Simon Thorne

Simon Thorne is the lawful heir of Lord Jon Thorne. He is a man of six-and-twenty He was forced into training to be a knight by his father at a very young age, which instilled a strong desire to become a great knight and warrior. However, this also caused a lot of pent up anger towards his father. Today, Simon serves as the Queen's Justice.

Personality and Appearance
Simon sports short brown hair and brown eyes. When not prepared for combat, he wears humble cloths, but he is almost always prepared for battle. Unlike many scions, and especially heirs, he does not brandish the House Thorne sigil on his armor, or any of the Thorne colors.

Simon has a degree of insecurity about his own abilities, despite having proven himself to be a capable fighter. He has a great deal of respect for those older than him as well as for the institutions of the realm, such as knighthood. He believes that he must be the perfect knight. The only man that he does not give respect is his lord father, Jon Thorne. While he cares for the rest of his family, he holds a small amount of jealousy of his siblings, whose upbringings were far less tyrannical than his own.

Childhood
Simon was born in the year 391 AC as the first child of Lord Jon Thorne. In the first years of his childhood, Simon grew a liking for games and would love to play at sport with House Thorne servants. When Maester Matten, maester for Thornekeep, began teaching a young Simon history, sums, and other things all nobles are taught, he took a great liking to study. His father, who was a strict man, did not appreciate the signs that his son would be weak, so he punished his son for trying to study on his own, outside of what he required Maester Matten to teach the boy.

As an attempt to harden Simon, at the age of Twelve, his father forced him to, daily, train at sword. First, he trained with the Master-at-Arms Balon Thorne, but eventually, after being disappointed with his son's skill at the sword, began training Simon himself. Simon was unhappy with this, but the dutifully son kept working at it. He wasn't great at the sword and still did not show the progress his father seeks, but he did improve due to this training.

Training with the Golden Company
Once Simon seemed to peak in his training with his father, his father was determined to have him train with more readied warriors. He considered sending for hedge knights to come to Thornekeep to train with his son, but he was able to get Simon sent to the Golden Company. As a young boy, he was forced by his father to train with recruits of the Golden Company. He first fought with new recruits and was easily beaten bloody by them. Overtime, he slowly learned how to dodge and parry against their attacks and slowly got comofrtable swinging a sword. After a while, he defeated his first recruit in 404 AC, a year after he began training with the Golden Company. Over the next two years, he was able to consistently defeat most new recruits thrown at him and finally became a respectable swordsman by the age of fifteen.

Personal Training
While his father had forced him to train against his will, Simon eventually took a liking to sword combat. Once he began causing more bruises than he'd take, he realized how exhilarating it was to best your opponent, and decided to put personal time into training, outside of his official training. Instead of fighting knights and soldiers; however, he decided to take to hunting in his free time. He grabbed a bow and arrow and began to learn how to shoot arrows, eventually becoming quite skilled at hitting his mark.

Squire
In late 407 AC, Simon was sparring with some soldiers of the Golden Company and was easily holding his own. The Captain-General, Aeron Goldfyre watched the sparring and after it was over spoke with Simon. Impressed with the skill he saw in the young man, he made Simon one of his squires, to assist Aeron and to be trained to become even better.

Preparing for War
Simon joined some other men to train under the watchful eye of Aeron Goldfyre. Sometime on the First Day of the Eleventh Moon, Simon met with his father, stationed with his troops in King's Landing. The two quarreled over Simon's place in the Golden Company, ending with his father striking Simon and Simon retaliating by drawing his sword upon his lord father. Simon returned to the Company after this.

Mummer's War
Simon traveled with the Golden Company and other forces to the Riverlands, at the Queen's command, despite his father leading the Thorne troops with a separate army to Gulltown. Simon arrived in Harrenhal with the rest of the army. There, he spoke briefly with the Captain-General of the Golden Company. He traveled closely with Ser Aeron to Lord Harroway's Town, where the Golden Company is preparing to face the forces of the Vale that are invading the Riverlands. One day, he snuck off to practice his bow skills before returning back to the army.

