Marion Bellamy

"I always look like this," Marion smiled and chuckled a little. "I was born ill, but it's nothing lethal if I don't overdo things."

A sophisticated and well-mannered young man, Marion was nicknamed “The Prince of White Roses” and “White Rose” due to his serene looks and the large rose garden belonging to his family where he used to spend time as a child. However, behind the gentle exterior lies a strong willed and intelligent man with all sort of feelings inside him, not all of them just happy and kind. Having suffered from dangerously low blood pressure majority of his life, Marion has ended up being a rather careful and meek boy with some unwanted feelings of inferiority and frustration for not being seen as a man by others due to his looks and personality.

Through the help of a mysterious boy, Marion transformed his violin playing hobby into a way to learn to express himself better and convey his feelings to people he cares about. Although a rather renowned young violinist now, Marion travels around the country in search for the boy who once taught him to play violin with his heart - the boy who Marion is the most grateful for, and who was Marion’s first love during the warmest summer of his youth.

Appearance

Marion is a young man with soft features and slim, rather androgynous body with his shoulders aligning with his waist. He doesn't seem to have much muscle, and his arms and legs are rather slim and unassuming for a man his age, but he has a surprisingly good stamina (and general stubbornness of nature) to make this up. He has very pale green eyes, very light and slightly curly hair partially covering his left eye, and pale skin due to his blood related problems. There is a hint of freckles on his face, but they work more as a texture than visible freckles, and most don't even pay attention to it. His nose is small and lips thin and light, and his overall exterior makes it somewhat easy or people to mistake him for a cross-dressing girl. 

He is usually seen wearing simply travel clothes, but often people who let him stay at their place lend or buy him clothes out of hospitality. The only clothes he has kept with him from his more peaceful days are a white attire consisting of cream white, straight pants and a matching collared shirt, a slightly darker vest and a white shoulder cape with a white rose decoration.

Personality

Marion's most notable trait is his very calm and soft manner of speaking and interacting with others. He is known to be very careful especially with what he says, and he might come across as a little distant and timid to people who don't know him very well. However, he is very kind and genuine with his actions, and Marion usually has no hiden agenda or intentions behind what he says or does, and people usually don't have trouble noticing this right away.

He can be a little clumsy with his true feelings, regardless if it's happiness, anger or fear, and so people often tend to think of him as a very mild mannered and not very emotional. They couldn't be more wrong though as Marion can be a highly emotional individual, often feeling very strongly even for people he doesn't know. In his childhood he had trouble letting any of those things out though, but he has practiced very hard especially through his music, and is better now at expressing emotions: even if he sometimes ends up being rather clumsy and awkward (although in a rather endearing way, but it's embarrassing for him nevertheless).

Having lived most of his life in a very small place, Marion can be a little naive and unfamiliar with the ways of the world, but he is very content to learn and determined to get by. And while he tends to assume people have kind intentions, Marion is surprisingly good at detecting when people are trying to use or trick him, and when they are genuinely kind and helpful to him. Marion is very aware of how weak his body can get, and he acknowledges the fact he is very dependent on the people around him. While this can be a little embarrassing to him, Marion doesn't try to deny the fact and he has learned, for the most part, to ask for help when he needs it. In turn he is more than glad to offer his help if there is anything he just can do. He can get a little melancholical of his own weakness and inability to help in most physical things, but it usually still isn't enough to bring him down.

Although Marion likes to be complimented, he is still a little insecure of his appearance and is a bit touchy about people comparing him to women. Although it's not an insult at all, it brings him bad memories he doesn't really know how to deal with. He also doesn't usually know how to respond to people when being complimented for his looks, and as result he often ends up laughing a little awkwardly and thanking. 

While known to be a rather timid young man, Marion is a huge fan of crime novels and other gruesome stories, and doesn’t seem to find them terrifying at all. People sometimes call him “grimly innocent” due to this.  His ghost stories are said to be the most terrifying and graphic in their content, earning him some extra respect among many travelers he meets. It seems like he enjoys scaring people to some degree, and considering his overall nature, people usually let him have this odd trait of his, finding it charming.  

