A/N: So now that Gendry's out of the picture, we've got someone else to replace where his chapters would have been. And it's Jaqen. So yup. There's that change. No notes though, so you're free to head on down and start reading. Many thanks as always to my beta reader (and sister) GrowlingPeanut. Reviews are appreciated.
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Bethesda Softworks and George R. R. Martin.
Rating: T for non-graphic death and super vague sexual references.
The man in the street was far from his home in Valenwood. He was a Bosmer dignitary, dressed in finery of gold and green as he sat atop his lavish carriage. The velvet on his horse alone could feed a small village, but he seemed unconcerned with his own garish wealth. He was powerful, he was worshipped, he was waited upon, and soon, he would be dead.
As the traveling caravan rounded a bend in the road, a young boy darted across their path, and as he yelled in pain, the carriage was yanked to a halt.
"What in Oblivion?" the dignitary swore, peering around the carriage driver in an attempt to identify what had caused their halt.
Cautiously, the man's guards rounded the carriage and approached the crying boy where he lie in the road, clutching his leg.
"Did we hit someone?" he asked irritably. "What's another four wheels over their corpse if the damage is already done?"
When he tried to stand, the carriage driver gripped his arm at the elbow and shook his head. "Stay here, my lord, I beg of you. If it's a ruse, we can't afford to lose you."
Grumbling, the nobleman obeyed, settling back in his seat as the driver reached into one of the sacks in the carriage. "Have a drink while your men fix this," he said smoothly, holding out a bottle of alto wine. "We'll be moving again before you know it."
Before them, the boy managed to stand, favoring his leg but not visibly bleeding, and certainly not dead. Scowling, he moved to the side of the road, and the guards returned to their posts behind the carriage.
On the seat, the dignitary swirled the wine around irritably, and unseen at the bottom of the bottle, a handful of nightshade petals broke apart with the churning of the golden liquid and dissolved into the mixture as he raised it to his lips.
As the carriage began to roll on once more, the driver looked to the boy at the roadside, and with a wink and a tip of his hat, he said his farewell.
"Hail Sithis."
"So, how was your first contract, boy?"
"Perfect!" Aventus replied gleefully, accepting a theatric kiss on the cheek from his trainer as he cartwheeled past. "The target didn't even know he was dying until Master H'ghar and I were long gone!"
"Young master Aretino can fake a broken leg quite well," Jaqen added from the edge of the room as he watched Babette tend to her garden. "If Cicero continues training him as he has, he'll be an assassin equal to a man or his Redguard friend in mere moons."
Nazir snorted at that, but ruffled the boy's hair affectionately on his way back to his chambers. "We'll see about that."
As Jaqen looked about the Sanctuary, he couldn't help but feel that it was empty. It had been nearly a moon now since Arya's departure, and yet every second he spent in the sanctuary still felt strange and incomplete. If Solara had noticed his eagerness to stay away on contracts, she had said nothing, and he had offered even less in answer to the quizzical glances.
Every assassin, no matter how skilled, had a weakness. He only wished that after so many years spent faceless and in control of his emotions, he would have been able to keep himself guarded. In the end, it was a girl, hardly more than a child still in truth, that sent his defenses crumbling, and it was only after his vulnerability had been spurned that he managed to build his guard back up.
And yet, deny it as he might, he missed his lovely girl and hoped fervently somewhere deep in his heart that she longed for a man in return.
"Jaqen?" A soft voice broke his thoughts and he quirked an eyebrow, turning to see Solara at his side.
"Listener," he said evenly, schooling his features.
"I need to speak with you," she said, casting a sideways glance at Babette as she whispered lovingly to her deathbell blooms. "Alone."
Nodding in deference, Jaqen followed the listener as she moved through the abandoned training area to his chambers. As she waved him in and then closed the door behind her, he surveyed the room. It was nearly bare—depressingly so. The mess on the other side had been cleared and not a trace of its former inhabitant remained.
