Milena Sergejevna Orlova Durmstrang

Trunk

Stats:

❀ Stamina: 7 ❀
❀ Evasion: 10 ❀
❀ Strength: 8 ❀
❀ Wisdom: 12 ❀
❀ Arcane Power: 10 ❀
❀ Accuracy: 8 ❀

Abilities:

❀ Perfectionist ❀

Reducio

Milena is not a perfectionist in the sense that she wants to be perfect at everything, but she grew up as the daughter of a Pure-Blood house and that had several expectations attached. True, her parents were probably a lot less strict than her grandparents had been and being one of five siblings lent to far more unruliness than being an only child might have, but it did not change one fundamental fact: She was a Pure-Blood daughter and as such would always, always represent her family.

And so, like her siblings, she was taught how to present herself: how to talk, how to walk, how to sit, how to... You get the gist. She was also taught to always be courteous, no matter what she might think of a person's value. She was taught how to be a perfect little lady – if only for the duration of societal galas and not quite for every-day home-life. In other words, she was taught how to seem the perfect young lady and that included certain guidelines on how to act at school and what was expected of her school performance.

Trying to do her family proud, Milena did her best to excel at school which meant that she took care to learn all spells and potions properly. Lessons were for learning. Pranks, distractions, fun... all that she considered to have little to no place in a lesson – not that a teacher could not make a lesson fun, that was different – and she could not understand why someone would rather play around with their friends than pay attention – that's what the free time between lessons was for and the time in the evening that wasn't spend on homework.

While that mind-set had thawed a little as she grew older just as her stance on her grandparents' teachings did, she was still a very dedicated student. The one thing she had never perfected, however, was her script. She had tried to painstakingly teach herself to write perfect, exact letters, like the ones of her grandmother... but unlike her grandmother, she had no such talent. Her school notes and homework are perfectly legible but that particularly neat. Given enough time, she can write clean enough to imitate her grandmother's script – but there is no such time to be had when it comes to school work.

The older she grew and the more her mind-sets thawed, the more those Pure-Blood expectations chafed... but not enough for Milena to think it worth it to rebel. She found it annoying, yes, restrictive, yes, but not oppressive (yet at least) and so she still saw it as her duty to attempt to meet them.

WC: 450

❀ Evasive Manoeuvers ❀

Reducio

Growing up with her siblings, especially with three brothers taught her how to dodge. The younger twins had not paid enough attention often enough that she had almost developed a sixth sense of when one of the would come careening down a corridor and almost running her over.

Despite being part of a Pure-Blood family, they had been allowed time to just be themselves – there was no need to always be perfect sons and daughters if it was only them and their parents at home – it had led to multiple prank wars, mainly between the sets of twins but neither she nor her parents had escaped those completely unscathed. Her parents, especially, were never targeted but there was always some spill-over.

Her parents had been of the impression that if they were raised spending time learning how to be the perfect progeny and also being given time to run free, that it would be easier for them to control themselves in a social situation – like a gala. Masks and restrictions were easier to bear, in their minds, if they were not needed around (the immediate) family and it was better to let loose a bit and work of restless energy by engaging in such prank wars or going on little adventures on their property, than keeping it all in, and in, and in – until it either imploded or exploded. No, her parents believed in a healthy balance of the two, much to both Milena's chagrin and her delight.

She had little in the way of muscles – she wasn't weak but neither was she particularly strong – but she was lithe and agile. She had spent significantly less time rough-housing than her brothers and probably also less than her sister, although Olga had participated far less as she 'grew out of that phase'. Still, being a bystander was not so safe and she had ample practice in evading flailing limbs or occasional thrown objects (nothing potentially dangerous but it was still not nice to be hit in the face with crumbled-up parchment.)

Another reason might be that the one area of 'Pure-Blood' upbringing she had excelled in far beyond her sister (not that that was hard) was dancing. Moving gracefully and with the flow was something she had a much easier time with than Olga. But Milena would not call herself a talented dancer outside a comparison to her siblings.

