Many Faced Gods

The smell of waste stung Arya's eyes. She walked carefully over the wet stones, making her way through the tunnel, a scarf tied tightly over her mouth, and her black hood pulled down low. She could be as silent as death when she wanted to be. She felt along the walls of the cave, the smooth stones triggering something in her memory. The tunnels and caverns within spread out in all directions, stretching beneath the castle like the arms of a spider. Soon, Arya began to hear what sounded like scurrying. Where there were rats, there must be food. Where there was food, she thought, she must be close to the dwellings of the townspeople. She walked for miles beneath the city, never encountering another soul. As she moved deeper into the tunnel, the familiarity of the rock formations told her that she was nearing the Red Keep. There were some stones that seemed to protrude from the wall, and as she reached what seemed like a dead end, she touched one curiously. It was loose. She placed her hand on it, cupping her palm around it, and turned it, as hard as she could. As she did this, the wall seemed to open up before her. In front of her eyes, there was a kind of metal stairway that seemed to lead up through a hollow that had been dug deep into the earth. In pitch-black darkness, she followed the feel of cool air, her eyes accustomed to the blackness. She followed the ladder up, up, up into the darkness and then out into the night.

When Arya got to the end of the ladder, there was a wooden door before her. She lifted it gingerly, and a wind swept through the crevice that chilled her. She peeked through the crevice with one eye, and saw before her an alley. She pulled back the wooden door covering, and pulled herself out of the hole and out into the chilled night air. She covered the hole, quietly.

She was standing in a quiet alley, within the city. As she turned to get her bearings, she saw before her Aegon's high hill, and the immense majesty of the Red Keep. Towers, and ramparts fashioned from pale red stone stared down at her, the banners flying Lannister crimson.

She pulled back her hood. She pushed down the scarf that she wore over her mouth so that it covered her neck. She took the gloves that she had been wearing, and put them into the bag that she wore on her waist. No one here knew here face. No one here knew what she looked like, even when she was here the first time as a small girl. She had been mistaken for a boy by the city guard. She would be safer without the hood. The hood would be more conspicuous within the city walls.

As she walked through the narrow, cobbled passage and towards the red keep itself, she spotted two Lannister guards. They were talking animatedly about their adventure at one of the whore houses.

"Shoulda seen the tits on that one…" the blond one said, motioning with his hands animatedly.

Arya continued to approach quietly, she fingered her dagger, beginning to grip it tightly in her hands. She watched as the second guard, the one with darker hair, walked away, and she waited in the shadow of the building that she leaned up against, until he turned a corner out of her sight. The blond Lannister guard was absentmindedly standing only an arms distance away from her now. She could smell him. She smelled the stench of whores on him, and stale ale, and she heard the quiet din of his armor. Arya turned the dagger in her hand, slipping it into her sleeve backwards, so that she could slide the handle easily into her palm at a moments notice.

She was now close enough to hear the breath of the Lannister soldier. She slid the blade down her sleeve now, and into her left hand, and she approached him from behind and at an angle, still imperceptible to him. Quickly, she thrust her dagger upwards, and into his right eye with a sickening wet sound. She heard a gurgle of blood in his throat and a grunt, that she recognized as a psalm to the many faced god. She took the cloth from around her neck, balled it up tightly in one hand, and shoved it into his mouth. She didn't need to attract any attention, and she wasn't sure how far away the other soldier had gone on his nightly stroll. The soldier's body collapsed against her, and he was heavy. She began to drag him, slowly, back into the abandoned alleyway. She laid his body down, near the small door that she had emerged from, and she opened it. Unceremoniously she tossed him down into the darkness, before following him herself descending quietly down the ladder.

When she reached the bottom of the ladder, she saw his body, twitching slightly on the cavern floor, his open eye, wide and blue, was staring wildly at her. But she knew that it saw nothing. Valar morghulis. She whispered into the darkness. She removed his helm, and grabbed him by the hair, pulling the hair carefully away from his ear. She took the dagger into her hand and made an incision behind his right ear, and began to separate his skin from his flesh, carefully. She didn't want to tear the face. This was gruesome work. After she separated the skin of his face, completely from the flesh, she began to remove the rest of his armor. It was too big for her. But she put it on. The face itself she covered with a poultice that she had made for herself in Maester Wolkan's laboratory, back at Winterfell. It smelled pungently of oils and herbs and she watched as the skin of the face dried in contact with the poultice, becoming like soft leather in her hands. She removed a small blue glass bottle from her bag, placing drops of the clear liquid it contained onto the face. As she did this the face itself seemed to plump up as if alive. She put it onto her own face then, like a mask, and it felt like it was grabbing onto her own skin, and pulsing with life. She touched her cheeks and they felt warm, and plump. She could feel herself growing into the armor which had before swallowed her. Sherubbed the skin of the face, near the edges, where she had placed her cuts, touching her ears, and the skin felt smooth, and unblemished, as if it was the skin she was born in. She put the Lannister helm onto her head, to complete her armor.

A silent as a cat, she walked back to the metal ladder, and climbed back up into the night. She closed the wooden covering behind her. She dusted off her armor, and walked towards the Red Keep. Behind her helm, she whispered into the darkness "Valar Dohaeris."

A Lannister soldier approached her. "You're needed in the Red Keep. We're to receive orders. The Dragon Queen is outside the walls."

She heard her own voice, deep, and mellifluous, the voice of a man grown, answer back "Lead the way."