I am Faceless.

I am Nameless.

I am No One.

And No One I must be, in order for me to realize how to be Anyone.

No One must only think and do, not feel. For when No One feels, he becomes.

And when he becomes, he will be lost.

Faceless Creed; 16thleaf


"Tell me three things I must know."

The Cat had just finished her week's task at Brusco's and was back at the temple in the fifth day. Similar to how things were, she had to state to the Kindly Man three things she had learned—either observed or perceived—during her four days' worth of work. They stood in the Atrium, eyes upon the pool that contained water that either poisons or heals.

"Hiding a finger knife is easy, so is using it with sleight of hand. Red Roggo showed me how," she began, to which the Kindly Man responded, "Most interesting." She pressed on. "Three moons from now, the Blue Lantern and the Dome will host a series of poetic plays and a Braavosi noble—the new Sealord who will replace Ferrego Antaryon will be there. I heard some stories. Antaryon's health is failing—"

The Kindly Man held out his hand, directing her to stop. "Halt right there, you merely overheard that the Braavosi noble may become the new Sealord, it is but uncertain that he will indeed be."

The Cat nodded her agreement and breathed deeply. Precision. She has to be precise in delivering information to the Kindly Man.

"And the third?" he asked.

"You were right."

Confusion settled upon the Kindly Man's brow. "Right about what, child?"

"A girl saw this young sailor and a paid paramour who walked by him. He…he appeared beleaguered when he saw her, and when she saw him, too. They were lovers, before," her shoulders dropped an inch due to a certain emotion she could not name. "He could not be with her anymore."

The Kindly Man chuckled at her statement. She looked at him, with an effort to hide her irritation. "Child, who are we to say what becomes of the future? You only know what you have seen, or what you thought you have seen; not what you believe in."

"That is true," she calmly said, controlling her urge to raise her voice a pitch higher. "But if a girl does not believe, how will she understand? By that, if she failed to understand, how will she act at all?"

"That, child, is for another lesson," the Kindly man countered in order to dismiss her. "Do prepare, will you? Your Faceless Master has arrived and he wants to meet with you in the Hall of Acolytes—"

"Faceless Master?" she interjected, and for a moment there, the hairs on the nape of her neck rose on their own as she felt a sickening pleasure in her belly. Seven hells, not right now. The Kindly Man narrowed his eyes in response to her sudden enthusiasm. "I-I mean, a girl means…why the Hall of Acolytes? She is not yet one."

"She will be, though time is never certain," he stated, kissing his thumb and pressing it upon his forehead—a religious act. "As for your Faceless Master, he was the one who gave you that coin; surely a child could not have forgotten about him. Run along, you reek of oysters and the canals."

The Kindly Man walked away and the Cat whisked to the bath chambers. She reached it in a few seconds and in her state of haste, she started removing her garments before realizing that she had not closed the door.

Must you really be in such desperate hurry? She admonished herself. For sakes, the man could wait!

She walked to it and bolted it shut. Then, her feet tested the water in the tub. It had gone terribly cold. Rolling her eyes in impatience, she wallowed in and began cleaning herself. After she had finished scouring, soaping, and rinsing, the Cat rushed to her own chambers located at the first tier and this time, locked the door as she dressed up in her black and white robe.

It was not when she was walking towards the Hall where they would meet did she feel this abrupt impulse to run back to the comforts and assurance of her own chambers. Can she really claim herself to be No One? Will she ever? Such absurdity! A girl is no better than Arya Stark's older sister then, who thought of nothing but romance, and enchantments, and the thrill of all of it!

The Cat must have some sense, surely, he does not feel that way.

With quivering hands, she turned the knob and entered the Hall of Acolytes in the most serene manner as was humanly possible. She closed the door behind her gently…

There, at the farthest end of the long table in the center of the hall, there he sat. In a most lackadaisical manner, that is.

