Berena Stark

Berena Stark is the successor of her late grandfather, Jon II Stark, as Lady of Winterfell and Warden of the North. She is the first woman to rule the North by birthright, and is said to have all the 'wolf blood' lost on her forefathers.

Reputably, Lady Stark is a fierce warrior and wields the bastard valyrian steel sword, Longclaw. She is bonded with a great black direwolf called Nightfrost.

Appearance
Lady Berena, by daily appearance, falls short of the beauty conventionally afforded by the privilege of nobility, caring not at all for fine silks and gowns but preferring trousers and leather jerkins instead. By contrast, she is far taller than the average woman, and considered all the more intimidating for it. Her arms are thick and muscularly banded, her abdomen tight, toned, and powerful. She carries with her an air of authority to rival the whispers of a room, and possesses a stone grey stare as cold as ice.

Her countenance is scarred with battle-wounds and half-healed marks she considers herself to have earned as a symbol of honor and triumph. Looking closer, she is lightly freckled with coarse black brows the same shade as her long hair, oft kept strewn back from her face and neck, falling down her back in a tight braid. Had Berena neglected to train with shield and sword as a girl, she might be the feminine sort that some might consider quite fair to look upon- but great measures of practice and the dangers of battle have thickened her strong physique and doubly so by the births of her two children.

House Stark (in 438 AC)
Descendants of Jon II Stark and his first wife, Sarra Mormont:
 * Eon Stark (389-419)
 * m. Alys Arryn b. 390
 * Berena Stark b. 411
 * m. Domeric Umber b. 402
 * Artos Stark b. 430
 * Alaric Stark b. 430
 * Eddara Stark b. 436
 * Ellard Stark (414-427)
 * Rodwell Stark (416-418)
 * Jocelyn Stark b. 417
 * Dacey Glover b. 392
 * m. Damion Blackwood b. 388, annulled 426 AC
 * Lucas Blackwood (410-426)
 * Sybelle Blackwood (414-426)
 * m. Jojen Glover
 * Edmund Glover b. 427
 * Edderion Stark b. 403
 * m. Arya Tallhart (402-421)
 * Arsa Wull b. 418
 * Mariah Dustin b. 419
 * Gilliane Stark b. 421
 * m. Meera Hornwood b. 405
 * Lyra Stark b. 423
 * Jojen Stark b. 425

Household

 * Willam ("Will") Glenmore, captain of her household guard;
 * Jorrik Arnulfsson, a commonborn Riverman sworn to her service;

Recent Events
In 438 AC, Lady Berena has assimilated a score of trusted Northmen to go to the Wall to investigate rumor of the Crippled King, lead by her lord husband. As the Festival of Fairmarket approaches, so too does House Stark, intending to travel from there to Riverrun to see Gilliane wed to Lord Androw Tully.

Skills
"Attributes: Gifted, Strong"

Wolf Blood (411-426)
“A spirited child,” the maesters, scholars and other good-doers called her. ‘Spirited’... it was a word that replaced the other that taunted the tips of their tongues, begging to be heard- as though her mother, Lady Alys Arryn hadn’t known they meant to call her eldest daughter troublesome, instead. Young Berena was a whirlwind afoot, scarcely content to be still. The girl had no interest in pins and needles and the embroidery her companions so adored and preferred to take to the courtyards with swords and shields with the boys instead.

None better understood a child than their mother and Alys knew Berena all the more because she had been the same. The Eyrie hadn’t the hands to rein her into solace nor silence when she was growing up, and likewise, Winterfell could never fully heed the wild, willful girl her daughter was. Alys knew that those that did not understand her would seek only to change her, to mold her to their image of what a truly noble girl should be with hushed words and sneers that would paint a target of her heart.

