[b]9. YELYZAVETA TERESHCHENKO[/b] (originally in Dragon and Devil (polyvore)) DRAGON AND DEVIL (POLYVORE) CS: https://urstyle.com/styles/489733 [hider=The Rusalka] {The sharp knife, of a short life, well I've had, just enough time} Your Name: Alicia Username: @ayzrules Role Being Auditioned for: Rusalka Other roles you're interested in: Dracula's brides ---x--- OC Name: Yelyzaveta Tereshchenko Age: 315 Nationality: Ukranian Occupation: marine biologist and ecologist, focusing on Dnieper River ecosystems Personality: At first, Yelyzaveta comes off as a quirky, whimsical woman who may be just /slightly/ off her rocker. She is full of sweet smiles and strange mannerisms and flowing dresses. Yelyzaveta likes to wear flowers in her hair and dance to invisible music, and she flits about the world like a bird, full of dreamy nonsense and endearing eccentricities. Gentle and free-spirited, Yelyzaveta has a profound appreciation for the natural world and all it has to offer. She is rather emotional, thinking with her heart more than with her head, so to speak, and is prone to irrational flights of fancy. Yelyzaveta is good at "reading" people, and is surprisingly perceptive, given her temperament. Underneath her flower crowns and tangled hair, however, Yelyzaveta is fragile and broken-hearted. She frequently stares out over the water at night, with nothing but shadows and stars for company, feeling empty and dead. Which, in a way, she is. She longs for companionship, for love, but every time she has loved someone after her death, it ended in heartbreak. Yelyzaveta would bring her lovers to the river, to her one true home, and as they sank into the water, she would sing to them-because she loves singing, and Mikhail loved her singing, and she loves the river and the fish and the water-and they would slowly lose all sense of conscious thought and follow her blindly underneath the surface while Yelyzaveta's skin turned into scales as she continued to sing the haunting, mesmerizing melody. Then, they would slowly drown, and even as they were drowning, they would still be unable to tear themselves away from Yelyzaveta, even as she realized what she'd done and tried to save them. And so Yelyzaveta has resigned herself to being alone, and when she sings her favorite song, the haunting melody that has killed too many innocent young men, nobody will ever hear her besides the moon and stars and rivers and fish and sky. She is mournful and lonely, and she loves her river as if it could replace real, human companionship. Recently, however, Yelyzaveta has become increasingly angry. What right did these people have to fill her beloved river with their chemicals and poisons and trash? What /right/ did these humans have to hurt her river, her little fish, like this? Yelyzaveta doesn't want to kill anyone-she's had enough of that for an eternity, thank you very much-but she knows that she may as well have to, if humans kept disrespecting and destroying her beautiful, beautiful river. Powers: Siren song (Yelyzaveta is able to seduce people, most notably men, with her voice, drawing them to her physically and mesmerizing/hypnotizing them, effectively bending them to her will); shape-shifting (her entire body becomes covered in slippery scales as she sinks underwater, making it difficult for people to keep hold of her. It also allows her to stay submerged for an almost indefinite period of time, and she swims just as well as any aquatic animal in this state. Her hair, however, stays the same); communicating with aquatic life (more through feelings and emotions and sensations rather than coherent words/thoughts); appearing as the person her "victim" loves the most (an innate ability that Yelyzaveta must consciously suppress); ability to see in the dark Talents and/or Skills: singing (as a human, Yelyzaveta had a lovely voice, a trait only amplified by her subsequent conversion into a rusalka), an extensive knowledge of the biology and ecology of the Dnieper River, cooking (she isn't a five-star chef, by any means, but she does have an extensive knowledge of food and how to make it), braiding hair, sewing, embroidery, calligraphy, fluent in Ukranian, Russian, and English Likes: water, the Dnieper River, rivers in general, fish and all other forms of aquatic life, being outside, wildflowers (and flowers in general), willow trees, music, long, flowing dresses and skirts, birds, the smell of the world after a thunderstorm, fresh fruit, environmentalists and conservationists, fanciful fantasies of true love, cheesy rom-coms, historical fiction novels, books about the environment and its importance (notables being "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson, "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson, and "Five Past Midnight in Bhopal" by Dominique Lapierre and Javier Moro), environmental documentaries/movies Dislikes: large industrial conglomerates, people who litter, people who don't care about the environment, accidentally killing innocent people, seeing animals suffer, thinking about her past, people who disrespect the Dnieper River, burnt food, being abandoned, men who cheat on their wives and women who cheat on their husbands, crooked stitches (she is strangely obsessive over having straight, tiny stitches) Bio/Background: My lady why do you cry so? They would ask her. My lady, why do you weep? How could she have told them? Her husband would have been so terribly wroth with her. For she was simply the daughter of a petty lord whom he'd married on impulse one day, and he was her everything. Her father wasn't very powerful, not by any means, but they'd been happy. They had food and family and the river. Yelyzaveta's heart and soul belonged to the river. And then Mikhail had come. Mikhal Tereschenko been the light of her life-his charming smile, his handsome face, his sweet kisses...and for a while, Yelyzaveta had thought that he'd