Swan's OOC Page
From Changeling Venue
Please note: All of the following information is available for OOC enjoyment only. If you feel your character has some way of knowing or finding out the below information, please feel free to contact me.
Seeming: Darkling
Kith: Nightsinger
Mantle: Winter Court 2
Background
The Silver Swan, who living had no note,
When death approach'd, unlock'd her silent throat.
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore, Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more.
Farewell, all joys; O Death come close my eyes.
More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.
The Silver Swan, Orlando Gibbons
Kyle Swan was born to Harvey and Jan Swan in January of 1972. He had an older sister, Jude, who was 4 at the time. From a very young age, Kyle was bright, attentive, and expressive…except for his voice. No-one was ever really able to pinpoint the reason for Kyle’s muteness. Perhaps he was shaken by his temperamental mother as a baby, and suffered brain damage. Perhaps he witnessed some sort of psychological trauma, for his father was from an abused home and abuse begets abuse. Perhaps his sister pulled a prank, or told a story that scared him into silence.
Regardless, Kyle was able to work around his limitation, reading and writing at an early age. Early educational shows on public broadcasting also instilled a love of music and entertainment in him, and he quickly took to the piano, or as best he could with his smaller hands.
His first original piece, a quick 90-second ditty, was composed at age 9 for his sister who was trying to gain the attention of a certain boy. As he grew, Kyle’s musical, lyrical, and poetic skills continued to flourish, and often during his teenage years did he play Cyrano to others’ Roxanne and Christian. Several of his musical creations managed to grapevine themselves up the coast to nearby Los Angeles; so, when graduation came, Kyle moved up to Los Angeles and into his own place, even though his parents begged him to accept a scholarship at the much closer UC San Diego.
Over the next few years, Kyle moved from doing minor scoring work for television (especially when the Seattle grunge scene took off) to providing under-the-table songs for those performers who styled themselves as “singer-songwriters”. Kyle knew that they were oftentimes neither. He himself could not perform the creations that were the uttermost expression of his soul, and Kyle grew frustrated that others were reaping huge rewards off of the shaping of all that he was into an audio form. Until the lady came.
She had the natural beauty that hadn’t been seen in Los Angeles for over a century. And she had the carriage of one who was comfortable with their power and authority – Kyle had seen that posture on far too many elder executives. She had an offer for him, she said. That much, Kyle was used to. The rest came as something of a shock to the L.A. “veteran”, though.
She said she knew who he was, and what he did. Moreover, she could give him exactly what he wanted – the ability to perform his own works – singing in his own voice, not playing or selling or other tricks. His own voice.
“Oh, I doubt that,” said Kyle.
His eyes goggled as she laid out the remainder of the agreement; Kyle barely heard a word of it, far too lost in the sound of his own voice to pay attention. He vaguely recalled hearing something about performing with his namesake, private exclusive parties – most of the usual contract BS, it sounded to him. He said (said!) “Yes!” as soon as she had finished speaking. The two of them had vanished from the room before the echoes of his final word had.
Kyle did not recall much of his trip into Faerie – whether he was escorted, compelled, or dragged – but he did know that his patroness was true to her word. Before he was permitted anything else, he and the Silver Swan of legend were wedded. Later that first night, he stood in front of the assembled Gentry whose glowing eyes lit the night. He was unsure of what he was supposed to do, until the black flash of an obsidian blade slice the night as painlessly and soundlessly as it sliced his throat. And with that, the music poured out of him, flowing as effortlessly as his life’s blood. His heartbeat slowed with the music, and the last sound he heard as he tumbled down into darkness and death was applause.
Naturally, they demanded an encore.
Swan gasped, his hands going to his throat as he sat bolt upright. He stood slowly, confused and horrified , not only at what had happened, but at the notion – the certainty – that it would happen again. And thus, he was not entirely unprepared when the blade came again, and long shadowed hands reached out to guide him down into lyrical darkness.
That was Swan’s existence. During the day, he would write and compose, still silent. Nighttime was for performance and death. Swan knew that, before long, there would come a night when these capricious beings (he often watched them when he believed them to be unaware of his lurking presence) would not have him called back from the Dark; that one night, his Keepers’ contracts with Death would expire, or clauses not invoked, and that would be the final end.
Escape attempts soon followed, with Swan attempting to merge with the darkness that so often seemed to embrace him, but to no avail. THEY knew the dark better than he. One night, on what he felt would be his last attempt, he gave up hope and control…and thus was he saved.
Laurel paused a moment. Sneaking out of the garden had been relatively easy. Every time one of the gentry would look her way she would embrace the green and fade into the foliage. They were not expecting her to leave. Deep in the shadows of the starlit garden a shadow darker then the darkness fluttered. Laurel focused a moment, barely making out a shape in the darkness. Someone was crouched at the edge of the garden. She approached cautiously, unable to tell if it was one of the gentry seeking solitude or something else. The shadow turned to her, flashing with starlight.
It was a man, or had once been a man as she had once been a woman. It was another changeling. She crouched down next to him.
"Who are you?"
The man did not respond.
Laurel backed up a pace, wondering if this was a test by her mistress. Quick and graceful, the man's hand shot out and grasped her own. He held a finger to his lips just in time for Laurel to stifle her gasp of surprise. He gently pulled away the scarf covering his throat and placed her hand against his skin. Beneath her fingers she felt ridges of scar tissue banding the man's throat. The starlight flash had been the reflection of a swan-shaped pendant around his neck.
