A mysterious yet kind woman, Sera shows up one day in the Sector 5 slums without any fanfare - Just a smile and an offer to lend a hand to anyone who might need it, no payment nessecary. With not a word to where she came from nor her past, she quietly sets up 'shop', so to speak, around Midgar's slums, taking care of everyone around her regardless of what they need, quickly earning the trust of many... And the wariness and curiosity of many more who doubt her motives and sweet smile.When asked why she does what she does, she gives the same answer each time: "I want to change the world, and eliminate the cruelty within it." It's a childhood dream, she always notes, and backing up her words are her actions, her kindness always used to better the lives of others, never to harm. Before long, Sera is a well known face frequently seen, and even finds herself caught up in the life of a SOLDIER - That of Zack Fair, a kind, generous, puppy-like man who just as quickly proves himself able to fill in the gaps of the more timid Sera, and she, his.Unknown to all but Zack, however, Sera harbors a heavy past that drives her forward each and every day, its shadows and nightmares relentless in their chase of her, especially when she becomes tangled up in both Zack's life, and catches the eye of Shinra themselves through him, especially when she later has their son, Shayan, and proves herself stronger and more capable of certain things than anyone ever considered. Backed by Zack's best friend, Kunsel, her eldest brother Thoma, and later Cissnei from a distance, Sera struggles to navigate the world around her by Zack's side, forced to face not just her shadows and nightmares, but also what lies beneath the icy lake trapped within herself, discovered so long ago, and why she seems to sensitive to mako herself...
This carrd contains writeups and relevant information for the primary Final Fantasy 7 settings/verses (Blooming Blossom, Resilient Bloom, and, by request only, Fairest Petal) on Sakurarisen! Like on blog, this information follows a timeline adjacent to canon shared with Honorisen / Yoroiis, where the vast majority of canon events still happen, albeit with some with slight changes, such as Zack being alive and in Gongaga. For the timeline these verses take place in and how and where it diverges from pure canon, place see the Divergences page.✿ OG verse is solely by request only. Pimarally follows a Crisis Core into Remake/Rebirth timeline. ✿For Sera's overall backstory and general information, please see this page HERE. All information there applies here as well, and is the base information for my muse. Content held within this FF7 based carrd is solely for FF7 based settings and verses only.✿ Trigger Warnings Apply for content within. Please see rules. ✿
✿Name
Seraphina Fair (Maiden Name: Mayuzuki)✿Nicknames
Sera, Kitten (by Zack)✿Aliases
Aria, The Snow Fenix✿Gender
Female✿Height
5'3"✿Weight
Unknown; she has no idea✿Age
16 (at the star of Crisis Core), 19 (when her son is born/around a year after the Nibelheim Incident), 24 (Currently/during Remake/Rebirth)✿Location
Midgar (Crisis Core), Gongaga (Remake/Rebirth)✿Hometown
A small town just to the east of Banora; however, she will rarely share this information and tends to shrug when asked about her birthplace, and calls Gongaga her 'hometown' after moving there✿Date of Birth
March 29th✿Current Occupation
A sort of Jack of All Trades stationed in Gongaga alongside her husband, Zack, taking on all kinds of odd jobs regardless of what they are, with Sera acting as Zack's informant and tactician whenever mercenary work is involved.
During Crisis Core, Sera takes on any odd job she can in hopes of aiding others in her quest to change the world, though this changes to focusing on being a single mother trying to escape Shinra's view while taking care of her son, Shayan, after the Nibelheim incident through to reuniting with Zack during Remake.
✿EyesBrown, nearly the color of darkened honey; when using high levels of more powerful ice magic, there are flecks of white and incredibly pale blue within them if one looks closely enough, resembling a distant, slow snow flurry.✿Hair
Golden blonde; usually worn loose, it falls to her waist in length, with three distinct, chin-length sections framing one side of her face, and another two on the other side with the remaining bangs sweeping to the side to be tucked back - Though she isn't above tying it back into a ponytail or braid when needed and carries a ribbon and elastic on her at nearly all times to do so.
When using more powerful, higher levels of magic, her hair has faint silvery highlights that seem to lighten the blonde of her hair just a bit, easily missed unless closely looked at in direct sunlight, where they almost seem to sparkle ever so slightly, like snowflakes in the afternoon sun caught up in her hair.✿Skin
Light peach in shade; her skin is free from most blemishes, aside from a littering of scars. However, her back is marked in the colorful and bright ink of a large, leaping koi tattoo, spanning the vast majority of her back. Done at the age of 16, its colors slowly dim over the years.
