Alester Flowers

Alester Flowers was born in the fifth moon of the year 395 AC, the natural son of Ethan Beesbury and his foreign paramour, Conosa of Braavos. Knighted at nineteen, Alester would then spend his time in the company of a Braavosi sellsword company, fighting against slavers and Dothraki, or so he claims.

## Appearance and Character

Alester is a reedy man, standing tall but slim. His looks favor his mother, a dark-haired beauty from Braavos, belying his bastardry in comparison to his fair-haired father and half-brother. In his middle age his face has become more gaunt, lines showing years of scowling. Alester does not look a kindly man, and many would do well to take note of it.

Alester talks loud, and dresses even louder. Having spent most of his years in a mercenary company he naturally has a voice that booms- a reminder of his years spent ordering his men around as a commander. He's prone to jokes- not always ones that are appropriate for court, and seems to find things of bawdiness to be the epoch of humor. He has an ease about him that allows him to make fast friends with men who are agreeable to his loud crudeness, but faster enemies with those who dislike it. If he sees opportunity for advancement he will seize for it, regardless of who's fingers he must step on in the process.

In a phrase, Alester is power-hungry for a birthright he never had claim to.

## History

Alester Flowers was born of a fling between Ethan Beesbury and a Braavosi merchant's wife, a union of only a short few months that resulted in a baby, a bastard of Honeyholt. The Braavosi became so enraged upon discovering that the child was not his that he nearly beat his wife into a pulp, and left to his homeland on the next tide without his wife, alone in a strange land with only the man who had impregnated her, who was married himself.

If Alester had anything pleasant to say about his early childhood at Honeyholt, it was that Emphyria Shawney did not take his presence as an insult. She never favored him as a son, but treated him as she would a ward- which was to say she let him be except for his lessons, which he was expected to learn just as well as Aemon, his half-brother. Alester took naturally to horseback riding, and would serve as a second squire to his lordly father, learning the inner workings of how to maintain a proper steed. Alester wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty if it meant one day he would have a stallion as wonderful as the ones he saw at tournaments, fine Dornish chargers and sturdy Vale beasts with fur-covered hooves, he envied them all.

At the age of nineteen, with nothing to his name except a fresh knighthood and a silver dappled mare, he departed to the city of his mother- Braavos. A Westerosi knight was an uncommon thing there, and he served his early adulthood as a sworn sword in many a fine household, mastering his riding skills and introducing as many people as he could to the concept of jousting, a thing he was horrified to find was dreadfully uncommon in Essos.

At twenty-five he was offered a position as a commander in a mercenary group known as the Sons of the Seven, a minority religious group in Essos comprised of men who for whatever reason followed the Faith of the Seven. His skills in horseback made him an effective warrior, and Alester spent some of his best days with his men and his steed, charging into battle against whoever fortune called them to destroy.

During this time, to pad his pockets and pay for his expensive hobbies of buying whores for his men and maintaining his armor, Alester turned to a bit of blackmail- a professional secret broker if you would, threatening exposure if certain men did not pay him a pretty price for his silence. This would go on to make him an unpopular man, so much so that in 432 AC Alester was drove out of Braavos and forced to return to Westeros as a man with heavy pockets of gold.

Unfortunately for Alester, 432 AC was during the rise of the Second Hammer Uprising, and the knight saw firsthand the chaos that took place in the Hightower, watching as the young lord Arthur Hightower routed out traitors and corruption among his ranks following the bloody uprising. Alester was more than willing to provide his services in secret-selling, quickly gaining rank in court for his swift action to assist in the The Hightower Affair.

In 436 AC his niece, Violet Beesbury, would come into inheritance of Honeyholt, a move which brought her frequently to the Hightower court and thus into the social circles of Alester. The man was more than willing to dote upon his niece, sending her home with rich gifts and stories of Braavos, all the while plotting his grab for Honeyholt behind his familial demeanor.

## Recent Events

Both Alester Flowers and Violet Beesbury have retreated from Hightower to return to Honeyholt. By all accounts they plan to return in time for the wedding of Arthur Hightower to Naerys Targaryen.