Ren's Originals [Ren]

Birds flying high, you know how I feel
Sun in the sky, you know how I feel
Breeze drifting on by, you know how I feel


Name
Arianwen Ophelia Elphawun.


Nickname
Ren. That’s all she goes by, ever. Don’t ever call her Arianwen. Her name is Ren. Also, on her world, she has the nickname of The Thieving Wren.


Age
19. (I aged her up a bit since she was last here. She used to be between fifteen-sixteen, but that was over two years ago – and she’s aged as I have. I don’t want to play her with her same problems she had last time. She’s older, more mature, with a different character arc in mind.)


Gender
Female.


Species
She is, in effect, human. However, she’s an illegitimate descendent of the Grim Reaper (from her home world) line.


Position
Chaotic Neutral.


Themes
Don’t Ask Me [explicit] – OK Go
Feeling Good – Muse
I Don’t Care – Fall Out Boy
Flux and Flow – Lights
Disenchanted – My Chemical Romance
Wake – The Antlers
Spider8reath – Homestuck Volume 7 (Battle Theme)


There are pits and lands on the ground that you stand
And you fix your plans, then you straighten your hand
So flux and flow


Powers/Abilities/Techniques/Skills

Piloting – Ren is a grade-A pilot. It’s one of the few skills she’s naturally good at – though she had to work on it a lot, considering that flying is dangerous when one doesn’t have the skills. Her airship – the Wren – is her most prized possession, and even though it’s a clunky piece of junk, she works hard to keep it in good condition, and flies it with the grace of any high-tech vehicle. Ren also has fairly general vehicular knowledge that allows her to pilot or drive any sort of vehicle she comes across – though airships are her specialty.

Thievery – Ren is an excellent thief. In fact, that is how she makes her living – by stealing. She’s been stealing from people ever since she could remember, and she got better and better at it the older she got and the more she did it. With a slim form and quick, sticky fingers, people better keep an eye on their wallets if they’re passing her on the street.

Hand-to-Hand Combat – The main way Ren defends herself is via her dagger or her fists. Her style consists of being fast and sneaky, and turning the opponent’s weight against them. She’s tough but not overly strong, so she relies on wearing people out by darting about them like an annoying fly, due to her high vitality and natural quickness. She’s brawled enough on the streets in order to have the proper defensive techniques. The thing about Ren is that she rarely fights to kill (except for the lesser Heartless and Nobodies). She only fights when she needs to – and that’s typically only because she needs to escape to somewhere else, and she’s facing some road blockage. Don’t be fooled, though; even if she’s trying to flee, she’s still a formidable foe with nasty tricks up her sleeve. If worst comes to worst, she pulls out her pistol, fires a shot, and walks away before she has the chance to feel guilty.

Aiming – Within the last few years, Ren finally listened to her common sense and acquired a gun for situations in which a knife wouldn’t work. She’s still working on her aim, but in close range she’d be hard-pressed to miss. Farther away, though, she’d have difficulty aiming, since she’s still not the best with a pistol. Besides, she only pulls out the weapon when she really needs it – not before.

Common Sense and Street Smarts – Ren can look after herself, and she doesn’t need anybody else to take care of her. She is logical and cool, outsmarting her foes, and possesses a high degree of survival instinct. While she’s not very good at reading, writing, the fine arts, or other “nancy boy” talents, she’s got copious amounts of common sense to get by. You’ll never catch her doing something stupid (though she does like taking risks for the fun of it).

She has not a drop of magical blood in her veins, despite her lineage. In a party, Ren would do the most damage closer to the front of the lines; not the brunt of an attack, but the quick, sneaky one that flees before the opponents even know what hit them. You can also count on her to steal things from the other side – or your side, if you’re not careful.


