Chapter Four.

She smelt the sea in the air, the sharp salt tinge that only grew stronger the closer they come to the port.

Her and Jaqen need new clothes desperately, and traverse along the shops around the harbour overshadowed by the huge castle. It was easy enough for Jaqen to sell armour, Lannister armour at that. He even managed to get some new breeches and a shirt for Arya, and she nipped into the nearest ale house to change while he had a drink. He offered her a sip when she slipped back to his side. Arya hesitated; the only time she had wine is when her Father let her have a cup on special occasions. Her heart panged and she took a gulp, coughing slightly.

Jaqen smiled, and she focused on that instead of her Father, because Father most definitely would not have approved of what she was doing, never mind what she was drinking.

Jaqen poured a tankard full of water and slid it to her. She took a grateful sip, perching up on the barstool beside him and trying to ignore the men sending her lingering glances through the smoky room.

She didn't like the feel of this place, the tension beneath the patron's skins. They were wary of them and no wonder; places nearby had been ransacked and they were waiting on tenterhooks for when they would be next.

Arya took a quiet sip of her water and felt for the reassuring dagger in her front pocket.

"How long will it take on the ship? I've never been on one before." A wave of anxiety crashed over her at the thought of dying before ever seeing her Mother or brother again but she quickly stifled it. I am a she-wolf, she told herself, and wolves aren't scared of anything.

"It will depend on the winds." Jaqen murmured idly, eyes sweeping over each person in the vicinity. "But it shall not take long, and then our journey shall be over. Do you know when the next ship to Braavos leaves?" Jaqen leant across the bar to ask the owner, who stopped washing a tankard with a dirty rag to glare suspiciously and slowly shrug.

That's when the trouble started.

"I say, we've seen enough of your type to recognise bad folk when we see 'em." A creaky voice spoke up behind the pair. "You think you aren't suspicious with your Lannister armour and your pretty little girl? A walk along fuck whenever you're needy."

The speaker was an old grizzled man who spat in disgust at them across the inn. "Well we won't have any more trouble in this town. We've been ransacked enough, ain't that right?" He looked at the other patrons who nodded, faces suddenly set into steel.

Arya clumsily slipped off her seat, but was pinned where she was by Jaqen's cautious hand heavy on her shoulder.

"Girlie." The man said in a creaky tone, and Arya looked him straight in the eye.

"Yes?"

"No good will do from you hanging around a man like that. Your cunt'll get destroyed if it hasn't already. You're despoiled love. Stay with me and I'll look after you."

"Shut up." Arya said fiercely. "I don't know you so why should I stay? Jaqen's my friend and you don't know anything, stupid. We're not here to ransack you like the Hound we just want to board a ship."

If she could just reach her dagger she could easily kill that man, that would show Jaqen. How could he be so calm, he had killed people for her before-

"Just what a brainwashed babe would say." The man clucked his tongue. "It's time we fought back against these monsters aye, we don't have a chance when they come on horseback with fire, but this time boys it'll be easy. Show 'em exactly what its like when the people bite back."

The two broad men beside him got up and started to walk towards them. It would have looked funny if they weren't so angry. The dark set of their eyebrows, the clenched jaws. They really thought Jaqen was like all the other outlaws who had plundered villages and raped girls. They thought she was being kept as a sex slave, and Arya stomach churned.

"Stop it." Arya told them. "Stupid! You don't know-"

"We know enough." The old man said grimly, eyes haunted by ghosts. Maybe he'd had a daughter who looked like Arya before the War of the Five Kings. Perhaps they had looked alike, but Arya was sure if he was being haunted the daughter had not been as good a fighter as her. She conspiciously tried to wrangle her dagger out into her hand.

"Take the girl to safety, Elnora's will do for now. She'll have he well looked after."

"Take her to a whore house she's already been trained!" Another drunk patron shouted and Arya glowered at them all defiantly, fighting against Jaqen's hold on her shoulder as she finally managed to wriggle her dagger into her palm.

"Do you wish to die?" Jaqen said slowly and the men paused.

"We ain't scared of you." The blonde man prodded Jaqen's chest as the other dragged Arya to the side.

Jaqen flashed his teeth into a chilling smile. "You should be."

It was like they had rehearsed it. In unison Arya weasled her way out of her captors grip and drove her dagger through the sinews of his neck, blood spurting out and running down his collarbone as she pulled it out and shoved him over.

She gasped, breath rattling as she turned around.

Everyone was dead.

The four other patrons, the man behind the counter.

Jaqen stood amongst the corpses raising his tankard ironically and draining the last dregs of his wine.

"How...?" Arya knew he had used magic to make Weese's dog eat him, but this... She needed to learn this, athough a part of her still hungered for the more intimate killing. Her hands were covered in the blood of the man she'd stabbed, and she cautiously plucked a passage through the bodies to wash them in the cracked sink behind the bar.