She was no wolf, but a falcon instead- and nothing, if not fiercely protective of her children. Ellard, Rodwell and the quiet infant Jocelyn spared her the rest Berena did not allow their mother. Melodies hummed soothed their sleepy worries, but not Berena; the eldest Stark child often flew into fits of rage, throwing fists and curses that could be calmed only by the restraining arms of her mother. Prone to pushing, shoving, and picking fights with her peers, sometimes punishment was delivered by her father, instead. She would forever remember the warmth of his firm grip at her shoulders as he calmed her to complacency with stern words to contrast the tenderness of his care.

Other times, there were lashings. Lashings that whipped across her back with the snap of leather that struck her so harshly some welts that rose would never fully go away. Her grandfather would exact them upon her, with her hands tied about a post so that she couldn’t shield herself with them from each and every one of his cruel blows. Sometimes it hurt worse to see Jon deliver such punishment instead to her own whipping girl, a friend she had found in a modest kitchen servant.

Berena was allowed her bleeding in a cycle that ended each time again with confinement. She would remain in her own chambers for days at a time with naught but a fire blazing in the hearth and books she ignored. Her last release had been just before her grandfather and his bannermen rode off to neutralize the threat beyond the Wall in 418 AC.

It would be remembered as a most grim time in Winterfell, where even the oldest Godswood trees seemed to shed sappy crimson tears for the blood of the North that would be shed upon these encumbersome winter snows. The halls of her home echoed emptily, save for the voices of women and children, some abuzz with chatter and others silent for their concern. The castle still donned black for her brother that had succumbed to a sudden sickness- a babe of only two years at the time of his passing when word arrived from Castle Black that Eon Stark had been felled by the arrow of a wildling bow.

Her father’s death fed her aggression and when her grandfather returned from battle he had no more patience for her left in him. Jon Stark cursed her boyish nature, disappointed with these affinities that made her a most unwelcome tag-along when he intended to spend his time alone with his newly minted heir, her younger brother Ellard, instead. Jon hated the way she never brushed her hair, leaving it an unkempt, tangled mess; he hated that she had the delicacy of manners equivalent to that of an aurochs in a fragile glass cabinet; but most of all, he hated that of either of his granddaughters, she was the one that could speak. For her most formative years, the deaf Jocelyn Stark uttered not a word- and when she did, it was a broken, sprawling noise that strained him to make sense of it all. Jon Stark wished it were Berena, instead.

In 424 AC, despite Alys’ protests, her grandfather sent Berena to King’s Landing, hoping that a life at court would refine her into the young lady he meant her to have always been. As the wind threatened winter on the horizon, Berena bid her mother farewell and waved until she could see her and her siblings at her back no more.

There, she was meant to be a companion to Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen. Berena would have made a half-assed lady-in-waiting, without a shadow of a doubt; she had never known how to navigate her own sable tresses with a brush without agonizingly yanking a strand caught in the hard bristles, and knew nothing of corsets and dresses- in Winterfell, she had refused to wear them, preferring trousers and loose doublets instead. Laced boots had suited her finding ground beneath her feet far better than dainty slippers ever would. How had it not been clear to Jon that she would never be just another slip of a girl, quietly going about the halls of the Red Keep?

Her grandfather’s best wishes seemed a far-fetched fancy in the eyes of other courtiers, too. They were southron fools and they thought her some savage from the North, despite the respect her name had demanded for centuries. Berena did not get on well at first with the princess, and found trouble acquainting herself with others. Like at home, Berena shared common interests far better with the boys that trained in the courtyards- with green squires and their half-decent mentors, but any company was better than the mindless gossip of handmaids. When the virtue of appearances did not demand her presence, Berena was oft found outside, building beads of sweat at her brow with every swing of her sword.

It was there that Berena and Rhaenyra found common ground: both girls made better conversations letting their swords talk rather than their mouths. What tension had forced static between them was settled in the courtyards, in the rhythm of a clanging and clashing of steel. From then on, the pair became great friends- and the free-spirited Berena learned much from the Targaryen princess.

By the end of her first year spent in the capital, the Stark girl had grown rather accustomed to the ways of King’s Landing. Berena had blossomed into her position, showing fine improvement and having become valuable aid to her close friend and confidante. Though she still proved a challenge to the septas of the Red Keep and what suitors dared vie for her hand, Berena had, albeit loosely, been shaped into something of better semblance to the standard of her birth. Her stubborn will proved unbroken- however more disciplined she seemed to have become.