Her left ring finger is later added to with another tattoo: A pair of closed wings forming a heart with a single feather make up the band of a 'ring', colored with pink, yellow, and two shades of blue in a watercolor style. Done at 17, the colors fade quickly, but remains just as treasured as her koi.
Underneath the koi tattoo crossing her back is a small littering of pale blue marks faintly resembling scars, focused mainly around her upper back, shoulder blades, and the back of her shoulders. These marks grow in size and more raise themselves to her skin to become visible the more her uses her magic and power, eventually covering the tattoo themselves and forming the outline of a pair of fluffy phoenix wings, and if she continues to use her power, do eventually begin to glow, albeit faintly and similarly to a glowstick in the dark. This, however, requires pushing herself a great deal and is a warning sign so having pushed herself too far, and rest will return the marks to their faint, scar-like version within a day at most of reaching that point.✿Build
Fair and petite, it's fairly easy to tell Sera is smaller than most her age, both in height and weight. She's a bit underweight and looks about as physically strong as she actually is - That is to say, not very. Her health is rather poor and it's noticeable, though she refuses to allow it to stop her.
✿Scars
A large number of her scars are faint and difficult to spot unless really looking for them across her body, but Sera has several far more noticeable scars littering the fronts and tops of her shoulders. Around 18-20 in number if one really takes the time to stop and look at them, very few of them have properly healed; most of her scars are still rather ugly in appearance, resembling valleys and knotted, slightly raised mountain ranges, with several of them close enough together in multiple places to heal into a messy clump of scarring. Bothered by their existence, Sera keeps them hidden from view as much as possible, wanting to avoid the memories of what caused them while also trying to avoid questions and judgemental looks they might fetch her.
After the birth of her son, she becomes more comfortable with her scars, but never completely, and is able to show them off a bit more without worrying about them. Even despite this newfound comfort, they're still a source of bad memories and even impact her ability to move her shoulders and arms, able to cause pain she's long since grown use to, and cares not to dwell on them with anyone who doesn't have her full and complete trust.
✿Accessories
Sera wears a single, sterling silver angel wing pendant on a matching delicate chain, and refuses to ever remove it. The back of the wing has both her initials and her husband's carved into it, and is paired with a small, sky blue crystal heart on the same chain. Shortly after having her wing tattoo done, she further covers it with an engagement ring - a small, rosey pink crystal ring in the shape of a flower on a matching colored band.
After leaving Midgar, she adds to the pendants and ring with a dark blue cuff-style armlet around her right bicep, and a pink ribbon wrapped around her left.
✿Attire
Her style of clothing varies between her early life and when she learns to stand on her own and leave Midgar; for most of her life, she tends to wear three threadbare and ratty dresses riddled with tears and holes - One in dark pink with long sleeves and skirt, another in softer pink with short sleeves, knee length skirt, and a blue sash around her waist, and a third in pale yellow with a long skirt and short sleeves. All three are paired with a pair of worn and run-down dark brown loafers, and are regularly covered - along with herself - by a large, dark green cloak also loaded in tears, holes, and fraying edges just large enough to provide glimpses of the outfits and woman underneath.
Later on, once leaving Midgar, her wardrobe expands into things more comfortable but still very much modest, and her original three dresses and cloak are retired for good. Instead, her primary outfit becomes that of a blue, corset style top with a pale pink front underneath dark pink lacing, magenta knee length skirt, and a matching magenta cropped jacket, keeping the sleeves rolled up to just above her elbows. Two dark brown belts criss-cross over her hips and match almost knee-high boots in color, with light pink socks coming up to her knees.
✿Weaponry
While Sera's stance on fighting borders on hating it, she carries with her a large knife for the occasions she has absolutely no choice but to do so. It's fairly plain in its design, and is just large enough for her to later attach a blizzard materia to the top of the handle, allowing for the use of an icy blade along with general ice magic. However, due to her role as a peacemaker and desire to talk situations down before they escalate, she rarely uses her knife, and instead relies heavily on defense and keeping her distance, using her materia to keep people away by varying icy means instead of seeking to do harm.
She later adds archery to her skillset, and obtains a bow to mach, initially taught by Zack and Kunsel, and later learns more than the basics of using a bow on her own. Styled to resemble two frozen angel wings with the feathers facing outward, the bow is designed to bend freely as needed while leaving multiple feathers, lined with small blades along their edges, stationary pieces that keep their place as the bow bends on shifting plates, similar to typical plate armor in their workings. This bow has space among the feathers for three materia and is usually equipped with a particular loadout: Blizzard, Cure, and a summon materia she rarely uses.
