Maren Kai (born Alison Medo Talarin Kaivar—Talarin meaning “story” in Old Gelish) was raised on Marieux’s Iron Row, in the shadow of The City’s most toxic factories. Marinite by both blood and spirit, she grew up breathing the fumes that had sickened generations, her own family included. By adolescence, she had already buried two brothers: the youngest claimed by factory-borne illness, the eldest taken by the Shadow Realm Allegiance. Her mother died giving birth to her fifth child, leaving Maren to be raised by her father in a home marked by grief, grit, and survival.

​

As a young woman, she lived through the Blessed Battle and the Ascendant Wars, witnessing the rise and fall of the United Citizens Liberation Coalition from the very building where her neighbor, the now infamous, Francine (Franny) Ahlwin once lived. Though rumors persist that Maren herself fought with the UCLC, she neither confirms nor denies it. What she has admitted openly is that she fought during the Ascendant Wars—striking blows, carrying losses, and watching friends disappear into history before the world was ready to remember them.

​

Growing up, Maren loved to sing, but music was dangerous back then—anything that drew attention risked being silenced or taken by the SRA, whether to the Facilities or recruited to Sisters of the Allegiance (SOTA). So she sang in secret: in stairwells, behind rusted factory pipes, into the hollow of her palms. After the war, silence lingered. Even with peace, people were afraid to speak of what they’d survived. Stories were hoarded, hidden, whispered only to the dead. But Maren believed silence itself was another kind of war—one she refused to lose.

​

Over a decade after the Ascendant Wars, she felt an urgent call to preserve the truth. She became the first to brave telling these stories publicly—collecting memories, recording songs, and honoring the rebels who gave everything. Though she never met the Goldenborn, she often recounts the one brief moment she stood in her presence—a memory she holds like a blessing.​​

​

Her music is not entertainment; it’s testimony. Each track is a living archive, carved from the marrow of survival, courage, and the divine sparks left behind by those who refused to die unheard.