Thanatophobia; The fear of death.

One would think, being surrounded by it from the moment she was born, Serene would have acclimatised to death. And she had. Mostly.

She didn't blink an eye when her mother and the other adults would return from a raid covered in blood, or when a particularly rowdy or a discontent member of the tribe would suddenly disappear, their existence erased, and their property looted.

She hadn't even cared when, at just ten years old, she had listened to Jaron recount his 'first hunt' proudly, talking about the young merchant he had lured into the woods and murdered. It was a fact of life; the weak died. If it wasn't them, it would be Grimm or illness or other evils. They stepped on each other to survive.

She hadn't even been particularly bothered as a child at the thought of taking a life. It was just something she had to do. Someone's life didn't have any value to the tribe, not if there was something they could gain from eliminating them.

As selfish as it was, another's life didn't mean much to her until she lost her father.

Dieter hadn't been a great parent by "normal" parenting standards. He'd let her do pretty much whatever she wanted, taught her how to throw rocks at her friends, let her play with his weapons, gave her a fighting staff when it had been even taller than her and try alcohol when she was just eight.

But she had thought the world of him. He taught her to fight, how to build her gauntlets, how to swim and survive in the wild. It had been hard work, but like all fathers should be, he had been her safety net. She'd felt like there was nothing that could be so bad that her dad couldn't help her.

Then the universe had taken a machete to that safety net and her dad was gone.

Suddenly she was scared of everything, not least of all Raven. Dieter hadn't particularly protected her from Raven, but Raven hadn't had much to do with her daughter when someone else was raising her.

When the idea of her attending Beacon had come around – despite her discomfort at having people die by her hand – she'd jumped at the chance. Not just to prove herself to Raven, but to make herself stronger.

The stronger you were the less that could hurt you.

The strong survive, and the weak die. And Serene could never be weak again