A direct product of the powerful Alkali bloodline, Valdis is a relatively large female with a compact, muscular frame, partially due to genetics and partially due to intense training. Her form is lean, toned, and strong, her prowess lying brute strength and endurance, yet she’ll find herself lacking in speed and agility. She can take a bite and give a bite, but don’t expect to find her gracefully dancing around her opponents or speedily chasing after the cowards that run away. That being said, you can trust her to do well in taking down powerful beasts, be they elk or wolf, but perhaps you should leave the rabbit chasing to some of those more lithe, light footed wolves, for she can quite clumsy trying to go after those willy things.

She bears a long, scruffy pelt of various shades, consisting primarily of browns and reds with white/creamy undersides and dark, burnt sienna to black accents. It isn’t unusual to find her with a scruffy appearance, for she tousels with Pawns/enemies quite often, and with her busy schedule as a Knight, hardly has time to groom, though she’ll make herself presentable for ceremonies and such. As for scars, she has a plethora of them, scattered all along her body and hidden by her wild pelt. Her most noticeable one is a long scar running diagonally across her face, starting on the left side of her muzzle, stretching between her eyes, and ending above her right brow.

The she-wolf’s features, from her facial structure to the look in her amber eyes, are sharp and intense. A smile from her is uncommon, her gentlest expression typically just being a not angry one, and this shows in the creases of her face. Though only four, it seems as if her job has aged her a bit beyond her years, both mentally and physically.

Strict, dedicated, and refined. That is Valdis. Not only was she raised by parents that believed firmly in raising a fighter, teaching her things like an eye for an eye and how to command with an iron fist, but since entering the war as a Knight, she’s molded herself into quite the praise worthy opponent. She lives to fight and succeed, swearing herself to the war effort and her packmates, willing to do whatever it takes so that they may conquer the valley. Though not necessarily mean or uncaring, she isn’t one to let emotions or relationships soften her resolve; she keeps her eye on the prize and isn’t afraid to snap if that’s what it takes to get the best out of her comrades.

She is hard working, ambitious, and methodical. Few hobbies take up her spare time that don’t have to do with training or sharpening her intellect, so socializing, playing silly games, otherwise goofing off… not really her thing. At best, you might find her relaxing and unwinding somewhere from a hard days work, and this is typically done… alone. Though intense and skilled in her craft, her abilities tend to be lacking when it comes to compassion and spending heartfelt, quality time with others. As a figure that needs to be looked up to, therefore at least somewhat charismatic, she is capable of speaking politely and formally, but any other form of social skill is… nonexistent. She can be blunt., she can be snappy, and if you push her buttons, she won’t hesitate to show you where she stands in the hierarchy, as is the way she was raised to behave.

Order and proper respect to said order is very important to her, unlike her unruly ancestors. She has grown fond of her structured pack life, finding it to be far more efficient than packs that run on anarchy and lawlessness. As such, she strives to be as respectful as she can manage to her superiors (unless they are completely moronic that is) and simply does not tolerate disobedience or disrespect from anyone beneath her. Any unreasonable defiance to the order is seen as mutiny, and any definace to her is seen as a offense to both the order and her treasured pride, so it's safe to say you may want to stay in her good graces. She also has no trouble enforcing laws or making sure all is well in the pack; should she witness a fight getting a little too personal between the pawns, it isn’t uncommon for the female to go and break it up.

Being a Knight, fighting is obviously her passion. Though she isn’t very great with casual conversation, start anything off by discussing war tactics or challenging her to a respectul, good natured spar, and she’ll light up in an instant. She lives for the thrill of battle, enjoying the rush of adrenaline that comes from facing bloodthirsty opponents and slamming them to the ground, so much so that she can easily get carried away sometimes, occasionally so entrenched in winning that she might become oblivious to her faults/chances of actually winning, and during a spar, could accidently hurt a pack mate more than intended. She also enjoys training the Pawns and making sure they are a fearsome as they can be, so she does tend to get a little swell of almost motherly pride when she sees them learn and grow as fighters (but if you ever point that out, she’ll tell you to shut it and get back to work).

Aside from the occasional bluntness and overzealous addition to warfare, one of her most fatal flaws is her pride. An easy way to throw her off her A game is to pick at and insult her into starting a fury-fueled fight, where she is too angry to fight smartly and attacks blindly. She simply won’t stand for being insulted and will sooner see the world burn that be made a fool of, and anyone who can see this very obvious aspect of her’s could easily use it to manipulate her.

The Alkali, a wandering band of thick-skinned, battle scarred mercenaries, roaming from land to land in search of blood to spill. One might say they were nothing more than a barbaric band of rogues, but these people most certainly saw themselves differently. They were belligerent, sure, but they were proud of the powerful warriors they produced, and though they could be ruthless to outsiders, they did look after those among their own ranks.

