A/N: Hello All, This is my first attempt at writing fanfiction. Please bear with me. I got this idea for a fic one day and just wanted to explore the possibilities of it. I hope you all enjoy this and find it worthwhile. Please don't be shy and leave reviews and/or suggestions. As a new writer of fanfic I would really appreciate any constructive criticism. Any way, I really hope you like it.
Disclaimer: In no way do I own any of these characters. The praise goes to Mr. George R.R. Martin, praise that man.
Arya:
In the four years since arriving on Braavos, Arya Stark lost count of the many faces she wore. A blond girl, freckled, and innocent…An old crone with greying hair and a hunched posture…An alluring courtesan capable of bringing pleasure to any man without even having to ever touch them. Arya much preferred those aliases to the times she played the parts of Weasel, Cat, Salty, or Lumpyface. Those identities felt too familiar, almost as if she were herself again. Except Arry. She liked playing the part of Arry. It was the last time she felt truly comfortable and safe. That was when she still had him to protect her. That was the last time she ever trusted someone to not leave her.
She sat now on the lower steps of the House of the Red Hands. She was preparing to pose as a healer and infiltrate the building in order to eliminate a rich slaver of Asshai. The slaver traveled to Braavos because of an "ailment". He was in search for a cure from the pox. He contracted it from one of his servants that he took to bed with him, and his wife went mad from the disease once she contracted it. Her family, enraged and humiliated, wanted him to pay. Her father offered to pay an exorbitant amount of money to have the man eliminated. She chose the face of a comely and youthful girl. She thought it would be more enticing for the man to follow. Her plump top lip had the perfect little bow shape her sister Sansa had. Her eyes were masked in a light green rather than her normal silvery grey. Her hair fell in long tresses of caramel to her mid back. She figured her alluring features would make it easier to get the man to follow. Whilst waiting she thought back to her time spent in the Free Cities and her life before.
She finally understood what it meant to work in the trade of secrets. As a young girl she thought the most powerful strength was that of the sword. The knights brandishing long swords and the kings wielding war hammers were the weak ones. Since leaving home she realized that the power of words was much more influential than brute force. Not to say that she still didn't crave the security that holding a blade in her hand brought to her. It's not that she really had a home any longer to go back to. They'd taken it from her. She felt the compulsion to repeat her mantra from so long ago. The words Cersei Lannister…Walder Frey…Ilyn Pane… bubble up from her throat leaving an acidic taste in their wake. No, she stops herself. She is not that girl any longer. She is no one. She needs to be completely focused on the task at hand. After all, the Asshai man's murder must look like an accident.
She started apprenticing in the House of Black and White upon her arrival to the Free Cities. Since then she traveled to the whorehouses of Lys, the Magisters of Pentos, and to the coast of Volantis. When she first arrived the Kindly Man and the Waif schooled her in the languages of Braavosi and High Valyrian. Now she was a girl of one-and-seven working the docks of The Purple Harbor, or speaking to the sailors of the Seven Kingdoms while frequenting Ragman's Harbor. Her nights are spent going between the Inn of the Green Eel, the Happy Port, and Moroggo's. When not occupied with her brothers of the Faceless Men she duels for fun with other Braavosi at the Moon Pool. On those evenings she creeps out of the House of Black and White and sneaks towards the canal. There she retrieves needle from below the loose bricks she hid it under all those years ago and makes her way over to spar with the sailors.
Abruptly she is pulled from her thoughts in order to look for the man. As she looks to the surrounding crowd passing the stairs of the House of Red Hands she sees the target. The Kindly Man told her he was a man of about fifteen stone and not much taller than she. He was stout and more round than tall. Flanking him were four slaves all wearing collars of bronze. The gall of this man to be accompanied by slaves in one of the nine free cities, but nobility always thought themselves better than the others. She may not even have to kill this man; the swordsmen of Braavos may challenge him to a duel because of his lack of respect for their customs. Before he sees her, she slips into her black robe and lifts her hair from underneath to lie above the hood. She slinks up to the top stair and awaits his arrival. The man quickly makes his was to the building and looks upon her. She silently motions for him to follow her. How arrogant she thinks… he does not even question her but just assumes she is there to greet him. She abruptly turns her back to him and opens the large mahogany doors of the House of the Red Hands and leads him inside.
