Asha Greyjoy

Her father had his first kill when he was fifteen. At thirteen - Asha's age -Balon Greyjoy was already an expert oarsman, and by seventeen he was captaining his own longship. Asha aspired to be at least as good as her father, or even better.

"Let me sail with Rodrik to take Seagard," Asha begged her father, when the rebellion first broke out. "I am better with an axe than Rodrik."

"You are to stay here to protect your mother and Theon," her father commanded her. When news came of Rodrik's death, Asha's mother pleaded with Balon to bend the knee to Robert Baratheon, for the sake of their remaining children. Balon refused.

"Let him try to take Pyke and be destroyed," Balon declared. Asha wanted to fight by her brother Maron's side, guarding the walls and resisting the invaders. Again, she was told to stay in the castle to protect her mother and her little brother.

When Maron died and Robert Baratheon's forces swarmed into Pyke, her father finally bended his knee. He knelt in the presence of Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark, while Asha's mother held Theon and Asha tightly behind him.

"Your son as proof of your loyalty," Robert Baratheon declared, not satisfied with Balon's bending his knee.

Asha's mother cried, pleaded and begged, to no avail. "He will be treated as my ward, not as a hostage," Eddard Stark promised her.

But hostage was certainly what Theon would be. Asha had no illusion about that. Another rebellion, and Theon's life would be forfeited. Theon did not cry. Her father did not cry. And Asha certainly did not cry, not in the presence of their enemies.

Her mother never stopped mourning her boys, even the one still living. Her father never stopped cursing Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark, the men he held responsible for the loss of his sons. Asha thought of her little brother Theon sometimes, and what hardship was befalling him at Winterfell, but in truth, she had been closer to Rodrik and Maron. She wanted to do all the things her older brothers did, and wanted to do them better, so she followed Rodrik and Maron everywhere. Theon was too young for their games and their battles.

"You are the only child I have left," her father told her one day, handing her a new, shiny axe. "You will captain ships, raid shores and kill men like your brothers did, like Greyjoys have done for hundreds of years."

"What about Theon?" Asha asked. One day, when she was strong enough to aid her father, perhaps they could -

"He is lost to me," Balon replied swiftly, staring into the night.