12 – Morag MacLaverty
Morag MacLaverty is a social worker of sorts, albeit not exactly your typical one, and this has to do with the fact she is an elf.   Real elves are not the kinds that tend to be featured in books or stories, but something much more dangerous. Elves are almost always faster, stronger and more intelligent than humans, and a “wild” elf is neither noble nor friendly, and at best will torment humans, and in some cases hunt them for sport, and there are still a fair number of their Faerie mound homes in remote parts of Northern Europe. They have a rather strange social structure – they are lead by a Queen who speaks directly into the minds of all Elves at all times, and is their ultimate indefiable ruler, her thoughts influencing their every action. They are also like cuckoos however – they are brood parasites, they do not raise their own young, but replace human children with “changelings”, an elf baby whose magical “glamour” is enough to cause onlookers to accept them as their own, and to grow up until they are old enough to hear the call of the Queen, and begin to slowly think more and more like her… Several incidents of killing sprees have been connected in retrospect to undetected Elves being influenced by a Queen.
Morag however, is not a typical elf, she was identified at a young age and given the iron choker and bands to wear – for iron blocks that communication, making a wearer safe from the Queen’s influence. It also turns off her glamour and enables people to see her as an Elf.  Discovering that you or your child is an elf is a traumatic experience for any family. Fortunatly Morag’s parents were unusually understanding – their real daughter was recovered after a raid on an Elf mound, and understanding that this was none of the infant Morag’s fault they raised her as their own. Morag now is employed to help with other cases similar to her own – to track down other Changelings and give them the iron necessary to protect them from the Queen. A big part of her job is also to counsel families who this has happened to and monitor for signs of abuse - it is not uncommon for the parents to be violent towards a child when they discover they are a fake, and Morag is responsible for taking them into care should there be any signs of this.  She is also highly regarded as her own background lets children coming to terms with the revelation of that identity have someone to talk to who has experience the same thing.  She packs her blessed iron knuckle dusters as on occassion she may have to fight “wild” elves.  Unfortunatly, her department is small, and there always one or two who slip through the net.  Â
Concept Background: As there are a ton of Elves being entered into this competition, I wanted to have my own attempt at doing one to see if I could put a different twist on it. The main thing I wanted was to take it back to the original folkloric elves, the nasty ones who stole children and feared iron rather than the ones who sprang from Tolkien. Puttign these into a modern setting, I came to the idea of a social worker who worked with families who discovered changelings within them and it went from there – it seemed like a logical end result of this in a modern setting.
Great take on Elven mythology and great picture!