SWAN, Autumn Cassia Elle

[autumn cassia elle swan]

AUTUMN CASSIA ELLE SWAN

FULL NAME: Autumn Cassia Elle Swan.
NICKNAMES: AC, Aces, Swan
AGE: 26
GENDER: Female
SEXUALITY: Straight.
STATUS: Single.
GROUP: Citizen.
GRADE: N/A.
MAJOR: N/A.
JOB OCCUPATION: Naval Flight Officer with the Marine Corps.

HAIR: Brown, shoulder length, but given a chance it’s hidden under a hat of some kind, or pulled back into a bun.
EYES: Green
SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: She has a few, but none that stand out. She can tell a few stories if she’s drunk enough though.
TATTOOS: None.
PIERCINGS: Just her ears once, though remembering to put something in them is a chore in itself.
PLAY-BY: Alejandra Alonso!

LIKES: Beanies, working out, Korean food, cooking, seeing her brother, talking with her grandmother, New York bars, nicknames, being on a ship, coming first in anything, baseball, card games, Doritos, being in the air, winter, hot chocolate, science-fiction, vanilla scent, caramel popcorn, serving, sports drinks, training, the colour burgundy.
DISLIKES: her mother, leaving people behind, when people don’t understand her work is classified, losing, goodbyes, sour candy, lemons in her drinks, fussy eaters, men who take longer getting ready than she does, the stiffness of her formal dress, cats, reprimanding a friend, turkey, trying to keep up with pop culture, clowns.
FEARS: Clowns, something happening to Copper while she’s away, going blind
SECRETS: Aces is full of secrets, due to the classified nature of some of the missions she’s worked on as a Marine NFO. Ignoring those, her biggest secret to date is probably that her ex really did break her heart when he ditched her over her choice to become a Marine. She plays it off like it was some meaningless sacrifice, but it was the first real one she made, and it hurt. The things he said, and how he made her feel. It’s contributed to her never having a real relationship since then. And it’s been a long ass time.
PERSONALITY: Autumn – the name she never, ever uses – is competitive, and people definitely call her stubborn. She earned one of her nicknames because she always has to be on top, the highest and the best. In her head, second place is first loser. Aces is ambitious, very determined, but it’s her loyalty that has paid off in all the right ways for her. It was that which led to her very recent promotion, and which has earned her the trust of the people she serves with. She’s always been something of a tomboy, and very feisty. She’s not the type to roll over when something happens, but she’ll stand up instead for what she believes in and what she thinks is right. Athletic long before she enlisted, keeping fit is something AC does for pleasure, not because it’s a requirement. She’s good, and honest, and though there is a lot she can’t talk about when she comes home, she’s very much close to her brother and grandmother about everything else. There might not be a lot of stability in her life away from service, but she has them, and they are her world. She does keep a lot bottled up away from the military, but that’s her own thing, and she tries to not let it show when she’s on leave back in New York, or just talking with people away from that life. She doesn’t have too much of a temper; her training means she knows how to restrain herself. When she is pissed off she deals with it in private, or with exercise, typically running or combat training. Love is not something that comes her way too often. On leave and liberty because she tends to avoid flings because she’s always leaving again soon and complications tend to lead to trouble in the experiences she’s seen. She’s in no rush to settle down – the marines are her first love – but AC knows that it’d be nice to have someone other than her brother or her gran happy to see her when she earns some leave. It’s just…complicated, and given how she’s been hurt in her past, she’s not willing to go there again for the same scars.

MOTHER: Claudia Ingrid Swan, 50.
FATHER: Nathan Paul Swan, deceased.
SIBLINGS: Copper Nathan Earnest Swan, 26.
OTHERS: Violet Hope Swan, 88, paternal grandmother.
PETS: None!
HOMETOWN: Hoboken, New Jersey .
HISTORY: Claudia was five years younger than Nathan when they met, and the pregnancy two years into their relationship was entirely unplanned. Twins were even more of a surprise. She married Nathan because it seemed right, and because he could support her, the children, and anything that came their way. He was a biochemist and had a damn decent job in the city. She was a hair stylist, but did little when the twins were babies until Violet stepped in and offered to play nanny so Claudia could work. Copper was the first born, and then came Autumn a little while after. They were close from the moment they were born, but like all siblings they could fight something fierce when they wanted to. Violet had a unique way of bringing them back together; singing around the piano until all was forgotten. Violet had been a singer in her youth in jazz clubs and later in some small movies and shows. Her name was never big, and she only sang because she enjoyed it, but after the death of her husband when Nathan was just seventeen, she kept it to herself, as something to bring the family together at parties or at times when they needed to be happy again.

Autumn never really bonded with Claudia. She was always rough and tumble and Claudia couldn’t deal with that. In truth, Claudia couldn’t deal with her children very well. Nathan was a natural, but maybe Claudia was too young, maybe twins were too much. She struggled when they were hyper or fighting, and if they didn’t want what she wanted she just gave up on them. She would walk off and leave them, which was why it was good she was rarely ever out alone with them.
Nathan, when the twins were five, was diagnosed with cancer. It was in his liver, but became aggressive. By the time they were turning six he only had weeks left to live. Autumn clung to those final weeks with memories of stories, piano songs, and sad days. When Nathan did pass, Claudia vanished. It was two days later and she was just gone. Her drawers emptied, no note, no goodbye, just out of their lives. Violet didn’t hesitate to take in the children and raise them, but Autumn was angry. Copper was confused, but his sister was angry. Violet told her to find a way to move beyond her grief and Claudia and that was how Autumn found sports. It was also how she dropped her name and became AC. Nicknames became a part of her life then, and people stopped using her first name. Even Violet had called her ‘peanut’ since she was a baby.

Her sports became her life, but it was in high school that Autumn made the choice to enlist in the military. Sports made her competitive, and Autumn would only be the best of the best, so the marines were where she wanted to be. She took the route that allowed her to earn an engineering diploma through college before becoming an officer of the marine corps. Telling her family was a little tough. Her grandmother worried, and Copper asked if she couldn’t just go and be an engineer somewhere else. Autumn explained though that she wanted to serve. She wanted to serve, and she wanted to fly. It was more than that, but if she tried to explain her true course to them then it would result in flying mash potatoes and a session round the piano. She told them it was okay to worry, but she was a tough girl, and she wanted to go and take on something challenging and show that she was the best out there. She was nineteen when her then boyfriend dumped her. He thought it would be a phase, something she’d walk away from, but he told her that strong women were not what men wanted to settle down with, and that he wasn’t going to wait for a letter or a man to come to Hoboken to tell her she was dead. He didn’t want a life of waiting for that. Autumn had been with him since she was sixteen, he was her first love, and she thought he understood, but he apparently didn’t. His words really cut her deep, and to hide the pain she pushed herself harder through basic. It stuck with her though, even though she tried to act like it didn’t. Instead, the marines became her life.

So, she went and at twenty-two found herself a Naval Flight Officer with the marine corps. It had been a gruelling training programme, at times pushing her to limits she didn’t know existed, but it was worth it. Her job put her with the highest security clearance, and saw her able to work classified ops that no one else could know about. Two years, and her first tour saw her climb a rank to first lieutenant. It was incredible, both when she was on a ship and working from one of the marine bases. It was in the marines that she became Aces. It was a joke about her initials from her CO on some paperwork, and when she replied about Aces trumping the other cards in the deck, he tried to say they could also be the lowest card in the deck. Before she could stop herself she had replied that he hadn’t ever played a hand against her. It earned her cleaning duties and extra PT for a week, but it also had respect from her peers and a nickname that stuck.

At twenty-six, and coming up to leave, she found herself on her final mission. There was mechanical failure in the cockpit, something the pilot couldn’t fix, and she couldn’t counter either – not that she expected to. She was working weaponry, not at all experienced with flying the crafts she wound up in. The plane was going down, and they had to eject. Radioing in when she hit the water, Autumn noticed her pilot, and friend, was not faring too good. He was a way out from her in the ocean, unresponsive and hadn’t done any of the steps they ought to have done on landing. Autumn ignored her own wellbeing to make sure he was in the emergency raft with her, and alive as she waited for their rescue party. He had simply passed out on the ejection, but the end result could have been far worse had she not gone to him before taking care of herself. What she considered basic decency was enough to earn the promotion to Captain, due to take ‘official’ effect once she returned from her enforced two week annual leave. She’s thrilled. Captaincy means more responsibility of the NFOs and she gets to go ‘back to school’ to learn more for command. Before that though, there’s Copper’s New York couch, and some definite celebrating to do.

YOUR ALIAS: Kim.
RULE WORDS: kidnappedbykim.
WHERE YOU FOUND US: IN MY IMAGINATION FOREST WHERE EVERYTHING ISN’T REAL.
SAMPLE:

Be real.

[kim]