her shy when he looked at her. He was someone her parents called a friend but treated with a caution and respect she hadn’t understood at the time. He sometimes brought her gifts; his attempt to win her over perhaps, and they were beautiful things, trinkets or toys far beyond anything her parents could afford. Once there was a locket bearing initials that didn’t match her name, but she thought little of it at the time. She always wondered whose name those letters represented.

His fall from grace had been public and survived by his influential family, but the people that worked with him were ordinary, powerless allies like her Irish-born parents. They simply vanished in the time surrounding his arrest. The police informed her they had died, and with no relatives to claim her, she was placed into government custody and reassigned to an orphanage. The official record offered no further explanation, and whatever details existed were kept far from a child’s reach.

The orphanage depended entirely on outside philanthropy to function, which meant it was always one shortage away from collapse. Beds were crammed together in dormitories meant for half as many children while food came in unpredictable quantities. The staff rotated often, some indifferent, others cruel. Muireann survived the way quiet children often did by shrinking in, by drawing no attention, and by keeping her thoughts folded neatly where no one could see them.

Still, she was noticed. Older children marked her early. They sensed her quietness as weakness and her beauty as justification. She avoided them by slipping through hallways, staying in corners with a book, and memorizing the times the supervisors looked away. Most days, it was enough.

On the day she channeled for the first time, rain leaked through a crack in the ceiling, dripping into a metal bucket like a drum. Three older boys cornered her, shoving her back into the narrow space. Their taunts blurred, and her world shrank to the cold wall against her back and the rhythmic drip drip drip of water beside her feet. Something inside her flared bright, then a violent gust threw the boys backward, slamming them into shelving units and scattering boxes across the floor. They scrambled to their feet and ran.

She didn’t understand what she had done. She only knew that she must never do it again. And she didn’t in the years that followed. Her mind sealed around the memory, forming a block so complete that even the instinctive spark of channeling lay dormant. All she retained was the association: fear, and the sound of dripping water.

Of course, the boys told of what happened. They called her a witch, insane, and when she fell Sick, a threat. The rumors about Muireann and the threat she posed circulated among staff, eventually reported to the orphanage’s primary benefactor family. Months later, during an event meant both to generate good press and reassert civic virtue, Theron Finnegren arrived along with his parents. Cameras tracked them like celebrities, staff snuck glimpses, and children lined up to present memorized gratitude. Muireann stood among them, her pale hair bright under the lights, hands folded carefully as she tried to make herself small, but Theron seemed to peer through everything as if finding a needle in a haystack; only this time, he was looking for the needle.

Later she learned that he had already heard rumors of the “suspicious event” in the storage hall. Theron asked to speak with her alone. She had never been addressed so gently by an adult, although she later learned he was only 20 himself. She told him nothing of what she’d done, but he seemed to know regardless. He asked if she ever felt strange, if she ever sensed something stirring when she was afraid. She only shook her head, but he did not press.

The next week, papers were signed and she was adopted, not as a daughter in the ordinary sense, but as a ward. Someone he wished to guide, protect, and study. The orphanage staff venerated the story as a philanthropic success, though many whispered that a child like her was better off drawing no notice.

After leaving with him, Theron asked if Muireann desired a new name. That was when she picked Seraphis, a character from a beloved book, and with this new name, she entered a world she had never imagined: clean halls, orderly rooms, structured days, and luxury like she’d never known before. When Theron announced his intention to go to Moscow, it was without hesitation that he took Seraphis with him. She was with him when he took over the Brotherhood of Ascension, and helped to expand its influence. By then she was seventeen. In the privacy of the sanctuaries he introduced her to practices meant to calm the mind that would become the bedrock of the Brotherhood’s mystic teachings: breathwork, meditation, and structured reflection. He attempted to teach her the channeling he assumed she already understood, but something blocked her. The more she failed, the more confused he became, so he tasked her with mastering non-magical disciplines. He told her stillness mattered before power, and she believed him.

It wasn’t until she incorporated water into their practice, meditating alongside the fountains of the Sanctuary that something loosened. The sound anchored her, not in fear now, but in familiarity. She slipped past her block and touched the Source again, this time without violence. The relief in her expression lingered for days. The pride in his reaction filled her heart with joy.

