NYLLA
The earliest memory Nylla of the salt cliffs had was from when she was four of her mother telling her that her father had died in the rebellion. She had no memory before this that she could recall and feel confident it was genuinely her memory and not a memory that her mother had implanted in her own head through constant storytelling of her early years. It was from her mother that she had learned that they had not always lived in a one room stone hut near the salt cliffs that lined the Saltspear, but instead had once owned some land-not a lot of land, but some nonetheless-and sworn fealty to the Flints of Flint's Finger, who in turn swore fealty to House Stark of the North-whatever that meant. But then her father had died in the rebellion serving that said House Stark, and his younger brother, her uncle, had come and thrown out Nylla and her mother and claimed the lands for himself. The Flints ignored her mother's pleas, saying if she really wanted her lands back she would have to take them for herself. Nylla had often asked why her uncle would be so cruel to turn them out of house, and always her mother would brush her black hair aside and run her thumb against Nylla's forehead-Nylla feeling nothing from the lingering amount of greyscale that troubled her in her infancy-and say that some people in the world are never content with what they have and always desire more.
"And the Old Gods see fit to give them more, my sweetling, more of death," her mother had always said. And Nylla supposed it was true, for many a night she dreamed of having all her mother told her she deserved, praying each night before she fell asleep that the Old Gods would give her her birthright-but the Old Gods were cruel, as her mother warned her, and at the tender age of fourteen she had lost her mother to a sudden chill which turned into an all out fever from which she died. Remember the cliffs-had been her mother's final words on earth. And Nylla did remember the cliffs, the salt cliffs provided Nylla the only way to trade open to her. Each day she climbed the cliffs to chip away a decent sized block of salt to take to the village market and earn the few meager coins that would see her through on food until the next day. She supplements this with whatever fish she can catch-though not many lived in the salty waters of the Saltspear.
It was one particularly fine morning a day or two after the storms had ravaged the waters of the Saltspear, that Nylla's life was about to change. She found a boy, in tattered clothing-long ruined and soggy. To Nylla the boy was the handsomest she'd e'er seen. He had long black hair, and a long straight nose and strong jaw. He had obviously seen better days, for he looked nearly starved, pale, and rather gaunt, but when she held his hand in hers she felt it to be warm. She drug him along the beach until they came to her hut, where she set about beginning to tend to the boy-he was barely alive, but she believed she could heal him. Her mother in her earliest memories had collected as many rare cures in her own vendetta against the grey curse that curved from her forehead down over to her right cheek like a scythe. Nothing had really worked, but a collection of rare cure-alls had been the result of her endeavors. This led Nylla to try one of the stronger cures made from Hebrion's moss that while available in Westeros, was much more common to Essos. Of all her attempts this proved to be the most effective and slowly the boy's fever subsided, and color began to return to his skin, giving him a slightly dark tone to his skin that she couldn't help but admire. During this time she placed him upon her straw, wrapped him in her blankets, and held tightly to him as he slept, trying to imagine what it might be like if he were a husband, like Mother spoke of most men being for women. She called him Clyffe and spoke to him as he slept, imagining how he might respond. In her mind he was bold, but sweet, cunning, but kind, and had a quick mind to match such traits.
When he woke she figured it would only be a matter of time until he left. They all were repelled by her grey scythe upon her face, and most everyone whom she came in contact with avoided meeting with her a second time if they could because of those scales. However the young man who awoke had no memory of who he had been-he remembered running and nearly drowning, but before that, nothing of his former life it seemed, and Nylla had to hope that it remained that way, for as long as he "forgot" his other life before she had rescued him, the longer she could keep him.
He accepted the name Clyffe, believing that to lack a name would bring him misfortune of some kind, though he was unsure of what that was. Some days after he had just awoke, Nylla hated that he had to ruin the Clyffe she'd imagined he'd be. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined his occasional tendencies towards boastfulness and bragging, but then he would turn around and with the sweetest of black eyes be extremely kind to her. Nylla knew not what to make of the two very different Clyffes that he tended to switch between, but she encouraged the sweet young man just beginning to develop for herself.
One night while she was re-wrapping the few minor wounds (cuts and scrapes he called them) that he'd sustained on his bare chest, her hand paused for a moment longer than intended in one spot. He then looked at her and then he took a kiss from her-it was rough and befitted the braggart Clyffe. She repelled his continued advance and he challenged her on it:
He looked her in the eye and said, "You want it, admit it. I can see your desire in your eyes."
"I do, but not like that," was her only reply on the subject.
It was then that he tried again, being kinder this time, and more hesitant, as though fearful of her rejection. And from that moment forward both Clyffe and Nylla were quite satisfied with one another for many times to come over the next few days. For a time she imagined that he didn't flinch when he ran his hand over her grey scythe, and that he too wanted her as much she did him, and his continued kindness to her made it all the easier. Sadly though, like all good things it came to an end sooner rather than later.