Hello! Time for an update!
So, quick note for those who say that I should change this fic from a Gendry fic to a Jaqen/Arya (doe those two have a ship name?) well, first thing is that I'm not gonna change the story because I don't really want to, and Arya's relationship with Arya is something that is in the story because it needed to be there, not because the stoy had taken this sudden direction. The second thing is that this is a The Crime of Love spinoff that happens in the middle of that story, so I can't change the story, really! Sorry!
I hope you all keep enjoying the story! I'm putting a lot of effort trying to write it between classes and homework, and I would really like to know your thoughts about it. So, please, review? I would love that so much!
So yeah, enjoy!
She was standing alone in darkness… She couldn't see anything or anyone around her, but she could hear the sound of a raging battle somewhere in the distance… She turned her head in every direction, trying to see what was happening, but it was useless, everything was so dark…
The noise of the battle grew in intensity, becoming almost deafening. She heard men screaming, swords clashing, bows shooting arrows…
She heard someone shout her name then. She looked in the direction where the voice came from, right in front of her in the darkness. In the distance, a little spot of light had appeared and was slowly growing, shedding a bit of light in that absolute darkness. She narrowed her eyes, blinded by that sudden faint luminosity, and she saw the contour of a person running towards her, sword in hand. The stranger shouted her name again, as he came closer and the light grew stronger. Arya saw that she was in some kind of tunnel, a place completely unknown to her, but she ignored that. The man came even closer, and shouted her name again.
"Gendry…?"
She could see him now; it was definitely Gendry, running towards her sword in hand. He finally reached her, and their eyes met. Gendry stopped running and just stood there, staring at her. Arya could see the relief in his blue eyes, and a small smile appearing in his lips.
"Arya…" he whispered.
Then he dropped his sword, and fell on his knees. He looked at her one last time before falling facedown on the cold hard ground of that tunnel, and then Arya could see the arrows on his back. She saw the pool of blood that was forming around Gendry's dead body and quickly expanding over the ground, reaching her.
Then the darkness covered everything again.
"GENDRY!"
She woke up with a start. She was panting furiously, and she was covered in cold sweat. She was also shaking.
She took several deep breaths to calm herself down, and when she was finally breathing a little bit more slowly, she sat up and looked around. She wasn't in that strange tunnel anymore, but in the little cave in which she had fallen asleep last night to hide from the rain. The ground was dry now, and the sun was up, illuminating everything with it's bright light.
She rubbed her eyes to feel more awake, and thought of the nightmare that she had just had. What the hell had that been about? It had felt so strange, so… real… the noise of battle, the tunnel, Gendry's voice… Gendry's death!
But what felt more real than anything else was the deep pain that she felt in her heart after seeing him drop dead with the arrows on his back. She could still feel that pain in her chest, it was like a hand had grabbed her heart and was pitilessly crushing it.
She couldn't find any sense to that dream. What had it meant? Why had she dreamed that? Why was she feeling like that upon seeing Gendry in that nightmare? It all felt so strange...
She quickly shook her head to rid herself of the images from the nightmare that still haunted her mind. She opened her eyes and blinked several times until she was used to the bright sunlight, and then she crawled out of the little refuge. She stood up on her feet and shook the dirt off her clothes. That's when she realized that she was still wearing Jaqen's coat.
Jaqen. She had forgotten all about him, not remembering him for even a second since she woke up fron the nightmare. She turned around to look back at the little refuge, and she saw that Jaqen wasn't there. He wasn't anywhere around there. Arya frowned when she saw that she was completely alone.
"Jaqen?" she called out loud, searching for the man, but she got no response.
Had he left in the middle of the night and abandoned her? Had he gone back to Winterfell to tell everybody where she was? Or maybe he had just left on his own, no longer wanting to help her. Maybe he had grown tired of it all, of her, of Westeros...
She was about to start cursing out loud when she heard the sound of horses' hooves hitting the soft ground, approaching the place where she was. The first thing that came to her mind was "hide!", but when she was about to do that she saw Jaqen H'ghar walking towards her between the trees, holding the reigns of two horses in his hands.
"A man thought that a girl would still be asleep when he returned" he said when he was close enough so that she could hear him.
"Where were you?" she asked.
"A man walked towards the nearest inn. A man got horses for a girl and himself."
"You didn't buy them" she said, looking at the two horses. They were good horses, worth a lot of coin, and neither she not Jaqen had taken that amount of gold or silver with then when they left Winterfell. "You stole them."
Jaqen shrugged. "A man never said he bought them, he said he got them. How a man did it is not important."
Arya didn't care either that he had stole the horses, but she didn't some fat lord chasig them around the North to get their heads for stealing his horses in a rainy night.
"What happened to yours?" she asked. "You didn't find him?"
Jaqen shook his head. He stopped walking and tied te horses's reins to a tree branch before gettig to Arya's side. He was arrying a bag with him; he took a big piece of bread from inside it and gave it to Arya. She took it and started eating it; it was freshly baked and warm, and it tasted delicious. She hadn't realized how hungry she was until now. While she ate, Jaqen watched her.
