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The Press-Kiski Family
Hawk
Hawk Press is the middle of the three siblings, and the only non-human.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Hawk is a perfectly pleasant and kind person, but he will do whatever he needs to to protect others. Kei finds out the hard way.
- Determinator: He will not be stopped in his quest to find his sister. Not by the border guard, not by slavers, nothing.Hawk: No, we'll get there. If a boat won't take us, we'll fly. They'd have to shoot me outta the sky.
- Eldritch Abomination: He appears as one to ghosts; Vivian thinks he's a monster, and Emry describes him as having too many arms, too many heads, and too many wings.
- Entertainingly Wrong: He believes Liya to have been taken to Enodia by the Royal Order. She never went to Enodia at all, though, and at the time of the comic is living in Aetheri. Because she was never in Enodia, the Enodian registry has no information on her to give to Hawk when he asks there, seeming to confirm Hawk's long-brewing doubts that he imagined Liya's abduction through the trauma he received and leading him to conclude that she died in the same attack.
- Half-Human Hybrid: He's presumed to have some kind of bird spirit for a parent. He's actually part Reifa.
- Healing Hands: He's able to bring people back from the brink of death—or from death proper.
- I See Dead People: He can see ghosts, but he can also see death itself in the form of a barn owl.
- Involuntary Shapeshifter: When he uses his powers, he grows feathers across his body and his arms turn into claws. The first time he discovers this is after he accidentally lays a ghost to rest, and it freaks him out.
- Middle Name Basis: His first name is actually Alexei.
- Mystical White Hair: His white hair is all natural. Well, probably supernatural. Look, it isn't dyed.
- Psychopomp: By giving a feather to the ghost of a little girl, he makes her disappear into light, and he's able to bring the recently-deceased back from the dead.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: On two counts! Liya believed him killed in the bombing that also killed Emry, and after being captured by slavers at the end of Chapter Five, Hawk's friends are well aware that plenty of people taken by slavers wind up dead, and mourn him as if he were.
- Security Blanket: His radio. It provides the titular White Noise that calms him down.
- Talking with Signs: He knows a fair bit of sign language—not enough to be fluent, but enough to get by in conversation.
- Trauma Conga Line: First there's all the bigotry Hawk has experienced before the events of the comic as he grew up. The plot starts with someone bombing him and his siblings, resulting in his near-death, his brother's death, and his sister's abduction. On his way to find his sister he's profiled and harassed by the police, flies himself nearly to death, gets caught in a riot, gets beat up in a bar brawl, and is captured and tortured by slavers before he's rescued and rehabilitated in Enodia...only for him to discover that the sister he's been trying to find all this time isn't there, and concludes (erroneously) that she actually died in that bombing and he imagined her survival.
- When He Smiles: Hawk doesn't smile very often. While Kim and Aram teach him sign language on the ferry, Parker notes that it's the first time she's ever seen him smile when she stops Teige mid-taunt.Parker: Teige Carroll. I ain't never seen that kid smile before. Now you lay off makin' fun of him. I'm sure whatever's been eating at his heart will be back again without your help.
- Wing Shield: When he's out in the rain, Hawk will use his wings as an umbrella for anyone out with him.
- Winged Humanoid: He's got a big ol' pair of wings on his back—likely the reason for the name Hawk.
Liliya
Liliya "Liya" Kiski is the youngest of the three siblings, and is the most grounded and sensible.
- Ambiguously Gay: She gets rather red-faced when she spots a female blacksmith at work while wandering around Aetheri.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Liya believes the Royal Order is responsible for the killing of her brothers, since they were the first on the scene in the aftermath and they were the ones who took her away. The truth is that the Royal Order were in the area when the attack happened, and they took Liya away because they didn't want to leave her with the corpses of her family. Also, Hawk survived the explosion—likely thanks to Liya's desperate healing.
- Fish out of Water: There's a lot she has to learn about Aetheri and its inhabitants while she lives there. The Archipelago wasn't concerned so much with educating about them as they were demonizing them.
- Healing Hands: Liya has the innate ability to heal herself and others. She also knows how to use her powers in reverse to devastating effect.
- Improvised Weapon: She uses a shovel to dislocate the jaw of one of Yoshi's harassers, and even uses her own healing power to shatter a slaver's bones.
- Martial Medic: She may be a healer, but she'll pound you into the ground if you endanger her or the people she cares about, and she will use her healing knowledge to help her.
- Strong Family Resemblance: She and Hawk have the same nose, but actually not much else. Having heard this from Hawk, it's what allows Teige to identify her.
- Taught by Experience: Helly is surprised to learn that Liya's had no formal training in healing. Growing up with two brothers who were always getting into trouble taught her a lot.
Emry
Emry Press is the eldest of the three siblings, and raised the younger two on his own.
