Ella Dustin

Ella Dustin is the current Lady of Barrowton. She is the daughter and only child of the late Lord Donnor Dustin and his wife, and is the widow of her distant cousin, Medgar.

## Appearance and Character

House Dustin had been blessed with good looks for several generations. The late Lord Donnor had been a handsome and well-built man in his youth, and his wife had been a lovely maid with hair the color of fire. Their daughter was unlucky enough to inherit none of the characteristics that made them attractive, however.

Ella was a frail child, always sallow-skinned as if she was ill, and thus she was not allowed to romp about or ride horses like other children. Her hair is paler than her mother's and lays limply around her face. Her eyes are the color of the sky on a very cold day. Her lips are thin and white so that they look perpetually pursed. After bearing five children in quick succession, she has put quite a bit of weight on her short frame, so that her figure is plump and sagging in areas.

In personality, Ella is as lackluster as she is in looks. She assumes herself to be much smarter than she is, and is the sort of frustrating person that does not realize she lacks good qualities. Her humor is dry and charmless and she enjoys getting lost in tiny, tedious details, driving her advisers and household staff mad with her pedantry. Moral ambiguity is an unknown concept to her; everything is black and white, and she allows for no right opinion save her own. She has no great skills, even in the everyday ladylike tasks such as sewing and mothering. She is perpetually anxious, especially about her appearance. She has a number of odd mannerisms, most notably constantly wringing her hands, which has left her skin dry and cracked. She is hardly ever seen without gloves. Her anxiety is tempered by eating, which she only does in private, for her greatest fear is to be thought disgusting.

Perhaps her most redeeming qualities, if she possesses any, are that her town prospers and her children are not monsters. She spends most of her days tending to them as best she can, though they have fed off her anxiety, and each has their own oddities and frailties just like their mother.

 History

Ella was born after a string of miscarriages and stillbirths of potential lords of Barrowton had made her parents quite hopeless. Her birth would have been considered a miracle, had it not claimed her mother's life days later. The Lord of Barrowton, Donnor Dustin, grieved his wife so immensely that he vowed never to marry again, and thus his heir, an infant girl, started her life off with her fate sealed.

Ella's childhood was spent mostly secluded in Barrowton, where she learned the ins-and-outs of ruling from her father, whose painstaking patience meant that she was not, at least, entirely incompetent when she succeeded him. He was a kind man, but perhaps indulged her too much, for she never quite learned to be independent or confident, preferring the safety of relying on others. The years were lonely, with only the lord and his daughter; other relations were distant, or scattered away from Barrowton. She had few friends.

Always in the forefront of her father's mind was the matter of marriage. As a female ruler, Ella must one day perpetuate the Dustin line, and not the line of any husband that might claim her in order to claim her titles and lands. Thus, he set down his decree in her early years that she was to marry her distant cousin, Medgar Dustin, a boy ten years her senior, and that he would rule at her side as lord consort. This came to pass when Ella reached the age of sixteen, in 406 AC.

The pair could not have been more different. Medgar was a strapping, handsome, martial man, popular with the townsfolk. He liked to hunt and fight and carouse. He was at home whether he was in a dingy tavern or Barrow Hall itself, and endeared people to him far more than did his wife. They shared no interests and there was no love between them; in fact, they hardly knew each other when they were made to stand side-by-side in the godswood. Medgar found himself preferring the company of serving girls and working girls rather than his wife. It took five years before the Old Lord Donnor convinced the man to father a child on her, and a girl, Larra, was born in 411 AC. Medgar managed several more in his line of duty; his heir, Willam, was born shortly after, and next came Jonquil and the twins, Artos and Alysanne.

Lord Donnor died in 413 AC of a short sickness, and Ella succeeded him seamlessly. Medgar ventured away from Barrowton more and more, on hunting trips and traveling to feasts and tourneys, always coming up with a fine excuse for his months-long absences. In the late half of 417 AC, he departed for a hunt and did not return. Lady Ella, used to him absconding, did not send out a search until months later, and after weeks of searching, only bones were found nearby to a bear's den; a hint that Medgar might have met his end there, but certainly not proof. No other trace was found, and in early 418 AC, Ella went into official mourning for her husband, for lack of any sign of him.

In the early 4th moon of that same year, she emerged from mourning, though all it meant was wearing colors now instead of black. She has gone about her daily business ruling Barrowton alone, tending to her children and fighting off the anxiousness that has plagued her for many years.

## Family

* **~~Lord Donnor Dustin~~** (360 AC - 413 AC)
* **~~Rilla of Barrowton~~** (365 AC - 390 AC)
	+ Several **sons**, born and died between 383 AC - 389 AC
	+ **Lady Ella Dustin** (b. 390 AC)
	+ **~~Medgar Dustin~~**, distant cousin (380 AC - 418 AC)
		- **Larra Dustin** (b. 411 AC)
		- **Willam Dustin** (b. 412 AC)
		- **Jonquil Dustin** (b. 414 AC)
		- **Artos Dustin** (b. 416 AC, twin)
		- **Alysanne Dustin** (b. 416 AC, twin)
* **Donelle Dustin**, sister of Donnor, widow of Lord Tarth (b. 354)
* **Lyra Dustin**, sister of Donnor, wife of Lord Ryswell (b. 365)
* **Harrion Dustin**, distant cousin and brother of Medgar, Captain of the Guard of Winterfell (b. 383)

## Household

* Maester Gulian
* Jack Burrows, Master-at-Arms
* Torrhen Darkwood, Captain of the Guard