Finally got around to writing all this down. It's not too funny, but it does explain my character. If you don't have time to read the whole thing, it boils down to "Nephew of Pierre Aronnax builds H.G. Wells' Time Machine, brings pet cat along, gets turned into cat person, changes name to Arronax."

Sam Arronax’s Back story (Or, Time-Traveling Cats.)

It was working. The time machine that H. G. Wells had designed, and then given the blueprints to his uncle, before writing about it, was finished. Granted, it looked almost nothing like the designs, but that could be ironed out. Now it was time to test it.
He was working as an apprentice at a factory, when his presumed-dead uncle showed up in a lifeboat. His uncle was… different than before, more obsessed with things usually found in carnival sideshows than proper scientific labs. It was inevitable that Sam would become interested as well.
He packed only what he needed. In fact, H.G. had specified the least intrusive food to bring. Which was an egg. He would have to speak to her about that…
A loud meow brought him out of his thoughts. Of course he would bring his pet cat, Clarence, to test time travel’s effects on everything. He put him in the time machine, and he stepped back to look at it again.
It was very odd-looking. Granted, the original design was already very strange, but after adding shielding, wheels, a more power turbine, and painting it blue, it was even stranger. The theory was that something spinning with enough power contained within it, while moving at high speeds, would create a portal through space-time. It was also why H.G. and his Uncle were a laughingstock.
He stepped into the seat, and started it. The irregular whir-whir-whir slowly turned into a steady “Vreeeeee” sound as the Time Machine powered up. He set the time as July 26th, 2007, just to test it out. The Time machine began to glow, the grime accumulated from the grease-covered tools and the substandard parts heating, glowing, and burning before flaking off. Looking at his hands, he noticed they were glowing as well.
The last thing he saw before disappearing into the vortex was a bright blue light…

He was everywhere, and nowhere. He saw everything. It was full of stars. Panicking, he reached out, not in body, but in mind, to touch the closest thing he could find.
Clarence. And then he heard a voice. But not a voice. A thought.
“Holy crap, the monkey did it. Wait, what… AAAAAGHH!”
And then the thought was his own, and he was screaming.

…A bright blue light that disappeared instantly, but long enough to burn its image into his retinas. He rubbed his eyes to see if he could rub the image out. As he did, he noticed that his hands were… fuzzy, for lack of a better word. Grey, striped, and fuzzy. Like Clarence.
Surely he hadn’t… He’d read one of those cheap, short, fiction books about something like this happening before. No wonder they were called “Penny Dreadfuls”. To his relief, he was, at the least, still Human-shaped. But distinctly feline.
Looking at the box that he had put Clarence in, he found it empty, with not even a hint of cat inside it. Stupid box, he thought. Wait, where did that come from? I didn’t…
He felt fine, better than fine, he felt great. He was confident. And, thinking clearly for the first time in years, without smoke or smog, or the many clouds of smoke of questionable origin constantly drifting about London, he realized where Clarence went.
He was Clarence, but Clarence was also him.