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Diego always had a good head for maths. He liked to build things with blocks and, at one point, attempted to dig a giant tunnel fort into the earth at the estate of Southport. It's not really clear what he planned to /do/ in this tunnel fort, beside lay traps for the unwary -- the building was the thing. That and getting himself as covered in dirt as possible, as far as his nannies and watchers were concerned. Much of his childhood was like this, building forts, making them defensible-- His youth was shattered by war and chaos in snapshots as a young teenager, as war in the Lyceum raged between Tor and Southport, but Diego was too young to fight, and not fierce enough to pretend to adulthood. He spent the days of the war being nervously squirreled from place to place. Perhaps it was the memories of this that would make Southport eventually seek marital, martial alliance with allies beyond the Lyceum. The first time he was at Arx with his mother, it was winter and it SNOWED, which provided ample opportunity for snow warfare. Diego loved the city and he loved the cold, and romanticized it for the rest of his life. Maybe that was why he was so ready and willing to sign a marriage contract that would send him to the Learies in his twenties -- although, of course, part of that had to do with becoming the consort of a March rather than the younger cousin of a March. Social ambition was never Diego's pinnacle, but it remained a lure. He did not love Hianara Leary, particularly, but he thought they could grow to enjoy each other in time. Their marriage was short, though, before she died, and they had no heirs. Diego remained with his new family, finding he could be of great practical use to the armies of the March, and also finding that the stable vassal relationships between Leary, Laveer and Ashford were ... so much safer than what he could remember from his youth.

Diego takes good care of his looks: painstakingly groomed dark hair, with a long forelock that he must sometimes toss out of his eyes, with a polished-looking black goatee and mustache; neat, carefully ordered fingernails on his large, strong hands; good posture and a controlled grace about the way he moves. His eyes are warm and dark, a soft, liquid brown beneath long eyelashes. His eyebrows are neat and black. His shoulders are broad, his waist narrow, his legs long, and his manner of dress excruciatingly sartorially effective.

Warm and friendly by nature, Diego flirts as much out of a kind of constant spinal reflex as he does out of any real desire to win hearts or bedmates. His sense of humor is corky and odd, striking at odd moments, and he thinks a lot in terms of mathematics, spatial relationships and engineering. His mellow seems unending; it's hard to conceive of him losing his temper, merely because he seems so laid back. Yet for all his easygoing flamboyance, what lies at the core of his spine, beneath the defensive barrier of lightness and humor, is an intent thinker and doer with a solid foundation.