Alara Caron

Alara Caron is a sellsword in service of House Stark, and a major PoV character. She is product of an affair between King Qarlton II Durrandon and Lady Meghan Caron, and while she is unacknowledged by her biological father, she was raised in Nightsong as a Caron. Quick-witted and highly independent, Alara finds herself signing up to a distant war against the Andal invaders.

Background
Alara Caron was born as the fifth child of Lord Jaycen Caron, the lord of Nightsong, a keep in the Dornish Marches. House Caron is traditionally sworn to House Durrandon of Storm's End and has a reputation of being exceptionally loyal and close to the Durrandon's. In case of her mother, Lady Meghan Caron, this was taken a bit more literally than usual.

Lady Meghan used to be the mistress of Storm King Qarlton II Durrandon, behind the back of the Storm Queen and behind the back of her own husband. During her time as the kings secret mistress, Meghan gave birth to several children, all of them displaying the red hair that was common in her husbands family, aside from the last one, Alara, who had the dark hair and deep blue eyes that were commonly found with members of House Durrandon. Mainly because of her birth, Jaycen started to suspect his wife’s infidelity and decided to confront her. Meghan broke down, confessing everything and promising to end the relationship with the Storm King. To avoid a public scandal for him and for his king, Jaycen agreed.

While Meghan vowed that Alara was his child, he always remained sceptical about this, especially because of her looks. He secretly suspected her to be a Durrandon bastard and always treated her accordingly, at least in private. Because of this, Alara grew up as a loner with only a loose connection to the rest of her family. While she got along with her mother and her four older siblings, she never had a deep friendship to them or to any other person at Nightsong.

An especially bad relationship was between her and her alleged father, who treated her like the bastard she likely was, at least most of the times. On rare occasions, Lord Jaycen showed himself impressed by her stubbornness and even considered that she might be his real daughter after all.

One of the few people she deeply liked was the old Master-at-arms of Nightsong, who taught her how to use a weapon.

Deeply dissatisfied with her role in life, Alara always dreamt of adventure, always trying to escape her monotone and loveless life in Nightsong. One night, when she was sixteen years old, she decided to take things into her own hands. At night, she stole a horse from her fathers stables, a light armour from the guard and took valuable weapons and a bit of money with her.

To avoid getting captured by anyone her father might send after her, she travelled to the Valyrian Freehold at first, where she lived as a common sellsword, for the first time in her life free and truly happy. Because of the sigil of her house and because of her singing voice, she was nicknamed 'Nightingale' by the people she met in Essos, gaining a good reputation under this name.