Varamyr

He was born a month early and so sickly that no one expected him to live. His mother waited until he was almost four to give him a proper name, and by then the whole village had already settled on the nickname his sister Meha had given him before he was even born.

He used one of his dogs to kill his younger brother, and since his father could not tell which of the three animals had done it, he took an axe to all of them. Before one of the dogs died, Varamyr slipped inside its skin and felt its death, and the scream that tore out of him showed his parents what he was.

His father dragged him through the woods to Haggon, an old man of his own kind, who taught him the rules of the craft and the strengths and weaknesses of different animals, took him along on his dealings with the Night's Watch, and brought him to a gathering of skinchangers where he met Orell, Borroq, Grisella, and Briar, who kept a shadowcat. He named himself Varamyr at the age of ten.

When Haggon lay dying, Varamyr stole the wolf the old man had meant to keep for himself as a second life. Over the years he died eight more deaths while wearing other animals, and eventually rode into battle on the back of a snow bear thirteen feet tall.

He lived in the hut that had once been Haggon's, and a dozen villages paid him tribute. When he wanted a woman, he sent his shadowcat to fetch her, and they all came resentful, whether weeping or silent.

When Mance Rayder sought an alliance with him, Varamyr agreed and joined the assault on the Wall.

After Orell's death, Varamyr takes control of his eagle, which still carries a trace of its old master's mind inside it, and uses it to spy on Castle Black.

From the air he notices the first signs of Stannis Baratheon's arrival at the Wall. Melisandre burns the eagle alive, and the shock leaves Varamyr on the edge of madness for a while.

Near the end, he admits to himself that he had longed to make Ghost, Jon Snow's direwolf, his second life, a life he thought would have suited a king. The moment he saw the wolf walking beside Jon he knew Jon was a skinchanger too, since his own kind always recognize one another. He thinks Mance should have let him take the direwolf, since the gift was strong in Jon, but Jon had had no training and still fought against his own nature.

After the wildlings' defeat in the battle of Castle Black, he flees with a small group and hides who he is. His companions scatter one by one until only Thistle, a spearwife, remains with him. When, dying, he tries to seize her body, Thistle fights back in a fit of madness and tears off her own clothes, eyes, and tongue.

He thinks of his wolves as his salvation, and that is his last thought as a man: true death comes suddenly, like a plunge into icy water, and the next thing he knows he is running through the snow under the moon, alongside One Eye, Sly, and Stalker.

Afterward, Jon Snow sends Val to offer peace to Tormund, who accepts it. Among the first to cross the Wall as hostages are the children of the wildling leaders, and Tormund points out among them a skinny, rat-faced boy: Varamyr Sixskins' son.