Family:
Rynnaen [his progenitor]
Meredith [his lover]
Pyotr [his rival]
House Myrys [the rest]
Of all my characters, Danya has perhaps the most convoluted of origins. Clone to Rynnaen, he was birthed of her as well, in a fairly spectacular mitosis; unfortunately, there were no witnesses to this split, which Danya likens to Athena bursting full-grown from Zeus' forehead.
But his story does not start there.
Born in the mid-fourteenth century on an Earth shadow, in France, Danya -- Daniel -- was a peasant, one of a large family, serf to a distant, taxing overlord. Intelligent enough to see and understand the disparity in classes, he resented it, without being able to do anything about it.
At some indeterminante age, Daniel was visited by a succubus, a Chaosian Lady traveling through Shadow in a shapeshifted form. His mortal life, in essense, ended then, as Elayne of Sawall drained the life force from the peasant body. His consciousness, trapped within her, raged at the treatment, as futiley as he had against the classes he'd grown up in.
Much to his relief, he wasn't stuck there for long. Rynnaen ti' Myrys, Elayne's half sister, came to Elayne for help in shapeshifting -- she needed to be made unrecognizable, both physically and mentally. Elayne, recently back from her time as a succubus, and not entirely healed from it, agreed.
She shapeshifted Rynnaen into a small, red-haired woman, whose name was Rachel. The personality and mental signature, however, were overridden by Daniel, escaping Elayne's mind into this new and unformed being. Rynnaen was vanquished to the back of his mind, an irritating little voice who occasionally tried to take over the body they now shared. Daniel normally referred to her as, "That nattering bitch."
Daniel/Rynnaen/Rachel spent some weeks in this odd triage, during which time they collectively failed to rescue Rynnaen's Shadow-son, which had been the purpose of the entire event to begin with. During this time, Daniel also met and seduced Kay, a woman ranger from a quiet Shadow, and took Meredith, Rynnaen's mother, by surprise by grabbing her and kissing her. Rynnaen was horrifed, but unable to do anything about the man in control of her body, except for brief moments when he was distracted.
Eventually Elayne shifted Rynnaen back to her normal form, and wiped, or so she thought, Daniel from Rynnaen's mind.
Truth be told, Daniel remained in the back of Rynna's head, a personality without a body or a time. Rynnaen, unaware of him, went about life for the next decade as she always had.
And then along came Typhoid Rac. An exalted shapeshifter, he bore a disease which mutated shapehifting randomly: those who caught it would suddenly and without warning shift in peculiar manners. Rynnaen caught it, had no idea she had contracted it, and disappeared off to Earth. There, on vacation, she collapsed in a heap, and Danya was born from her as her body produced extra mass. The personality so long trapped within her mind escaped, and ran, eventually, to Myrys.