Heir of Winterfell (427-434)
On her sixteenth nameday, a letter penned in the hand of her mother arrived from Winterfell. Attached were letters from her brother and sister, whose words she skimmed over in anticipation of untying the ribbon that secured her gift within a polished wooden box. Inside, Berena found her mother’s dagger, Talon- a sleek blade she had always found an extraordinary beauty, with a hilt adorned by a stately single sapphire and surrounded by lustrous moonstones. The Arryn relic was scarcely ever unfastened from her hip and remained within an arm’s reach from that day forward.

Only moons later, another missive from home fell into her hands and as her eyes coursed through the words her jaw would drop as she read news that left her mouth agape - but only for a moment. Berena grieved with anger rather than sadness, and when she read word of her younger brother, Ellard’s passing, the parchment drifted with the wind to the floor behind her as she left her chambers for her sword and shield, instead.

With sweat and blood Berena purged herself of her most mild emotions until she tired- until dusk blanketed the courtyards, when her duty to the princess allowed it. She poured her aggression into her every strike, and with every step and swing her mind was summoned from the bedside of her loss and made to work only for precision enough to crush her opponents. Berena had always shown certain skill with sword, but addressed with her grief she found purpose for every emotional wound exacted upon her through it. Training made her stop thinking about Ellard, about Rodwell and their father, too; it left her near breathless and drenched, and sure to take to sleep the moment she laid in bed.

Despite her years at the capital, she was and always would be a Northwoman to the bone and she would let no one see her tears. Berena refused to let a moment of weakness show, and instead reaffirmed her strength in the one thing that she could- the one thing she excelled at. Berena was no exemplary scholar, nor so pious or most devoted, but she made for a fierce rival and a fine swordsman- finer, even, than many men.

Few, however, would agree to duel her. Challenge or practice, Berena engaged her competitive nature and if even momentarily, she didn’t think about what would come at winter’s end. Her grandfather meant to call her home once the roads posed less danger, and the thought of facing the walls of Winterfell again as heir suffocated her. Berena wanted nothing of Jon’s lordship, or ever to look upon his old, stern face again. She didn’t want to grow fat with each child as her mother had, or share a bed at all.

When the snows melted in 428 AC and nightfall signaled the eve before the day she was meant to depart the capital for Winterfell, Berena tossed and turned in bed without slumber to be had. As the hours of the early morning slowly waxed, she took to a dark cloak and fastened Talon at her belt beneath it. Berena escaped the city before dawn, horseback, safely disguised among many others, with her childhood friend Brandon Reed at her side.

For many days and nights they traveled the Kingsroad uneventfully, and stopped at various inns and taverns along the way, bartering for a place to sleep with the promise of honest work. Where there were no inns, there was land stretching as far as the eye could see and keeps and villages to mottle it however far in the distance. More common were farms, and when her stomach growled with pangs of hunger that hurt, they offered the farmers their helping hands.

Berena slept well, having had a warm bowl of brown to sup and a hot fire to keep her comfortable against the chill that still lingered. For some moons then, she had grown accustomed to tending to crops and livestock alongside the farmer’s two sons. Arnulf was a widower, whose wife had died in childbed trying to give him a third, and though he never mentioned it, Berena understood why he didn’t mind having kept her around. Jorrik, his oldest boy, told her how unquiet the farm was now, with her there- and, strangely, the three of them preferred it as a semblance of what life had been like before their mother passed. With Berena’s pride and outspokenness came a particular chaos and excitement that may very well have been noisy and naggingly bothersome at times, but for them it reminded them of what had once been normal.

Dax, Arnulf’s youngest son, told her stories of their mother, and how she had a will like iron and that his father had always said that he should have known better than to plead for the hand of the blacksmith’s daughter. Over several moons Berena grew close with the family, all without revealing the nobility of hers and Brandon’s birth. This would remain sealed behind her lips until an early morning that Berena spent shoveling the stables, and longer even after that.

