This stunningly social man clearly takes after his father in quite a few ways, though never the expected ones. Kallah Vahh somewhat thought that he'd have a son suitable for bringing to legal meetings and paperwork, but oh how that didn't happen... Not really.

He is 'only average' in terms of strength and size, but carries himself tall and with elegance; more like a secretary bird looking for its next delicious snake to pound into next week with dangerous claws and stamping feet, than a secretary at a desk. Handsome, with darkly brown hair having a graphite streak at the temples, kept long with a significant widows peak, and usually tied into a tail reaching his mid-back. His eyes are very brightly turquoise, a bluer shade than his father's, though not as dark teal or indigo shaded as his mother's. They also glow very slightly, not because of some trick of biology, but because of his level of power being just that strong it leaks out of him. Often, when he's angry, that glow turns very, very bright. He has human-style facial and body hair options available to him that most Zekirans do not, but that does mean he has had to learn how to shave, which is something few men on Zekira have had to do! He dresses sharply, and his birds and flitters have never once shat on his jacket... Gryphon's voice is deep, resonant, and incredibly scary, particularly if you're not on his good side.

He came about in a more natural fashion than Raa'nach Vahh, and he knows that he's a slightly less terrifying version of that clone. Sorry, less physically scary. He's far closer to what Kallah Vahh had in mind when he asked for Raa'nach to be created, but that hasn't caused any kind of rift between the men. In fact, Gryphon does enjoy hiring his 'brother' (for lack of a better word) to do the nasty heavy lifting.

Of the pair of Baeris's children here, he is the more widely-traveled of them... Offworld. Though Raa'bina can and does move between a couple dimensions, Gryphon is amazingly good with it, and is quite taken with visiting weird worlds - stealing animals from them, and to Kallah Vahh's ire, breeding them with native Zekiran wildlife to see what will happen. (See, he's also got that Kshau streak, right? they like animals!) Because he can move through dimensions with such ease, he has established quite a bit of property on distant worlds, and almost doesn't even notice which one of them he's on, until something specific comes up to remind him.

A busy Atasan, he is known to have people 'convinced' to vote this or that way, and yes he makes enemies this way. And no, they do not ever recover from what happens next... He is a modestly adept politician, active in Pelatih services and council, but also digging dirt on other people and making sure they are flagged by the sharper politicians that dad has. Doesn't make money specifically at this, but it is more or less his secondary profession, started with father's help in the Le'ret council. He does a pretty brisk business as a Bond Agent, buying and selling other people's debts, paying them off and having those Bayaran working it off wherever he needs them most. That is usually in the big facilities, doing mundane tasks. He doesn't tend to take contracts for individuals with powers or strong mutations, he'd rather leave those to dad or one of the other ahlVahh since they give a rat's ass about it. He is a number cruncher, not a touchy feely type like his sister.

His home Zone of Ablan in the middle of Imaa consists of a lovely estate with a large central mansion (with tall interior walls, some of them up to 30 spans high in the central atrium), surrounded by both cherry trees and lovely low shrubbery, berries of different sorts in clever designs to be picked upon walking the path, and equally sprawling gardens that are suited to feeding his many birds. These gardens are semi-covered, some locations have netting and deterrent sonic barriers that keep the birds inside, and other less desirables out. In them, plants of all sorts, from millet and rice, to apple trees and other fruits, are grown - but it's not merely the grains or plant matter that is important to this ecosystem - it's the bugs, mice, even other small birds, lizards, and vermin that are part of the food chain here. Frogs and mosquitoes, mice and hug-ems, all manner of edible treats for birds that require specific types of diets can be fed here freely. The aviary itself is effectively the entire location, above and around the estate proper, with tall roosting stations covered in weaver nests, pigeon towers useful for collecting waste, and wide cages or glass-walled enclosures for more dangerous birds. He does have a lot of those. Between his estate and the rest of Ablan's many large mansions, is a shared and very sizeable vineyard producing the grapes and some other fruits and berries that go into the Ablan collective wine making industry. He quite likes a good wine, slightly more than he likes his zpara, though there are also fields of that spicy caffeinated bean everywhere around here too. Thanks dad.

