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05:20, 1st May 2024 (GMT+0)

Cass Shepherd

General Information:

Name: Castor Shepherd

Nickname: Cass, Chief Shepherd

Species: Immortal Human

Sexual Orientation: Prefers women

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Physical information:

Gender: Male

Age: Seemingly in his late twenties or early thirties, Cass was a little young to be the Chief of Police and neither he nor his brother had seemed to have aged much in the nearly 5 years they'd been in town.

Human Hair Color: Blonde

Human Eye Color: Greenish Blue

Human Distinguishing Marks: Other than their demeanors, the are only two ways to tell him apart from his brother.  The first is by closely looking at his eyes which are slightly more blue than his brother's.  The second is to get them to undress.  Cass has a faint scar on his abdomen, a reminder from the past of what his brother had to give up for them to be together for all time.

Human Description of General Appearance:  At just over six feet and just under 180 pounds, Cass (and by extension, his twin brother Poe) is tall, lean, and eminently comfortable in his own skin, which he should since he's worn it for a very long time.  He tends to be the brighter of the two (not in terms of intelligence, they'd argue without resolution as to which of them was the smarter of the two), but in terms of smile and gaze.  He also tends to be the more tired of the two, as though he'd really like to take a nap, but can't because he has a to-do list as long as his arm.

Cass is almost always in uniform, except when at home or on special occasions (and even then, depending on the nature of the event, he might be), though just like something out of the Andy Griffith Show, he doesn't wear a gun.

He also shaves more frequently than his brother, which is another way to tell them apart, though can't be relied upon consistently.

Alternate Appearance: N/A

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Society Information:

Time in Port Washington: Five years

Occupation: Police Chief

What brought you to Port Washington?  Early in their immortality, the brothers grew frustrated and began to find others like themselves, those who weren't Gods themselves, but were the product of a  God's antics.  Granted, they themselves had gotten off pretty easy.  Poe's father had been generous, even if not as generous as he could have been.  That said, he wasn't quite so generous with their sister Helen, and Aphrodite was outright cruel to her and the other sisters.  Suffice to say, their love of the Gods was a complicated thing (even if Poe and Helen were both technically demi-gods themselves).  They'd spent most of their lives beyond the Classical Era avoiding gods and monsters and helping others do the same.  Occasionally this put them at odds with those gods and monsters, so when the notion of a neutral ground reached their ears, they jumped at the chance, plus, Poe, always one with the schemes, saw it as an opportunity to try something new, all from the safety and comfort of place most people saw as a joke and a place most people would forget about the moment they left.  Coming in five years ago, the two weren't the earliest 'recruits', but they came at a time of transition for the town, the prior Police Chief ousted after a run of 'corruption', the Industrial Zone in increasing decay and a new influx of residents as another round of 'people' caught wind of the town.  Getting in at the start of that second wave, they quickly established themselves as pillars of the community, one taking the side of those looking for a peaceful, quiet life free from prying eyes and unwelcome interest, the other taking the side of those looking to enjoy that freedom without judgment or embarrassment, and that's how Cass became Chief of Police and Poe became one of the first people to set up shop in and around the Industrial Zone, after all, pillars needed to be spaced suitably apart to properly hold up a roof.

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Personality Details:

Personality:  Cass is the gentler of the two brothers.  Perhaps this is because he was the mortal of the two, at least initially.  He also tended to be the more rational and calm of the two.  That's not to say he didn't also have a temper, it was just more tempered than Poe's, so obviously this made him the better choice for the role of Police Chief than Criminal (not that Poe would ever call himself a Criminal).  Both brothers ascribe to a live and let live philosophy, though they've had their moments and are known to hold a grudge.  Cass is far more patient in that regard and far more forgiving (he'd call it pragmatic).

Though he's a police officer, he doesn't really enforce a lot of laws and more often than not only gives out warnings.  Fortunately, Port Washington isn't a hotbed of crime, so there's usually not a lot to enforce anyway.  If, however, his warnings aren't heeded, he kicks things up the chain of command and the offender is usually dealt with.  How?  He tried not to think about that too much.  It's not something he's really keen about, but it's the deal they'd made when they arrived and they stuck to the deal.

Strengths:  Cass is patient and understanding.  As a result, he generally seems trustworthy (and generally is).  He's fairly persuasive (at least with reasonable people) and can be appropriately threatening (with unreasonable people).  Though he always looks a little tired, he doesn't actually need a lot of rest.

Weaknesses:  He holds onto guilt a lot longer than his brother.  He'll do just about anything for his family, especially his sisters.  Both he and his brother have a soft spot for mortals and mortal-like beings who have been subjected to the whims of gods or more powerful beings.

Fears:  Despite being 'immortal', he fears death, always worrying that this one might be 'the last', this extends beyond him to fear for his brother and sisters.  He dislikes the cold and the dark (borderline nyctophobia).