"A girl has not slept well" he said, noticing the dark circles uderneath Arya's eyes. "A girl was having nightmares."
"No, I wasn't" she lied.
"A man spent almost the entire night next to a girl, hearing her whimpering and calling names" he said, making her fall silent. Did he know what she had been dreaming?
It seemed like Jaqen was waiting for her to say something, but she didn't. She wasn't going to tell him what she had dreamed about, so she acted instead like she had no idea what he was talking about.
"Really?" she had already eaten the entire piece of bread. "What was I saying?"
"A girl was calling a boy's name" that was enough, Arya knew then that Jaqen had heard her calling Gendry's name... after they had kissed.
It just struck her then. They had kissed! How could she forget?! She didn't know why but she had kissed Jaqen, and then all of a sudden Jaqen had kissed her back...
Seven hells!
The sole memory made her blush, and she was unable to meet Jaqen's eyes. Te problem was that now Jaqen must have been thinking that she was blushing because of her dreams, not because of the kiss... Well, really she was blushing because of both things! She was comfused!
It was such an uncomfortable situation!
She made an effort to look at Jaqen in the eyes... The expression in his face was unreadable. Arya could not tell at all what was going through his mind, and she found it kind of frustrating. She decided to talk then.
"I was probably cursing him while gutting him in my dreams" she said, trying to give an explanation to why she had called Gendry's name in her dreams.
"Sure it was that" Jaqen said. Arya thought that he sounded skeptical, but she didn't say anything about it. Jaqen kept talking. "A man remembers a time in the past, when a girl would say prayers to the Red God in her sleep... Joffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne, the Hound... Names whispered in dreams..." as he spoke he approached her with cautious and slow steps, getting closer and closer to her with each word that came out of his mouth. His eyes were locked on hers, and she found herself unable to look away. His gaze was too powerful. "Perhaps a girl is praying again?"
It immediatly struck her what he was insinuating. She gasped and moved away from him.
"No!" she exclaimed, horrified. "I'm not naming him! You are not going to kill him! You are not going to kill him, Jaqen! Are you listening to me?! You are not going to!"
She was pointing a warning finger towards him. Her sudden explosion of fierce anger surprised her, but she disn't change her attitude. Jaqen was stillstarung at her, his face as unreadable as before.
"Less than a day ago a girl wasn't protecting a boy" he said, narrowing his eyes.
"Well...!" that was true, less than a day ago she was hating Gendry's guts. She still was. But Jaqen's words had triggered a strange alarm whithin her and she couldn't stop herself. "Well, now I am! You are not going to touch him, Jaqen."
The man nodded, and backed awayfrom her a few steps.
"A man was just asking a question. A man understands."
"Good" she said, lowering her hand and her finger. She moved her hair away from her face; her long dark curls had fallen all over her eyes while she wa almost yellig at Jaqen. Her expression lost her fierceness then, and she no longer felt angry like she had a few moments ago. She didn't understand at all that sudden protectiveness that had overcome her. She decided that changing the subject was what would be best. "So, what are the plans?"
"You wanted to leave Westeros. The best option is Braavos. A ship is needed to go to cross the Narrow Sea" Jaqen said while he tended to the horses to get them ready. Arya followed behind him.
"Fine. We can get a ship at White Harbor, it's not far from here" she said.
Jaqen scoffed. "If a girl wants to get caught, then you can go to White Harbor. They are the bannermen of your brother, and he must be looking everywere for you. Half the North will look for you, and if they see you, they will return you to Winterfell."
"Can't you stop them from doing that?"
"A man could kill then, if that pleases a girl."
No, she couldn't allow that. The Manderlys and everyone else in the North were her family's loyal friends, she could not let Jaqen kill any of them just so that she wouldn't get caught. It wouldn't be fair, or right. The Faceless Man seemed to read her mind.
"A man figured as much..."
"What are we going to do then?"
"We travel to King's Landing" he answered, mounting his new horse. He waited for Arya to mount her own, which was already prepared for her. Jaqen smirked. "It's easier to sneak around there without being noticed, thought we must be wary of the spies."
"And of the Queen's dragons" she reminded him. "She has three giant ones. I mounted one of them once, they are dangerous."
Jaqen wasn't too concerned. "The Silver Queen won't send her dragons against her nephew's family. And a man is not afraid of fire."
That was true. King's Landing was their only way out now.
"Then let's go" she said before kicking her horse and starting to gallop away from that place, followed closely by Jaqen.
"I tell ye', there has been no storm that wild in the North for years!" a fat man exclaimed to his friend. They were sitting in one of the tables of the inn and could be heard by everyone because of how loudly they were talking. "Brought trees down... Took even the roots out of the earth!"
"Took houses down, if what I've heard is right..." his friend, another fat man, said before finishing drinking his cup of ale.