loved her. My lady, why do you weep? They asked. How could she tell them that she wept because she missed her family, and she missed her river, when she was now married to one of the most powerful men in the kingdom? How could she tell them that he'd taken her maidenhead, so she /had/ to marry him, and how could she tell them that she missed her family when her family had been so eager to marry her to such a rich, powerful man? How, how, how? How could she tell them that she wept because she loved him? Because she really, truly /did/ love him, even when he hurt her. And she'd still loved him, even as she watched from her tower bedroom as he returned from the capital with women who were younger and prettier than she was. How could she tell them that she wept because she longed for the days when he'd treated her like a queen, when she was the moon to his sun, the stars to his sky? When she was still young, still beautiful, instead of weak and frail and crippled? She wept because of the illness that took her youth and beauty away had also taken away her beloved Mikhail. She had once danced and sang and laughed, and Mikhail himself had told her that there was no voice on earth more lovely than hers. But she'd fallen ill with some unknown disease, and soon she was too weak to walk, and her hair lost its brilliant shine and her eyes were dull and listless, and her voice was too hoarse to sing and her hands shook when she tried to embroider. Oh, how Mikhail had loved her embroidery, and her sewing-her neat, invisible stitches! And so she could do nothing but weep, silent tears streaming down her face as she stared out the window at the lonely, lonely night and the bright, shining stars. My lady, why do you weep? Why, why, why? Yelyzaveta spent so much time at that tower window, crying. Her tears could have created a waterfall, the servants said, and once or twice, Yelyzaveta almost threw herself out of it. But no, that was wrong. She belonged to the river, and the river belonged to her, and she would weep until she was returned to the river. My lady, why do you cry so? They asked. And soon, they stopped asking, because Yelyzaveta had beseeched Mikhail to allow her to return to her family, and he'd allowed her to, his frail, forgotten wife, so she'd held onto life until she had been returned to the river, and then she let the water carry her away, to fill her nose and mouth and lungs, until there was so much water that her tears were part of the river... Her family mourned her, of course, but Mikhail never noticed. Or he never cared. And then when she was reborn, she was too numb to cry, though her legs were strong and graceful again, and her hair was glossy red. She saw young men in the distance, and she would sing to them, drawing them near, in the hopes that they would be Mikhail, come back for her. But no, they never were, yet they still came to her, and they still died as she wept over their waterlogged corpses, wondering why Mikhail had stopped loving her... And then she'd been angry, so /angry/-why hadn't Mikhail seen how much she loved him? So she'd killed with her two sisters, not by blood but by rebirth, one from north and one from the east, much more vengeful than she was, but nevertheless, she'd been fueled by her rage as they traveled up and down the rivers... And then she'd realized what she'd done, realized how many people she'd killed, so she'd gone on her own way, too sickened by her actions to stay with her sisters. She'd gone back to her river, her beautiful, beloved river, and she spent her days listening to the water and fish sing their songs, and sometimes she'd sing with them, though never when some unsuspecting passerby could hear her. And so she spent the centuries like this, until her peace was disturbed by humans-those filthy /humans/, dumping their poisons into /her/ river-and now she is angry again, angry for the river, angry for the fish and water and sea, angry, angry, angry... So she tries to help the good ones, the ones who care for her river-she pretends she is a scientist, and indeed, she has a degree in ecology, but in the end, she belongs to the river and the river belongs to her... Traits they value in other people: loyalty, commitment, gentleness, kindness, compassion, a respect for the natural world, an appreciation for nature, faithfulness What do they fear?: Being alone and forgotten for all of eternity and the complete degradation of the Dnieper River ecosystems What or whom do they cherish/treasure?: The Dnieper River and all its marine life Other: Yelyzaveta has a degree in marine biology and ecology from a university in Ukraine that she obtained in order to legitimize her "scientific" insights on the state of the Dnieper River and the aquatic life. She currently does research in the field for the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, drawing from both scientific data and from her innate connection to the river to provide her conclusions for the university. She lives along a deserted stretch of the river, in a house without electricity or running water. Song you think most exemplifies your character: "Young and Beautiful" by Lana Del Rey, "If I Die Young" by The Band Perry, "1965" by Zella Day, "Jar of Hearts" by Christina Perri Preferred Faceclaim: Jessica Chastain Why you think they are suited to the role/your character: she's red-haired, and there are a wide variety of images of her that suit Yelyzaveta in that she looks wistful or dreamy in them-that's all there really is to it :D Back-up Faceclaim: Holland Roden Why you think they are suited to the role/your character: again with the red hair, and although the images of her aren't as suited to Yelyzaveta as Jessica Chastain's, I think I can still make it work Bonus: I honestly have no idea, lol ---x--- Tag the mod: @drownedinmoonlight Tag 5+: (optional, but greatly appreciated) Group Link: http://goo.gl/qQKaj4 [/hider]