Born to two succubi, one might expect Meredith to have been raised rather normally amongst demons sharing her sin. Especially since her parents were rather well-known and well-renowned amongst demons in general, but life for Meredith was anything but that, especially considering her parents, despite their status, were...not normal succubi.

Well, no, they were normal for the most part, they just happened to hate their own sin and species so vehemently that they had an almost pathetic desire to be anything but. So they sought to act like pride demons instead. Lust demons were weak, lazy, and seen as objects, right? Pride demons, however, were powerful, they held so much control and influence, it was the kind of thing any demon would want. It wasn't their fault they had been born in the wrong circle, right? So if they simply acted the act, talked the talk, hell, even lived amongst pride demons, eventually they'd be seen as the demons they wanted to be, right? Sort of. For the most part, plenty of pride demons either saw the couple as pride demons placed in the wrong circle or simply just pathetic wannabes, but Meredith's family name typically kept the family in high regard regardless. The only thing the couple were missing was an heir, and they quickly sought to fix that problem, having Meredith as a result.

Meredith was, of course, meant to be everything her parents were, but also everything her parents weren't. A lust demon by birth, but raised amongst pride demons with the belief that that was the standard she needed to meet, that her birth sin was something she should loathe and never try to embrace, outside of...replenishing energy, of course. She was aware of her blood only with the purpose of making it clear that that person was the person she shouldn't ever want to be. And for a while, Meredith tried her best to uphold this role. It was what her parents wanted, right? It was for the best in the long run, to get them to look at her, all she needed to do was do what they wanted. Simple, right?

Yeah, no, it wasn't. Because Meredith wasn't a pride demon. She could act like one, sure, walk amongst them, sure, but she'd never have their abilities. Not only that, but witnessing the love her peers got from their parents, the love Meredith couldn't even seem to get when she did things right, both confused her and agitated her. At eleven, the kid knew well enough that she wasn't being treated the way she should be treated, she wasn't being cared for in the slightest, wasn't even sure what that was, and it royally pissed her off. So she began rebelling. For two long years, she stopped doing what her parents wanted, started embracing her blood for what it was, and did what she wanted. It was the happiest Meredith had ever felt, but as a result, seeing their child as a failure, she'd been completely cast aside, kept around, sure, but mostly left to fend for herself, if they weren't attempting to enforce their original intents from time to time, though these attempts never seemed to work, only frustrating Mer further. She was utterly alone, but Meredith was who she wanted to be, and she wasn't going to let her parents take that from her. She no longer needed their praise to keep her up top, just her own.

As they'd given up on her practically, her parent's patience had grown thin, however, and at thirteen, Meredith was promptly kicked out for good after a rather intense argument had finally snapped her parent's willingness to keep her around. She'd been kicked out before, so it read as normal to Meredith at first...until it had finally settled in that she wouldn't ever be able to return at All. She'd been on her own before, but now she was entirely on her own, and while externally she shrugged this off and accepted it, internally...she wasn't exactly handling it well. But she'd make the best of it, right? She always did.

For four years after that, Mer lived on her own and pretty much learned to survive on her own as well, whether that be with a roof over her head or not. Whatever "living" they really had stemmed from favours for other demons or from them simply causing trouble, as...Mer became a bit notorious for that. When she'd started, she had been young, too young after all, so she'd gone to small street gangs within Hell to rely on their aid. Whether in the human realm or in Hell (since Mer hopped between both pretty often for a change of pace), he tended to cause trouble wherever he went, whether it be through fights or just typical mischief. She had nothing else to do, after all. She didn’t have friends, but she had allies and people she could work with well, and that, to Mer, was all they needed. Fellow misfits. They had to cause trouble, but it was out of survival, it was life-or-death, and, hell, it was fun, too.

