Cassiel

Cassiel is an ex-guardian angel who was cursed into the form of a common wolf. He measures around 3'2" at shoulder height, being slightly larger than the average wolf. He has heterochromia; his right eye is brown, his left eye is a deep turquoise. His paw pads are pink and dark brown, with mismatched patterns. His fur is light gray and dull brown with a white underbelly and darker patch of fur on his back and tail tip. He has dark dull brown stripes on his face, shoulders, and tail tip, with little white sock markings on his paws. Living out in the city streets leaves his fur often ruffled and somewhat unkept.

During the winter, Cas' fur turns completely white and grows out into a thicker coat to keep warm. The pure white fur allows him to blend into the snow.

In his angelic form, Cas has a light golden, slightly cracked halo and large, soft white feathered wings. He can still summon his wings, but he avoids summoning them in public. He'll only fly when nobody is looking. He keeps his halo and wings hidden to hide his status as an angel, but his shadow always displays them, forever hinting at his true nature.

Cas lost his voice a long tie ago and is therefore mute, but he is still capable of making noises that only require breath. (EX: Yawning, coughing, sneezing, sighs, huffs, etc.)

Cas lost his voice a long time ago and is therefore mute.

Cassiel's only accessory is a leather tracking collar with a silver buckle. It is broken and is purely decorative. He wears it to blend in with the other city canines and to (poorly) pass himself off as a domestic dog. It keeps people from asking him too many questions, since they mistake it for a common dog collar.

In anthro, Cas wears simple, hand-me-down clothing that Shakespierre gifts to him. He can't afford cool, fancy stuff.

Cassiel has a few remaining abilities from his time as a guardian angel.

• Cassiel is capable of healing small wounds and injuries.
• His healing powers are very weak and inefficient, though.

• Cassiel can summon his wings for long distance flight.
• His feathered wings are also heavily resistant to magic attacks.

Cassiel is a gentle and protective soul who always places others before himself, sometimes at the expense of his own well-being.

Cassiel is a gentle and protective soul who always places other before himself. He is passive and will refuse to fight, often seeking more peaceful ways to resolve conflict. If struck, he'll stay and deal with it unless he can safely walk away. He has a lot of patience, especially with the children and elderly, and doesn't snap when upset. When alone, he always seems very nervous and avoids crowded places.

Due to his muteness, Cas struggles with communication and often feels left out as a result. He mainly relies on a mix of facial expressions, body language, and charades to communicate. He's a lot more expressive with his movements, doing small tippy-tap dances when happy or completely shaking his head to emphasize a "no."
Recently, Cas has been practicing a form of sign language, but it isn't as widespread as "common" language. It's mostly used to communicate with his friend, Shakespierre.

Back when he still lived among other angels, Cas was in charge of training young angels and, thus, developed a protective streak and soft spot for the weak and innocent. Despite no longer being a guardian, he continues to watch over others out of his own will. He tends to worry a bit much, though, even if he doesn't vocalize it.

Though many years have passed since his exile, Cas has a hard time forgiving himself for his past mistakes. His last failure as a guardian angel continues to haunt him as a grim reminder, and he fears failing yet again. He tends to be rather hard on himself, believing he deserved to be exiled, and refuses to let himself move to a better situation as a result.

Cas has a preference for darker places and is more active at night, to better hide his halo and wings. He rarely shows up in the morning, only to greet Shakespierre, and spends the rest of the day in hiding.

Cassiel currently resides in the city of Luminea, but he is homeless and spends his nights in various alleyways. He changes locations based on where he feels safest and can be hard to track. There is a specific place near the cafe where he meets up with Shakespierre every morning to hang out.

Whenever he moves locations, Cas always brings along his few belongings in a bag: a blanket, a pillow, Shakespierre's supply gifts, and whatever food supplies he has for the days ahead.

Cassiel was once a guardian angel (one of the original archangels created by the goddess, to be specific) and oversaw the training of the lesser angels. His job was also his passion. He cared greatly about his fellow archangels and the younger ones he was responsible for. Because the archangels were created to never have children, Cas treated the lesser angels as if they were his own and was protective over them.

For a long time, the archangels saw prosperity under their beloved goddess and their hierarchy system ran well. Every day would be the same: everybody worked endlessly and efficiently. Everybody praised the goddess and got along.

Fun Fact: The archangels of Cas' world were considered really horrifying to even the true demons, so they walked around in Humanoid forms instead. They were straight up abominations to be feared, but their goddess thought they were cute! She made them in her image and was upset when nobody else liked them. :)

When the gods vanished from the world, however, their goddess vanished as well. Without her, the archangels were left to run the system on their own and didn't have the powers to create new life as she had with their younger angels. The archangels found themselves missing their creator and grieving for her loss. In the end, Melianthos, one of the archangels, took over and wanted to start a system of "recycling" the essence of rejected angels, where they would discard the weak and rejects to create new ones.

Disagreeing heavily, Cas didn't hesitate to voice his complaints against Melianthos. He believed it was cruel and unecessary, and he tried to protect the lesser angels from their fates. In exchange, he was restrained by fellow archangels and punished severely. One other archangel, the Executioner, tried to stand up for him but backed down upon being snapped at by Melianthos.

