Thorian
Thorian was born in Amber and raised mostly on her outskirts, during the early years of Corwin's long disappearance.He is seventy-six by Amber years.
Although his parents were never in love, their marriage having been arranged as a matter of convenience and strong alliance, their relationship had at least at one time been cordial though distant. Rumors of his mother's infidelities during her few forays to court resulted in high-handed, even cruel attempts on his father's part to keep such shame from ever hitting him again, basically turning his mother into a prisoner in her own home, constantly watched and worried over. She withdrew in on herself, retreating not only from her husband's life, but also from that of her child (children?). Julian was often away, either in the City, in Arden or on errands for Oberon or for Eric.
Thorian's early life was dichotomous. He was raised mostly by extremely loving nursemaids, picked out very carefully by his father to be plain, pious and searching for a child to love to fill a void or loss. This was contrasted with the coldness of his relationship with his mother, and the lack of his father's presence. When Julian was home, he was oddly warm with his son, heaping upon Thorian praise that was unusual in the extreme for him to offer out to others. Fortnights out hunting with Julian and his rangers were among Thorian's favorite memories, and due to his natural gift for horseback, began at a fairly young age. Thus he inherited a collection of rather rough woodsmen as pseudo-uncles before he knew many of his true relatives as more than faces he occasionally studied at Court, and as much as they tried to be on their toes around the
'little lord', some of their insights and ways of seeing the world rubbed off on Thorian, making for an odd triangle of influence.
The few relatives that Thorian knew as more than shadows were those who had visited his estate when he was a child or who went out their way to speak to him at Court, for whatever reason. Julian seemed to disapprove of his son spending time alone with his siblings, and though he would not have extended that discourtesy to his own father, Oberon had very little interest in his grandson in his early years.
At the age of nine, Thorian (or Torrie as he was occasionally still called, a holdover from younger years and a way for older cousins to potentially torment him later in life) was idealistic and adventurous. He was always the first to try something new, from an exotic food to swinging a rope into a lake. Happiest outdoors hunting, fishing or riding, he had a naturally receptive disposition, eager to please others, especially his parents, and would be painstakingly, sometimes painfully precise and correct in formal occasions. A sponge for new experiences, one of his most major flaws was a tendency to copy or mimic the actions of those he respected, which did not always make him the kindest of children in his treatment of the downtrodden, dispossessed or disrespected.
He was a tall, good-looking child, with long, somewhat gangly limbs that his musculature promised he would one day grow into, a cap of shockingly blond hair and his father's pale blue eyes, but with very sharp and aquiline features.
