Name: Seraphina Amariah Cohen
She is rarely ever called Seraphina (though she has no problem with it). Most people know her as Sera or Ama, and a few more impersonal vampires call her by her last name.
Gender: female
Age: 96
Apparent Age: 33. She may look a bit younger depending on the person who’s looking at her.
Place of Birth: Munich, Germany
Species: Vampire
Coven: Enashe
Strengths/Abilities: She can go undetected by humans through speed. She's also an Empath- though she could never read someone's thoughts (and would never want to be so invasive), she can read emotions. She’s also quite good at finding ways to escape. Her temper is very even and she can endure a lot of physical and mental pain without breaking.
Weaknesses: She is stronger than mortals, but she is not nearly as strong as most other vampires. She was extremely weak and near death at her time of changing, and that seems to have followed her in vampirism. Sometimes it seems like she slows progress rather than helping an operation along because of her obvious lack of raw power.
A quick note on personality: Sera is NOT bitter or hateful towards anyone who hasn’t directly caused her pain in the past. Though she does have a few trust issues and can seem like she‘s hiding something most of the time, she is usually sweet and accepting of everyone. It bothers her to see suffering and she would never do anything to cause it- Not in mortals, and not in other vampires. Gain her loyalty and she’ll do nearly everything you ask of her… except maybe keep quiet. Yeah, she almost never shuts up. That may be a problem for some poor souls that get stuck in a room with her for extended periods of time, but at least she's got the potential to be amusing.
Appearance: Sera stands at 5’4. She weighs 105 pounds and, from first glance, she appears to be extremely fragile. That is not always the case, and she will not allow people to take advantage of her even though she may seem like the type that would. Her skin, though natural and human-like, has always been a little pale. It has this soft glowing quality to it. She has dark brown hair that she usually leaves down so it flows over her shoulders, just below her collar bones. Her hair is also curly, and can easily become a mess if she’s not careful- not that she cares very much. She has a slightly elongated face, high cheekbones, and a square jaw line. Her nose almost seems a little to narrow compared to the width of her face, but it’s easy to see it wouldn’t look quite right any other way. Her lips are large and they open to reveal a gorgeous smile, which takes most of the attention from her large hazel eyes. Those eyes can soothe, but they may hold very bottled-up and lethal emotions at certain times.
Her overall expression is often exaggerated for emphasis. She usually shows happiness, giddiness, or at least an overall expression of calm. But then, there are times when she gets angry or upset- Times when she is reminded of things she works hard to suppress. In those times, her features become very harsh and her eyes glisten with anger and sadness as though she is on the verge of tears or a homicidal rampage (depending on the exact emotion). Those instances are rare. She cannot ever keep an emotion inside, even if she wants to, for it all shows on her face.
Her clothing is colorful and comfortable. On any given day, she may be seen in the following- a pair of loose fitting jeans or a flowing skirt and a fitted t-shirt or some other sort of top made of fabrics that do not itch or get caught on things. She wears bronze and silver jewelry, but never gold. Most of the time, her accessories also include a pair of sage green sunglasses and a colorful fedora. Her shoes are always flats, and her signature is a pair of sage green knee-high boots that she wears over her pants along with her purple jacket. It’s not exactly a difficult task to find her in a crowd of business people (or vampires, for that matter).
She hates high heels, corsets, fishnets, and tight clothing with a passion. She becomes very confused when she attempts to figure out why anyone could possibly choose pain and discomfort by wearing those kinds of things. Perhaps that makes her a little less feminine than most, but can you honestly blame her?
History: Seraphina was born on March 6, 1912. Her parents, Javen and Zemora Cohen, owned a shop in the small area below their apartment. Seraphina had four older brothers- Nathaniel, Noah, Yehudi, and Miron. She also had a little sister, Iris. Their family, one of many Jewish households, was close and their life was one of comfort and happiness. All of the children got along with each other and their peers, they pulled at least average marks in school, and the neighbors seemed to like them. All went well as she was growing up, and she moved away from her family and into an apartment of her own on the other side of Munich when she was 21 years old. She’d had no problem getting a job or making a life for herself. Even if there had always been a little anti-Semitism involved with her situation, she paid no attention to it. In fact, she’d grown up loving the country she lived in and the people around her.
The destruction of her life began in 1935, at the age of 23, when Hitler and his Nazi party passed the Nuremberg Laws. That was it- By law; she was no longer a German. Her entire life as she’d known it was going to change for the worse and she could only sit and watch while it happened. With all the hatred this leader showed to her people, things were not simply going to improve after that- she was never stupid or naïve enough to believe such a thing. Germany had gone to the dogs.
