User:Lysander/Lysander
The twins Ilyssia and Lysander were born in 1053 AE in Ascalon City, and both named after the Twin Goddess, Lyssa. Ilyssia took to the arts of mesmerism from a young age, and at 13, was given the opportunity to learn from Lady Althea, whom she greatly admired. Just months into the tutelage, however, she fell ill with a strange, unknown disease. The greatest monks of Ascalon examined her but could do nothing to cure her malady, and she spent the last months of her life at Ashford Abbey, slowly fading towards the Mists.
Her death devastated her family. Lysander, who had already learned to fight with a bow and befriended Mel, a Melandru's Stalker who had saved him from a vicious grawl when he was a boy, decided instead to honor his twin's memory by learning mesmerism, and took her place as Lady Althea's apprentice.
He first met Dimitrius and Hermia at Ascalon Academy, and initially didn't get along with the old friends from Ashford. This culminated in a battle in Ascalon Arena, in which Dimitrius, Hermia, and the monk Alesia defeated him, the warrior Stefan, and the elementalist Orion. Nonetheless, they all accompanied Prince Rurik in his pursuit of the Charr spy Vatlaaw Doomtooth. After their combined abilities struck Doomtooth down, Lysander took the Charr's bow as a trophy.
Following the Searing, he did his best to help Ascalon rebuild what it could. He met the ranger Reyna when their bows got tangled as they passed each other in the city, and they began hunting together, eventually developing a relationship. They were both called upon to spy upon the Charr leader Bonfaaz Burntfur, and fought back Burntfur's attack and breach of the Great Northern Wall.
He reencountered Dimitrius when the necromancer and his mentor, Verata, rescued him and Reyna from a large pack of grawl on the road to Surmia. The former rivals reconciled, and the same occurred with Hermia when they encountered her at Nolani Academy. Together with Rade Dupoint, a former captain of King Adelbern's personal guard, they helped Rurik break the Siege of Rin, and then joined him in his exile to Kryta.
Over the course of their stay in Kryta, Lysander's relationship with Reyna became strained, thanks in no small part to his fairly evident growing attraction to Hermia. While they hid with the Shining Blade in Quarrel Falls following the defeat of Justiciar Hablion, they finally ended their romance, and Reyna agreed to stay and help in the war against the White Mantle.
During his Ascension at Augury Rock, Lysander was given the opportunity to speak with the spirit of Ilyssia, his lost twin, who appeared as a fiery, purple phoenix. He never revealed what was said in that conversation, although Glint hinted in their encounter later that day that she knew what had been said. From that day on, the purple phoenix became the symbol of the guild that Lysander and his companions founded.
Following the fulfillment of the Flameseeker Prophecies and the defeat of the titans that invaded Tyria, Lysander and Hermia grew closer, and decided to give a relationship a try. That relationship strengthened as they followed Mhenlo to Cantha, helping the people there defeat the spirit of Shiro the Betrayer, even though they argued over whether to support the Kurzicks or Luxons. Following Shiro's defeat, Lysander proposed, and they married shortly after returning to the Ascalon Settlement.
Lysander learned that Hermia was pregnant on the same day that Kormir arrived in Lion's Arch. Unwilling to ignore the new crisis brewing in Elona, they sailed for Istan. Hermia remained there to aid in the training of new Sunspear recruits, while Lysander went with the rising Sunspear leader Mansur Desertflame to foil Varesh Ossa's plans. He was in the Realm of Torment when he learned, from the taunting of a Margonite of all things, about the birth of his daughter, and the determination to see her strengthened his resolve in the face of Abaddon's nightmarish weapons.
The baby was named Allison, after Ilyssia, and spent the first few months of her life in Istan before her parents felt comfortable travelling back home with her. In her new home in Kryta, she was introduced to her godfather, Dimitrius, and later, much to the shock of those who had been present on Rurik's last night in Grooble's Gulch, when he met the elementalist Nina, a young boy named Richard whom Nina had given birth to and was raising in secret, with the help of her brother, Gerin.
Richard's identity was kept a closely-guarded secret, and he became Allison's first playmate once she was big enough to be safe around the rambunctious little boy. When she was three years old, however, chaos reared its head once more in the form of an earthquake that tore a hole in the hills between Lion's Arch and the Ascalon Settlement. Lysander, Hermia, Dimitrius, Rade, and Gerin investigated the crevasse, which resulted in meeting the dwarf Ogden Stonehealer and the asura Vekk, and their first encounter with the destroyers.
In the Far Shiverpeaks, Lysander and Hermia were reunited with Mansur, who had arrived there following a similar incident in Istan, as well as Veshan Blackhand, an assassin whom they had journeyed with in Cantha. They were also stunned to find Gwen, once upon a time the child who had followed Rade around on his patrols through Lakeside County, now a disillusioned teenager who had suffered for seven years as a prisoner of the Charr. Lysander and Hermia went with Gwen to help the Ebon Vanguard, while Dimitrius and Veshan went with Vekk to recruit the Asura and Mansur, Rade and Gerin went with Ogden to parley with the Norn. Their combined efforts eventually led to the defeat of the Great Destroyer.
Following the defeat of the White Mantle at the Battle for Lion's Arch, Lysander finally set down his staff, determined to watch Allison grow up. She and Richard served as the flower girl and ring bearer, respectively, at Gwen's wedding, although Richard's ancestry was still kept secret. Many years later, they themselves married, and had a daughter named Alina. Alina was young when the Shining Blade finally learned the identity of her paternal grandfather, and she was hastily betrothed to Queen Salma's young son. Allison and Richard refused to allow their daughter's betrothal, with the help of Allison's influential parents. Nonetheless, Alina and the prince eventually fell in love anyway, uniting the long-separated royal bloodlines of King Doric upon the Krytan throne.
