Cassidy's Background
Sep. 29th, 2030 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
medicalpedigreeWorld Description
A world controlled by two deities that simply call themselves Stride and Gait. As beings who live in a dimension apart from the one they govern, they usually only observe the goings on in the world and rarely interfere unless doing so would interest them. They do denote many smaller beings whose existences help them run things. A most notable group were the three elementals, beings who embodied the six 'physical' elements. They are Fiegunsius (Water/Ice), Bieombe (Fire/Earth), and Volphgaard (Air/Thunder).
There are actually nine elements though: air, darkness, earth, fire, ice, light, thunder, water, and lastly the non-element...which acts as the central balance to the other eight. Elemental alignment affects to everything in the world, even humans and especially nonhumans. It helps determine ability, and the nature of the living creatures who fall into specific elements. This is not always set in stone, but what element(s) a being is closest to can usually be determined by the strongest traits in their personality.
There is often much conflict between the humans and the many other races that live alongside them. Nonhuman is a generic term for a being of at least human-level intelligence and is often able to exist in human and an inhuman form. So if a person didn’t know what to look for, they’d never know that the person next to them on the bus isn’t human…which is the case in many parts of the world.
Like our own world, cultures and beliefs vary with the region. Some areas are similar to our modern day world in technology and society, while others seem almost medieval. Much of the world is recovering after another long-running feud between the humans and nonhumans which ended over a thousand years ago. A result of this was that many nonhumans who live in or around areas with a large human population choose to maintain a human appearance when dealing with humans. Some cities, like Wyatt, have all but forgotten the existence of nonhumans as more than fairy-tale creatures. Others have a low tolerance for them living in the area, like its neighbor Ashford, and will refuse to accommodate them in any way. Toban, the third largest town on the continent of Tentressa, has the largest concentration of nonhumans in one city of the whole planet however. This is likely because there is the biggest variation of terrain surrounding the town. A vast beach borders the southern and southwestern edges of the city, and forests border the east and western edges. The eastern forest is broken by the start of a mountain range, and an expanse of plains separates the two forests.
At the edge of the far western edge of the coast and bordering the forest is a huge expanse of frozen wasteland, odd because it remains even during the hot summer. In the middle of this harsh, icy deathtrap is a large laboratory. This building is home to a scientist who has developed many artificial nonhumans, called hybrids. These hybrids seem rather uniform and peaceful, but one can’t help feeling that something is amiss.
History
Cassidy's story is a rather simple one. She was born into a close-knit clan of dog demons that has been living in Willowthicket for hundreds of years. As a village deep in a mist-shrouded forest located near a nearly uncharted valley on the northwest of the continent, Tentressa, they very seldom dealt with things regarding the outside world and its changes. But this is because they had always managed fine on their own, without the influences of other cultures or of the order of riders. On occasion they did have travelers who stayed in the village as guests though. There were no modern conveniences like running water or electricity, nor any use of magic outside of their natural transformations.
The clan had run like a well-oiled machine, with every member having a specific purpose that played off of his or her strengths or covered their weaknesses. For most of her life this was under the leadership of her wise grandfather, Radley Sharp. And even though she was born to be just a little bit different, considered a little bit at a disadvantage, Cassidy had known her whole childhood that that was how life for her as an adult would be one day too...even though it didn't turn out that way.
Unlike the other children born around the same time as she was, Cassidy was relatively small in her canine form...a runt who was only a little bigger than the border collie pup that she resembled, while all of the others were all already around half the size of an adult. While she did have the speed and stamina to keep up with her cousins at play, it still quickly became apparent that she would never be anywhere as big or as strong, and the difference was only made more obvious over time. But back then she didn't care much as long as she could still participate in play.
