#rigel.

Meet WREN THERON. They are TWENTY EIGHT years old and hail from NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK. Wren embodies the star, RIGEL. They use she/they pronouns. Their faceclaim is HALEY LU RICHARDSON.

Rigel reminds me of the quiet click of a bathroom door locking, the stutter of words and breaths and hearts and back to words, locks of hair twisting around a shaking finger, the difference between a vessel and a person, the slip of a needle through fabric, the excited chatter among the stars as something new blossoms into the world. .

BIOGRAPHY

TW for drug abuse.

Typically, stars don’t meddle in the creation of humans. They have power, yes, but they also have limits. They were never meant to create men. But Rigel has always been the one to push the envelope. When the idea of something new bursts into the minds of men, Rigel is lingering in the shadows, anxiously awaiting the opportunity to meddle. So when the newest Theron child’s eyes opened with the idea of an imaginary friend, Rigel leaped at the chance to give birth to a dream.

The child was unexpected and unwanted, to say the least. At first, no one knew where she came from or how she ended up in the same incubator as the Theron heiress, but they found it impossible to get rid of her. Any attempts to separate her from her apparent twin resulted in both children growing inconsolable. When the doctors tried to take the mysterious child away, only a few hours passed before her skin grew pale and her lungs began to lose function. Fearing what would happen if this continued, the girls were put together again and Wren was officially considered a Theron.

The thing is—- stars were never meant to make humans. So when Rigel crafted a person out of a newborn’s fantasy, it was bound to turn out defective.

First, it was the speech impediment. She’ll grow out of it, they all said. After all, she was just learning how to speak, just like every other child. So no one gave much thought to the way she stumbled over her words, face turning red as she struggled to form ‘s’ and ‘p’ and ‘t.’ Words would die on her tongue and she’d receive patient looks because you’ll get it one day.

Then, it was the clumsiness. She’ll grow out of it, they all said. After all, she was just learning how to walk, just like every other child. So no one gave much thought to the way she stumbled over her own two feet, scraping knee and cheek against concrete as her ankles crossed in the wrong direction. Her hands would fumble and drop Lego blocks and she’d receive mildly irritated sighs but it was fine because you’ll get it one day.

Eventually, it was the learning disabilities. They were less forgiving, because that’s a ‘d,’ Wren, not a ‘p’ and it’s simple addition, stop using your fingers. She’d spend hours hunched over her reading assignment, tutors slowly pronouncing words over and over again, encouraging her to use the calculator, there’s nothing wrong with needing help. Still, some people had faith that you’ll get it one day.

She never did. The only thing Wren ever really learned was how to survive not being in the same room as her twin. She grew accustomed to distance: a few inches, a few feet, a few rooms, twenty miles. Still, she never learned how to really stand on her own two feet.

As years passed and her tongue, feet, hands and eyes continued to stumble and stammer, the Therons grew less patient. It was bad enough that this abnormal child was invading their perfect family; it was much worse that she couldn’t do anything right.

The only good thing they could say about her was that she had a great deal of magic. Rigel’s mark had been proudly resting on her heel since the moment she appeared. While it’d never intended to stay with her, it did, as if its companionship could serve as an apology. Its way of saying, I’m sorry I did this to you. I would undo it all if I could. Since I cannot, I’ll stay with you. We’ll get through this together. While the mark did not save Wren from all of the Therons’ malice, it spared her from total disownment.

That doesn’t mean things were okay. Their patience grew thin as Wren got older and clumsier, her defects harder to ignore. By the time she was twelve, she was pulled from public view entirely. She was homeschooled, never to be seen at any galas or events where the Therons needed to attend as a family. Her parents’ disappointment couldn’t have been more obvious if they’d written it on a skyline. Wren Theron was a mistake and one that they could not get rid of.

The clear disdain from her family pushed Wren into the furthest corners of herself, replacing any cheer and joy with debilitating anxiety. The days where she couldn’t get out of bed in fear of throwing up angered her mother; the days where she cried over her textbooks angered her father. There was no way to win, so she did what anyone would do in a situation like hers: turned to drugs.

With Theron money, it was incredibly easy to get drugs. She didn’t have to give a name or connection; as long as she had enough money, then she could get whatever she wanted without any questions. She fell into a rabbit hole, wasting her days away with drugs that did nothing to ease her stutter or her frazzled mind, but did everything to help her escape the pressures of her every day life.