Her most powerful 'weapon', perhaps, is that of her summon materia, found and picked up on her travels to Gongaga. Though the stone is capable of summoning Shiva, doing so drains Sera of far too much strength and energy and is currently unusable; she simply feels better having it on her in case of emergencies.
Although she requires materia to use magic of any kind, Sera's magic tends to be on the slightly stronger side than most, and she tends to reply specifically on ice based magic, with a small side dip into healing and, occasionally, barrier types - Though it's ice that shows the strongest increase, and is quite clearly stronger than the average person's magic usage.
✿To Higher Ground-!Sera heavily dislikes fighting, and is a peacemaker to her core, choosing to talk things out and avoid actually fighting whenever possible - but despite this, she's proven herself to be an incredible tactician all the same. Having to travel about as a young teen and forced to live and survive on her own, learning the advantages of her surroundings was a nessecary lesson she was forced into learning early. Judging terrain, the enemy, where to move and when to attack, when to hold back, picking higher ground and advantageous locations and movements... It all comes naturally to her due to this, and she's often the one to chirp her opinion whenever travel talk and work comes up, especially if her companions are looking for a route to avoid fighting, offering herself as a tactician if anyone requires one along the way.
It's also because of this Sera is a rather highly skilled player when it comes to Fort Condor, despite her just as heavy dislike of the game's 'wartime' theming. While her turns may take a moment for her to study the board laid out in front of her, she's a difficult opponent to beat, taking every move with a smile fitting of a woman who simply sees the game for what it is: A game. Her skills were born out of nessecity, and she's long since come to see them as something helpful - Nothing to brag about, just something to help.✿Sparkling IceAlthough Sera lacks any actual training in using materia aside from a few lessons from her partner and friends, she's proven herself not only a quicker learner, but also incredibly proficient in the use of blizzard materia specifically, with healing materia coming in a close second. While she claims this is due to her first piece being a Blizzard materia, gifted to her by Zack not long after their meeting in hopes of keeping herself safe and finding a home attached to the top of the handle of her knife, constantly kept with her, it's clear rather quickly that Sera's spellcasting is also stronger that most others', including Kunsel and Zack's as members of SOLDIER, for reasons unknown to even her.
While the frigidly cold ice sees to be an odd choice for her much warmer personality, Sera uses it not to hurt others, but as a defensive measure more often than not, citing "I can, but I have no reason to harm them back" when questioned on why she doesn't take it offensive more than she does.To that end, she tends to use her ice as a shield or to freeze clothing and boots to objects, including the ground, and has even gone so far as to encase people's feet in ice to prevent them from moving. Should such tactics fail, she's not above creating an icy path for opponents to slip on and slide harmlessly by her, and if worse comes to worse, she'll create walls of ice, or hide behind a hunk of it. If she can use it to avoid battle and confrontation, it's a primary tactic!
If she has no choice but to actually fight, be it because she can't escape or is defending another or her own life, Sera views her ice as a means to a less horrifying end - At least for herself. Rather than a bloody, messy end, she can pretend the ice is simply putting people to sleep in a bloodless rest, frozen from the inside out or encased in ice; it's not peaceful in the least, she knows, and is an outcome she tries her hardest to avoid, at most fighting to disarm and disable than to actually hurt, even when forced into a confrontation where her life is on the line.
Ice is meant to sparkle and be beautiful in the winter months, and bring smiles through its beauty - It's not meant to be deadly, and this is a viewpoint Sera takes every use of her materia with in mind.✿ Queen of the ColdSera may not know exactly how to harness the full power of her materia, but despite this, she's in possession of a rather powerful piece: That of the summon Shiva, discovered and picked up on her way to Gongaga, and thought to be a defunct stone until informed otherwise by Zack much later... And until the first time she's able to summon the goddess herself. Though incredibly draining of her energy and strength to use, requiring minimum a full day's rest after summoning, Sera quickly adds Shiva's materia to her setup, and carries it with her whenever she needs materia on her person for any reason, citing an odd pull to Shiva as her reason for doing so, as well as seeing the goddess as a familiar, comforting presence... Though this, she can't, and won't even try, to explain.✿ Frosty WingsIn truth, Sera herself is the human form of Aria, the Snow Fenix - An elemental based being from a world that existed long before Gaia, and considered a goddess in her own right, no matter how much she dislikes being viewed as one. In a former lifetime, some hundreds of years prior, her power as Aria awoke alongside her brother Aelius - Thoma - to judge if Gaia was a world safe for all Fenix, and created a close bond with the goddess Shiva, gaining the ice goddess's protection and friendship, as well as her aid in trying to answer questions Aria held about Gaia. Unfortunately, JENOVA's presense and the fate of Gaia and the Ancients overall caused both Aria and Aelius to decide Gaia was not a safe world for the Fenix to wake, and at the end of their lifetime, the twin Fenix once more sealed their power, returning to a human form until they next felt safe enough to wake once more, leaving their only legacy in a bit of Aelius's power left behind in the Junon region as their 'god' and a summon tucked away within shrines there.