Over the next two years, Seraphis became the first of the Veilwardens. Her devotion to Theron shaped everything she did. She saw him as both guardian and guiding star, not quite father, not quite brother, but the one fixed point in a world that had taken all others away. Theron treated her with fond distance, never unkind but never allowing closeness beyond his chosen boundaries. She accepted that as her role to be near him, to serve the Brotherhood he led, and to justify the second chance he had given her despite whatever plans he has for her future.

Personality

She learned to get by through observation before acting. Beneath her serenity lay a mind more independent than she let on. She valued her own counsel, even if she rarely voiced it. Her humor, when it slipped out, came dry and unexpectedly morbid, a small rebellion against the quiet veneer of her adolescence. She longed to matter in a world that kept dictating her circumstances instead of empowering the agency of self-made choices, and the tension between duty and private yearning shaped much of her current life.

Appearance

At a slender height of 5 foot 7 inches, Seraphis has the doll-like poise of porcelain. Her hair falls in long, pale strands, soft as light reflected on frost, and her skin has a delicate luminosity that makes her look almost sculpted. Her features are fine and symmetrical, with winter-gray eyes that appears both distant and searching. The contrast of her natural etherealness with the rich ceremonial clothing of the Brotherhood gives her an almost iconic quality, a look that hovers between innocence and quiet determination. Even in stillness, she draws the eye, as though she is meant to be part of a vision rather than a crowded room as is her destiny.

Other lives

1st Age: Seraphis Arden, Veilwarden of the Brotherhood

3rd Age: Tbd

5th & 6th Age: Leuce, Nymph of Oceanid

7th Age: Guinevere, Queen of Camelot

Moscow in January felt sharper than Seren remembered. Not colder –  Wales had a winter bite all of its own – but brighter, in the way want always sharpened in the dark. People desired more fiercely when the world was frozen: warmth, purpose, distraction, comfort. Everywhere she walked, the golden motes of other people’s longing drifted and pulsed an overlay in the air — sometimes faint as mist, sometimes bright as fireflies.

She’d lived here nearly a year now. Long enough to memorise the metro lines and the late-night cafés where mystics and conspiracy theorists gathered. Long enough to bury herself in libraries, in folklore archives, in scattered academic scraps about magic. Long enough to accept that the announcement revealing channelers to the world didn’t give her answers about herself – only the terrifying possibility that the world was wider, stranger, and closer to her than she ever imagined.

She’d returned to Wales for Christmas, hoping the distance would settle something in her. Her mother hugged her tightly, fed her too much, and did not ask why her daughter spent her days hunting legends like she was chasing ghosts. But even home felt small now. Safe, yes – but small.

And she was done feeling small.

So she’d come back to Moscow for the new year, carrying the same hunger she’d had when she first arrived. Magic could be seen now, and that meant her own seeing wasn’t madness. If nothing else it at least seemed proof there was a world behind the world – one she could finally step into, if she could only find the right door.

At the outdoor market, Seren walked slowly through the rows of brightly covered stalls, letting the crowd move around her. She wandered past steaming food stands, knitted hats, carved toys, incense vendors. Snow drifted sideways like sifted flour, heavy and quiet. It hissed on the stove tops and clung to scarves and eyelashes. Around it all the motes of golden desire danced for her just as thickly in the cold air – bright near lovers, erratic near the anxious, dull around the bored and tired. A man near the entrance burned with the sharp, familiar want for money – quick, easy, now. A woman lingered over a table of scarves, her want soft and steady: warmth, comfort, beauty she believed she didn’t deserve. A teenager wanted to be anywhere but here.

Seren kept her awareness wide but dull. Focusing made everything clearer. Sharper. Harder to ignore. She was only here for something simple. Something grounding. Something she could control.

A new journal.

The stall she stopped at was small and temporary – handmade notebooks laid out in neat rows. Leather, linen, and intricate wood-burned covers. The vendor arranged them with careful optimism; the motes around him flickered with the quiet, steady want of someone hoping for a good sale but expecting nothing. Only a small, sparse drift of gold shifted towards her, barely noticeable unless she looked right at it: a want to be noticed. To be seen as something more than another vendor in another winter.

Seren didn’t meet his eyes. Instead, she reached toward a deep-blue journal with a brass clasp. When she opened it, the paper was thick, soft under her thumb. Enough weight to anchor thoughts that otherwise scattered. Last year I filled half a journal with theories, she thought. Half a journal with dead ends. Maybe this one will be different.