Weapon/Items

The Wren – While her airship is not exactly an item she has on her person, it is basically her home. Once upon a time, when her world was destroyed, she was flying on her airship at the time and ended up in Traverse Town with it still in her possession. The thing was basically useless for any space travel, but using the knowledge she picked up on the streets, Ren realized that gummi blocks were things that existed. She managed to bribe a gummi ship enthusiast to install a few on her ship – though there was a lot of trial and error involved, as her airship was a model from a different world. (I’ll get to that more later in her history.) The Wren is small, maneuverable, and jet black in order to blend in with the night. There’s a small cabin, a little bedroom, a tiny kitchen, an even tinier washroom, and a secret storage space. The airship can probably hold ten maximum – but that’s pushing it. A party of seven would be a good size to hold on the ship. Of course, Ren typically travels by herself – and a party of one is what it is designed for, in terms of a home.

Dagger – Ren’s dagger never leaves her person, not for a moment. The blade is eight inches long and the hilt is three. Being a dagger rather than a knife, both of the edges can be used for cutting. It is made of steel and is rather jagged in places. The handle is a comfortable, easily gripped wood, with a black and red paint pattern that has long since dulled. Ren has a sheath on her belt for this dagger, but she typically stows it in her high boots, using a boot sheath. She uses this in close-range combat. She could also throw it, but that could lead to disastrous consequences – namely, losing her main weapon.

Gun – Ren owns a single-shot pistol that she picked up from an ally a few years back. It holds fifteen rounds, and she currently has a stock of sixty bullets – though most of them are located on her ship. She does not carry extra shots with her; whatever’s in her gun stays until the end of the day. She doesn’t use very many bullets as she’s not an excellent shot; she only uses it in situations her dagger couldn’t get her out of, and she doesn’t come across many of those. It is fairly old, but she keeps it in good condition. In terms of looks, think a little bit like “steampunk.” (I’m horrid at describing weaponry, so you’ll excuse me for my lack of physical description.) She keeps her gun in a thigh holster on her left leg – so she can draw with her left hand.

The Queen of Diamonds – Ren keeps this in her munny pouch, which is always slung around her belt. It’s a bit crumpled and worn, but the meaning is still the same. She received this from Rook Sheer as a token of good luck and a promise to see her again. It is one of the view things that still keeps her tethered in sanity; it is a reminder that somewhere, somebody maybe cares about her.


Don't be so damn benign
Don't waste my fucking time
Don't ask me, don't ask me, don't ask me, ask me, ask me how I've been


Picture




Appearance
Ren is very small in stature. She is just under 5 feet tall, and weighs 98 pounds – soaking wet. She has little to no fat on her body; she is nearly all sinewy muscle, especially in her legs. When she was younger, she used to be completely flat; she’s filled out a bit more since then, but only a little. She’s incredibly bony and skinny, with awkwardly-shaped joints and a face that’s too sharp and pointed.

She has very, very pale skin. Her eyes are a deep red, an unnatural color from her home world – but far more common here, what with the variety of people from all sorts of different worlds. She has short, jet black hair that she cuts herself – thus it’s almost always messy and pointy-looking. Her favorite colors to wear are black and red. She often wears clothes that are easy to move around in and won’t snag on things. Her wardrobe consists of a lot of tank tops and shorts, with a few jackets and pants (as she has mostly clothing designed for warmer weather). She’s acquired more in the way of clothes, however, due to her stealing habits, and needing to be warm on colder planets (she ran into that the hard way on Christmas Town). Often she’ll wear some jewelry she’s nicked – like an earring here, a necklace there, maybe a bracelet or two – but nothing too jangly or anything that gets in the way. She has a belt where she carries her munny pouch and a sheath for her dagger, and a thigh-holster for her gun. She also has a boot sheath in her comfortable, high black boots.

The most important thing to know is that Ren is not really pretty on the eyes. When she was younger, she used to get mistaken for a boy a lot of the time – and still will sometimes (though not as often since it’s obvious that she has breasts now). She’s not attractive. I wouldn’t say she’s ugly; she’s kind of normal-looking, what with her imperfect body proportions and her sharp edges. But she’d be hard-pressed to be any sort of visually appealing.

She doesn’t shave her legs nor her armpits, having no desire to conform to conventional beauty. She’s not super hygienic, brushing her yellowing teeth once in a while and smelling like musty metal and fearsome bitch a lot of the time.