When they set out the legislation that forced the Jewish people to wear the star of David, set up the curfews, and brought the job restrictions, she knew that her suspicions about her new status had been correct. She survived, of course, and refused to let Hitler's misplaced hatred get to her. She could take it and go on when it was all over. There had been nothing for her to panic about...
Then the SS began ‘relocating’ the Jewish people, and her thoughts on that changed. Seraphina contacted her family through a friend and informed them that she would be coming home immediately. She couldn’t possibly be away from them knowing that they might be taken. She reunited with them and they, like many others, skipped out of the city and went into hiding. That was in 1936, and they lived that way for about a year before they were finally given up.
Had she not been captured, Seraphina probably would have gone on living a normal life until she finally died of some disease or old age. But she is still around, so obviously it didn’t happen that way. The secret police came for her family in late 1937, and they immediately shipped them off to the concentration camp- Dachau. Hearing the name of the place is enough to get Sera to visibly cringe.
Her father, who had become sick shortly before the family's capture, was killed upon entering. The family fought to stay together, but the SS officers managed to separate them all despite their resistance. They examined her, and found her more than healthy to work. Immediately, the days of labor and beating began.
Each week, it seemed, she would catch wind of another of her family members dying or being transferred somwhere else. And each week she would wish nothing more than to kill her oppressors out of pure vengeance and leave it all behind. She couldn't, of course, because she lacked the strength and the courage to do so. She wasn’t ever sure exactly how much time had passed since she’d entered, and she was never really sure how many of the Cohen family were even left. She abandoned all thought until she knew only one thing- she was not going to give those Aryan bastards the pleasure of defeating her. Ever.
That life seemed to go on forever- She found herself defeated, overworked, weak, and emaciated by the time April of 1945 rolled around. She’d lost her parents, and what she thought to be all of her siblings (though she would later find out that her younger sister had survived). She was about ready to give up hope when she heard that the camp was about to be surrendered to American forces. That day, for the first time in nearly ten years- she let out a soft sigh of relief and smiled. If she could go on just another day, a few hours, she was going to come out of this alive and free to live free of torture. No fear. No pain. For a while, she didn't think it was possible.
They came days later with medical aid and food. And yet, as weak as she may have been, there were others worse off than she was. She skipped any further medical treatment after their basic examination was finished and decided to try to get back to normal on her own. She left, with the help of the allies for transportation, and headed in the direction of Munich for the last time.
She went back to her old home for a week, staying with an old neighbor before she became extremely ill. She had caught a disease. Infections from the welts and cuts on her back had spread to combine with her sickness and she wouldn’t have survived much longer if her neighbor hadn’t suggested the strangest way of saving her immaginable...
A vampire. She’d always known the woman was odd- but associating with vampires? Seraphona had never believed in the supernatural. Those kinds of things existed only in books, never in real life. She didn’t think she was ready for or worth eternity anyway. But that night, a dark-looking stranger entered the room she was situated in and looked at her with sad eyes.
All she could manage to say between labored breathes was "Good evening." The stranger stared at her for another moment before looking at her old friend and nodding slowly. They had a short conversation before he slowly walked over to her again and frowned. He asked if this had been her idea, and she shook her head in response. "I hadn't thought so." he replied in a sweet voice and smoothed her dark hair, "It's all going to turn out fine, Seraphina."
Sera couldn’t possibly point him out in a crowd if she wanted to, for her vision was almost completely clouded from fever by the time he drained her and she first tasted the blood of a vampire. Still, she remains both grateful and weary of the man who saved her life and damned her at the same time. She just wishes she knew who he was or what he looked like.
Fast-forwarding a little, she knew she didn’t want to stay in Germany. She’d grown to hate the country and she couldn’t stand the memories that place and the people there gave her. She knew there was talk of a new country for them to relocate to, but she would not take the offer. She knew where she was going, and she soon boarded a ship heading for the states. She lived in various parts of New York City for about 40 years before heading to Canada. She couldn’t stay around the same people for too long before she could become subject to the possibility that someone might notice her lack of aging- She couldn’t count on her mortal companions’ growing senile to save her from that situation.
She found herself in Ontario, in a city she liked. She found the vampire covens, a couple in ways she never really wanted to find them. She particularly identified with one of them, and she can now look forward to an eternity in one place if she so chooses. She can say once more that she has a sort of family. Seraphina has found belonging in Demaitre, and she doubts she’ll be letting it go any time soon. But then, even eternity has to end sometime.
Approved. A very nice history by the way! :mwaha:
