[Fairy Tales] Swansong
Canon: The Wild Swans
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: Swans mate for life.
Notes: Written for sister_coyote as part of Yuletide 2007
Beta: Many, many thanks to puella_nerdii for a very very last-minute beta and for fixing things that happen when I write too fast.
Swans mate for life.
Strange to think, is it not, that the beasts which men so deride for lack of intelligence and lack of morality are oftentimes more devoted to their mates than those same men are.
The summer sun sinks slowly toward the horizon, and the wild swans are flying in towards the lake. Tomorrow is the Longest Day, when all the land will celebrate the birth of my sister-son, the boy who will be king one day when my sister and her husband are gone.
I have no children of my own, at least not in this form. I believe some of them are presently resting upon this lake. I wonder if the curse that our stepmother laid upon us holds true even now; I have known very few human men who have remained faithful to a single woman, with even my brothers being no exception. But they are men whole, and fully free of our curse. It is not that I blame Elise. Never could I blame her for all she suffered for our sakes.
Ah, there - I know the curve of her neck, the pattern of her wing feathers. She will not be here many more summers. I walk to the edge of the lake, my one wing extended to its fullest reach. The nearest swans startle and swim away. She cocks her head, studying me, and waits as I wade into water up to my waist. It is cold, indeed, and my teeth clench against it. She swims closer, head tilted, and nudges my wing.
The other swans move away, and I stroke her wings, gently removing the bits of leaves and twigs lodged beneath her feathers. She nudges my shoulder with her bill and begins grooming my wing.
Her feathers feel dry beneath my fingers, and despite my care, one cracks as I work a twig free. I apologize softly and smooth what remains. Down sticks to my fingers.
My teeth have begun to chatter; I am no longer a water bird, immune to such things. I wade out of the water with reluctance, and to my surprise, she follows me out of the water and settles beside me on the bank, bathed in the late-afternoon sunlight.
My brothers say they remember little of their time as swans. I remember a great deal. I wonder if they lie, if they have deliberately forgotten, or if the memories have stayed a part of me, anchored by the feathers and hollow bones that took the place of hand and arm. Our stepmother's curse held for long long years, and we were human only on the Shortest Night. The rest of the time it was hunting, flight--still I miss the wind in my face, and on stormy days I find my wing flexing without my conscious choice, longing to flee the danger of the storm--and for me, there was her. Swans do not have names, or if she has one I cannot render it in this human tongue, but always it was her. There were three clutches of young. I wonder how many of them are on the lake now.
She folds her wings and arches her neck toward me. The sun lies warm upon us as I groom her feathers. Slowly her head sinks down until it rests upon my thigh.
Darkness stretches across us with patient grace. I remember kneeling next to Elise on the Shortest Night, pulling nettle-thorns from her hands, trying to soothe and comfort her as best I could. I do likewise with the thorns and twigs lodged in my mate's feathers. As I work, I tell her of the last year. She listens in silence, as ever she has since Elise changed us back with her long work.
"Still the children stare at me. Either I am a thing of the devil, to so bear the mark of a beast as I walk the streets, or else I am some kind of magical creature, with insight. I am neither. I am only a man. My sister's husband looks for me to counsel, and betimes folk throw stones at me or approach me for blessings."
She makes some sound. It begins low and long, and rises in a gentle crescendo. I know the sound of it: swansong. Swans such as she will sing once in their lifetimes, a last song before they die. It is the most beautiful thing I think I have ever heard. I sit transfixed, staring at her as she tilts her head back and lets go a gorgeous series of notes. It is hard to mourn when the sound is so beautiful. She sings, and in it I hear her life, our mating, our children, and her mourning when I left her, though I return here each year to see her again.
She sings, and I try to sing with her. My voice cracks and breaks, but her song swells. I relive the thrill of flight, the taste of the wind, the quiet evenings floating upon a lake with her. It is mourning and it is peace; healing and joy. She sings, and then she lays her head once more upon my thigh. I stroke her feathers. It is not long before the warmth leaves her, as the moon rises higher in the sky.
I rise slowly, bearing her body in my arms. I carry her back to my rooms at the edge of the city, and retrieve the shovel that I use for gardening. I bury her and set a stone above her grave.
I sit beside her grave for the remainder of the night, watching the moonlight and shadows creep across the land. Swans mate for life, and although I had no interest in her that way after my return to human form, still she was my mate, and still I went to see her every summer when the swans returned.
I have many years myself before it is time for me to sing my last song. There is much to be done in those years.
I rise as the sun peeks over the horizon, and brush my fingers once more over the stone that rests above her.
Swans mate for life. Am I still a swan?
~*~
Brief Author's Notes/Meta: So, I saw the pinch-hit request come out for Coyote and I jumped on it. I knew every fandom in her list and got bunnied for basically all of them, so I will probably go back and write her some NYRs, too. This has always been one of my favourite faerie tales, and the story sprang into my head basically fully-formed, such that it only took an hour or two to actually write it. It owes a very great deal to Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest and subsequent books, in the way in which it handles the life-after-swanhood for the brothers. ♥ Original posting with comments is here.