"Your contract was successful?" Solara asked, perching on the edge of what had once been Arya's bed.
When Jaqen nodded, she sighed, chewing absently on her lip. A long moment passed before she spoke again.
"I have troubling news from the Night Mother."
Jaqen stayed silent, but his mouth quirked down slightly at the corner.
"Sithis has told her of a contract. It has not yet been ordered, but the first step has been taken. All that remains is for the sacrament to be spoken and the ritual to be completed."
When she went silent again, Jaqen cocked an eyebrow. "And...?"
Frowning deeply, the young woman shook her head. "If we are given the contract, we are obligated to see it through, and yet the Night Mother warns that the life and death of the man in question is not one meant to be altered by any but the gods. They have a tight grip on his fate, enough so that our Dread Father himself is wary of the sacrament's completion."
"Who is the target?"
The listener took a deep breath before responding, her brow furrowed. "Ulfric Stormcloak."
After a long moment, Jaqen replied. "Why does a man need to know this?"
Solara sighed. "Because there's only one person who can stop this from being put into motion." Before he could speak, she shushed him with a hand to his chest and a worried look. "As your listener, it is my duty to give you the wishes of the Night Mother, but as a friend, I must warn you. Be careful, Jaqen. This will be the second life you've saved from the Void. Should Sithis feel that your dues to him have not been paid, there will be far more for you to worry about than the death of a king."
Jaqen nodded in understanding. His accomplice in the first had been executed as a traitor, and though he had known the risk when he had first come to Jaqen for help, the assassin did not believe that the young man had truly understood the gravity of his actions. And now, he was dead, and Jaqen could be close behind.
"So what is it that a man must do?" he asked finally.
Slowly, Solara shook her head. "It isn't you that we need." She searched his expression carefully before continuing. "It's Arya Stark."
Jaqen signed the letter with his initials before hesitating, adding a postscript, and then sealing it with wax and the open hand of the Brotherhood.
Standing from his desk, he slipped the letter into the satchel at his hip before moving to the door. As he passed the looking glass on the wall, he hesitated, pausing for a moment to meet the gaze of his reflection.
The man that stared back was ten years his junior, with rosy cheeks and a twinkle in his hazel eyes that suggested he had yet to discover the truth of life's cruelties. Sweeping the thick black hair from his face, he smiled cheekily and, satisfied with the result, left the room.
Solara met him in the dining hall, quiet for once as everyone else slept.
"My listener looks tired," he remarked as he approached.
Smiling slightly, she shrugged. "There's little time for sleep when you're the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood." Yawning, she added. "Besides, Cicero's started kicking me again and I don't have the heart to wake him."
Though Jaqen chuckled, he felt a sharp pang of loneliness at the mention of Solara's lover, and not for the first time, he wondered if he shouldn't have had Arya when he had the chance. Though he did not regret his decision, he often imagined a similar scenario in which it was him that she truly wanted, and not the ghost of her lover.
"Do you think that she'll help us?" Solara asked, absently tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
Without hesitation, Jaqen nodded. Even living her life as Arry Snow, she was fiercely loyal, and to her family above all else.
"I hope you're right." She sighed, then squinted at him, for once at eye level thanks to his chosen illusion. "And you don't want to go as yourself?"
He shook his head, again without pause.
Jaqen H'ghar had opened his heart to Arya Stark, and she had shied away. Though it was not a rejection that she had given, it had hurt nonetheless and he was not eager to repeat the process. If Jaqen ever saw his lovely girl again, it would be by her choice and not his.
"Very well then," Solara replied, straightening his woolen tunic and then patting his shoulder in satisfaction. "Safe travels. We can't afford to lose you."
Jaqen nodded his thanks and farewell before departing, courier's satchel slung low across his hip.
Harlaug was waiting with his ferry at the Dawnstar docks when Jaqen arrived and he gave a nod of greeting. "I heard I'd have a courier wanting passage. Where to, boy?"