At the age of 8, it was customary to begin assigning the children to mentors for their roles in the family. It was decided at this point that she would not go through the basics of combat like all of the others. She would get the tracking training, and small game hunting for instances that such skills were needed, and being aware of her senses of smell and hearing...but she wasn't going to be a fighter. Her role instead was to become a healer under her grandmother, Vail, and then eventually the main family healer once Vail could no longer continue the work. In a family that got by contributing skills they excelled at to each other, it should have been doable. As such her time was consumed mainly by studying under her grandmother.
Over the next eight years, she learned to identify various plants by sight and smell, both native to the forest and located elsewhere, and memorized their uses. She got to make medicines and practice tending wounds on a cloth doll that Vail made for her. She also began to learn to actually grow plants to use. And as was always needed, she also learned the abilities to cook, clean, sew, and otherwise care for oneself and home. She took a liking to those activities and worked to become good at them, finding that the ability to do for the people she cared about and them being happy left a good feeling and eased what had been the growing feeling of inadequacy from being the clan's only helpless runt.
All through her childhood, when she finished her studies each day, she would spend time with her cousins either playing or just relaxing. This was especially true with Forrester, a young male about three years older than and very protective of her. The two were inseparable, with him always looking out for her as they roamed the forest, or them staying over at each others' houses as often as allowed. He was like her brother and, because they were so close, it was decided that they would be partnered as a working group with Forrester as her guardian once she turned nineteen. This wasn't unusual at all, as strongly bonded friends worked well together normally.
She had a similarly close relationship with Enki, a mute halfbreed a few a year older than her, who was born of a water demon outsider and one of her dad's cousins. Their relationship was a calm quiet one that worked well because they were both different from the rest of their clan and because she had never looked at him as any different from the rest of them...which he felt that most of the others still did to an extent. Enki often tagged along with her and Forrester in whatever they were doing or let her practice her work on him, or helped her with her chores. Had things turned out differently in their futures they might have ended up as mates one day. But they didn't.
Occasionally there would be travelers staying in the villagers, merchants or actual travelers, and it was possible to get news or items from the outside world. If the person was a storyteller the kids would often go to listen to one before bed while the person was there. Sometimes they could also get fruits or candies that were available any other way either, but these people were only temporary moments in her childhood to make life pleasant, nothing that stood out to her or influenced her beliefs much.
Things continued mostly peacefully just like this until she was about sixteen years old. But then her grandfather was unexpectedly killed in a skirmish that had happened during what should have been a peaceful negotiation with a roaming demon tribe. The interlopers were temporarily driven off, but things wouldn't improve in the years that passed.
The clan began to fall into disarray only days after his death, because he hadn’t chosen anyone to succeed him as head of the clan before his death and so there was no one to guide them. His three sons, including her father, squabbled and fought constantly over who was most fit to lead next, with each believing that he had the leadership and had best learned the skills necessary. Most of the family gradually became divided as they chose sides and broke off from the opposition, with each side claiming a section of their territory in the forest. From there, battles started as each brother tried to overpower the other two and force them to concede to his leadership. Her widowed grandmother, wanting no part of the fighting but unable to prevent it, remained in her mate’s house in the center of the territory, continuing her work as the family healer, owning the only remaining neutral ground because she could and did enforce that there would be no fighting there.
Over the next four years, the fighting worsened to the point that even the younger demons began to take part in the feuding. Add to that the problems with the other demon tribe, who had taken advantage of the break in the clan's unity to begin taking ground, and Cassidy had her hands full tending to the part of the family that lived in her father’s section of the forest. The peaceful home that she’d grown up in had become just short of a war zone, and while she hadn't technically taken a side and tended anyone she could as they needed, her father kept her safe at home to keep her out of trouble. She would have greatly preferred to have moved to help her grandmother the neutral ground, and maybe in the end that was what should have happened, but wasn't allowed to do so or even to leave the house unless it was to treat someone.
For a time Enki was her most common source of companionship, not really having chosen a side but choosing to linger in her father's territory rather than anywhere else. He was often one that she was tending as the tension made him an easy target both due to him not taking a side and because the invaders were water demons, though of a different race. So she was often protecting him now.
Eventually feeling that her father had an unfair edge in having his own healer on his property, one of her uncles decided to eliminate Cassidy, leaving her grandmother as the only healer and hopefully lowering the moral of her father and his supporters at the same time. Forrester was chosen for the job as he was the deadliest fighter and because Cassidy still trusted him even in all of this. He visited her room one night while Enki was away, slipping in through the window...which she had found a little odd since they hadn't been able to talk since the clan split off. She didn't find it actually suspicious though and was entirely unprepared when he attacked her suddenly. However, he still carried a strong fondness for his cousin, and was only trying to scare her away.
Not wanting her to stay where she was no longer safe and in an attempt to save her life, he drove her from the room and far into forest, purposely letting her escape…but with a deep bite wound in her stomach to make sure that she fully believed that he had truly tried to kill her and wouldn't come back only to be murdered. She did believe this and ran as far as she could before seeking shelter in a log for the night.
She was found there the next morning by her grandmother, who had tracked her out there after hearing what happened from Forrester...though she didn't share what she knew with her granddaughter. The kindly woman stitched her wounds, telling her that their home was no longer the sort of place for Cassidy to live in. She had also brought along a bag with several days' food, a blanket, some herbs and bandages, money, and Cassidy's journal. She wanted to her to go out and find something better than this.
Cassidy traveled to the edge of the forest, where she spent a few days to recover and tend to her wound until she was well enough to really wander about. She was very reluctant to leave, but she knew that she wouldn't be safe at home, unable to defend herself as she was. So as much as she hated to do it, she followed her grandmother's wishes and put the forest and her broken family behind her to begin searching for a territory to call her own.
Finding a territory is easy enough, but keeping it…well that involves being able to fight. Since she still lacked any notable fighting skills whatsoever, she has already lost three potential territories in the less than year that she's been on her own in the world. It's becoming clear to her that if she's going to have a place to call home she's going to need to let go of her territorial instinct and move into a village or a city, which also means finding a job, instead.
A world controlled by two deities that simply call themselves Stride and Gait. As beings who live in a dimension apart from the one they govern, they usually only observe the goings on in the world and rarely interfere unless doing so would interest them. They do denote many smaller beings whose existences help them run things. A most notable group were the three elementals, beings who embodied the six 'physical' elements. They are Fiegunsius (Water/Ice), Bieombe (Fire/Earth), and Volphgaard (Air/Thunder).
There are actually nine elements though: air, darkness, earth, fire, ice, light, thunder, water, and lastly the non-element...which acts as the central balance to the other eight. Elemental alignment affects to everything in the world, even humans and especially nonhumans. It helps determine ability, and the nature of the living creatures who fall into specific elements. This is not always set in stone, but what element(s) a being is closest to can usually be determined by the strongest traits in their personality.
There is often much conflict between the humans and the many other races that live alongside them. Nonhuman is a generic term for a being of at least human-level intelligence and is often able to exist in human and an inhuman form. So if a person didn’t know what to look for, they’d never know that the person next to them on the bus isn’t human…which is the case in many parts of the world.
Like our own world, cultures and beliefs vary with the region. Some areas are similar to our modern day world in technology and society, while others seem almost medieval. Much of the world is recovering after another long-running feud between the humans and nonhumans which ended over a thousand years ago. A result of this was that many nonhumans who live in or around areas with a large human population choose to maintain a human appearance when dealing with humans. Some cities, like Wyatt, have all but forgotten the existence of nonhumans as more than fairy-tale creatures. Others have a low tolerance for them living in the area, like its neighbor Ashford, and will refuse to accommodate them in any way. Toban, the third largest town on the continent of Tentressa, has the largest concentration of nonhumans in one city of the whole planet however. This is likely because there is the biggest variation of terrain surrounding the town. A vast beach borders the southern and southwestern edges of the city, and forests border the east and western edges. The eastern forest is broken by the start of a mountain range, and an expanse of plains separates the two forests.
