Easton Academy; Tradition, Honor, Excellence.
Valentine “Ryder” Black
“I’ll swallow my blood before I swallow my pride.”
19 Years Old ❖ Pemberly ❖ No Legacy ❖ Senior
History:
Alistair Black and Emily Smith were not meant to have a relationship past the hot and dirty nights they spent together. Alistair would use her, then return her to the apartment building she called home. That was all that was supposed to be for them. But Emily began withholding information from Alistair. Information that did not long remain from him as her body began to show evidence of it. When he learned of the girl’s pregnancy, he was terrified.
Never before had he been held accountable for his transgressions. His family’s money made sure of that. But there was no hiding from this. Emily Smith was not giving up this child, not for all the wealth in Scotland. The moment word got to Alistair’s mother, matriarch of the family stole the whore from her home and forced the young woman to live in their estate until the child was born. This child was the last of her line, and it was decided by the matriarch, Odette Black, that she would be raised in the tradition of the Blacks, not living on the streets with her useless mother. The girl was named Valentine.
For the first seven years of her life, Valentine became prey to the wants and wishes of her grandmother. The woman knew she would not be given a male heir to the lineage, so she impressed every facet of Black tradition upon the child. Valentine became fluent in multiple languages, instructed in the skill of fencing, and taught the arts of modern manners. She was a proper young lady in the eyes of her grandmother.
In the eyes of her father, however, she was a physical reminder of everything he hated. The seven years his daughter had lived only gave slight indication towards the thirty years he had suffered. Odette Black was a controlling, manipulative woman who was determined to see that every aspect of her family line was perfect. Not a single event passed without her knowing, not a single act was completed without her permission. She was striving for an impossible perfection, and Alistair seemed to be the only thing that ever stopped her. He became an alcoholic at a young age, and that made for a very frustrated man. For decades he had been suffering, just hoping that his mother would croak in her sleep, but it seemed that the woman’s hatred of her son was keeping her alive.
There was no final straw for Alistair, nothing that broke the camel’s back. He simply cracked.
The stress he had been feeling for years under the oppressive reign of his mother came to a head, and Alistair exploded. His episode ended in violence, and Alistair evicted himself and his daughter from the noble house of Black. Together, the two of them traveled to the United States and lived in much the opposite way of how they had both been raised. Without money and a place to live, Alistair’s stress levels only increased. Only this time, he could not blame his mother. The only person he had to blame was himself, and that did not leave the man happy. Though often under the influence of alcohol, he still maintained a control over her. If he could no longer control his situation, he was certainly going to control hers.
At first, the young girl did not care. Her father’s manipulation was not as blatant as her grandmother’s, and she was easily able to ignore it. It was little things, at first. Coming home at the same time every day made sense. They were not living in a good neighborhood, and he didn’t want something to happen to her. But soon she was not allowed to maintain friendships. Not allowed to eat if she did not do exactly as told. She could not talk to neighbors, or stay awake past a certain time, or dress a certain way. What little money they had went to fuel her father’s alcohol habits, and she soon became dependent upon the kindness of others for her necessities.One of these “others” was a teacher of hers, Mr. Maple. He reported her situation to CPS, and Valentine was not long after taken by social services and placed in foster care.
Her time spent in her dangerous neighborhood and with a judgemental father had already trained to be on the defensive around strangers, and the girl did not long remain in any foster home she was placed in. She had tasted freedom with her father gone, and Valentine was not happy to have people she did not know telling her what to do and how to live. She got into constant fights with her foster siblings – both verbal and physical – arguments with foster parents, and defied authority at every turn. For the first time, she was not under the thumb of an oppressive family member. Over the next eight years, she bounced from home to home, ignoring all orders presented to her and causing constant trouble for all those unfortunate enough to take her in.
When she was finally granted freedom from the foster care system, she grabbed it with both hands. She changed her name to Ryder and lived as a vegabond, bouncing from dingy hotel to dingy hotel. She lived off the money she had saved up and stolen from foster homes. Friends were made, of course. Others in situations as unfortunate as hers. They were not close friendships, by any means, just ways for the youths to pretend they were somewhat normal.
If she had her choice, she would’ve lived that way forever. It wasn’t a good situation, but she was supporting herself. But she was not meant to be happy, it seemed. Her money was quickly running out, and she had no way to get any more without delving into a world she had never hoped to see. It wasn’t until she was forced into the hospital with a collapsed lung from a fight gone very wrong that she realized she could not do this on her own. She needed money, as every human did.
That was enough of a kick for her to get back into contact with her father’s living relatives and get out of the dangerous business she had found herself in. The girl was moved back to Scotland to heal and detox from the years of abuse her body had suffered. With her new life in Scotland, came new wealth and she took to it like a horse to ice: awkward and confused. Though she had been born into money, she had spent so long scrounging for every dollar that the sudden influx of wealth confounded her. Though it took a while, she was able to get close to her old self again. It was not easy, but the girl was able to fake her own sanity for long enough that her grandmother almost began to treat the girl like nothing had happened. For a while she actually believed that she could live a relatively normal life.
That was, until the subject of schooling came up. Her grandmother, after learning that the last remaining Black had not finished school, told the girl that – at the very least – she would finish high school. School had never been an issue for the girl. She had always the type of person who could miss half of the classes and still ace the finals without any issue. That was not her problem. Her problem never failed to be with people. Ryder knew that she was far different than anyone she might meet in Scotland, with most of her life having been spent in disarray, and she worried that she might revert to old habits if given too much freedom. The two Black women did research on decent boarding schools in the United States, and mutually decided on The Easton Academy. Ryder wanted to be challenged, and the small size of the school implied that she would get the attention from teachers that her easily distracted brain required.
Ryder knows what her grandmother expects of her: she is expected to become the docile Black lady that her aunts and cousins had been. She is expected to marry some rich man that she meets at Easton, become bonny friends with all of her classmates, and graduate with flying colors. But she intends to do no such thing.
Personality:
Ryder is a challenger. Any chance she sees for confrontation, she will take it. The lack of stable relationships in her life means that she generally avoids making any real friends. She’d rather have a long line of one-night stands than a relationship and an argument and fight than a real conversation. Her moral compass does not exactly point north, but most people wouldn’t exactly call her evil. She is entirely emotionally and mentally unstable, but her life has prepared her well for this, and she has become extremely good at faking it. Sex is her primary language, and she is fluent. She’s a very proud person, and people that poke fun at her thick Scottish accent usually make the right choice – after some persuasion on her part – not to do it again.
Aspirations:
If there is one thing Ryder is good at, it’s chaos. She thrives in it. Not chaos involving her, of course. That’s no fun. But chaos she creates? That is where you will find her bliss. The girl will, of course, graduate from the Easton with good marks. But not before she ensures that the perfect little lives that her classmates have lived thus far go down in flames. This school is a loaded gun and she intends to be the person to pull the trigger.
Face claim: Sophie Turner Played by: Natasha