"A girl will learn this trick. Or not." Jaqen shrugged delicately. "They have all died of poison in the drink supply. All except this man," He motioned towards the one Arya killed. "Who got rather drunk and would insist on a fight. Now we leave quieter than mice. "

Arya welcomed the cool breeze on her face as the exited into the bright morning, although her mind could not stray from the people.

They were only trying to protect her but it was pointless. Everyone who tried ended up dying. Father, Yoren... now these. They didn't even know her which made the act even more extraordinary kind and stupid. If Jaqen hadn't have killed them they would have died anyway, she told herself. That one man wanted to send me to the whore house, they all were trying to kidnap me just like Ser Gregor did back before Harrenhal. They are just as bad.

They walked in silence down the silent cobbled main street until they reached the docks.

"How do we get on board?" Arya asked, hopping over the mouldy wood and scanning the three ships waiting. "We don't have enough money... do we? We should have stolen from them, we could go back-"

"No need. And we do not steal from the gifted." Jaqen smiled cryptically and ushered her forward to the nearest ship where a lanky boy watched them as suspiciously as the dead men from before.

"The Captain?" Jaqen asked him, and the boy stared a moment more before leaving, returning a few minutes later with the captain. Tall and wiry with a wispy beard and dark eyes under hairy eyebrows.

"I don't take any passengers." He said brusquely. "This is a trade ship not a bloody-"

Jaqen held out his strange iron coin, and the captain gawked at him and Arya in turn.

"Valar Morghulis." Jaqen said and the captain paled. Arya hovered by Jaqen's side and tried to restrain a gleeful smile; shewanted to be that scary. So powerful that everyone who encounters her is terrified.

Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling, The Tickler and The Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Amory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffery, Queen Cersei.

"Valar Dohaeris. Come aboard."

Jaqen let her on first, and Arya walked nimbly across the plank to the ship before waiting for him. She grabbed hold of his shirt as he walked past and he frowned, crouching down slightly.

"What does that mean?" She whispered to him. "Valar Morghulis?"

"All men must die." He whispered back, and they smiled secret smiles and went to check out their passage to Braavos.

The sea voyage was long and tedious, but Jaqen seemed to sense her boredom on the second day and gave her a task, to find something new every day to tell him when they headed to their cabins for the night.

She took his words seriously, every day finding something new in the cabins. A small crystalline starfish, shells strewn into a necklace, a barrel of expensive Dornish wine. Pieces of ragged fishing line, seaweed hung to dry with the salt still lingering in the air. A smooth pebble that fit snugly in the centre of her palm. A sea legend from the captain, who was the only one on the ship apart from them who spoke the Common tongue.

The woman of the crew adored her, gushed over her and Jaqen in turn which they both find amusing.

Arya didn't find it amusing at all when a woman tried to kiss Jaqen. It wasn't any of her business though, and she swiftly went up deck and sat in a patch of sun when the woman practically lunged at him. Jaqen could do what he wanted. He didn't ask to be saddled with her, he offered. He probably didn't expect her to agree; Arya herself didn't expect to agree.

Jaqen appeared a minute later to sit next to her.

"You can kiss her if you want." She said, playing with a piece of rope, although she didn't understand why people liked this face so much; he looked prettier before.

His lips tilted up into that smile.

"I don't want." He said, closing his eyes and tilting his head up towards the sun.

She watched him discreetly, the way his face glowed golden. She wondered if all Faceless men do their business directly or let themselves forget for an hour or two at a whore house. Somehow she didn't think Jaqen was like that. He must have had someone who loved him at one point, a family and friends...

She frowned as she stared at him.

He was quiet for so long she thought he'd fallen asleep, and she let her own eyes slide close. The sun was warm on her face, and the sound of waves crashing against the boat as it swayed back and forth made her sleepy. Her head lolled onto his shoulder.

"Have you found out anything so far today?"

She jumped slightly, blinking the fuzziness out of her eyes.

"You don't want to be kissed." She said groggily and he laughed, stroking her hair lightly.

"A girl is tired. Why?"

"Dreams." She murmured.

"Bad dreams?"

"No." She reassured him, shifting against him to get more comfortable. She ended up with her head on his lap, staring up at the azure sky with the fluffy white clouds while Jaqen deftly undid the knots in her hair.

"Strange dreams." She told him absently. "About wolves."

"Well that is understandable; you are missing your wolf Nymeria."

Arya nodded. "But I don't just dream about wolves, I am a wolf."

"Well of course. You are Arya of House Stark who has a direwolf as their sigil. You are also Arry, and Weasel and Nan and soon No One at all. The dreams will stop then."

Arya closed her eyes with a sigh. "What if they don't?"

"Then you will hope No One forgets them."

He continued to sort out her hair, humming some strange foreign tune under his breath that lulled her into peace, and she felt the most content since her Father died.