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SWAN-MAIDEN

...

CONCEPT—

Character based in part on the wife of Völundr, of the Völundarkviða.

An immortal sky-maiden who began existence unaffiliated with any particular pantheon, but would go on to number herself among valkyries, chyerti and other creatures of Eurasian folklore. She's played every side of the motif, captured bride and death-guide, weaver of betrayals, victories, abandonings. Her powers of flight and shapeshifting are contingent on her cloak of feathers, which, if seized while she's removed it, binds her to the keeper. Capable of other magics, with or without the cloak.

Has known many names, chosen and bestowed. For this tale she'll call herself Delta.

APPEARANCE—

In human guise, a woman of apparent youth, though well beyond adolescent years. Doesn't strike one as either short or tall, but evidently gracile and long-limbed. Nothing particularly remarkable in the shade of her hair or the color of her eyes; yet there is an almost disturbing allure about her, much as you'd expect from a creature who held the interest of a smith-god, who attended warriors' corpses and alighted in her own power with merciless avian pride.

Likes to sport shiny objects, not in the way of the proverbial magpie thieving sparkles for its nest, but as any cygnus who knows the sheen of a well-preened feather to be most worthy ornamentation.

DEMEANOR—

By turns impersonally aloof and engagingly playful. Harbors a ferocious loyalty to her sisters—whatever far-flung flocks they may join—but bestows such loyalty elsewhere only pragmatically, and rarely at that. Tends not to be casually or encompassingly tactile with others; if she'd brush a strand of your hair back into place she likes you well enough for bear hugs, though she'd never offer such.

May serve the hand who captures her swan-skin with evident zeal, her skills both magical and fleshly, while every moment ceaselessly contemplating the means to a riotous escape.