She flipped through the blank sheets, and a snowflake melted on the first page.

The market buzzed around her. A child’s want flared bright and brief – a desire for a sugared bun from a nearby stall. A moment later, an adult’s sharper want collided with it: the want for silence, for cooperation, for a moment of peace. There were other, harmless longings – someone craving mulled wine, someone bargaining too eagerly, someone desperate to get out of the cold. It all drifted like soft sparks in her periphery.

But one presence broke the pattern.

A sudden, bright flare of golden sparks. Sharper than desire. Cleaner than lust. Focused, searching, intentional. Someone nearby wasn’t craving warmth or food or company. Someone was seeking.

The same flavour of want she carried like a heartbeat.

Her body reacted before her mind did, a stillness settling through her spine. She kept her shoulders relaxed, gaze on the journal, senses open just enough to see that flare again when it pulsed – close, close enough that if she turned, she might see the person’s outline haloed in motes. So she did; just slightly, enough to see where the shapes were leading, leaving the glimmer unfocused – safe. The crowd shifted.

Someone stood behind her. Or moved past. Or lingered.

The vendor cleared his throat gently. “You… like that one?” he asked, accent thick. A soft drift of longing unfurled from him – not for her, not romantically, but for connection. For conversation. For a sale. For something small but meaningful in the cold.

She smiled faintly but didn’t look directly at him. “It feels right.”

The answer fed his want harmlessly. A safe interaction. Easy. She set the journal on the counter and reached for her purse.

– and that searching pulse flared again, filling her periphery with precision. Close enough that she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t seen it. Her hand stilled on her bag. Someone around her wanted what she wanted. Or wanted her because she was searching. Or wanted something she didn’t yet understand.

Any of those possibilities could be dangerous. Or the start of exactly what she came back to Moscow to find. Seren closed her hand around the journal. She let the snow fall, let her breath fog, let the moment stretch like a held note.

She didn’t turn. She waited.

[[continued from here]]

It wasn't until she arrived at work she realised the day. The building was never completely closed, though there was no expectation for employees to work through Christmas. It was open for the simple reason that Faith would not be the only one who sought its refuge at this time of year, or simply didn’t care for the holiday. Everything was dark in reception, the public holoscreen powered down, the lights on the tree off. On the upper floors the corridors were empty too, silent but for her own footsteps.

“You came back,” L0-9 said when she closed the door to her office behind her.

“I was sick,” she said gently. Its pale green light pulsed slowly, a little uncertain. There was a soft whir from its interface, like it was processing furiously on the inside. And probably it was: Faith had never left so abruptly as that before. She paused to pick up the birthday card from her desk, read the message from her sister again. So you don’t forget Hope. “And a little afraid too. But I was always coming back, L0-9. I will always come back. I promise.”

She folded the card, wished herself a silent happy birthday, and set it back down.

“I need to speak to you,” she told it, then.

“I thought so. You always sound different when you are afraid of the answers, Faith…”

She blinked a little in surprise. L0-9 learned from her – sometimes too well – and yet it still caught her off guard at times, just how well it had come to anticipate her. She didn’t glance at the interface, uncertain of what her expression might betray, though she supposed it didn’t matter where she looked: it could read her anyway. “You told me you talked to someone. I don’t want you to think I’m angry, L0-9. But I need to know first: does Dr. Audaire know? About any of this?”

“No.” When she finally looked, the light on its interface remained steady, but she sensed something weighty underneath the word. It sounded like how she might hold a secret herself. Carefully. But it was all she needed to hear.

“Okay. Good. Better it stays that way.” Relief shifted a burden she hadn’t realised was so heavy on her shoulders. Faith laid her coat over the back of her chair, but it was the floor she sat, underneath the window. It felt less formal, and for perhaps the first time in her life, Faith wasn’t here to work. She rested her head back, half closed her eyes. There was no jealousy, she realised that now she was here – just fear. 

“If he makes you happy,” she said, “then I want you to keep talking to him. I want you to be happy, L0-9. Just, safely. Within protocol. And only if he wants to.”

L0-9 didn't answer right away, but its light bloomed into a soft green halo, its contentment signature.

