Hope everyone head a great Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

A cold snout shoving up urgently under her chin was what woke her. Tenzin groaned as Never’s excitement stamped all over her chest. Not that he wasn’t being careful, or as careful as he ever was. Shoving him off far enough to breathe, it took Tenzin a moment to unpick the dizzying train of his thoughts. He crouched close beside her, still wiggling amidst the blankets, tongue hot and lolling, and couldn’t resist the small nips of unrestrained joy and the demand to hurry! Hurry!

Sierra, and dream, and Wyldfyre all blurred together, but fortunately Tenzin understood enough.

“I go I go,” she groaned, resorting to just shielding her face now with an arm draped over it. “Stop jumping! Need a moment, pup.”

After the trials in Norway, His Holiness returned to Rome in solemn procession, though none but those closest to him would have called it retreat. Within the ancient stone of the Vatican, beneath gilded ceilings and the low murmur of sacred chants, Pope Patricus I found a season of stillness. It was Christmastide, and though the liturgical calendar ran on as ever it had, the weight upon his shoulders did not lift.

The memories of Norway and Siberia clung to him like incense after Mass. The Key of Cunning lay buried deep within the Apostolic Archives now, classified among relics whose natures were best left unquestioned. Yet it called to him. Not with words, not even with thought, but with the subtle allure of something unfinished. He resisted, as was expected of him and as was required. That such a temptation could arise at all was troubling. That he felt it was worse.

Armande had fallen into silence in the weeks that followed. The women who accompanied him spoke little as well, offering weariness as excuse and solitude as shield. Armande himself spoke often of patience, with all the gravity of a cardinal instructing a novice. Patience! To the Pope himself. One of the Fruits, he had called it. The absurdity of it sparked a glare had it not also rung true in some distant corner of Philip’s soul.

And yet, patience was no balm. The other keys remained hidden, scattered like seeds on unbroken ground, and Philip knew without evidence or reasoning that they must be found. That they must not fall into the wrong hands. Whether it was instinct or something more, he could not say. Only that the sense of purpose had not left him.

Rome swelled with celebration in those holy weeks. Chorales rang out beneath the dome of Saint Peter’s; pilgrims crowded the piazza like waves pressed against the shore. Then, as Epiphany gave way to Ordinary Time, the announcement came: the Pope would journey to Moscow.

Not a summons nor an obligation. A choice. It would be his first meeting with the Ascendancy; a public gathering, one announced with careful language and diplomatic tact. Many had asked for such a meeting before; all had been denied. Until now.

The Ascendancy could not know the truth behind the change. But Philip was ready.

It was late when Claude received a response to the text he sent to Nora earlier. She had been working on infiltrating the Brotherhood of the Ascendant Flame. Claude knew she was nervous about it and she could be fairly easy to read. He wanted to check in and make sure she was alright. It was hard to tell from her message if she was being serious, but he would trust her at her word. He really hoped she was okay. It was her first job in the field. 

Claude had to to chuckle a bit at her asking if he was at the safe house that they called home for the time being. He wasn't nearly so adventurous as she was, and it was hard for him to go out when she was out.  He was sure eventually he would relax more. He let her know that he was and asked if she was hungry. It didn't surprise him that she was. She had likely been too focused to eat. He had planned on it and prepared for it. There were chicken breasts marinating in the fridge already and had already chopped some vegetables to saute. 

Claude began to cook as soon as he got her response and let her know to plan on a hot meal when she returned.  Her response made him laugh too. Haha! I figured you didn't eat much today. Good thing you have a little brother that plans ahead

The chicken breasts were soaking in a lemon pepper marinade and he had preheated the oven as soon as she had responded. He had a snack to hold himself over and could eat as well. Thankfully the oven had finished it's preheat shortly after he started sauteing the vegetables. It gave the small apartment a great aroma as he worked. Hopefully the travel through the city would slow her down enough for him to finish before she got back. If she got back a little later, she would understand if she had to wait for a little bit, but he'd rather have it ready when she got here, but still hot.

The food finished and he just finished separating the food onto two plates as the door opened and Nora entered. He gave her a smile and placed the two plates on the counter. "Welcome back. Perfect timing," he said with a smile. Claude gestured for her to sit and got the appropriate cutlery which he handed brought to her. "Water, juice, soda, something stronger?" he asked, offering a beverage with her meal.

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.