Background/History:  The story of the Dioscuri is fairly simple.  At least it is once you get past the whole quintuplets born of one mother and two fathers from eggs.  The rest of their story is fairly traditional, the abduction of their sister, the abduction of their other sister, the deaths of their younger sisters, the death of their older sister by the hand of her own son.  Girls just didn't have a great time of things in the 'good old days'.

Truth be told, neither of the brothers had been all that great themselves back then if you asked the Leucippides, but that was a long time ago and times change, people change, the world changes.  And how the world had changed.

Their first set of stories end with the death of Castor, gored with a spear by Idas.  It was then that Pollux sealed their fate.

"It's not a terrible fate, is it?" Poe asked.

"Not really," Cass admitted.  It hadn't always been great.  Death still came for them and they still had to spend some time in Hades (which was awfully cold and dark, like living in outer space), but they had gotten to see the world grow, they'd seen their sons grow, their nephews grow (even the one who had killed their sister), they'd seen those trees spread roots and branches and make meaningful and meaningless contributions to the world.

And they'd never been alone.  Of course, first and foremost, they had each other.  Sure, they got tired of each other now and then, but they weren't attached at the hip, they were only attached in death (and rebirth), though they usually stayed together for a lifetime or two before death and rebirth took them.  Sometimes they were joined by their sisters, who Poe also brought back to life (though Helen of course was a demi-god in her own right and quite capable of taking care of herself).

"Then again," Cass supposed.

It was hard to know whether it was a terrible fate or not.  It was hard to remember much of their lives, their memories only able to contain so much.  Most of what they remembered from the earliest years was like something they'd read in a book, saw on a screen or felt in a dream.  They could recall bits and pieces, feelings, but unless it occurred in this very lifetime, or at most the last hundred-odd years, it was little more than a fragment.

"It might well have sucked," he said, though without any bitterness.  If anything, he seemed amused, like remembering a wild night of drinking, or more accurately, not being able to remember a wild night of drinking, but still having all your parts and pieces, so it couldn't have been too bad.

He knew that generally wasn't true of the last few hundred years since he'd started keeping logs.  He knew they'd done some good, they and others like them, those who'd had their lives turned upside down by the whims of gods.  Not that they hated gods, but more.

"Someone's gotta help," Poe interjected, which might be a little bit surprising since Cass was usually the more overtly humanitarian of the pair.  Then again, Poe had given up a part of himself, not once, not twice, but five times to ensure his family survived through time, and he was giving up more of himself now in order to wake more of their family, others born of a god's blood.

"Don't tell anyone though," he chided, "after all, I have a reputation to keep."

"No you don't," Cass said, rolling his eyes.  They were both, in his estimation, fairly insignificant among the supernatural population, two minor figures of myth whose only real claim to fame in the modern age was that they had a couple of stars named after them.

"Which, by the way, anyone can do for nineteen ninety-five," he added.

The two of them had been adapting to the modern era, which wasn't as hard as it might have been for some of the older immortals since they grew up in it, or right before it.  They weren't quite Boomers (technically, not apparently), but they weren't Millennials (technically, though they were apparently).  Technically they more Gen X, coming up on about 50 years in this incarnation.  Granted, this incarnation looked like the last incarnation, and that one looked like the one before it, and other than the occasional change in hairstyle and the obvious change in fashion (they used to run around naked in the really old days), they always looked the same.

They were coming up on that turning point (not middle age, since that was closer to seventy-five for them) in their lives when they decided what would define them when they stumbled upon the announcement.  Like most people at the time, they thought it was a joke and they only looked into it because they were bored.  Suffice to say, they were more than a little surprised to find out it wasn't.

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Skills and Abilities:  Cass and his brother Poe were both prominent warriors at the time of their birth.  They both retain some of those skills, though truthfully, they're both woefully out of practice (their last major engagement was during World War II).  They've lifetimes of knowledge, though they tend to only recall the last 50 some odd years with any reliability, the rest is more like something they've read about.  In some cases that's literal, since Cass is something of a scribe and has kept journals for the last few hundred years (and has tried to research their own past back before he'd started keeping track).

Education: A few decades ago Cass wanted to go to school and effectively got a degree in psychology and philosophy (he didn't actually get a degree since he wasn't technically enrolled, but he could have).  This was mostly out of boredom and an effort to 'modernize' his understanding of the world.  He's currently (and somewhat secretly) taking computer classes and while he's gotten relatively comfortable using them, he still wants to learn more.

Non-Educational Skills:  Cass is good at reading people.  This is both a natural sort of ability he shares with his brother and his psychology background.  While Poe tends to understand people on a more basic, almost base level and plays into that, Cass tends to understand people in terms of their more complex pathology.  It's actually something that's helped him be a decent police chief over the years, as he's more about understanding the roots of a problem than just the surface symptoms.

Cass was always better with animals (especially horses), more diplomatic, more political and more tuned into current events and he still is.

Magic: Cass has only one real magical 'power' and that's that he shared immortality with his brother Poe.  When one of them dies, the other can travel to the underworld and retrieve them.  If both of them die, they will eventually be reborn.  Poe has shared this immortality with his sisters as well (not Helen, she already had her own) and the same can be done with them.  This assumes that the siblings know about another's death (this isn't always the case) and have access to the body (also not always the case) or at least 'a body'.  Otherwise, they have to wait for rebirth and that requires the death of both Cass and Poe before it's triggered.