Personality
The first thing that needs to be understood about Ren is that everything she does – every little motivation, every word, every interaction she has – ultimately is for her own self-interest. It would be a gross understatement to say that she is a tad egocentric. Her entire life completely revolves around her desires, her needs, her wants, her own control; she is probably a very exemplar case of low-level narcissism. While she does not, perhaps, have a particularly good opinion of herself – an opinion she is hardly aware of, but I’ll touch on that later – she certainly doesn’t care about stepping on others, or reigning in her kleptomania, or otherwise finding ways to boost herself above others. Her life is in highest esteem; everybody else comes second.

Now, that is not to say that she seeks to bring everybody down. She couldn’t care less about “everybody else” really. She will never actively hurt somebody out of spite, or attack somebody (unless they started it) – though she will steal from anybody – nor would she ever kill the innocent. It is not chaos nor destruction she seeks in life; those things are abhorred in her mind, as they would not get her anywhere – rather, it would put a whole lot of blood on her hands that would make her feel guilty. However, she feels no particular draw to the realm of “light” and “goodness” either, finding both notions idealized and petty. She has no business idealizing about the goodness of life when she has her own schedule – a schedule that consists mainly of shameless hedonism and taking risks for the hell of it.

Uncaring to a fault, Ren sees no reason to eliminate light or darkness – or to do anything about it, really. The way she sees it is that all worlds will die anyways, just like people, and there’s nothing we can do about. Perhaps it is a rather nihilistic view point, but she tends to not let it get her down, or think about it much, really. She does, however, admire the courage of those who succeed in saving people, even if she herself wouldn’t bother. Strength and power are things she is drawn to, like a moth to the flame – and magic is a thing she will never understand, having none of it herself.

Despite her seemingly-uncaring nature, Ren is far from apathetic. Rather, she is so out of touch with her emotions that she has a very quick temper. Of course, she is rather blind to her lack of connection with her feelings; she considers herself above such things, and likes to believe that feelings don’t get in the way of her judgment. While political feelings might not get in the way of what she thinks “needs to be done,” personal feelings are another story entirely.

Ren possesses human empathy, but in very tiny quantities. She does not throw pity parties for herself; rather than thinking “oh poor me,” she throws herself into reckless and possibly dangerous activities to avoid thinking about her emotional turmoil too deeply. (Once again, she’s completely out of touch with her emotions.) When she was younger, she was more often than not prone to help the victim in a situation of being ganged-up on, for example – but now, she would walk on by with perhaps a little twinge of guilt. If someone innocent were to die in front of her, though, that’s another story; she would do her best to defend them, but still try and make sure she herself would walk away unscathed. It eases her guilty conscience a little bit, at least.

On the subject of fighting – Ren fights dirty. She doesn’t give a shit about fairness, and would gladly walk away from a fair fight without feeling like a coward or anything. The way she sees it, cowardice is the eye of the beholder – and the way she beholds things is the only way that counts in her world. She’d bring a gun to a knife fight to ensure victory. She’s shameless with her insults, taunting yet never retaliating, a true annoyance. Most of her enemies are Heartless – who are, for the most part, too instinctive to fight fairly yet too uncreative to fight dirty – but chancing across the rare sentient foe leads to some “dishonorable” fighting styles. And if that won’t make her win, she’ll run away. Fleeing is the ultimate victory; after all, her goal is not to kill, it is simply to stay alive – which is something she excels at.

Ren has no code of honor that traps her. She’ll mostly respect you if you respect her – but she’ll still steal from you. She likes stealing too much to want to resist anyways; she can blame it on “extreme kleptomania” if she wants, but she doesn’t have that bad of a case, and if she wanted to do something about it, she would. The lure of easy money is too good to pass up, and stealing from a challenge is something she loves to do. The thrill of getting something that wasn’t hers by means of stealth is so pleasing to her – especially from people she thinks deserve it. The list of those who “deserve it” could include anybody; someone who wronged her once, someone who looked at her funny, someone who just “seems like a rich prick,” someone who works for a government, someone that’s too nice to exist… the list goes on.