Although Aria's power remains sealed within her, Sera and Aria are still one in the same, and occasionally, her true form's power bubbles up within her, breaking through the frozen over lake deep within her for her use and causing her magic use to be stronger than most's, as well as her natural affinity for ice and healing magics. One in the same they may be, but the sealing of her power has meant Sera is completely unaware she is Aria, and while she's aware of the frozen lake that separates her from her true self and power, she has little access to it past that bubbling that occasionally happens through it, nor does she understand anything about the 'frozen lake'; just what lies beneath it? What lay deep within herself that she's unaware of? And why does tapping too deep into that ice and magic in general leave her feeling so drained and exhausted...?
Whatever may lay beneath, Sera knows it's best to not talk about it, and merely shrugs off questions and any attempt to pry into it, or to why Shiva answers her calls seemingly so easily. Even if she wanted to, she can't - She can't explain why overuse of magic leaves her exhausted, nor why she feels a deep connection with the ice goddess past what a typical summoner of Shiva's may! She doesn't know her human form is limited in how much magic it can handle - But she does know that overuse of it, and breaking through that frozen lake deep in her core, can outright kill her, making the day or two's rest she needs after calling upon Shiva or overuse of her magic a mild trade-off in comparison.
She doesn't know, doesn't remember... But she knows it's important to keep hidden, and thus, she will.✿ Drawn To The Spring Of Life-Although her core is that of a sealed mythical ice bird, forced to remain that way lest she overwhelm and destroy her human form, Sera still finds herself drawn to mako lifesrpings. The beauty they hold is reminiscent of the world she truly originates from, and the mako welling forth from them strengthens the elemental form sealed within - But it also quickly overwhelms physically, leaving her feeling ill and mentally overwhelmed when she's been directly beside one for more than four or five days. Being within the vicinity of one allows for more time in the area, though she still finds herself almost entranced by the scenery and beauty of a lifespring whenever she's allowed to linger around one, until something else demands her attention.
Yet no matter how much she finds them comforting and beautiful, a lifespring holds an energy not unlike what lay deep within her, drawing her close yet proving to ultimately be dangerous to one unable to control the flows of magic within her outside of that frozen lake...
✿✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ Please note that by the Halcyon lore that makes up Sera's distant backstory/core as Aria, the information given by Chadley during Rebirth about the Phoenix summon is implied to be wrong. However, there are NO means of correcting it; Sera remembers nothing of being Aria nor her past lifetimes, just the same as the other hidden Fenix, and much of what remains of the Fenix's history is now seen as mythos and legends, either long since lost or warped into something unrecognizable, with the few physical remnants of this time period damaged to the point of only being able to be horribly mistranslated, resulting in the information about the Junon-worshiped Fenix that Chadley gives. In truth, the 'Phoenix' summon that can be found in Junon is a fragment of power left behind by Aelius, the Fire Fenix and Aria's twin brother, before disappearing from the region to once more be reborn in a human form just the same as Aria herself. 'Phoenix', while fire based, is meant to represent the Fenix as a whole - Of which there ARE more than just the two, most of whom 'sleep' in human form - but this is information lost to time, and Chadley's misinformation thus CANNOT be countered or corrected. Sera cannot and will not remember anything of being Aria, nor attempt to correct Chadley should she ever meet him and hear his stories of Phoenix; She doesn't remember herself, though will consider it to be oddly wrong to her, personally, even if she never says as much. ✿✿ ✿ ✿ ✿✿ Sera's son, Shayan, is born when she's 19, with a by then missing Zack as his father. Recognizing their son's eyes were far too similar to that of SOLDIER members and his father's, and knowing Shinra's science department would be all too interested in 'checking out' the child of a SOLDIER, Sera made the choice to flee from Midgar with Shayan as soon as she was healed enough to make the journey. While they left with no goal in mind initially, despite leaving behind a message for Zack with a trusted friend that she was 'going to their home', Sera eventually settled on and made her way to Gongaga, a town that quickly became home once she settled in.