A/N: Hey guys! So this is a story I've been working on for a while now and I really really like it but I want to warn people from the get go that its probably going to make strong shippers upset at times. I really wanted to focus on Arya (because she is the most bad ass, I mean come on...) and how she would deal with returning to westeros after something turns her world in Braavos upside down). Things get messy and sad at times but I really hope you enjoy! Please please please let me know what you think, it makes writing so much more of a joy.

Arya

She never regretted it, not even the night she was cast out of the house of Black and White.

It had been two years since her last relapse when it happened. After she'd killed Ser Merryn she'd spent six months blind - forgetting the features of her own face after two months in the balckness. The only times after that when she got sparks of her old life was when word reached her of Jon Snow's demise.

Her unseeing eyes had shed gallons of tears at the news, seeing flashes of her beloved brother in the darkness that enveloped her. She'd known she was really going insane then - feeling as if she was seeing him through the eyes of Nymeria, only he was Ghost - or Ghost was both of them? It wasn't clear. When her eyes had been given back to her she understood it for what it was - the delusions of a lost soul, wondering in the dark clinging to something anything that could be used to construct a sense of self.

But No One had no sense of self. And so she'd let the memories and imagined images fade. It was easier that way, without the constant pain. And so as she lost the grey-eyed boy, Arya Stark left her too, receding into the recesses of her mind and fading away, until her memories were nothing more than a point of reference, contextualizing the rare Westerosi word that No One heard on the lips of those who visited the docks of Braavos.

But then, fifteen months after her eyes had been restored to her, over a year and a half after she had begun to truly imagine herself as No One, she saw the boy.

Except he was not a boy, not really - he'd been almost a man on the day she had met him. What he was was a bull, big and stubborn as ever, but with something so matter of fact about him that No One couldn't help but remember him and smile. Arya Stark had loved this bull once.

So No One set out to see what she could learn about the Bull. For the first time since Ser Merryn she took a face without asking. She became a tavern girl, with a friendly face and soft brown eyes, though she left her own dark locks cascading down her back. He could hardly recognize those, after all.

When she asked the Bull how he'd come to be in Braavos he'd gruffly mumbled "I rowed" and turned back to his ale, making it clear he had no interest in speaking with the girl. She thought that was funny - and so she'd tried again the night after, and the night after that - slowly coaxing details out of the Bull until he began to open up to her a bit, until his blue eyes crinkled in greeting when he saw her approach. He told her he was only there for a short time, that he was on his way to Mereen – on his way to pledge his service to the one they called the Mother of Dragons. He said he'd heard rumors that she was drawing in all the people whom the Lannisters had wronged. He hoped to find a girl there, a girl whom he'd wronged, a girl who could have been his family.

No One heard, and No One remembered, but still she didn't let the Bull be. She was playing a dangerous game with this friend of Arya Stark's, and she knew it might cost her dearly, but she decided she didn't care. It might be worth it to live in darkness again for a time if it meant she got to see the light in the Bull's eyes.

On his last night in Braavos she'd taken him upstairs to his chamber, ignoring his half-hearted protests about her honor.

"A girl can chose to do as she pleases in Braavos," she had said to him matter-of-factly. "And tonight it pleases a girl to lay with you."

The protests had died on his lips when she had shed her flowing gown and stood before him bare and proud. He had closed his eyes and breathed out "Arya" when she took him in her hands, then he panicked, realizing his mistake and fixing her with a look of such blue-eyed mortification that she couldn't help but laugh aloud.

"A girl can be Arya Stark, just for tonight" she'd said, clambering onto his lap and claiming his lips as she sunk slowly down onto his pulsing manhood. He'd gasped into her mouth at the sensation but hadn't protested more, taking her with such passion that she didn't know whether to cry out in ecstasy or weep from the overwhelming tide of sensation that assaulted her. They'd coupled hard and deep, and it wasn't until he'd spent himself that he realized her maiden's blood staining their legs. He'd taken his head in his hands then, whispering sincere apologies to her while she laughed. He didn't stop berating himself, not until she claimed his mouth again and pushed him onto his back. The second time she'd taken the reigns, riding him as he watched her, watched the lithe curves of her body arch backwards in the candlelight, seeking greater pleasure with each rise and fall. Arya's name had torn from his lips again when he came, sounding almost like a prayer for relief and she'd collapsed onto his broad chest exhausted but satisfied from her own release.