Because she herself is so untrustworthy, Ren is suspicious of everyone. She’s always on the alert for secret motives, for double-crossing (before she double-crosses first), for anything sketchy. There’s always something she dislikes about a person, and that can twist her view of them until they no longer become a trustworthy figure in her mind – even if they really don’t mean her any harm. She refuses to believe in the idea that people don’t act out of their own self-interest, like she does – and if she comes across somebody who does, she pities their stupidity – for what simpleton would want a life of serving others? Not her, that’s for sure.

But something can be said for Ren’s loyalty. Once she does trust you – and you must’ve done something absolutely stupendous to earn that trust – she will never double-cross you, steal from you, or let someone hurt you. The friends she’s made in her life have been few – they can be counted on one hand, in fact – but she was willing to give her life for them. It’s funny, but with another person there – especially a healthy person – Ren’s largely unhealthy personality starts to see the light for a bit. She becomes more emotionally free, more willing to accept her mistakes, and more humble – though just by a little bit. But these people are so exceptionally rare in her life that she considers solitude a better option. The selflessness she experiences for the sake of somebody else scares her, and she’s not sure if she wants to risk it.

And yet, and yet… Solitude is lonely. At heart, Ren is a really lonely person. Yes, she’s always been an introvert – but at the moment she has literally no one she can confide in, no one she can trust, no one that cares if she lives or dies. She seeks companionship, and yet shies away from it at the same time, making herself her own worst enemy. The more romantic nature she had when she was younger has not been squashed out completely, and that is, in fact, the entire reason why she’s back in this part of the galaxy: She’s searching for a companion.

Her biggest problem with companionship, however, is her nature as a control-freak. Nothing happens to her life without her own say-so. Emotions, because of their ever-changing and unpredictable nature, are unwelcome in Ren’s “controlled” life. Her biggest fear is that people will take away her freedom – that a partner (whether a friend or a love interest) will have control over her life and keep her tied to them… forever. She cannot stand the thought of being tied down, ever. Her airship is her most prized possession, as she uses it for her escapist tendencies, and it symbolizes the freedom-seeking life she loves. Commitment to anything besides freedom is seen is not an option.

Now, Ren, because of her excessive travels, has had her own share of… partners. (Sabrinth, Cedar, Fauste, Lucky, and Will, just to name a few.) She got over her – in her words, “idealized” – idea for innocence back in her younger years, and is now very free with her sexuality – like she is with everything else in her life. She has no problems with one-night stands to satiate her… desires. Of course, there is the unfortunate circumstance that one typically bonds with their “partner,” but she tries to ignore the attraction she’s felt to each of her old flames in the past, once again (paradoxically) restricting her own emotions. She is also not exactly “straight,” though she has no desire to be labeled with ridiculous terms. Anybody can be the object of Ren’s affections – just as they can be the object of her dislike. It’s that simple.

Ren is a woman of many faces and sides. She can slide into different personalities as if each one were as comfortable as her own skin. She dons whatever mask she needs to at the time – whether it’s fearless sky pirate, flirtatious manipulator, hostile stranger, sneaky thief. The one she wears the least is her real face – and she’s not even quite sure what that is. Probably a combination of all of the above, as well as loneliness, loyalty, and vulnerability, among other “weak” qualities.

Maybe it’s time she took off the masks.

Ren likes food of all kinds (though hot and spicy is her favorite). She’s been watching her diet recently so as to be healthier physically, and she works out every day to keep up her strength and flexibility. Her father and her grandfather on her mother’s side both had problems with alcoholism, so that was unfortunately passed to Ren – especially since her father introduced it to her early on. She thought it was disgusting when she was younger, but one-too-many drinks at the bar during her loneliness turned her into an alcoholic at a young age – specifically, in her late teen years. She’s keeping an eye on it right now, but if she lets it get out of hand, it could deteriorate into severe alcoholism. She also smokes the occasional recreational cigarette. It’s funny how she’s trying to take good care of herself physically, when it’s really her emotional state that needs more work.