History

During the spring when the flowers were in their brightest bloom, Marion was born as the second child and oldest son to a well-off family. With his older sister being the one to eventually take over the family name, Marion was able to grow up without the heavy burden of the eldest child. However, while Marion was privileged enough to have a childhood free of worries regarding wealth and status, from an early age the boy suffered from a low blood pressure. As such, his body was rather weak, and Marion was prone to feeling dizzy and weak, and sometimes even fainting if moving too fast or neglecting his bodily needs. As result, his time outside was limited considerably, and Marion got very used to staying indoors like a housecat, adjusting his life to revolve around things he could do without sacrificing his health. Violin was one of the first childhood hobbies Marion had, but during his early childhood neither music nor the violin played a big role in his life - they were just hobbies among others, meant to amuse and distract him.

Due the fact he was rather sickly, Marion didn’t get as many chances to socialize with other children compared to his siblings and most other boys his age. Partially due to his own temper and partially due to lack of many friends, Marion turned out to be rather timid and soft spoken in his demeanor. Especially in younger age he ended up socializing more with adults than children, making his social skills very good when dealing with adults, but rather clumsy around other children that weren’t his siblings. However, from the conversations of the adults, Marion ended up learning many things a child his age would not normally learn, and with his thoughtful and almost philosophical nature, most of these overheard adult conversations made Marion very mature and understanding for someone his age.

Much like his beautiful sisters, Marion’s looks were also recognized rather early on. Due to his blood pressure related problems, Marion was considerably light in complexion, and in order to avoid fainting, he would walk in a calm manner people mistook for grace, not knowing poor Marion only tried to avoid fainting. Accompanied by his soft features and pale green, ever-so-curious and kind eyes, Marion was always very popular among the guests of his parents. As the boy enjoyed to spend his time in the family garden full of white roses, Marion was eventually nicknamed “The Prince of White Roses” or “White Rose” because of how often he could be found from there, usually reading or writing.

However, even with all the socializing and those few friends his age he had, Marion felt very disconnected with the world around him. This was so strong to the point Marion would let people do as they wanted with him, not complaining at all when adults would dress him up in pretty clothes Marion himself didn’t really care about, or if other children wanted to assign him a certain role in their pretense games. He didn’t even flinch when another child kissed him, and when a few bullies once tried to hurt him, his uninterested and deadpan attitude actually scared the bullies away. His parents never noticed this and it was never further inspected, but Marion was sure it had a lot to do with the way he was raised and how very little he actually ventured outside of the comfort of home.

Marion attended school with his best abilities, and when he couldn’t, he would be home schooled instead. Lucky to him, as he got older, his blood pressure problems started balancing themselves, and when Marion was around 10, he was already able to attend school normally. His social circles started expanding from then on as he became a regular face in the school.

But even with all the new friends, Marion had a problem. The older he got, the more he realized all his friends were mainly girls. And although this on its own was not a problem, Marion eventually came to realize he actually felt like an outsider among the other boys due to his considerably calmer, gentler and meeker nature, as well as his softer looks. And no matter how he tried to reach out to the other boys, they just saw him as too meek to be with them. This upset Marion greatly, and he started to realize how much trouble he actually had expressing his feelings to the others. Marion wanted to be braver and stronger and more honest with how he felt, but he found himself unable to do so on his own accord.

Adored by girls but not really seen as a boy because of his nature, a certain kind of sadness and melancholy started characterising young Marion’s nature.

Things changed during the summer when Marion had just turned 13. From their family’s rose garden, Marion found an unfamiliar boy. The boy, with plant scissors on his hands, claimed he was lost and had ended up in the garden by accident.

“If you’re lost, why are you in our garden while holding plant scissors?” Marion asked.

“Plant scissors?” the unknown boy asked and tossed the scissors nonchalantly away “I don’t know Marion, I sure don’t see any scissors.”

Charmed by this odd boy’s behavior, Marion invited the boy to his home and into his room. Knowing it was his duty to now entertain the guest, Marion offered to play violin to the boy - after all, he had been practicing for many years now and considered himself at least adequate. The boy was impressed by Marion’s playing, and told him he would like to hear him play even more. Marion, flattered by the nice words, told the boy he could come by any time and he would play to him.

