Lady Alysanne Stark was the reigning Lady of the Dreadfort, and until the recent death of her second husband, was the Lady of Winterfell. She is the eldest daughter of the late Lord Torrhen Stark, and his wife, Lady Dawn of House Reed. Having outlasted all viable male relations after the usurpation of her uncle, Eyron Stark, she assumed her father’s title following her uncle’s death by wedding his son, Lord Benjen Stark. As her father was afflicted with tragedies and setbacks, so too was she. Rather than yielding to such challenges she has, time and again, risen above them to become a formidable peer of the North in her own right. She died in 438 AC at the clutches of illness.

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Appearance and Character

Lady Alysanne Stark is a lithe, thin woman with a face that might once have carried with it the harshest sense of beauty. As with all that dwell in the realm of the living, time has begun to take its toll upon her features. Her dark brown, near black, hair has begun to be silvered with age. Wrinkles have formed at the corners of her mouth and increasing lines have become visible upon her forehead. Nevertheless, her bearing is proud and her demeanor as sharp, as exacting as the cool grey eyes with which she surveys the world.

As a girl, Alysanne had indulged in vibrant gowns, richly colored and poignant in their flair. This frivolous sense of style abated with maturity, and most notably so when she assumed her father’s title and became Lady of the Dreadfort in her own right. Since she has tended to the darker, more austere dress that has so often been associated with the great expanse Alysanne calls her home. Jewels, by her accounts, belong to the softer Southron ladies, and so despite the wealth of her house, she possesses only a handful of necklaces, rings, and brooches.

In many ways, the lady’s wardrobe, and its evolution reflects the change in her nature as she transformed from girl to woman to lady in her own right. Her father had taught her to be an unassuming woman, bringing her up to charm and demure. As a child, she had been quick to smile and possessed an easy laugh. In that way, she was meant to facilitate the goals and ambitions of her future husband so that she might curate his bloodline quite as tenderly as her mother had done in the name of her lord father.

Those easy smiles and gales of glee have long since passed for the woman her second husband’s men had taken to calling the Dread Wolf of Winterfell. For so like her relations, Alysanne’s life has been riddled with tragedy and tribulation. It is a testament to her heritage and her will that time and again she has remained an indomitable, unyielding force. Time and again enemies and chance alike have sought to see her laid low, and so time and again did she endure.

Hardened though the Lady of the Dreadfort may be, motherhood awoke her to a deep sense of affection for those children that, like her, had displayed an elemental mettle to survive. Loveless as her marriages have sometimes been, Alysanne knows naught but boundless devotion to her children, even in the face of their flaws. Since they day each was born she has zealously guarded their interests and done all within her power to facilitate the futures that have yet to come.

History

Early Life

Lord Torrhen Stark and Lady Dawn Reed brought Alysanne into the world in 391 AC. From her first breath, she was calm and well-tempered. She slept peacefully, rarely burst into a fit, and giggled more than she cried. As a newborn, she was the delight of the otherwise afflicted Starks of the Dreadfort.

With two elder brothers and a younger one on her heels, Alysanne was groomed by her parents for marriage and diplomacy. Unlike her next eldest sibling, Cregard, she complied with her predetermined fate, committing fully to the educational regimen her father had prescribed her. She stayed out of trouble, remained honest with her parents, and often aided her eldest brother, Eddard, when trying to mediate between Cregard and Torrhen. The unsung hero of her family even as a child, she rarely took credit for keeping the peace, settling instead for the personal satisfaction produced by her efforts.

Flight

Alysanne’s penchant for honesty fostered in her a vigilance against deception and a desire to discover the truth. She often snooped on the handmaidens and ladies-in-waiting at the Dreadfort, if only to uncover their true and honest opinions about her. For her inner circle of friends, she chose only the most bluntest or transparent of girls and was decisive in ousting those who crossed her.