At the edge of the far western edge of the coast and bordering the forest is a huge expanse of frozen wasteland, odd because it remains even during the hot summer. In the middle of this harsh, icy deathtrap is a large laboratory. This building is home to a scientist who has developed many artificial nonhumans, called hybrids. These hybrids seem rather uniform and peaceful, but one can’t help feeling that something is amiss.
History
Cassidy's story is a rather simple one. She was born into a close-knit clan of dog demons that has been living in Willowthicket for hundreds of years. As a village deep in a mist-shrouded forest located near a nearly uncharted valley on the northwest of the continent, Tentressa, they very seldom dealt with things regarding the outside world and its changes. But this is because they had always managed fine on their own, without the influences of other cultures or of the order of riders. On occasion they did have travelers who stayed in the village as guests though. There were no modern conveniences like running water or electricity, nor any use of magic outside of their natural transformations.
The clan had run like a well-oiled machine, with every member having a specific purpose that played off of his or her strengths or covered their weaknesses. For most of her life this was under the leadership of her wise grandfather, Radley Sharp. And even though she was born to be just a little bit different, considered a little bit at a disadvantage, Cassidy had known her whole childhood that that was how life for her as an adult would be one day too...even though it didn't turn out that way.
Unlike the other children born around the same time as she was, Cassidy was relatively small in her canine form...a runt who was only a little bigger than the border collie pup that she resembled, while all of the others were all already around half the size of an adult. While she did have the speed and stamina to keep up with her cousins at play, it still quickly became apparent that she would never be anywhere as big or as strong, and the difference was only made more obvious over time. But back then she didn't care much as long as she could still participate in play.
At the age of 8, it was customary to begin assigning the children to mentors for their roles in the family. It was decided at this point that she would not go through the basics of combat like all of the others. She would get the tracking training, and small game hunting for instances that such skills were needed, and being aware of her senses of smell and hearing...but she wasn't going to be a fighter. Her role instead was to become a healer under her grandmother, Vail, and then eventually the main family healer once Vail could no longer continue the work. In a family that got by contributing skills they excelled at to each other, it should have been doable. As such her time was consumed mainly by studying under her grandmother.
Over the next eight years, she learned to identify various plants by sight and smell, both native to the forest and located elsewhere, and memorized their uses. She got to make medicines and practice tending wounds on a cloth doll that Vail made for her. She also began to learn to actually grow plants to use. And as was always needed, she also learned the abilities to cook, clean, sew, and otherwise care for oneself and home. She took a liking to those activities and worked to become good at them, finding that the ability to do for the people she cared about and them being happy left a good feeling and eased what had been the growing feeling of inadequacy from being the clan's only helpless runt.
All through her childhood, when she finished her studies each day, she would spend time with her cousins either playing or just relaxing. This was especially true with Forrester, a young male about three years older than and very protective of her. The two were inseparable, with him always looking out for her as they roamed the forest, or them staying over at each others' houses as often as allowed. He was like her brother and, because they were so close, it was decided that they would be partnered as a working group with Forrester as her guardian once she turned nineteen. This wasn't unusual at all, as strongly bonded friends worked well together normally.
She had a similarly close relationship with Enki, a mute halfbreed a few a year older than her, who was born of a water demon outsider and one of her dad's cousins. Their relationship was a calm quiet one that worked well because they were both different from the rest of their clan and because she had never looked at him as any different from the rest of them...which he felt that most of the others still did to an extent. Enki often tagged along with her and Forrester in whatever they were doing or let her practice her work on him, or helped her with her chores. Had things turned out differently in their futures they might have ended up as mates one day. But they didn't.
Occasionally there would be travelers staying in the villagers, merchants or actual travelers, and it was possible to get news or items from the outside world. If the person was a storyteller the kids would often go to listen to one before bed while the person was there. Sometimes they could also get fruits or candies that were available any other way either, but these people were only temporary moments in her childhood to make life pleasant, nothing that stood out to her or influenced her beliefs much.
