Approved WK bio for Valynt Nororama - CC'ed by CotS

[Taymist]

DM Handle: Sylvirci

 

Div bio is for: Wolfkin

 

Character Name: Valynt Nororama

 

Wolf Name: Silverstreak, as close as it gets from the wolf-images.

 

Place of Birth/Raising: Chachin, Kandor

 

Age: 16

 

 

Appearance: 5'10 and 135lbs. Black hair with a light grey streak from crown tip to back of neck, the middle of his head. Eyes were sapphire blue, now a dark gold color. Valynt is a slender lad with dark golden eyes and black hair shot through with a light grey streak that glistens with a silvery sheen in moonlight. He has been trained in the ways of a hunter and as such is supple and graceful in his movements, like a wolf stalking prey. His skin is a golden tan color marred by the tiny scars of dueling and hunting wild game and he bears those marks with pride. He is an average looking lad with a fierce and slightly wild unkempt look about him that some find highly appealing.

 

 

Personality: He is a guarded and quiet lad around people who are not hunters or woodsman, and there are not many of those in Chachin. He is friendly with others in small groups, but any mention of his... uniqueness and he clams up or changes the subject. He prefers solitude to the company of most and his father has only increased this quirk of his. Losing his mother during the onset of his changes, he has become fearful of forming close bonds and then losing them. The only other person he has a close bond to, well, you'll just have to hear his tale...

 

 

History/Background:

 

Valynt was running, hard and fast, through the lightly forested hills that sat just North of the Black Hills. He could hear the men pursuing him, but with his hearing like this being so new it was hard to judge their distance. He could feel the wind whipping through his hair and drying the light sweat as soon as it seeped out of him. He was afraid though, so he didn't notice the sight or sounds of animals scurrying out of his way. He only felt his fear of being caught and the thoughts or images flashing through his mind in fleeting snatches.

 

**********

 

He was six and his father had just given him his first long knife. A boy two years older had challenged him to a duel. His mother felt he was too young but his father said he needed to learn and now was as good as any time to start. Looking at the older boy he felt a moment of fear before his father spoke softly into his ear. It was a reassurance that no adult would let a maiming or killing blow be struck, it was to first blood only. Valynt wasn't sure why the boy had challenged him but he would never forget that first duel. It set the tone for how others saw him later in life.

 

He was ten paces from the boy, holding his knife awkwardly in his hand. It was new to him and felt heavy, he wasn't sure he could do it. The other boy gripped his knife like he had done this before and there was a crowd forming made up of others he played with and yet others, who like the older boy, taunted him constantly. Then the older boy flew forward with his knife pointing straight at his heart. Reacting as quickly as he could, Valynt turned while moving sideways and, gripping the hilt hard, let his knife trail across the older boy's stomach. The boy fell, writhing in pain and screaming, the screaming so loud that it froze Valynt in place. The knife fell from his numb hand and he watched as healers were called and the boy's open belly was closed and bandaged until a healer could come.

 

The boy died a short time later and everyone blamed him. They said that he shouldn't have been able to avoid the other boy, or that he shouldn't have been that lucky in his first duel. They whispered it was the Dark One's luck, but not around his father or him. They whispered it around his mother though who kept it to herself and to his friends, who started to look at him differently. Within a year he had lost all but a handful of his friends and no one ever challenged him again.

 

************************************

 

His heart was pounding just as loudly as the horses hooves that trailed him. How long before they would overrun him he wasn't sure, and he was surprised they hadn't yet. He pushed himself to move faster which was hard as he was avoiding most things that would mark his passing. Twigs, brambles, bushes and trees would all leave signs that would be too easy to follow from horseback. He wanted to slow them down and force them to dismount in order to follow him then he would have a chance, but it was very hard to accomplish that while running as fast as he could.

 

The images flashing through his mind weren't helping either, especially the ones that seemed to be him right now as if being seen from behind. The wolves surrounding him weren't helping either, what did they want? They were herding him, as if they wanted him to escape but why? What were they planning for him?

 

************************************

 

Another memory, this one when he was twelve. He was getting ready to tell his father he was ready for the trip to Andor. His father was suppose to escort a merchant down there and back for the Queen and gather what news he could while he was there. Valynt was going to increase his skills at hunting and gathering information so he could one day be like his father, a spy master for the Queen.

 

His parents were talking in hushed but heated voices. His father was trying to convince his mother to stay while his mother said that Valynt's grey streak in his hair was a mark of the Dark One and now his dreams and talking in his sleep about wolves and shadows fighting the wolves. It freaked her out and she was done living with someone touched by such darkness. She wouldn't declare her son a dark friend but she wouldn't live with him either. By the time they got back she would be with her mother on those estates.

 

The trip went well but his father made them sleep well away from the merchant and his guards. The only problem the entire trip was when his father and he were hunting one night in the outer edge of the Black Hills. His father was about to shoot a stag when out of nowhere Valynt got an image of wolves taking it down, and an arrow piercing one wolf. He panicked because he could hear and smell wolves close by, so he grabbed his father's arm, offsetting his shot. Just then wolves attacked and took down the stag, and when they finished they brought a hunk of the raw meat to him and laid it about ten paces away.

 

His father never said a word but he never looked at Valynt again without a wondering look in his eyes. His father wanted to ask him but was afraid of the answer, so rather then ask and see him as a dark friend he kept quiet about it. That was the trip where he completely lost his mother and lost his father's affection and teachings. His father still cared for him but from that day forward a gap had formed that would never heal.