- Posthumous Character: He died before the start of the comic, in the same hate crime that separated Hawk and Liliya and caused the plot to begin.
- Practically Different Generations: He's a full thirteen years older than Hawk.
- Promotion to Parent: He was barely a teenager when he became the primary caretaker for his younger siblings.
Symphony Archipelago
Teige
Teige Carroll is a shapeshifter who accompanies Hawk on his way to Enodia.
- Disappeared Dad: His stepfather was taken away from his family.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Minnie mistakes him for a woman when she sees him transformed and topless as Hawk tries to heal his bullet wound.
- Emerald Power: His transformations are accompanied by a green fiery glow.
- The Gadfly: He gets a kick out of teasing Hawk, but it's all done out of love.
- Heel Realization: It takes Parker's interference for Teige to realize how relentless he's been in teasing Hawk, no matter if he didn't mean any harm by it.Teige: Something Parker said reminded me, I ent never known you when you weren't grieving. It took me months to laugh at ennything after my stepda was taken. So I reckon it ent fair of me to be teasing you now. ...Even if it's really hard not to make fun of you.
- Morphic Resonance: All his animal forms have black fur.
- Shapeshifter Mode Lock: After getting shot, Teige can't shift out of his goat-like form without exacerbating his bullet wound for a while.
- Tragic Keepsake: After Hawk's abduction, Teige kept his radio.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: He can transform into a variety of animal shapes.
Parker
Winifred Parker is a shapeshifter woman heading to Enodia in a caravan.
- Amicable Exes: For the most part, anyway, with Minnie.
- Heinous Hyena: Averted. She takes a hyena-like form when she shifts, but she's a very kind-hearted woman. She recommends a radio station for Hawk to listen, and tells Teige to lay off on teasing him.
- Last-Name Basis: She goes by Parker. Her first name of Winifred isn't even revealed until Hawk enquires after her in Enodia.
Abi
Hanabi "Abi" Shibata is a shapeshifter woman heading to Enodia in a caravan.
- Tanuki: Abi takes the form of a tanuki when shifted.
Minnie
Minnie MacDonald is a human, smuggling her non-human friends to Enodia.
- Amicable Exes: For the most part, with Parker.
- The Driver: The RV the caravan is traveling in belongs to her, and she does most of the driving.
- Innocently Insensitive: She refers to Teige as "she" when she first sees him, as he was shapeshifted and shirtless with his breasts exposed at the time. Hawk immediately corrects her, and she uses Teige's proper pronouns afterwards. Later, she instructs Hawk and a shifted Teige to avoid being seen while they take a rest stop, as if the two visibly non-human individuals don't know that.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's very brusque and occasionally makes thoughtless or insensitive comments, but is genuinely invested in the plight of non-humans and is dedicated to getting her caravan across the border safely—even the members she didn't want to bring along in the first place.
- The Medic: After Hawk passes out from bringing Teige back from the dead, she does the work to stabilize him. She continues to monitor his wound and ultimately is able to give him the okay to start shapeshifting again.
- Token Human: She's the only human member of the caravan heading for Enodia.
- Token Wizard: She's also the only spellcaster of the caravan.
Aram and Kim
Aram and Kim are a shapeshifter couple the caravan meets heading to Enodia.
- Bilingual Backfire: After their first meeting, Aram signs something to Kim about "the boy" (Hawk), and then is mortified when Kim smugly signs back that he can understand them.
- Bilingual Bonus: In the above conversation, eagle-eyed readers can see that Aram is signing the word "cute" in reference to Hawk.
- Happily Married: Their trip to Enodia is apparently their honeymoon.
- Talking with Signs: Kim is deaf, and she and Aram are fluent in sign language.
Felix
Felix Kildeer is a shapeshifter heading to Enodia.
- Dressed to Heal: Hawk finally makes the connection that Felix is a doctor when he sees him exiting the clinic in Enodia in a white coat.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Between the raid on the tavern and Hawk's arrival in Enodia, he's lost his antlers.
- Introduction by Hookup: He and Hawk meet only briefly when they hook up at the tavern on the way to Enodia, and reunite months later in Enodia with some awkwardness from the time passed and the fact that Hawk was presumed dead or worse.
- The Medic: It turns out that he's a doctor. He helps Yoshi in her quest to medically transition.
- Our Perytons Are Different: His shifted form is a peryton!
- Working with the Ex: In a sense. After he broke up with Dimitri, they still had to share a room together when they got to the bar because of the lack of space.
Dimitri
Dimitri is Felix's ex-boyfriend, a shapeshifter heading to Enodia.
- Asshole Victim: Sure, he was not a nice person, dragging Felix around by the antlers, throwing slurs at Hawk, and beating up on the younger and smaller man, but he certainly didn't deserve to be attacked in the raid.
- Brutish Bulls: His shifted form is an anthropomorphic buffalo.
