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Swan, idly pushing through water nearly as deep as his chest, admires the green of his preferred hangout's duckweed against the white sweep of his wing, resting on the surface, feathers partially submerged. Poised as he is, mostly below water, he looks even more startlingly like his namesake and the ghostly figure that trails behind him, mimicking his movements, and the arch of his long and elegant neck emphasis the likeness.

It is quiet, for now. Lead-along is out again, as she so often is, and in the little clearing between the mangrove roots the green-skinned water is like a cozy nest, dappled in sunlight and dotted here and there with white feathers, which can be found drifting in all nearby parts of the swamp, pulled by some esoteric force--perhaps the same that gave Swan the shape he now has--back towards this clearing, like guides or beacons.

Is it all very picturesque, very serene, very enjoyable. It is also boring as hell. Swan is restless.

Swan, motionless as he is, notices in a moment that the surface of his pond is being disturbed. Absently, almost without interest, his eyes alight on the ripples spreading towards him, tossing up bits of feather and green. Gently, so as to disturb the concentric circles as little as possible, he strides in the direction they must be coming from, threading between the roots. The border between the pond and the rest of the swamp is thick enough that it is difficult to see more than a few feet, given all the corners and crannies, but by careful ducking of his head to peer between the roots and branches, Swan lays eyes on a doe, looking quite put out and, to Swan's inherent gallantry, attractively distressed. Swan likes a damsel in distress. He perks up almost immediately, gliding through the water as smoothly as a cloud through the sky towards her, this time making just enough noise to be heard. The semi-translucent shape of the bird behind him shimmers, then vanishes like a wisp of steam as he addresses her.

"Were you looking for me?" he asks, in the sure and certain voice of someone who is frequently sought-out. Stags and mares are still a rarity in the swamp, and it is not uncommon for a persistent doe or buck looking for a blessing to track him down. This doe looks like the type who could use it.

Swan is undecided. The cocky, vain side of him (a side not inconsiderable) decides she is stunned by his good looks. The insecure, paranoid side of him is equally convinced she is repelled by his disgusting appearance. But Swan's features, as he remembers that this is the body that the Swamp gave him, that the Swamp saw fit to bless him with and for him to bless with, resolve themselves from caution to satisfaction. Ah.

His wings fan gracefully out over the water--where they encounter roots the feathers ruffle pleasingly--in a movement to practiced it is thoughtless. "I suppose not," he assesses, a guess, but given with confidence. "My name is Swan, and it appears you have stumbled onto my den. Where," he added, quick to smooth things over, "you are of course quite welcome to pause and rest a while...?" The sentence ends in a dangling question mark, the kind that needs to be replaced with a name.

Swan smiles, and for all his love of the symmetrical and neat and beautiful, it is a lopsided sort of expression. "And lovely to meet you as well, Broken-Mist, and not at all an intrusion. Don't feel in a rush to leave, unless you have things to attend to. I always welcome company. A thankful doe brought me a crop of ripe peaches from the borderlands today, in fact, and I was just mourning the fact that I would have to finish them all myself."

He tosses his head and stretches a wing towards a shady area under a particularly stilt-rooted mangrove, where a few large, hollowed turtle shells and tree trunks bob serenely, and from which various enticing smells waft: gifts of gratitude or respect from those who've come to Swan for help or merely out of faith, despite his insistence that no repayment is necessary. "I would consider it a favour if you would help me do away with them. Otherwise I'll gorge myself sick."

Swan, visibly alarmed, takes a step forward and one wing sweeps up to brush against the doe's shoulder, as if that light touch could be enough to hold her up.

Then again, it might be. Swan is never entirely sure how his own abilities work--a fleeting dream, a few whispered words from the crane before he awoke, and he was left to learn for himself. So he doesn't know what he can do, but taking her sudden quake for exhaustion--who knows how long she's wandered?--he makes an attempt to let the calm and persistence and steadfastness of the swamp wash through him. He knows it works--he feels the cicada-music pulse in his veins and hears the throb of the swamp's ancient heartbeat--but he isn't sure whether any of it travels along those feathers to soothe the poor doe, or if it is trapped useless in his own body. It feels, however, remarkably like the thick calm he feels during a blessing.

Regardless of whether the doe feels anything, there is always the practical to resort to, just in case. "Are you well?" he asks, voice heavy with concern. "There are shallows near, if you need to have a lie down for a moment, and you can rest while you try them. The peaches, I mean." Damn and double damn. Not the most eloquent he's ever been.

Swan is pleased--and, let's be honest, startled--at how effective this experimental move way. He realizes, out of instinct alone, that the effects are going to have vanished entirely within ten minutes or so, but hopes that by then the timid doe will be sufficiently buoyed along by her own confidence to not notice. Maybe.

"My pleasure," he answers, and rather awkwardly he fans a wing over the leaning doe, looking distinctly uncomfortable, not that she is in any position to notice. "Perhaps you feel well enough, now, to have a rest and a bite?"