 

**********************************

 

The Black Hills loomed up as the trees gave way to increasingly bigger hills. He could hear running water and remembered that if he had ran due South the river before him started in the Black Hills and ended in the river halfway between Tar Valon and Aringill. Here though is close to where it starts, and he made his way towards it. He knew if he could cross that river it would take the riders days to find a place to ford across, days he needed at the moment. He listened as best he could and was surprised to find that the sound of hooves was quieter and fading. Glancing around he spotted the dozen or so wolves that surrounded him.

 

He wondered at them, with their tongues lolling out the sides of their mouths. They hadn't once made a move against him, but they hadn't that day either, when he had protected those merchants. When he had also started preferring meat over any other food, and the bloodier the better.

 

************************************

 

Fourteen and he was shaping into a really good hunter and spy. He could catch occasional snatches of conversations from a greater distance then his father could. Like now he was eating a large slab of slightly bloody meat and the only other food he wanted was potatoes. All the way across the tavern was several men he had just helped escort back from Andor. They were talking about how uncanny he was at finding game and hunting, as well as how the wolves had backed down from him rather then attacking. He listened and watched others casually to see if they heard what was being said and their reaction. He continued to eat and realized he no longer wanted anything else but meat right now. So he left the potatoes untouched, and left quietly while looking carefully at others while they ate.

 

Fearing what people would say he started eating in his rooms, privately. It didn't help that the images were getting more frequent or that his father put him in the highest room at night so his dream talking couldn't be heard by anyone. He noticed that his hearing was also getting better and that he could smell things from further away then others he knew. He was starting to panic and believe his mother might have been right, he was touched by the Dark One. He vowed to fight it with all he had, never would he serve such a being!

 

****************************************

 

He was at the river now and without hesitation, dove in and swam across. At this point it didn't surprise him that the wolves climbed out as he did or that they immediately surrounded him. They led him to a thicket set deep in a horseshoe shaped rock formation, and showed him how to enter. He crawled on his belly into the heart of the thicket and was surprised to find pups and more wolves. He was scared of being caught and fed up with running and hiding his…differences, so he said quietly, " What do you want of me? Why do you help me?"

 

Images poured into his mind at an alarming rate. He could just make out that some were his while most were not. That meant that the wolves had to be giving him the images.. It was too much so he latched onto an image he knew was his.

 

*****************************************

 

A few months ago he had been walking through town at dusk. He saw the most beautiful young woman he had ever known walking towards him. She smiled sweetly at him while her escort glared at him. He vaguely remembered the man as one of those that disliked him and his oddities. He smiled shyly and walked quickly past.

 

The next morning she came to his house and asked him to walk with her. She explained that to keep her honor her brother would be their escort but he wouldn't interfere with them. Her brother was the scowler from the night before but he left them be as he watched like a hawk.

 

The next few months seemed to fly by in a rapt wonderful bliss of laughter and talks that lasted well past dusk. It was a wonderful time, where she learned of his life, his oddities and she didn't shy away! Instead she embraced him wholeheartedly and begged him to seek her father and mother for her hand. He was falling in love so fast and strongly that on the night of his sixteenth birthday he slipped up and it cost him everything..

 

He was alone with her in his family garden. His father had decided to throw a big party for his turning into a man and his choosing this night to seek out her parents and request their daughter's hand in marriage. Shimuko, his love and the light of his life was dressed beautifully in a bright cream and green outfit fit for a noble of her family's status. He decided to tell her everything, his life, why his mother left, and all the things that had been happening over recent years.

He told her about the strange dreams, the images that seemed to be of things happening outside the walls. The way he could hear things from much farther then was normal or the way he could smell even the faintest scent and identify it. Of the way his eyes seem to be sharper then others and finally of the hunting trips and how the wolves he could swear were always the same ones hunted with him. How he wanted to set down his bow and use a long knife to hunt as they did, and had done so several times in the past year. Of the scars to prove it, that he had earned from teeth and hooves and claws. What he failed to notice, couldn't really, was that as he talked about all these things his eyes started changing. There was no real reason other then it was just happening, the final touch on a journey begun years earlier.

 

It did not however go unnoticed by her brother, who jumped forward and shoved him back shouting dark friend. The guests all came running and seeing his eyes, took up the charge. He stood quickly and sought out his love, but she was being ushered away and his father just stood in the back shaking his head sadly. He had hoped this day would never come but now that it had he could do nothing to help his son. Seeing that they were ready to hang him on the spot and no amount of arguing was going to help, Valynt fled.

 

He ran like the wind and fled the city, his life, everything he had known. Even his father and his love, the last two people he had ever expected to leave him had turned their backs on him.. He was alone and now hunted in the world. It was just barely felt when the pack joined him in his flight or when they turned him South towards the Black Hills.

 

**********************************

 

He cried, he had lost everything. So he cried and blamed the wolves, because he could understand them and knew now that he was more like them then the humans he had fled from. He cried himself to sleep, and was very aware that the wolves lay around him protectively.

[Liitha]

um question, it was my understanding from questions and whatnot that the eyes is one of the first things that change when a howling start, and such a trait that would likely develop before all the other sences was fully sprung

[Sylvirci]

Be nice please! Ata, all I could fing that mentioned it was a list of the changes and the eyes are stated last. It does not imply one way or another as to what order the events occur that I can find. Tay or Owen might have a definitive answer on it but I couldn't find one.

 

 

[Taymist]

No, not necessarily Ata. As long as their eyes have changed prior to reaching the Stedding then there's no set order for things happening.  :)

[Liitha]

ok just asking ;) and syl that is my job when i dont know for sure, its the reason we have CC

 

but then i am fine with it

[Sylvirci]

Hehe! :D I know hun, just teasing ya! ;) ;D

[Liitha]

oh well in that case the fire back would be...laugh now you will soon enough be doing the jobb yourself :P

[Taymist]

lmao thanks Ata  :)