Poor Varl. He's such a kind person, and I really believe it's mostly due to his patience and emotional support that Beta came so far in the game to be able to share that moment with Aloy. He does so much to help everyone, but he doesn't get to see them win. This AU Varl is going to be much the same as in-game, but he won't lose his sister like before, and his confrontation with Erik will go a bit differently.
~RIP Varl. You live on in our hearts.~
(Sorry for the format; this site doesn't like me doing this like a bullet list.)
I own nothing except my AU. The characters of Horizon Zero Dawn and the sequel game Horizon Forbidden West belong to Guerilla Games, Sony Interactive Entertainment, and Mathijs de Jonge.
~Vance "Varl" Brave~
EMT Police officer; training to become paramedic certified
-Joined the force at Police Commissioner Sona's urging, but he never felt like he was doing everything he could as a cop. After Vala was almost killed, he didn't want that to happen to anyone else close to him, so he took time to be dual-trained as an EMT. It balances his calm and soothing nature with the violent tactics he sometimes has to employ as an officer.
Hobbies include martial arts with Aloy and Kotallo, mountaineering, talking with Beta, chess with Erend and Kotallo, and stargazing with Zo.
-They also study together. Mostly.
-Erend took Varl drinking once, and has since learned to never do it again. Varl is a horrible lightweight, and has a tendency to get out of control when he's drunk. That bar was never the same afterwards.
He's been Zo's fiancé as of three months.
-They met when he came into her shop looking for flowers for his sister's hospital room. She helped him find the right kind of bouquet for Vala and they got to talking. She asked him what he would do now. He told her he was going to be trained as an EMT and eventually as a paramedic. She warned him that he'd see a lot of horrible things as an EMT. "Yeah, but I already see that as a cop. At least, as an EMT, I can do something more to make those horrible things hurt less, if only for a moment." They started dating two weeks later.
His younger sister Vala and Aloy are childhood friends.
-Vala couldn't say "Vance" as a baby, so she called him "Varl", and did it so long it stuck.
-They like to play up the rivalry between firefighters and the police when they can, and they can get pretty intense. Even Aloy doesn't join in when Varl gets like this.
He was the first to reach out to Beta when she moved in. He, along with Zo, serves as her sounding board and confidante for her to express her struggles.
-He sees her as another little sister, someone who needs support, especially in the beginning when she and Aloy were still figuring out their relationship. He spent many hours sitting with either sister and helping them to understand how to communicate, or just to vent their frustrations.