Teleios app

[aspecialkindofwoman]

Player Info

Name: Laura
Age: well and truly adult
Contact: burningflowers
Characters Already in Teleios: Aramis, Grey and Michonne
Reserve: PLEASE INCLUDE A LINK TO YOUR RESERVE

Character Basics:

Character Name: Milady de Winter
Journal: aspecialkindofwoman
Age: It is never clearly stated, so we are going to go for roughly 27 or 28.
Fandom: The Musketeers
Canon Point: ep. 2.10 "Trial and Punishment"
Debt:

Class A: 120 years (murder, treason, and espionage)
Class B: 950 years (she ticks all those boxes with the bulk falling in fraud, robbery and theft)
Class C: 295.33 years (including, but not limited to, crime for hire, aiding and abetting, attempted murder, blackmail, concealed weapons, conspiracy, manipulation, impersonation, trespassing, underhanded fighting, and more)

N/A.

GRAND TOTAL: 1004 years and 4 months

Canon Character Section:

History: Season 1
When Season 2 picks up, Milady has been socially humbled. She is working with a Spanish slave trader, assessing the jewels that are taken from the would-be slaves. This lets her cross paths with the Musketeers again: The King had decided to play peasant and had been in the wrong place and the wrong time and he and d'Artagnan were kidnapped by these traders. Milad sees an opportunity to ingratiate herself with the King and helps the King and d'Artagnan get free. She uses this introduction to the King to position herself as the King's mistress, moving into the palace and being showered with gifts, dresses and jewels. She thinks, for a brief time, that she has it made. Then two things happen: Rochefort, the new "advisor" to the King finds out about her past as the Cardinal's lackey (the cardinal died between seasons) and uses that knowledge to blackmail her into murdering the Spanish Ambassador. She does this, thinking it will free her from him (spoiler alert: it doesn't quite).

Just a while later, the King and his court visit the famed astronomer Marmion who uses the opportunity to exact his revenge on the King for the starvation of his village during an outbreak of the plague. When given the chance to take a heads or tails gamble, she guesses correctly and is set free by Marmion. She immediately goes to the Musketeers Garrison where the captain and Athos are, guiding them back to Marmion and helping to save the lives of the King, Queen, Dauphin and others. The King did not take kindly to her leaving, also noting "you are dressed like a man" with great disgust, ordering her to vacate her rooms at the palace and casting her aside. "So, that is the reward for loyalty," she notes to Athos, who replies that he respects her. There would have been a time when that mattered, she tells him, and stalks away.

Later, as she is being evicted from the palace, Rochefort tries to use her again, but Milady takes what knowledge she can to determine his true intentions. When an assassin is brought into the palace disguised as a distant cousin, then caught, it is Milady who extracts from her that Rochefort is a Spanish spy, then kills the woman. Milady then attempts to use the information to get money from Athos, even after he's offered her money upon her eviction. She ends up working with the Musketeers without payment as Rochefort begins to ratchet up his manipulation of the King, having people killed and going after the Queen, whose relationship with Aramis is discovered by Rochefort. When the Musketeers begin their open rebellion of Rochefort, who, by this time, has isolated the King and essentially controls everything, it is Milady who can sneak into the palace prison and free Aramis (note: This is the only interaction between Milady and Aramis. They are not close and they do not like each other at all. There will be minimal if any interaction between them in Teleios; the only time that they will even cross paths is if she is at the Garrison and that is unlikely). It is during these actions that Milady begins to doubt some of the life choices she has made (more on that in the personality section). As the Musketeers make their plan to end Rochefort, Milady tells Athos that she is doesn't like what she's become that she and he could start over. That "We have reason to trust each other, but who else can we trust?" That she will be leaving for England at sundown the next day and he can go with her, or he will never see her again.

She waits, not knowing that the King has declared war on Spain, and thinks that Athos has not come for her. That is where she will enter Teleios.

