Brigid Cael (Bree-id Cayl)

Brigid Eirssyster Cael (a.k.a. Brigid, Bree)

Brigid is a PTSD sufferer with the born ability to give and take pain. She was raised as a witch-sister of Eir, and a practitioner of Norse paganism, as were her parents.

She is highly empathic, and can manipulate pain by both laying on of hands and by energy manipulation (kind of like reiki). She can also transmit pain through laying on of hands, though she was never able to do this by remote.

As a teen, fresh out of high-school, she was recruited as a member of a black ops team put together by a sub-group of several alphabet agencies. Most of the time, her 'contribution' had to be done while she was in direct contact with her victims, often looking them right in the eyes as she inflicted horrific pain. She spent time being forced to be a torturer on an interrogation team "in the interests of our country", and as a mechanism to incapacitate enemies without making any noise during operations. After several years, her mind just... broke. She became catatonic and was no longer able to use her powers, and she was locked away in a mental institution for the 'intractably comatose'.

RECON-12 was a particular boon for her -- The shifting empathic landscape woke her from her catatonia and drove her to escape the facility. The relentless pain of the dead and dying drove her further and further from 'civilization', until she ended up living in a ranger station in the protected forests of northern Canada, near the Newfoundland borders.

It was several years later that, during a spring harvest of fern and cattail root, she came across a group fishing the bogs for small mouth bass. Their energy drew her in, and, though terrified, she made herself known to them. When they returned to Collectif Paix, she chose to visit, and found herself content in the small, very compassionate, and very gentle community.

She is not typically a person who puts herself out and makes herself terribly visible, but when there are those who are in pain, are injured, or are distraught, she is compelled to reveal herself, because she cannot stand their pain hammering at her.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Brigid is what many consider a 'brittle empath'. The emotions, especially the difficult emotions, of others affect her profoundly. She spent time in a mental institution after she ws recruited for her ability to manipulate the energy of pain in others. The time spent in this duty eventually broke her resilience and, really, her mind as a whole. What makes her history more sad is that she was conned and manipulated into enlisting with the Alphabets after a nearly abysmally unimportant brush with the law in the summer after she graduated high-school. The incident, in which she and several other girls were caught sneaking into a concert, was blown up into a major felony count of breaking and entering with the intent to inflict harm, because of her abilities. She was told that she could be considered a lethal weapon, and that, if she did not cooperate in her training and assignment, she could be sent to prison for the rest of her life as a threat, because she had committed a crime while in possession of the ability to inflict serious bodily harm. The incident was intentionally blown way out of proportion to force her to sign the paperwork to enlist, and she served for several years at the behest of the agencies who arrested and charged her. They became, in effect, her captors.

Gender Identity

She is what she is. She is gentle and kind and seems well suited to societal boundaries of being female, so she simply goes with that because it's easier and doesn't distress anyone, but she doesn't really think much about her gender as a separate part of herself.

Sexuality

Brigid seeks out relationships that heal and comfort. She is deeply invested in her relationship with Wai Tiarama Qimmikpikuluk, but that may not be the full scope of her sexuality -- we just don't know, because it is too painful for her to explore things that bring distress to those around her, so she is very insular about her sexual desires or interests, out of concern that others will feel hostility, anger, or disappointment over her choices.

Mental Trauma

Brigid was taken out of service after an incident where she was sent with a group to infiltrate an embassy. They were discovered by an elderly security guard, and she was forced, at gunpoint, to "incapacitate" the guard -- an act she did not wish to commit because she recognized in the guard's energy that his circulatory system was damaged. She was beaten and a gun was placed to the GUARD's head, and rather than let them shoot him, she gave him a jolt. Unfortunately, the pain was sufficient to kill him anyway, as she had been afraid it would be, and she did not recover from the incident, slipping further and further into herself until she became catatonic and no longer interacted with the outside world at all.

She was dumped in a facility for long-term care of comatose patients, and considered 'redacted' from mission status. There is, however, a note in her records that if she were to ever return to functional awareness, that she would be obligated to continue her contract or go to prison for the murder of the security guard at the embassy.