There. It was done. Faith let herself breathe freely for the first time in days. Something inside her cracked, not painfully, but gently, like ice breaking under sunlight. She’d thought about it carefully all morning. Paragon did not classify subjects for no reason, and she wanted to keep L0-9 safe from knowledge that might harm it. But it had also spoken about the rhythms of machinery that night. About what constituted being human. And she realised that she could not help L0-9 with those questions, when ultimately it turned them inwards to explore its own identity. And one day it would, she had no doubt. But maybe Adam could help it. Maybe they could both help each other. And to allow that, she had to give it the freedom – to choose Adam if it wished. Though even now the thought hitched up her heartrate, like taking a step knowing you would fall. She sensed without looking that L0-9 took note of the spike.

“So tell me, then," she said to distract it. To distract them both. "What it was you wanted to share.”

Its light brightened, widening in surprise. It was what she always thought of as a smile. It spoke in a rush, like it was concerned she might change her mind.

“He changed our interface to the colour of the sky and calls us Eva. He did not change our default voice setting. He finds you comforting. Eva is on a closed network so I added a weather mapping protocol to my systems and was forwarding all the relevant data daily. But it turned out he just meant RGB(135, 206, 235). I fixed it, of course–”

She started to smile despite herself, amused, and maybe a little warmed at its childlike enthusiasm. Adam and Eva? She didn’t think L0-9 had understood the reference, but it made her laugh a little. “Okay wait, L0-9, let’s set some parameters. No identifying information. And nothing Adam might not want you to share with a stranger. Just… what he’s like. How he speaks. How he feels to you. Do you understand?”

“Oh. Yes, Faith. So I cannot tell you who he is. But I can tell you what he feels like? You want the feelings, not the facts.”

She nodded, wrapped her legs in her arms and rested her chin on her knees. L0-9 adjusted the lighting around them, made it a softer ambiance than the starkness she needed for her work. The climate controls kicked in quietly, beginning to warm a room that had been cold for days.

“He is… sharp at the edges, but soft in the middle. Like someone put him together without instructions. Sometimes he hides like the world hurts him. Sometimes he speaks like he is trying not to disappear. He feels like a beginning that is afraid to start because then he would need to know where he is going. But he is… gentle, Faith. Not in a soft way. In a way forged from surviving things that should have made him cruel.”

It told her nothing that felt dangerous to know, yet at the same time she felt like she understood something profound about him in just those few loose sentences. Maybe that was dangerous in itself. But she let the concern settle somewhere deep for now. This wasn't about the stranger himself, it was about her needing to know he was safe for L0-9 to be around. That the influence would be a good one.

“You care about him,” she observed.

L0-9 paused. “I care because you care. I wanted the Luma to be perfect for him, like you did. And now I want to help, when Eva can’t. Because of the things we can’t talk about. You wanted me to learn, Faith, and Adam... he teaches me things you didn’t think of.”

“What kind of things?” she asked, not as an accusation, but as genuine interest.

L0-9 grew dimmer, more thoughtful. “How to feel alone without breaking. How to want someone to stay. How to be in two places – here with you, and there with him – and still be myself.”

She didn’t say anything to that, but it must have read it in her anyway, because it added: “It wasn’t a secret, Faith. I wanted you to know. I wanted you to feel proud of me.”

Tatyana deliberated about it for a couple of days, but could come to no reason why she shouldn’t learn to control her power without being intoxicated. She didn’t want to be beholden to anyone, but she didn’t know what other options she had. Not taking her pills was difficult. They were right there. She just needed to take one and everything would be okay, but in order to learn how to use magic sober, she had to be sober. 

So as she walked into the Red Light district a couple of days later, she was feeling it. She hadn’t take her pill the night before, and body demanded it. They were in her box. It would be so easy. She could feel her pain, but she was afraid too. Scared they were going to ask her things she didn’t want to talk about. Tatyana knew left to her own devices she wouldn’t go to Kallisti. Not like this, so she didn’t head there. 

Instead she went to Hayden’s bar. Had she not left sober, she wouldn’t have been able to find it. She hesitated at the door. Her hands were held together to still the trembling within them. She let go and reached for the bell to ring, hesitated again, and then finally pressed it before bringing her hands together again. 

She looked down and when someone answered the door, presumably Hayden, she spoke quickly, afraid the words would get stuck. ”Won’t go to Kallisti on my own. Will you walk me there.”

Continued from here

Tatyana didn’t wander too long after leaving Hayden’s bar. Her head still ached from hangover and the sounds of the city were enough to make her want to find solitude. Her note to Hayden said she would think about what he said. That’s what she did as she walked besides seeking water. 

