Chapter Ten.

The world was invisible, and it terrified her more than anything she had encountered so far.

She thrashed about wildly as she choked for breath, the bed sheets getting tangled in her leg. She fell to the floor with a thud and lay winded for a few minutes before rolling onto her back. She gasped for breath, blinking rapidly to see if it were true and not just a nightmare. She waved her hands in front of her face and pinched her skin desperately to no avail. She was blind. Truly blind.

Hysteria threatened to overwhelm her, for if she was blind how was she ever going to defend herself? She shook and trembled, clutching her arms to her body and she wanted Jaqen-

On shaky feet she managed to stand upright but was completely disoriented. Her chamber was not too big, but even so... She took a tentative step forward, and another and another-

Her foot slammed against the wall and she winced painfully, reaching to massage her feet she was sure would be swollen on the morrow. Hands out trailing against the crooked stone wall, she carefully inched sideways. She knew she'd found the door when her touch turned into wood, and she fiddled with the latch awkwardly before opening it and stumbling out. Not that the outside of her room was any easier.

She stumbled down the corridor, tripping over constantly and scraping her knee, her chin. Blood oozed from her cut lip and her mind was dizzy with flashes of vibrant greens and a wolf she once knew named Nymeria howling, careening through endless dark woods-

She collided into someone and fell, but an arm shot out and held onto her.

"Jaqen?" Arya questioned warily, hands skirting up the arm holding her.

"Who else would it be?" His voice is a warm breath of air on her cheek and her hands move up curiously to his collarbone, neck, face. She frowned, not liking that she couldn't see him. He had sharp cheekbones, and stubble all along his chin, scratchy against her fingertips.

"What do my eyes look like?" Curiosity nagged at her and replaced the horror for a second.

"Like snow clouds, a winter storm. I am surprised they blinded you so quickly."

"They did this to you?" She asked desperately, and thought if he could endure it somehow so could she.

"Yes, as they do to every person training to be Faceless."

"So you get your sight back?" She whispered, still clinging to his face. Her hands bobbed gently up and down as he nods.

"Yes."

"When?" He shrugged, and he stroked her cheek with his thumb in comfort.

"A man does not know."

She stopped straining for images she would not see then, and guiltily stopped panicking, annoyed with herself for being so weak. A pathetic child, almost sobbing in her terror. She was Arya Stark, from Winterfell with wolves blood.

Fear cuts deeper than swords.

The old and oft used phrase drifted to her mind, and it was almost like her old dancing master was there beside her reminding, his voice liquid and calming her down.

"It is natural to be surprised at first." Jaqen told her. "Even the most fearless person can be taken off-guard."

Arya nodded, the reassurance that she was still brave warming her. He knew she liked to think of herself as impenetrable, so that being said when she was feeling ashamed for acting like the little girl she truly was made her feel better, but she was still blind. Hopelessly blind.

"What do I do now?" She mused, thinking she wouldn't be able to do anything without being able to see. She'd just have to stay in her bedchamber until the blindness passed.

"Go about your normal duties of course." Jaqen said, laughter in his voice.

It riled her and her hands gripped his cheeks tightly, nails gouging into his skin. She felt blood run through her fingers and he truly laughed then, lifting his hands off and holding her left aloft. His kiss was feather-light on her bloodied fingertip and she shivered. He could feel it she was sure, but she tugged away.

She would not be laughed at. Without a word of departure she stormed off, feeling his eyes burning into her back. She didn't hear what he murmured when she left, but it's not like she cared when she couldn't see the expression on his face.

She wiped her fingers spotted with blood on her tunic. "A girl should be be bloody too. This is her work."

All that time ago in Harrenhal felt like a lifetime ago. Weasel soup...

A smile flickered on her lips at the thought, and she trailed her hand along the wall again. She wasn't scared now, she'd show Jaqen how diligent she was, how much better she could work without her sight. Her habit of doing things to prove to others she could was rising in her however much she tried to batter it down.

The Kindly Man taught her to be No One, but with Jaqen around how she could be anyone other than Arya Stark? Besides, she had to be Arya to go back to her Mother and Robb and them know her, had to be Arya to protect them and be the warrior sister of the King in the North.

The wall opened out, the floor beneath her turning to marble as the trickle of water was heard. The temple, and Arya cast her head around knowing the Kindly Man was near.

"You are no longer Cat of the Canals."

His voice made her jump and she turned in the direction she thought he was speaking, but when he spoke once more it was from her other side. She was sure he'd moved, but hadn't hurt a sound.

She wasn't Cat of the Canals anymore he said, but she was still Arya Stark. She wasn't Cat of the Canals anymore, but she would miss Brusco and his daughters. Even if the work made her terribly tired, and even though she smelled of fish all the time she would miss them, and the streets and people of Braavos.

"Who am I now?" She asked hesitantly.

"A poor blind girl." He sighed. "Who is a beggar."

"I'm not a beggar." She objected. "I-"

"Yes, you are a beggar now. A poor blind beggar." He tutted in pity and Arya gritted her teeth.

"What must I do, as a beggar?"

"Beg, but even a blind beggar girl must have a name."

"Beth." Arya said. There was a Beth Cassel once at Winterfell, she recalled. Who knew what had happened to her? "Call me Beth."

"Very well Beth." She could almost see the smile the Kindly Man was directing at her. "Now go for lessons, and at dusk go about your home and uncover three things you do not know. You may find this useful." He pushed something into her hand and she felt it. Wood, sturdy wood but thin and she gripped it tightly, tapping it around the floor cautiously.

"Perhaps at first..."

The Waif escorts her out, small hand curling around hers.

"Count the steps." She warned her, and Arya had.

She did exactly what they said those first days, when she tripped constantly and scabbed her knees, cut her fingers with knives and made herself ill drinking the wrong potions. She enjoyed the poisons lessons true, she was doing more than she ever had as Cat and Arya Stark, but she yearned to see.

She went about her routines slowly damaging her body more and more until she learnt to feel the air waves, taste them on the tip of the tongue and know who was coming towards her and when to move, where to pause exactly to escape damage.

Jaqen taught her too, hands guiding hers when nobody was around, murmuring advice into her ear when he visited her chamber.

"The book." Beth whispered to him one day. "What about the book?"

"A man doesn't know what book you talk of." He stroked her hair comfortingly. "A man has many books, and they are all in his possession."

She sagged against him in relief, for if the Kindly Man knew she had had it she would have been forced to leave she was sure. Jaqen too. She knew that was why she had been blinded, for taking that stupid book. Jaqen had told her he had been blinded but not as early, and she just knew that the reason why had been because she was about to read that book full of secrets and long forgotten folklore.

"Tell me a story." Beth murmured to her friend one night. The bitter milk she'd drunk had almost made her vomit and retch, she had grown to loathe the drink so much. They were in her chamber, and he curled up on her bed next to her almost made it warm.

"I do not know any stories."

"Liar."

Jaqen sighed. "There was once a girl from a far away land..," His voice was lulling, comforting, and Beth turned into Arya in his company as she always did, laying on him lazily as he continued to talk. She liked to feel his chest moving up and down as he spoke, constant and never-ending.

"And she met a man, a strange one-"

"The strangest." Arya agreed with a smile, and she reached out to his face and traced the smile on his lips too.

"And they went on many travels together."

He fell silent, the scent of melting candles filling the air in the absence of his voice.

"Is that the end?" Arya said dubiously, hand flicking out to shove him, force him to continue. She wanted to know what happened next.

"Of course it's not the end." He hummed, brushing her hand off and squeezing it. "Don't you know it's just the beginning?"