Abelar Arryn

Champion of the Realm

**Abelar Arryn** is a scion of House Arryn of Gulltown and the current Commander of the Winged Knights. He is best known for his guerilla resistance from within Gulltown during the Gulltown Massacre, and was responsible for the arrest of Ser Darryn Shett.

## Appearance and Character

Abelar, called Abe by his friends, is starting to look his age. His hair, once as thick as the Kingswood, is now more comparable to some pitiful copse of trees in the Red Mountains. The wrinkles on his face reflect the valleys there, too. So far, what little hair he has left has remained as dark as tar, but that seems a small victory, all things considered.

One thing that age has not taken from him is his strength. He stands tall, and strong as an ox, with dark eyes that still burn with determination. Not winter, nor the death of his comrades, nor the horrors of war have managed to douse that flame.

## History

### Young Life

House Arryn of Gulltown may be barely better than merchants, but they are nobles all the same. The room at the top of the Eagle's Roost, their estate in Gulltown, is where Abelar entered the world as a mewling babe.

He spent most of his early years there, too. He spent most of his days in his family's vast estate, caring little for the world outside its gates. What time he did not spend there, he spent in the castle of House Grafton.

That held true until he turned eleven, at which point his father determined that, if he was ever to amount to anything, he had to leave home. His father arranged for him to squire for Ser Robin Arryn, a relative of the family serving on the Brotherhood of the Winged Knights. Abelar set out just a few days after his eleventh nameday.

It was fortuitous timing, leaving when he did. He arrived at the Gates of the Moon to discover a white raven had arrived only a day or two before him. He was spared the long climb up the mountain. Instead, the court of the Arryns came to him. He met Robin Arryn for the first time at the castle's gatehouse.

The Scarlet Winter arrived not long after him. The bitter cold kept them wrapped in furs and trapped indoors for much of the early period of Abelar's service. On those few days they were able to brush away enough snow to train in the yard, Abelar did all he could, often refusing to come back inside until Robin dragged him back in for fear of frostbite.

When the snows finally melted away three years later, Abelar truly came into his element. Finally able to practice on horseback, he proved himself adept with a lance, the true weapon of a knight. By his sixteenth nameday he was unhorsing knights with decades more experience than him.

Yet, when the Tournament of the Red Comet came, he was not allowed to compete. Not yet a knight, with Robin Arryn loathe to knight him so young, Abelar was forced to watch from the sidelines as the other knights of the Vale competed. He watched when Rhaenys fell to the lance of Leyton Lightsteel. He watched when the Crown Prince lost to a Bastard. It was hard for him to enjoy the festivities from the sidelines: both because he yearned to compete himself, and because even at that age, he could tell that the arrival of Maegor Waters at the Eyrie just before their departure did not bode well for the future.

When the Knights of the Vale returned to the Eyrie, he was with the party when it was ambushed by Mountain Clansmen. He fought valiantly, but valor sometimes isn't enough to come out unscathed. In that battle, his own knight, Robin Arryn, fell to the Clansmen's blows. With his dying breath, he bestowed knighthood upon his squire.

### Knighthood

Robin was not the only one to notice Abelar's valor in that affair. Eager to fill the newly-vacant station for the coming war, Alaric Arryn bestowed membership in the Winged Brotherhood upon him. Abelar was thrilled, and when news reached his family in Gulltown, they were, too. He wore his new colors and his new station with pride. When Alaric announced that the Vale would be going to war, he was among the masses assembled, cheering with pride. They would show the tyrant Queen what honor meant.

Only, *he* would not. He received his assignment shortly thereafter. He was to accompany Alaric's only daughter, Alys, north to marry Eon Stark. He was livid. He fought against the assignment for days, *begging* to be included in the host that would march against the Targaryens. Alaric silenced him by threatening to revoke his cloak. Begrudgingly, the boy went North. For a moment, he hoped he would return south in time, accompanying Osric Arryn south again after his wedding.

At the Battle of the Ford, when dragons descended upon the armies of the Vale, and the Winged Knights met their end by fire and steel, Abelar, still a day or two's ride north, was nowhere to be found. In quiet nights, in his cups, some say he yet swears it would have ended different had he been there. Whether that is true or not is for the Gods alone to know.

### The Winged Brotherhood

With the Winged Brotherhood decimated (fully two-thirds of its membership died in the Mummer's War), Abelar quickly became a centerpiece in the order, but remained somewhat distant from his charges. Where Osric seemed content to try and forget the war, Abelar could not dismiss it so easily--especially not when Saera Targaryen served as an ever-present reminder of their defeat. A final insult of sorts. So bad was his relationship with her at points that Osric nearly removed his cloak more than once, and contact between the two of them was strictly limited.