And so they did. The boy started visiting Marion almost daily, and although Marion had originally had some doubts about whether this boy was a friend or foe, he learned to trust him over the summer they spent together. Marion would play violin to him, and in turn the boy would take Marion to places he usually didn’t visit: the secret house in the woods, the rocky lake and the large fields on the other side of the town.

In many ways, Marion experienced a lot of new things that summer, and first love was also one of them: like a warm summer breeze, what Marion felt together with the other boy was something warm and pleasant, and something he had not experienced before.

And with a shy, curious kiss exchanged during a warm July night, away from the eyes of other people, the summer vacation eventually started coming to an end.

Marion expressed his fear about how bad he was at showing his feelings to others, especially if they weren’t the boy he had learned to know during the summer.

“How about you play your violin to them, then?” the boy said with a smile and moved his finger across the smooth surface of the wooden instrument.

“My violin?” Marion asked.

“When I met you the very first time, I thought you were just another boring rich child. I was planning to come to steal your roses and then sell them away; you probably knew that right away when we met. But then…,” the boy started talking and then laughed, brushing his hand across his hair. “But then you took me in and started playing the violin. And I swear, at that moment, I knew you weren’t just a boring rich kid.”

“W-what do you mean?” the other boy asked, his cheeks starting to gain a slightly red tint.

“When I listened your playing… I don’t know how to explain it, but I felt like there was so much more about you. I was curious. And then I came here to see you again, and again, and again. And every time you played, I felt like with each movement of the string showed me a little bit more about you.”

And so Marion’s violin hobby had turned into something much more. Something that wasn’t just a hobby, but rather, a way to understand himself and his own heart. To find his own strength and to connect with people.

When the summer vacation ended, the boy disappeared. Marion was devastated and heartbroken, and only a little later learned the boy’s father’s company had gone bankrupt and they had escaped the village one night to avoid the consequences. As such, tracking them down seemed close to impossible, and Marion had to start living with the fact he would probably never meet his first love again.

Instead of letting this bring him down, however, Marion used it as a way to motivate himself even further. He started pursuing after violin harder than ever before, and slowly but surely his playing started becoming more known. And the more Marion learned about his own heart through music, the stronger he became.

As a bit older he became a well renowned violinist through his hard work, but he turned away from the fame as that was not what he wanted to pursue. Instead he started travelling across the country, thinking it was  finally time for him to mature, and Marion took it upon himself to start looking for the person who helped him in the distant past, feeling indebted to the boy.

Nowadays Marion is a travelling artist, having practically abandoned his noble rights and good clothes to those of a traveller’s. He plays violin to get by, and although many would wish him to stay, he says he is on an important mission and his heart won’t belong to one place: not until he finds that person he is looking for. Although travelling is hard for a rather weak person like him, his kind disposition usually makes people very willing to help him and cooperate with him, and Marion often ends up travelling together with herdsmen and sometimes even soldiers. He is often teased and made fun of his looks seemingly unsuitable for the life of travel, but Marion brushes these comments off and continues trying his hardest, even if he ends up often relying on others.

For a young man whose whole world once used to be his home only, his new lifestyle is challenging, but ultimately very rewarding to him.

Skills/ABILITIES

• A very skilled violinist, Marion was very known more than just locally during the peak of his popularity. However, he turned away from that type of life before he became more widely known as a way to pursue after his true goal.
  
  
• Although physically weak and prone to illnesses, Marion has a surprisingly good endurance if he just remembers to keep himself well fed and hydrated, and listens to his own limits.
  
  

Trivia

• Relative to Rosemarie, although he has lived before her
  
  
• Sometimes stutters a little when angry. However, while that sometimes makes people not take him seriously, Marion can be rather terrifying when angry: his overall appearance doesn't seem like something even capable of looking angry, so the contrast between his looks and his anger can be unsettling for many
  
  
• Design won from a writing contest held by Chippou
  
  
• I can RP as him! I prefer his setting to be similar to his canon one (something like late 1800 our time) if we're doing relationships etc but I'm sure we can figure something out o/