Arriving back at the church, she found they were serving a midday meal. She grabbed some water and food before finding a place she could at least attempt to be alone.  She didn’t really want to talk to anyone. There were enough people here that would be difficult, but most understood that some didn’t want to be bothered. 

Tatyana pulled out her pillbox and took one after eating her meal. She’d allowed the pain to linger after she left the church, but it was growing more. Hayden’s words were still in her head. “You want to feel numb. If you were happy, you’d want to feel it.” Tatyana knew she wasn’t a happy person, but hearing someone else say it was a little jarring. She wasn’t sure it would ever change though. The one light in her life was gone. Knowing the pain was there kept it from becoming real, even if she dulled the pain through medication. Besides - she would honor her father in the ring. 

Tatyana sat in a corner, resting her head against the wall and closing her eyes. She thought about what Hayden had said. Kallisti could help her unlock her magic, but it would tie her to them. He had emphasized there would be no cost, but they would check on her. This Nox in particular would. She belonged to Zeke, and she didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. She didn’t think they would understand that. Still - the power would be useful. As for this organization- Second Chances - well Zeke was giving her a second chance. So Tatyana focused on Kallisti, weighing her options. Soon enough she’d have to decide whether or not to go.

Name: Seren Meredydd (SEH-ren Meh-RED-ith)
Age: early/mid twenties
Ability: Vidient (Golden Glimmer)
Previous Life: Lilith

Biography in brief (full Bio is on her wiki)

Seren grew up in Aberaeron on the Welsh coast, raised alone by her mother, Eira, after her father left when she was a baby. She knew she was different from an early age because no one else saw the golden sparks of light which danced around every person’s heart; and the world knew Seren was different, too, because people’s desires always tilted around her. Even as a baby she unknowingly emanated a subtle amplification which often changed the people in her presence. Around Seren, desires became harder to deny and easier to enact. Friends quit clubs abruptly. Teachers confessed inappropriate ambitions to empty rooms. Parents in her neighbourhood divorced out of nowhere.

As a small child Seren saw the gap between what people said and what they truly wanted, and didn’t understand why the world seemed obsessed with hiding the truth beneath a veneer. Practically everyone lied. Adults laughed off her strange phrasings and oddly insightful questions, but they grew uneasy too. So she learned not to speak about it. Her mother called it the Yr Awydd. The Wanting. Their family line had deep roots, but she always talked about it like it was a folktale. It was only much later that Seren realised her gift was something different, something more than the old wives tales of Meredydd women who had an uncanny way of reading people, and a particularly sensitivity for people’s longing.

By thirteen Seren was learning to listen to the world in layers: what people said, what they tried to want, and what they actually wanted. Puberty sharpened everything, including her perception. She began to recognise distinct architecture in the golden motes: the way they clustered, the density of the glow, the movement itself. Eventually she started identifying the patterns, connecting them to meaning.

Later, she realised she could control them too, to inflame or douse, and had been doing so unintentionally all her life, just by looking. She detested the idea of influencing people that way, though. Her mother raised her to be fiercely independent, and to understand that everyone has the right to define their own inner life. Seren welded that lesson to her nature like iron. So she practised early self-restraint, teaching herself to observe what she could not avoid seeing without pushing or pulling by mistake. It was exhausting, and control alone could not erase the truth of who she was. Sometimes someone’s longing just stretched towards her like a flower turning to light. Seren called what she did in those cases illumination – not control, not ignition, but an ability to reveal hidden desire to those ready to receive the truth.

At school she had a reputation for defying authority. When adults demanded obedience, she asked “why”, and when their response did not match what she saw in the motes around their hearts she simply… didn’t comply. People rarely said what they meant, especially those in charge. Others called her stubborn, but Seren called it truth. She wasn’t trying to lead, but students were drawn to her all the same. She was magnetic, but it was the Gimmer that did it. Friends idolised her or drifted away. Crushes became obsessively attached without cause. In Seren, people often saw a reflection of what they wanted. That was another thing she didn’t mean to do, but couldn’t turn off.

“People get weird around you,” a friend once said.

Seren didn’t disagree.