She was sixteen when things finally reached a head. The tongue-lashing her mother delivered (over a stupid and meaningless mistake) was one for the ages. Humiliation and self-loathing led to a familiar scene: the private bathroom attached to her rom, sleeves rolled up and needle pressed against skin. She’d love to say she could remember what happened next, but she’s never been a good liar.

What she does know is this: Rigel is a star of creation. It can create, create, create, but it cannot destroy. So Wren can make all that she can dream, but she can’t kill. Bugs, dreams, animals, people; certainly not herself.

The close call was enough to shake her out of her own abyss. She ditched the drugs she’d stashed throughout her room and checked herself into rehab. She knew her family never would; none of them even knew she’d gotten addicted in the first place. For the first time in her life, she stopped pitying her circumstances and decided to do right by herself.

It was in the midst of rehab when she met a father-daughter duo who offered her a bit of reprieve. Freshly seventeen years old and just learning how to stand on her own two feet, Wren jumped at the chance to escape. When she approached her family about separating from them, they were all too happy to let her go, so long as she didn’t carry their name anymore. With no desire to stay and argue, Wren agreed and moved in with her newfound companions.

Her stay didn’t last long. It was long enough to develop some unrequited feelings; it was long enough for a seed to be planted in her mind. When Wren went off to Polaris at nineteen, something that already changed within her, though she would be the last to know it.

Her anxiety eased with time away from her family, but it never fully left. It’s still debilitating, even on her best days, but there’s less pressure to be perfect these days. With Rigel’s help, she’s started up a business of making things for people, usually for free. Most face-to-face transactions are done through a dependable middle man, so most people don’t even know who’s behind the creation. She doesn’t mind that so much; as long as her customers are happy, she won’t ask for any sort of fame or recognition.

She still has self-harmful tendencies, but they’re manageable. At the very least, she isn’t shooting up in the bathroom anymore.

INCLINATION

Rigel, whether or not they are aware of their “maker” abilities before they are sponsored, has long been known as the creator star. Rigel typically sponsors those who have a gift for craftsmanship magic, or rather, the creation of magical objects for witches to use. Rigel is a creative thinker and a tinkerer, preferring to do things their way rather than let someone else tell them how they’re supposed to operate. They are particularly gifted at transfiguration, which is the basis of their magic, but they also possess a wide knowledge of tools and workmanship in order to create whatever it is their heart desires.

CONNECTIONS

Filling Verity Anwar’s Teach Me, Oh Wise One

Middle Man: Basically the fact of Wren’s business! They do all of the interactions and communication, unless they absolutely cannot. This person has all of Wren’s trust, if only because they never hold her difficulties against her, and they actually have her best interest at heart.

Helping Hand: Literally… someone who doesn’t mind Wren holding their hand once in a while, just so that she has something to hold onto when her anxiety gets bad. She isn’t totally dependent on them, but they help stabilize her when she feels incredibly unstable.

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: the entire world can crash and burn, as long as rigel and graham are alright and in love. atlas and luciana are pretty cute together as well ? and i think rio & elias are two people who need to pick a partner. they’re banging half the town and it’s going to blow up in their faces sooner or later.

oh but doesn’t true love always find a way? i’m waiting and watching this one. not only is graham an escort, but a savage to rigel’s cobra but boy do i support these two making it work!

for most annoying i think it’s a tie between claire & aaron and elias & his child bride. the cutest is hands down rigel & graham. 

hmm i feel like the only answer i have is yes everyone got boring but let’s see what my radar can pick up ! from what the little birds tell me , things between rigel and graham are starting to heat up , y’all think sunny is out there juggling too many men but really poor girl is just trying to live her best life , mariana and julien are in this kind of strange situation that morally i guess we can’t judge on but ... hey , to each their own ! madden is over there telling jason all kinds of tea about his savage soldiers , so we’ll see how that goes , and speaking of jason! the favorite brother has made his triumphant return to valdez which now means all the carters are in one place hmm , makes one think what could possibly go wrong? really the only note that i can end this on is how axel is dipping the tips of his fingers into every cookie jar he can get his paws on and i’m just wondering where’s mine? what do YOU guys have for me though? because that’s where the juiciest gossip comes from