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: Swans mate for life.
Notes: Written for sister_coyote as part of Yuletide 2007
Beta: Many, many thanks to puella_nerdii for a very very last-minute beta and for fixing things that happen when I write too fast.
Swans mate for life.
Strange to think, is it not, that the beasts which men so deride for lack of intelligence and lack of morality are oftentimes more devoted to their mates than those same men are.
The summer sun sinks slowly toward the horizon, and the wild swans are flying in towards the lake. Tomorrow is the Longest Day, when all the land will celebrate the birth of my sister-son, the boy who will be king one day when my sister and her husband are gone.
I have no children of my own, at least not in this form. I believe some of them are presently resting upon this lake. I wonder if the curse that our stepmother laid upon us holds true even now; I have known very few human men who have remained faithful to a single woman, with even my brothers being no exception. But they are men whole, and fully free of our curse. It is not that I blame Elise. Never could I blame her for all she suffered for our sakes.
Ah, there - I know the curve of her neck, the pattern of her wing feathers. She will not be here many more summers. I walk to the edge of the lake, my one wing extended to its fullest reach. The nearest swans startle and swim away. She cocks her head, studying me, and waits as I wade into water up to my waist. It is cold, indeed, and my teeth clench against it. She swims closer, head tilted, and nudges my wing.
The other swans move away, and I stroke her wings, gently removing the bits of leaves and twigs lodged beneath her feathers. She nudges my shoulder with her bill and begins grooming my wing.
Her feathers feel dry beneath my fingers, and despite my care, one cracks as I work a twig free. I apologize softly and smooth what remains. Down sticks to my fingers.
My teeth have begun to chatter; I am no longer a water bird, immune to such things. I wade out of the water with reluctance, and to my surprise, she follows me out of the water and settles beside me on the bank, bathed in the late-afternoon sunlight.
My brothers say they remember little of their time as swans. I remember a great deal. I wonder if they lie, if they have deliberately forgotten, or if the memories have stayed a part of me, anchored by the feathers and hollow bones that took the place of hand and arm. Our stepmother's curse held for long long years, and we were human only on the Shortest Night. The rest of the time it was hunting, flight--still I miss the wind in my face, and on stormy days I find my wing flexing without my conscious choice, longing to flee the danger of the storm--and for me, there was her. Swans do not have names, or if she has one I cannot render it in this human tongue, but always it was her. There were three clutches of young. I wonder how many of them are on the lake now.
She folds her wings and arches her neck toward me. The sun lies warm upon us as I groom her feathers. Slowly her head sinks down until it rests upon my thigh.
Darkness stretches across us with patient grace. I remember kneeling next to Elise on the Shortest Night, pulling nettle-thorns from her hands, trying to soothe and comfort her as best I could. I do likewise with the thorns and twigs lodged in my mate's feathers. As I work, I tell her of the last year. She listens in silence, as ever she has since Elise changed us back with her long work.
"Still the children stare at me. Either I am a thing of the devil, to so bear the mark of a beast as I walk the streets, or else I am some kind of magical creature, with insight. I am neither. I am only a man. My sister's husband looks for me to counsel, and betimes folk throw stones at me or approach me for blessings."
She makes some sound. It begins low and long, and rises in a gentle crescendo. I know the sound of it: swansong. Swans such as she will sing once in their lifetimes, a last song before they die. It is the most beautiful thing I think I have ever heard. I sit transfixed, staring at her as she tilts her head back and lets go a gorgeous series of notes. It is hard to mourn when the sound is so beautiful. She sings, and in it I hear her life, our mating, our children, and her mourning when I left her, though I return here each year to see her again.
She sings, and I try to sing with her. My voice cracks and breaks, but her song swells. I relive the thrill of flight, the taste of the wind, the quiet evenings floating upon a lake with her. It is mourning and it is peace; healing and joy. She sings, and then she lays her head once more upon my thigh. I stroke her feathers. It is not long before the warmth leaves her, as the moon rises higher in the sky.
I rise slowly, bearing her body in my arms. I carry her back to my rooms at the edge of the city, and retrieve the shovel that I use for gardening. I bury her and set a stone above her grave.
I sit beside her grave for the remainder of the night, watching the moonlight and shadows creep across the land. Swans mate for life, and although I had no interest in her that way after my return to human form, still she was my mate, and still I went to see her every summer when the swans returned.
I have many years myself before it is time for me to sing my last song. There is much to be done in those years.
I rise as the sun peeks over the horizon, and brush my fingers once more over the stone that rests above her.
Swans mate for life. Am I still a swan?
~*~
Brief Author's Notes/Meta: So, I saw the pinch-hit request come out for Coyote and I jumped on it. I knew every fandom in her list and got bunnied for basically all of them, so I will probably go back and write her some NYRs, too. This has always been one of my favourite faerie tales, and the story sprang into my head basically fully-formed, such that it only took an hour or two to actually write it. It owes a very great deal to Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest and subsequent books, in the way in which it handles the life-after-swanhood for the brothers. ♥ Original posting with comments is here.