#### The War in the Mountains

Fortunately, the War in the Mountains provided the perfect excuse to separate Saera and Abelar. Better than that, it provided an opportunity to dispose of Abelar permanently, if it came to it. Not to say that Osric *intended* to kill him, but if it were to happen, there would likely be no tears.

The Gods did not seem to favor Osric in that regard. While Abelar was far from an experienced commander, he was *tough.* Over the course of the conflict, he proved himself capable of going where others would not, doing what others would not, and surviving what others *could* not. More than once, he suffered injuries that the Maesters said would have killed a normal man, but they did not kill him. Often fighting far from the front lines, he quickly learned to bandage himself and his comrades when they did not have access to healers.

When Harrold Hardyng became trapped behind enemy lines, Abelar led a sortie to try and rescue him. When the Valemen descended on the town of Highbrood, he was the first to charge through its gates, seizing the initiative provided by the smallfolk inside. When Hersy escaped the Battle of Mirror Lake with only a handful of soldiers, Osric thought himself finally rid of the burden of Abelar. He was not so lucky; a few weeks later, Abelar stumbled into a Valeman village on the other side of the mountains, covered in blood and missing a finger and three toes from frostbite, but with the banner of his forces safe in his possession.

At that point, Osric finally realized that he would not be getting rid of Abelar--and in fact, that his son likely had something to learn from him. He was kept closer at hand then, teaching Godric Arryn the way of the blade. Still, when battle came, he was not far from it, and when the War in the Mountains began again, he was right there at the front, forcing his way through the Clansmen front to bring down Redfeather with Osric, falling beneath a foeman's hammer aimed for his Lord. When Abelar was at last pulled unconscious from the field, some say his armor had been so badly damaged both by footfall and hammer blow that they had to cut him out of it. That was only a slight exaggeration.

#### Fall

Even as he grew older, Abelar never took a wife, and when pressed on why this was the case (after all, the Winged Brotherhood was not a chaste order like the Kingsguard), simply said that his duty was his spouse. But that did not mean men did not whisper. Some grew to wonder if it was *only* because of his duty that he did not marry.

There was some truth to that. Even as a young man, Abelar had not had cared much for women. But he did not care for men as the more insidious rumors suggested. Not, at least, until after the Massacre of the Glades. Watching men die had never much fazed Abelar. On the campaign trail, he was somewhat aloof from others--perhaps because he had seen too many good men die to let himself get attached. The exception to that was the Winged Brotherhood. They were his brothers, however much they might disagree on some issues. Seeing so many of them fall, and coming so close to death himself, left Abelar a shell of the man he once was. His recovery was a long one, and it took well over two years for him to be able to hold his own in the yard again. That was part of why Godric was sent to squire outside of the Eyrie rather than becoming his squire, he suspects.

During his recovery, he became very close with Alesander Arryn. Once destined to be a Maester, the Lord's brother had abandoned the city shortly before his oaths, returning home just before the Mummer's War. With the disastrous casualties sustained in the Massacre of the Glades, the Maesters and the chirurgeons were not able to handle the wounded alone. Alesander elected to step in, and became the figure most responsible for Abelar's care.

The two had been friends before, but from a distance. Duty necessitated Abelar keep a cordial distance from those he was expected to give his life for. That barrier slowly faded away, and the two older men quickly became inseparable.

He can't remember who kissed whom. He can't remember Alesander's face when he saw the scars that marred his body. But he *does* remember how safe he felt in his arms, and how, that night, the faces of the fallen stayed away.

Not long after Abelar finally left his injuries behind him, the Blue Winter set in, keeping him snowed shut inside the Gates of the Moon. It wasn't until spring returned in 428 AC that he was able to practice atop his horse again, and almost as soon as he had started riding again, notice of a tournament reached him.

#### Rise

Abelar seemed a man possessed after that. From sun up to sun down, he was upon his horse, trying to regain the skill his injury had left him bereft of. This was his chance to finally regain the honor of the Vale--and his chance to finally partake in a Grand Tournament.

His first bouts were shaky, to say the least. More than once, unseasoned, fresh-faced knights threatened to unhorse him, or to beat him on points, only to be defeated in the final tilt. For the onlookers, it seemed *highly* unlikely that anything would come of this washed-up knight.

Something had clicked by the time he reached the quarterfinals, though. He tore through the opposition from then on, unhorsing them early or otherwise annihilating them by points. He was in his domain. This was *his* element.