Beyond that, they've collected a bit of 'magic' along the way.  Most notably, they have a door to the Underworld which they can put pretty much anywhere, but right now is in a closet in their house.

In addition to collecting a few magical artifacts, Cass (and Poe) also know about magic.  Cass knows a lot about magic (and science), he just doesn't mess with either because that's what it is, a mess, it messes things up.  This is one of his only real disagreements with his brother, but they'd flipped a coin and Poe had won.

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Writing Sample:

Gravel crunched beneath the wheels of the squad car as it wound its way up the unpaved road, wooden fence posts passing by to mark the passage of every ten feet until he was at the top of the hill.  The figure in the back seat, sequestered behind the thick plexiglass partion, groaned in protect.

"Sorry bud," Cass said as he stopped the car and put it in park.

"Chief," a man said, already coming out the front door, either hearing the car coming or spotting it on the cameras that were hidden along the property's edge.

"Hey Gary," Cass said as he got out and closed the driver's side door.

The truth was, looking at him, you probably wouldn't realize he was the Chief of Police in Port Washington.  He was far too young and looked almost more like a stripper pretending to be a police officer than an actual police officer, let alone the Chief.  It didn't help that he rarely wore a gun.  He wasn't wearing one this time, though there was a shotgun in the car and he had a service weapon on a belt he kept in the trunk.  He just didn't have much need for a gun and he frankly didn't like them.

Chief Mayberry, some called him, or Andy, usually affectionately, at least he hoped.

It wasn't like he ever really needed one.  Port Washington was a peaceful place, with practically zero crime, at least, zero prosecuted crime.  There was some, but mostly they turned a blind eye to it, or, truth be told, covered it up "for the greater good."  It was a cliche, he knew, but so far, it had worked.

"You gotta keep him under control Gary," Cass warned, the figure in the back of the car struggling a bit as though he was having a tantrum.

"I know, I know," Gary assured him, nodding his head and heading toward the car himself, "I'm just so close this time."

This was the eighth or ninth time he'd said that though and the third or fourth time Cass had to come driving up that road.

"Your lucky it was a neighbor who spotted him, otherwise..." he trailed off.  He hated being the heavy, but if it had been a tourist instead of a neighbor things might have gone very differently.

"We can't have another Number Four," he said, which was less of a code than it might seem to the outside listener.

"He was only playing," Gary insisted.

"He nearly drowned a girl," Cass shot back, his patience wearing a little thin.  It didn't matter that the girl was a strong swimmer and came out of it fine, it could easily have gone horribly wrong.

"If he gets out again, we're going to have to put him down," Cass warned, his worn patience replaced with a returned softness and understanding, "and Gary, I don't know if they'll let you start on Number Ten."

Who the 'they' was in this situation was unspoken, but Gary knew exactly what Cass meant.  Cass just hoped the warning set in as Gary helped the figure out of the car, noticing that the stitches on its shoulder had torn loose during the struggle to get it into the car and the tantrum in the back seat had led to the meat and skin starting to slip off the bone.

"Yeah, sorry about that," Cass apologized as Gary (aka Gary the Necromancer) started walking his experiment back to the house.  What Cass didn't know is, it wasn't actually Number Nine, it was actually Twelve and Thirteen was already on the slab.



The Shepherd Family


The Shepherd family tree was complicated.  One of their great-grandfathers was probably their uncle.  One of their great-great-great-grandfathers was an uncle too.  Add a bunch more greats in front of it and you'd find a titan and change grandfather to grandmother and you'd find a moon goddess who was both titan and Olympian, or maybe Egyptian, who fell in love with a Shepherd Prince, which was where they took their name.  And that was just on their mother's side.

On their father's side, well, they had two fathers, so that tree got out of hand and as crazily spun as a drunken spider's web.

There were seven of them, two boys, five girls.  They all lived together in a modern monstrosity of a glass house on a steep embankment of Treheim Lake.  It had been the vanity project of one of the sisters.  She'd been dating an architect and had it built immediately upon their arrival to town some five years prior.

Cass and Poe, the boys, lived in town year-round.  They'd taken jobs and roles that required them to stay.  The girls came and went as they pleased.

Helen and Cleo were twins.  Helen was generally considered the prettier of the two, after all, she was born divine, but they were twins, like Poe and Cass, so take that as you will.

Timandra, Phoebe, and Philonoe rounded out the group, with Philonoe gaining immortality on her own, not needing it shared from her divine elder brother and sister.

Other than Philonoe, all of them were reborn every century or so (the boys usually lived 100-150 years, the girls a little longer), having to grow up before their memories would start to return to them and they'd find each other (though Cass and Poe, Helen and Cleo were always reborn together).  Sometimes they found each other quickly.  Sometimes it took a while, occasionally, it took an entire lifetime.

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