While swapping a child for a changeling does happen, it’s not a very common occurrence. The more powerful Fey of the Code Name: Hunter / A Year and a Day world tend to just snatch and run, figuring they can easily fend off any mortal pursuit. The less powerful occasionally use changelings. The hope is that the changeling will hide the fact that the child has gone missing, giving the kidnapping Fey more time to get safely away as well as decrease the chances of the child being recovered. Remember, if they keep the child in Fey for twenty-four hours the child can’t return home.
The changelings themselves are supposed to mimic the missing child’s appearance and behavior. Trouble is changelings, as a general rule, are flighty creatures and quickly become bored. It’s not unusual for a changeling to decide to randomly alter their disguise in an attempt to play with the missing child’s parents. Some like to make things appear out of nowhere or items fly across the room to scare the mortal family. The more benevolent ones use their magic to do helpful little tasks for the family, believing they are giving a valuable gift in exchange for the child. Eventually the changeling runs out of the house and returns to Fey. This can take anywhere from a few hours for the more mischievous ones to a couple of days.
The longest record RCSI has of a changeling standing in for a child happened in the sixties when a changeling remained in disguise for over five years, acting the part of the missing child the whole time. Eventually friends and neighbors convinced the distraught parents that the child’s lack of normal growth and development was not due to the child being a “late bloomer” and the changeling made an escape. As to why it carried out the deception for so long… no one really knows.
While a changeling is a type of Fey, it can also refer to the act of glamouring an inanimate object to look and act like a living being. Such as Greer did at the start of Code Name: Hunter Issue 19.
The trouble with this method is that the glamour only lasts for a short amount of time. Still, for a Fey who desires a bit of a head start yet doesn’t want to deal with hiring an actual living changeling… it’s an option.
