Trust those two not to cooperate! Sevi and Va’el, both awkward go-my-own-way characters, showed great promise of almighty clash if I would only put them together – being total opposites in demeanor and control – and what happens? They’ve worked it out, the sods! They’ve come to an amicable agreement!

When Sevi came along and joined the well-established team in the first book in the Khekarian series, The Khekarian Threat, she promptly caused me a lot of trouble, all to do with her professionalism. Quite frankly, she wouldn’t show anything less than absolute control over herself and her situation.

Any soldier striving for the ranks of the professional elite have to show more than a talent for fighting and a high level of intelligence. Their demeanor is important, too. They have to have a high level of self-control, a calm outlook. Anyone likely to fly off the handle would prove a liability to the mission and to the team around them. They simply don’t make the ranks.

So, here was Sevi, cool, calm, intelligent, quiet, yet very capable of being very deadly. But how was I to show her potential to be deadly to my readers? Well, the obvious solution was to have someone step out of line and have her cold-bloodedly take them down or take them out. Sounds easy, right? A nice juicy bit of action someplace. Wrong! Every time I tried it, she ended up wanting to kill everybody. Not because she went out of control, quite the opposite. Her mission was to look after Sturn, an exiled Khekarian prince. Any aggression shown by any member of the team would bring the whole team into question. It made sense!

In that situation, Sevi could either try and keep an eye on everyone, or she could deal with the problem before it developed. Guess what she would do. Right!

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