[b][color=c0c0c0]Ben[/color]
[color=lightskyblue]Irina[/color]
[color=deepskyblue]Lilie[/color][/b]

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fontmeme fifth century caps size 30 light sky blue 

[hider=Irina WIP][center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/210130/066f1c15aca8543259ae843515ea2e3f.png[/img][/center]
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[sub][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQTCS6aWRSc&ab_channel=gemmaknmi]You can run on for a long time // Run on for a long time…[/url][/sub][/center]

[center][color=lightskyblue][i]| Female | 319 | Vampire |[/i][/color][/center][color=lightskyblue][b]Name[/b][/color][indent]Irina Albakova Astorio[/indent]
[color=lightskyblue][b]Appearance[/b][/color]
[indent]Tall, athletic, and with a gaze that could pierce steel, Irina cuts an imposing figure, standing around 5’10” (or, more often, a full 6’ in boots) with a weight of 150lbs. She is the very embodiment of “disciplined”, standing rigidly straight and moving with purpose. Her natural eye colour is gold, but her eyes appear red most of the time with thirst; similarly, while paleness is expected of vampires, Irina’s skin tends to take on a somewhat more deathly pallor. While still ethereally beautiful by nature, Irina stands out among her vampiric peers as looking just a little more dead than most.

A relic of brutal Astorio training, she keeps her shock-white hair cut short and dresses in clothes that hug the body, nothing sticking out to get grabbed; leather jackets, slim-fitting trousers, and heeled riding boots make up much of her everyday wardrobe. One ever-present accessory is a scabbard hanging from her right hip, home to a blade that she wears at all times. While quite spartan in most aspects, Irina does like to indulge in dark lipstick and eyeliner. [/indent]
[color=lightskyblue][b]Personality[/b][/color]
[indent]Irina’s personality is the product of a lifetime spent on guard: alert, adaptable, and brutally efficient. She wastes nothing, be it time, energy, or even breath; she has no skill or patience for chatter, and as such speaks bluntly and concisely, and only wants to hear you talk long enough to get what she needs. What little remains of her patience is usually spent managing her self-imposed thirst, and mercy isn’t a word in her vocabulary: clashes and corrections start and end swiftly and brutally, nothing drawn out longer than necessary. Order and discipline are everything to her, and she holds those close to her to the same rigid expectations she applies to herself.

An Astorio to the core, Irina sets a calculating eye on everything she sees, and will learn someone’s size, build, skills and handedness before ever bothering to learn their name. Much like her House contemporaries, she’s well acquainted with violence and revels in combat, though she will only allow herself to indulge long enough to get the job done. Accustomed to an uncertain future, any plans she makes are fluid and flexible, rarely extending more than a few years ahead; in fact, planning ahead is probably the only respect in which Irina could be considered “laid back,” her opportunistic nature lending itself well to adaptation. [/indent]
[color=lightskyblue][b]Bio[/b][/color]
[indent]Ask Irina about her life and she’ll reply that there isn’t much to tell; she was born to Count Adrian Astorio after her “twin” brother Mikhail and elder brother Dmitir, and knew her mother only as “Hawk” for the few short years before they were separated. She learned quickly that Dmitir was a softie and Mikhail was a shitheel, became her father’s favourite by being neither, and was quickly launched into 65 brutal years of training, a trial by Lord Pieron himself, and eventually usurped her father. By all accounts, it was a typical Astorio upbringing.

Of course, an Astorio upbringing is spent with one’s back against the wall, and Irina’s was no different. Her earliest memories consist of fear and bloodshed, of a time where anything and everything had to be fought for. Decades of swinging every weapon known to civilization, learning to embrace hunger, pain, and desperation, looking over her shoulder because nothing and nowhere was safe, all to be honed into a ruthless killing machine—to her, it was… unremarkable.

But it was anything but in her father’s eyes, especially when compared to her companions on that journey: her brothers, Dmitir and Mikhail. Count Adrian had his work cut out for him with Dmitir: his first child by about a century, Dmitir was meek and soft-hearted from the first, possessing a merciful streak that rarely bade well for Astorio children. By some miracle he survived his training, but his father’s varied attempts to thicken his skin never hit their mark, teaching Dmitir only to keep his anguish to himself. When, at long last, he ventured into the woods for his final trial with Lord Pieron, he never returned, either dead or alive, and has never been seen or heard from since.