Running around with street gangs and doing crimes and general mischief to survive comes at a price, though, eventually, and when a botched job that was meant to send her and a few other demons she'd been living with at the time up to the big leagues resulted in the authorities ambushing them on the way back to safety, Meredith ended up the only one who didn't manage to escape their clutches, both due to sacrificing herself to make sure the others got out before her, because she’d gotten badly injured in the process, and because they never came back for her as a result. At seventeen, she was carted off to a prison within Hell, not the smaller ones she was used to, the ones she'd sit in for a day or two until she was let out with a slap on the wrist or even broken out of, a max security prison located in Wrath, and she was promptly stuck there for months, mostly because her sentence was meant to last a handful of years. Sure, being there toughened her up even more, taught her even more about survival of the fittest, but Mer had lost the freedom she'd been so desperate to have in the first place, and it left her hollow as a result.

Several months later, however, when Mer was eighteen, she was handed a chance of freedom when, out of all of the other inmates, she had been chosen to be assigned to an angel. And by assigned I mean she was really only there to be basically babysat by said angel, or possibly put on the right track by said angel, but what mattered was that Mer was getting a chance of freedom again. So even if she'd had a choice in this, she would have taken it eagerly. Working with an angel wasn't something she was particularly keen on, sure, and when she and said angel, Cecil, first met, they likely did not exactly get off on the right foot, especially considering Mer also likely refused to listen to her at first. Back then, in Mer's eyes, she didn't need anyone, especially not some angel who was being forced to basically babysit her. Right?

Regardless, with Cecil also being assigned to basically assassinate the leader of an up-and-coming mafia on Earth, Meredith went with her to assist, mostly on the assumption that if they both did this and got it done that Mer wouldn't have to go back to prison and Cecil could...get whatever Cecil would get for succeeding. At that point in time, it didn't matter. And at first, this seemed easy for Mer, she hadn't killed before but she certainly had been in her fair share of fights, considering fighting was a part of survival back where she had come from. It only got complicated when she realised that she not only recognised their target, but also had to come to the grisly realisation that their target was also a parent.

Lucille Cardoza, leader of the Venus, was someone Meredith had briefly met as a kid, back when she'd simply been causing general mayhem on Earth when she'd had nothing to do in Hell. Earth had given Mer a break from reality down in Hell, which was why she tended to traverse up to it any chance she got. Lucille had been the first person to show Meredith genuine kindness as well, she didn't expect something out of her in exchange for it, and back then, that'd been more important to Mer than anything. Their bond had been brief, considering this was only a short amount of time before Lucille had gone off to start throwing herself fully into Venus and before Mer had been taken into custody, but it had left a permanent impression on Mer, and discovering that your old friend was your assassination target...wasn't great, not to mention the fact that she now had a child, something Meredith found herself even more conflicted over. How could she rip an innocent child from their parent? That kid had the chance Mer wished she'd had, who would she be to take that from her?

So, despite her bond with Cecil having slowly grown as the months had passed, having gone from insisting she disliked her to growing to realise she genuinely appreciated her presence and to consider her a friend, Meredith knew she couldn't bring herself to be the person who caused Lucille's demise, nor did she entirely want it to happen at all, so any mission she went on, any fight that broke out, Mer purposefully missed her blows, purposefully weakened them if she had to hit someone, hell, even allowed herself to get injured to the point where they'd have to retreat, just for the sake of not having an old friend and parent's blood on her hands. The guilt she felt from this as a result, though, knowing damn well that she was just messing things up for Cecil, was insurmountable (especially considering at some point During this enemies arc she also ended up falling in love with her. kind of awkward. especially if we go w/ the idea that they became a couple during this). She didn't want to be an inconvenience for the other woman, but she felt like she had to in the same right. And, on the same hand, losing Cecil was also not something Mer was willing to risk. Eventually, God was going to give up on them. And at the time, Mer had no idea of just the severity of Cecil's situation, but she knew well enough that if God finally got tired of their shit, it would likely be back into prison for Mer, if not just back on the streets or dead in general if she were very lucky. She'd lose not just the one person she really had, the only person she could really rely on, but she'd also lose her freedom again. So it wasn't too much of a shock when Mer finally gave in and sought out the Venus for help. Who could say that once they succeeded that Heaven wouldn't just throw Mer back where she'd started anyways?