Character Background

Aside from being a Shape-Shifter Cathal is a committed environmentalist, bought up in the Killarney National Park in Co Kerry, Ireland, and currently approaching the end of his 3rd year in Biological, Earth, and Environmental Science at University College Cork. Ever since he was able to be trusted out on his own by his mother he has plagued the park staff, conservationists, and visiting scientists, accompanying them when they let him and plaguing them with questions at every turn.

After his mother left suddenly in 2002, for reasons he didn’t understand until the demon attack during the Rodian War in February 2004, he lost his abilities for 18 months and became withdrawn and depressed. The demon attack changed things markedly, his reversion to a primal form removing the spells and memory engrams his mother had placed upon him suppressing his abilities and hiding his true identity from any observer.

It also unlocked a set of implanted exercises which allowed him to develop his abilities beyond the basics of changing into his four basic forms

1. Human
2. Demon – Winged & flight capable
3. Mouflon – Ancient Wild Sheep (except coat is grey/black/red with red/black horns)
4. Irish Lurcher – Large Shaggy Dog

His default primal form is a very agile flying form (a flight form) but he has on one occasion stood and fought losing the flight capability and trading it for a set of razor sharp hand blades. The problem is that this form is capable of inflicting deep lacerating wounds but is not at all durable.

Pre-History

Cathal’s history starts well before he was even conceived, back to a year or so after the end of the Patternfall war. Amongst the well to do of the Courts both the cult of the Unicorn and cults built around various members of the house of Amber was all the rage. Being young, at least by Chaosite standards, and impressionable, Aisling Hendrake was no exception. Barely 23 at the time she was easily swayed and became infatuated with Logan.

When she assayed the Logrus a couple of years later, the Logrus learnt of her infatuation, and set about bringing a backup plan into being, just in case things didn’t pan out with Merlin. It took a couple of years to arrange but there was nothing “chance” about Aisling running into Logan in shadow. Still rather enamoured with Logan she did what the Logrus had set her up to do, and as intended she became pregnant. When her parents found out that Aisling was pregnant they were both horrified and livid, having suffered badly both in the War and previously at the hands of Amberites. Intent on killing their daughter, the Logrus engineered her escape, and hid her route through shadow.

September 1991

3 months pregnant Aisling finds herself in a Killarney, Co Kerry, Ireland. Venturing into a local pub in search of a meal and accommodation she literally runs into Dairmuid O’Donoghue. As they pick themselves up, banging heads in a cliché moment, something clicks. After a whirlwind romance they are married 5 months later, just 3 weeks before Cathal is born. For the next ten and a half years things they live in peace and harmony.

October 2002 (Age 10 years 6 months approx.)

Unknown to Aisling, the Logrus has resolved the Merlin issue and no longer has need of a backup plan, in fact the existence of Aisling and her son could now complicate matters, so it allows the Hendrakes to locate their wayward daughter. Of course now things are very different at the Courts and the Hendrakes now see their daughter’s illegitimate child as a means to secure a claim on the Throne of Chaos. They send a group of minions to retrieve the child.

Enjoying the last of the autumn sunshine, the appearance of three demons from thin air is nothing if not disconcerting to the catholic Dairmuid. When they call Aisling by name, his world reals, but not so much as when she answers their challenge by resuming her true form. The battle that ensues is nothing if not titanic, and although Aisling slays her attackers she is badly wounded. Dairmuid wants nothing to do with the demon who he thinks is now masquerading as his wife. Her world unravelling about her she does the only thing possible an renders Dairmuid unconscious, rewriting his memory of the events of the afternoon. Still wounded, Aisling carries Dairmuid home and finds Cathal. With not a lot of time to explain she is forced to render him unconscious as well. She places a memory engram prohibiting him from using his shape-shifting ability for 3 years; although she can do nothing to inhibit his reversion to primal form should the situation arise. She also implants a series of training exercises which will automatically unlock when the engram runs out. These cover slightly more complex abilities than he has at the time and would have been what she taught him next.

She then crafts a series of spells to hide Cathal’s true identity from any pursuers. Casting them she departs she rigs a gas explosion destroying the house in the process, before departing into shadow in the hope that any further assailants will follow her and leave her husband and child in peace.

February 2004 (Age 11years 11 months Approx)

The demon attack when it came took every completely by surprise. Demons just didn’t exist, Leprachauns yes, and the Pooka possibly but demons definitely not. For the 2 that chose to attack the O’Donoghue residence in Cloghereen Woods it was to prove a very fatal mistake on their part and one which would unlock Cathal's shapeshifting abilities 18 months before his mother had planned when she fled. Under any other circumstances Cathal would have fled, but faced with the potential death of his father so soon after the disappearance of his mother, he had stood his ground. As death loomed he reverted to a primal form alien to his normal psyche and the first demon had died completely surprised by the lacerating attack that had half severed its head from its neck.