- Not Good with Rejection: He claims not to care that Felix dumped him, but he gets violent when Felix "replaces him" with a "half-breed."
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: If he hadn't been a bigot and gotten violent when he found out Felix had had sex with Hawk—a "half-breed"—there's a good chance there wouldn't have been so many people outside when the raid struck, and there wouldn't have been as many victims.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: His fate after being caught in the raid isn't known so far.
- Working with the Ex: In a sense. After Felix broke up with him, they still had to share a room together when they got to the bar because of the lack of space.
Vivian
Vivian is a little girl who was killed in a car accident.
- Small Role, Big Impact: She only appears for a few pages in Chapter Three, but her appearance is crucial to showing that Hawk isn't an ordinary half-human.
Aetheri
Cynn Numair
Cynn Numair d'Escala is the ruler of Aetheri.
- Deadpan Snarker: He doesn't have much patience for the prejudiced and doesn't particularly bother to hide it, either.Numair: In their rush to deport you for the simple crime of self-defence, the Escalan police seem to have forgotten that they have no authority on palace grounds. I do.
- Definitely Just a Cold: He has a consistent cough, often resulting in Blood from the Mouth, which he takes medication for. When asked about it, he'll claim to just be under the weather. His driver notes that he's "under the weather" quite often.
- The Empath: He can sense other people's thoughts, intents, and feelings, manifesting as sights or sensations or sounds. For some peoplehe can see entire landscapes—like a vast wheat field with a storm roiling overhead for Hawk.
- The Engineer: He has a degree in Construct Engineering and hopes to bring mass communication to Aetheri.
- King Incognito: He often sneaks out of the palace to go visit Enodia.
- Living Lie Detector: He's a truth seer, which means he can see when people are lying.
- Master of Illusion: His first appearance in the comic has him taking a spear to the chest while he watches an audition for slaver-catchers...only for the spear to go through his image. When he absconds to Enodia, he leaves an illusion of himself at his desk doing paperwork.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Numair isn't afraid of throwing his weight as Cynn around. Whether it's finding a loophole to grant Liliya Aetherian citizenship or ending Yoshi's harassment, he'll do what he can to help out of genuine care. The only reason Aetheri isn't doing more to help refugees or stop the slave trade is that he has to deal with a complacent and xenophobic council who routinely blocks his proposals.
Helygen
Helygen is a healer who looks after Liliya.
- Healing Hands: Helly was a royal healer. As ne explains to Liya, bone is analogous enough to wood for nem to heal, but soft tissue is a bit beyond nem, given the difference between plant and animal cells.
- Parental Substitute: Helly is Liya's sponsor in Aetheri, allowing her citizenship. Ne also used to be Cynn Numair's seradh.
- Plant People: Ne used to be a tree; one day ne decided ne'd like to take a walk, and hasn't stopped since.
Yoshi
Yoshi is a stablehand at the palace.
- Living Shadow: Yoshi can transform into a shadowy canine creature that extends into shadow
. - Playing with Fire: Yoshi can breathe fire, but doesn't like to very much. She can also heat up her body to warm others.
- Power Incontinence: When sleeping, Yoshi can't control her transformations. This proves problematic when she seeks sex affirmation surgery, as transforming while unconscious could prove life-threatening for her.
Shinobu
Shinobu is a professor at Ubis University and Yoshi's seradh.
- Asian Fox Spirit: She's a bipedal fox spirit with several tails.
- Innocently Insensitive: She always speaks her mind, even if her mind is what others would consider less than polite.Vlad: [to Liya] Nice to meet you. Has Shinobu insulted your family yet?
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: For how crass she can be, she's not completely oblivious, and certainly not cruel. She genuinely cares for others—she wants what's best for Yoshi, she's openly worried for a tavern keeper's family when she thinks she might have been taken by slavers, and when Vlad starts speculating about impending war, she pointedly reminds him that Liya, who's right in front of him, is from the Archipelago.
- Not So Above It All: She loves the "#1 Boss" mug Vlad got her for her 65th anniversary as a professor—not just for how kitschy it is, but also for how the factory-produced item upsets her Aetherian colleagues.
Vlad
Vlad du Russi is Shinobu's assistant.
- Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Besides his expected duties as her assistant, Vlad often reminds Shinobu to be polite and apologizes to others for her missteps.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: He didn't have to do much to hide his nature as a spirit while on Earth, already looking mostly human, and spent a lot of time in gay bars and with drug addicts besides.Vlad: Most just thought I was some foreign transvestite, and that was that.
- It's Personal: Vlad was once captured by slavers. His involvement in the Du Cuppra and his taking Hawk in are both directly motivated by his desire to prevent his tragedies from happening to others, and to help those who suffered like he did.
- Vigilante Man: He's one of the Du Cuppra, an organization that protects people from slavers that the police don't particularly care to look out for.