She walked towards where he was, despite her weak knees and her natural instinct to fall. She wanted to be swallowed by the ground whole, or vanish into thin air, whichever comes first. His features were clearer to her as she drew closer to him. Flowing red hair, with white streaks, beguiling, heavy-lidded brown eyes, expressive visage. She was taken back to Harrenhal, where a distant memory of one Arya Stark heard girls giggling with admiration as he passed by, smiling most enigmatically as he was being led by Lannister soldiers to the keep.

Oh, Jaqen.

When she had decided that the space between them was enough, his deep voice broke the silent tension.

"Come, lovely girl."

She walked three more steps, sure yet uncertain. All she knew that moment was a stream of conflicting emotions and thoughts surging within and without. They both held each other in a gaze—his, amused and hers, strong-willed. She stopped, praying to Him of Many Faces that he fails to notice her feelings of unrest.

"Closer. Until a man tells you otherwise."

Her distant imaginings toyed with her. If she were Arya Stark, she would have come up with a witty yet sour retort, "Closer? How close exactly is closer? How would I know that you don't have a switchblade hidden inside your smallclothes, waiting for you to use it? And who are you to tell me, 'until I tell you otherwise'?!" But she was not Arya Stark, not anymore. I am No One. And No One must only think and do, not feel. And he, he is her Faceless Master and therefore, she must obey. She was so immersed with her self-thoughts that she had not anymore paid attention to counting her steps, and so she found herself so close to him, and if not for his hand held out to signal "Enough," she would have fallen straight into his arms. She backed a couple of steps away.

"Hah…" she exhaled, and felt relieved. She had held her lungs hostage for quite a few seconds before that, not allowing it to breathe air in and out. Or maybe, this was something that cannot be helped. She heard him chuckle softly.

"Lovely, lovely girl," he whispered as he let his eyes wander to her face, her neck, her breasts, down to her hips and thighs, and back to her face once more. "She has grown. So much in a man's absence, in fact."

She held out her chest and tried to stand as tall as she possibly can. "Yes, I have. A-a girl has."

The Lorathi raised both of his brows in amusement. "Just so. And what has a girl learned while a man was away? Apart from, sweeping and scrubbing the floors, of course. And discounting a girl's newfound ability of wiping naked bodies of dead men. Do tell."

She looked at him with furious incredulity and seethed, "So, you have not changed a bit."

The last time he visited the temple was eleven moons back. She was five and ten. He stayed only for a couple of days, to personally hand over an important message to the Kindly Man. She grew interested for she was sure it was about Westeros, possibly about Bran and Rickon, or even Sansa, or…Jon, but she never got to know what the message was about. She was scrubbing the stone pillars one morning when she heard his voice so close…felt him, even.

"A girl scrubs the pillars too severely. It's quite a good thing she is not scouring the Warrior's nose, or it could have cracked at such forceful, cruel hands. The Kindly Man would be disappointed, and as a punishment, he would deny a girl any faceless assignment," he teased against her ears. She kept on scrubbing, though heavens knew she was shaking all over at his nearness.

"This is a temporary task, he made it clear," she answered without looking at him. "Valar Dohaeris, or is a girl wrong?"

He laughed softly. "No, most certainly not. A girl must learn how to use her hands anyway in…accomplishing various tasks."

Enraged and slightly embarrassed, she swiftly turned to him to give him a good hit on the face. When she did turn however, he was already feet away from her, and she did not even hear him walk away. He left her, still laughing to himself.

He stood in front of her, lifted her face so he could look directly in her eyes. In a quiet voice he asked, "Who are you?"

She rewarded him with the same strong stare and responded, "No One."

