Son of LLewella and  Mckan Elysian of Shar-da-Kor  Quiz Diaries

Personal Symbol:  Two hands clasped together as in handshake/armwrestle -- overlaid by two swords crossing on a dark blue and black background.

Colors:  Deep Night Dark Blue and Black

Physical Description:

• 6"3 tall
• green eyes
• chiseled face w/ prominent cheekbones
• short wavy brown hair
• muscular, cut-not too big
• full lower lip
• tight ears
• not too hairy
• broad upright stride
• speaks steady, deep voice

Psychological Description:
            Saphir has two specific moods:
            1-serious intense-focused, quiet
            2-adventurous daring funloving, vocal, loves to laugh
             He is competitive, quick -- quick, notices things, people.  He wants to believe the best, make everything positive and trusts quickly.  Despite this he is also quietly cautious-always watching to see if good goes bad.
            Saphir gets quietly paranoid and withdrawn if he is given reason to mistrust or sees someone too ambitious.  He tends to avoid that ilk except for Moire.  When he doesn't like or trust someone, Saphir will withdraw and get quiet/secretive.  This is because he doesn't want to give potential enemy any info.  This is strategic.
            Saphir is also bold and proud but he doesn't boast.  With this, he is loving, cherishing, and fiercely loyal.  He will never retreat if others need help.

Description of Trump:
             Saphir is in a long blue (night dark blue) cape, longsword in one hand, goldstone bola in the other.  Behind him is a banner showing two hands clasped together as in handshake or armwrestle overlaid by two swords crossing.  All the colors of the Trump are various shades of deep dark blue.