As she worked, she hadn’t heard the sound of footsteps approaching and was taken unawares by a stranger and his shovel that had seen the glint of Talon that she had so foolishly and habitually strapped to her flank. She had kept it hidden with her belongings until then, and had planned to take it with her when she meant to depart in lieu of the next village’s markets when it was stolen from her along with the sum of coin Arnulf had entrusted her with to buy them food and supplies to last the next year. Rather than disappoint Arnulf directly, Berena confided in his sons when she regained consciousness, and it was decided between them and Brandon that they would have no choice but to recover both the blade and the gold, or starve.

Dax remained behind to care for their aging father, but Jorrik agreed to embark with her on a mission to find the thief that had robbed them. From their modest cottage near the God’s Eye to Wickenden, the trio followed trail and rumor at the heels of the thief before their path went cold for further clue. More than once, they were lost; more often than that, they lost hope.

One night that they rested alongside a crackling campfire, strange dreams took Berena in her sleep. In these dreams she suffered an unbearable thirst, yet despite all she did, she could not rid her mouth of a hot, sticky wetness that overwhelmingly tasted of copper- of blood. The sensation clinged to the roof of her mouth, to the softest flesh of her inner cheeks, and tighter even to the ivory of her teeth as they sank into tough flesh and tore at stringy tendons with all the power of her tensed jowls. When at last in her dreams she felt sated, she would recall seeing only stalks of grass and bramble come and disappear beneath her, with nothing around save for the moon and its stars above.

Her wolf dreams began to haunt her nightly, and as they became more clear and vivid Berena would awaken with the ability to recall many details. Somehow, Berena could describe places she had never been before, but had seen only in these dreams- and what escaped her could be gained again when she read what she had written of them each dawn she woke racked by her speeding, pounding heart.

In one of these dreams, she saw Talon nestled in a cloth of hide, handed to a cloaked stranger by the thief himself. When Berena described the surreality to the crannogman and the commoner in her company, her visions aligned with those that Brandon, a greenseer himself, had dreamt. The three of them placed their faiths on the limb of a dream and mustered up coin enough to purchase their passage aboard a ship North, to Skagos, the island they recognized by tales and visions alone.

There, they chose to travel deeper into the isle themselves rather than call upon the Skagossons of House Stane for assistance retrieving the relic- wishing not to reveal Brandon’s greensight and expose Berena as a warg. The isle itself seemed to will them nearer to Talon, for there, the crannogman’s greendreams were frequent and vivid. Still, the year of 429 AC had half-passed by the time the three of them had located a tribe of freemen- much like wildlings, they lived seemingly lawless, as they had for centuries.

For some time, they watched the comings and goings of the tribe before Berena spotted the tribe-mother that had received her mother’s dagger. It was during a sacrifice, the night alive with the beatings of drums and echoes of mantras hissed and mouthed by painted faces, that she made her approach- disguising her unfamiliar face among the tribe with a paint of her own, made from the stain of wild berries and mud. Crouched low, Berena utilized their ritual as the diversion she needed to sneak past and into the tribe-mother’s tent where she searched frantically for Talon until being startled to find its blade at her throat, held there by someone that seemed almost to have materialized behind her.

Berena felt her skin part beneath the slightest trace of the blade, and wordlessly prayed to her Old Gods where she stood motionless, certain that soon, all vision and feeling would drain from her- but then, she heard a howl that sent her ears numb and ringing- making the screams of the freepeople faint despite their proximity. Her attacker froze and dropped the dagger as a wolf as tall as man and black as night took him beneath a snarl that seemed to shake the earth like thunder. Berena took Talon from the dirt floor and was powerless but to watch as the direwolf ripped him apart.

Its eyes lifted from its fresh kill and met hers, then. In a mere second, Berena saw all that the wolf had seen through the smoldering amber of her eyes.

A bond between girl and beast was born.

