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[fairywren]

CHARACTER NAME: His legal name is René Bellamy, but he's gone by Wren both on stage and to most friends for years.

CHARACTER AGE:32

SPECIES:Siren

BACKGROUND & HISTORY:Wren's family on his mother’s side is from Siren Cove, way back; however it's probably barely into the 1900s that the last Sauvageon lived there, with a familial trend toward wanderlust and a love for the sea that has spread their prolific offspring all up and down the east coast of the US and Canada. They’re a family of sirens, though some much more latently than others, and as the years have progressed and their family has gotten further away from the town, the mythos has faded quite a bit.

Elise Sauvageon grew up drawn to music and movement, a dancer never quite happy staying still. She took a semester in college to study the history of dance in Quebec, and Quebec City was where she met Rene’s father, Oliver Bellamy. For her, it was an instant connection, and at the beginning, her hope to be compelling and intriguing to him was innocent infatuation - rather than any overt channeling of her siren abilities. Oliver, for his part, was definitely compelled. Though her parents reminded her that these things were altogether real, Lise wanted desperately to believe that there was nothing at all supernatural about how quickly things were moving. Their romance was passionate, and when the summer came Oliver uprooted himself to follow Lise back to Portland. They married in fall, Lise already pregnant.

As they lived together, Lise became more keenly aware of her gifts and began to fight them, unable to come to grips with possibly affecting the mind of the man she loved. And slowly, Oliver found himself realizing that, while he truly cared for Lise, he wasn't in love. He saw her through the end of her pregnancy, unable to bring himself to leave her then, and both of them hoping the child might change things. They named him after resurrection, rebirth, but if anything it just made the end clearer, and a few months later Oliver was gone.

Rene knew from a very early age that he was strange. Being the child of a single mother, being artistic, delicate, small, all these things explained away his innate feeling of other-ness. Lise never explained the reality of his family, too sad over what it had brought her; she confined it to fairy tales and legends, which Rene devoured eagerly. He was drawn to the eerie and otherworldly, to music and to art, and his mother encouraged him to express himself. He taught himself how to play instruments, and they came easily to him. Most of all, he found that when he played them, people stopped and listened, and he thrived on it. Causing a reaction, drawing people in who might otherwise not give him a second look - it thrilled him.

By the time he was a teenager he was desperate to get out of his small town. At 17 he moved to New York with just a guitar, a duffle bag, a summer's paychecks and his mother's blessing. He stayed in hostels and rent-by-the-week single room occupancies; he busked, and talked himself up to anyone with two feet of empty space to get gigs. It was his persistent appearances around town that introduced him to Rian and Lexi, friends that would later be his bandmates and who first officially dubbed him Wren.

After a year or so, Wren moved in with them, and the three shared everything: food, drugs, creative inspiration and lovers. At Wren's insistence, they formalised their creativity, dubbing their dark electronic art project Enfants Sauvage in a joking nod to his history. They'd stay out all night playing and partying, wake up mid day and start writing, repeat fueled mostly on adrenaline and caffeine (nicotine, amphetamine)... Wren and Rian, now their lead guitarist and violinist, began a ever-undefined, intense relationship that was at first, inspiring. Between their permanent fixture in the club scene and their passion, a few tough years brought them a contingent of dedicated fans - particularly Wren. Their little tours became international adventures, their music seeking to push and even alienate their fans entirely on every new album. Scene reviewers loathed as much as loved them, but they ended up talking about them anyway.

And then it collapsed. After a decade of decadence, limit-testing, fighting and ferocious love, no one expected the breakup to be as quiet and heartbroken as it was, really. Wren found himself devastated and looking for meaning, now in his 30s and having done very little else, and he kept coming back to the stories of his youth...

PERSONALITY: Wren can, especially these days, come off a little arrogant or aloof. He's not - though he is self assured - but he's the kind of person who stays observant and silent until he's made his mind up about a situation. And at that point, good luck getting him to shut up. Wren has spent half his life professionally not giving a shit; he isn't really bothered if his opinion or attitude or interests push someone's buttons. He might be delighted. Wren's entire outlook on society and its mores is that they're limiting. Rules are meant to be broken, feathers ruffled. Death danced with. It's not just to rebel: he legitimately loves to question, to make others question.

A part of this is that Wren's not especially humble or shy. He's confident, and forward. He doesn't exaggerate his abilities, but he doesn't underplay them. He doesn't see the point of backing down from something. He wouldn't have survived New York if he weren't persistent.

Behind his devil-may-care, flirtatious exterior, Wren is deeply thoughtful and a bit lonely; he embraces strangeness but, especially with some amount of fame, it can be isolating and removed, which he's not naturally. His passions are fierce and unrelenting, whether they're physical or a new hobby or instrument.

OPINION OF THE RIVALRY: Having grown up with stories of Siren Cove, Wren is aware of and intrigued by the rivalry. It's a good story: forbidden love, revenge, curses. In real practice he thinks it's ridiculous, an excuse for people with too much money to war amongst themselves. If pressed to choose, though, he'd come down on the Coombs side.

LIFESTYLE:Enfants weren't exactly the Rolling Stones - most of their profits went back into recording and touring - but royalties and the like keep Wren comfortable, for now, anyway, and dollars go further in Maine. He's used to financial insecurity, and he has the erratic habits of someone with money who thinks it might go away. He rents a studio with a sea view and good acoustics, filled with a lot of books and instruments. He loves learning and collects interesting tidbits like more of a magpie than a wren, with a passion for all things liminal.

Wren would say he doesn't believe in true love, and he probably believes he doesn't, but the truth is more complex than that. He has a romantic streak (certainly a Romantic one) and he tends toward grand gesture. But it does make a good excuse to wrap up more in his work than whoever he took home last night. Wren's relationships are generally heavy on the physical, and he finds beauty in every and any gender, with only the barest trend toward men. (Right now, though, the love in his life is for his dog, a white Pom mix named Inari, who he likes more than most people.)


POWERS &ABILITIES:Wren is a siren, and has quite a bit of natural power to entrance when singing or playing music - his onstage persona is consciously exaggerated, but he doesn’t have to work hard for it to be a compelling transformation. For Wren, this is stronger instrumentally, and he has always been able to learn a new instrument quickly. He also has the ability to channel energy; he can gain strength from those he plays for. The feedback loop could be pretty dangerous if he were to misuse it, but Wren has literally no idea what he is. He’s aware that his music has an affect on people, and he loves the way it feels, and he’s used to being able to intrigue, but he’s never thought of any of this as abnormal.

PLAYED BY: Chris Corner.