Nerys was born the second daughter and fourth child of Asmund Flint, the Lord of House Flint of Flint's Finger and his wife Margret. A diligent, biddable child, she was not nearly so spoiled as her eldest brother Anders, nor as headstrong as her elder sister Liselle. A good, kind-hearted, dutiful daughter, and all that her parents could wish for. Duty was ever the backbone of the North and the Houses that served their Stark overlord. It was that duty and the harsh reality of life south of the Neck that often served to separate the ways of courtly life in the colder climes to those of the south. Necessity and hard reality oftentimes replace soft speech and courtly intrigues. That is not to say that any daughter of House Flint would dare to grow from infancy to young childhood without learning the graces required a noble lady. Indeed, rather than showing umbrage to being placed into a noble lady's role, Nerys seemed keen to learn the gentler arts of administration, of heraldry and the running of a northern house. There are those who do their duty because it is set upon them, and those who do it because they know no greater gift than to serve. And for the now no longer quite so young Nerys, duty was certainly a gift.
Perhaps that diligent, dutiful demeanour is why Nerys was chosen, not to learn the ways of court and politics at Winterfell, a task which was set to her sister Liselle, but to take the harder and the more necessary task. Though the Flint seat was well protected atop its high cliffs, much of their lands backed to the sea, and into the reach of reavers, always keen to steal and rape and rampage at the first sign of any weakness. With few resources and with long leagues between allies, it often fell to a House to defend itself and its holdings alone, with no hope of aid or rescue. And a House alone must needs learn to cultivate strength in both its men and its women. And to that end, at the age of 12, even before her flowering, while still she was considered a child, Nerys was sent north, to foster under the tutelage of the noble ladies of House Mormont, far and far from Flint's Finger, at the House's seat on Bear Island. Though it was her parent's choice, never will Nerys deny that she went to live the life her sister always wanted, and lost much of the sisterly closeness she had shared with her elder sibling in their childish years as a result of it.
And learn she did, well and ably. Nerys forged two paths of learning in this new House with its gruff and Staid Lord Jeor and its bold and graceful women. The first, the ways of sea and keep. To manage a household and to keep safe its women and smallfolk, to secure its stores and to safely harbor those of the outlying villages at the sounding of the horns that marked coming of the ironborn. To find incomes and to trade enough to keep the coffers, if not full, enough to sustain the needs of household and keep. To navigate the waters of the Bay of Ice and along the western shore, learning the ways of trade and the delivery of goods and supplies in the wake of reaving. The need to bring aid, supplies and comfort was a task that served to take some of the softness from the young girl's heart.
Nerys had not a warrior's heart, and she did not learn to love the blade and the spear, the bow or the axe, as the women of House Mormont seemed want to do. But she had the fierce heart of her northern kin, and an unshakable desire to protect her foster House and, in time her own, either back at the Flint Cliffs, or in a House to call her own. And if she must learn, then she would learn as dutifully and as diligently as ever. And so, the second path of her learning. The women of Mormont did not judge her harshly for lacking their own battle fervor, but, rather, looked to play to her strengths. No heavy armor of chain or brigandine. She was too slight in height, too slim in weight, too full of figure. And in the close confines of a keep it would be the softer armours, or, more likely, none at all. And being not nearly so hardy or hail as the bear woman, she learned to fight with spear and bladed weapons, and with the bow. Weapons that could compliment her speed and not hinder her flight.
And if the bear women taught her the arts of men, they also cultivated her womanly graces, her keen mind and her quick wits. To write and to read, to teach her skills to other, and more than anything else, the one art she loves best: to weave. An art, but a useful one, as it served to keep the eyes keen, the fingers nimble and the arms strong. Nary a day would go by when Nerys was not working on some bit of tapestry or planning another. A good life, and in the care of a good family. And Nerys was happy enough. Even after the gruff old Lord's departure for the Wall and the Black of the Night's Watch, even after the reality that she would never see his stony, and yet, somehow kindly face again. It was on Bear Island that Nerys spent the entirely of the Greyjoy Rebellion, in its cold keep, in its ravaged villages, in front of the countless funeral pyres. And it was in those pyres that the last of her softness of heart was burned away. No man or woman could hate the Ironborn more deeply, nor hold more determination to defend against them. Certainly not the new Lord of Bear Island and his new southern wife.
But what the Jorah Mormont might make of his Lordship and his new wife, Nerys would not know, not with her own eyes. Only a few months after the Lord's arrival, she received a letter from her father, ending her fostering and recalling her to Flint's Finger. And even her homecoming was short-lived. A week, barely two, before she was sent to find her brother Anders, to serve and support his household as he might need, during his attempts to expand the reach of the Flints into the Riverlands.
