Valerie Carter

""Fighters," Cole began. "Generally very sarcastic and dry, but you have your nicer sides, Or at least I think you do. You fight for the people you care about, and sometimes you just want everyone else to back the frick off." And you sign, he added." -Cole, describing the similarities between Valerie and Callyah in the third thread.

Valerie is a 20 year old hooded female in the 𝑴𝒂𝒔𝒌𝒆𝒅 RP.

Appearance
Valerie has tanned pale skin, freckles, and suspicious green eyes. She's fairly tall at 5'9" or 1.75 meters. She had long brown hair but recently cut it short and bleached the tips. You usually don’t see them, but she has scars on her back when she was younger and one stretching from her collarbone to her hip. The ones on her back she’ll talk about but not her collarbone to hip one.

She usually wears dark green and brown tops with black pants and boots. When it's really hot and she's just going hiking, she'll wear a sports top and shorts, but not usually because things like poison ivy and brambles.

Her hood is a dark green and is a part of her jacket, but it's also detachable because it's HoT in the summer. In the image she detached the hood, but she can also wear just the hood and not the jacket though it looks a bit weird.

She almost constantly has leather armbands on. One is to protect her arm from the recoil of her bow. The other is for Kaida to land on, so that Valerie's arm isn't punctured by her sharp talons.

Here is a board I made for her.

Personality
She's strong, brave, and resourceful. It can be hard to tell when she's joking. She is quiet, but more because she doesn't talk in general, even with her uncle. She has had less social interaction than most people her age, even with the masks and hoods. Animals tend to really like her, including her falcon, Kaida and horse, Tug. Being raised as a hunter with her uncle since a young age, she respects the cycle or life and death and got over her pity and remorse for killing animals a long time ago. This may be because she knows that none of the animal will be wasted, because she and Emile will use whatever the butchers won't buy. Hunting and just being in the forest in general is the only time and place where she is truly confident.

Family and Backstory
Her father was a palace guard and her mother a servant of the the castle. Her mother died giving birth to her younger sister, and as far and Valerie knows, her sister died as well. Her father died in a skirmish shortly after. She was taken in by her uncle, a hunter, and was trained to be a hunter like he was. She doesn't really mind when people bring up her parents. She didn't really know them, so it doesn't hurt as bad, but she gets moments where she wonders what her life might've been like if they'd survived.

In Thread 2, she mentions that her mother might be from Dursee, though she wasn’t really sure.

Skills
Valerie is very resourceful. She knows what might be useful and how to prioritize, and she's good at figuring out how something works. She's an expert with a bow and arrows*, and she knows how to use her knives to defend herself. She's working on being able to throw throwing knives but she wouldn't trust herself with a high risk shot using them, though she keeps them on hand. So, to recap, she is almost always equipped with her bow, arrows, hunting knives, and throwing knives.

She also knows basic sign language that she and Emile learned so they could silently communicate while hunting.

Due to her job as a hunter, she is very observant of small things. She is also really good at understanding animals. Like, not literally, but she sees where they're coming from and knows how they've evolved to act. She can see an animals and recognize that it's scared, angry, or relaxed, but doesn't know why. Her ability, premonition, helps with this as well.

She can move incredibly silently and slowly, as she does when stalking her prey.

* This used to say gun, but I realized how loud they are and how it wouldn't really go with her SiLeNt sTaLkEr vibe. So I changed it. Yay me.

Ability
Advanced premonition. Like she gets feelings about things that are usually right, but she doesn't know anything about them. So if she's going to meet up with someone and has a bad feeling about it, she won't know if it's from, say, the person being mean to her or something embarrassing happening. Of course, that would happen if she actually had any friends. So. Fun times.

Flaws and Weaknesses
Valerie struggles with her emotions, mainly anger. She's rather squash them down and deal with them never or much, much later. She's also pretty abrasive and proud to almost everyone. She is fairly anti-social, more than normal, and she prefers animals to people. Which isn't always a bad thing, but it's not good either. She also doesn't like unfamiliar situations, and can freeze up when unexpectedly thrown into them. When she's in new situations she feels a lot of self doubt and tries really hard not to show it.

Sometimes her scars still hurt her, usually when she has to use her back muscles a lot, Like, if she's lifting or pulling something heavy.

Her Falcon
Valerie has- not a pet, exactly- but a Peregrine falcon named Kaida. Valerie rescued Kaida when she found her abandoned on the forest. She took her in and trained her to do different things. Currently, the most impressive thing that Val has trained Kaida to do is to return to her over long distances, no matter where either of them may be. This is most useful for sending messages.

Her Horse
Tug is Valerie's horse.

Shipping/Sexuality
She's currently questioning her sexuality and thinks she may be either Bi or Pan, but hasn't decided. If she's going to ship with someone, they'll need a really really good connection. She doesn't need to end up with someone. I kinda like her single, so we'll see how it goes.

Queen Anika
Valerie does not trust the queen. She isn't a trusting person in general and when the queen didn't tell them they would be in danger by coming she made her disapproval clear. This distrust hasn't had much to soothe it.

Callyah
Callyah has Valerie's respect. Well, some of it at least. Valerie admires how calm and in control Callyah is, and she (Valerie) can tell Callyah knows her stuff about guarding the queen.

Holden
Valerie and Holden have a passive aggressive/friendly relationship.Valerie insulted Holden and thought he was a hopeless flirt. And she told him as much. Then they got into the topic of how he got the nickname Cygnus, which Valerie had a few theories for. None of them were correct and it was revealed that Holden fed the swans that followed him around and loved him. Valerie said that didn't count and that her falcon actually trusted her. Holden got really excited and asked Valerie to summon her (The falcon, Kaida), but Valerie pointed out that she couldn't; they were inside a closed off room in the castle. Holden and Valerie also choose to insult each other, and have rarely agreed on much. Valerie constantly gets on his case about being distracted or flirty, which Holden does not really mind. *deep breath*

Audrey
Audrey and Valerie had a complicated relationship from the start. Valerie thinks Audrey is ridiculous for immediately flirting with Holden. Then Valerie insulted Holden and Audrey moved to defend him. Next, Valerie asked her if she would let a little flirting cost Holden his job, to which Audrey said no. Audrey glared at Valerie when she (Valerie) and Holden were talking, thinking that Valerie was "playing hard to get." Valerie's disdain for Audrey only grew when she had Holden summon the glammed up tents and when she obviously flirted with (clueless) Cole.

Paisley
Valerie and Paisley started off a lot like Valerie and Audrey, but then they were paired together to get to know each other. Paisley asked about what the city was like, and Valerie told her how it was different, dangerous and free and special. When Paisley wasn't turned away by her warnings, Valerie was mildly impressed that a palace girl wanted to leave, despite all the terrible things.

Cole
Valerie doesn't know how to feel about Cole. They disagreed about trusting the queen, but she admires how he manages being deaf. He's probably the person she gets along best with, he's sort of like a little brother to her. She offered to let him ride with her when they left the castle so he wouldn't have to go with Audrey or Paisley and she took him to Anika when she was injured by the man later revealed as Rook.