Rylene Florent

**Rylene Florent** is the eldest child of Lord Alton Florent and Lady Leonette Norcross, her younger brother Aladore Florent serving as lord. Similar to him, she is cousin to Alysanne Tyrell and her family. She is unmarried, spending most of her time instead either travelling on family business or training.

## Appearance and Character

Rylene is tall at five foot ten, with a pretty and delicate oval-shaped face but a broader body beneath due to her training. She is muscular, with only average curves but the ability to easily lift her body weight. Her hair is a rich shade of auburn, with Rylene's eyes like shining emeralds.

When competing in tourneys or training outside of the privacy of her residence she wears well-made but unadorned plate and a helm with only an eyeslit, the only hint at her feminine identity being her flowing hair. As a refined lady of the court, Rylene tends to favour the blues of her house or the greens of the plants for which the Reach is famous, with jewels and richness used only in moderation.

## History

Rylene Florent was born upon a starry night in the year 64 AC, the first child of Lady Leonette and Lord Alton. Yet she was a girl, a child only useful for marriage. They may have loved and cared for her, but it was clear that she would never inherit and by the time she was more than a helpless babe with no memory at all, her brother Aladore Florent was born and she became nothing more than a tool for marriage.

As the elder sibling she naturally took on a motherly role, that role being furthered when her mother would die at the age of thirteen, young enough that for many of them she was the closest thing to one they would know. Rylene was taller and stronger than all of them, and when kindness or coercion failed, the unyielding force of a muscular teen would always beat an untrained child.

As the first-born lady of a noble house, Rylene was given the usual training of a lady; how to honey words, how to pray to the gods properly, how to manage a household. Ultimately as a thirty-four year old maid it has proven to be rather without use, but at the least she can handle herself in a social situation.

Her passions were not for staying inside, but instead for what her brothers were able to do, to *fight.* While her brother may have only pretended to care about combat, she loved it with all her heart. Lord Alton had other plans for his eldest daughter; a Florent was a valuable marriage proposition, and Rylene was both young and virtuous. But she wore him down and finally convinced him to let her train, and later a suit of armour. She took to fighting like a duck to water, and grew thick of body with muscle instead of curves.

To the citizens of Brightwater Keep, Rylene was a secret to be kept only until marriage, but as it never came and her siblings grew less needing of a motherly figure, she was without use. Her family loved her, but it was not as if she could sit around doing nothing her whole life, and so she moved to the capital, becoming a figure of court. In King's Landing, no-one questioned a knight with a full helm, green eyes and a long red ponytail.

When the Rosegold Rebellion came, she was twenty-nine. What was one more knight with a couple of trusted attendants, that just so happened to wash and sleep separately to all the others. Perhaps they were simply private, and the seven-pointed star upon their helm explained well enough why they never chased a camp follower. In battle, Rylene was as fearless as anyone. By the end her armour was dented in half a hundred places, two horses had been taken from under her and her left arm had a cut from elbow to wrist but she was alive, and had been successful if unnoticed. Three weeks later she was at Brightwater Keep in a gown of baby blue, watching the bones of her father be placed in the family crypt, speaking to a family she had not met in a decade. Her brother and she quarrelled endlessly, agreeing on nothing but the sadness of their father's passing She left only a few weeks later, returning to the capital, where she has remained to this day.