Master and slave

It had been a fluke. Jaqen had as much told her so, and she had thanked him by surrounding herself with an impenetrable and sullen silence.

Arya had been in triumph after the opening ceremonies. Jon had spent about £40 on newspapers the next day, and had sent copies of the Guardian off to family and friends and god only knew who else. A6! Her picture, in print. And on the internet. Byline: Arya Stark, JHWIRE.

Jaqen had printed an 8x10 of the now-famous picture and had casually, crookedly pinned it to the wall of her workstation. Yet, instead of leaving her elated, his brief visit left her fuming, for he had made an offhand remark about the fact that the photo had been a lucky thing for her. He had also praised the picture, and her. He had also tried to hug her, but she had moved away, unable to comprehend how happy he was for her luck.

Only later did he realise his mistake. She had thought him dismissive. So he went back and tried to explain, but Arya was in a right strop and unable to hear his explanation.

In fact, he had become the voice of her continued self-doubt. 'It was lucky they needed that shot.' It was a fluke. It doesn't mean I'm talented, she thought.

Like all self-fulfilling prophecies, she proved her doubts correct over the next few days. She was awful at live-action. Sport was not her metier. As her worst fear became reality, Arya's anger seeped slowly away, to be replaced by dejection.

The next time Jaqen offered outstretched arms to her, around a week into the Olympics, she clung to him gratefully. Just don't cry, she told herself. Don't bloody cry.

'I said this was for you to learn, and you are learning,' he spoke, gently. Not at all smugly. 'You are a trainee. A talented girl. We would not have you here if you weren't.' He held her there, his chin resting on the top of her head, until she felt the perfect stillness of contentment.

'Go with Yoren today?' he asked. She nodded, into his chest.

'Good,' he said. He withdrew from the embrace, gripping her shoulders. 'You're doing well, lovely girl. And tomorrow, perhaps a change of pace for you.' He winked at her, and briefly, she wondered what such a change of pace would entail.

She nodded at him. The Olympics had lost their magic for her, and she assumed Jaqen would put her back at JHWire helping plan the gala at the House of Black and White. A punishment, but one she thought she deserved and, therefore, would take. Graciously.

She enjoyed shooting with Yoren, who had plenty of tips and techniques for Arya, and did not treat her like a child. Arya reviewed the day's work with Izembaro, who praised her improvement to the point where Arya felt slightly irked at what she knew tomorrow would bring. Boredom, listening to Eleni, listening to Margaery, being ordered about. Planning a party. She shuddered.

The next morning, Arya arrived at JHWire to find a note beside her keyboard.

'3B. Bring your gear, tripod, and slave.'

What tripod? Slave?

...Am I the slave?

Gendry arrived in her office a few minutes later, just as Arya was on the cusp of texting Jaqen, having been unable to find a tripod in her work area.

He brought her a scone, which she wolfed, a Manfrotto tripod, and a Nikon speedlight. Ah, the slave, she thought, suppressing a giggle.

'Thanks,' she said, opening the box and sliding the tripod out.

'Er, do you know what this is about?' Gendry asked.

'Honestly, no clue. He just asked me to meet him in 3B and to bring the tripod.'

'How are you two getting on?' Gendry asked. His overly light tone belied the innocence of his question, not that Arya was aware of his concern.

'We're getting on,' Arya swallowed. 'Fairly well. Why?'

'Seems there's always something...tense about you two.'

'No tension,' she said. Other than sexual, she thought.

'He has no boundaries. You know this already, but don't let it put you off. You know how brilliant he is, right?'

'Yeah,' she said. 'Well, I've got to go to meet him.' Laden with her bag and the extra stuff he'd requested, she set off.

No boundaries. What did that mean?

She walked past Eleni and Margaery, who were, as suspected, busy in the House of Black and White. Hanging, rehanging, checking off things on numerous lists. It was beginning to look very much as though an event would be taking place there, in little less than a week. Eluding their grasp, she slipped into the studio, camera bag in hand and tripod slung over her shoulder.

Jaqen was there, clad in a dove-grey shirt, denims rolled up at the cuffs. His boots were darker at the toes, bearing the marks of the morning rain.

He made a mocking gesture of welcome, opening his arms as if to say, "Here I am." Then he sat in one of the folding chairs they kept for studio visitors.

"What are we doing?" Arya asked him, bluntly.

"Well, you named me, didn't you?" he responded. "I'm not Rembrandt. Self-portraiture is hardly my thing."

She was reeling.

"What?" she gawped.

"You chose Jaqen H'ghar as your third name," he explained, mock-patiently, as if to a small child. "I am Jaqen H'ghar, after all," he said. "So shoot me."

Of course, he made her set up the studio, first. Without any assistance. He just sat there in the little folding chair, watching her.

A test for me.

She'd never set the studio up herself, at least not completely, always having someone to guide her, to tweak the little details. A light moved a fraction of an inch to the left, or a foot closer.

Angles. Flashes tested. Master and slaves.

She was slower than she'd ever been, partly because she was careful, but mostly because she was anxious.

