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 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
 * Eddara Stark b. 436
 * Ellard Stark (414-427)
 * Rodwell Stark (416-418)
 * Jocelyn Manderly b. 417
 * Dacey Blackwood b. 392
 * House Blackwood
 * 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

 * list

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)
Her sixteenth nameday seemed as routine as any other until a courier presented to her a keepsake from her mother. Talon, the gift of her mother's treasured dagger, was a sleek blade comprised of valyrian steel with a hilt inlaid with sapphires and moonstone. As a girl, Alys and the blade had been inseperable and likewise, Berena cherished Talon, and kept it with her always- sometimes, only hidden.

Just a moon later, another missive would arrive from Winterfell; this one read matter-of-factly in the familiar hand of her grandfather, informing her that she was to return to the North at the end of winter- that her only surviving brother, Ellard had died, leaving Berena to inherit after him. Beyond her inevitable grief at another such loss, this was news that was met by an overwhelming sense of dread.

As the year of 427 AC progressed, more letters arrived addressed to her. Each time another found its way to her hands, her rapid heartbeat was wrangled calm only by the sight of her mother's signature, or even her sister's. Distance seemed to have returned some fondness for Jocelyn to her, despite all her previous torment. Berena confided in her sister her wish to simply disappear before she ever departed King's Landing to return home, marry some 'oaf', grow fat and have his ugly little children. It did not solidify in her head as a proper plan until the Blue Winter relented.

On the eve of her proposed departure for Winterfell in 428, Berena disappeared from her quarters and soon after, the capital became a shrinking dot on the horizon behind her. For many weeks, Berena traveled the Kingsroad afoot with nothing but the clothes on her back and Talon sheathed at her belt. She found coin to be made doing various odd-jobs at inns and modest farms she came across along the way, and collected a meager sum within a couple of moons. However, even an untrained eye would catch the glitter of valyrian steel first before the muted luster of a few golden dragons, and once Berena had put enough distance between herself and the innkeep's stables Talon and her measly coin purse were stolen from her in a vicious attack.

Fortunately, she had caught a glimpse of the perpetrator's countenance, and as Berena bled upon the open road she committed his face to memory before her consciousness concaved and her vision succumbed to absolute blackness. When she woke, she found herself abed in a warm hovel, surrounded by many curious eyes. Eyes that belonged to the same common Wickenden farmer whose sons she had helped turn crop for coin and doubly befriended. With their aid, she was able to identify the whereabouts of her attacker and retrieve both the dagger and her small purse.

Not without vengeance, of course. And with vengeance, came the need to create distance yet again. Berena used what sum she had to purchase passage aboard a ship headed North, but the ship would never reach its ports and following a storm, she would wash up on the shores of Skagos instead.

WIP