Middle children, it is said, have it the worst. Not doted on like the babies, not given the attention that the oldest get.
Saffran was born the fourth child of an eventual six to Baldwin and Eliana Moreno, from a humble merchant family whose branch was located in Sunsreach, only a short walk to the courtesan academy. This humble merchant family mostly dealt in the transports of small, lightweight herbs and spices, such as Saffran, to which they gave the beautiful red-headed girl the name.
Idyllic common family life was perhaps not so idyllic as it seems. In truth, Baldwin's father was capofamilia for the Moreno family— a shadowy family that ran most of the protection rackets, smuggling, and black market merchandise throughout Rivana.
If it was stolen, it probably went through them. If it was something that wasn't supposed to get to someone else? For the right price, the Moreno could make it happen.
In specific… getting certain people and goods into and out of Sunsreach after House Langer locked it down during the Succession War. That was caporegime Baldwhin's specialty. And he had all his children from the youngest to the oldest helping. Including Saffran; when she was not studying.
But that is jumping ahead.
At the age of thirteen, the promise of womanhood blooming fully, Saffran enrolled in the Courtesan's Academy in Sunsreach. The Thirty Years War had literally only ended a couple of years year before she enrolled, and she took to some of her lessons like a duck takes to water. Some… well, never seemed to be her focus. Music, singing, artistry? No, not for her. Alchemy? She became fascinated by the glowing everlights that the academy's alchemists produced for the working courtesan's rooms; but a particular alchemist at the academy sparked her interest in less savory applications of the study.
When King Lucas died, the Rose and Thorn rise to fight over the spoils of a spoiled kingdom. The city was locked down by house Durante quite well, but not well enough to prevent the Moreno from continuing their business.
Not to mention that her family had already signed a minor contract with the Rose guarenteeing safe passage for his only child, a daughter, around the realm. It was like crown permission to smuggle. Though it ultimate costs Saffran's older sister's life, the contract was well worth that cost.
One trained in wiles can distract guards and others ever-so-nicely. Saffran put her academy-trained skills to work for her father and brothers as they needed. For other women, perhaps that would seem exploitive. But not for her. She enjoyed it, the thrill of it, the daringness of it all.
Before she had even graduated the academy, she had already managed an impressive list of 'preferred clients'. She toyed with the ones that amused her and spurned those who didn't. The spurned ones, some of them, kept coming back anyway, hoping she'd change her mind.
She didn't. She never does.
When she graduates from the Academy and is offered a position there, safe from the civil war wrecking the kingdom. She declines, as the family needs her to help move information— an even more precious commodity than rare goods and clandestine smuggling of human beings in and out of the city.
Under the guise of expanding her client base, she began traveling through Rivana, though carefully, using her extended family's smuggler's dens to hide when she must from battles that cropped up. She bedded noblemen fighting for both Rose and Thorn, uncaring, herself, as to who won. She considered trying to bed Anton— his appetities were rumored to be insatiable, and such things intrigued her… but the chance never came.
Then the war was over, though her reputation had only grown as a woman on varied and exciting appetites herself. Sometimes, it was said, she would engage in such play… not for coin, but for the answer to a question, if such a question she had… or for baubles that amused her, the rarer the better. Eventually, she was not taking coin at all for her services, only questions asked and answered; trinkets, and favors.
They called her the Sphinx, after the creature from the tales that asked riddles or requested strange items in exchange for boons.
She traveled to Pacitta and a small amount into Couviere, and found the areas wile fun, to be somewhere she isn't entirely comfortable without knowing a member of her family is there.
When her grandfather passed away, leaving her father as the Capofamilia. Her oldest brother took her father's old position as Consigliere, and her second oldest brother, Capobastone. She herself had since risen to the rank of Caporegime, though she commands no Soldato of her own, all those under her famly's employ know that if she is in need, she will call them. She worked for her family in her own way.
One couldn't fault her if she took pleasure in it.
When the second raising of the Thorn's banner came, and the Tracano called, the Moreno answered, assuming their skills would be needed once more, and never ones to reneg on a contract: and Arturo had been clear that the contract would last as long as Alysande lived.
He paid for it, of course. And a contract is a contract.
Saffran joined her eldest brother in meeting with Prince Tristan Tracano and his associate Lord Aidric Carling… and she was quite amused to out herself as a member of the Syndicate to Lord Aidric, a sometimes-lover of hers. But the Fool Prince wanted information, not a smuggler's skill; and information he recieved.
They had been the ones to offer their secret paths into Goldhollow (though they did so by proxies, of course), and when the crown called for the ability to transport what was needed from one place to another despite the growing hostilities, the Moreno kept their contract.
And their reward was lands and a title, given to them by political manuevering by the Prince of Fools and his companion's request to a grateful queen who still remembered this Syndicate family well and knew their loyalty to the true crown.
A lady can no longer ply her trade as a courtesan. Saffran was loathe to give up her old games, but then realized that there was an entire court to toy with, and she had enough secrets put aside for a rainy day to make her time in the Rivanan court quite enjoyable.
So she 'retired' and was reborn. Let the other ladies of court look down on her as they will for being up-jumped… their judgment means little and less, and her family has an advantage over the other Syndicate families she would be remiss not to press…