"No", Val said. "When I was born, I appeared as a spirit with no physical form. I gained my bodily form later".

"Later", Adrien repeated, bewildered by all this new information. "How? I mean -- did you just wake up one day, and you had a body, or --".

"Oh, no -- it is more gradual than that", Val said with a little chuckle. "During my first year, I would try to take the shape of people around me... In time, I learned how to change my shape more readily, and decided how I wanted to look like".

"You -- decided?", Adrien repeated, amazed. He tried to relate to that thought - and he struggled, as he could not imagine wanting to be anything other than himself; he hadn't even changed his haircut in many years. "Did you have to sit down and... choose the exact shape of your hands, and...?".

"Not quite to that extent", Val smiled. "In taking the appearance of people around me, I decided what aspects I wanted to keep for myself, or changed them to my tastes".