BONUS FACTS (everything underneath this doesn’t count as part of the word count for personality)

She has a bad sailor mouth and sub-par hygiene. She cuts her own hair. She doesn’t remember most of her dreams, and she can’t remember the last time she legitimately cried, either. She takes out her pent up anger and frustration on random enemy encounters, but will sometimes violently attack her own inanimate objects in a rage. She likes to plan things out beforehand, but it’s no big deal if something unexpected happens; it’s safe to say that she expects the unexpected and plans for her plans to get messed up. She never takes a job she thinks she can’t do – but doesn’t mind a good challenge. She likes stargazing and her favorite color is red. She absolutely hates fish and most water life – whether she’s seeing them or eating them – and has an irrational fear of drowning. She has a soft spot for chocolates of all kinds, but can’t stand most other sweet things. She sleeps more in the pilot’s chair than in her own tiny bedroom on the ship, and she is a very light sleeper. She is nocturnal and prefers to fly by night. She hates dresses and most other frilly things – and they look awful on her anyways. She has no musical talent, but can appreciate a good tune (her first boyfriend, Sabrinth, used to play piano for her sometimes). She can read pretty well, and can also write – but her handwriting is messy and words do not come to her easily. She is an introvert. She is not overly serious, and approaches life with a dark sense of humor; she also dislikes those who can’t take a joke. She is ambidextrous, but her left hand is slightly steadier. She absolutely hates the cold, but doesn’t mind as much if it’s sweltering hot. Her preferred range of temperature is somewhere between 70 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

OTHER BONUS THINGS

In the Enneagram, she is an 8w7 with an instinctual variant of sp/sx (self-preservation/sexual, and has little social element). The other parts of her tritype are 4w5 and 6w7. Her MBTI is ISTP. She is an Aquarius. Her Rising Sign is Gemini and her Moon Sign is Sagittarius. If she went to Hogwarts, her House would be Slytherin. If she was a character in Homestuck, she would most likely be a Derse dreamer, and her title would be Thief of Heart.


I don't care what you think as long as it's about me
The best of us can find happiness
In misery


Original World
Veotsue
Current World
Roaming


History
(Any mention of a canon character or an OC from WD in Ren’s history is because she interacted with them in a thread when she was here previously. I can supply links to threads if you’d like.)

(There is a whole lot of mythology I could get into before I supply Ren’s actual history… but I won’t. This profile is already becoming annoyingly verbose as it is.)

Ren’s father, Audacio Elphawun, had made up his last name. His last name was not “Elphawun” at all; it was Odin. He had done this to protect himself, as Odin was the name of the Grim Reaper of Veotsue, and Odin’s heirs took his name as their surname in order to establish the line. Grim Reapers were feared, as it was because of them that the afterlife on Veotsue led to suffering. However, it was fortunate to know that all Grim Reapers were mortal – except for Odin, the God of Death himself.

But Audacio was the illegitimate son of the current Grim Reaper, Veracruz. Thus, all of the Grim Reaper’s powers – raising and controlling the dead, reaping souls, etc. – were not given to him and his twin sister Audacia. Rather, Audacia was given demontia – the name a common, yet fatal, mental disease on Veotsue that dealt with prolonged exposure to Grim Reapers, zombies, demons, and other things associated with the Reapers – and Audacio was forced to take care of her in their young years, as Veracruz would neglect them. Veracruz had a child with another woman, to whom he bestowed the Grim Reaper powers – Jonathan. When Audacio and Audacia were eighteen, Veracruz kicked them out onto the streets.

During their time on the streets, Audacio felt the life of a thief calling to him. Around this time, Veotsian technology had been developing airships, and hoped to one day achieve space travel. So Audacio stole an airship and resorted to a life of crime in order to get by. But this life was not one that his ill sister, Audacia, could capably handle; so Audacio entrusted her in the care of one of his only friends, Peter Randolph.

One night, when Audacio was exploring the desert city of Aire, he came across this beautiful young eighteen-year-old noblewoman by name of Ophelia Alzermay. He seduced her and she – snobbish, rebellious, headstrong – fell in love with him. Nine months later, a baby girl was born.

Audacio was scared of responsibility and refused to take her in – which was probably a good decision, as his life as the sky pirate “Audacious Albatross” was not a particularly stable one. So Ophelia – who was living with her nobleman of a father, Rosen Alzermay, and her mother and younger sister – reluctantly decided to keep her. Not able to think of a name, she named the girl Arianwen – after her sister Ariana.