History:
             Born on the world(shadow) of Shar-Da-Kor -- a rift world of floating islands over a huge white mist abyss known as Ocean Of Mist.
            Saphir grew up solitary in his early years -- in awe of his siblings, but ostracized by most of them.  They didn't dislike him, but he was different -- more intuitive, outdoorsy and much stronger, deft in combat and boldly adventurous then they.  As well, they followed the lead of their brother Castlin -- who loathed and resented him in bitter jealousy!
            Saphir was close with his parents, more so his mother.  She was a woman
who avoided the limelight -- but when forced or pressed or certainly angered/challenged she was beyond formidable and daunting in an almost supernatural way.  Dad was an intellectual and an artist, who fathomed the world through physics and mathematics -- understanding magic and science and the weave of those into beauty.  But Llewella was the shrewd and cunning one and grand beyond her husband's match or comprehension, grand in scope and purpose beyond even SDK itself.
            Saphir seemed to draw most of his qualities and his features from his mother -- as well as his sense of destiny.  With mom as she was -- bigger than this life -- Saphir never understood why they dwelled in the mid-realms vs. the Heights.
            Saphir sought refuge from his out of placedness -- in the comfort of his friends, and although outcast at school as well.  Eventually he found friendship in a gang of similar outcasts.  They called themselves the Heliolites (name refers to the helio-kyte devices used on their world.)  He and his 3 closest friends -- Ajanon, Alexan and Keera -- ran the gang from adventure to adventure.  When their school was the 24th school to mysteriously burn down -- they were bused to a school on another rift.  Here they were bullied frequently on the way to school and at school.
            There they befriended another similarly outcast and "rift-displaced by burnt-down school" gang called "the Renaissance Cadre".  Together the 2 gangs grew very close and became a formidable force to rift-wide bullies and gangs. They had their grandest times and adventures either going rift bouncing to and from school or weekend camping on various rifts including the redzoned (restricted) Darkspires.
            Their most amazing and death defying trip was out to "Davenskor" seeking the mythical goldstones of amber -- artifacts that supposedly created their world and other worlds as well. On that first trip when they were all about 13.  They had found a gold glowing cavern they thought housed the stones, but as they dug they were assailed by the dreaded "Gamalek" -- a creature fierce and viscous, that can't usually be distinguished from the shadows it hides in, until it is too late.
            Two people died and many were hurt.  They barely escaped with their lives.
            When they hit the summer of their 15th year -- the last summer before they would all turn adult and go onto their careers -- they took one final trip to Daveskor to retrieve the Goldstones.  They did get the stones -- several of them -- and the same Gamalek struck again, killing three more friends -- including Alexan.  Saphir actually grappled with the beast and used one of the sharper stones rather cleverly to escape its clutches, wounding its leg so it couldn't pursue.
            They returned with the stones that most of them didn't even believe in as magical anymore and they were all deeply scarred by the loss of Alexan. Childhood's end was upon them.
            Saphir joined the militia and excelled there. He was happy.  Accepted and
popular, he was considered superior and relished at finally being in a strong fraternity of brotherhood, loyalty and caring. Those were his finest and fondest days.
            During that time he learned through correspondence that mom was away quite a bit -- for long periods of time -- on one trip or another.
            Over the years Saphir saw many places, almost every part of every rift, met many peoples and fought in hundreds of conflicts.  He reunited with both Ajanon and Keera quite often.
            He had fallen in love with Ajanon and their relationship, which had experimented with sex in their youth, became steady in its deepening and its experimentation.  They were on each other every vacation or leave they got.  This they kept secret.  It wasn't forbidden on their world -- just considered insubstantial.  Ajanon eventually met a woman -- and they married.  But when he sees Saphir, they continue their liaisons.
            Keera, who was there to console Saphir during the heartache of Ajanon's
marriage, fell in love with Saph.  And he fell in love with her.  That liaison continues as well.  Neither Aj or Keera know the other is that involved (or still involved) with Saph.
            When Saphir turned 45, Mom came to him and said, "Let's go to a nice dinner."  There she said that she had to go do something and this could be Bye forever.
            One year later the Ocean of Mists turned dark, and monsters started to emerge from the mists into the lower depths.  At first warring rifts took advantage of their enemies whom the creatures plagued, but eventually as the creatures swarmed in abundance -- ravaging rift after rift -- the rift armies teamed up.  But far too late.
            The greater rifts fell, the drakes and dragons, united fell, and as the surreal quality of apocalypse of a realm descended -- Saphir prepared the last stand armies on the heights inner gates for the last battle.  He remembers the panic as the creatures overran them, as they swung last strikes and cuts.  He remembers looking to the horizon -- everyone looking, monsters looking -- to see the hugest, longest, thickest, darkest abyss and soot black cloud storm that one could conceptualize seeing.  It was more feeling it then seeing it.  And as they realized that, it swept over them all and then...
            Nothingness...
            Whiteout.
            The next he remembers -- there he stood on the Heights... alone... troops
nowhere to be seen.
            Saphir was rudely escorted out by guards who had just fought alongside him, threatening charges of trespass and class violations!!  No one he spoke to then or after remembered a thing about any of that dark time!!  The dead had returned, unmaimed and memory clean!  Rifts tattered were in top shape.
            Bewildered, Saphir drank alot -- and few days later -- returned to duty, strangely unnerved.  Ten days after this puzzle, Mom returned.
            He told her his tale.  She gave him a look, said pack your bags, say your
good-byes, we are going... maybe forever.
            It was then that Mom took him on his first Shadow walk.  Nothing would ever be the same again.  It was the strangest and most amazing thing he had ever done. They went through a place called Arden -- to Amber -- where they met Uncle Julian, an incredible and formidable person.
            Eventually they descended to the waterworld reflection known as Rebma, where Saphir met a woman who would forever change his life and become one of the constellations in his world, Queen (Aunt) Moire.
            There Saphir grew and changed a great deal.  He walked the Pattern, his mind and world expanded and deepened.  He learned of King Random and Queen Vialle.  He swore fealty to Random, although he really felt it for Vialle.  He became a Duke Of Amber.  He wandered many Shadows and grew more alive with each one.
            He became a lover and confidant to Moire -- and thought it folly at first -- seeing the greed and ambition in her lust for him, but coming to treasure it and her as someone honest in her reasons and true in her feelings regardless of the underlying cause or motivation.
            He has come to understand the power and politic of family, and although he doesn't relish it, he thinks and feels that it is now a part of his destiny .  His instincts and skills have flourished and grown a hundred fold -- and yet he senses there is so much more to learn.
           And then there are cousins -- his generation.