Things continued mostly peacefully just like this until she was about sixteen years old. But then her grandfather was unexpectedly killed in a skirmish that had happened during what should have been a peaceful negotiation with a roaming demon tribe. The interlopers were temporarily driven off, but things wouldn't improve in the years that passed.
The clan began to fall into disarray only days after his death, because he hadn’t chosen anyone to succeed him as head of the clan before his death and so there was no one to guide them. His three sons, including her father, squabbled and fought constantly over who was most fit to lead next, with each believing that he had the leadership and had best learned the skills necessary. Most of the family gradually became divided as they chose sides and broke off from the opposition, with each side claiming a section of their territory in the forest. From there, battles started as each brother tried to overpower the other two and force them to concede to his leadership. Her widowed grandmother, wanting no part of the fighting but unable to prevent it, remained in her mate’s house in the center of the territory, continuing her work as the family healer, owning the only remaining neutral ground because she could and did enforce that there would be no fighting there.
Over the next four years, the fighting worsened to the point that even the younger demons began to take part in the feuding. Add to that the problems with the other demon tribe, who had taken advantage of the break in the clan's unity to begin taking ground, and Cassidy had her hands full tending to the part of the family that lived in her father’s section of the forest. The peaceful home that she’d grown up in had become just short of a war zone, and while she hadn't technically taken a side and tended anyone she could as they needed, her father kept her safe at home to keep her out of trouble. She would have greatly preferred to have moved to help her grandmother the neutral ground, and maybe in the end that was what should have happened, but wasn't allowed to do so or even to leave the house unless it was to treat someone.
For a time Enki was her most common source of companionship, not really having chosen a side but choosing to linger in her father's territory rather than anywhere else. He was often one that she was tending as the tension made him an easy target both due to him not taking a side and because the invaders were water demons, though of a different race. So she was often protecting him now.
Eventually feeling that her father had an unfair edge in having his own healer on his property, one of her uncles decided to eliminate Cassidy, leaving her grandmother as the only healer and hopefully lowering the moral of her father and his supporters at the same time. Forrester was chosen for the job as he was the deadliest fighter and because Cassidy still trusted him even in all of this. He visited her room one night while Enki was away, slipping in through the window...which she had found a little odd since they hadn't been able to talk since the clan split off. She didn't find it actually suspicious though and was entirely unprepared when he attacked her suddenly. However, he still carried a strong fondness for his cousin, and was only trying to scare her away.
Not wanting her to stay where she was no longer safe and in an attempt to save her life, he drove her from the room and far into forest, purposely letting her escape…but with a deep bite wound in her stomach to make sure that she fully believed that he had truly tried to kill her and wouldn't come back only to be murdered. She did believe this and ran as far as she could before seeking shelter in a log for the night.
She was found there the next morning by her grandmother, who had tracked her out there after hearing what happened from Forrester...though she didn't share what she knew with her granddaughter. The kindly woman stitched her wounds, telling her that their home was no longer the sort of place for Cassidy to live in. She had also brought along a bag with several days' food, a blanket, some herbs and bandages, money, and Cassidy's journal. She wanted to her to go out and find something better than this.
Cassidy traveled to the edge of the forest, where she spent a few days to recover and tend to her wound until she was well enough to really wander about. She was very reluctant to leave, but she knew that she wouldn't be safe at home, unable to defend herself as she was. So as much as she hated to do it, she followed her grandmother's wishes and put the forest and her broken family behind her to begin searching for a territory to call her own.
Finding a territory is easy enough, but keeping it…well that involves being able to fight. Since she still lacked any notable fighting skills whatsoever, she has already lost three potential territories in the less than year that she's been on her own in the world. It's becoming clear to her that if she's going to have a place to call home she's going to need to let go of her territorial instinct and move into a village or a city, which also means finding a job, instead.
