Renee Alpons

First Rifleman Renee Olive Alpons (a.k.a. Liv)

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Early Life

Renee Olive Alpons was born under the name of Oliver Marcus Alpons-Pyria in the early spring of 1163. Renee had never liked her name as a child, nor her reflection, her clothes, and especially not the way her single father, Killian Pyria, had treated her following her mother's death in 1165, during the birth of her sister Celia Maye. Her father, with early-onset Parkinson's disease, began pushing for Renee to become a provider, to be strong... and to be a man. "One day soon, you'll have to take care of your sisters. You have to prepare for that reality." He'd say to her.
In 1175, when Renee was twelve, her eldest sister Estelle returned from studying abroad in Exia and had perspectives that would not be taught in Dendarin schools for some time yet. After approaching her and discussing what Estelle viewed as signs that Renee might be a girl distressed about being forced to live a boy's life, she began to treat her as Olive, or simply "Liv". It was an easy name to remember, and similar enough to her birth name that if either of them slipped and used it accidentally, it could be excused. "Oliver" existed only in public and with family, while "Olive" is who Renee always was, and she could be herself with Estelle.
Renee remembers her thirteenth birthday as one of the best days of her life, because she spent it outside her home with Estelle, and as Olive.
At the age of fourteen, Renee's father discovered her feminine clothing, makeup, and other personal effects. Initially, her father had treated her as though she had stolen these items for sexual pleasure and ridiculed her for it, but Estelle came forward and revealed she had been buying her these things, and insisted that they represented who she really was. Killian's middle daughter.
Killian took this news particularly poorly. Estelle was to leave his home immediately, and "Olive" was to return to being Killian's son. Renee was made to watch as her things were burned in a pile, and days later watched as Estelle was forced to leave with whatever she and the drow bondmate she had returned from Exia with could carry. It was Estelle's bondmate, Zada, who first felt Renee's immortal soul.
She convinced Estelle of it as they left her father's home, and together they decided to report her to the military as a born immortal. Eventually this would mean her removal from Killian's home to be trained as a member of the immortal companies, and due to the military academy's doubling as a university, it held views that would allow Renee to be herself.

Recruitment

Unfortunately, due to her age, nothing could be done to liberate her from her father for over a year and a half, so Killian continued to enforce his ruling on the matter, and his views would only become more dogmatic as his condition worsened. By the time Renee had reached the age of sixteen, her father's behavior had forced her into a denial and suppression mindset, which caused her to sink into an apathetic depression where she was lethargic, unmotivated, and eating excessive amounts of food.
This lifestyle had limited her access to her immortal soul. Living true is a requirement for your full potential to be realized, and her father had crushed her every attempt to do so.
As the academy's scouts could still sense her nature, however distant it now was, she was conscripted into the third immortal company. Killian believed this would make her "man up" and show her what was "actually important".
Despite her new freedom from her father, Renee continued to live as a man at school until meeting Emily Flaherty. Emily was a human girl who immediately grew close to Renee, but as Oliver, bonding over their shared experiences with parental abuse. Renee was always purposefully vague, but eventually she took the risk of being honest with Emily. While she didn't understand, she also wasn't dismissive or hostile. It didn't matter to Emily whether she was a boy or a girl, and she ensured Renee that they would remain friends no matter what. She immediately took to learning about Renee's experiences primarily from Renee, but also from Exian literature.
Now, at this point in her life, four people knew. Her elder sister and her bondmate, and her new confidante at the academy, who guard her secret for her own protection, and her father, who hides it for his own shame.
The school still treated Renee as a man, and this caused her significant discomfort and stress. Among men, her body wasn't the best suited for military endeavors. She was shorter than the others by nearly a head or more, especially humans and drow, and was built on a more "lanky" frame carrying around a lot of unnecessary weight. These combined with her suppressed immortal soul concealing her gift led the school to push her harder than the men she was grouped with. While the weight was eventually burned, her small frame couldn't be altered.
Being placed in the fourth section of the Third Immortal Company along with Emily allowed her to come into contact with Josephine Hart, Kariya of Denidaria, and Joffrey Solum. Corporal Hart was able to keep them cohesive as a fireteam, but the conflict between Renee and Kariya was a sticking point in the day-to-day.
Emily and Renee would enter into a romantic relationship shortly after the fourth section's formation.
Kariya was of a similar narrow and lean build to Renee despite her smaller height, leading to Renee seeing her as a goal to aspire to on some level that she might not have been aware of in the beginning. Despite Kariya's gifts in telepathy and empathy, even she couldn't see through the walls Renee had built for herself, leading to vague awareness of staring and longing. As a biologically male werebeast, many dismissed her staring as hormonal compulsion, stating she wasn't physically able to look away even if she had no intention of pursuing a physical relationship. Kariya knew it wasn't that simple, and began looking into her head with more and more force. It began with gentle probing, but escalated to forceful prying on par with short bursts of psychic torture. The rest of her fireteam found Kariya's behavior to be unacceptable.