He just sat there, eyes following her movements. To his credit, he was quiet. Often, in response to its vibration, audible in the silence of the studio, he pulled his phone from his denims and wrote some rapidfire text or email. And then resumed his watch.

It took half an hour for her to completely set the studio up to the way she thought she wanted it. He rose, then, and strolled nonchalantly around the studio to inspect. She followed.

He pointed at one umbrella, which she'd set up at a jaunty angle. 'The light can get pretty hot.' She moved the umbrella slightly. He nodded.

'Careful. You need a firm grip,' he said, as she adjusted a flash he'd spent a moment too long inspecting. She giggled.

'Screw that in tightly.' Flirt. She was laughing and blushing, and so was he.

'Will you check it over again?' she asked.

'No, let's just begin. You'll soon spot where you need to adjust things.'

It was interesting, she reflected, how such a mundane task, one she'd done many times already in this very same studio, became somehow more important. She felt as though she was teetering on the brink of something.

'What is the point of this,' she asked, suddenly.

He grinned. 'Please tell me you don't ask clients about the concept in this fashion.'

She became visibly distressed. She really didn't want to do this. She fought the urge to bolt. 'No, not at all. Is that what you think?'

He smiled. It didn't set her at ease.

(Adrenaline in the workplace must be managed carefully, and she was doing a rubbish job of it.)

She began to shoot, but she knew she was being far too tentative. Her framing was all off. It was impossible to look at him through the viewfinder of her Nikon. Her heart was pounding so hard it jarred her focus. The slave flash was unco-operative, as well, only choosing to fire at what seemed like random intervals.

'Can we not do this?' she asked. 'I'm sorry I named you as my third name. Can I pick someone else?'

'Lovely girl,' he smiled at her. 'It's really all right. We have to continue.' He stretched.

'We have three books coming out, and the House of Black and White is going to be open for the first time. It's time people knew my face.'

'I don't want to,' she said. 'I hate having you look at me and judge me.'

'You're learning,' he stressed. 'This is not designed to be a hard thing for you. And if you don't do it, do you really want Jean-Paul taking my picture?'

'Don't you want me? I'm a little famous, you know. For a faceless man, anyway.'

She blushed. Yes, yes, I do want you, as entirely ridiculous as that is. Her eyes moved over his body, resting on his shirt. The pattern in the weave became apparent. She noticed everything about that shirt. The way it stretched taut over his deltoids. The way it accentuated the leanness of his back. The ever-so-slight padding around his stomach. (She liked that. It humanised him.)

'Is my shirt ok?' he asked. He noticed my staring. Oh God.

She nodded dumbly. Yes. Quite fine.

Once again, nothing worked well for her. She had set up the studio with a three-flash system, but the two slaves that were not on her camera went from being somewhat unco-operative to refusing to fire entirely. An hour of tinkering led them to

'Just what sort of slaves refuse to obey their master?' Jaqen quipped, but Arya could tell he was getting tired as well. It was humid in the studio. Probably getting ready to rain again. She longed for fresh air.

He probably has somewhere to be, she thought.

She checked the batteries: they were fine. The slave flashes still didn't work. She checked the controller. Jaqen re-checked it, taking out the batteries and putting them back again. A partial triumph: one flash fired, but late.

'Something is buggered,' Jaqen said. 'Unfortunately, this is it. We don't have another slave controller available and Gendry won't be able to fix it - we'll have to send it out. Another time, lovely girl.'

Perhaps it was Arya's natural impulsiveness, but perhaps it was borne of so many little accumulated disappointments she'd faced over the last while. Either way, she growled a 'no' under her breath to Jaqen, grabbed her bag, and halfway kicked open the back door of the studio, beckoning him into the back alley.

'Environmental portrait?' she asked, grinning.

He followed her, and she wasn't even angry that he was clearly humouring her.

He was stood against the wall, the characteristic sandy brick of so much of East London's older buildings, the colour saturated from the rain. It was cold, and his skin, which had begun to sweat in the humidity of the air and the heat from the studio lights, began to prickle with gooseflesh.

Jaqen's hair had grown out somewhat from when she had first seen him newly shorn at JHWire. It was an ungodly mess, and Arya, emboldened by circumstance, reached up and attempted to arrange it with her fingers. She noted with curiosity that he flinched slightly when she touched the left side of his head, but made no move away from her. Her next pass on that side was much gentler, and she felt an unexpected rush of pleasure when he did not flinch away again. It made little difference. She held the light meter to his face. As she'd thought, f11.

She stepped back from him, raised her camera, tilted her flash away from him and up where it would bounce off a partial overhang of the building above him. He smiled at her, approving her action. She looked through her viewfinder.

Not right.

She moved back to him and unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt. He was passive and still, but his eyes moved over her face. She noted and approved of his lips, which had parted slightly. She stepped back again.

'Like that,' she said. 'Look away from me.' He complied, obediently.

Click click.

She shifted slightly. The sky grumbled thunder from some faraway place.

Click.

She paused, quickly checking the exposure. Spot on. Click click click. She continued. The smell of rain hung heavily in the air, and the sky became darker. She stopped up. Click click click.

Fat drops of rain began to fall, affording Jaqen little protection from the elements. In a few seconds, he was drenched, and Arya retreated into the building, still shooting.

