Alexei stands at five feet, eleven inches tall. His eyes are bright green, and his hair is reasonably short and light brown. His build is a light athletic type build rather than a bulky one.

The lower half of his left arm is metal, though this is generally only obvious when you come into contact with it in some way. His right eye has also been replaced with Dae tech, though it is malfunctioning and it affects his vision drastically on that side.

Alexei is a distant sort, with more than a flicker of a temper - a natural temper that was ultimately fueled by a great many things in his life.  What little softness can be found in the man is reserved for his children. They would be hard-pressed to recognize the person that most often is presented to the world - but that's exactly how Alexei wants it.

He's distant, and if you push beyond that distance you often find he is aggressive and angry. There's a lot of hurt in him - partly directed at his parents who forced his sister to marry someone she didn't love. Partly at the lover she did have for not protecting her - though he will usually admit that wasn't entirely the guy's fault. Still more at the man who married her and then presumably murdered her. It is rage with little direction for it to go so... it tends to bubble out at random, and he tends to use it as a weapon to try and keep people back, away from him.

To his children - and children in general, really - Alexei seems far kinder. Gentler words, and taking the time to be patient and show them things, and explain things to them. His main flaw as a father though is that he is absent perhaps more often than he should be, as he takes on missions very often.

So, Alexei was born, the younger of two siblings by roughly five years. His sibling was a sister, and they had both parents at home - a surprisingly intact family for the time period.

So there wasn't much to say about his young life - he grew up in a decent family. Alexei joined the Republic's forces when he was old enough - at the time, it seemed to be one of the wiser choices laid before him.

Over the course of his duties he sustained a number of injuries - the most notable leading to the replacement of his entire lower left arm after a particularly nasty fight with an Other led to extremely extensive tissue damage that ultimately required amputation. A bit later on his right eye was replaced along with a portion of the optical nerve - this was caused by a piece of shrapnel.

He was considering retiring when his sister turned up pregnant. Unfortunately, he hadn't - and was sent away on a mission at a rather delicate time, by the time he'd returned, his sister had been married to a man she hardly knew.

Well. Around the same time he did end up taking an extended leave of absence.  During said absence he settled down a little, and found a nice girl - said nice girl gave him twins, a boy and a girl - Nikolai and Larisa.

Shortly after their birth, something went very wrong in Svetlana's marriage - and she disappeared, and so did the boys.

Finding out what happened slowly turned into an obsession. One that would eventually cost him his then-fiancee's affections. They jointly held custody of the twins for some time, but after about a year of this, the twins were at his house for a week and... their mother never came back for them. Alexei did attempt to sort out why, but what little he was able to track down indicated she just didn't want to deal with the responsibility anymore. Which, while fucked up, Alexei could handle.

So... he had two young kids and a missing sister and pair of nephews. He had an inkling that the Nephews may have been turned over to or captured by the Republic but he wasn't ever able to prove it or get access to any records that would let him find out for sure.

Alexei found himself fed up with the blocks, and with the lack of information. And then one day Larisa managed to unless a small but noticeable burst of power. A Losrian, his daughter turned out to be - which raised many questions in Alexei's head about the girl's mother - or maybe even own his parents, but it was far too late to ask them. Alexei understandably panicked.

When all was said and done, he'd made the decision to leave the Republic's territory with his children, in hopes of finding somewhere his daughter could learn to use her powers without fear of being murdered - or worse.

Their journey ended up leading them all the way to the  Dragons of Circinus. It seemed fitting in a strange sort of way. It took some time to prove himself, but, Alexei was a trained soldier, he fit among them with relative ease.

He has been with the Dragons of Circinus since. During his time there he actually did try that dating thing again - a man this time, because at some point in there Alex realized girls didn't realy do it for him - but it didn't go over very well. ... He may have stayed in the relatively abusive relationship if Larisa hadn't noticed the bruising and started asking questions. Something about having to lie to her about them bothered Alexei. And the next time his 'lover' got out of hand .. well. So did Alexei's temper.

Dealing with Kassander on the matter turned out to be easier than Alexei had anticipated. It turns out, explaining that you're concerned about the example your relationship is setting for your daughter actually worked, mostly. He was loath to admit the situation but uh. It was better than the alternative to facing potentially being put to death for it.

The twins are about twelve now, and Alex pauses between missions every so often to spend a few weeks or a month with them. They're growing up so fast - he sort-of regrets missing a lot of it, but there are certain things that don't let go easily. And it turns out, an obsession with finding out what happened to your sister, exactly? It's one of them.