Meanwhile, in Rook, the city on the edge of wind-blown cliffs and rugged forests, the city can be viewed from his collection of row-houses and mansion of stone. The estate grounds are sheltered from those winds but only by virtue of his large aviary and training space. Large birds, as well as numerous Steeds and even some flighted Zekirans train on these breezes, and it is where he might help train dragon riders or their mounts.

Speaking of Steeds, the Watek resort has its share of racing and working animals, and Gryphon finds himself working with bigger creatures than just birds (which do come in 'huge' here of course). While he does have his own quarters in the resort and Vahh estate, he doesn't really spend a lot of time in them, as he's busy with fishing birds, training guards to understand the calls of their newly fledged eyes in the sky, or making sure that flighted racers are in good condition before they're allowed to compete. This area is where he does have a large animal hospital, suitable for anything as big as a Steed, with or without wings. He shares this space with more dedicated Steed Pelatih, but if they have wing or feather questions, he is the go-to expert. Gryphon enjoys his time at the resort and hobnobs with people, but also has definitely lost a few political enemies in the deep woods or lakes. Right in, went under, sank. Whoops.

Though most of the Zifan Enrichment Center is dominated by Vahh's kin and political group, the closest Gryphon usually gets to a classroom is walking past bunches of students and instructors in the housing that he built nearby. In a dramatic looking location, the V-shaped complex is certainly the most interesting to look at of his estates. The main mansion area is at the point, and the arms of this slate and steel structure house gifted students and hosts practice halls, mostly for flighted or Tuned individuals who need help learning how to control animals and birds. The diamond-shaped courtyard is framed by an opposite V shaped aviary, where hundreds of extremely strong willed birds are bred and trained for guarding Vahh territories. A trial by fire so to speak, for 'graduation' among some students, is to free-fly through the area without making those birds attack. ... Of course if he's there, he could simply make them attack or stop them, either way he's proud of this locale. Gryphon is happy enough to be a consultant, but he's no teacher and has little patience for being asked too many questions.

His favored home, where he winds up if he gets 'lost' in the multiverse and has to home in on anything, is in the scrubland of Kiran/Le'ret. Ski'nahket is easily reached by virtually any of the connected worlds that the deeply-hidden portals the facility has. That said, Gryphon doesn't need to use the portals, he just goes to them because they're visible to his powers. Like a moth to a flame, or the tides to a moon, Gryphon senses this location strongly enough that even if he's been tossed around or somehow brought by someone else and not shown expressly where he's been - Black Mesa is still going to be his touch-down point. ... Sometimes that means he accidentally winds up on Twoarth's grounds. Sometimes the Rookery. But it's far easier to sort out where to go from those places, 'just like it only taller and more colorful people'... His estate is situated on the north side of the facility's mountain, away from the 'Dry Harbor' on the south where many small shops and a little township have sprung up. Made of local pressed adobe brick and red tile roofing common to the desert areas, it is a sprawl with underground connections added to Muu'nach and Raa'bina's under the facility and into the hills to the north-east. Here, Gryphon plans hunting parties, has collections of art, a library, and blackmail material on virtually every enemy of the ahlVahh group on the planet. He's not afraid to invite those people to his parties, after all they're catered by his brother Raa'nach's kitchens! You can't go wrong! Until you take that offer to go hunting - what's a 'Cliff creeper?' you ask? ... Hungry. It's hungry. The only reason he gets away from those same animals is thanks to his birds. Maybe a dragon would be fun to get out there hunting them...

Gryphon's properties do not end on Zekira. Far from it, in fact. That suite that he has at his mother's place on the Healing Den is cushy and quite well stocked. But it's only one of three where he has 'pet store' options. Carramba High School often co-opts his birds for educational purposes, when he's on Twoarth - he has a small two-bedroom detached place a few miles into the hills, and a bird-centric pet store catering to 'trainable companion animals'. A similar situation is found on another version of Earth, over on the east coast, in Paragon City, where he has a pleasant house in the spooky part of the city, Croatoa, and a pet store which specifically offers creatures 'on demand' - those animals that run around with heroes (and sometimes, with vigilantes) come from this shop. Where it might seem like a 'kennel' for the canines and felines, their living spaces are Vortal constructs. The dogs look the same if they're summoned by different people at different times because they are the same dog.

