Mistress Ena Briarhurst

Ena Briarhurst

Nicole Kidman as Ena Briarhurst nee Masonson

Personal

name:	Ena Briarhurst nee Masonson
father:	Eddwin Masonson
mother:	Cathryn Masonson
spouse:	Ser Rawlin Briarhurst (d)
issue:	Rawn (son, 18) & Eddyn (son, 16)

Appearance

gender:	Female
age:	34
height:	5'10"
weight:	130ish
eyes:	Light grey
hair:	Blond

Political

honorific:	Mistress
house:	Nayland of Hag's Mire
position:	Castellan of the Mire

Background

Ena Masonson has never left the Cape of Eagles. Never has she gone on adventures, nor has she ever dreamed of the warm sands of Dorne nor the bitter snows of the North. She was born in the heart of Winter to a family that had been in Hag's Mire for generations. It is said that the first of her kin were the laborers who built the keep that the Naylands call their own. Since then, every boy born into the Masonson family worked stone and metals, laid boiling sand into glass, and carved wood into things of functional beauty. When Ena came into the world, she embodied this lovely functionality. While she possessed honest beauty, she also was bodily-abled by smallfolk work and labor.

Within weeks of her birth, she was placed in a sling against her mother's chest and taken out into the world of the Mire's township. While there are many roles for healers, her mother served just two: she brought newborn babes into the world, and comforted those who were preparing to leave it. Her father and brothers may be busy hewning stone and laying colored glass, but her mother was busy with the beginning and end of life. Perhaps a bit of a superstitious woman, she always told Ena there were only three times in a woman's life they were carried through the front door: once at birth, once when wed, and once again when taken to their graves.

It was perhaps this philosophy that molded Ena. She was a strangely eerie girl who was just a bit too tall, a shy too thin, and with eyes that truly were windows to her soul. While her mother intended for her older sister to inherit her work, Ena was able to explore other options for her own life. Through a connection with the head cook at the Hag's Mire keep, Ena was hired into the family as a scullery maid. It was not glamorous work for a girl of twelve, but she proved to be an exceptional hardworker. There was nothing she forgot, no duties that she shirked.

Over the years in the Nayland House, she gained respect and prestige within the household. Despite her eerieness, and while she never seemed to make friends with those her own age, she easily found friendship in the older chaperones and septas within the keep. Soon, she became a maidservant for one of the young daughters of Lord Tobias and Lady Constance. This gave her an unique opportunity as she followed the Lady about throughout her daily schedule. She was able to listen in on lessons with the septas and maesters, able to understand the law of the kingdoms, the mappings of heraldry. She helped the young Lady with her studies, and through this improved upon her own skills in herbs and healing as well as refining her own literacy.

Through looking after the Lady, she also met an older household knight named Rawlin Briarhurst. He had been sworn to the Naylands for a score of years — the same amount of years that were the difference between the 16-year-old Ena and the 36-year-old Rawlin. This bothered her little as the man was well-established and respected within the house; it also helped he was an honest and noble knight. Within a year of their meeting, they were wed. She soon became his confidant, and while he favored his wife to never have the Nymerian spirit, he did engage her in conversations of tactics and warcraft while they would play cyvasse.

By the time Robert Baratheon rebelled against the Mad King, their two sons were ten and twelve — a page and squire respectively. Ser Rawlin, who was a battlefield knight at heart, was one of those who marched off into the fray — he was also one of those who never came home. Twenty-eight and a widow now, all Ena had left was her sons and her work.

Over the next six years, she began to work closer with the Lady of the House, replacing one of her maidservants at the insistence of Castellan. This allowed her to develop a rapport with the upper levels of the household, and soon she was being groomed under the Castellan herself. It has now been some weeks since the former Castellan has scummed to age, leaving her as the Castellan of Hag's Mire. Though her life thus far has been ordinary and perhaps plain, with the threat of war on the brink, the story of Eda Briarhurst now truly begins, and she will not see her home and House fall.

Family

Husband: Ser Rawlin Briarhurst, killed during the King's Landing sacking.
Son: Ser Rawn Briarhurst, freshly-made Knight.
Son: Eddyn Briarhurst, squire.

Physical Features

There is nothing plain about this woman. She is tall, easily two hands over five feet with a slender physique that only increases her presence. Her form is crafted of lean, harmonious curves that contour in all the right places. Her skin is smooth and pale without such things as scars and freckles. Her ovaline face is a well-done composition of high cheekbones, a slender jawline, a long and straight nose, and slender but feminine lips. Riotous curls of flaxen-gold are often kept loose about her shoulders, and her eyes are color of bottled glass that seem to lighten or darken with her mood.