Though she always presented herself as a contented individual, the majority of her adolescence was marked by repeated tragedy. She lost Eddard to frostbite in 405 AC, Torrhen to scurvy in 407 AC, Cregard to Lord Mormont’s blade in the same year, and all of her rightful titles to Benjen, her undeserving cousin, in 408 AC. Forced out of her own home, she escaped with her mother, Dawn, and her sister, Arrana, to Greywater Watch, where she would remain in hiding for the next seven years.

Perseverance

Though Lord Jon Stark had granted Alysanne’s titles to Benjen following Eyron’s execution, the disputed Lady of the Dreadfort refused to relinquish her rightful claims. She was, however, unable to pursue them at first. For years, her uncle, Lord Errold Reed, barred her from leaving the security of Greywater Watch, citing dangers from the Dreadfort and the surrounding bogs - it had been thanks to her mother’s knowledge of the landscape that Alysanne was able to find the mythical castle in the first place. Half a decade for her was thus spent in tutelage. From survival off the land to starless navigation, she adopted some of the Crannogmen’s ways while still remaining loyal to her more proper, Northern upbringing.

In 415 AC, Alysanne had set out with her kin and retainers from Greywater Watch to pursue her claims. After a year of visits to various keeps and castles, she presented a petition signed by a host of Northern lords to Jon, requesting that her titles be restored. Although Jon initially refused, a compromise was eventually reached: Alysanne would marry her recently widowed cousin, and together they would jointly rule the Dreadfort.

Eight years prior, the two cousins were once excited to marry one another; but following the circumstances of their kinsmen's deaths, it was initially difficult for them to suffer one another's presence. It was only after the tragic loss of their only son, Beron, that they became close, finding shelter in each other's hearts from their family's continued, dreadful fate.

Widowed

Alysanne and her husband were dutiful in their management of the Dreadfort, but they never achieved the marital bliss so often spoken of in the songs. As was the constant theme of their lives, a series of tragedies followed the union. First came the death of their son, Beron. This weighed heavily upon them, and upon Alysanne in particular. Cold, and dour as she sometimes may have been, she had been a glowing wife during the months of her pregnancy, and this greater warmth in her character had endured during the child’s infancy. Shortly thereafter, as winter began to descend upon them Benjen’s son from his previous marriage fell ill, and like so many children, was taken by the winter’s cold embrace.

Like all of the lords and ladies sworn to the Starks of Winterfell, Lord Benjen and Lady Alysanne attended Jon’s council in 418 A.C. The Warden of the North had begun to take heed of reports from the Night’s Watch, and the growing power of a King-Beyond-the-Wall known as Ekkill Crowsbane. The lords decided to act, and so Alysanne’s husband made off to war. She sent forth her trusted man but remained behind in Winterfell to await news with contemporaries such as Lady Alys, wife to Jon’s son Eon.

Ravens flew with word that a massive battle had taken place beyond the Wall. Those blackened wings heralded news of bereavement for many a man, woman, and child. Few houses in the North were untouched, but none so heavily as the direwolves of the Dreadfort and Winterfell. Alysanne’s husband had been slain alongside Jon’s heir, Eon. She remained at Winterfell, where the remains of her late husband were delivered by Lord Jon himself.

Much passed between the Lord of Winterfell and the Lady of the Dreadfort during the intervening days that followed. Though Lady Alysanne did not tarry long, she and Lord Jon found one another to be great companions in their grief. Both had lost spouses, and both too had been bereaved of their sons. While all mourned in the seat of the great family, the two took comfort in one another when and where they could. It was a fleeting respite, but one Alysanne embraced all the same.

Lady of Winterfell

Only a handful of moons after returning to the Dreadfort and interring her husband, Alysanne became aware that she was with child. She received the news with mixed emotions. On the one hand, she had need of children to secure her family’s line, and the succession of the Dreadfort. On the other, that it could be Benjen’s child and thus legitimate, was impossible. The two had rarely coupled together before his departure, pressed as their relationship had been after the deaths of their respective sons. That she required another husband was not lost on her, but the pregnancy made the matter all the more important and expedited the necessity.