'Switch lenses,' he called to her. 'The 12-24'. She did so. She shot some more from the shelter of the doorway. His unruly hair was plastered to his face. His dark blue denims had turned nearly black. He began to look miserable. But never had she seen his eyes so alive.

'You look great,' she called to him. He laughed, and shook his head. Click click click.

She reviewed the photos, quickly for his sake, and beckoned him back in.

He retreated to the studio to grab his phone, and ushered her up the stairs, past his office, and into his flat. His laptop was on the table. He motioned for her to sit down, then opened the computer for her and entered the password. (She saw it).

'SD card slot is on the left,' he said. 'I'm going to change. Someone got me all wet.'

She laughed. As she took the SD card out of her camera and put it in the appropriate slot, she could hear him, down the hall, speaking on his mobile. She caught bits of the conversation. Something about the slave flashes not working. Ah, he must be talking to Gendry.

She found and started Lightroom on his computer, virtuously resisting the urge to look at the pictures he had there. She imported all the pictures she had taken and ejected the SD card, placing it back in her camera.

The ones from the studio truly were deplorable, though mostly, she reflected, from the misfiring flashes. So maybe I'm not entirely terrible.

The outdoor portraits were good. She had found the perfect angle at which to capture his face. I'll remember this. Not full profile, which would have been oddly severe, but not straight on. He looked best when at an angle, looking to the right. It highlighted his strange hair, and idly, she wondered if he would reject these pictures because of that.

He padded out from the bedroom, feet bare, clad in soft jerseys and a light top. He had a towel draped on his head.

Arya moved to get up so that he could sit, but he waved her back down and leaned over her to look.

He began to chuckle as the pictures showed him progressively wetter and wetter. He was entirely non-linear, pointing out some flaw or other in certain photographs, then moving backwards or forwards several pictures to show her something else.

The door to his flat creaked open. Gendry. Absorbed in the slave controller that he'd found in 3B, he scarcely glanced up at first, but once he discovered Arya sat at Jaqen's table, Gendry became rather more interested in his surroundings.

'Hi,' she said, lamely.

'Did you find out what was wrong with it?' Jaqen looked up at Gendry, then back down to the pictures.

'Not exactly, but it's fried,' Gendry responded, his eyes not leaving Arya's. 'What are you doing up here?' he asked.

'I became rather wet as a result of that slave controller not working,' Jaqen replied.

Gendry appeared surprised. 'Arya's shooting you?' he asked.

'She's shot me,' Jaqen smirked. 'Come and look,' he invited.

Gendry laid the malfunctioning slave controller down and went over to view the photographs.

Jaqen appeared not to notice, but Arya was aware of a growing tension in the room, and she could not fathom why it had appeared.

Gendry is never this silent.

'Are they rubbish?' she asked, finally.

'What?' Gendry asked, startled.

'Rubbish. You've been very quiet,' she accused.

'No,' he blurted. 'They're very good. Jaqen?' Gendry grasped at his friend for help.

'Very good indeed. I will no longer be a faceless man,' he said, a trifle ruefully.

'Then why so quiet?' Arya pushed.

'Uh, it's just that...' Gendry caught himself. 'Never mind, weasel. I just didn't expect you to be doing this.' In truth, he'd been struck both by the fact that Jaqen would place such an assignment in Arya's hands and by something in the way photographer and subject were at such ease with each other. Friendly. He flushed, and banished further thought.

'What? Weasel?' Arya echoed, bewildered.

'Stoat?' Gendry offered.

'If I may interrupt this brilliant exchange of witticisms,' Jaqen began, 'we need to select one of these for the opening. Arya?'

'This one.' She scrolled to the one she had first settled on: the perfect angle, head facing right. Eyes deep and blue. A half-smirk on his face, for a true smile was harder to coax out of him. Nascent crow's feet on a wet face, the cheekbone angled, the jaw jutting just so. A fine straight nose. Patches of white within the red hair, all of it smoothed down by rain.

She was hesitant, holding her breath, afraid he would not like it.

'Yes, that one,' Jaqen agreed readily. His hand moved to her shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze. She felt his thumb caress the bare skin of her neck for a moment. 'I like it. Let's go.'

'No boundaries,' muttered Gendry. He spent the rest of the day rationalising away the way Jaqen had been standing over Arya, the hand he'd placed on her, the casual intimacy of the photographs he'd seen, Arya's wide, trusting eyes as she'd looked up at Jaqen. And he felt the tiniest stirrings of a rogue, mute envy that she had coaxed something resembling photogenic pictures out of someone notoriously wooden.

As for Arya, she had spent the rest of the day in the House of Black and White, as she had been dreading, and while others were out on Olympics-related assignments, she was setting up tables, reviewing menus, and, worst of all, enduring the sort of banal, idle chatter she hated: hairstyles, make-up tricks, and hot colours of nail varnish. Margaery seemed to see Arya as a project, while Eleni seemed to view Arya as contemptible. She wasn't sure which she preferred, and was grateful for the day's end.

A/N: Dreadfully sorry it's late. More soon! Thanks, as always, for reading and reviewing.