The other place though - Xen - that's where he and his flighted companions can truly spread their wings, or excersize their powers. The gravity is slightly lower than Zekira or Earth's, but the atmosphere is thick, the location incredibly dangerous. His home is ... the same home he has on Twoarth. Literally the same building. Maybe it's entangled, the same structure existing in multiple forms at once. Or, more likely, it's a duplicate that his father helped create and insert on the island that he's claimed as 'his'. He likes watching the weird flying manta-like creatures, though he cannot really control them so much as nudge their behaviors: he's practiced with Zekiran wildlife, not Xenian. The island that he lives on is not in water. It floats broken and somehow connected with the weird gravity that all of Xen still has, and if you use the sensing equipment in the 'yard', you can see the Black Mesa facility's remnants off in the distance. Maybe it's half a mile away. Maybe (and much more likely) it's 200 miles away and there's no sense of scale here. Well, he can tell the scale. His eyes are very, very good at that.

** Events and History **

His half-sister was an adult, when Baeris and Kallah Vahh decided that one wasn't quite enough between their lines. They knew, because Maalysah told them - repeatedly - that this child would be inherently more powerful in most ways, than Raa'bina. Not just because Raa'nach Vahh was a clone or 'more physical' than Kallah Vahh, but because Vahh himself just. Wasn't what he looked like. Baeris asserted, flatly, that she knew this already - and the Healing Den kept bringing her back here to Zekira.

Apparently doors would open and they'd be at Ablan instead of Albion, or up in the Fi'ir peaks instead of Dragonhope. Because Baeris wasn't really as Zekiran as all that, even if she Held land there and had business deals going at any given time, contractual obligations went out the window. Even so, they did decide where to put down temporary roots for him, this child would need to be close to his father for many reasons. At the age of 3 Maal asserted that it would be for the best if he had the Icarus treatments, because, in her words, "he's too energetic, and not solid enough". It was true, as his powers would grow (and they'd grow more with the Icarus but that's aside) they would need to be anchored into a physical shape if he was to become a grown person and not just ... well, like his father, a Convocation energy being. This processing went well, he didn't suddenly vanish in a puff of aquamarine energy.

He would do that later, when he learned to teleport, though. For the moment, as a child, Gryphon's abilities to lead or detect flighted creatures was obvious from the very earliest part of his life. Vahh's raven flock, and pretty much every other bird or winged creature around him would pay more attention to the boy than their Pelatih or owner. He was given skill downloads for basic behaviors such as socialization and some degree of political work when he was a younger teen - and then passed his Atasan exams at the age of 13. He still dislikes volumes of paperwork, but does it in a flash just to get it overwith.

Over time his other powers developed: electronics, though a side venture for him, almost always perk his senses. If someone is on their hand-held communicator, he can 'listen in' on them, if he's at a big data center it's all he can do to stop listening to the mass of information being shifted around. He would much rather deal with birds, flits, and people, than the digital data on a computer. It still helps him file things, there's always one of 'his' units - a specially designed data storage crystal - either on his person or in one of his offices around the world, that he can 'data dump' into so his paperwork is always well organized.

All of that paled to his passion, which was very definitely aiming at becoming Pelatih. His power over flighted creatures allowed him to easily train and care for them, including Steeds, though he was never as interested in them as just a bird you could hold on your arm. By the time he was 17, he passed Pelatih Status exams. He has never looked back, really. He does enjoy fucking with Vahh's political enemies, and is definitely not above the muck-raking and office politics involved in high-stakes world changing events. A quiet war is being waged here, he knows this. But it's not one that any normal person should ever have to deal with and he knows that too.