It came in handy also when it came to not tripping over things. Her spatial awareness was normally quite good and if she did miss something she easily managed to keep her balance (most of the time) and carry on as if there had been no obstacle in her path, no matter how small it might have been.

There had also been the fencing lessons as her grandfather insisted that at the very least her brothers if not all the children (and it had turned into all the children) receive some basic fencing lesson to learn how to move in a fight instead of 'standing stock-still like an idiot' (Grandfather Oleander's words, not hers) as too many wizards apparently did. The less to be said about those lessons the better, tough, and she was still not sure what use they might have been if any.

WC: 549

❀ Calming Presence ❀

Reducio

Over time, Milena noticed that she seemed to have a calming effect on both friends and family as well as other people she knew. Maybe it was because she always seemed aloof and calm and therefore spreading an aura of calm? Maybe it was because when others outside her immediate circle saw her, she always seemed while not inviting still open and kind?

Whatever it was, exactly, she had found that she had the ability to appear neutral and defuse tense situations as well as calm tempers or soothe tears – when helping new students with their first bouts of homesickness. It was not something she planned on or actively promoted, in truth, she had not said one word of it.

But she had come upon one firstie crying bitterly because he missed home and she had – well, first she had tried to leave and leave him to his privacy, but he had noticed her and after paling and then flushing in embarrassment, the boy had apparently stopped caring as he had thrown himself at her and continued to sob in her arms.

While she privately thought of him as weak and far from the representative of his house he should be, she was raised to be better than to show disdain. Besides, she was compassionate enough to feel for him anyway, and so she merely enveloped him in a – slightly awkward by the fact they had never met before – hug and proceeded to try and soothe his fears enough for him to compose himself again.

She had figured that would have been the end of it. Alas, he apparently told some of his class mates that she was a good listener or something, so she had been occasionally sought out to allay some fears of the unknown.

Somehow there was the general impression that she was not someone to judge people needlessly, no. She would offer no judgement and only listen or... well, observe? Honestly, she wasn't sure how that whole mess came to be but her Sands ancestors would be proud of her … poise? Her ability to keep her thoughts to herself and outwardly offer no judgement and treat everyone equally. The lack of censure to expect also seemed to make others less prone to make nervous mistakes – or rather, they were still prone enough to those, she simply did not acerbate their nervousness.

Yes, her Sands ancestors would be proud though less so about her thawing inner sense of Pure-Blood superiority they had instilled in the family. The more she kept her calm, the more others seemed to wish to interact with her, the more her thoughts on that changed. They were all just people, and 'pure blood' did not make an ass any less of an ass. And her friend certainly was not less of a friend because she was 'only' a Half-Blood.

She would never be a Miss Popular and she had no intention of being one, but she got along well enough with people when they did approach her.

WC: 510

❀ Sixth sense ❀

Reducio

Growing up with two sets of twins was very conducive to learning to keep an eye out for anything not fitting in your surroundings. Over time her ability to evade had truly evolved into a sixth sense for things amiss around her.

While she was only very rarely an active participant in her sibling’s prank wars, there was no one that escaped an property-wide prank war unscathed. Everyone ended up triggering some traps that were either intended for no one in particular or for someone else, nevermind the pranks intended for them. While she wouldn’t deny that it can be fun, and her siblings generally kept from away from humiliating pranks, it was still enough of a hazard that Milena had always tried to avoid it as much as possible. Not that she had been above some nice bout of retaliatory pranks in return.

Still, she had developed her spatial awareness in a sort of skill that warned her if something was not the way it was supposed to be. If furniture had (been) moved, for example, that was always a warning sign. If it felt like the path from door to door seemed longer, it probably meant that someone had done something to the door again – Fyodor had had a phase where he loved to cover the hallway floors in what wasn’t exactly glue: while the floor was slightly sticky-ish, one did not actually stick to it. But it did make walking over it minimally harder.

