Ryder Cadwell [Nash Lowell]

Ryder is generally a nice guy.  He likes looking out for people and has moments where he might be considered kind of sweet.  He cares about other people a lot and wants them to be happy.  He's not the type to pick on anyone or start fights, though he'll try to be the one to finish them if anyone innocent happens to be in danger.  He'll look out for those he cares about and will always do his best to be there for them.

He likes to have fun and goof around.  He can be a little obnoxious and hyper-active at times, but he's always working on brightening the mood of others by pretty much acting like a dork.  He loves trying to make people laugh and will often times do awkward things if he thinks it'll get them to.

Playing music was always something that made him happy, the drums in particular.  Ryder is always tapping on things, making beats.  He's very creative in that way, and had always found it to be an escape from his own thoughts when he played.  His favorite thing about music had always been the emotions it made him feel.  Ryder was capable of going from happy to depressed and back to happy again just based on the songs he happened to be listening to.

Ryder has zero interest in girls in a romantic way, but because his parents happened to be very ignorant on the subject, he's always pretended to.  He'll often times over compensate and say very strange things to try and get people thinking/believing he's into women.  Conflicted about why he feels the way he does, he's often times trying to lie to himself about the his own sexuality.  He's very hard on himself when he catches himself staring at a male, considering that part of himself to be disgusting thanks to the influence of his parents.

Back in the Enchanted Forest, Nash had spent most of his time as a wolf.  Even then, he was always looking out for others, working to keep them safe. He would do anything he could to try and contribute to the pack he had been taken into. He was always super grateful and really enjoyed getting to play, wrestle, and fake fight. Nash wasn't so fond of the human side of him, thinking it would tear him away from his new found pack. He figured, especially after figuring out he was lying, they might not have been so accepting.  He was very hard on himself, though he was never very vocal about it.

Back in the Enchanted Forest as a wolf, Nash lacked knowledge on things about the human world.  He didn't care much to learn, and that world confused him.  He didn't get their customs, and on the few occasions he'd found himself having to be human around them, he was always incredibly weird in all of their eyes.  He stuck out immensely.

When Nash came to Storybrooke, he was given a different name, Ryder Cadwell.  His head was filled with fake memories, and though he still had some awkward wolfy moments, he was clueless to who he really was and what he really was.  Though he had literally just appeared in Storybrooke one day, he falsely believed their was a time where he hadn't been there and was somewhere else in the Land Without Magic.  Through-out his twenty-eight cursed years where time hadn't moved he had dreams where he had been a wolf.  However, he figured they were just that.  Dreams.

Nash's false self, Ryder, had grown up on a farm with a rather large family (though for some reason he is always finding that he is forgetting the names of his siblings).  His father had always forced him to work with him on said farm, despite how much Ryder disliked it.  His life had basically been wake up, go to school, come home, do homework, and then do farm chores with his father.  Even though he had many friends at his school, he was never able to hang out with any of them outside of school hours since his father was always keeping him so busy.  His parents could definitely fall under the category of strict.

One year, his parents finally let up a little.  He was allowed to have some of his friends over in scheduled time after school.  They felt that maybe if they let him have a little bit of a release, his failing grades might pick up.  Always more focused on the social life he could actually have during school hours, he put off his work and was unable to focus on it.  Only after a long talk with the school counselor did his parents finally begin to get it.

So, with his knew found few hours of freedom with his friends, they formed a band.  Ryder had always had a love from drums, playing them in the morning before school.  So, naturally, he took that position on.  The band seemed to be doing well, and Ryder was having tons of fun practicing in the barn with them.  His mood at home seemed to brighten quite a bit more which started making his mother happy.  His younger brothers (or possibly sisters, he could never quite remember) though, not so much, because they had to split the hours of chores that Ryder had now been free from.

One day, Ryder's mother invited his band-mates inside for dinner before practice.  It was then that she noticed something she wasn't expecting.  Ryder was constantly eyeing up one of his friends, having quite an extreme attraction to him.  Knowing that the looks her son was giving the other boy were not just of the friendly nature, she became very uncomfortable.  From then on, she took it upon herself to monitor their practices.  When she was sure about what she was seeing, she brought it to her husband's attention.  Furious, he forced Ryder to end the band and to permanently stay away from those friends.

Nash's story began far before he had even been born.  Just a dash over six hundred years ago one of his ancestors made the deal of several life times with a boy who possessed a considerable amount of magic.  The boy went by the name of Peter Pan.  His ancestor was a rather pathetic man who longed for something more in life.  So he came to Pan with these exact words, "All my life I have been weak, unimportant, and unable to obtain that which I desired most. My family lineage is just loser after loser. I don't want to be pathetic anymore. I don't want this family curse of weakness. I want to be better. Better than I am as this weak little human. Weak, short lived, senseless human. I want to be so much more. I want a legacy of strength and power, of being more than a mere pathetic mortal. I want something more to pass on when I die."  Pan, who had another agenda up his sleeve, responded by saying "I can do this for you. Take away your weakness, insure that the strength I give you is passed on. Everything that you ask, and more waits at your fingertips. But, magic always has a price. One that must be paid in full."  The ancestor, desperate for change, then asked "Truly? What is it you would ask of me?"  Pan's answer was simple.  "When the Piper calls, your blood will answer."

From that, Pan used his magic on Nash's ancestor, turning him into a werewolf.  The powers were promised to pass down the family line, as had been requested.  The only thing the ancestor had not thought all the way through had been that him and his family after him were now forever forced to obey Pan if he wanted them to.  When he played for them, mind control basically took effect, leaving them no choice but to do his bidding.

The story of how their blood line came to be was passed on for generations.  Unfortunately, Nash's pack, including his parents, had been wiped out when he was just a small pup.  His mother had shoved him into a gap inside a group of large rocks, hiding him from the hunters.  She made him promise to stay put no matter what happened.  Nash never got to learn the story of their were origins, and had no idea that if Pan were to ever request his help, he would have no choice but to help.  Lucky for him, the piper hadn't seemed to call thus far in his life.

After his parents died, Nash had to fend for himself.  Finding humans to be cruel for what they'd done to his family, he avoided them.  He spent his days surviving in the forest.  Always embracing the wolf inside of him, Nash never seemed to have a lot of issues controlling his wolf side. 

Nash spent a few years on his own, raising himself.  He was found by a huntsman who welcomed him into his pack of just two.  Skeptical at first because the huntsman wasn't really a wolf himself, he very quickly found him growing on him.  He was kind, and kindness was something Nash hadn't been shown in some time.  Finding his place in such a small pack was easy, but there were times when he still felt distant from the two.  The longer he stayed around, the more weary he became of letting them know that he had, in fact, been a werewolf instead of just an ordinary wolf.  Nash decided to continue keeping his own secret in order to make sure he wouldn't find himself packless once again.  He was extremely afraid of disappointing the kind huntsman and the white wolf.

One day, when Nash was going about his usual day to day life, a black fog came through the forest.  Confused at first, he tried to run from it.  Unfortunately, he got swept up in it.  The black fog teleported him into the land without magic.  He wound up in Storybrooke, Maine where everyone was given fake lives, forgetting who they were.