Of course, news of Dmitir’s supposed treachery spread quickly through the family, and with his line thrown into disrepute, it fell to Count Adrian’s other two offspring, only children at the time of Dmitir’s disappearance, to restore his honour. As such, he pushed his “twins” even harder than he had Dmitir, though he would not escape his challenges just yet.

While his second son, Mikhail, was more promising, he was still far from the paragon Adrian needed to restore his reputation. Unlike his brother, Mikhail didn’t have a merciful bone in his body; in fact, he took pleasure in suffering of all sorts that bordered on sick even by Astorio standards. Physically weak but quick, he avoided direct confrontation as much as he could, preferring to deceive, trap, ambush, and backstab his opponents into submission. This cloak-and-dagger methodology combined with a silver tongue and a talent for subterfuge cut him out better for the Sinnenodels than the Astorios, and despite the fact that he managed to pass all of his training, it was soon clear that his dishonourable nature would only reinforce popular opinion of Adrian’s line as cowardly.

As such, the Count’s last hope lay in his daughter, and fortunately, she did not disappoint. From the very first, Irina outpaced both of her brothers in intensity; every little thing she did, from schoolwork to play-fighting to feeding, she did with unmatched vigour, a whirlwind of nigh-uncontrollable energy. She craved direction and approached everything with single-minded purpose; in other words, she was the perfect clay to be moulded into Count Adrian’s saving grace.

Easily his favourite of his children, Irina was the one he pushed hardest of all, desperate to turn her into something any good Astorio would be proud of. And the harder he pushed, the better Irina responded, thriving under the pressure. Her father’s discipline allowed her to channel her as-yet aimless energy into a force to be reckoned with, easily destroying any task she was pointed at. The more she struggled, the more she hurt, the more her determination grew, egging her on to demolish every new obstacle in her way until there were none left to conquer.

When she finally surpassed her father and took his title, Count Adrian died with a smile on his face, secure in the knowledge that Dmitir’s transgressions had been atoned for.

These nights, Irina’s goals are somewhat less clear. Having amassed not only her father’s holds, but those of some other minor players in House Astorio, her material future is secure—assuming she can hold them. Titles and property in House Astorio change hands overnight, and the uncertain nature of Astorio life has turned her into quite the opportunist, accustomed to taking whatever chance happens to float by, and that’s largely how she’s been living since her rise to Countess.

Of course, even Astorio ears aren’t deaf to rumours of upcoming discord. Perhaps now would be a good time for a change...[/indent]
[color=lightskyblue][b]Likes[/b][/color]
[indent]Order / discipline / straightforwardness / cleanliness / dogs / combat / cold weather / motorcycles / challenges / dark lipstick[/indent]
[color=lightskyblue][b]Dislikes[/b][/color]
[indent]Other nobles / doublespeak / complaining / negotiation / dishonourable behaviour / poorly-trained mages / bottled blood / her brother Mikhail[/indent]
[color=lightskyblue][b]Habits[/b][/color]
[list][*]Fasting
[*]Using her enhanced senses for everyday purposes
[*]Clicking her boots
[*]Referring to mages as animals (ex. “kitty”)
[*]Keeping eerily still
[*]Cleaning[/list]
[color=lightskyblue][b]Other[/b][/color]
[list][*]Irina’s sword is a [url=https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/8f8de5ff-c7dc-4f81-9d2a-7dc95062972f.png]heavy cavalry sabre[/url], forged more heavy-duty than those designed for human use. A human would find it too unwieldy to use, but as a vampire, the extra weight is negligible to her.
[*]Irina is a skilled equestrian and a talented driver, and has trained in horseback and vehicle-mounted combat both on- and off-road. Her ride of choice is a motorcycle.
[*]She might not admit that she [i]loves[/i] dogs, but Irina certainly has great respect for them, and her favourite breed is the Doberman Pinscher. She’s had a Doberman all her life; her current dog is a male named Hugo.
[*]Along with her sabre, Irina keeps two things on her person at all times: a flask of mage blood (changed out every week) and a silver pocket watch, preset to a three-minute timer. [/list][/hider]