Osha Umber

## Lady of the Last Hearth

Osha Umber has an axe, three kids, and a pile of latent anger issues. That's all that really needs to be said about her.

## History

Osha Umber was born in 355, the eldest daughter of Lord Jon Umber and Lady Alys Umber. Her birth was so long and difficult that the maesters said Lady Alys would likely never be able to bear another child, and so Osha was raised as the heir as a son would be. She had cousins, however, and played swords with them in the training yard when they were being taught to fight. She formed a special bond with one cousin, by the name of Galen Umber, who became her best friend. Osha’s fingers were too clumsy for an embroidery needle, and after many attempts by an increasingly frustrated mother, she was allowed to do with her time what she pleased.

Osha was an extraordinarily stubborn child, a trait that has persisted well into adulthood, although it has been somewhat dulled by the pain of mistakes and the passage of years.

A knight by the name of Ser Leo took notice of her natural talent in battle, and helped her learn.

When she was nine years old, she accompanied her father on one of their frequent trips to Winterfell, but was separated from the party when a snowstorm struck on the way back. Her parents were nearly hysterical with fear, thinking they had lost their only child, but by the time the storm cleared and a party was able to search for her, two days later, she was found curled rather comfortably in a hollow tree, the bones and skins of several rabbits strewn about the space and the smoldering remains of a fire nearby. She was grinning widely with bloody teeth.

It was at this time that Alys and Jon officially surrendered to the fact that their daughter would never be a lady.

After that incident, Osha routinely fled the castle for ‘camping trips,’ honing her survival skills until she could live for months in the wilderness if need be.

A few months later, when Osha had reached ten years, her mother finally birthed another child- a son, named Erryk. But while this brother was, technically, the rightful heir, he showed no interest in the position or the blade, instead preferring to spend his days with books. Osha remained next in line to inherit. Two years later, her mother had two more children, twin girls.

When she reached ten and six, there was a massive wildling raid on the castle. As the northernmost major castle in Westeros, of course such attacks were commonplace, but they hadn't reached such a scale before. Osha pleaded to be allowed to fight with her cousins and friends, but, while her parents would allow her weapons training, they drew the line at sending her directly into the line of fire.

Of course, she slipped out anyways. But by this time, the fighting had already started, and many lay slain or dead. Osha was about to charge into battle, but hesitated when she recognized the face of one of the badly wounded- Galen, her favorite cousin. He was still alive, but only just. Osha bandaged his wounds, putting a tourniquet on his leg to avoid major blood loss. He lost the leg, but she undoubtedly saved his life that day.

When he'd been stabilized, she carried him back into the castle for further treatment, then walked back out with his blood smeared up and down her arms and picked up his fallen axe. She strode into the fray and began slicing through the wildling horde, methodically hacking her way through the attackers in a berserker rage.

After that, badly shaken, she remembered the lesson, how easily she could have lost her best friend, and began studying how to become a field medic with the castle maester, Maester Alyn. Galen could no longer fight after he lost the leg, so he gave his axe to Osha as a thanks for saving his life.

“You’re better with it than I ever was, anyway,” he said with a smile.

From then on, whenever she went onto the battlefield with her men, she carried on her belt a pouch of bandages, needle and thread, and medicine, and in her hand she carried the familiar weight of the axe.

As Osha grew, she began receiving marriage offers. Her parents eventually selected one, a son from House Vance of Atranta, in the Riverlands. His name was Trystan.

The marriage was not destined to last long. They had consensual sex only once, when the marriage was consummated, but it was enough to get her with child. Her husband was a cruel man, and was of the opinion that the purpose of a wife was to be subservient to her husband in all things.

Shortly after she birthed their daughter, Dacey, he raped her while she was sleeping.

Perhaps other women would have stayed silent against this injustice, but Osha was the daughter of House Umber, she had been fighting boys larger than her in the training yard since she was seven, and she was not about to give her dignity to this weak and cowardly man.

When she woke and refused to fuck him again, he struck her, then pulled a dagger and sliced open her cheek, aiming for her neck. She responded by retrieving her axe from where it rested on the wall, and cleaving him almost in two.

No Northman who'd seen a wildling raid before truly believed that wildlings had done it, but there was a newly hard look in Osha’s eyes and a vivid red scar healing along her cheek, her stomach beginning to swell slightly with another child, and those of the North looked after their own.

She was twenty at the time. She never remarried.

Five years later, her father died in another wildling raid, impaled from behind by a wildling spearwife. Osha was all the way across the battlefield, but when she saw her father fall, she fought her way over to him and was by his side when he died.

Her mother retreated into her grief, leaving the castle to Osha.

The next nine years were peaceful, or as peaceful as they could be. There were still wildling attacks, of course, a fact of life so far north, but they were fairly infrequent, and Last Hearth weathered them each time. Three years into this period, Osha gave birth to a bastard daughter, who she named Joy and raised along her trueborn children. If she knew who the father was, she never told.

But soon, that period of peace was brought to an explosive end by the wildling invasion, led by the fearsome Mamon Longshanks. When the attack came, Osha and her men rallied to the grey-and-white banners of the Starks, and she was at Corin Stark’s side when he led his party past the wall and into the lands beyond. The bodies of the wildling attackers piled around her, painting her axe red, and she personally decapitated a giant who had cut down fifteen of her men at the climax of the battle.

Now, she has pledged her blade to Lord Stark and his cause again, this time against a Southern threat instead of a Northern one. Osha couldn’t care less about the politics and scheming of the South, but she would follow her Lord of Stark to the grave.

## Timeline

* 355- Osha is born to Jon and Alys Umber
* 362- Osha begins to learn to fight with a sword and later, an axe
* 364- Osha is separated from her father during a snowstorm and survives alone
* 365- Osha’s brother Erryk is born
* 367- Osha’s twin sisters, Lynesse and Jeyne, are born
* 371- A massive wildling attack on Last Hearth leads to Osha’s first battle
* 372- Osha marries Trystan Vance
* 375- Dacey, Osha and Trystan’s daughter, is born
* 375- Osha kills her abusive husband after her rapes and cuts her
* 376- Owen, Osha and Trystan’s son, is born
* 381- Osha’s father dies in another wildling raid, and she becomes Lady of Last Hearth
* 384- Joy Snow, Osha’s bastard daughter, is born
* 390- Osha assists Corin Stark in pushing back the wildling invasion
* 398- Osha pledges her axe and her men to Corin Stark in his campaign against the Bastard King

## Family

* Dacey Umber: Daughter and heir. Gift: Acumen (23)
* Owen Umber: Son. Gift: Leadership (22)
* Joy Snow: Bastard daughter. Gift: Agility (14)
* Erryk Umber: Younger brother. Gift: Administrator (33)
* Jeyne Umber: Younger sister. Gift: Beauty (31)
* Jon Tallhart: Jeyne's husband
* Waymar Tallhart: Jeyne's son
* Lynesse Umber: Younger sister. Gift: Voice (31)
* Jeor Umber: Cousin. Gift: Strong (51)
* Galen Umber: Cousin, advisor. Missing his left foot. Gift: Vitality (40)
* Myles Umber: Cousin. Gift: Towering (44)
* Alys Umber: Mother, old and half-blind. Gift: Benevolence. (62)

## Household

* Ser Leo Snow: Master at Arms. Old. Gift: Martially Adept (59)
* Maester Martyn: Maester. Gift: Autodidactic. (31)

## Threads

* The Whetstone
* The Savage
* Joy