"Come child, a story.
What is it, mother?
Signs have shown themselves, the day is near—the day when all these will end. The sweat and toil, the blood and the misery.
Will we leave the freehold? When? Whereto?
Time is never certain. But there is a special place—as far as in the northwest of the land of the east.
Will we live to see it, mother?
Have faith, child. We will. We will."
Chronicles of Bondage, Fifth Chapter
The girl who was once Arya Stark has gotten used to the routines of working for a fishmonger named Brusco. "My name is Cat," she had told him in broken Braavosi. "No ser, no parents, I now live alone. I need a place to stay, food to eat, some money. I will sell what you'll have me sell and help you around the house."
He was apprehensive at the beginning, but his daughters seemed to have taken pity on the girl. "We need more girls around here, Father. To help with the laundry and the stitching and all. You cannot rely on the boys, surely you know that," one of the daughters said.
Every waking day, she would go with Brusco to the fish market to purchase daily catch which she would sell by the wharves in the Drowned Town. The breadhouse owner was always her first customer, saved for the fourth day of each week, and he always bought crabs and mussels, six and four each. She sold oysters and cockles, and whenever the catch was good, prawns, to one of the brothel owners and to his sister too, who runs the alehouse; although she was not entirely sure she was truly his sister. Her familiarity with the locals earned her the name "Cat of the Canals", and should some townsfolks ask, the others would tell them, "The oyster girl, Brusco's helper." Then, a long walk to Ragman lane towards the harbor, where the non-local ships and boats dock. The Happy Port is there, and Merry always bought eleven or twelve oysters from her. The cart was heavy, and her back was always painful at the end of each day. The Cat wiped the sweat above her lips as she recalled her Kindly Man's instructions:
"Observe people—their faces, behavior, manner of speaking. Even their expressions when the sun hits their faces, or when a paid paramour walks by, or when the boat that will take them back to their ships is a little too delayed. Beware of false realities, child." They were walking past the acolytes and devotees lighting candles in the hall, towards the temple's garden.
"How does a girl know which realities are false?"
"Consider this: how do you think would a certain sailor react should a paid paramour pass him by, with the sweetest smile on her lips, and a seductive flutter of her lashes?"
"He will smile back and be pleased, he will dream of her, and maybe follow her for she might lead him to a nice place and warm his bed," the Cat answered confidently. Arya Stark had brothers, and her brothers talked about paid women a lot, a lot. Robb and Jon used to sit with Theon Greyjoy near the kennels and talk about her with soft lips, and her with full, round, breasts, and her with the sweetest cun—
"No, child, he would not."
She looked at the Kindly Man in confusion and attempted to rule her face. A girl must not think of Arya Stark's brothers, and the delights she had felt when they played with her, teased her, taught her. She felt her chest constrict and so she heaved a sigh. "He would not?"
"He would not. He would look at her with anguish, for he was a lowly sailor and she was his lover before. He would feel this torment for he could only look at her, and not touch her, much less kiss her on the lips. False realities child, are seen by the eye. True realities are beyond what sight can perceive, you understand, child?"
At night, she would sleep beside Brusco's daughters: the older one is Brea, and the younger, Talea. Every night, when Brusco drifts off to sleep, Brea would climb up the rooftop and meet a boy. She would spend an hour or two there, and climb back down to tell them about this boy she was having dalliance with. "Oh Talea, Oh, Cat! I have never seen such beautiful pair of blue eyes before! And his lips are so warm yet so light against mine; they taste like berries and ap—"
"His hair?" the Cat asked in Braavosi. Her eyes glinted with sudden interest. "Tell me about his hair."
The sisters were unsure at first if the Cat was only feigning interest, but she was lying on her stomach, her chin resting atop her right hand, and her eyes were with a certain flicker.
"Midnight black," Brea uttered dreamily, to which Talea let out a repressed, coquettish scream.
"Oh," the Cat responded in a somewhat unimpressed tone.
"Do tell us about his hair, Cat. Who is he?" Brea demanded, her eyebrows raised.
The Cat was taken aback. "He? Who are you talking about?" She turned over so her back was now against the bed, but the girl pulled both of her hands to allow her to sit. Two sisters stared at her accusingly, their smiles with a hint of mischief. One of them even spanked her with a throw cushion.
"Stop denying his existence, Cat. You speak of his name in your fantasies every single night without fail," Talea giggled, trapping a small, soft flesh on her inner thigh between her thumb and forefinger. "Tell us or this will be really painful."
That precise moment, the Cat wished she had Arya Stark's Needle with her. It was not helping either that Brea was tickling her sides. She wanted to convulse in chortles and scream with pain at the same time.
"S-stop it, stop it!" she pleaded in suppressed fits of laughter.
"Then tell us who that boy is, and why he makes you touch yourself at night!" Brea urged.
She let out a pathetic giggle, not because Brusco's daughters were playing with her, but because she wanted to hide the sudden hollowness she felt within. Seven hells, how could one person even miss another this much?
"R-red, red, with white streaks…" she managed to say in between breaths.
The girls stopped bothering her sides and looked at her in a teasing manner. "Heavens! Red and white hair? Why, that's fascinating! Is he Westerosi?" Talea queried.
"Lorathi."
"Ooooooh, Cat is in love with a Lorathi!" Brea screamed so loud, it was a wonder Brusco was not a bit disturbed in his state of slumber. He was a heavy sleeper, anyway, which explained why the girls could go out and come back in.
Talea kissed her cheek softly and whispered in her ear, "What's his name?"
There was one and only one name. It was true, she spoke it every night—consciously, subconsciously, even unconsciously perhaps. Heavens forbid, she might have really been touching herself every night while uttering that name. It was the only genuine thing she knew about the man, but that did not stop her senses and her very core from thinking about him, dreaming of him, wanting him; such that at every turn, it is he who she sees, and his voice she hears. She had kept him locked in the deepest recesses of her capacity to think and feel, but nothing would remain hidden for long, this she knew. Every morn and every night she prayed—to not succumb to such emotions, no matter how strong they may be—and every morn and every night she felt like exploding to a thousand, thousand fragments. Oh, she knew his name the same way she knew what hers had been.
Jaqen H'ghar.
"Caaa-aaat," Talea still whispered into her in a sing-song. "What's his name?"
The Cat looked at the two girls with a sigh and whispered back: "He has no name."
