Ewan was born into a very small family, consisting of himself and his mother, Irene Archer. Whomever his father was, his mother never said, and the massive amount of cousins, aunts, uncles and other relatives that other children seemed to have popping out of the woodwork at every holiday just didn't seem to exist for him. It was just him and his mother, and they made do, together.
He couldn't really tell where he was born, but he grew up in and about various capitals of Europe; cities like London, Paris, Rome, Moscow, Athens, and Madrid, moving back and forth with his mother as she changed jobs, traveled for the sake of one or simply got tired of seeing the same old street outside the window. As he got older, she did tell him stories sometimes, about her own parents. They were Rom, more commonly known as gypsies, the traveling people. But when he asked where they were now, where the rest of their family was, she couldn't give him any satisfactory answer. 'On their route, probably' was the closest to a straight answer he could get. She had cut off all contact with them, and had no interest in searching them out, figuring they had enough trouble trying to deal with their own lives.
Ewan learned the fine art of relieving people of the contents of their pockets early on, even if it took him some time to learn how to not get noticed, and then more importantly, not get caught. Especially after that time he did get caught, and his mother found a dancing studio nearby, meaning that some physical exercise and a skill like ballet would pay off better than a filled rap sheet in the future. And if nothing else, he actually learned to enjoy dancing, once he got past the first few weeks of stumbling. His later arguing about wanting to learn martial-arts instead were cunningly countered with the undeniable logics of 'The dancing studio is next door'. Funny that it -always- seemed to be, no matter where they moved. Hence, he still doesn't know much about fighting, but he can pirouette his way out of most violence. Somehow, bad people just don't expect a pliz followed by a graceful leap above their heads towards an escape route.
Schooling wasn't so much an issue though, with the moving around and all. He did attend classes in a few places, where they stayed longer than a few months, but his mom taught him most of what he knows regarding regular topics. She was no fan of subjects with no direct practical application, and thusly, her son learned more about history, speaking languages and counting money, than equations, philosophy or theoretical physics.
When Ewan was fourteen, they both packed up and moved halfway across the world, all of a sudden. Turned out, his mother had inherited some money, enough to take them to America, where they soon landed in Chicago. She had her reasons for moving from Europe, he was sure, but as with many other things they weren't such that she found a good reason to share them. And really, given how much they'd been moving around before it didn't really make all that much of a difference. It was just a new street, and a new life.
When things had started to settle down in Chicago with school, making new friends and such, Ewan started to take up dancing again. But instead of finding a new ballet class, he convinced his mother that he was at least old enough to decide if he wanted to try something a little new. The result of this was that he started trying out such things as street dancing and ballroom dancing, things he found very enjoyable, and that made it perhaps just a little bit easier to make new friends as well.
Not to mention, getting the chance to lift pretty girls high in the air is just never wrong, even when they're nothing more than friends. Whether you do it in ballet or in the ballroom, or in his newfound interest, ice-skating. All in all things were good in Chicago. Unfortunately, they wouldn't last, and this time it wasn't just because they moved to another city. One day, when Ewan was waiting for his mother to come home from work, there were a couple of police officers who came to his door instead. They were very polite, with sad serious faces, and they told him that unfortunately his mother had been involved in an accident and was dead. She had been hit by a bus and died immediately. Words cannot easily explain what that means to a young man of fourteen years.
The next couple of weeks were a bit of a blur, with the burial, people from social services and the hunt for possible relatives. There were none to be found, however, and Ewan couldn't really be all that helpful in locating them, since he'd never known much to begin with. In the end, he came to live with a foster family. After he got past behaving like a prick, he realized they were actually pretty neat, and he tried making up for all the patience they'd had to show him in the beginning. His new sister was alright, too. For a cheerleader.
Ewan lived with his new family for a couple of years, until he was about seventeen years old. All in all, they were quiet years, with one fairly major exception. It began one day when he came home from school and was greeted by his sister who gave him a big ol' hug, before bouncing into the kitchen to get herself a snack. She was in the middle of her cheerleading practise, and had just stepped inside from the lawn to get some water and such, taking a five minute break. Ewan started feeling a lot of energy inside, and headed out to maybe do a bit of dancing in the back yard to get rid of it. However, what he did wasn't his usual street routine.
He found himself jumping around, even borrowing his sisters pompoms and waving them, leaping, spelling letters, and spelling CHEERS for chrissakes. Horrible, horrible stuff. And when he was done, he just stared in front of himself for the longest moment. Thank god nobody saw that. He thought, at least, but when he turned around his sister was there staring. "You should totally join the cheerleading squad." That evening, the story was told to his fosterparents, who expressed vague concerns as to whether or not he was gay. That is, they would support him, just.. slight concerns. Ewan admitted that he thought he was, but that it had nothing to do with this. It was rather crazy and insane, and he hadn't had it happening to him before. The odd occurances continued, with him randomly knitting, playing the guitar, singing, fiddling with the engine and starting up a cooking session, only to realize halfway through that he no longer had any idea what to do. Neither did his hands.
Around this time there was a human bomb exploding in New York, and the world realized that there were people called 'Evolved' out there, doing all kinds of odd things. People were scared, and a few months later the neighbours house was attacked, since they thought one of them had an ability. Something to do with fire or something. Ewan had no clue if this was accurate or not, but one thing was very clear. If he stayed around, he'd very likely endanger his new family. Not from something he did himself, but from what others would do if they found out. For someone who learned early to move when needed, the way to go was clear, and he packed some things and left.
Since then, Ewan has been traveling around the country, from one city to the next, getting money in the ways he learned a long time ago. Thieving, finding, or whatever other way is needed. Living in a box, more often than not, trying to get into warm places when the season is too cold for anything else. His latest travels have brought him to New York, as odd as it might seem, him thinking somewhere that if you're a black crow in a forest full of white doves, best to hide where it's dark. Here he's still trying to keep away from the law (whom his foster parents sent after him, they are quite worried and not at all satisfied with the letter he left them) and from people who might want to see his guts on the ground.
