Helly

Having traveled to the far east of Essos beyond the Bone Mountains, Helly has grown resilient and fairly knowledgeable on some of those cultures, most notably the city-states of Hyrkoon.

Having been born in the broken isles of the Stepstones, she was accustomed to traveling by ship at a young age, her father being a pirate and the captor of her mother. Although she never learned anything from either of them, she instead learned from life itself that the world was a cruel, unforgiving, and dark place, especially for women.

## Appearance and Character

Typically bruised and battered, Helly doesn't bother much with being fashionable unless it's for the purposes of catching the eye of a certain lady. Her skin is somewhat fair, but it might be hard to see that at times with how much time she spends out in the sun and how many bandages are covering her skin.

What's most prevalent about Helly is her head of red hair, grown to such a full length only to make some of the pirates she's come across jealous that a woman could be more handsome and dashing than the best of them, and sometimes even taller.

## History

Helly was born on the 6th moon of 413 AC to a pirate and his trophy of a woman that he kidnapped from Myr. She never learned what happened to either of her parents, but she knows that neither of them were of any great importance to the world. At a certain age, she swore vengeance on her father for treating her and her mother the way he did, but after a year of hunting him down, she couldn't find even a trace of him and nothing was ever enacted against him. For all she knew, she could have had a dozen brothers and sisters that she would never meet.

Often times, she would find herself in places and situations that were none too friendly to girls. Those were the times she wanted to believe in her father and wished for him to come back for her, but he never did, nor did anyone else. Women would ignore her pleas and men would only encourage it to happen more, beating her an inch from death so that she couldn't fight back as they took their turns with her.

And so she swore vengeance on every man in the Stepstones who would commit such wrongs to women, and she managed to kill her fair share, beating them an inch from death and leaving them to die on their own or drown in the sea. But after coming close to being killed one too many times by her would-be victims, she decided to leave the Stepstones for something better, if it existed.

Armed with a sword she barely knew how to use, she stowed away on a trading vessel to Myr and lived on its streets in squalor for months before making her way on foot to Volantis, then to Meereen, both trips nearly driving her mad, requiring her to sell her body more than once to have the supplies needed to carry on. Both times she did so, she murdered the men involved and took everything they had. Some of them weren't bad men, but rather just unfortunate men.

She had heard of a place even further east of Meereen, past the Bone Mountains, where women were the only ones who fought. The warrior-maids of Hyrkoon, they were called. She hired someone from Meereen to take her to Shamyriana, since the way there was known to be treacherous and empty. She witnessed snow for the first time when she crossed through the Bone Mountains, and she would have certainly died along the way had she taken the trip alone. Once she was there, however, she saw the warrior-maids and knew that it was a place she could be comfortable at for once.

Helly spent several years in Shamyriana, taught by a woman by the name of Shykaya who would, over time, become her lover. She told the warriors of the west and her travels, while the warriors told her of the east and its history. They spoke many tongues, being the gatekeepers of the Bone Mountains for any and all travelers who wished to cross, and Helly was able to learn both Hyrkoon and Yi Tish from them during her stay, still thinking that she would remain in Shamyriana for good.

As was the way of the world, if Helly wished to entirely embrace the Hyrkoon and become a warrior-maid, she would be required to sleep with one of the Great Fathers, the one in one-hundred men in the city-states who were deemed worthy of retaining their genitals so that they would pass down their superiority to the next generation. There was a part of her that wanted to remain in Hyrkoon despite that, but she knew that it couldn't work. When she was pressed on the matter, she nearly ended up murdering one of the Great Fathers in defiance, but was able to escape with Shykaya's aid to Asabhad, where she was able to take a ship to Dorne.

She's since returned to the Stepstones, often hired as a guard or guide through the Stepstones by women who wish not to be subjected to some of the men who made the place their home.

## Family

Her father, Quence, a pirate.

Her mother, Wenda, a Myrish woman.