Thus, Arianwen Ophelia Elphawun was born.

However, coldhearted Ophelia grew to love little Arianwen. She was a bright child, and oddly cool sometimes, but the two had a great relationship. Audacio would visit once in a while – but in secret, as Ophelia’s father did not approve of him. No one in Ophelia’s family knew of Audacio’s identity as the Audacious Albatross, nor of his heritage – and that was the way he liked it.

The family wanted to keep Ophelia’s affair a secret, and say that Arianwen was just a little cousin of theirs. But as she started growing up, it became evident that Arianwen looked nothing like the Alzermays; she completely resembled her father – pale skin, black hair, red eyes – with traits that had been passed down through the Odin lineage.

Finally, when Arianwen was five, Sir Rosen convinced his daughter to drop off the little girl at an orphanage. Ophelia did – with a heavy heart – and also cut all ties with Audacio. They moved to the capital of Veotsue (Centerpiece) and tried to forget the whole mess.

The orphanage was not bad, however. It was in very good condition – having received a generous gift of money from Sir Rosen to keep the whole thing quiet – and offered a good education and life to the little ones. When Arianwen was dropped off, there was also a surprise: It seemed Audacio’s old friend, Peter Randolph, had had a child with Audacio’s sister Audacia, named Crodivé Pipet Randolph. But Audacia had died in childbirth, leaving Crodivé – a year older than Arianwen – in the orphanage. Peter had tried to move on with a woman named Leah – and they had a son named Edmund Randolph – but Leah had also died at a young age. Depressed beyond belief – having lost contact with his best friend and his two loves dead – Peter dropped Edmund off at the orphanage and committed suicide.

Crodivé had the same sort of look Ren had – pale skin, black hair, red eyes. These were the discerning traits of the Odin family, and always caused a bit of wariness on Veotsue. However, Crodivé was much softer than Ren’s bony joints and constantly narrowed eyes – and was a much sweeter girl, personality-wise. Edmund did not have these traits, due to not being directly related to the Odins.

Growing up in the orphanage was nice, if a bit monotonous. Arianwen made fast friends with Crodivé and Edmund, and the three of them got up to a lot of mischief. Audacio started visiting his daughter, taking her out on sky pirate excursions early on. He affectionately nicknamed her “little Wren,” and Arianwen asked to only be called “Ren” amongst her friends, until there was the point she only introduced herself as Ren. When Ren, Crodivé, and Edmund were older, Edmund was adopted by a kind couple from Centerpiece – which was a bit of a ways from the desert city of Aire, where the orphanage was located. Ren grew distressed at the loss of a friend – and Crodivé was upset at the loss as well, being her half-brother. Ren vowed to not get close to people as a result – though Crodivé was her best friend for many of those years.

Meanwhile, Audacio’s visits became more frequent, and he became more famous. He wanted Ren to carry on his sky pirating work, and for one of her early teen birthdays he gave her the airship the Wren – named after his precious daughter. He taught her how to pilot, how to fight (having given her one of his own daggers) – and he was by no means easy on her. He taught her from a young age, and would even take her out on dangerous adventures so as to prove her skills. Often the owner of the orphanage would ask Audacio to adopt the unnatural child – but Audacio would refuse, not wanting a kid to get in the way of his own life. He was a selfish father, but he loved his girl, and she loved him in return.

So it was a real shame when he died.

He was murdered, shot down from the sky by the government after a rather drunk and risky excursion. On the day that she found out, Ren ran away from the orphanage, Crodivé following close behind. They were thirteen by this time, and thoroughly convinced that they were never going to get adopted. Ren convinced Crodivé to change her name – and so she started going by Sandpiper, or Piper, from then on. They went on Ren’s airship, and Piper took the role of Ren’s mechanic, having a natural engineering and tinkering knack. (Back when Audacio and Peter had been best friends, that was the role Peter played.) And Ren’s career as a sky pirate truly began.

