Serenei of Lys

Serenei is a bastard of the nomadic Harlan Stokeworth and a handmaiden to his ruling niece, Lady Aelinor Stokeworth.

Appearance
Serenei bears a striking resemblance to her late Yi-Tish mother, excepting the light brown hair she owes to her father. She is short and slight, with equally expressive dark brown eyes and thin, pale pink lips. The merchants of Lys prized her as a natural beauty, while the criminals praised her as a natural thief.

The Pillow House
Nine moons after Harlan Stokeworth visited one of the countless pillow houses of Lys the Lovely, a Yi-Tish prostitute whose name was abbreviated to 'Ti' gave birth to a baby girl: Serenei. For eight years, she managed to keep her little girl safe and happy, but that came to an abrupt end when Ti had a heated argument with a wealthy client. In an attempt to regain this man's patronage, the owner of the establishment Ti worked at evicted her onto the street. He attempted to keep Serenei, expecting that she would prove valuable in a few years time, but Ti fought to keep her. She believed she could still find a way to take care of her.

The Shady Brothel
After attempting to find employment at one of the many other pleasure houses in Lys, Ti soon learned that noone wanted to risk hiring a purportedly aggressive and disobedient prostitute. Ultimately, she found only one brothel willing to utilize her services. It was the sort of place that didn't need to worry about losing a wealthy patron, as they had never had one.

For the next two years, Ti struggled to provide for herself and her daughter, but tragically succumbed to a disease that had been intensely aggravated by their impoverished living conditions. Unwilling to shoulder the cost of feeding a child in the pursuit of grooming a potentially lucrative future employee, the owners of this establishment evicted Serenei shortly after her mother died, leaving the girl to fend for herself.

The Streets of Lys
Starving and desperate, Serenei quickly abandoned the fruitless effort of begging and turned to a more lucrative pursuit: theft. Quick, deft, and skinny, she soon developed an acute talent for relieving pedestrians of their coin, as well as adeptly escaping the repercussions on the rare occasion that she was caught. Between pickpocketing and various scams, she was able to subsist, and so, that was how she endured for several years.

At fourteen years old, Serenei garnered enough notoriety to be recruited by a slightly more organized group of criminals. Pickpocketing and street scams were replaced by burglary and long cons. She even dabbled briefly in some forgery. As she transitioned from girlhood to maidenhood, she received many offers from local brothels, but she denied them all. No longer was she merely surviving off crime; she was living.

Joining the Flock
For two more years, Serenei trod her seemingly predestined path of lies and thievery, priding herself on her mounting success. However, at sixteen years old, Serenei was presented with an opportunity that far surpassed what she stood to gain breaking into houses in Lys: Serenei met her father.

In more accurate terms, Serenei attempted to scam her father, but stopped once they began to recognize one another. Between her age and her striking resemblance to Ti, Harlan managed to piece together that she was the daughter of his brief former flame, and Serenei helped him piece it together by requesting confirmation of his first name. Harlan presented his bastard daughter with a signet ring and told her to identify herself at Stokeworth, and so, seizing the opportunity, she stowed away on a ship and made her way to her father's homeland.

The results were beyond her wildest imagination. After an adjustment period, she was allowed to become a handmaiden for her cousin, Aelinor, the ruling Lady of Stokeworth. She didn't have to worry about food or shelter. She didn't have to worry that the company she kept wanted to slit her throat and abscond with her loot. She had found a place she could call home.

Still bearing a bit of a roguish nature, Serenei has often had to restrain herself from stealing loose silverware and other readily accessible valuables and has formed something resembling a spy ring using her fellow servants. Nevertheless, despite her opportunistic, selfish, and dishonest nature, the Lyseni woman is fiercely loyal to Stokeworth and to Lady Aelinor. Even now, she wears her signet ring, expressing her loyalty and her newfound sense of identity.

Family

 * Harlan Stokeworth (father)
 * Aurelia Waters (half-sister)
 * Lyseni Prostitute (mother)
 * Aelinor Stokeworth (cousin)