Where Myths Tread [SUDS]

[VeloJello]

@Winter, should be done, now.

Name: Seraphine “Sera” Eze.

Age: 17 years.

Gender: Female.

Patron Goddess: Sekhmet [fierce huntress, champion of ra. domain over sun and deserts].

Appearance: Even at first glance, Seraphine’s athleticism is quite evident. She stands at 5’10”, and her muscles are well-toned. Her skin is dark brown; her eyes and close-shaved hair are black. Her facial features are pretty, although she rarely sees fit to augment them with makeup. On an average day, her wardrobe consists of simple but colorful clothing, which is usually very loose and light so that she doesn’t overheat.

Personality: Most people consider Seraphine to be bad company, and not without reason. She's best known for being curt and temperamental. The numerous physical fights she's gotten into - and usually won - over the years have only solidified this reputation. In reality, while Seraphine does have a bit of a runaway temper, she's got no real ill intentions and generally just wants people who she doesn't know very well to leave her alone.

As a result, very few see the deeper aspects of her personality. Although she does struggle with controlling her anger, she tends to be driven by strong feelings of restlessness and a need to enforce a sense of justice. Whatever form it comes in, she believes that any just authority should be treated with respect and deference, although she would rather not be that authority herself. Despite her rigidity, Sera is a good friend. Unshakably loyal with a wry sense of humor, she treats her friends well. She also has a creative side - although only a few know it, she loves writing and reading poetry.

History: Seraphine was the last of three children, raised in a loving, busy home for the duration of her infancy. However, when she was two years old, her parents’ drive to the doctor’s office for Sera’s routine checkup ended prematurely in a car crash. Seraphine survived, miraculously, but her parents did not. The scientists of Cloud’s Cross happened to find out about the accident, and it took a few quick alterations to cause the records to show that Seraphine Bello had died alongside her parents.

Seraphine Eze, however, lived on. She was a very active child, always mobile; she loved sports and anything that allowed her to burn off energy. As a little tyke, she spent most of her time outside, hoping for a glimpse of the sun as she chased the town cats and otherwise ran amok. However, when she entered school, she had some trouble adjusting. Her parents had instilled her with a strong sense of fairness, which she took extremely seriously - to the point where she would kick, punch, and slap anyone who she found guilty of bullying. She quickly developed a reputation for bully-hunting; her parents didn’t approve of her violent behavior, but saw her actions as a sign that she was developing the potential to become a leader and a protector, and as such didn’t clamp down on her particularly hard.

However, Seraphine’s temper did not improve with time. When she hit the age of twelve, her unchecked anger began to cause problems among her peers. A week-long suspension after she broke Lux's nose was her parents’ wake-up call to start teaching her that using her fists was an inappropriate way to solve most problems. By then, however, the habits were much harder to unlearn, and while from there she was able to work toward adopting conflict resolution skills that weren’t violence, her fighting nature still remained - especially where perceived injustices were concerned.

When Seraphine returned to school from that fight, she found someone waiting to welcome her - Lysander Martis, the boy whom she’d fought to protect. A sensitive soul and a common target for bullies, Lysander basically adopted Seraphine as his guardian. Sera was pleased with this arrangement, as she had had trouble making friends and was often troubled by loneliness. Their common interests in the arts - and their shared nigh-compulsive attraction toward fire - made it easy for them to get along.

Although Seraphine didn’t know it, she began to get in touch with the spirit of Sekhmet as the years progressed. This connection manifested itself in multiple ways: she easily befriended the town cats, made flames burn hotter just by passing by them, and had an uncannily high body heat in almost every situation, to the point where fights with her would frequently end in the other combatant having burn marks where her fists had hit. While Seraphine was content to chalk these strange occurrences down to happenstance, and trusted her parents’ reassurances that these things were perfectly fine and normal, Lysander was not. While she claims to believe that nothing is wrong with Cloud’s Cross, and that their parents should be trusted rather than constantly questioned for nothing, she’s in a fair bit of denial over the situation. Being questioned about it by anyone, even Lysander, puts her on the defensive as she struggles to convince herself that everything is alright.

Other: Only close friends are allowed to call her Sera. Those who violate this rule will be given a verbal warning. If the verbal warning fails, subsequent warnings will be delivered in the form of punches. Also, although most of the town's cats tend to like her, one of them specifically has declared that he is "her" cat - a big orange-and-white tom whom she named Oswald.

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Name: Lysander Martis.

Age: 16 years.

Gender: Male.

Patron God: Prometheus [domain over forethought and earth. thought to have created mankind and given them fire].

Appearance: In the middle of his growth, Lysander is broad-shouldered but rangy, standing at 6’ even. His skin is tanned; his hair is dark, shoulder-length, and usually worn in a ponytail. He has a squarish, handsome face, with brown eyes and a naturally open expression. He tends to dress in darker tones, favoring casual fashions such as jackets and scarves without being too extravagant. Although he's not able to grow a full mustache or beard yet, he often forgets to shave the little wisps that form on his upper lip.

Personality: While Lysander tends to be a bit shy, he always makes sure to approach others with a friendly smile. His inclination toward helping others and his natural good humor and enthusiasm make him easy to get along with. While he doesn’t make close friends with everyone he meets, he likes to add cheer to even strangers’ days with a kind word or a smile. He is also extremely creative, engaged in visual art, song, and writing.

What most people don’t know about Lysander is that he’s very nervous by default. He lives with general anxiety disorder, which manifests as jitters, insecurity, and a pervasive, restless sense that some day the other shoe will drop and some great disaster will befall him or those around him. He tends to attach to close friends more strongly as a result, thinking of the people in his life as his anchors. While his worries can sometimes consume him, it doesn't stop him from being intelligent and perceptive, able to understand people and new situations fairly easily on instinct.

History: Lysander was born with a congenital heart defect; his parents loved him deeply, but they had little money, and the treatments that Lysander needed eventually exceeded his parents’ means. Faced with a horrible struggle, they were trapped until a stranger came to them with an offer: they would never be able to see their son again, but the stranger would ensure that Lysander would be given the life-saving treatments and the chance of a life he would not have otherwise had. His parents, though reluctant, accepted.

That stranger and her wife became Lysander’s mothers when the baby was infused with the spirit of Prometheus and the doors of Cloud’s Cross closed. From there, Lysander was able to grow and explore. From a young age, he was very perceptive - he got into strangely few accidents as a child, as he was very good at knowing where danger was and how to avoid it. However, this didn't help him much through school, as there was danger around him quite consistently. His sensitivity and artistic nature made him a very easy target for bullies. Although his moms were encouraging and supportive, school was quite miserable for him until he was about eleven years old, when a few blunt words from Lux put him past his emotional limit - and then a girl with a reputation for hitting bullies abruptly came down on him, broke his nose, and got suspended for it.

Lysander knew, even without talking to her, that this girl was good and that she had stepped up to his defense, and as such he was the first one to welcome her back. He latched onto her, and eventually discovered that they had shared interests in writing and a love of fire. He trusted her despite his own insecurities, and she was able to open up to him more than she had ever done with others. This friendship only grew over the years, although it remained strictly platonic due to a simple lack of interest.

However, as time went on, Lysander slowly began to notice the abnormalities of Cloud's Cross. His instincts for danger only grew - he was eerily good at knowing when accidents would happen, although he chalked this down to his natural paranoia happening to occasionally be correct. He noticed Seraphine's restlessness, the strange attraction she had to fire, the burn-like wounds that would appear on people she'd fought whenever she was very angry. He noticed that that others in the city could do things that just didn't seem to exactly fit the normal profile. The fact that many of Cloud's Cross's kids were adopted, himself included, wasn't wasted on him either. While he chalked down his ability to anticipate disaster and natural understanding of other people to personal tendencies, he couldn't ignore the fact that the elements themselves reacted to his fellow kids. While Seraphine has not been much help, he wants to find the answers in Cloud's Cross.

Other: In addition to GAD, Lysander also has ornithophobia (fear of birds). Hearing about them doesn't make him nervous, but he finds seeing pictures of them unsettling and will go out of his way to avoid the chicken coops.