Simon is present at the Battle of the Fords, where he fights at the side of Aeron Goldfyre. He witnesses the death of Aeron, which destroys him emotionally. Despite this, he continues to fight in the battle. Returning to King's Landing, he wandered the city looking for something to make him whole again...

Searching
Simon began searching for something to do. He was no longer the squire to Aeron Goldfyre, who was no deceased. At first he had desire to continue serving in the Golden Company, but he found an unwelcoming presence in the company, with many members criticizing him for not protecting Aeron. While they kept this in secret mostly, Simon still heard the rumors and it made him disillusioned with the company. He began seeking other means of serving the Queen outside of the company. In 409 AC, Simon began working as a bodyguard for people of the city, mostly merchants. He felt as if he could do more, but wasn't sure what that could be. During this time he was knighted.

City Watch
In 410, the newly raised Master of Laws, Rodrik Connington, noticed Simon's effort in unofficially helping to preserve peace in the city and made him a member of the Gold Cloaks. In his new position, Simon rose to impress the Master of Laws and was soon raised, in the same year, to be the Captain of the River Gate, commonly called the Mud Gate. While he briefly desired to rise even further to Commander of the City Watch, in 413 Rodrik made him the Queen's Justice, citing his duty to justice and the word of the law.

Queen's Justice
In his new position, Simon began working to dispatch the justice in Queen Visaera Targaryen's name. One of the first jobs given to Simon was to investigate his former Gold Cloak superiors for corruption and other crimes, which led to some executions of men he had previously served for and with. He began preforming executions, as one might expect of the Queen's Justice, but eventually Simon was directed to take a more active role in assisting the City Watch, by the Master of Laws. Simon has an unyielding since of justice, formed by his experience at the Battle of the Red Ford and his years serving as a member of the City Watch. While he is fond of neither torture nor cruelty, he believes there is a place for harsh punishment for traitors.

About two years after achieving the position, Simon was given the duty to train Katerina Hunter in the position of Justiciar. He had her assist him in investigating crimes in the city of King's Landing, but sometimes he would escort her out of the city to preform justice elsewhere in the Crownlands where it was needed. He recommended to the Master of Laws in 417 that she be named an official Justiciar and given freedom to preform justice on her own.

Family
House Thorne is a small house, with few branches in its family tree.
 * Lord Jon Thorne, lord of Thornekeep. b. 368. m. Gwyn Piper b. 370.
 * Ser Simon Thorne, heir to Thornekeep. Squire to {Aeron Goldfyre} before his death. Queen's Justice. b. 391. A man of six-and-twenty.
 * Alliser Thorne. Scion of House Thorne. b. 395. A man of three-and-twenty.
 * Myranda Thorne. Daughter of House Thorne. b. 400. A woman of eighteen.
 * Rickard Thorne. Scion of House Thorne. b. 403. A boy of five-and-ten.
 * Balon Thorne. Brother to Lord Jon. b. 370. m. Dana Thorne, smallfolk woman with whom he fell in love.
 * Merrett Thorne, his son. b. 401. A man of seven-and-ten.

Household
Household of Thornekeep:
 * Maester Matten, maester of Thornekeep. Healer, educator, counselor.
 * Alliser Thorne, Head of the Household Guard. Co-castellan.
 * Merrett Thorne, guard.
 * "Fat Will" Willam, guard.
 * Rest of Household Guard.
 * Balon Thorne, Master-at-Arms. Co-castellan.
 * Ser Dayton, Hedge Knight in service to Lord Jon.
 * Belmont, Kennelmaster.
 * Septon Marwyn, Head Septon of the Thorne Sept.
 * Septa Sarra, teacher in the faith and other things to Myranda Thorne.
 * Other Septons and Septas.

Quotes by Simon Thorne
" Now, however, he was squire to the Captain-General of the Golden Company. What would father think? "

– Simon's thoughts about his at-the-time recently acquired position.

Quotes about Simon Thorne
" Simon was as able a squire as he could hope for."

– Aeron Goldfyre in his thoughts about Simon.