Cas became an example to the other archangels: a warning of what would happen to the rest of them if they stood against Melianthos. First, they took his voice away so he could no longer scream, but his powers were left, as it was impossible for even the archangels to completely strip each other of their powers. They originally intended to take all his wings away, too, but Melianthos chose to curse him instead.

Upon being cursed, Cas was stripped of his true form, left with a single pair of wings, and lost most of his powers. He was left with the body of a common wolf and nothing more. Whatever he used to look like, nobody but the other archangels would know. He lost his ability to shapeshift back.

With a weakened body and broken mind, Cas was exiled and thrown out from the kingdom to rot on an unknown continent. He used his remaining strength to crawl into a cave and remained there for weeks. Though he was now cursed, Cas still didn't require any sleep, food, or water, but he found his new body feeling weaker without any.

While Cassiel still lived out in the wilds, a researcher mistook him for a wild, young dire wolf. He was unexpectedly tranquilized and tagged with a tracking collar. Cas was promptly let go without a problem, but he became wary of the forest and its inhabitants. He found it easy to take off the collar himself, but, since it was harmless, he decided to leave it on, which proved to be a good choice in the future.

At some point, Cas ended up in a fight with an actual dire wolf. The larger wolf clamped down on his neck but ended up biting the metal portion of the tracking collar, breaking its tracking device. The collar ended up saving Cas from an otherwise fatal injury.

After that, Cas left the forest and decided to explore for a new place to settle, having learned that the forest was dire wolf territory. The continent ended up being much smaller than he thought, and he found himself at the shores. He found an abandoned hut that he took shelter in, but he'd find himself staring out across the ocean, longing to return to the mainland.

Cas would still return to the forest once in a while, but he would respect the boundaries of the dire wolf clan living there. He'd watch them from afar to learn some survival skills and how to build a shelter. Having lived all his live in the Angelic Kingdom, he never realized that mortals lived out in the world like this, and he found it very fascinating.

A few years later, Cassiel finally found his strength and decided he was well enough to make that long-distance flight back to the mainland. In all his years of serving as an archangel, he knew his way around the skies and would know his rough location in the world from a bird's eye view. The only problem was: he never spent much time on the actual ground and never paid much attention to any city or town locations. He packed together some essentials and looked at the island one last time, before summoning his wings and setting off to the skies.

The first few minutes were rough, as Cas was out of practice from flying, but he made sure to warm up beforehand. If anything, he was afraid of falling into the ocean, since he never learned how to swim at the time.

After days of traveling across the ocean, Cas found his way back to the main continent, but he knew that he wouldn't be welcomed back to the kingdom. He started looking for another place to live and flew over to the western side - a place that he wasn't very familiar with at all.

After weeks of traveling overseas, Cassiel hoped to find a proper place to settle and rest his tired wings. He found himself hovering above a particularly bright part of the western side and saw some flickering, colorful lights below. There were two cities that he had never seen before. He guessed that they had been constructed some time ago, seeing that the cities were fairly active.

Cas found himself drawn to the other city that was quieter - the city of Luminea. Luminea's sister city, Chromeill, was much too loud for Cas' tastes. He wanted somewhere more calm to collect his thoughts. He used the dim lights of a penthouse suite as a landing guide and quietly descended onto the rooftop, before hiding his wings away and walking down through the stairs to the front door.

From there, Cas found it easy to slip away into the night and seek out a place to hide. It was late with almost no people in sight. The night owls who were active at the time were too busy to pay attention to a lone wolf walking along. While he was walking, though, he couldn't help but feel as if he were being followed...

When he turned around, Cassiel spotted a small, bright orange figure standing under the street lights, staring up at him with shining eyes. The young dinosaur's name was Shakespierre, and he had followed Cas all the way out from the penthouse suite. Cas attempted to ignore the curious follower and found an unoccupied corner in the alleyway to unpack his things. He was sad to see that he'd run out of food rations, however, and he was starting to feel hungry.

Shakespierre squeaked at Cas and held up a single claw, leaving the wolf confused, before darting off. Cas wasn't sure if he was supposed to run or wait, but he chose to stay in his corner. It wasn't like he had anywhere else to go, after all.

Some minutes later, Shakespierre returned with a box of food and a blanket from the nearby convenience store and offered it to Cas. At first, Cas was hesitant to accept anything from a stranger, but his hunger got the better of him. He nodded thankfully to the dino before taking the gift. They ended up sharing the meal and snacks together.

Shakespierre waved to Cas before heading back to the penthouse, and Cas waved a paw back. He watched as the dino turned the corner and disappeared. Being able to meet someone so nice in the city left Cas with a little more hope in his heart. He didn't have a bed, but he found it easy to sleep soundly with his new blanket.

The next morning, Cas was surprised to see that Shakespierre had returned to the alleyway to see him again, bringing some breakfast this time. After that, they ended up becoming friends. It became a normal routine for them to wait for each other by the cafe to meet up, and Shakespierre would continue to bring supplies and other gifts to Cas.

About a month later, Shakespierre would try to invite Cas to come live with him, but Cas would sadly refuse and choose to stay in the alleyways. He would, however, continue to watch over the young dino in the city and keep him out of harm's way.

At some point, Cas and Shakespierre picked up a book on their world's equivalent of sign language, and they began to practice it together to communicate better.