LARSEN, sylvia

Name: Sylvia Larsen

Age: 17 years

Gender: Female

Race: Witch

Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual

Occupation: Student // Third Year

House: Valerian

Classes: Intermediate Spell-Casting, Divination II, Artistic Expression

Likes: She likes dolls and dressing up in vintage dresses. She's in love with other times and other places, and she has a collection of old, empty lockets in her dresser drawer. Ever since she was a little girl, she's found solace in storybooks and imaginary places. She likes pink nail polish and playing pranks on boys. She likes ghost stories and cobwebs and dead things. The smell of tapioca pudding always makes her think of her mother.

Dislikes: She dislikes mean boys and girls who tell lies, even if she is the most terrible liar of them all. People who refuse to humor her games are ignored, as there's nothing she hates more than being deprived of the attention she deserves.

Strengths: She captivates her audience when she speaks. She is magnetic, alluring, and can invent enchanting tales on the spot. Her greatest strength is her keen mind, though she often misuses her intelligence for games of deception. She can read people like books, highly intuitive, and she sees past lies and half-truths, straight into a person's soul. She is wise beyond her years, sage beneath her spitefulness. While she possesses little mercy, she has great wisdom to offer to those who befriend her and is often the first to lend a listening ear. When she isn't plotting someone's downfall, she's a playful vixen of a girl who's fun to have around, always tugging someone on one wild adventure or another. She breathes life into otherwise dull rooms.

Weaknesses: Her identity is wishy washy because she molds herself to the ideals of whoever she's with. She is made of a hundred violent feelings that she does not know how to control, and she has lost herself in games of vengeance more than once. When she is composed, she's as sweet as sugar, but when she snaps, her shrieks are as loud as a scorned banshee. Underneath her manic smiles, she is a weak-willed, teary-eyed escapist who will do whatever it takes to leave her frail body for a night. She relies heavily on other people to cure her loneliness. Her need for validation is what lies at the root of her promiscuous nature, but perhaps if boys knew how disturbed she really was, they would think twice before sneaking into her room after curfew.

Fears: She is afraid of men, but the more cornered she feels, the sharper her claws become and the louder her snarl grows. Fear is masked by ferocity.

Secret: She killed him. She doesn't want to believe that she could be capable of such a thing, but somehow it's easier to convince herself that she did than that she didn't.

Description: Sylvia stands at a short height of 5 feet and 3 inches. Her skin tone is wan, her color faded like an old painting, yet there is an antique beauty in her complexion. Her waist is as small as a ballerina's, and she is as dainty as a moth, but her smile can be tough as nails. She is always clad in scuffed up Mary Janes that were hand-me-downs from her mother and chooses the color of her dresses the way she chooses her moods. Her hair is a mousey brown with hints of blonde, and she usually wears it in an unkempt bun. While there is something undeniably off about her sweet, blue fawn eyes, she hides her perturbed nature with deceptive flutters of her lashes. Her smile is as nice as it is nasty.

Power: Being a witch, Sylvia possesses the power to cast a variety of spells, specializing in dark magic. Of course, that is not something encouraged at the academy, and she often keeps the darker nature of her powers to herself, masquerading as a doe-eyed waif. She is best at voodoo, though she also has a knack for divination and clairvoyance, and despite how hokey people say crystal balls are, she has predicted a great many happenstances with hers. She is also infamous for holding seances. Only the bravest students seek her out for her gift.

Belongings: Her dearest possessions are her lockets. Oh, she must have a dozen of them. They all bear pictures of lovers that do not belong to her, but she wears them all the same, making up wild tales about the faces inside them. "Ariel" by Sylvia Plath is her most treasured book, and she could not make it through lonely nights without playing Patsy Cline's record on a loop.

Personality: Ever so elusive, she traipses around like a bird, never nesting one place for long. If she overstays her welcome, she will grow dull, rust over like a leaky faucet, so she vanishes before she can ever see boredom in their eyes. She delights in making the lonely pine after her for rest of their lives, but her heart is emaciated. She feeds off the love her ghost is shown like a vulture picking flesh from bones. She looks like a doll and men want to make her theirs, but she already made that mistake once. They think she's pretty, even in bloodshot eyed-hysteria. Helpless, they assume, and she is until they back her into a corner. Then she'll pull out a knife and smile the same way she did when they kissed her. She is a violent storm inside a girl, unpredictable and always intense. Sweet as honey on your fingers one moment, but a bottle of rat poison the next. She will fall into your arms in tears, and then she will shriek and slap you and rip you to pieces. She is unforgiving, and betrayal is always repaid tenfold. You wouldn't think such a waif could wreak so much damage, but she is volatile. Her emotions are unhinged, and laughing and crying are the same language to her. She may be small, but her looks are deceiving and the softness of her voice masks her ugliness. She is no mermaid, no sailor's dream. She's a vengeful siren who lures men in and guts them like fish. After all, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

History: Sylvia had four fathers. No, not all at once. Her mother remarried four times. Four different lives with four different men. She had her daughter when she was only seventeen, not ready for that kind of responsibility, and Sylvia would never forget the way her first father slammed his hands against the roof of the car and shouted, "Crazy bitch!" at the top of his lungs as they drove away into the night. Whenever they would start to settle down somewhere, with someone, something would go wrong and the woman would uproot their lives once again. Perhaps if she had been a more stable woman, Sylvia would have turned out differently — but like mother, like daughter. Sylvia was a rebellious girl, and her mother could never keep her on a tight enough leash, too preoccupied with the men she would bring home to lecture her daughter on right and wrong.

What none of her mother's suitors ever knew was that she had descended from the witches of Salem, and as such, Sylvia, too, possessed witch's blood.