Laurel swallowed reflexively. "You can't speak."
The man nodded.
She thought a moment, wondering whether she could trust him or whether she should flee. There was such deep anguish in his black eyes. His body was taut with stress. He was running just like her.
"You're trying to escape."
The man nodded again.
Laurel took back her hand, brushing the swan pendant. "Well then, I'm going to call you Swan unless you have any objections."
The man thought a few moments, a faraway look coming over his face, and nodded vigorously.
"Swan we need to keep moving. The hardest part is to come. I think that we've a better chance if we try together. Do you want to try with me?" Laurel braced herself. She wasn't sure if she could make it through the Thorns by herself. The instant she had thought about the possibility of someone coming along it had become the bright spot of hope in her heart.
Swan bit his lower lip and nodded again.
Laurel flashed him a smile and twined her fingers with his. "Then away we go, away from here and back to the homes we were taken from."
The journey through the hedge was long, exhausting and painful. The Thorns tore deep into Laurel's flesh and deeper still into her soul. Swan seemed spurred on by that, a haunted look in his eyes betraying his knowledge of a pain and horror nearly as deep waiting for him if he could not escape. Sometimes it drove him to try to pass through spaces too small or make a crossing that was too dangerous. Laurel held fast to his wrist and found a better path for them. When the pain became too great and Laurel broke down weeping, Swan crawled back to her, looking into her eyes. "I can't. I just can't. I wanted to run because I was losing myself but each cut bleeds me to the soul and I've left little pieces of what precious little identity I have left in tatters for the wind. I don't have it in me Swan."
The darkling's jaw worked for a moment. He might be able to slip through on his own eventually, but the elemental had a special knack for understanding the twists and turns of the hedge. His chances were far better if she was with him. He had to go on; there was no way he could keep his sanity if he went back. He wanted his freedom so badly. He reached out and touched her cheek, noticing that even her tears were transformed and sticky like sap. He pointed his index and middle fingers at her eyes and then at himself. Watch me.
Laurel focused on his face.
Swan met her gaze, his eyes seeming to cause the words his malformed throat was unable to shape to whisper to her from the darkness. "You run because you're going to lose yourself to them. You also say that you're losing too much to continue the passage. Think. If you die here then you are lost, as lost as if you had stayed. You have to keep going. Whatever is left on the other side is what's worth keeping."
Laurel watched, her brow furrowed in concentration. She lay still for a moment, wondering if she could really keep going. She thought about her family, about the world she had left behind when she was taken. She thought about the joy of feeling the wind in her hair and the cool spring rain on her cheek and experiencing that joy just for herself. She nodded and got back to her hands and knees. She could hear birds singing somewhere ahead. She could feel phantom sunlight on her skin.
"Lets keep moving. We're almost there, I just know it!"
They did make it, somehow. It was dusk and they lay together on the ground, panting. They were exhausted and hurting, their minds reeling from what they had just done.
"This must be real," Laurel whispered. "It hurts too much to be a dream."
A soft voice rasped, "No, it feels too good to be a nightmare. We've done it."
Laurel groped gently until she found Swan's hand and gave it a light squeeze. "We've done it."
Swan and Laurel were located quickly by a Blackbird Bishop, who (in exchange for future favors) brought them up to speed on where, when, and what they were. Touched by death and darkness and loss as he was, Swan soon fell in with the Winter Court. The Thorns having, in an ironic twist of fate, ripped his silence from him as he passed through them, Swan was soon putting his smooth, sparse, quiet words to use as a diplomat and liaison with ranking members of the other Courts in Portland. (This also allowed him to keep in touch with Laurel, who eventually ended up in the Spring Court in a similar function to his.)
Swan also ended up taking an interest in the power of pledges. Having experienced first-hand what a well-worded contract could accomplish in the realm of the Gentry, he believed that, for those who maintained the struggle against their former captors, turning their own pledges against them or finding loopholes may be the key to victory. It wasn’t long before he became the go-to person for designing and overseeing the creation of custom pledges.
Swan also ended up learning what his fetch had been up to when he picked up a copy of Variety. Having finally made a “profound psychological breakthrough”, Kyle Swan was able to gain the use of his voice. Shortly thereafter, he brought suit against several recording artists for copyright infringement. (The out-of-court settlement was quickly reached, and not discussed with the public.) Kyle soon released an album of his own, with heightened popularity and tours soon following. Family and friends noted just how much success seemed to have changed Kyle. That change became evident when four counts of statutory rape were brought against Kyle Swan after a post-concert “groupie orgy” in Dallas that apparently included four high-school freshmen. After posting bail, Kyle Swan vanished.
Swan grimaced to himself, and played it safe, waiting a few years for the media frenzy to die down before re-entering human society. He took a position as a church organist, making sure to play every wedding and (especially) funeral that he was able to. He avoided the temptation to avoid composing anything new for these services, or for anyone else, fearing that such creativity would draw either the Gentry or the mortal authorities to him. Laurel and Swan formed a small motley soon after their escape from Faerie, and added a third, Astraeus, not long thereafter. They have pledged themselves to the defense of the defenseless, and to continued goodwill among the Courts. A time of testing has come for them, though, with the recent deaths and corruptions of the long-time leaders of the local courts.
