"Hey, chin up. I know the night just got darker, but it won't last forever."
- Nick Valentine, Fallout 4
BASICS
NAME: Valentine, will respond to Val
GENDER: Male
PRONOUNS: He/Him/His
ORIENTATION: Bisexual
BIRTHDATE: Summer 2724
AGE: 51 as of 2775
LOCATION: Semaca
OCCUPATION: Wherhandler
WING: Pavane
APPEARANCE
EYES: Blue
HAIR: Short, ashy blonde but greying on the sides
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5'11", just a little more fit than the average person,
PLAY-BY: Daniel Craig
EXPY SOURCE: Nick Valentine (Fallout 4)
FULL APPEARANCE:
Val is aging, but he's aging fairly well. Yes, he has wrinkles. Yes, his ashy blond hair is greying down the sides. And, yes, he has a fair amount of scars littered across his pale from all the times he's been dinged up over his 50 years. But, he is still a rather handsome man. His jawline isn't angular, per say, but it is defined. His smile is warm and inviting. He has maintained a low-intensity fitness regimen since his younger years which has kept him in relative shape.
Once it gets cold, you would be hard-pressed to see Valentine without his favorite jacket. It's similar in length to a trench coat and made of a material better suited for Autumn and Spring. In the Winter, he trades this out for a nearly identical one. The only difference is that it is fur lined to keep him warm. Outside of that, he wears a lot of neutral tones and white, blacks, and greys. He likes to wear collared shirts, pants, and a nice pair of boots wherever he goes.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY:
Valentine is a kind, empathetic, and friendly man, but don't mistake his kindness for meekness. While he is helpful for the sake of being helpful and values being good above all else (within his own definition of what 'good' means), if you cross him, he will cut you off. If you aren't nice to him, he will have no reason to be nice back to you, and he can be pretty cutthroat and even actively mean in return. Even more so, if you wrong him, look out as he is a large supporter of revenge. He will find the best way and best opportunity to do it, and then he will put his vengeful plan into action.
While oftentimes his more serious side gets the better of him, Val loves being humorous, he is just a bit more subdued with it. When the time is right, he will hit you with one of his classic funny zingers. He loves to be snarky and loves to have friends that can handle and engage in back-and-forths with him. However, if the situation is sad or bleak, he will have no tolerance for anything of that sort as he thinks it is inconsiderate of the situation.
As previously stated, he tries his best to be helpful. He loves putting in good, hard work to get the job done. He is rather smart, having an analytical sort of brain. He's good at putting pieces of information together like puzzle pieces to figure out what to do next. He has a deep love of learning and actively went out of his way to learn to read just so that he could learn more. He tends to quote lines from books he's read if, and only if, they fit the situation. He's pretty good at building things from scratch. He could've been a half-decent smith if he had decided to go down that road as a child.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
- Divalen (father, deceased)
- Etinema (mother, alive)
- Dima of White Dimask (older brother, alive) [+1]
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Jennifer of Green Ifesk (weyrmate, deceased)
BIRTHPLACE: A small hold between Fort and High Reaches named Acadia
HISTORY: [TW death]
Valentine was the youngest of two boys born one turn apart. The two were peas in a pod, one could rarely be found roaming around their small hold of Acadia without the other trailing behind him. As soon as they were old enough, the two were put to work on their parent's farm. It was good work, and they weren't too too bad at it. At the end of the day, it just wasn't what either of them wanted to do with their lives. They felt like it was more.
They often spent their free time trying to figure out what they could do instead of farming, much to their parents' disappointment. Well, they could be crafters... but they'd want to get into the same craft so they'd have someone to talk to who they wouldn't tear their hair out over. Val could be a smith, but Dima wasn't cut out for that. Dima could be a scribe, but Val wasn't cut out for that. No searchriders came their way, and the ones that did didn't pick them. Eventually, after a fair amount of brainstorming, the two decided on becoming wherhandlers and, afterward, guards for their hold.
Val somehow managed to talk Dima into waiting an extra year so that they could both buy the wher eggs together on his 17th turnday. With their marks paid and their eggs bought, the two waited for their whers to pop out of their shells. Dima's broke through first, a white by the name of Dimask. She was nice and all, but Val waited eagerly for his own egg to hatch. It took a few minutes longer, but first thing that broke free was a grey and white tail, then the back legs, then... another tail. Soon enough, the shell fell apart to reveal Valensk, Valentine's new two-tailed terror.
Once their whers were old enough, the two became guards for their hold. It was much harder than being a farmer, no doubt about it, but Valentine and Dima fell into the roles easily. Days, even Turns, fell into a pleasant sort of repetition. Wake up, eat, work, eat, work more, eat, go home, sleep, repeat.
And then he was 26. And then there was Jennifer. Oh, if love at first sight was real, Val felt it the second he saw her. She was a wherhandling guard two years his younger. Her wherlinghood had just finished up and she, like him, became a guard immediately after. And, while he liked her instantly, she did not feel the same. He didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable or anything of the sort, so he never said a single word about it to her. Kept the conversations business-casual at the friendliest and business-y at worst. It would be a funny topic they would laugh about later.
It would take several turns and many, many shifts together for Jenny to end up feeling the same way he did on the first day and every day after. But, once she did, she immediately asked him out. To say Val was elated would be an understatement, he said yes so quick she didn't even finish her sentence. After a few turns of dating, the two settled into a lovely weyrmate situation when Val was 36.
They had both decided that they didn't want kids, so they didn't have any. Between their whers and work, they just didn't have the time to raise them. It wasn't like this was a weyr where you could stick your kids in the creche and move on. So, they spent their free time together and with their whers for 4 mostly blissful turns.
And then Jenny got real sick. Really, really sick.
She was a fighter though, and fight she did. It was terminal and they knew it. Her prognosis was much less than optimal. Her condition only worsened over the two turns she suffered with it, and eventually her body couldn't fight anymore.
To say that Val was sad would be an understatement. He was disconsolate. He didn't bother hiding it. And after a healthy amount of time to grieve had passed, he was still just as sad. Everywhere he looked he just thought of her, and that made him think about how she was gone, and just felt like it was never going to get better. After expressing this to his brother, Dima came up with a potential idea. Leave. If looking around the hold was causing problems, then he needed a drastic change of scenery.
Nothing would be more drastic a change than moving to the Southern Continent. Semaca had been recognized as a weyr the turn prior. If there was ever anything more different than his hold, it was there. Dima would be fine on his own, and they'd send letters to each other when possible. And so, after mulling it over in as little as a week, he packed his things and moved to Semaca.
The scenery helped a bit, but what really helped was getting involved in a squad. He had joined up with Pavane upon arriving and boy, did he love it. There was something about about how the work felt more like puzzles and learning that really piqued his interest. He also took it upon himself to learn how to read during his free time. Now he's fully literate and reads whatever material is available to peruse around Semaca. Yes, the pain of losing the love of his life still remained, but keeping himself occupied helped more than he had realized.
Things were definitely more exciting at a weyr than at a hold. First there was the whole Alayna business, then there was the floods, the pirates... and the spotties attacks? Those kept him up at night at their peak- less so because he had been attacked, because he hadn't, but more so in the 'if I don't figure this out I will lose my gourd because this is so interesting' sort of way. Despite all of this excitement, Valentine has been doing his best to keep going one day at a time.
