Alyn Velaryon

Alyn was born in 115 AC at the La Quilla shipyards, the second son of Marilda. His mother always claimed that he and his older brother Addam were sons of Ser Laenor Velaryon; Lord Corlys never challenged that in public, though plenty of others did, given how well known it was that Laenor preferred male company. There was another story too, from the jester Mushroom, pointing instead to Corlys himself, from the years he'd spent hanging around the shipyard where the boys' grandfather worked as a carpenter. Whichever tale was true, the brothers grew up among the timbers, crewing their mother's ships like the Mouse.

When Prince Jacaerys came through Dragonstone looking for anyone with blood strong enough to ride a dragon, Addam and Alyn both tried. Addam won over Seasmoke, once Laenor's own dragon. Alyn had no such luck: he searched first for Grey Ghost and found nothing, then went into Sheepstealer's lair, where the beast set his cloak alight. Addam beat out the flames with his own cloak while Seasmoke drove the dragon off. Alyn carried the burns for the rest of his life, but he was alive — others who'd gone after the same dragon had ended up eaten. Soon after, at Corlys's request, Queen Rhaenyra lifted the bastardy from both brothers.

After the affair of the Two Traitors, plenty of voices on the Black council turned against Addam. Only Corlys spoke up for him. When the queen ordered his arrest, Corlys warned him in time to run, and paid for it with the black cells. Addam died soon after, fighting for the Blacks at the second battle of Tumbleton.

Aegon II won the war and had Sunfyre devour Rhaenyra at Dragonstone. Alyn, only fifteen, already commanded the Velaryon fleet, and used it to cut off Aegon's way back to the capital. While he gathered ships to hit Dragonstone in revenge, Queen Alicent struck a bargain with Corlys instead, so Alyn settled for shipping the beaten king back to King's Landing aboard his mother's old cog, the Mouse. By 131 AC his ships were the only thing keeping Braavosi vessels from landing Vale men at the Gullet, while northern and riverland armies closed in overland; Aegon refused to abdicate and was soon found dead, poisoned.

Dragonstone surrendered after a short siege and Alyn took it over. During what people called the Hour of the Wolf, Alysanne Blackwood talked Cregan Stark — then serving as Hand — into sparing Corlys's life; the septon Eustace thought Cregan cared less about that than about how Alyn and his ships might react. Larys Strong is said to have put it plainly to his own people: "Kill the old serpent and we lose the new one too, along with his fine, fast ships." Alyn was there for Aegon III's coronation, and for his wedding to Jaehaera Targaryen.

Corlys died in 132 AC and Alyn became Lord of the Tides. He and Marilda carried the body back to Driftmark aboard the Mermaid's Kiss, then gave it to the sea near Dragonstone from the Sea Snake. His cousins Daemion and Daeron Velaryon each claimed Driftmark for themselves, but made peace with Alyn once Aegon III's regents ruled against them. Ser Malentine and Ser Rhogar Velaryon tried another route: Malentine died trying to kill him, and Rhogar chose to take the black rather than answer for it.

Alyn hoped for a seat among the regents, but Hand Tyland Lannister gave it to Unwin Peake instead. That same year he married his cousin, Princess Baela Targaryen, at Dragonstone. Not every regent approved — some had wanted her married to Thaddeus Rowan and talked of undoing the match: "the girl is wild, headstrong and disobedient, just as we feared, and now she's tied herself to lord Corlys's jumped-up bastard. A serpent for a father and a mouse for a mother... and that's to be our prince consort?" Tyland saw it differently and let the marriage stand: "the boy is of noble blood, and I've no doubt he'll prove as loyal as his brother."

Tyland Lannister died in 133 AC and King Aegon III made Alyn his Lord Admiral, though he couldn't get him named Hand as well — that went to Unwin Peake. With the Narrow Sea stirred up by what people called the War of the Daughters, Peake wanted Westerosi ships at Bloodstone, and put the rebuilt royal fleet under his own uncle, the inexperienced Ser Gedmund Peake, with Ned Bean as second. All Alyn got was the job of backing Gedmund's attack on the Stepstones, sailing his flagship, the Queen Rhaenys.

The strike against the Braavosi won Alyn more fame than Peake had ever wanted for him: men started calling him Oakenfist, Hero of the Stepstones, and the regents piled honors on him over Peake's objections. Ser Marston Waters, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, knighted him, and the king named him Master of Ships.