It took a long time for her to get known; the Audacious Albatross’s wave of infamy was never something she managed to break, even after his death. But she became known in her own right, and even though there were no pictures, people were starting to realize that it was a teenager committing some incredible heists. She became known as a demon child, as a prodigy (even though she was not); theories circulated that the Thieving Wren was the daughter of the Audacious Albatross (and though these theories were not common, they were right). She was not the youngest sky pirate in history, far from it, nor was she the best. But she was young, and fairly exceptional – her father taught her well.

As the years passed, the world started to stir restlessly. You see, thousands of years ago – back when the Ancients had lived – Odin had committed an uprising against them. (The other Ancients, or “gods,” were known as Avriella the Pure, Cornelius the Regal, Sharta the Silent, Renova the Intelligent, Eraine the Dark, Avery the Possessor, and Odin the Wrathful.) The Ancients – with Avriella leading them – imprisoned Odin in the Netherworld, located within the core of Veotsue. She then bestowed magical abilities on a small fragment of humans in order to protect the state of the world. Every one hundred years, Odin would attempt to break free from the bonds that held him in the Netherworld – and every year he got a little stronger. It would be the humans’ jobs to close the six Portals that held him there – and they needed magic to do it. The descendents of these magical humans would become known as “witches.”

However, in the last century, the government had become more corrupt, and had seen fit to discriminate against the witches for practicing a religion that it deemed old and out of touch. New laws made it harder for a witch to travel about the world – and in a time where they had to go on a pilgrimage to close the Portals scattered in secret places throughout the world, this was disastrous indeed.

But two witches made it all the way to the desert city of Aire – Hope Daventry and Isatilla Jinxa. Hope was known as a Seer, a prophetic witch, and Isatilla was her protector. They were drawn to Ren’s hideout in the desert, a secret cave where she lived when she wasn’t in the air. Ren was determined to kill them on sight, but Piper asked Ren to hear them out. When Hope and Isatilla realized she had an airship, they begged her to take them across the world to close the Portals. At first, Ren said no… but after pleading from Piper’s behalf, she begrudgingly agreed to it.

It turned out that the reason Hope and Isatilla were drawn to Ren’s cave was because it housed one of the Portals – so perhaps Ren and Piper had been secretly drawn to it themselves, as Odin was in their blood, though they didn’t know that. They closed that one, and then ventured into town to gather supplies.

While in town, Ren came across a young girl being harassed by a group of thugs. She fought them off, and the girl – Sabella Sanura – thanked her. Sabella’s brother came along and thanked Ren as well. His name was Sabrinth Sanura. Ren brushed them off. Hope, Isatilla, and Piper ran into them, and Sabrinth revealed he was a witch, attempting to go about the world to close the Portals. But his little sister Sabella was a bit of a hassle to bring with, and they were living on the streets and slowly starving to death. Ren reluctantly allowed Sabrinth to join their motley crew, and Piper had the bright idea to drop Sabella off at Edmund’s place (whom they visited sometimes). Edmund’s foster parents would take good care of her – and they did.

Isatilla was uncomfortable having Sabrinth along, however. It turned out that Sabrinth came from a long line of witches by name of Sanura, and Isatilla’s ancestors – the Jinxas – had been in a long feud with them for centuries until most of the Sanura clan was wiped out. However, Isatilla and Sabrinth managed to put aside past rivalries and be friends.

And thus, their journey began.

At one of their first Portals, they encountered a pale man by name of Jack Blackwood. In fact, he looked uncannily like Ren and Piper. He claimed he was a witch and out closing Portals, and asked to tag along. They let him, simply because he demonstrated this by closing the Portal they were at. But Ren didn’t trust him.

Around this time, Heartless began entering Veotsue. Hope speculated they were from other worlds, which Ren was skeptical of. The government had achieved space travel, but had not been able to visit other worlds. They said it was because they hadn’t found any, but Hope wondered if it was perhaps the barriers of worlds keeping them out. Only Isatilla heeded her words, while Ren was outright disbelieving.

Sabrinth and Ren began a relationship – a sort of first-love relationship that oft happens during mid to late teens. Sabrinth had always admired Ren, and his softer side was good for the harsh sky pirate.

