Chapter Text
She has her father’s temper.
It took a while for her to see it, he was always so calm. Almost her entire life, she had seen him as a steady rock while her rage tossed her like a rag.
It isn’t until she’s older that she starts seeing the anger that shakes her in him as well. But while her temper is a sudden and blazing fire, his is a carefully aimed blast. She sees it when he narrows his eyes and makes a whole room fall silent, when he makes a single word as deadly as his scythe.
“It’s a weapon,” he had told her. ”But it’s a wild one, you have to watch it very carefully and make sure that you’re the one who controls it, or it will control you.”
Seraphina hung on every word, but didn’t really understand at the time.
She does now.
There are times, when people will come to her and sing praises to her hero of a father, that she wants to scream and tear at them until they BEG her to stop.
“Your great and noble hero!” She wants to shriek, “the one you all loved so much that you sent him to hell!”
Instead she smiles, thanks them so politely and coolly while she lets the rage burn through her words. She learns not to bottle her anger, but to refine it. It makes her smile sharp as a blade and blazes through her eyes.
“There’s a storm in your eyes, luv.” Uncle Sehstor would tell her, whispering it as she smiles through the functions and social bullshit.
The first time she silenced a group with just a look she almost ruined the moment by laughing. She was so glad that Sehstor was there to see it.
“You’re growing up into a right terrifying bitch.” He’d told her afterwards. She’d thrown her head back and laughed, taking it for the compliment that it was. Sehstor had grinned at her and then sobered, his voice softening into a quiet murmur meant only for the two of them.
“Your dad would be proud.”
Sera hears that a lot, but she never gives Sehstor the same look that she gives the others. From Sehstor it means something, she knows that he only says it when it’s absolutely true.
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The anger gives her focus. She can block out everything else and dive into her tasks with a fierce determination. She finds passion in Terraformation. Feeling a world come to life under her hands, blending magic and science and pure wildness together into something new and amazing.
It’s control, and she knows herself well enough to know that perhaps it is having complete control over an entire ecosystem that draws her to it. Control was something that flew away on a ship bound for a doomed prison.
Everyone wants to be her friend at first, the daughter of the great General Pitchiner. She smiles and simmers at them until they leave on their own, leave her to her studies.
Uncle Sehstor tries to convince her to talk to people more, to reach out more. But it’s a half-hearted try at best. He is just as angry about what the empire has done as she is.
She has entire planets speaking to her, she has plants and atmospheres and the rain and light to direct. When she develops a new way to directly plug into the ecosystem, a way to link a Terraformers mind and will to the web of life they create, Uncle Sehstor is there to see her present it.
He grins wide at her, his muzzle graying but he’s just as full of fight as ever. From what she’d heard, he fought damn hard to make sure he was planetside for this. Warm, brown paws cover her hands and he leans in to whisper in her ear.
“He’d be damn proud of you, girl.”
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Sehstor means it, and she’s sure the Tsar and Tsarina do as well, but she refuses to hear it from them. She can’t ignore them like she wants to, she can’t yell and tell them where they can shove their gratitude.
They honor him and throw feasts in his name. They give speeches that bring tears to the eyes of all that hear them.
They talk about him like he’s dead.
Of course they throw a banquet to honor her invention. She’s the head Terraformer for the empire. The Royal Terraformer. She is not allowed to simply make new discoveries quietly.
And, of course, the party conversation winds back to her father.
He was such a determined soul as well.
Oh you look just like he did.
He would be proud dear.
He was so good, and noble, and brave, and he sacrificed so much for you dear, aren’t you grateful?
People begin to raise toasts; to her, to the Tsar and Tsarina, to the memory of The Great General Pitchiner.
To the memory.
“I would like to raise a toast as well.” She says with a smile.
Hushed silence falls, people watch her with eager faces. She is known for her quiet, for her thin smiles and tendency to disappear.
Uncle Sehstor’s eyes widen in growing horror as she stands and lifts her glass.
“I would like to thank my father, for passing on the, as Sehstor would put it ‘damn stubborn head’ that lead me here.” She pauses for the polite laughter that follows, smiling. “My father is,” another pause, letting the present tense sink in, “the finest man I’ll ever know. And I hope every day that his stubborn head keeps him well, as our empires finest Hero stands alone in the place we would not even send our vilest criminals.”
She sits, smiles at the shocked faces, and goes back to her dinner.
She isn’t invited to any banquets or festivals or grand, honoring celebrations again.
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She will always remember exactly where she was when she hears it.
It was her own room; the news is only on as background noise as she looks over her notes and prepares for bed.
“--confirmation that a distress signal has indeed been received from the Fearling Confinement.”
The world tilts.
Everything turns to static. Papers scatter over the floor from her limp fingers.
The harried voice goes on, rushed as they read from whatever prompter is being held up. “We can not confirm anything by this point, but we are receiving reports that General Sehstor Bunnymund is responding to the signal.”
Her chest is clenched and tight, she can barely suck in a breath as her vision blurs.
She is full grown, a woman with her own calling and life.
“Daddy...”
Her voice is the whisper of a terrified little girl.