Senka Zastita

Senka Zastita is the Leader of Team SSFR ("Saffron") of Beacon Academy. She hails from Mistral, but grew up in Vale where she attended Signal Battle School and later the Academy of Beacon. She is currently partnered with her teammate Agia Fanos.

Appearance
Senka is a human girl at the age of 19. She reaches a height of 5'6 and weights 123 lbs. Her black hair is braided in a crown braid. Her eyes have a dark brown colors and her skin bears an olive tone.

Her casual attire consists of a pair of black linen pants, a grey tunic with dark blue tendril embroideries, flat brown shoes and often a long blue wool coat with silver buttons.

Her combat outfit includes a pair of tight black jeans, a grey t-shirt and black combat boots. Above the t-shirt she wears a short black leather jacket while her hands are covered in black leather gloves. Sometimes Senka wears also a black Sajkaca cap with silver embroideries, but only at rather calm missions.

Personality
Senka is a calm leader with a no-nonsense attitude. She always tries to act rather than to react to her adversaries’ moves and keep the upper hand by getting to know the other side’s next step.

Due to her very careful and distrustful way to deal with strangers, many will assume she would be arrogant or cold, but if they get to know her, they’ll notice it’s just some sort of defense mechanism against treachery. As a former street urchin she won’t trust strangers and will carefully examine anyone who tries to befriend her before defrosting and opening up to them.

Towards her team and her friends Senka is a friendly and extremely caring person, who will do anything to solve their problems and ease their pain. She knows how hard it is to have no one you can trust. This is the reason she’s always there when she is needed by them.

But being caring and benevolent doesn’t mean she will sacrifice the success of her team for reasons of morality – she is very well able to use backhanded and questionable actions to achieve victory when there is no other way to succeed.

Personal Story
Senka hadn’t the luck to be born into a wealthy family within a normal town. She was born into the poor slums of Mistral where beggars lined the streets and thugs stalked the dark quarters. Her family owned a small shack made from cheap materials, far too small for two adults and their child, but the only place they had. Work was rare for the lowest citizens so they had to take on less respectable and less honorable kinds of jobs.

One night a fire started within their area. The circumstances were never researched but it took Senka's home and - more important - her family. She was forced to live on the streets, making money through begging and stealing from those who had only a tiny bit more than herself. She joined a group of children who roamed the slums and did everything to survive, even by theft and murder. There she learned when to fight and when to run, that nobody can be trusted and anyone would betray you when you show a sign of weakness. They didn’t trust her and she didn't trust them too. But the gang was the only place where she had decent chances to survive … so she stayed.

At the age of 10 she was caught by the authorities while attempting theft. They assumed that the child groups were led by criminal organizations so they wanted information about the jobs they did sometimes and the people who paid them. A deal was suggested – she should tell them anything she knew about her former group, they would give her the chance to leave the slum through adoption. She didn’t think twice and accepted her only chance of survival.

Senka had good luck for the first time in her life: A young huntsman from Vale stayed at this time in Mistral. He and his fiancée wanted to found a little family but due to bad fortune it could only happen for them through the ways of adoption. After visiting the orphanage Senka was staying in and listening to her story, the huntsman was filled with pity for the girl who lost everything and took her with him back to Vale.

It was hard at first for her to get used to her new family, but as time passed, she learned they can be trusted, they wouldn’t harm or betray her and she had now a safe home to stay with people in it who loved her. It occurred in this time too, that her father learned about her fighting skills – the life of a street urchin has taught her well the usage of knifes and short blades. He noticed also her ability to detect other humans and animals even through walls and in the darkness.

As her parents told her about the profession of a huntsman, she was fascinated: Fighters who didn’t use their skills and power to gain wealth for themselves or hurt others out of sadism, but who fight the terrible darkness outside the cities to keep the inhabitants safe from the vile beasts of Grimm. And so not much time pased until she asked her father to teach her so she may become one day a huntress like him.

After being taught by her father and attending the Signal Battle School, Senka applied for the Academy of Beacon at the day of her 17th birthday. She was accepted and left Signal to attend the most prestigious academy for future huntsmen and huntresses.

Shortly after the start of her first semester, she was made leader of Team SSFR due to her calmness, caution and creativity when dealing with dangerous situations. Team SSFR learned and trained for two years in Beacon until the infamous Fall of Beacon happened. They were evacuated with the other students after a long but fruitless battle to defend their school. Now they are staying within the Kingdom of Vale to rest and prepare the defense of the kingdoms remaining citizens.

Family
Prasnjav Zastita (deceased father)

Smed Zastita (deceased mother)

Glaucous Zaffre (adoptive father)

Celeste Zaffre (adoptive mother)

Friends (Team SSFR)
Agia Fanos (TBA)

Shargal Salkhiny (TBA)

Rhudd Goch (TBA)

Weapon
Senka uses the two short swords "Siva" and "Dzelat" who can be combined at their hilts to create "Siva Dzelat" - a scissor which can due to it's design behead enemies with ease. Through the use of Dust Crystals who are inserted into chambers within the hilts, the blades can be reinforced with different elemental abilities.

Semblance
The Semblance of Senka is called "Zivot Otkrovenje" - the "Life Revelation" - and can be activated to detect for a certain amount of time the heat signature of all nearby living creatures.

Fighting Style
Before the fight starts, Senka will activate her Semblance to gain information about the enemy numbers and positions. Then she will try to get closer while remaining hidden from their sight. When engaging the enemy she will use Sina Dzelat to behead the target in front of her, then detach the blades and aim for weakspots of the remaining enemies. At this time her team should have engaged the foes and Senka will support them by weakening strong enemies with her shortswords and executing the remaining ones.

Trivia

 * "Senka" is the serbian word for "Shadow" while "Zastita" means "Protection". You could say that she is "Protected by shadows" or maybe the "Protection from the Shadows".
 * The Shortswords "Siva" (serbian for "grey") and "Dzelat" (serbian for "executioner") are, when combined with eachother, called "Siva dzelat" ("The Grey Executioner"). Fitting for a scissor blade that is used for beheading enemies, used by a "Shadow".
 * For her Semblance the Serbian word "Zivot Otkrovenje" is used. The translation would be "Life Revelation".