Mourner-Adept Seraphine Dol

Seraphine Dol was raised in a mourner-cloister, where children are trained from the age of six to perform formal grief for houses that cannot, by tradition or by injury, mourn their own dead. She apprenticed under Mourner-Mistress Calenne, who taught the seventy-two modes and the discipline of entering and leaving each one without injury.

Calenne died in a transit accident. Seraphine, as senior apprentice, was permitted to lead the seventh mode at the funeral. She has not been able to leave that mode entirely since. She functions. She commands the Quiet Choir competently. Her cloister recognizes what the administrative body does not: she is in a continuous low mourning. She has been recommended for retirement four times and has refused. She says her master would call it desertion. Contracts that let her attend the funerals of captains she did not know are acceptable. The public mourning is useful, and the work pays.