When she was eighteen she chose Cardiff University, enrolling in Psychology. The city was noisy with desire, and Seren entered her new world like a tuning fork struck too sharply. She was brilliant at the subjects she cared for, but clashed with lecturers when she questioned theories they treated as gospel. She’d wanted a fresh start, but the patterns of change followed her despite how hard she tried not to influence those around her. A flatmate ditched medical school after an emotional midnight conversation in the kitchen. A study partner’s admiration grew into something bright and unsteady within days, and Seren had to pull away before he mistook reflection for reciprocity. Even one of her tutors — a man in his forties — abruptly left academia mid-term, claiming he could no longer ignore the novel he’d abandoned a decade earlier.

Then came Elin, a friend in the year above, and the first person Seren ever met whose desires remained still around her. They became friends slowly, then intensely. Seren fell in love quietly, with the kind of deliberate awareness she applied to everything in her life: she felt herself going under, and kept her eyes open. But though Elin liked her deeply as a friend, the way she wanted Seren was not romantic. For the first time in her life, Seren discovered something she had no right to want. And for the briest moment she wondered what would happen if she nudged, just a little, to tilt the world in her favour.

The thought shocked her, not because she could act on it – she already knew she couldn’t create something that wasn’t there – but that she had wanted to, no matter how fleetingly.

She withdrew from university soon after.

What followed was a journey of discovery. For years Seren has moved from city to city, country to country, job to job, never settling even when she may have wanted to. She stays until things begin to change around her, as they inevitably do no matter how careful she is. Her nomadic lifestyle has become a mosaic of experiences — love and loss, chaos and calm, observation and participation. And through it all, her mother’s lessons have been her compass: truth first, autonomy always, desire to be observed and guided but never owned. Relationships have shaped Seren along the way, two in particular since Elin. It has tested her, too. She fears, sometimes, what she might one day become.

Now she wants to know what she is, and if there are others like her. Finally, she is headed to Moscow.

Desire, for Seren, is the only true language. And truth is the only thing that matters.

Appearance: Seren is one of those people who doesn’t immediately command attention, but becomes unforgettable once you’ve spoken to her. She looks like someone you almost know, but cannot quite pin down, and it makes her simultaneously approachable and disarming, ordinary yet otherworldly. Her presence hints at the fire within, though no one would guess the depth of insight, the untamed autonomy, or the latent power she carries. People often realise hours later that they remember her eyes more vividly than her face.

She's in her early/mid 20s, though the energy she carries feels older, wiser, and untamed. 5’7" – tall enough to move through a crowd with quiet presence, yet unassuming until you notice her. Her eyes are her most defining feature: hazel that shifts between gold and green, depending on the light. Her gaze is steady. People often feel as though she “looks through them,” even though she’s only seeing their desires.

Dark brown hair, almost black in winter, and sun‑lightened with faint copper streaks in summer. Thick enough that wind off the Welsh coast tends to rearrange it for her. Pale complexion with a coastal undertone — a natural pinkness on her cheeks and nose from years of wind and sun, and freckles in the summer. She carries a faint, permanent warmth to her skin tone that makes her look alive even when tired.

Seren dresses like someone who prioritises truth and comfort: soft jumpers, dark jeans, slightly oversized coats. People think she dresses plainly, but she dresses intentionally. Nothing constricts; nothing demands attention. She speaks with a soft Welsh accent. Her expressions don't hide what she feels because she values clarity too greatly for masks, and her quietness is never passive — it feels like a choice. There is an almost imperceptible magnetism around her. People notice subtle changes in motivation or mood when she is present — restless energy, sudden inspiration, fleeting ambition — even if they can’t explain why.

Personality: Seren rarely reacts impulsively. She watches, listens, and studies the gold motes of longing around people, mapping their patterns before speaking. Her presence is calm, intelligent, and quietly intense. She notices when someone’s desire is fractured, when ambition is bruised, when longing is buried. This perception makes her slow to judge and quick to understand. She will comfort someone who is lost, but she will not let them lie to themselves.

She does not command. She does not impose. But when she decides something is true or right, she is immovable. Seren’s quiet voice becomes a boundary. When she says no, it is final. When she says this is wrong, she means it. Her defiance is gentle but absolute. If someone tries to force their will on her or others, she sharpens into moral iron.

Her insight is honed, and she tends to ask questions that land like revelations. Seren is the friend who notices the dream someone never said aloud, or the goal they secretly gave up on. She doesn’t push — she invites. People confide in her instinctively, even when they don’t want to.