✿ Living at the edge of town, she's present for the explosion of Gongaga's reactor on the opposite side of town, and does her best to help in its aftermath, in any way she can. Although the aftermath brings her into contact with her 'in-laws' in the Fairs and results in her and Shayan moving closer to their family, it's the final piece needed for Sera's distrust of Shinra to grow into hatred for the company, and furthers fuels her desire to keep herself and her family as far from them as possible - Though that may be easier said than done, and she knows it.✿ Sera and Shayan live in a house just about 'next door' to Zack's parents, and have added extra protection to it - Namely extra locks to the doors and heavy duty curtains, designed to help them hide if they ever need to. Once Zack returns and begins living with them, some of the locks are left undone, trusting him to protect their family if it absolutely comes down to it.✿ While living in Midgar during the events of Crisis Core, Sera lives in the branches of an old, dying tree at the edge of the Sector 5 Slums, sleeping among its branches. This tree is later added to with a treehouse built for her by Zack after the Wutai War, and after Angeal's death, the two move into a house plateside built by and gifted to Zack by Shinra near HQ, where Sera remains until about a year after the Nibelheim incendent, and shortly after the birth of Shayan. This house is raided not long after she flees from Midgar with her son, leaving behind an empty house that was, unknown to her, rigged with hidden cameras intended on keeping an eye on Zack during his recovery from losing Angeal.✿ Sera does not and will never know she is Aria. Although she can clearly use magic that is stronger than the average person, and outranks most SOLDIER operatives by a VERY slim margin, her power as Aria has been locked away underneath that 'frozen lake' deep within her along with memories of her previous lives, and cannot be accessed without overwhelming and killing her current, near fully human form. The slight bit of power that wells up from the 'ice' within are all she's able to handle as a human, and while she can tap ever so slightly further into it when in a life or death situation and panicked, doing so is just as draining as overuse of it; too much of her power can and will overwhelm her, resulting in the need to rest and recover until her body - and her core - readjust and relax.✿ The wing marking on Sera's back serves as an indicator of how close she is to overwhelming herself, and just how badly she needs to stop and find a place to rest. As a marking that Aria can't fully hide away regardless of how much of her power she seals away, it once represented her wings when she hid them away during Halcyon; now the marks both represent her hidden wings, and serve as a warning to how deeply she's tapped into her magic, as well as how close she is to doing physical harm to herself via overwhelming herself with magic use. The more of the marking that shows, and the brighter it ultimately glows once it finishes forming, the closer she is to the brink, and needs to rest until it returns to it's faded, vaguely scratch-like look. While these marks match her brother Thoma's, the two working much the same, neither are able to explain them nor why they work the way they do.✿ Although Sera has a cell phone, a Shinra-made model flip phone given to her by Zack shortly after meeting him, being 'raised' like she was has left Sera confused by most pieces of technology, to the point she's even been convinced for some time that text messages are sent between devices by 'invisible owls' of some kind.While she's later taught otherwise and comes to get a handle on quite a bit in the way of technology, proving herself quite capable of using it when given time to learn how it works and how to use it, the exact hows and whys continue to fly over her head and leave her stumped, yet curious of what makes such things tick, so to speak. As a result of this curiosity and her closeness to Zack, her cell phone is modified by Kunsel shortly after being given to her in hopes of not only keeping Shinra from bothering her, but also to prevent her from stumbling into and messing with any of the more Shinra-centric aspects of the device and getting herself into trouble - And preventing Shinra from using her as something to hurt Zack with.✿ Sera's Midgar I.D. and the paperwork required to allow her the ability to live plateside after Angeal's passing are forgeries. Though made within Shinra's walls and on official documentation, the numbers and signatures on them are completely forged on request of Kunsel, and Sera is very much unaware of this until she's not living in the city itself.✿ The koi pond Sera settled beside to try and recover at 16 was close to a lifespring, offering for a lush, thriving area just to the south of Kalm. While she left feeling uncomfortable and a bit physically ill due to the close proximity of the lifespring, the beauty and calm, serene atmosphere of that garden and the pond, as well as the koi themselves, are a major part of why she stops to visit each lifespring she comes across, alongside being drawn to them as a Fenix. She doesn't realize it wasn't a 'community garden', but a Lifespring, until much later on, or that the koi where more akin to spirit fish rather than regular koi fish, causing her to further treasure the lifespring even more.