Reawakening

Renee's first assignment as a soldier, despite being successful, had a freak accident occur that cost her her right eye, and could very well have killed her, had she been an inch farther forward. This traumatic injury caused her immortal gift to awaken. She knew in that moment she could no longer hide, and her accelerated healing and healing of others came in full force saving not only her life, but that of Josephine and Kariya as well. She was placed on leave until further notice for more than one reason. The first is that she needed to relearn how to use her firearms with her left eye, the second is to receive her born immortal medical training, identifying injuries and repairing them with the greatest efficiency, and the last was to seek treatment for her depression stemming from body and soul mismatch.

I knew couldn't die a boy. In a way, what was left of the boy in me died that day. It's like a cog was missing, and now everything just... works.

— Renee Alpons describing how she felt during her near-death experience.

Renee quickly sought to change her name within the school's roster and on a legal basis. The academy advised her to wait until she had decided on a final name before going through that process, but she could register her choice of name as a known alias in the meantime, as aliases were a much more malleable category. When she told them to put Olive down as an alias they released a number of letters that her sister had been mailing her from Exia since just after she was drafted, but as there was nobody named Olive Alpons-Pyria at the school they took it upon themselves to open and read the letter for safety reasons. It addressed a woman, so a potential mishap of the pen was thought impossible and the letters were stored away until their recipient could claim them. The tone of the letters was bright at first, congratulating her for escaping her father, and hoping they could see one another again. This happy tone changed quickly from bright and happy to somber and concerned. "Why aren't you writing back?" "I hope you're okay." "Please write back, Olive."
The latest finished with a resignation and a request for a phone call. It was almost a year old. She sent her own letter, apologizing for the issues with the school's mail service and requested a meetup whenever possible. It wasn't easy for her to even send the letter, but placing an international call while the nation was at war was even harder. They corresponded for many months following, updating one another about the state of their lives. Renee shared that she was no longer going to remain in hiding, and Estelle shared the details of her family and life outside her father's home. She and Zada had conceived a child in Exia, a girl called Valarie.
After registering her alias, head counselor of the New Dendarin Military Academy, Dina Selen, reached the heart of the issue rather quickly as Renee was eager to cooperate and find a solution. She referred her to a support group of people with souls that didn't match the body in which they resided, people who were like her.
The group welcomed her with open arms, respecting the fact that she was using the name Olive again and that it was subject to change, and sharing their experiences with her. When the topic of bodily changes came up, Renee brought up sexual transfiguration as a potential route due to the limited research she had done with her sister five years earlier. This was strongly discouraged by the group, who brought up its use between rival warlords where, upon the conclusion of a conquest, the losing clan's lord would be made into a woman and added to the conqueror's harem. It was intended as a form of punishment and humiliation in post-exodus Grenshore elven society, and while some do find success with it, the process can cause more trauma than the stress it alleviated would be worth.
One man called Phillip shared his experience with it, having traveled to the Montase colonies on Grenshore to go through with it. He claimed it was the most painful thing he had ever felt, and he had a long list of mental issues that resulted from the shock. Luckily, three years following his transfiguration he was mostly back to a normal state. However, it had indeed worked to transform him into a man on the deepest possible levels, and even knowing how intense the process was, he would make the same choice a thousand times more given the results.
One of the others, a person named Sasha, recommended she seek transfiguration accessories. These were similar to transformation bracelets that had been used for disguising individuals for several decades, but had gradual effects that were permanent. It took her several months to track down the manufacturer of Sasha's bracelet and have one made for her. With Emily's input, she decided on her new name. Renee Olive Alpons-Pyria.