Unfortunately for Cathal this meant the second demon was forewarned, and was able to block most of the impact from Cathal’s attack. Had Cathal’s primal form been a “fight” form then the battle would have been short, but his primal form isn’t and the reinforced flight form coupled with the fact that he was still very much a child meant that it turned very quickly in the demons favour. Had Cathal been on his own he would have died that day, but he wasn’t, his father was present. Faced with the imminent prospect of the death of the creature he’d called his son for more than 10 years and with the involuntary resurrection of the events that led to Aisling’s disappearance something within Dairmund snapped. Grabbing the only thing to hand, a kitchen chair, he smashed it across the back of the demons head.

Potentially faced with a new threat, although technically the chair did no damage what so ever, the demon turned, sending Dairmund bodily across the kitchen, where colliding with a worktop, he broke several ribs, and landing badly and breaking his left arm before slumping into unconsciousness. The distraction his father had provided would be enough to save both their lives. As the demon turned back to face Cathal he caught it clean across the face. The blow was not immediately fatal, but the wound was debilitating enough to turn the tide. With growing confidence but tiring rapidly Cathal pressed his attack, catching the demon with a blow that would shortly prove fatal. Staggering and contemplating its own demise, the demon had one final trick up its sleeve. If it was going to die then so was its adversary. With a final gasp it flung itself at Cathal. The agility of his flight form now worked in his favour, not that he avoided the blow, but in that he was able to turn enough so that it missed his vital organs.

That was how his father found him when he regained consciousness some 5 hours later, on his side pinned to the floor, the demons claws embedded in his chest. Cathal knew he couldn’t move or he would die. He also knew that if his father tried to pull the demon off the result would be the same. Wracked by pain he somehow got this through his father’s fogged consciousness before he did any serious damage. It took another 7 hours before the first Ambulance crew arrived, and another 3 before a surgeon could be found to attend the scene.

It was the following afternoon when Cathal awoke. He was in Hospital, his father in the bed next to him. He also hurt like hell. There was also something else, the first part of a repressed memory, an apology from his mother, and the first remembrance that he was a shape shifter, that his mother’s family wanted to use him as a pawn in some war against Amber, and how the Logrus had double crossed his mother, that alternate realities existed, and somewhere out in the myriad shadows his mother was possibly still alive.

There was lots of questions in the weeks that follows, principally about how 2 creatures whose outer armoured hide resisted most common knives and weapons had died to what had been some form of slashing attack inflicted by some sort of bladed weapon, yet none had been found at the property, along with how both he and his father had managed to survive. Neither he nor his father could provide any answers.

April 2nd 2004 (Age 12 years 11 days)

His collapse at 1:30pm the moment the first snow of the storm struck was the key that unlocked his relationship with his father. He had only been out of hospital for 3 days, and they had not yet really spoken about the events of that February evening. The hospital, under the gaze, of the doctors, nurses, and Garde had definitely not been the place. When he’d regained consciousness a little after 7:30pm he was on the sofa and his father was watching him intently. “I have no idea where to start, so much has happened. I was a fool. Had I not reacted in the way I had your mother would still be here. Things would have been different.”
“No they wouldn’t. My mother didn’t leave because of you. She left to protect me from her family. She hadn’t counted on what has happened recently, this is something entirely new.”
“I don’t understand..how can you know this?”
“Because she implanted a memory before she left. I’ve had a lot of time in the last few weeks to study it. She was in a very great hurry that day. She left me a lot more than I think she intended. She felt completely betrayed. Her only thought was to ensure that I didn’t fall into the hands of her family. Unfortunately the protections she put in place to hide who I was disintegrated when I was forced to assume my true form protect us, although I remember nothing of what transpired that afternoon. We’re on our own now, at least until I can find a method of either contacting her or my biological father. And before you say anything, yes I know who he is, but you’ve been my father ever since I can remember and I really don’t want this to cause a rift between us. I need you more now than I have ever done in the past – you’re the only person I can talk to about this.” They’d hugged then, his father with tears in his eyes.

Although in hospital for 7 weeks, Cathal had recovered his shape-shifiting abilities after 14 days. He’d instinctively felt them return rather consciously trying to activate them; again the hospital had definitely not been the place to try. His enforced hospital stay had however given him plenty of time to come to terms with the myriad of information his mother had implanted in his brain before she left, including how it was possible to do the same and/or influence people provided your mind was stronger than theirs.

September 2008 (Age 16 years 6 months)

Enrols Causeway Comprehensive studying Gaelic, Maths, Biology, Chemisty, Geography, Art at Higher Level.
Begins relationship with Shannon Foley in December 2008. Lasts until Easter 2010.

September 2010 (Age 18 years 6 months)

Enrols University College Cork studying Biological, Earth, and Environmental Sciences (4 Year Course).
Still suffering emotional turmoil from his breakup with Shannon he has a very short (4 week) relationship with Tara Fitzgerald in October 2010 before flinging himself into his first year course.
During fresher’s week in 2011 he meets Liliana Nowakowaski, although it isn’t until they find themselves on the same skiing trip in January 2012 that they begin a relationship. They have been together ever since. Liliana is studying Pharmacy.