Cathair
From Flight From Darkness
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[edit] Cathair
Cathair is an Enlisted soldier in the EDC, and a Heroic Mortal.
[edit] Appearance
Cathair's most striking features are those that he wasn't born with - his mutation from the Wyld has had quite an effect on him. His skin is tougher than a normal mortal's, some black feathers growing around his arms and neck, and his eyes have changed, become more like a big cat's, adapted for nightvision and sharper than a normal mortal's. The most noticeable mutation, however, is the pair of wings, covered in black feathers like a crow. Outside of that, however, he isn't particularly attention-grabbing in appearance, a rather tall Easterner with short brown hair and a perpetual grin on his face.
He wears the reinforced buff jacket that is his talon's uniform, modified to accommodate his wings, with his rank talisman attached to the front. Between his wings he has a bag holding a stack of javelins, and attached to his belt under the jacket is his communicator.
[edit] Personality
One thing Cathair loves to do is fight. This started back in Creation with his job as a mercenary, and that love hasn't died down in his time on the Dream - if anything, it's been intensified by Wyld exposure and directed even more than before by the situation on the Dream.
The little niggling conscience he had during his time as a mercenary in Creation has taken the Dream as a chance to grow and develop into a full care and loyalty towards the people on the Dream (especially EDC), and a desire to protect them. Cathair also doesn't have much self-control, which when paired with the aforementioned loyalty and love of fighting, has gotten him into trouble a couple of times, which when combined with the rest of his attitude (with the incident in the Wyld that led to most of his mutation not helping much), has led to him staying as a low-ranking member of the EDC, although it has gotten him somewhat noticed.
In terms of his links to others, for a while (particularly in the time after his time stuck in the Wyld) he limited himself to associating with other EDC members, and somewhat with Tech Corps people who had work for him - he really only had the EDC, not being a part of any of the groups that grew on the Dream based on the old nations and groups (his family never settled enough for him to really be a part of any group like that), and the general wariness around the EDC others had didn't help. However, as time has gone on, he's found himself associating more and more with new people, and he quite likes it. When it comes to Exalts, Cathair doesn't have any particular wariness or dislike towards them, merely seeing them as powerful people (this attitude towards Exalts in general has been passed down the family line for generations - although it used to really only apply to the Dragon-Blooded, Cathair has broadened it to the rest of the Exalted).
[edit] History
Cathair was born to a long line of mercenaries, so he is no stranger to fighting, his father training him and toughening him up for as long as he remembers of his childhood (Wyld exposure have started to cloud those old memories, however), and when he was old enough he naturally went into the mercenary business, going alone as his father and his troops had died in some battle or other (his mother wasn't around. Or maybe she was, but the memories of her are obscured. He isn't too sure sometimes.). However, for Cathair the pay has simply been a way to keep on going as he fought, and unlike the earlier generations - some of which had some infamy as being ruthless and amoral - he tried to go for work that actually benefited people in some way, since he had this little niggling part of him that meant he knew he didn't want to look back on his life when he was old and think "I did no good and just caused pain and death where I went". So when the Ebon Dragon conquered Creation and Cathair was able to board the Dream, he kept on fighting, and after the first battle (which he barely survived) and the formation of the EDC, he joined up, and he has managed to survive and stay as a part of the EDC ever since - since he doesn't really fit into the other big groups (his family not really living anywhere, them and their forces travelling in small caravans that set up camp if they were operating in an area for long), as well as the general reception EDC members get, he doesn't particularly associate outside the EDC, although as time goes on he starts to broaden his associations.
Back in Creation, Cathair was born to a long line of mercenaries, trained up by his father a little during his childhood, intensifying as he got older until his father decided he was old enough and skilled enough to join the mercenary company. He fought with his father and the mercenary company for a while, going on alone after the company and his father died in some battle or another (he doesn't really remember his mother or what she was like - he supposes that she left his life before he can start remembering stuff). For Cathair, the point wasn't to amass large amounts of money - the money was simply a way to sustain him as he kept on going and fighting, and unlike the earlier generations - some of which had some infamy as being ruthless and amoral - he tried to go for work that actually benefited people in some way, since he had this little niggling part of him that meant he knew he didn't want to look back on his life when he was old and be disappointed at the choices he made.
When the Ebon Dragon came into Creation, Cathair fought his way to the Dream, and kept on fighting, joining the EDC when he could and serving as a soldier there ever since. Although some of his mutations came gradually as a matter of course during his work outside the Dream, a lot of them (including his wings) came in one incident, where a trip outside the Dream with his squad at the time went very wrong and Cathair was split from the group and away from the Dream by one of the beasts that came out the Wyld. He lost track of time as he tried to find the Dream again, in no way helped by the nature of Deep Chaos, until he was found by another EDC group some time later and brought back in, a lot more mutated than he left. He doesn't talk about what happened to him while he was gone.
