Alysanne Blackwood

Alysanne Blackwood is the Lady of Raventree Hall, wife to Lord Dorian Blackwood. Born to Celia, and Tommard Blackwood in 371 A.C., and raised alongside her cousin Dorian at Raventree Hall. Alysanne is a driven woman, focusing most of her attentions on the control of both her holding, and her husband. There is little she would not do to keep both within her grasp.

Appearance and Character
Of average height, and slender build, the Lady of Raventree Hall was a beauty since her maiden years. Time has taken little from her looks, leaving her appearing younger than her thirty-six years. Alysanne is said to be the image of the late Melissa Blackwood, a beauty whose figure had been carved to be forever displayed in the Godswood of her home.

Lady Alysanne is ever dressed in blacks, and shadowy tones, her style as hauntingly beautiful as the looks gifted her by the Gods. Lengthy black hair hangs wavy from her head, her pale face emphasized by the framing of her locks. Her eyes are a striking icy grey, cold and unreadable.

Prone to swings in mood, the Lady of Raventree Hall runs her holding with little regard for those who live there, her family aside. While ever obedient, her servants often tread lightly when she is within earshot. Rumours of the lady’s wroth have filled the cavernous halls on more than one occasion.

Youth
Born in the Eighth Moon of 371 A.C., Alysanne was welcomed into the world in a bed of blood. Her mother, Celia Blackwood, did not live through the birth, dying before her only child had taken her first crying breath. Tommard Blackwood did not live much longer, running off into battle weeks after the death of his lady, his heart too sorrowful to keep him out of danger, his mind too clouded by grief to think of the daughter he left behind.

Alysanne was cared for by her uncle, and raised alongside her cousin Dorian. The two were only a year apart in age, and quite a convenient pairing.

She was an unpredictable girl from the start, her moods shifting more suddenly than any storm had ever hit Raventree Hall. Even as a child she often went from playfulness, to fury, her cousin Dorian being at her side to see much of her episodes. Despite her outbursts being frequently aimed at him, the two stayed close for the entirety of their youth.

Their age, and bond had them together more often than not, and Alysanne grew bookish at his side. There was little for her to do but join as she watched Dorian dive into his quests for knowledge. She craved the closeness it brought, and the stories they would share together. She found herself keeping up with him, sitting in on his lessons as heir, and doing what she could to be an intellectual match with the boy had she already grown to love.

Adolescence
When Dorian had informed her of his desire to leave for the Citadel, Alysanne was furious. In her mind it was but a way for him to leave her, and nothing he could say was able to change that thinking. It was his first betrayal, and one she would never forgive him for.

Her cousin gone, she was left alone with what little she had at Raventree Hall. Her anger with him did not fade quickly, and she refused to write him for an entire year. Alysanne kept to herself, held up in her room for most of her time, and losing herself in the library when her mood was light enough to make the journey. When her year of silence was at and end, she finally wrote the boy who had wronged her.

As Dorian began to send his replies, Alysanne learned how far she had fallen behind. Without the limits of the family library, and a year of vengeful depression, her cousin had been hard at his studies and had far surpassed what knowledge they could claim to share. The distance between them felt larger than ever, and the young Alysanne could do little but throw herself back into her own education.

Alysanne began to fill the void Dorian had left in House Blackwood. The young lady started to take on what schooling had been meant for her cousin, and learned what it meant to be heir to the Blackwood name. Though her position was unofficial at first, she was eventually named Castellan when the then Lord Blackwood fell ill. With his true heir off becoming a maester, and not but married women, and bastards to choose from, Alysanne took on the weight that should have been Dorian's.

Their relationship patched, though not as well as she wished, Alysanne continued writing him. The ravens flew steady between the Citadel, and Raventree Hall, and they did not stop until Dorian was finally back at her side. Even then, she knew there would always be ravens between them.

Marriage
Shortly after Dorian’s return to Raventree Hall, the two were married before the massive weirwood tree in their Godswood. Alysanne quickly found herself with child, and felt security in having Dorian back at her side, knowing it would be forever. She had never felt as much peace as she did in those short months.

This marital bliss was short-lived, dying only a few moons into her pregnancy. Dorian then committed his second betrayal, bedding a lowborn girl who worked in their kitchens. Alysanne was furious with her husband’s affair, the ordeal and resulting stress nearly causing her to lose the child they had made together.

Months passed them by and her fury did not settle. It was only urged on by the news that her husband’s whore would be expecting his bastard. Her anger having reached such a melting point, she simmered in her hate. She was beyond the simple silences, or scoldings she had given as punishments in the past. She hardly felt anything.

Damion was born to her, and a small light returned to her life. Her focus was off the woman who was swollen with her husband’s child, if only for the last remaining months of the maid’s pregnancy. While she did not forget, nor forgive, she let the matter rest.

When the time came for the woman to give birth to the bastard, Alysanne left her husband with their own son. She decided, on what she thought was a whim, to attend the birthing, and to stand and watch as the product of her own suffering was spat into the world. She wished to see what twisted creature would be born of the betrayal. However, when the baby came out he was but a crying, squalling thing, covered in blood and terrified of the world. Just as her own son had been. As Alysanne took the child into her arms, she knew what she had to do.

The maid did not make it through the aftermath of the birth, and Alysanne claimed the boy as her own. She would go on to raise him alongside her trueborn son. She treated them as equals, for a son of her husband would be a son of her own. Still, she made sure the boy was given his bastard name. Brynden Rivers, and his dead mother, would forever be a reminder to her husband that there was a price for straying from a marriage bed.

Motherhood
Alysanne continued to treat Brynden well, the circumstances of his mother’s death never leaving the room where it occurred. She raised Damion and Brynden as true brothers, only explaining to the boy what his surname meant when he began to inquire. Despite his status, Lady Alysanne was always sure to let him know that he was not any less than that of his siblings, and that she had always considered him her own, from the moment she heard his first cry.

When her second son was born he was a sickly thing. Her pregnancy had been a struggle, and she felt the Gods were reminding her of the evil she had done. Ambrose was rarely let out of her sight as the baby grew, the constant doting of both mother and maester shaping him into a delicate boy.

Two more children were born of her body. First Lenore was born to her, healthy, and a much stronger child than her brother before her. The girl rarely cried, and was ever patient with the attention that was being focussed on her older, more needy brother. As the girl aged she became independent, and curious, more interested in exploring Raventree Hall than learning the ins and outs of being a lady.

Her last child was Lysa, another healthy baby, and proof enough to Alysanne that the Gods had forgiven her. Two healthy births since her sickly babe, and most of her guilt had faded. She raised her three youngest closely together, a fact that likely added to Ambrose’s feminine disposition.

Recent Events
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Family Tree
Blackwood Family Tree

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