Reunions

Roughly one and a half months following, Renee's sister Celia Maye made contact with her. She entered Old Dendora late on the 26th of Deomin, spent the night at an inn, and on the 27th requested the address of Oliver Marcus Alpons-Pyria. The school informed her that as of just under two months ago that individual's legal personal name was Renee, and that Olive was registered as a known alias, before supplying her address. This led to a visit the following day. The 28th. Renee's nineteenth birthday. The knock on the door came late in the afternoon, and Emily answered the door.

The girl at the door gave a slight bow and stuttered. "Oh. Um, I-is, um, Oliver home?" She almost seemed disappointed to see this strange woman at the door.
Emily looked at her, glanced inside, and back to the girl. "There is no Oliver here, sorry." she said calmly, starting to close the door on her.
The girl put her hand on the door to stop its movement and spoke, now in a panic. "I-I... th-that can't be r-right. Th-the school to-to-told me he lived here."
Emily's heart sank as she saw this girl in her frantic state. "I'm sorry, but there is no Oliver here. They told you wrong." she said, starting to close the door again.
"NO! N-no. Damn it, dad." she cried. She blocked the door again, wearing an expression like someone searching frantically. Eyes darting and brows furrowed. "W-what about an O-oh... w-what was it?" she paused and swallowed hard. "W-what did they te-tell me... Olive?"
Emily eyed the girl. "Who are you?" she asked. She was slight and cute in the face. A short blue-eyed and blonde-haired werebeast girl with shockingly familiar features. "Celia Maye?" She nodded. This was Renee's little sister. "Come inside. We're about to go out but I'm sure she's got a minute for you."
As the two of them went inside, Renee exited the bathroom. Her hair was styled and clean, her face painted with colors and patterns that accentuated her eyes, and wearing a maroon sweater that showed off her shoulders, a knee-length yellow skirt of a light fabric, and black flat shoes. "Emmy, did I hear you talking to somebody?" she paused as she turned and saw her partner with a familiar face. She gasped and exclaimed "Oh dear gods above." as she ran down the steps and wrapped her arms around her younger sister in a warm embrace. She squeezed her with a groan. "It's been too long."
Celia Maye nodded. "Yeah. I-it has. Three year-rs. Is Olive okay? Can I, um, can I call you Olive?"
Renee smiled. "I'm called Renee now, but yes you can use it."
"Y-you're happy." Celia Maye squeaked out. "I ne-never saw you this happy before."
"Tell that to daddy."
Celia Maye's breath hitched as Renee said those words. "I, uh... I came to t-tell you something." Celia Maye said, quietly and coldly. "It's... Well, it's not good news."

— The three-year reunion between Renee and Celia Maye Alpons

Celia Maye regretted choosing Renee's birthday to break the news. Their father's condition had rapidly worsened in the last couple of years. He was now sixty-two years old, bedridden and hospitalized, hardly able to move or control his tremors, and had even started showing early signs of dementia. His end was coming, and soon.
Emily and Renee enjoyed their dinner date regardless, but Renee and Celia Maye planned another day to visit their father two weeks later. Renee spent those weeks with Celia Maye preparing herself for a confrontation with her father. They hadn't spoken in three years. He had hoped her time in military training would snap her out of it, but it had done the opposite. It gave her friends who were willing to learn and support her as her sister had, and the resources she needed to become herself again. Both Renee and Emily agreed it would be good to have closure, and Celia Maye might never forgive her if she didn't go with her to see him.
Renee, Emily, and Celia Maye walked into the hospital only to find many people that none of them recognized. Estelle was there, as she had received the news of her father's condition as well. This was the first time Renee had met her niece Valarie, who was now just over two years old, the first time she had ever spoken to her sister-in-law Zada, and the first time she had seen her elder sister in over four years. It was the other five who were already there that were truly interesting.

