I do not own Game of Thrones or any of the characters.
New Old Faces
Arya walked through the city, staring around at the buildings and the crowds going about their business. After a bit, she stopped as she reached a blacksmith shop, staring at the person hammering a blade into shape. He had on a dirty brown shirt and dirty grey pants, a leather blacksmith's apron, and his messy brown hair was slick with sweat, sticking to his forehead but the back was pulled into a short ponytail to be kept out of his way. For a half a heartbeat, she thought it was Mark. His face even had the same structure. But then, her brain took in evidence to the contrary. He had stubble shadowing his face, his skin was darker and had a sharper, older appearance, and Arya only reached his chest.
She walked over to him quickly. "Excuse me, do you have a brother?" Arya asked.
"What?" he asked, frowning and looking over at her, Arya noticing his eyes were the same as Mark's had been, blue inside, then green outside.
"Do you have a brother?" Arya repeated.
"No," he said. "No siblings of any kind. No cousins either. Just me. Why?"
"You just...look a lot like someone I knew," Arya said. "Sorry."
He let out a grunt and continued to hammer his blade. She frowned, watching him for another moment before turning and walking away. She glanced back at him just in time to see him glance at her as well before he disappeared into the shop with his finished blade. Then, she turned back to the front and headed back to where her family was staying. After a few hours, her father returned.
"How was your day?" Ned asked as he sat down for dinner.
"I found a blacksmith's shop today," Arya said.
"Well, I believe there are several in this city," Ned said.
"Yes, but there was a boy working there," Arya said. "He looked a little younger than Rob, but he..."
"What is it?" Ned asked. "Did he do something?"
"No," Arya said, frowning. "He looked just like Mark. Older, but close enough to be a brother. He even had the same eyes. Bright blue inside, then green outside, enough to tell the colors apart from a distance. But when I asked him about it, he said he didn't have any brothers, or even cousins."
"Well then, he wasn't related to Mark," Ned said.
"But there can't be that many people with eyes like that, can there?" Arya asked. "And he looked exactly like him."
"Sometimes, there are people who look a lot alike," Ned said. "And sometimes, when we lose a friend, we start to notice people who look like them more than we normally would. We start to see their face everywhere. Sometimes, we want our friend back so badly, that we start to see them everywhere."
"So you think it was all my imagination?" Arya asked.
"I don't doubt that he looked a lot like him," Ned said. "Aside from his eyes, Mark had a very common face, if I recall correctly. But he's gone. He's not coming back."
"I know," Arya said, then returned to her meal in silence, Ned doing the same.
Arya pushed the door open and froze, watching the fight before her. Her new swordsmanship instructor was dueling with a boy about her age with blonde hair, a pair of braids reaching from just above his temples around to the back of his head, then joining and falling behind him, along with the rest of his shoulder-length hair, the braids reaching the same length and running over everything else.
The instructor finally knocked the boy's wooden sword out of the way and held his own to the boy's throat. As he did, the boy glanced over at Arya, who stared at his blue and green eyes.
"You are late, boy," the instructor said in an accent Arya didn't recognize. "Tomorrow you will be here at midday."
"Who are you?" Arya asked.
"Your dancing master," the man said, picking up a third wooden sword from off to the side. "Syrio Forel." He tossed one of the swords to Arya, but when went to catch it, her hand accidentally knocked it aside. "Tomorrow you will catch it. Now pick it up."
Arya retrieved the sword, holding it with two hands.
"That is not the way, boy," Syrio said. "This is not a greatsword that is needing two hands to swing it."
Arya tried to lift the sword with one hand, but almost instantly let the tip drop back to the ground. "It's too heavy."
"It is heavy as it needs to be to make you strong," Syrio said, tossing his sword into the air and catching it on two fingers just past the cross guard. "Just so. One hand is all that is needed." He flipped the sword back over and caught it by the hilt again, his left arm still folded behind his back. "Now you are standing all wrong. Turn your body side-face." He corrected her stance, using the blade of his sword to push her back flat and make her raise her chin.
