Balen Sterling

Dieter the Bold .... House Sterling .... An Odyssey of Silver

Balen is the 4th son (5th child) of Braddock Sterling. As a young child, Balen was especially close with his youngest brother, Willhelm Bryce Sterling. When he hit 11 years old, and Willhelm the impressionable age of 6, he came down with a bad case of Space Scarlet Fever (wait, wrong game). It raged pretty bad and he was bed-ridden up in his tower room for weeks. Willhelm spent a lot of time watching over Balen, and on one particularly bad day the nurse needed to run an errand and asked Willhelm to keep a close watch on Balen and come get her if the fever got any worse. She was gone for such a long time that Willhelm started to get bored. Then he saw some of the kids outside getting a game of Knight Soccer (tm?) together and they called up to him to come join then. Wilhelm couldn't resist and ran off to join them. He came back hours later to find people stirred up and running all around. He followed one of the maids up the tower, then into Balen's room and found his older brother thrashing around on the bed, screaming incoherently. Willhelm stood there, stunned, as people rushed about changing blankets, trying to hold Balen down. The maid who had put Wilhelm in charge grabbed him by the arm and pulled him off to the side. She shook him and asked where he'd gone, how you could abandon me like that? She told Willhelm that because he hadn't watched over Balen and gone for help, that he could lose his brother.

Balen didn't die, but he was a long time recovering. And even when he had recovered, he wasn't the same person. He stopped hanging out with Wilhelm and began to brood. He started to spend more time among the House histories, started talking about our Valyrian Villain in respectful and admiring ways. Talking about how it was his destiny to regain our Valyrian Steel.