Samantha Volkov

##### Positives

> ● Calm. She has a very calming presence around people, and she always looks as if she doesn't have a worry in the world.
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> ● Friendly. She's someone that can make "friends" wherever she goes. She's very laidback and light hearted.
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> ● Trustworthy. She never breaks her word and she is a loyal confidant to have on one's side. She is very loyal to whoever she decides to be loyal to.
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> ● Attentive. She pays attention to what is going on around her, even if she doesn't look like she is. She always knows the exits to any room, how many people are in said room, what a person was wearing the day before. She doesn't let people sneak up on her because she's already gone by the time they've arrived.
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##### Negatives

> ● Distrustful. She might be trustworthy, but she is distrusting of more people than not, and it takes a lot to actually gain her trust. Mostly, she operates under the belief that everything is a potential trap or setup, and people will try to screw her over.
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> ● Secretive. She purposefully chose the career she has because it's easier to hide her secrets when people assume it's career-related. She is a woman of many secrets, though.
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> ● Cold. There is the side of her that is friendly and great to know, but that side does not interfere with her work. Her morality is based on selfishness and survival of the fittest. In a way, she compartmentalizes when she needs to for her...extracurricular work.
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> ● Competitive. To a fault, she loves a good competition, but everything is a competition. She prides herself in being the best of the best.
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#### History

##### Early Years

> Life for Samantha had begun in poverty and in pain, the two things that would follow her throughout life. Her mother found out she was pregnant just after she had worked up the nerve to leave her father and her first born in the first place. Elena had been a terrible wife and mother, and felt as if motherhood was not her place in the world, so when she found out she was pregnant, too late to do anything about it, she had been bitter towards the little baby girl growing in her stomach. She had fled from the life she knew, going as far away as Russia in order to get away, and it simply didn’t seem far enough.
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> By the time Samantha was born, Elena tried to abandon her multiple times, failing each time out of the guilt that she felt because of it. Together with her baby, they lived on the streets of Moscow, eating whatever scraps they could find, and finding shelter in broken building after broken building. Samantha followed alongside her mother, begging for food when she could, and more often than not, things had been given to her because she was cute little kid that could use that to her advantage.
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> Her mother would try to date around, using it as a way to get them off of the streets, to take care of her daughter, but each relationship seemed to have been worse than the previous one. Everything changed for the mother-daughter duo when Alexei Volkov came into the picture. He was a charming sweet-talker who came from a lot of money. His family was well-known and powerful, which always made Samantha question why he had ever come around in the first place. Her mother was beautiful, sure, but it never sat right with Samantha. She had just turned ten when the pair had married in a small ceremony, and the life she knew had changed completely.
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> She and her mother were suddenly wearing expensive things, and Alexei was bringing them around everywhere to introduce him to everyone he knew, so everyone would see he married a beautiful wife and took in her daughter as his own. To everyone around, he was the perfect man, but to Samantha, he was a snake that hadn’t let out his true colors yet. Even at ten-years-old, she was watching everything around her, but her mother couldn’t see what she saw, too smitten with the idea of having the happy family she always wanted. It wasn’t until after the birth of their son that the abuse and control had started, but even then, her mother seemed to explain it away a lot. Once, she tried to take Samantha and her son and run, but they didn’t make it far before being discovered and brought right back.
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> Soon after, Samantha was being informed that she was accepted into a school of magic because she had shown signs of being a witch. She was told that she would have to prove herself, of course, and if she didn’t measure up, which she probably wouldn’t, she would be let go, but that she would be expected to go to some boarding school to hone this magical power she supposedly had. Samantha believed them to be full of complete shit and thought it was a joke. Her mother blatantly refused her to go, but Alexei said she was going and that was that. Her mother soon warmed up to the idea simply because she saw it as a way to get Samantha out of the house, though Samantha wasn’t too keen on leaving her mother.
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##### School Years

> With the use of threats as a tactic, Samantha begrudgingly made her way to this school, and she knew that, no matter what, she couldn’t fail. It had been tough on her everyday as competition was praised, but not just any competition. Rules were heavily flawed in favor of only the fittest surviving, and people looked down on her because she was a muggleborn. It didn’t matter to them what family name she carried with her, just that she was weaker than they were. The punishments for failing were harsh punishments that she would never repeat, but she endured through them because she had to. Alexei wouldn’t let her see her mother unless she succeeded.
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> She had to work harder than everything else because she had more to prove than anyone else. Samantha pushed herself beyond her limits every day, because slacking just once was bad for her. Her breaks were spent in a separate sort of schooling, paid for by Alexei in order to train her to be the best of the best. He used his influence in order to get her accepted into a school that one had to be invited to in order to even hear of it at all, but money seemed to make a difference just as it had everywhere else.
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> Samantha got in more fights than everyone else since people thought that she was the weakest link of the school, and many wanted her to quit, but she couldn’t. Instead, she took the beatings she had, while learning how to come back stronger. The years at Koldovstoretz were brutal, and the breaks were even worse, but it was a beast they wanted, and it was a beast that they created by the time she graduated.
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##### Post-School Years

> She was quickly hired at the Ministry in Russia upon her graduation because they saw the weapon that she could be and wanted it for themselves, though were disappointed to see that she wouldn’t let them use her unique abilities. She trained with them for a while, but she was tired of being manipulated, and tired of going by everyone else’s rules. Finally with enough leverage, she stood up to Alexei, and tried to get her mother to leave him, but to her surprise, her mother refused, saying she left one marriage and she wasn’t going to do it again. It had been the first that Samantha had heard of it, though she didn’t look into it until many years later.
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> Within a year after graduation, she gave birth to a baby girl, 7 weeks early. It was at this time that she had transitioned to the Department of Secrecy in the Russia Ministry. Motherhood was not something she had wanted for herself, so she knew from the start that she was going to give the baby up for adoption. There was no way that she was going to bring a baby into the world that she knew, and she liked the way that she lived her life.
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> Working at the Ministry was something she used as her cover for her other interests as her skillset was highly prized. Instead, she found herself linking up with a group of witches and wizards, a heist team, stealing things she could only have ever dreamt of owning, from people that didn’t deserve to have them. She wasn't stupid, though, and had a stock of polyjuice potions she would use in advance so it was never her face that was found. Everything had been going well, until her group betrayed her and tried to cut her out of the deal. In return, she made sure they would never be able to do that again and she walked away with everything.
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> Samantha had finally come around to check into this other relationship that her mother had, using her resources to find out the information that she wanted, which led her all the way to England, and to her brother, Mason. With a change of scenery in order, Samantha left her life in Russia, setup a job in the Ministry as an Unspeakable, and got herself a nice little countryside place in the middle of nowhere, just the way she liked it.
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### Connections

#### **Family**

###### Mason King

> He doesn't know it yet, but he will soon enough.
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###### Ariadne Mikos

> She feels as if they're "friends" whether Ariadne realizes it or not. Why else would she continue to see her for her hair?
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###### **Romance**

> None yet
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###### **Enemies**

> Everyone.
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