Asha Greyjoy was the Lady Paramount of the Iron Islands following the death of Euron Greyjoy. She bent the knee to King Aegon VI Targaryen, returning the Iron Islands to the fold.
History[]
Asha Greyjoy was born to Balon Greyjoy and Alannys Harlaw, the only daughter of the Lord Reaver and his wife. Two of her brothers perished during the Greyjoy Rebellion of 289AC, her final brother taken as a ward by House Stark - because of this, she was raised as her father's heir.
A warrior, captain, and a leader of mean, Asha was everything a man might have looked for in a successor - if one overlooked the fact that she was a woman. The Kraken's Daughter hardly let the question of what lay between her legs limit her, however, and over the years grew famous in the Isles, and beloved by her crew.
After her father's death in 299AC, Asha attempted to succeed him as Iron Queen of the Isles - but her uncle Aeron called for a Kingsmoot in hopes of denying Euron, Balon's next eldest brother, the chance to claim the throne. When the men of the Isles named him King regardless, Asha was forced to flee to Harlaw, there to take council with her mother's brother, Lord Rodrik Harlaw.
Second War of Conquest[]
Though the Kingsmoot had crowned her uncle Euron, it was not the end of Asha Greyjoy’s ambitions. She knew her father’s younger brother was a wild and bloodthirsty man, intent on leading the Isles to battle and defeat, and so her plans lead her northward, returning Lady Glover to her seat in Deepwood Motte. There she is captured by Stannis Baratheon and his host, fighting a losing war against the Boltons of Winterfell and the Dreadfort. Now a captive, many of Stannis’ men call for her execution - but the arrival of her tortured and greatly changed brother soon shift attentions from one Greyjoy to the other.
Asha offers to pay her brother’s ransom, hoping to return with him to the isles - but the request is denied, and in 300AC Theon Greyjoy is executed by Stannis Baratheon. He is burnt alive before the army in hopes that his king’s blood might bring favour from the Red God.
The plan worked; by dawn the snow had already begun to melt, clearing the way for the Baratheon advance on Winterfell. The army sets out, though in the dark of night the eve before battle, Asha and several of her ironborn manage to escape. They flee back toward the coast, eventually setting sail homeward - Asha now the sole surviving child of King Balon Greyjoy.
Asha arrives in the Isles not long before her uncle, Rodrik Harlaw, returns from the war in the Reach, fearing for his life. The two meet in Ten Towers, where Rodrik informs his niece of the fears he and several other lords share - stating that the gains in the Reach were little when compared to the ire they had won from Highgarden. Though the Shield Isles and much of the coast have fallen to Euron and his reavers, Rodrik reveals that Lords Goodbrother and Drumm both worry about Euron and his bloodlust. Together, he and Asha devise a plan.
The Kraken’s daughter returns to Pyke, finding Erik Ironmaker, her husband, waiting for her there. Euron named him Lord Steward of the Iron Islands and castellan of Pyke - and had performed the marriage ceremony, using a seal to represent his niece. Upon finding the eighty-eight year old man sitting in her father’s chair, Asha has him drowned.
Having dealt with Euron’s eyes and ears upon the Isles and made herself a widow in the process, Asha Greyjoy names her uncle Rodrik her Lord Steward, and marries one of the Goodbrother triplets on his recommendation. Together they consolidate their hold upon the Isles, and cut off all further support for the Crow’s Eye.
For a while all is quiet in the Isles, the trials of the mainland passing them by. Word arrives of the arrival of Aegon Targaryen, and then the return of Daenerys, tales of the great and terrible conflicts raging across the face of the greenlands. For a time it seemed as if the Isles would sit quietly for the entire war - when word came from Euron, demanding support in the Reach. The letter had been in Pyke for scarcely an hour before its reply winged its way south again, signed by Rodrick the Reader, several Ironborn lords, and Asha Greyjoy, styling herself Queen of the Iron Islands. The Crow’s Eye had asked for men, ships, and supplies - but the Kraken’s Daughter was adamant that he’d receive none from her Islands. No more ravens flew north from the lands of the Mander - and within a fortnight, the Crow’s Eye was no more.
Those that survived the re-taking of the Reach slowly trickled back into the Isles, bearing tales of a crushing defeat at the hands of a conglomeration of men from the Crownlands, Reach, Stormlands, and Dorne. Hot on their heels comes another worn band of Ironborn, though this one far more surprising; the Ironfleet of Victarion Greyjoy, having fled from the ruined armies of Queen Daenerys arrive in the Iron Islands. At first the brother of Balon Greyjoy tries to assert his claim - resisting Asha’s rule and attesting that he ought be King instead. His supporters are few; between Rodrik’s deft politics and Victarion’s flaming arm and pagan priest, most of the Isles sides with Asha, including the Damphair himself. Victarion finds himself without allies: and so he yields to the rule of his niece, commanding the Ironfleet in her name as he did for her father before her.
With the last of House Greyjoy united beneath Asha’s banners, the Isles is once again whole. Some lords urge the young Queen to strike against the greenlands while they war amongst themselves, but the war is near finished, and the victor is clear. Not long after Victarion’s surrender, a letter arrived from the newly styled King Aegon VI of the Seven Kingdoms, demanding the fealty of the Iron Islands. A wise and shrewd ruler, Asha Greyjoy consents.