Then came the final. It was hard-fought, with the young Criston Lannister and Abelar trading leads back and forth the entirety of the event. On the tenth pass, though, Abelar was able to sneak his lance past Criston's defenses, leaving him flat on his back, and claiming the victor's purse for his own. The battered, broken, down-trodden knight of the Vale suddenly became its champion, to roaring applause.

Abelar's demeanor changed somewhat then, and his relationship with Osric lightened, even if it was only because absence eased the strain on their relationship (he was sent to escort Sharra and Alyssa Arryn to Storm's End thereafter, while Osric went to Winterfell). He was a happier man. Brighter. His sacrifices, it seemed, had not been for nothing.

### Gulltown

He served without distinction for the next four years. Those few times the conflicts of the Bleeding reared their head in the Vale, he was sent to dispatch them, but it was not an endeavor worth noting.

Not, at least, until Gulltown. He first heard of the unrest in his hometown just a few short hours after Osric, when the Lord dispatched him and Selwyn Waxley to assist Lord Grafton in suppressing the uprisings. They were just "rabble," Osric insisted, and would be quickly silenced with their arrival.

None of them could have seen it coming. That city was worse than any battlefield he had ever been on.

From the moment they arrived, something felt *off* about his hometown. All the merchants had long since left, the threat of instability causing them to seek greener pastures even in the dead of winter. And at all hours of the day, there were protesters. Hundreds, maybe *thousands.* It quickly became apparent that two knights would not be enough to suppress the uprising. Selwyn wrote to the Gates of the Moon requesting assistance.

It would not come. At least, not soon enough. As the sun went down, and the followers of the Red God gathered around one of their pyres and prayed, Ser Daryn Shett and his warriors fell upon them like wolves. The streets ran red with blood.

Abelar and Selwyn, out by the docks with Lord Grafton, scrambled to return their charge to the safety of the city's keep, but there were simply too many of them. The three were bound, stripped, and gagged, then dragged to the city's center. The knights were lucky--as men of the Seven, they were to be let free, if only to deliver the message home. Lord Grafton was not so lucky. As they were dragged away, his screams--and then, the cheers of the crowd--echoed through the night.

But the knights would not leave so easily. With only a small escort guiding them out of the city, they were able to overpower their captors, kill them, and escape into the city. When news reached Ser Daryn, he was *furious.* He ordered the gates of Gulltown closed for the battle that was to come.

And as they closed, Abelar and Selwyn were cut from the outside world.

Inside the city, their resources were severely limited. Having been stripped of their gear, they were left only with what they could scavenge, but they made due. Those first few days were hard, when the whole of Ser Daryn's efforts were on hunting them down, suppressing the populace, and killing the non-believers. When the Arryn host arrived and encircled the city, their task became much easier, as their enemy now had to keep an eye *outside*, at least.

It was then that Abelar and Selwyn devised their plan. Together, they rallied a poorly-armed, even-poorer-trained resistance movement--worshipers of the Seven appalled by the atrocities, and worshipers of the Red God fighting for their lives alike. They began launching hit and run attacks against Ser Daryn's men, burning his supplies and killing his officers.

It was going well. They were slowly, but surely, turning the tide. But Osric *had* to attack. The host advanced on the walls, Saera and her dragon bathing their inhabitants with dragonfire. Believing their salvation to be at hand, Selwyn ordered their militia to attack the gatehouse from the inside, hoping to open the gate as the citizens of Highbrood had all those years ago.

It did not go well. Almost the entirety of their ramshackle force was captured or killed, with Selwyn among them. When the forces of the Vale retreated after the loss of Saera and Blue, Ser Daryn added insult to injury by hanging an oil-soaked Selwyn in a cage over the gatehouse. He burned him alive.

Abelar was forced to change tactics. Recognizing that the battle had made many of Ser Daryn's men--and many more of the unarmed citizenry--waver, he used what few resources they had remaining to turn them against him. Not *all* of them, mind, but *enough.* The popular support behind his rule disappeared, and when Abelar descended upon Ser Daryn and his escort, half of them turned cloak or fled. The Knight was able to capture him alive. That final blow was enough to shatter the morale of the defenders. When the gate opened in the early morning light, the besieging forces, expecting the defenders to sally forth in an attempt to burn their siegeworks, were surprised to see the white flag of surrender--and even *more* surprised to see Abelar at its head.

Further bloodshed had been avoided, but the cost had already been too great for many to stomach. Being named the Commander of the Brotherhood of the Winged Knights was a bittersweet victory, made only more so by Osric's suicide only a few weeks later. And no matter how many men in the Vale praise him for his service, he can't help but see the faces of those that died inside those walls.

## Recent Events

With news of a new Grand Tournament in Oldtown, an aging Abelar hopes to show his worth one last time.