Before sleep had claimed him he'd wrapped an arm around her and kissed her hair, whispering to her in a low sleep-laden voice, "How did a girl know it was Arya Stark who I mentioned earlier?" his grip suddenly tight around her ready to crush her then and there if she turned out to be a foe.

For a moment No One had considered giving him to the Many Faced God, even as she lay there naked and replete in his arms. But Arya Stark had one that night, and shedding the Braavosi accident she'd perfected over the years as easily as she'd shed her slip hours before she'd whispered back "go to sleep Gendry," in the true voice of Arya Stark, and he sighed in contentment, kissing her hair once more before his lids fluttered shut and he lost consciousness.

It hurt her more than anything she'd done since leaving the Hound to pour the Stranger's Shroud Serum in between his firm, blush colored lips, knowing that he would awaken the next day with no memory of the last forty-eight hours. But to be with the Bull would mean to feel again as Arya Stark had felt, and No One was not ready to reclaim that pain, not for the Bull, not for anyone left alive. Arya Stark had lost too much when they'd taken her Bastard Brother.

And so when he awoke alone and clothed as he always was for bed the next morning he'd left, not knowing he had any reason to stay, and she had taken an assignment in Lys to forget the Bull. She had come back to Braavos as No One, ready to return to the service of the Many Faced God.

For weeks, she had done just that. But then the sickness had come, and the exhaustion, making her feel as if a tempest was raging inside her body, only to quiet and come back again every few hours.

She was doing her washing when she finally realized what it was. As she scrubbed the grey robes with water from the narrow sea one day it struck her that it had been a long time since she'd had to scrub blood out of any of her things. She'd been using the gift more and more – avoiding her preferred but admittedly messier method of giving a life to the Many Faced God. But it wasn't just that. And then she knew, that the illness was more than just an illness, and she understood why she'd not yet been punished for taking a face that to do a task for someone other than the Many Faced God.

Somehow, the Man had known that her realization had come – and when she returned from her washing he was waiting for her, leaning against the stone corridor outside her door.

"A man thinks a girl is a girl no longer."

"A girl was not a girl when she got here, it is only a man who sees her so."

"A man sees what he must. But a girl is right – she is a woman now."

He'd paused then, beckoning to her to follow him down the corridor and into the hall of faces. He kept walking until he came to the one that she had borrowed – the one she'd been wearing the night she made a child with Gendry Waters.

"Does a woman know what the punishment is for those who take from the Many Faced God more than once?"

She did. She'd swallowed then, realizing that she was likely going to die, and realizing that she would do so without any of the cool ambivalence that the Faceless Men had trained her to have towards life.

"Come." He'd said, beckoning her to follow him once more and she had, slipping her hand into her pockets to grip her matching daggers. She didn't want to disturb the peace of the house of Black and White, but if her death was coming it would not be a silent one. Arya Stark would not go gentle into the night.

The walked straight out of the temple, going down the steps to gaze out over the Narrow Sea, looking at the lights of boats in the harbor as they swayed and rocked with the current. It was a peaceful scene – and it just made Arya grip her dagger tighter than before.

Not Today.

"Already a woman feels it."

She turned to look at him, raising her eyebrow in question.

"Women have been the best Faceless Men in history – and yet, for many it is a harder path. The Many Faced God lets people shed faces from all walks of life, he can make No One of a King, or No One of a slave… But mothers – Mothers cannot be No One."

She looked at him then, shocked at what he was saying, shocked to hear what she'd just barely come to register as possible confirmed in his light, ever unaffected voice.

"Arya of the House of Stark – I release you from the service of the Many Faced God. The God of Death cannot bind a Bringer of Life – not as she grows with a face he cannot see."

And with that he whipped around in a blur, so fast that Arya barely had time to pull her dagger and crouch into a defensive stance. But when she looked at his extended arm she realized he held a sword by its thin blade, offering its handle towards her politely.

"Valor Morgulis, Arya of the House of Stark."

And then he was gone.

She'd been scared then - scared for the first time in a long time - maybe more scared than she'd been at any point since Joffery's Kings Guard broke into her rooms during her lesson with Syrio all those years ago. It wasn't for her safety - she could more than take care of herself - and it wasn't even about providing for their food and livelihood. It was because for the first time since she'd noticed her courses were late she actually realized that she was about to do this alone.

She was so sure that they'd kill her that she hadn't thought through to this part.