Arya did as instructed, and he checked her grip, then explained that the fighting style, what he called a dance, he would be teaching her was called the Water Dance, a swift, fluid style. He instructed her to hit him and she charged, stabbing at him, only for him to step around her, making her miss. She slashed several times, using both hands so she could hold the sword up, and he deflected her blade several times before again spinning around her, making her trip and fall. After an hour of this, with her quickly growing better, he motioned for the boy who'd been watching so far to join them.
"Come, boy," he said. "Join the other."
The boy nodded once, brushing the few stray strands of hair from the sides of his forehead, and walked over, taking a clearly-practiced stance beside Arya.
"What's your name?" Arya asked, staring at the face that looked so familiar, aside from the color of the hair.
"He has no name, boy, he is a sword," Syrio said.
"And good swords have names," Arya countered.
Syrio grinned nodding. "Just so."
"I'm William," the boy said.
"Arya," Arya said.
"Honored to meet you, m'lady," William said, Arya frowning at him.
"Do you know who I am?" Arya asked.
"No," William said. "Shall we?"
Arya stared at him for a moment before nodding. Then, they both lunged, their swords clashing with Syrio's again and again as he repeatedly outfought both of them.
Arya glanced around as they all waited for the jousters to arrive. After a moment, she stopped, her eyes focusing on William, who was watching one side of the the jousting lanes in a steady silence, eyes narrowed slightly.
"What's he doing?" Arya asked.
"Who?" Sansa asked.
"The blonde boy over there," Arya said, pointing.
"I don't know," Sansa said. "Do you think I can read people's minds now?"
"Now," Arya said. "I just thought he looked angry."
"Well, maybe he's angry then," Sansa said irritably.
Finally, the king called for the joust to start and the two knights arrived, one of them a full foot taller than the other. Arya watched as William's glare followed the giant of a man, called the Mountain, as they rode over to bow to the king, then as they jousted. The first pass neither won. The second pass, the Mountain's jousting lance shattered against the other knight's shoulder, a wooden spike driving itself through the knight's neck and killing him. Arya looked from the dying knight back up at William, but he was gone.
Arya swore as the cat started down a set of stairs, only for William to step out of a shadow, scooping it up with one hand and holding it to his chest, petting it with his free hand.
"Hey, he was mine!" Arya complained.
"Chasing them isn't how you do it," William said. "You have to be quick and clever to catch a cat. The key is to get them into a location and situation that serves you, like running toward you by sending them to a spot where someone else would chase them."
Arya's eyes widened. "You did not!"
William shrugged, looking around. "Where's this go?"
"I don't know," Arya said. "Want to find out?"
He regarded her for a moment before grinning and nodding. They walked down the steps together in silence, Arya reaching over to pet the cat as well. As they reached the bottom of the stairs, they stopped, staring at a massive skull with a snout, teeth as long as their bodies, and horns sticking up from the back of them.
"Wow," William said.
Just then, they heard a male voice speaking in the distance. They both ran to the skull, scrambling into it and crouching down in the shadows.
"He's found one bastard already," the voice said. "He has the book. The rest will come."
"And when he knows the truth, what will he do?" a second male voice asked as the gate just past the skull creaked open.
"The Gods alone know," the first voice said. "The fools tried to kill his son. What's worse, they botched it. The wolf and the lion will be at each other's throats. We will be at war soon, my friend."
"What good is war now?" the second voice asked. "We're not ready. If one Hand can die, why not a second?"
"This Hand is not the other," the first voice said.
"We need time," the second voice said. "Khal Drogo will not make his move until his son is born. You know how these savages are."
"'Delay,' you say," the first voice said. "'Move fast,' I reply."
"This is no longer a game for two players," the second voice said as they climbed the stairs.
"It never was," the first said.
Arya moved to run but William caught her arm, holding her in place. She looked at him, only to stare at the cold, emotionless expression on his face. After another few seconds, he let go and they hurried to the gate, only to find it padlocked. They turned, heading to a set of stairs heading down further and ran down it, two steps at a time. They came to a long tunnel, and after about fifteen minutes of running, they finally came out of the tunnel onto the coast. William stopped, looking around for a moment before following Arya back toward the city before branching off shortly after the gate.
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