In narrowed eyes, he assessed her. "Liar," he whispered. "A girl who was a boy, a boy who became a girl, oh, was she good at lying." He bent and moved his face the closest to hers, such that they were perfectly leveled with each other—eyes, nose, lips. A single, slightly wrong and uncalculated move and his lips would touch hers. The Cat was unsure if she wanted this or…if she wanted this. She would not succumb to his games, though. She had been his instrument of diversion for far too long, even though he was not physically with her during the last months. A faint whiff—cloves and ginger and petals, and the sea. She almost tasted him. He was…minty. He spoke. "A girl dares to lie to her Faceless Master?"

It was pure torture, how could he demand this from her when it was he who was gone for many, many moons? How could he even tell if she was lying or being truthful?

"A girl is No One, or did a girl's Faceless Master lose his excellent sense of hearing when he was out at sea these days past?" She answered with all the impetuousness she could gather.

He smirked, then walked back towards his seat to retrieve something from under it. A pair of boots. The Lorathi held the pair in front of her and with a hard expression, ordered her to confess. It was the old pair which she gave Brusco, the old pair that belonged to Dareon who was once a brother of the Night's Watch turned into a paid singer in Braavos. The Cat had lured him to one dark alleyway before she slit his throat. The dead man should not have abandoned his post, should not have walked out on his sworn duty.

"I—A girl had to sentence him to die. He was a deserter of the Wall. The dead man broke a sacred vow. And since a girl passed the sentence, she must swing the sword," she stopped when she saw the Lorathi's expression change from curiosity to controlled rage.

"Deserter of the Wall? Sacred vow? Sentence him to die?" He repeated the girl's words through clenched teeth. "These are words of a Westerosi. Put together, these are words of a Northerner, of a Stark. What trickery is this, that a girl would tell a man and Him of Many Faces that she is No One? Such perjury, such shameless deceit!" With those last words, he violently threw the boots behind him, and they hit the wall so hard the Cat was almost sure the soles got separated from the shoes themselves.

"What would you have me do?" She screamed back at him. "He deserved to die!"

"By Arya Stark's standards, he does," he mildly countered. For a second there, the girl thought she detected a hint of fear, worry. "But we give men the gift when the price is paid, according to the standards of Him of Many Faces. We bestow men with death, but we do not presume to judge them." His expression softened when he saw her misty eyes, and those angry tears threatening to fall. "When is my girl going to learn?"

Out of unadulterated guilt and resentment towards him and herself, she fell to her knees and bowed her head. The Cat would not have him see her on the verge of losing herself. Tears are a weakness. She prepared herself, her senses, her physicality, to what might be the most painful beating she would receive since Weese's at Harrenhal. The Kindly Man made sure she gets a strike whenever she does anything at all that fails to coincide with the creed of the faceless. But this…Jaqen made it clear. What she did was beyond faithless and subversive. How could she fail him after everything he had done for her, after his own belief in her capacity to realize who she could be? How could she not surrender to self-denial?

"F-Forgive me, Master," she pleaded in a hushed tone as she shut her eyes as tight as she could, as if in so doing, she could numb herself from the pain that is threatening to sear her flesh any moment now. This is not Westeros anymore where she could stab any person who dares annoy her in the slightest sense with Needle or a knife. She is now an apprentice to the House of Black and White, and if she would not care to learn their discipline, she could never hope to further her skills in giving the gift of death to those who deserved it. She thought of Arya Stark's kill list but willed herself to quit immediately. Those names should mean nothing to her for she is not and must not be Arya Stark.

Instead, she felt him gently lifting her to stand. She stood up cautiously and felt his thumb caressing her right cheek. When she opened her eyes, she met his own and his own was full of…fondness. He smiled and said, "A man would swim in his own blood before he gives a girl even half of a single beating."

She smiled back, relieved, and placed her hand atop his that was against her cheek. She had asked herself countless of times if there was anything she could do that was grave enough for him not to grant her a reprieve. So far there was none, and she was not one to test the limits of his patience which seemed to really stretch itself out for her sake. "I am so glad you have returned, Jaqen," the girl said.

"Yes, lovely girl," he murmured in response. "A man is, too."