Or the time Ivan had somehow caught a whole bunch of Black-capped marmots … Fun fact: if your settee cushions are moving, do not sit down on it. So. Yeah. Lesson learned there. She would never again just consider that a trick of the light or something and ignore it without investigating. That had not been a fun evening. But at least Ivan had not gotten away unscathed either – especially not after their parents forced him to carry the – by then irate – marmots back outside. He’d ended up even more scratched up than she did in the end.

Or the time their parents had had enough of the shenanigans and finally decided to get involved and retaliated? If the floor looks like it has a ripple effect – do not trust it. It will lead to your doom – otherwise known as an involuntary bath in what seemed to be river water but probably wasn’t. Not a fun moment when the floor disappeared underneath your feet and drops you into a vat of water below. Still, at least their parents got all five of them at once with that trick.

Not all of her time growing up was as hazardous, there was a lot of down time where their family just enjoyed time together, too, but it certainly helped develop a certain sixth sense.

WC: 469

❀ Non-Verbal ❀

Reducio

Being from a Pure-Blood family, even a slightly unconventional one to a degree, it was a foregone conclusion for Milena to learn both non-verbal and wandless magic like her older siblings before her and her younger twin brothers would later learn it as well, when they reached an appropriate age. It was considered somewhat of a status thing, especially on her mother's side of the family. Easier to keep an eye on Muggles and exploit them, if you could cast magic unnoticably while walking amongst them. It would also reflect badly on the family if Society at large were to learn that one of them was not capable of (at the very least small) feats of such magic.

Of course, the fact that everyone in her family learned those skills did not mean that they were all equally talented at, not by far. To her mother, it came easy and she used it often. Her father was profitient even if he found it more difficult than wand work and it was not something he used in everyday life. He used it only when the situation called for it.

Her older sister, Olga, had turned out to havesome talent in wandless magic but the not-speaking part was difficult for her. For the longest time she still whispered the incantations unwittingly. If there was occasion to showcase the skill, she concentrated on the easier spells. Her twin, Ivan, was the exact opposite. He found out quite early that he did not need to speak to cast a spell, even if he had not mangaged it consistently yet, but without a wand and the spells accompanying wand movement … Nothing had happened. Somewhat unsurprisingly it was during one of the twins' prank wars that the ability suddenly clicked for him and in his annoyance with Fyodor he managed to jinx the kid despite Pavel holding his wand hostage.

Milena, even if she would never admit it, was quite apprehensive when it came to her turn to learn. It was daunting. She did not fear the failure in and of itself, she was capable enough with wandwork and there was no practical need for her to learn, but she feared what it would mean for her family if she failed. As a result she threw herself into her study with a similar... zeal... to her approach at learning anything. It was a continuation of everything she had learned to be able to represent her family positively.

At first it seemed like she would follow Olga's footsteps, as the first time she had managed either, she had charmed a door close in Pavel's face to keep him out of her room so she could finish her summer homework in peace and be done with it, despite her not holding a wand. So her parents had thought it prudent to teach her that skill first. But she had not been able to replicate said feat since, and it had been over a year. (To be honest, if she wasn't too old for it already, she'd have thought it to have been accidental magic, rather than deliberate if wandless magic.)

Her mother had tried to give her helpful advice, but it had not, in fact, helped. It was her grandfather who proposed they switched focus and tried to teach her non-verbal magic first. According to him, once you learned one skill, the other would be easier to acquire as well. At first it seemed equally as difficult for her, but her grandmother had a solution: Silencio.

After that, Milena spent an hour each day practicing non-verbal magic, and if she began to copy Olga's bad habit, her parents or older siblings would hit her with a silencing charm. It was perhaps an unorthodox way to train such a skill, but it proved effective relatively quickly. Still, it remained a hit-or-miss skill for now. There was a lot progress, yes, but it was still very much a work-in-progress.

WC: 660

Extracurricular Activity:
❀ None ❀

Items:
❀ None ❀