Withdrawing the appropriate amount of coin from his pockets, Jaqen handed over his fare before replying. "Windhelm."
Nodding, the burly Nord took his seat across from Jaqen and lifted the rows. "Climb on in the boat then and get comfortable. It's a bit of a ride."
The few hour trip to Windhelm was spent in silence save for the sweeping of the oars through the waves and Harlaug's quiet humming. Jaqen heard neither, deep in thought.
His last trip to Windhelm had been an unexpected one. In the middle of the night, a client had arrived at the Sanctuary door, asking for Jaqen H'ghar from Winterhold. It had been many years since anyone had known him from his time as an instructor at the College and so he had answered the summons.
The resulting contract was rather uncommon for an assassin of the Dark Brotherhood, but though his sensibilities told him to refuse, his heart stayed his hand, and so he went to Windhelm. He had flawlessly orchestrated an execution, and in the end, his partner in the crime had lost his head on the block in a macabre déjà vu.
"We're here." The ferryman's voice broke Jaqen from his reverie, and with a grin and enthusiastic thanks, the young courier descended to the docks.
The streets of Windhelm were still mostly quiet, with only a few merchants rising to sort out their wares before the shops began to open. The boy waved to them as he passed, a cheery grin fixed firmly across his features.
He was stopped by a guard at the doors to the Palace, but was waved through when he flashily presented his courier's papers. Forged, but convincing nonetheless.
He found his way to Arya's chambers easily, but as he raised a hand to knock, he faltered. For a moment, he was no longer an adolescent servant, but himself. The movement he heard on the other side of the door was that of the woman he had foolishly allowed himself to love, and for a moment, the illusion faltered. A pair of deep blue eyes stared longingly from beneath the dark bangs, then faded just as quickly.
After his father had left him, Jaqen H'ghar had learnt not to love, and if he had been able to do so as a boy, surely he could force himself to do the same as a grown man.
Mustering his nerves, he knocked on the door and waited for a reply. After a moment, she called out, in the voice of Arry Snow.
"Just a moment, please."
The sounds from the chamber grew almost frantic and he waited patiently for her to don her disguise. Surely if her identity had gone undiscovered for so long, she had taken his brief lesson in Illusion to heart.
Finally, the door opened, and she appeared, disheveled and scowling. Her hair had begun to grow long again, but the charcoal that gave her features their assumed masculinity was applied well, and he could see how her fellow soldiers would be convinced by the disguise, at least without close scrutiny.
"What is it?" The young soldier asked, absently tugging at his suit of Stormcloak officer's armor.
"A letter for you, ser," the courier replied, removing the letter from his satchel and holding it out. "From Dawnstar."
Arya grew suddenly alert at the mention of the city that housed their sanctuary, but then Snow's indifference returned, and he took the letter. "Thank you." Retreating slightly, he retrieved a five septim coin and handed it over.
Accepting the coin, the courier pocketed it and then hesitated for a moment. Finally, he spoke again.
"May the gods be with you in Whiterun, ser." The soldier looked suspicious, and so he stammered an explanation. "I just noticed your armor, ser. You're an officer, so I figured you would be going with Lord Stormcloak to take the city."
Slowly, he nodded, before responding. "Yes. Thank you. We'll likely need their help."
The thought of her amidst the battle sent Jaqen's heart to his throat and for a moment he just stared at her, desperately trying to memorize her features lest it be the last time he saw her alive.
Finally, she spoke again, and he was forced to remember that she was not the woman he loved anymore, but a young man fighting for a cause.
"Is there anything else I can help you with, or...?"
He raised an eyebrow dismissively and the courier returned, shaking his head and forcing a smile. "No, ser. Long days and pleasant nights, ser."
He heard a reply as he departed but it didn't register as he hurried from the palace. It wasn't until he was back on the ferry once more that he allowed his thoughts to wander and as they set out across the Sea of Ghosts his eyes began to fill with tears, their deep blue turned the same hazy color of the sea.
