Scattered far and wide amongst the varied terrain of the Promised Isles like flecks of many-colored pepper are several clans of Shayit, mostly grouped within the Yearning Isle but can be found near anywhere if you knew where to look...or in many cases, where to avoid. One such clan were the Cindermaw, known for their skill in pyromancy and especially their fire-breathing. Having both nomadic and more settled branches, members of the Cindermaws could be found in any one of the islands, even on the Dawning Isle in small numbers. It was here, somewhere in the dark of a winter night that Saffron Cindermaw was born.
Named for her unusual golden skin and hair, Saffron stood out even among other Shayit from a very young age. Even more so among the folks of her clan, as it seemed that Sunshine hadn't inherited the pyromantic talent that the Cindermaws were famous (infamous for). Her parents first assumed she was a late bloomer, but as the years passed and she showed no signs of the spark, they finally turned to the last resort they could think of...the Consortium. Surely the bastion of magic in the Isles would make their daughter a proper fire mage? And so the young girl was left to the endless thunder and the more often than not mistrustful looks from her classmates, who'd heard tales of the trickery of her people (which she lived up to with various pranks around the campus). She didn't bloom into the pyromancer her parents had wished for, but she discovered something quite unexpected during her time at the Arcana...art. Her beauty and bright personality earned her some wary admirers, but her pranks for attention earned her very few friends. Since she was unsuccessful in making friends the old fashioned way, she "made" her own friends. She seemed to have a natural attunement to stone, almost as if it were an extension of herself. She could shape it with ease as a regular Cindermaw could wield fire, as if it were clay and not a hard immovable substance. Stone seemed to come alive in her hands (and with a special rune, it could literally come "alive" and move on its own). In this time she developed a passion for sculpting, her nearly lifelike statues famed even among the wizards who avoided her and earning her the moniker of Saffron Stoneshaper (say that five times fast).
Having finally found her calling, Saffron left the Consortium to pursue sculpture full time, earning renown throughout the Isles and taking commissions from common merchant businesses to nobles and even monarchs. One such meeting is where she got into trouble...big trouble.
Sunshine, now in her thirty-sixth harvest decided that settled life wasn't quite agreeing with her anymore (the divorce didn't help) and that she and her three daughters needed a vacation. And some money. So she decided to take a commission from the king of the small seaside country of Gliabar. Small both in size and on the world stage, it had plenty of coldlight, natural beauty and a monarch with deep pockets who wanted a statue, and that was good enough for her. She was to be one of a team of artists who designed for the new magic academy opening up there, and it would take quite a bit of time to finish the statues that were requested. During that time, Saffron’s eldest daughter Proserpine and the king's younger brother grew close...quite close. She fancied herself falling in love, she grew attached to him to the point where she announced to her mother that she planned to marry him...Saffron had begun a relationship of her own with a fellow artist, a painter decorating the frescoes of the academy. She thought perhaps she and her family could be happy here
But unfortunately in royal families, duty often comes before affection and when an alliance was needed with a foreign power, the prince volunteered to wed the young queen...who was quite as lovely as they come. When Saffron’s sixteen year old daughter returned home in tears and sobbed to her mother that her beloved was marrying someone else, the normally calm trickster felt something ferocious spark within her. The prince assured Rose in private that they could still be together, he told her he merely wanted the power that came with being king and needed to "produce heirs', that their people would never accept a Shay queen. Refusing to be anyone's secret, she broke off their relationship.
Fuming, Saffron did what any artist and mother would do and channeled that anger into her work...and boy did she channel it. Combining pent-up anger and the natural way Shayit minds work (hell hath no fury like a Shay scorned), she was going to get back at him. Finally after a while the artists were done with their work, and everyone was gathered in the town square for the grand unveiling. The statues that adorned the entranceway to the magic university were fine work as Saffron had always produced, the great wizards of the city in dark diabase and shining white marble. However, one of these things was NOT like the others. Among the giant figures of learned thinkers and arcane trickers was an unmistakable statue of the prince and his bride-to-be in a...compromising position. In stark, stone-cold relief where everyone in the square could see it. That morning she was unveiling her "crowning" achievement, that night she and her girls fled the city. The king had slapped her with a lese-majeste charge and quite the heavy bounty seeing as it was done so fragrantly and publicly. In her words: "you'd think I'd fucking killed someone!"
It was during this time of laying low that she heard of the Blade of Amaranth, a priceless artifact that some rich fat-cat wanted, and quite badly judging by the amount he was willing to pay. With that kind of gold, maybe she could buy her way out of this sticky situation she got herself in and settle down in peace once again with her family. Leaving the girls with her ex-husband while she gets this cleared up and dawning the beginning of her thirty-seventh harvest, Saffron now ventures somewhere in the dark to exchange steel for coin and unusually for a Shayit, chaos for peace
"I don't regret a damn thing, I'd do it again for any one of my girls."