Personality:

When we first meet Milady, it is clear that she's manipulative. That is, in fact, her defining trait for much of the first season. However, that can be explained by her childhood; she was, for all we know, a street rat kid, forced to steal and lie to simply stay alive. Somehow, she met and fell in love with Athos, and felt she had no choice but to lie to him about that past; class distinctions being what they are, there is little chance he would have been allowed to marry her otherwise. That said, when Athos's brother forces himself on her (perhaps because of knowledge of what she was?), her past comes out, and Athos sends her to hang. It doesn't matter that she truly loved him, or that his brother might well have been a rapist, she was a liar and that's all that mattered. She is defined both by her past and by Athos's judgement of her.

So in the years that followed, she, in essence, became what Athos believed her to be. It's unsurprising, really, that she ingratiates herself to the Cardinal, that she kills and lies and cheats - it isn't as if she had a lot of choices - she's a woman without title or money in a man's world. She made some truly horrible choices, but she saw them as the best choices for her at the time. Choices that kept a roof over her head, kept her protected (at least as long as the Cardinal had a use for her) and kept her fed and clothed. Since Athos sent her to hang, she needs to look out for herself because no one else is looking out for her.

Despite that single-minded survival instinct, manipulation, and deadliness, she still loves - and desires - Athos. Even when she was trying to get him killed, it was because she knew she would not be free of him any other way. Something happens to her, though, when she begins working more closely with the Musketeers in opposition to Rochefort: she begins to see herself differently. She is and can be a strong woman capable of loyalty both to country and to people. She realizes with a start that she doesn't want to be that woman who had an empty heart and no moral compass. When she suggests that she and Athos leave for England, she is viewing this as a new start: a chance to be the woman she was when she married Athos, not the one who she became. She wants to be a better woman. That's what makes it so heartbreaking when it seems that Athos won't come.

So, all in all, there is more to Milady de Winter than meets the eye. At first sight, she is beautiful, alluring, dressing and holding herself in a way that inspires men to look at her. Just under that are her sharp edges: her instinctual need and desire to stay alive at any cost. While she enjoyed having the wealth and accoutrements that came both with being Comtess de la Fere (her title when she was married to Athos), and the King's consort, she is not wishing only to be spoiled or pampered: she simply, all in all, wants to be safe. Finally, in the gooey center beyond all those sharp edges, is a woman who wants to love and be loved in return, freely for the person she is, not the person she had to become to survive. It is, she realizes, only with Athos that that can happen.

Powers/Abilities: Milady is a skilled assassin and quite capable of holding her own in most fights.

Appearance: here she is She will most always wear a choker or something around her neck to hide the scars of the rope that broke when she was hanged.

CR AU

Game You’re Transferring CR from: N/A

How has your character changed from their canon self? N/A

Are they gaining any abilities from their time in game? Did the game setting take something from them? N/A

Samples:

Actionspam Sample:

[The dynamic here is entirely different, though not entirely foreign. If there is one thing that Milady de Winter knows and will continue to know is humanity. She has bartered and worked in the lowest common denominators of mankind for most of her life. She keeps an ear to the ground and keeps out of sight unless it serves her to do otherwise. Then she does as she does know, sweeping her skirts around her and stepping out into the path of the good-looking (and well-off, she can tell by the cut of his clothes) man coming in her direction. She fans her lashes over her cheeks, then flutters them up to look at him, all demure and seemingly shy] I seem to have lost my way. I'm still learning my way around. Would you be willing to show me where to find the clothier? I've heard he is quite talented. All I have are these old rags …. [She looks down at herself, smoothing a hand down the corset over ribs. Her dress is entirely flattering - of course it is. She's relying on the man to be looking at her chest.] This way? You're sure? [Smiling again, she reaches to slip her arm through his.] Can you show me? I would so greatly appreciate it. [Of course, he agrees. She expected that. After all, she knows people. And more than that, she knows men.]

Prose Sample:

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