There's a saying among the Savoy's. Family first. Family always. A motto that has seen them rise from a pair of brothers who settled in Baton Rouge after the Acadians were forced into exile from Canada in 1755 to the modern day. The pair, one a barrister, the other a solicitor established their first office to assist their fellow Acadians in resettling into Louisiana. And the business has flourished every since, mainly by keeping good records, choosing the right clients, training their children to carry on the business and instilling the importance of family into each generation. The careful selection of suitable mates for the family, either selected to bolster political connections or the enhance the bloodline didn't hurt either.
Good business sense and a deep knowledge of the law on the one hand, was balanced by a deep-rooted well of psychic ability on the other, and while most of the men, usually lacking such abilities went into law alone, the female bloodline of the Savoys was a continuing wellspring of such energy, one that was cultivated and directed as scrupulously as the business element of the Savoys. Most of the women seemed to have the most skill in one of two lines, clairvoyance and telekinesis. The skills of the women were often used to supplement the practice of the law, though that was carefully done, though it has certainly been a large part of the success of the family. Very rarely was a girl born who had the acumen or the desire to try to bridge the gap between one half of the Savoys and the other, and those who did were both prized and protected.
Such a one is Mignonette Jolie Savoy, born the 5th of May, 1978. Her father is Paul Alexander Savoy, her mother Meredith Ilsa Savoy, nee Benoit. Carefully chosen, the marriage arranged to blend the power of the Benoits to the Savoy line, there was never any illusion that mother and father felt more than a businesslike affection for each other. Their daughter, however, was the apple of their eye, and as befitted the dynasty of the Savoys, she received the best of education, from private tutors in her childhood, to boarding school in her middling years, to finishing school at La Maisson School for Young Ladies, just before college at Columbia. But no gift from the family came without a price, and her schooling was thorough, rigorous, and in many ways, unscrupulous. No spoiled child of excess was Coco, as her mother liked to call her. Her teachers were hard. Her family was harder. There is no failure among the Savoys.
And if her scholastic education was rigorous, so too, her psychic one, which she came into just as she entered puberty at twelve. Her blood, half and half Savoy and Benoit gave the girl a particularly strong touch when it came to clairvoyance, though the artistry of the Benoits gave her access to an unusual medium. Painting. Her visions often come as flashes of colour, emotion, light, shadow, and they rarely, if ever, take full form unless she can translate them through the medium of her hand. Just as often, they come in the night, as she sleeps, and on waking, the young woman would go immediately to her studio, to a blank canvas, or lacking that, paint over an old canvas with a new vision. And sometimes…the colours, shapes, and feelings resolve themselves into people, places and things. And at others, they remain just as formless, just as abstract as what comes into her head. But once she begins to draw, it's nearly impossible for her to stop, as though the floodgate, once opened, cannot be closed again until all of its water has spilled out. Waking visions are no less potent, and the woman always carries a pad of paper and a set of drawing tools with her, no matter where she goes.
And so, this has been her life. From her first toddling steps, to the end of the day, as the doors of the office close behind her. The family. The business. The duty. Childhood a pleasant cultured thing. Friends and friends of friends, but nothing close, never more than superficial, as is the way with high society. And yet, she feels no lack, having received more than enough love, support and instruction from within the walls of her family's estate. But more than that, she received a purpose. A vision. And, as she returned from law school, a goal. The Savoys are a family, true. But a family built not only on power, but on secrets. And some secrets are only revealed when the time is right. And as the door of her childhood ended, the door to her adult life was opened, as Mignonette discovered some of the reason behind the power of her family. Their clients, carefully selected, she discovered, were not chosen for altruistic reasons. But for reasons of power and influence. Some, upstanding pillars of the community. But beneath that, in the underbelly of the family legacy, a decades, perhaps centuries long involvement with the organized crime that ran like a spiderweb through Louisiana, from New Orleans, to Baton Rouge, and upward, like an ever-expanding network throughout the united states. A network built on dynasties, a network built on ruthlessness, a dynasty built on secrets. Secrets which her family helped to both protect and propagate.
And so, her life. From her first day at the branch office in Baton Rouge, where she began to work as a practicing defense attorney, to the first night, going with her father to 'finish' business at a local warehouse. The Savoy's, after all, had not gotten to where they were by being unafraid to get their hands dirty. The trick, was in making sure that some hands remained, at least on paper, immaculately clean. And so she's remained. The brilliant, perfect scion of a dynasty kept clean of the blood and dirt of generations of less than savoury business dealings. But a Savoy she was born, and one she remains. And the family's business in her business. A skilled litigator, a woman schooled in etiquette, the epitome of southern Cajun charm. And a ruthless wielder of the family's power. In Baton Rouge, and now, in Dallas, as she's arrived to open the family's newest branch, deep in the heartland of Texas power and politics.