Gendry:
Gendry was now a man of one-and-twenty and a Ser of the Hollow Hill. In his time as a Knight of the Brotherhood Without Banners he became their blacksmith, and one of their leading warriors. No longer was he the young apprentice of Tobho Mott; he now defended the small folk of the Riverlands from the ongoing war. In the last five years countless lords and houses battled for the seat of the Iron Throne. The Lannisters of Casterly Rock barely held their grip on the seat. The Greyjoys of Pike, the Tullys of Riverrun, the Freys, and Boltons, the Baratheons and many other houses and all their banner men battled for the upper hand. The Queen from across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys Targaryen threatened all of Westeros with the promise of growing dragons. To the North, the looming threat of wildings and white walkers plagued the nightmares of children and grown men alike. All but the Starks. At the thought of the Northerners his jaw clenched tightly and his teeth ground together. He forcefully ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. This had become a common occurrence, he thought about the Starks almost everyday, or at least one in particular. Arya.
Currently Gendry sat with his back up against a burly tree with a particularly uncomfortable knot of wood near his spine. His whetstone in his left hand and long sword in right, he sharpened the blade of his castle-forged steel. He found the process calming and rhythmic, almost like a prayer. He thought back to a time not so long ago and of a different prayer, one that was whispered on the lips of Arya. The words Cersei Lannister…Walder Frey…Ilyn Pane… the Hound, after all they were the reason that he fought all these years. He battled to avenge his dead friend Arya Stark, the little wolf. If only he went with her rather than join the Brotherhood. She never would have ran off and ended up at the Twins. Roose Bolton's bastard paraded around a girl who he claimed to be Arya, but Gendry knew better. He saw the girl once in passing and knew it wasn't his friend. At the time he heard she was to marry Ramsay he could not help but to be excited. Although the prospect of Arya marrying bothered him a bit he was glad to know she was safe. He thought he would finally see her again and be able to make sure that she was alive and well. But, it wasn't her. His hopes of finding her were destroyed when he saw a common girl with brown hair who looked nothing like Arya and lacked all of her fire and spirit. Despite the years separating them he knew he would be able to recognize her. That girl was not her, just a ploy to obtain the North.
Thoros had suggested sending an envoy to the Free Cities and to try getting financial assistance from the Iron Bank. The old priest thought it would be best to look for help outside of Westeros. Naturally, as one of the first and longest members of the Brotherhood, Gendry was asked. So now as he sat on the dirt floor under the shade of the large tree he thought of the proposition. There was only so much fighting was good for. After all winning battles does not mean winning the war. What they needed was money and to eliminate a certain problem by the name of Cersei Lannister. What the other men of the Brotherhood did not know was that aside from going to the Iron Bank in the hopes of attaining some funding for the commoners and their cause, Thoros also wanted to enlist the help of the Faceless Men. The Queen was proving to be troublesome with showing no regard for the safety of the people of Kings Landing. While the Lannisters feasted in the Red Keep, commoners were dying of starvation every day. With no influence other than his mother, King Tommen was becoming the spitting image of his late brother Joffrey. He showed no regard for his people and looked at the position of being king as one of power and manipulation. Gendry heard stories of the young King that would make even the most experienced warrior cringe.
He did not feel comfortable with the idea of hiring an assassin, but what else was there to do? If they wanted to find a way to help the Seven Kingdoms some things had to be done. Was it worth killing one person to save the lives of countless people? Maybe if he could bargain with the Faceless Men to do it in the most humane way possible it would become just? He knew that if any other man were sent in his place they would not ask for that mercy. That is when he decided he must go to Braavos.