[ chella man / non-binary / he/him / 21 ] ❛ the task force is enriched the presence of [ ronen ouyang ] a [ specialist ] from [ melody ]. it is said that RONEN specializes in [ archery ] . supposedly they are [ determined & insecure ] , you can sense it from the [ 6AM training sessions, a guqin collecting dust, the faint sound of crashing waves in the distant ] feeling they give off. ❜
must i make an intro ? is it not enough to just keysmash into people’s inboxes and pray they understand ? jk , i guess bc i bit the bullet and wrote whatever mess this is .... (: also hi i’m mac , i’m 23 in the pst and go by she/they pronouns
[ cw. misgendering, undisclosed physical trauma that results in hearing loss, ableism, misogyny ]
when ronen was born, his parents thought they were going to have a gentle little songbird --- a wistful, pretty thing to be kept in a gilded cage. the child and a treasured daughter of a melodian minister and his favorite courtesan, a fresh piece of clay the minister could mold into his ideal vision of a court lady. he claimed ronen as his own, legitimizing him as one of his heirs and treated him the same, if not better in some cases, than his other children.
ronen had a more privileged childhood than most bastards, given the most expensive trinkets and private lessons from esteemed tutors. he took to music, as all melodians do, like breathing and leaned into the traditional instruments. he was a prodigy, fingers strumming along the strings of various zithers with ease and precision that he was invited to play for the royal family at a very young age.
outwardly, ronen was soft spoken, rosy-cheeked and obedient, all the picture of the delicate girl the minister wanted him to be. but in private, ronen was ronen, a storm of complex emotions and rage, longing for freedom and the opportunity to be someone outside of the confines of what his father had planned for him. he would go out secretly, watch his brothers in their lessons, play with the bow and arrows left out after, perfecting his aim and pull like plucking the right notes of his guqin from memory.
as talented as ronen was, there were bound to be others that thought otherwise, others that couldn’t fathom his lineage, his age, his musical talent. to them, this little girl with courtesan blood had the audacity to play for royals above all the other noble children. they wanted to put ronen in his place, to remind him of how lowborn he actually was, that he was only who he was because he was lucky to have his father.
ronen doesn’t recall what happened, just that it happened, and that he woke up to the sound of his blood pounding in his ears and nothing else. he could no longer hear in either ear, no longer hear the whistle of wind as it passes, the sound of his mother’s voice the songs he plays. his wings were cut, still only a child, still idealistic, still with his whole life ahead of him.
the minister was desperate to find a cure, subjecting ronen to experimental spells that only remedied the effects for a while before disappearing again. eventually they found a powerful witch who was able to restore a only small portion of ronen’s hearing with an enchanted branding. it was enough to manage day by day without other aids but not enough to be accepted by the minister. by the time ronen could hear the snap of his fingers against each other again, this time just a muffled echo, he was a few years older, out of practice, no longer his father’s favorite.
in the years he had lost his hearing completely, he had stopped playing music and focused on watching the boys of his manor as they played, as they trained, longing to join them. ronen practiced his archery, read magical tomes, ventured the city in secret wearing peasant’s clothing and his long hair up in the illusion of a cropped cut.
ronen was a different person, by the time he was “fixed” just enough, yet, now that ronen was deemed no longer useful to the minister’s ambitious plans, he had planned to keep ronen sheltered in the manor to be protected from assailants again. if ronen couldn’t be used for political gain, at the very least he could be married off. finding this a worse fate than death, ronen begged and pleaded, not with the minister, but with his mother to go to the minister on his behalf and asked to be sent to the red fountain to be trained.
ronen reasoned, that he had already been attacked under the protection and association of the minister and the royal family and that training him in the militant arts would be the last line of defense. in all honesty, ronen wanted to be strong enough to fend for himself, but also wanted the freedom granted by being sent away. thinking it would be better than having to face his failure, the minister acquiesced and had ronen enrolled at the red fountain.
at the red fountain, ronen tried to speak little of his background, wanting to focus more on his training and studies. he felt he was years behind and wanted to catch up with the rest of his class to curb any criticism from his peers, his father or otherwise. he had people call him ronen and changed his appearance so if anyone referred to him as him, it felt natural and not at all ambiguous.
since training as a specialist, ronen had mastered archery and hand-to-hand combat. he excelled in critical strategy and learned how to protect himself while protecting others. while high in class ranking, it’s not without hard work. ronen always believes they can be better and can’t fathom seeing those who put in half the effort perform at his equal level or even better. it’s been the source of his anger, the fact that he wants to be the best without qualifiers, that he always has something to prove if only for his father to see he’s not the daughter he wants him to be. if he is the best, maybe then the minister will see ronen for who he is.
it’s not even a few months since he’d graduated from the red fountain that he’d been chosen for the task force. he had never been to earth before, only had read about it and the idea of being even further from the reaches of his father delights him in the most bittersweet ways. but he’s ready for this new challenge, this new planet that needs his help, that needs his expertise. ronen is young and inexperienced in battle but he knows it’s his time to shine.
**disclaimer** ronen is written by a hearing person and his deafness may be written inaccurately at times. please know that i am not at all trying to offend anyone who is HoH or Deaf and that i will do my best to be mindful of the portrayal of his deafness. that being said, if there is an issue in my portrayal in any capacity, please message me privately so we can have a conversation and i can remedy my mistake.
the dossier
ronen’s father is married to his first wife, the mother of his other children and ronen’s ... step-mom (?), he just liked having nightcaps with his favorite sex worker and ... moved her ... into a small estate near the manor once ronen was born. ronen’s relationship to his “step-mom” is nearly nonexistent, she simply Does Not See It™️ if ronen runs around the manor with his half-siblings.
ronen’s gender is ... complicated. he identifies as sort of genderless and mostly presents as masculine and uses he/him pronouns but ... has his own exceptions to how he is referred to by family and the people who knew him before the red fountain. the times he was back in melody with his family he was still referred to as the minister’s daughter, his siblings’ sister, etc, and he’s come to accept it in that space but only in that space. gender is not something he particularly feels attached to, but he presents as masculine because it’s simpler to deal with shorter hair and a flatter chest when he fights and shoots, a deeper voice when he barks out commands.
ronen’s deafness is still something he lives with. the enchantment brand is etched into the right side of his skull, just behind his ear and only allows him to hear at about 30% volume. without the enchantment he’d be completely deaf. he’s learned to rely on lip reading and taking in people’s body language, which has helped him with anticipating opponents during hand-to-hand combat.
ronen doesn’t play music anymore unless forcefully prompted by his father. his guqin and other instruments sit collecting dust in his childhood bedroom. ronen’s fingers still flex and twitch reflexively when he’s nervous, though, and he can still read music.
while ronen does have an inferiority complex, it makes him more anxious than prideful when he does succeed. it definitely has something to do with how the minister doesn’t take ronen’s want to be a specialist seriously and still expects to marry him off when suitable. being a specialist is just something to pass the time still.
wanted connections
i’m really bad at coming up with these so ... i’ll probs take a look at yours and pick something or if i’m sparked with an idea when i read your intro i’ll come to you with it ^^ or u could ..... @ me uwu.