And then tragedy struck. During a fight with mysteriously summoned zombies, Piper fell ill. She had caught demontia, and was admitted into a nearby hospital. Only a few weeks after she’d caught the disease, Ren’s cousin and closest friend was dead – and a large amount of Ren’s innocence died with her. Unwilling to face her own emotional turmoil, she became darker and more angry, secluding herself from the others.

After closing the second to last Portal, Jack Blackwood – who had been seducing Hope, causing Isatilla’s jealousy (who had been in love with Hope for a long time) – revealed his identity as Jack Odin, son of Jonathan Odin – and, by extension, Ren’s half-cousin. He said he was planning on something big, and they figured out he wanted to absorb all of Odin’s powers using the last open Portal. He raised the dead – revealing as he did so that he had conjured the zombies that had infected Piper – and turned them against the community of witches living on one of the smaller continents. A war took place – a mix of humans, witches, zombies, Grim Reaper descendents, and the pervasive Heartless – and towards the end of it, Jack killed Hope in cold blood. Though Ren and Hope hadn’t always seen eye-to-eye, they had been friends, and the blow was painful.

Unable to close the last Portal without her, Ren, Sabrinth, and Isatilla went into hiding, knowing that Jack was after them next. They went back to Ren’s secret cave – now dusty and dank after years of being unused – and hid there for months. But Jack inevitably found them, and in the dead of night, he manipulated Isatilla using a combination of smooth talking and mind control. He turned her on Ren, and the two began to fight – as Isatilla (under Jack’s influence) was aiming to kill. But Sabrinth – who had been out – came back and witnessed the fight. Just before Isatilla was to deal a killing blow, Sabrinth stepped between them, and Jack’s scythe – which Isatilla had been wielding – slipped right between his ribs. He died very quickly afterwards, and Isatilla snapped out of it, horrified at her own doing.

But Ren didn’t realize Isatilla had been manipulated. She just saw someone she thought she trusted kill her first love in front of her. Enraged, Ren stabbed Isatilla, killing her in turn – her first real murder.

Jack revealed himself at this point. The two half-cousins were all that was left at the motley little troupe that had once tried to save the world. He convinced her to leave this world, as it was going to Hell anyways. He told her he had installed something in her airship that would make space travel capable. (A huge gummi block had crash landed on Veotsue not too long ago, and Jack had installed it into Ren’s ship.) Ren took off without a second thought.

But she had barely reached the atmosphere of the world when the Heartless came and took her world full-force. She and the Wren were sucked into the black vortex…

… and she awakened – still in her ship – in Traverse Town.

When she tried to leave, it became evident that the gummis she had were not enough – nor sufficient enough – to allow her to cross world barriers. She quickly found out more, and bribed a number of gummi merchants to make the necessary changes. She also made them paint the blocks black, as the bright colors of the gummis put her off. While she was in Traverse Town – on a particularly rainy night – she might Sage, Rixor, and Nella. But none of them left a lasting impression on her and she left, her airship now capable of space and world travel.

She reached Port Royal and came across a man named Rook Sheer. They battled Heartless together for a while, and she became reluctantly fond of him over a short period of time. He gave her a card with the Queen of Diamonds on it, and they wondered if they would see one another again.

Ren left that part of the galaxy for a long time, but came back to look for Rook again. She wound up in Halloween Town and encountered the mysterious Nobody by name of Axel. They exchanged a bit of banter before she was on her way again, searching for Rook, wondering if he’d still remember her.

All this solitude started to get to her head, developing into the dark personality she’d already started forming. She lost a lot of her romantic notions. Whilst on her interstellar travels, she encountered a man named Brax. She’d met him before, as he was from Veotsue, and he was Sabrinth’s cousin. Like her, he had awakened on a different world, instead of vanishing like Veotsue had. He gave her a gun so as to protect herself more, and they parted ways – not quite friends, but perhaps allies.

Now, Ren is back in this part of the galaxy, searching for Rook – and perhaps Axel – again. Who knows who she’ll find, and how much has changed… Port Royal is completely gone, after all.


It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good.