Closure

The first group of these five was a tall half-elf werebeast man named Gabriel. His husband, a northern elf named Amani, was sitting nearby as well. A teenage elf girl was with him. Yasmin, a stepchild from Amani's previous marriage. The second was Linde, another half-elf werebeast, and her husband Theo, a werebeast. Speaking with them revealed that Gabriel and Linde were Renee's half-siblings. Neither group knew the other existed.
Discussion in the waiting area connected their families through Killian. Their pooled knowledge painted a very unflattering picture. Gabriel and Linde were the children of Safi Aliya Se-Tekhat. Killian's first wife. As soon became clear, Killian told them different stories.
Killian married Safi when he was nineteen, had Gabriel when he was twenty, and Linde when he was twenty-four. It took him little time to begin cheating on Safi with numerous women. One notable was Rosalie Diana Alpons. Estelle, Renee, and Celia Maye's mother. He left Montase with her, fleeing south and into New Dendarin and leaving Safi, Gabriel, and Linde behind. Killian was thirty-five when Estelle was born. They collectively agreed that he would have abandoned Rosalie had she survived Celia Maye's birth, and was most certainly cheating on her as well.
It wasn't long after that that a nurse came to them to file them into Killian's room. He was initially warm and cordial to them all despite the obvious disdain that most of his children felt towards him. It was only magnified by the family they had brought with them. They discussed many things in their hour together. What he had missed in their lives for the most part, and Killian apologizing for his abandonment of his first wife, his treatment of Gabriel for being gay, his treatment of Estelle for defending Renee's identity, and of Renee for "wanting to be a girl", as he phrased it, though he had avoided referring to her at all the rest of the visit.
As the nurse warned the group that there was ten minutes left on their visit, Killian requested a moment alone with Renee. He questioned her about her immortal awakening and what her gift was. He wanted to know if what Celia Maye had told him was true, and Renee confirmed what he had learned. He told her to try healing him.

"Please." he begged. "You're all the hope I have left."
Renee took his trembling hand and asked one question. "What's my name?"
Killian looked up at her from his bed, meeting her eyes for the first time all day. She had a strength in them that he hadn't seen in her before. "What?" he asked, only half sure of what she meant. "Why would you ask me that question?"
"I need you to tell me my name, daddy. You've avoided even referencing me at all." she said with exasperation, lifting her handbag into her lap and pulling her wallet out. "I know it's hard, but you have to say my name. This one, right here. What does it say?"
She produced an identification card. It had her picture and in it, she was smiling, the accessories she had acquired having worked wonders on both her state of mind and appearance in the past half year. She looked nothing like the boy he remembered. He sighed and looked back at her face. "Renee and Olive. Like your sisters told me it was." he said with a smirk.
Renee squeezed her father's hand and rubbed the back of it with her thumb, sighing with a smile. "That's all I ever wanted to hear." she said as she closed her eyes and tried to find her father's ailment. Killian eyed his left hand expectantly as his child focused, but his flexing and twitching didn't shop.
As the talking in the room stopped, Emily and Estelle got closer to the door and peeked in to see what was happening. He looked up at them and then back at Renee. "How long is this supposed to take?" he asked.
"Something's wrong."
Killian scoffed. "What do you mean? Can't you fix it?"
Renee looked up at the crowd gathering at the door, which now included Gabriel and Celia Maye, and then back to her father, who was visibly angry. "I can't, I... There's nothing here. Maybe... Maybe it..."
Killian interrupted her with a half-shouted "What the fuck was the point of you changing into a girl if you can't even use your gift?" Renee looked down and tried to apologize, but her father interrupted her again with a laugh. "Doesn't matter if you've got your tiny little tits and your fancy bracelets or not. You're the same useless faggot you've always been. Oliver."

— Renee is deceived by her father one last time.

Renee had gotten her father's acceptance, or so she thought. As soon as she failed to provide what Killian wanted in return, he rejected her and belittled her again. Emily was the first to jump to her defense, followed by her sister Estelle and half-brother Gabriel. His insulting of Renee showed the both of them that their father's apologies meant nothing.
Both recounted the opposition they had faced from their father for their homosexuality, and Gabriel specifically berated him for walking out on their family when he was fifteen. Celia Maye joined to express her hatred for her father for his physical and emotional abuse. This tirade was free of her usual stuttering, something even she was surprised about. Linde watched the argument from the doorway, but did not participate. When asked by her father "Oh, you have something to say too? Wanna get your fucking shot in while I'm still around?" she shook her head and walked off as the nurse rushed in both to end the visit and to break up the fight.
It took Killian nine days to die following the visit from his children. A hemorrhagic stroke in his sleep took him suddenly, and by the time he was found by night nurses it was too late to contain the bleed.
His will was rewritten just days before his death, stating his assets were to be sold at auction and the proceeds and his house were to go to Linde, all except for a 1 val note for each of his four other children to "wipe their asses with". Linde wouldn't keep it all to herself, however. More insightful than most, a part of Linde's plan was to say nothing when the inevitable fighting started. She knew her father, how petty he could be. Saying nothing would place her on a pedestal in his mind, an even easier feat given his deteriorated mental state.
When the auction was up, she took 35% of the proceeds and split the other 65% evenly among her siblings and half-siblings before renting-to-own the house at a low cost to Renee, Emily, and Celia Maye. She wouldn't leave her littlest half-sister homeless like her father would, even if she had only met her weeks ago.
As a final goodbye, or maybe as a good riddance, the Alpons-Pyria siblings removed their father's name from theirs, leaving only Alpons in its place.