Her position as Lady of the Dreadfort was a strong one. There were few who could have challenged her hold upon the title, and those that may have done lacked both the support and capability to do so. In seeking a husband, then, she knew she would require them to further shore up her position. None would manage the lands of her father in her stead, that was to be sure, but even she could not deny that a powerful benefactor as a husband could do little but ensure the safety and security of whatever children she might have yet brought into the world.

The solution was simple. The child’s father was available to her, and though the match may have seemed unorthodox to some, Alysanne became determined that she would, again, wed another of House Stark. Jon accepted her as a matter of duty, and in truth too of affection, and so began their unprecedented union. Several moons later, Alysanne gave birth to another son, whom she named Theon. He was a healthy child, and as was to be expected she did all she could to ensure that health would endure. Many of the retainers in both Winterfell and the Dreadfort named him the pup of two coats, and there were none who dared question the timing of his birth.

As was to be expected, Alysanne split her time between Winterfell and the Dreadfort. In regard to the latter, she never neglected the stewardship of her family’s vast tracks of land. During the early years of her marriage she took her heightened status to make a series of replacements, doing away with those that may have once held more loyalty for her first husband, or worse, his father. She installed a capable steward, castellan, and even called for a new maester from Oldtown. She did not well trust the grey men, but Alysanne was nothing if not pragmatic, and knew that like all of the highborn in the realm she required their services. A young man, she presumed, however, would be easier to shape than the old one that had overseen too many shifts in power for her liking.

She was a capable advisor to her husband and took a moderate hand in the rearing of his new heirs. Alysanne enjoyed a great bond with Eon’s widow, Lady Alys of House Arryn. There were many differences between them, of course, but they overcame such cultural deficiencies. The majority of her focus, of course, lay with her own children, and in that, her marriage to Jon proved far more fruitful than the one that had come before. For after Theon came Cregard, and then a daughter, Sybelle. All three were born hale and whole, showing none of the signs Beron had.

As Jon’s consort, Alysanne was often obliged to tour the North and ensure the connections between their houses remained strong. When he was old enough, she would often ensure that Theon was at her side. Jon maintained a distant relationship with eh boy, but she never had. He was her heir, no matter the titles enjoyed by his father. Thus, she placed a great deal of investment in his future, and like with all of her children, sought advantages for him where she could.

The union of Winterfell and the Dreadfort provided for an even greater stability in the North, which had remained unmarred by the tribulations of their Southron neighbors for more than a generation. As for their personal dynamic, it ran both hot and cold. It never had been a runaway romance, but rather was a marriage founded on mutual respect, commiseration, and needs of varying degree. This foundation was tested, time and again, and though it was never sundered, cracks began to form during the controversial and hotly debated Black Draft of 424 A.C.

A Black Draft

Jon Stark, as Alysanne well knew, had always fancied himself a great patron of the Night’s Watch. Like so many Starks before him, he took greater heed of their warnings and watchful musings than their neighbors to the south. Year after year had seen the Lord Commander send raven after raven to the lords of the realm. The already minimal numbers of the Night’s Watch had taken a great blow in the battle with Crowsbane, and there were even more rumors of another great power rising beyond the Wall. In answer, Alysanne’s husband took extreme action and instituted a conscription that went beyond the men working the fields.

It was rare that husband and wife would come into conflict, for even when their opinions and interests diverged, they had been able to come to a compromise in one way or another. Alysanne’s disapproval of the draft was well known, but in the early days, she did not lend her voice to either side of the argument. Many families did not wish to forcibly give up their trueborn sons to the Night’s Watch. It was an honorable calling, to be sure, but there were many who viewed it as a tyrannical move on the part of the Warden of the North. In answer, Jon decided one of his own sons would join them, and it was this decision that resulted in a rift between the Lord of Winterfell and Lady of the Dreadfort.