His power to teleport was slowly unlocked as he matured. He had jaunted around various home sites on Zekira frequently, but when Baeris came back to visit (she was hardly a few months older than when she'd left, the Den seemed to be quite fun that way) he went with her. Apparently, traveling around the multiverse and Nexus with the Den as his guide, his genrehopping grew significantly in scope. So now, he enjoys having dupilcate homes in very disparate worlds, easily adjusting to local ways. *As a skill his sire has, Gryphon is able to speak and comprehend nearly every language around him. It takes a little practice if it's vastly different or non-humanoid, but ... he can do it. He can detect but not speak in the manner of big dragons, and that... was where he realized his true calling.

Dragon Mastery was uncommon on some versions of Zekira, but there are others where they are needed. Dragon breeding was one of the few things that equalize the 'private war' that Vahh fights among the other big families of the planet: they're needed if they want a planet to fight over, that isn't destroyed by a variety of aliens invading. Gryphon's ability is quite strong, and he can summon, commune with, and specifically command individual dragons if they're intelligent, and a small group of them if they're more animal-minded. He chooses to ask them to do things for him, rather than simply wresting control over them from whoever they may be attached to (or over them at all if they aren't). His mother showed him the wide variety of dragons that are present around the multiverse, and he copy/pasted that information from the Den's records room into his own.

He's shared this with his sister, he knows she's interested in this too, so... off they will go. They'll both do well, won't they?

**

Hatching at Vella Crean's Court (will clean later, from hatching)

Raa'bina Vahh and Gryphon Vahh (and Dima)

• When Ari heard of the arrival of Baeris Kshau's children, she took Shy to the side and had a “talk”. 
• No one in the labs knows what this “talk” entailed, but suffice to say the Scientist was on remarkably good behavior.
• So maybe he was fine-tuning a teleport capable Project: he asked Gryphon politely, didn't he? For genetics? (He actually? Asked? Progress hey?) 
• But more than that, the arrival of the Vahh siblings seemed to be the spark this “inter Nexus political exchange” needed. The General was often found at all hours, conversing quietly with Gryphon Vahh. Looking for knowledge and advice on how to best cement his political power. There were sneaky plans afoot, and the General needed knowledge now. 
• (Maybe, when Ari was not looking, Shy did flirt a little bit (a lot bit) with Gryphon and Raa'bina, but what Ari did not know, would not hurt Shy). 
• The Light Court had Questions for Raa'bina. They wanted to know about her healing abilities, and the idea of an investment portfolio across the Nexus delighted them. The Vella Crean had reconnected to the Nexus, why hadn't they thought of this themselves? Maybe they could ask Raa'bina for advice, especially in creating profitable (but still ethical) emergency clinics. 
• (The Matriarch of the most prominent trading family on the Vella Crean faltered at these rumours. She was going to be first! And she would not let the Light Court politic her out of these opportunities). 
• The day of the hatching, a stunning blood marked gold hatchling snarled and swiped at a green hatchling that got a little bit too close. Her muzzle glistened, flecking blood as she let out a tiny but triumphant roar. 
• “The blood magic is activating a little early with some of the blood court” Naeodin remarked. 
• The Leader of the Blood Court agreed. “Necessity? Evolution?” 
• The grandmother squinted towards her Scientist. “Hmmm.” 
• Raa'bina Vahh delighted in the dominance of her bond. “Virayath” she called out with approval, a speculative gleam in her eye. Yes, there were many things she would be able to accomplish with her queen. 
• A dark court brown sidled closer to the male candidates, judging them with faceted eyes that that assessed and discarded each man with a snort. 
• “None of them are quite good enough, are they?” He remarked to a little light court purple who followed his lead. 
• “Maybe you are too choosy.” She pipped up. 
• “No, he was just hiding in the back.” Parakaramth bodily nudged some of the smaller candidates out of his way as he walked towards Gryphon Vahh. “I knew you were here.”
• The little light court purple let out a happy little chirp, knowing her brother was in safe hands before scampering towards the Projects. She knew her intended had been here the entire time. She rose on her back legs and placed a hand on one tall Project's knee, and watched light fractal and shower around them. “Pretty” Arayath commented. 

Gryphon Vahh – Dark Court Brown Parakaramth