The Return of the Heir
For two years the North had presumed Berena dead. Although there was no body to lay to rest within the crypts beneath Winterfell, House Stark quietly grieved her loss as the third of Jon’s heirs to pass before him. It was then assumed that Jocelyn Stark was the sole surviving child of Eon and his Arryn wife and in 430 AC, Jon had begun to groom his deaf granddaughter for ladyship as his new heir.

When the watchmen atop Winterfell’s towers distinguished the forms of three figures approaching in the distance, riders were sent to meet what guests, they presumed, meant to visit unannounced. Among them, her uncle Edderion recognized her first and sent a number back to summon Lord Jon at once.

The rightful heir of Winterfell had returned six years older than when she had left it behind for King’s Landing- a woman grown now, with ten-and-nine years behind her. Nary a step into the keep, she sought her mother first and foremost before even trading her dirty, tattered clothing for clean linens instead- determined to see that Talon was returned to Alys Arryn after all the troubles that had come with it.

Berena was allowed time to adjust again to life at court before she took (however involuntarily) to spending time with her grandfather and studied the upkeep of their lands and holdings directly beneath his mentorship from then on. Combined with matters regarding the state of the realm and the duties expected of the Warden, Berena learned Jon’s ways even with the mutual dislike that made tension thicken the air between them.

Berena was wed to Domeric Umber shortly after her second societal debut, only few moons following her return. Jon insisted upon a brief betrothal and a small ceremony in the Godswood with both Houses Stark and Umber presiding over the marriage as witnesses.

Their sons, twins Artos and Alaric Stark were born in the 11th moon of 430 AC - utterly identical, and true to their giantblood, physically large in size.

The Bleeding
The North remained generally untouched as the Second Hammer Uprising conducted turmoil within the kingdoms. By 433 AC, however, the Starks had translated meaning from the dead chill that set in and the Lord of Winterfell prepared his lands for another harsh season as the Four Year Winter loomed upon the horizon. No sooner than crops were harvested, firewood was gathered, and livestock enough were butchered for meat to last through the winter, the Starks were called to the aid of their Tully allies in the Riverlands.

The Starks were not the sort of lords to sit and play war games, safe behind the strong walls of Winterfell whilst their people fought alone beneath their banners. Against the better advice of her grandfather, Berena refused to remain behind at Winterfell- she could not swallow simply staying put and tending to her children among the other women and the elderly whilst the men took to horseback with their swords, shields and armor for what could potentially have been the last she would ever see of them. In 434 AC, she was among the Stark host that arrived at the Crossing.

The large toll Lady Elana Frey required for them to pass created a rather moderate delay and raised questions among them. Jon II Stark was initially outraged that the Lady of the Crossing would exact such parsimonious dues upon their host as they had come at the behest of their liege with urgency. Despite his reluctance to credit such insult, the Starks were left with no choice but to pay their fees. Along the road, Jon revealed to Berena that their coin had paid her bride price thrice over- had Ellard lived, Berena had been meant to wed Elana's heir, Symond Frey.

In the Riverlands, the Starks and Tullys joined forces, and together successfully crushed the last remnant of the Warsmiths in a battle mockingly called the Siege of Oldstones. As the dust settled and their swords were again sheathed, it was Berena that discovered the bodies of numerous Stark men. Among them, she found her grandfather, Jon.

Lady of the North (434~)
The Stark host did not march home after the Siege of Oldstones, but instead fell in with the Royal Host further south. Commanding Northern troops in place of the fallen Lord Jon was the new Lady of Winterfell. Berena would fight alongside dragons- including her closest friend, Rhaenyra Targaryen- and witnessed the fall of her father, King Rhaegar. From there, the Starks were among those that set off from Bitterbridge to the Battle of Ashford, which saw to the end of Duncan Hammer.

After the war, Lady Berena Stark returned to the capital to swear the fealty of the North to King Aegon VII Targaryen before her return to Winterfell in 426 AC.

Later that year, Berena's daughter Eddara was born.