Peake wanted him out of the way and sent him after the Red Kraken, Dalton Greyjoy, hoping he wouldn't come back. That 133 AC expedition to the Westerlands became the first of Alyn's six great voyages, each one made in a different ship. Sailing for Bloodstone aboard the Lady Baela, he spent two weeks with Racallio Ryndoon, who treated him as a friend one day and an enemy the next — at one point forcing him into a mud-wrestling pit. Accused of spying for the Archon of Tyrosh, Alyn had to kill three Tyroshi prisoners to prove otherwise; a delighted Racallio sent two of his own wives to him, though what happened that night went unrecorded. He let the fleet through the Stepstones afterward.

At Sunspear, Alyn won the favor of Princess Aliandra Martell — Born Bastard claims they became lovers. In Oldtown he made friends with Lord Lyonel Hightower and Lady Samantha Tarly, visited the Citadel, and received a blessing from the High Septon at the Starry Sept. By the time he reached the Westerlands, Dalton Greyjoy was already dead at Tessarion's hands; Lady Johanna Lannister gave him a golden seahorse. Alyn left a third of his fleet with Ser Leo Costayne to guard the region, and on the way back, after another stop in Oldtown, learned at Sunspear that Prince Viserys — Aegon III's younger brother, thought dead by everyone — was alive, a prisoner of the Rogare family in Lys. He sailed there and talked Lysandro Rogare into letting him go. When the Lady Baela returned to King's Landing in 134 AC, Baela was waiting on the dock with their newborn daughter, Laena. He was celebrated for the rescue, though Peake balked at the hundred thousand gold dragons it had cost; Peake resigned soon after, and Thaddeus Rowan took his place as Hand. Alyn went home to Driftmark with his family.

After Lady Jeyne Arryn's death, the Iron Throne backed her chosen heir, Ser Joffrey Arryn, against the claims of Ser Arnold Arryn and Isembard Arryn. When Ser Corwyn Corbray died at Runestone, Thaddeus Rowan sent two armies into the Vale to end the revolt: Ser Robert Rowan marched overland while Alyn carried Moredo Rogare's men by sea. His ships broke Isembard's sellswords at Gulltown, though taking the city cost hundreds of men.

When the Myrish Spring ended with the fall of the Rogare bank, Moredo handed his command to Alyn and sailed for Braavos. Together with Lord Benjicot Blackwood, Alyn finished securing the Vale for Joffrey. At a gathering of lords in King's Landing in 136 AC, he put forward Isembard as Master of Coin. Around then he gave up his posts as Lord Admiral and Master of Ships to Ser Gedmund Peake, a move meant to calm Unwin Peake's supporters, who still wanted their uncle back on the council even though Peake himself had been passed over for Hand.

The collapse of the Rogare bank cost the Velaryons much of their fortune, so in 136 AC Alyn put together a merchant fleet — led by the Valiant Marilda — for a trading voyage to Volantis. Baela, pregnant with their second child, was angry to see him leave again. Oakenfist had good hunting against pirates in the Stepstones and the Narrow Sea. In 138 AC, when Lord Blackwood brought Addam's bones back from Raventree Hall, Alyn had a single word carved into his brother's new tomb: LOYAL.

At some point he returned to the small council, once again Lord Admiral and Master of Ships, a post he kept through the reign of Daeron I Targaryen. In 157 AC he took part in the conquest of Dorne as a ship's captain: his fleet destroyed Los Tablones and tore through much of the Blackwater Rush while the bulk of the Dornish army met the king at the Prince's Pass. He returned in 160 AC to put down a rising along Los Tablones and the Rush, but the following year the Young Dragon was killed under a peace banner; his successor, Baelor I, made peace with Dorne.

Ser Russell Stillman squired for him, and Alyn knighted him; it was Russell who later wrote Hard as Oak. Septa Rue, the author of Born Bastard, is said to have been one of his lovers. With Baela he had at least a daughter, Laena, and a son; years later he had twins with Princess Elaena Targaryen, Jon and Jeyne Mares. Whether Baela was still alive when that began isn't known, but the story holds that Alyn loved Elaena and that she meant to marry him, which suggests he was already a widower by then. Around 171 AC — the exact date isn't certain — Alyn was lost at sea; Elaena waited a year more before agreeing to marry someone else.