Social

Family Ties

Alpons and Pyria Families, Immediate Relatives

The Alpons and Pyria families are composed of Renee's parents and siblings.

Killian Arthur Maxwell Pyria

At the age of fourty-three, Killian Pyria became the father of Renee Alpons. Having abandoned his first wife and two children for her mother, Rosalie Alpons, and then continuing to seek out relationships with more women, he could be called anything but honest except in his prejudices. One of the most obvious examples to his children was his open disgust, anger, and shame that he had "failed to raise a son" when he found Renee was dressing as a girl at the age of fourteen. She recalls this as one of the points in life that she felt lowest. Her sister and her bondmate's intervention in getting her drafted into the immortal companies may well have saved her life.
Their reunion near exactly three years later was a cold one. He pretended to come around to her side only to get her to make use of her gift of healing. After her failure to alleviate his condition, he repaid her kindness by again discarding her identity and ridiculing her as a degenerate and sexually deviant man with massive delusions. The Alpons and Se-Tekhat siblings took it upon themselves to defend their sister and berate him for his hateful opinions before leaving him alone in the hospital. He would die nine days later, and following his death his children would remove his name from theirs.

Rosalie Diana Alpons

Rosalie was the second wife of Killian Pyria. Originally growing up and living in Montase, she and Killian had an affair that violated his sixteen-year marriage to Safi Se-Tekhat that led them both to flee to Denidaria, in the process leaving his wife Safi and their two children Gabriel and Linde behind.
Rosalie would give birth to Estelle in 1155, and to Renee in 1163. She remembers little of her mother as three years later in 1166, she would give birth to Celia Maye, but not survive for more than a few weeks afterwards due to an infection that spread to her blood.

Estelle Magdeline Alpons

Estelle is Renee's elder sister, eight years her senior. She never fit well into the obedient mold Killian felt his daughters should fill, and she was sent to boarding school as soon as she was old enough to go, aged twelve. When she was suspended for kissing other girls, she was harshly disciplined by her father, so she stopped for the time being, but she wanted dearly to transfer to Exia where this behavior was accepted. When she was fifteen she was allowed to go. Killian made that decision to get her as far from him as possible. She would spend her life in Exia for five years, now free from her father's influence and the repressive atmosphere of an all-girl's school. It was there she met her bondmate, Zada Exiaej, a female drow.
When she returned home at the age of twenty, she saw signs in her now twelve year old sister of what the drow called somuejnita, or "wrong home for soul inside". Estelle took the steps necessary to create an environment where Renee, at the time going by the name Olive, could be herself free from judgement. This lasted roughly two years, after which Killian discovered Renee's female clothes, makeup, and personal items. This was the second child with Rosalie, and his third out of four, that had turned out "degenerate" and his feelings of inadequacy only increased. Estelle defended her sister and admitted to providing these things for her, and for it she was punished, forced to leave her siblings behind and begin living with Zada. The two of them found Renee's soul to be born immortal, so they reported her to the military academy to force her removal from her father at the age of 16.
She tried to remain in contact after her sixteenth birthday, sending letters at least twice a period, but she never received anything in return. This went on for just over a year and a half before she stopped trying, simply saying to call her whenever she could. Eventually she did receive a response when her sister decided to stop pretending to be a man. They corresponded by mail for another four periods before news of their father's imminent death brought them together again. She was second to defend her sister from their father only to Emily Reede, Renee's girlfriend.

Species

Werebeast

Conditions

• Born Immortality

Date of Birth

1163/2/28

Year of Birth

1163 AC 18 Years old

Pronouns

She/Her

Sex

Male

Gender

Female

Presentation

Feminine

Eyes

Blue, upturned shape.

Hair

Brown, shaggy, shoulder length.

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Short tan fur with pale patches on stomach and chest, orange tiger stripes.

Height

5'7" or 170 cm

Weight

135 lbs or 61 kg

Aligned Organization

Third Immortal Company

Other Affiliations

• The New Dendarin Military Academy