Their one purpose was fighting, and for whom or what they didn’t care, so long as they one. Anyone, from mighty Kings to power hungry usurpers, would enlist their services for whatever they saw fit; enforcing law, overthrowing an oppressive leader, fighting a war, etc. Hell, sometimes they were even employed to just fight a pack’s best warriors and put on a show, like gladiators. Whatever they did, they were a powerful, well known force to be reckoned with.

One fatal flaw of the Alkali was their lack of a firmly established hierarchy. Sure, it was easy to just say “have the men hunt, have the woman look after children, and have all know how to brandish their fangs”, but no one was strictly assigned to these roles, and the only form of leadership they had was whomever the pack, as whole, was most willing to listen to. So… shifts in power were terribly common. One man would lead one day, they a scrappy youth with fire in his eyes would stake a challenge, throw him off his throne, and take his place… unless the pack diagreed, in which they’d erupt into pure civil war until someone good actually took the crown.

One of these such fleeting leaders was a wolf known as Titus. He was no one special in the grand scheme of things, but he was strong, strict, and an influential leader. He actually tried to implement some order to the pack, starting small with one or two common sense laws, then eventually advancing into assigned jobs and titles. He was so skilled in persuading his people that not very many of them objected to his changes, and as such, he earned a lot of respect for his ideals. Plenty of women took interest in him and he saw nothing wrong in spreading his intelligent genes, so as to construct a new generation of even more agreeable wolves.

Of course, all good things must come to and end, especially in that ever-changing society. As often happens, he was challenged for his position by another, whom had also managed to raise a following - primarily those who yearned for the old lawless ways. The pack split off into two and the fighting commenced, but Titus was and his people were outnumbered. With the “victory” of his challenger, the new appointed leader sought fit to chase out all whom had followed the order of Titus, permanently splitting the Alkali for good. Titus as his people - including one of his mates - fled to start their own pack elsewhere.

His newly established pack, named Delacroix, continued to thrive on order and was just a bit less aggressive - though just as strict and militaristic - as the Alkali. Titus and his mate had several litters, and after it’d been firmly established which one of his children would be made into leaders, most of the others split off to chase their own endeavors. Valdis, having lived two years of strict training under her parents, left with her runt sister Artemis.

Valids and her sister were quite close, as littermates typically are, and they wandered for a good while in search of a new place to live. Neither was sure what they wanted to do just yet - perhaps they’d seek out a pack and aim to rise in its ranks, or band up with fellow loners and make their own? - but they trusted fate to guide their paws in the right direction. Valdis was confident in her ability to lead, and Artemis had faith in her sister, intending to follow her wherever she’d go.

The two eventually wandered into this valley, with the scents of loners and prey heavy in the air, proving it to be promising… but things got ugly very quickly. They’d stumbled upon the established Light Pack territory, but had wandered in from the direction of Dark Pack. Since some members in the pack were young and anxious, uncertain of how to address outsiders, they saw the sisters and automatically assumed them to be a threat. Whether they were Dark Pack spies or other loners that threatened the land, they were automatically seen as up no good. They were approached by the patrol and warned to leave at first, but the offenders dared to bare their fangs and raise their tails, and Valdis had been thoroughly trained to never tolerate such disrespect from such weak whelps. She ignored the warning and challenged them back, solely for the sake of pride, and this was a terrible mistake for the girls…

The patrol attacked, and though Valids fought fiercely, both to protect her sister and to defend their prides, she was sorely outnumbered by the patrol. They overpowered her and, too on edge to see Artemis wasn’t nearly as much of a threat, killed Valdis’s sister. This was a blow to the girl’s heart, and in a fit of grievous rage, she just managed to fight them off so she could run away. She wandered for a long time like this, dancing between the two packs and steadily starting to pick up on info from passing vagabonds. She eventually caught wind of the war, that brutes that killed her sister were from Light Pack, and that their rivalling pack was just across the river, so she set her course in that direction. Upon approaching this pack, she learned from her previous mistake and stuffed her pride enough to appeal to the wolves that met her at the border, and she convinced them to let her join their ranks, especially after they heard what happened to her sister.

Since then, Valids has worked tirelessly to be the best she could be, breezing through the ranks and rising to her current position as Knight. Though one could say her main motive for joining the war is “revenge”, this is necessarily the case. She did originally join for the sake of avenging her sister’s death, but over time as come to see the Light Pack as a band of weak-minded brutes that must be eliminated, unaware that the wolves who killed her sister were punished for their hasty actions; she just assumes the whole pack acts that way, and doesn’t care to know otherwise. She has also grown attached to the pack’s lifestyle and feels being a commander in war has so far been the perfect role.