Jon decided that their second son, Cregard, would be sacrificed upon the altar of his will. Alysanne argued that he had an elder son, Edderion, who could honorably discharge himself of wife and family, rather than sending her son, who at the time was no more than a boy. The impasse proved an uncomfortable thing in Winterfell and reflected how divisive the conscription was within all the North. In the end, Alysanne did not take the path of direct defiance that would have given a most violent voice to her rage and indignation, and bitterly did she allow her son to be taken in by the vagabonds of the Night’s Watch. After giving birth to a stillborn girl that same year, she departed Winterfell with her son Theon and daughter, Sybelle. In time she did return to her husband’s side, but their relationship was never the same thereafter.

Her displeasure did not, of course, go so far as to see her abandon Cregard’s interests. No matter that he would be shorn of his ties to family, she was determined to support him and cultivate his career where she could. She saw to it that he had only the finest castle-forged steel, and even began to ingratiate herself with the Lord Commander, whom she regarded, in private, quite as bitterly as she had come to regard her husband.

Even Direwolves Bleed

The North had remained relatively untouched during the dark, perilous time known as the Bleeding, but eventually, Lord Jon answered the call of Lord Damion Tully when he requested aid after the Defiance of Fairmarket. Theon was only a boy of fourteen, but she knew that she could not bereave him of the chance to show his mettle on the battlefield alongside his father, brothers, and other relations. To that end, she gave him command of a contingent of men from the Dreadfort and set her able castellan at his side. Much as when her first husband went Beyond the Wall, Lady Alysanne remained behind.

By all accounts, it was a long march to the lands of the Trident, but Lady Alysanne had sent ravens with her castellan to keep her apprised of the goings on. She was not surprised to hear of Lady Frey’s parsimonious dealings and indeed was said to have remarked that had it been her rather than her husband she may well have taken on the herculean task of setting the Twins to flame for such obstruction. News came quickly thereafter, and after the Siege of Oldstones Alysanne found herself obliged to, again, assume the widow’s cowl.

She was not glad to hear of her husband’s death, but she was a hard woman. Mourn him she may have done, but she did so quietly. She was present when Jon’s corpse was taken to the crypts and as was her duty, she oversaw his entombment. Her granddaughter by law, Jon’s heiress following his death, Berena assumed the titles of her grandfather. Alysanne had never been certain a smooth succession would have gone off, and indeed had laid the groundwork for many contingencies had the lords of the North began to rumble. In the end, however, Lady Berena proved her mettle upon the field of battle and took her father’s host well into hand.

The Lady of the Dreadfort found herself distracted from that particular development, however, when word finally reached her that Theon had suffered a terrible wound during the battle at Oldstones. That he survived when his father had not was of some consolation, but her mind was not at ease until she saw her son returned to the lands of his birth. He was scarred, to be sure, but had been blooded as a true warrior of the North, and in that, she found, there was much pride to be had.

The Dread Wolf

With her second husband having perished, Berena having resumed his place in Winterfell as Warden of the North, and with Theon’s coming into manhood, Lady Alysanne found herself focused upon her own lands. She maintained steady contact with her old friend, Lady Alys, and offered the young Berena counsel whenever the need arose. To the surprise of some, she did not allow her children to remain in Winterfell but rather kept them close to hand with her in the Dreadfort. She was never a woman to be parted from her children unnecessarily, and it was both her right and obligation to curate their futures, rather than that of her late husband’s relations.

The winter that followed the Bleeding was a harsh one, and despite the great trials and tribulations weathered by the Starks of the Dreadfort, they found little reprieve. Her youngest son, Torrhen, perished during that winter. His death was felt as keenly as Beron’s had, for it was sudden and unexpected. For some time Alysanne grew paranoid that a darker hand had taken a role in his death, much to the torment of those who might have fancied themselves her rivals. None spoke of the purge that followed, even her eldest son, Theon, whom she had allowed greater insight into the running of their affairs.

As was her way, Alysanne did not wallow in grief but rather turned her sights to the futures of her two daughters, and her sole remaining male heir. Cregard was not absent in her calculations, but his lot in life was singular, and that she had come to accept long before. The future of her house and her lineage rest with Theon, and so all she set about thereafter found him as a centerpiece to her plans and her schemes. As she had endured, so too did she expect him to persevere.

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