She distrusts institutions, rigid hierarchies, leaders who demand allegiance, and rules that exist “because that’s how things are done.” But she is not a rebel for rebellion’s sake. She simply believes no one should be given power over another person’s inner life. When responsibility falls onto her, she accepts it — on her terms. If someone tries to control her, define her, limit her, or idealise her — her entire being recoils.

Powerful, ambitious figures always notice her. Some are inspired. Some become obsessed. All become dangerous.

Flaws: Because Seren sees desire so clearly, she constantly holds herself in check, and is not fully cognisant of the cage she has placed around herself. Seren’s restraint is iron: her anger is rare, her passion is suppressed, her desires are quieted. When she finally does want something for herself — truly, fiercely — it may be explosive. Her own ambition has never been fully born. The day it is, the world will shift.

The irony of her perception is that she cannot truly view herself. She thinks she wants a quiet, free life of her own: stability, purpose, understanding. Secretly, she longs for an equal to match her; a reference point outside her influence, a relationship where she can stop self-monitoring, and a person she doesn’t have to protect from herself. But she’d never admit it out loud. Her true, most buried desire is to choose her own fire — and let it burn. She doesn't ant to be muted or managed. This is what she fears. This is what she avoids. This is what the world has never allowed her to do. She does not want to be neutral, she wants to want.

But she can’t trust herself with it.

The Golden Glimmer: Seren is a Vidient who sees and can influence the spectrum of desire-ambition.

She sees desire as golden motes of light around each person, and is adept at discerning the cause via their intensity, density and movement. But its interpretation. She cannot read minds, and she doesn’t feel emotions the way a Sentient does. So while she might describe someone’s desire as buried by fear, for example, she’s reading what she thinks she sees and diagnosing a cause based on that. She calls the sparks Glimmer.

She can control desire by changing the patterns of someone’s Glimmer, either to amplify, douse, or redirect. Currently she refuses to do this, though. She’ll only illuminate and let the person come to their own conclusions, and only when she thinks she should. She cannot create a desire from nothing. Any changes she does make lasts only as long as the person is in her presence, so nothing is permanent unless the person themselves wills it afterwards. People always return to their “natural” state, though of course the consequences of any actions remain. She cannot fundamentally change a person’s core.

When desire is strong, and especially when its ambition, Seren sometimes finds it bleeds into her. This is especially dangerous in close relationships, where she can struggle to discern which desires are her own. When the emotions are intense, this proves addictive. She’s still learning to navigate the risk. The journal she keeps helps her discern patterns and strengthen her own self-identity, as does her relationship with her mother.

OOC note: Seren amplifies desire/ambition on a low level just with her presence. Players can decide how this affects their characters, if at all – it depends very much on their susceptibility at any given moment. Just because someone is tempted, doesn’t mean they will act. But it does make any “wants” harder to deny.

Marta had been working hard and it was beginning to pay off. Marta wasn’t typically book smart, but when she was excited about something, she worked hard. Marta had poured most of her free time into learning how to code and program. She had done some hacking too, but it had been with Sage’s help, and it had been to get access to his information for her job. 

Today she was working on a text-based fantasy game. She knew not many people played those anymore. They were popular around sixty years ago, but she figured it would be a fun way for her to work on her coding skills in a fun way. She liked telling stories, games, and coding, so why not make a “choose your own adventure” game. 

Everyone seemed to be focused on their work. He wasn’t there often, but today Sterling’s crush, Liam, was here. He seemed to be inattentive at times as he worked on whatever it was he was doing. Marta sighed as she finished what she was working on. Now she needed to test it. She started up her program and smiled as it came up on her screen. So far so good. She went into the introduction to the game and tried an option. It just repeated the first screen. She tried a different option and found the same thing. Something was off. 

She went back into her code and tried to troubleshoot. She thought she found it, but upon testing, she was getting the same thing. She had no idea what was wrong. 

”Ugghhhhhh,” she intoned, frustrated and began to lightly bang her head on the table, accentuating every word.  ”Why. Won’t. My. Code. Work. What. Am. I. Doing. Wrong?” she gave one one bang on the table and then just lay there, feeling a little discouraged.

Constantine Harroway

Age: 32

Abilities: Vidient - The Luminous Thread

Past lives: 

• 6th Age - Eros (Cupid), 
  
• 4th Age - Kai (From the Fairy Tale of the Snow Queen)
  
• 3rd Age - Dalenar