Valentin Akashi

Valentin Akashi
Created by	Elan
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Soldier
Affiliation	The Grey Tower
Nationality	Kandori

Valentin Akashi is a Kandori Soldier of the Grey Tower.

Description

At eighteen years of age Valentin is already on the taller side of average and possibly still growing. He’s physically fit thanks to an active life outdoors and, as is typical in the Borderlands, has been trained in the use of weapons — mainly sword — from a young age.

He has dark hair that’s a little overgrown to be called short but not properly long either, and though it’s not aggressively curly, it somehow manages to look a little dishevelled most of the time. His eyes are an intense shade of cornflower blue and entirely too serious for his age. He has a narrow face with high cheekbones and delicate features that could be more accurately described as pretty than handsome; a quality which is either diminished or emphasised — depending on the viewer — by the spattering of freckles over his pale complexion.

He has a sense of humour, honest; it may just take some digging to find it. He’s a Borderlander and a descendant of an Asha’man with a controversial past, and he’s very aware of both facts, which makes him all the more anxious to excel and prove himself. He has the pride and the temperament for which Borderlanders are known, and a mile-wide natural reckless streak, which is presently tempered a little by the desire to be seen as a mature and responsible individual.

Beneath the proud and prickly exterior, however, he’s a fundamentally decent person and a loyal friend who won’t hesitate to get himself in trouble for those he cares about.

Biography

Valentin was born the second son of a minor Kandori lord, to eventually be the second-oldest of five siblings altogether. He was an ordinary child with an ordinary childhood— or as ordinary as it gets in northern Kandor, within spitting distance from the Blightborder and under constant threat of Trolloc raids. Some of his earliest memories involve being rushed up the hill in his father’s arms, to reach the shelter of the fortified manor house after a band of Trollocs had been sighted venturing close to the village.

Though such occurrences were not uncommon, the children were allowed a lot of freedom; neither their father nor the Head of the House, their grandfather Eleas Akashi, believed in keeping children locked up in the house for their own safety. They were taught to be wary and alert while out of the village, and to head home at the first sign of danger, but they were brought up to love the land they lived in, to see its beauty as well as its dangers.

Valentin grew up shadowing his older brother, Ivan; the two were only a year apart and Valentin was always tall for his age, and so they were fairly evenly matched when the time came to start learning weapon skills. Wooden swords had been part of their games practically as soon as they were old enough to hold them right, but proper lessons with their Uncle Arn began when they were eight and seven, respectively. Ivan was always better, but though both brothers had a competitive streak, the competition never got serious enough to come between them.

At the age of fourteen, Valentin was allowed to accompany Arn and his soldiers on a patrol along the Blightborder for the first time. Ivan had had his first chance the previous autumn before the snows came; that had been the first time since their early childhood that their age difference had set them apart in any significant way, and Valentin had been vaguely resentful of the fact all winter. The first patrol was uneventful and didn’t venture very far from the village, but still it felt as though a balance had been restored, and Valentin decided that while Ivan was destined to some day be the Head of the House, he wanted nothing more than to be a soldier and protect the Blightborder like Uncle Arn.

Four more years passed before the other part of his heritage made itself known. Valentin had always been aware, on some level, that he had a great-grandfather who was a channeller, but he’d never met the man, and it was never talked about in the presence of Grandfather Eleas, so he’d ever spared the mystery very little thought.

To his knowledge, Mael Akashi had visited the village only once in his lifetime. Valentin had been only eight years old when his great-grandmother died but he could remember, at the funeral, Uncle Leander pointing out a man in a black coat standing to the back of the crowd, head bowed against the late autumn wind, and explaining in a hushed voice who it was. It had made little sense to Valentin at the time; the man had looked no older than Uncle Arn; how could he be Grandfather Eleas’ father? But the occasion had been too somber to invite questions and he’d put the matter from his mind.

Until, at the age of eighteen, something happened that made it impossible for anyone to ignore the channelling part of the bloodline anymore. It involved a patrol, a large band of Trollocs, a tree conveniently bursting into flames to distract the latter and allow the former time to make a tactical retreat. Upon their return home, it involved Grandfather Eleas and Uncle Arn shouting at each other while Valentin’s father listened in stone-faced silence, until Uncle Leander told them both to pull their heads out of their backsides and consider the consequences to the one who was actually channelling.

Finally someone figured out this wasn’t the first time Valentin had channelled; only the first time it had been immediately obvious. And that meant it was not going to be the last. A letter was sent to the Grey Tower in the south — Grandfather Eleas still wanted nothing to do with the Black Tower — and they didn’t have to wait long until two Asha’man arrived to take Valentin back with them.

Career History

• Soldier (19 February 2018)