Gendry had stopped in that inn just for a moment to get some food and drink and then leave. The storm had indeed been very fierce, and he had been hurt when the wind threw a branch against his back. Thankfully there were no injuries, and he just felt a little sore and tired, but he was not going to stop looking for Arya. In his hurry to get out of Winterfell so that he could look for her he hadn't brought any food or water with him, and he was hungry. He had eating a bit of porridge while he awaited for the innkeeper, who was preparing him a bag full of food and some skins with both water and wine. Gendry did have some coin in his pockets, which had come in very handy for the moment. He couldn't look for Arya if he was starving.
He wanted to resume the search as soon as he paid the innkeeper. He hadn't stopped worrying about her, wondering if she was alright. That storm had destroyed many things in its path... He just hoped that Arya hadn't been one of those things.
She's strong, he kept telling himself. She wouldn't let herself be defeated by a storm. She's somewhere, in the woods or down the kingsroad, but she's somewhere, and she's alive. She better be.
Of course, he also couldn't stop blaming himself for his stupidity. Why had he said anything? Since the moment in which his words left his mouth and he confessed Arya his fears about the Red Wedding, he had regretted saying anything. Specially since Sandor Clegane, Jon Targaryen and Sansa STark told him that the Red Wedding had been planned long before Melissandre of Asshai performed any sorcery with his blood. The Red Wedding had been a product of the war, it was to blame on the Lannisters and the Freys, not on him! And he had realized it too late! What should have been a reason for relief for him had turned out to be a reason for even more guilt. Now, Arya was probably in danger because of him...
At least she didn't leave alone.
He scoffed. Who was he lying to, he was even more desperate precisely because she hadn't left alone. In some part, he was relieved that there was someone protecting her, but Gendry couldn't help it. He was burning with jealousy.
He had seen with his own two eyes how Arya sometimes looked at Jaqen. It wasn't the same look that she gave him when she was younger ad they were in Harrehal, no. That look was the one that women, grown women, gave to men. Because there was no denying it anymore, Arya was a grown woman, and a very desirable one. Gendry had seen many boys and men staring at her in inappropriate ways in Winterfell, and he was jealous, but he didn't worry because Arya always ignored those men! But she didn't ignore Jaqen H'ghar...
Gendry's worst fear was that the man would do something to Arya... that he would hurt her. The thought made his blood boil, and he felt sick to his stomach. He couldn't help it, though. He feared that, taking advantage of their solitude and their distance from Winterfell, Jaqen H'ghar would stop protecting Arya to abuse her. Arya was strong and she could take care of herself, but she couldn't fight against a skilled assassin...
He had to find her before any harm came to her, or he would never forgive himself.
There was another fear going through him. Even in the case that Jaqen H'ghar remained an honorable man and kept his promise of protecting Arya instead of doing what most men would do if they found themselves in the company of a defenseless and beautiful young woman, there was still the possibility that Arya gave herself willingly to the man.
Again, Gendry felt sick. He couldn't erase from his mind the moment when he walked through the door, and saw them both together. The man lying on his back on the bed, and Arya naked and on top of him. Arya had said that it had been an accident, that they had tripped. He believed her, he wanted to believe her. He could usually tell when Arya was lying, he had been good at it when they were younger, and her face seemed to be telling the truth when she gave him that excuse. But it was undeniable that even if that had been an accident, it hadn't not meant anything. He saw it in their eyes...
His grip on the cup of wine that he was holding became so tight that his knuckles turned white. His shoulders were shaking.
Does she not care about me? he asked to himself. Or does she not see that I love her...?
Even if she did care about him, or if she knew about his real feelings for her, why would she say anything? Why would she love a coward like himself?
Jaqen H'ghar was right when he told me that I should have been there with her. I should have never, never left her alone.
Wasn't he trying to redeem his wrong actions? Wasn't he trying to find Arya and bring her home? He would never let her be in danger again, even if after finding her the price to keep her safe was to leave and never see her again. He was willing to do that for her.
But please, I need to make sure she's alright... I need to look at her one more time and at least... at least tell her that I love her. I need her to know that.
Yes, he would find her, tae her home with her family where she belonged, and he would let her know what he felt. And then he would do anything he commanded, because he was entirely at her mercy. She owned him, body and soul, and he had been too much of a fool to realize it until it was too late.
When had it all started? When had he, Gendry Waters, a bastard from King's Landing, fallen in love with Arya Stark, a lady and a princess and the wildest girl he had ever known? Had it been that night, when he had seen her for the first time in years after so much time and they had laughed together and she had fallen asleep in his arms after hitting him with a pillow? Had it been then, had it been before, had it been after? He didn't know. All he knew was that he loved her, and nothing would change that ever.
He knew it now, he would do anything for her. But he couldn't have her, that much he knew without anyone telling him. And if after he took her back to Winterfell she wanted to be with anyone else... even with Jaqen H'ghar, all be damned!... then there wasn't anything he could do about it.
But first things first. He had to find her.
He raised the cup of wine and took a sip out of it, when a man that had left the inn a couple of minutes ago entered it again in a mad rage.
"Someone stole me horse!" he yelled. Everyone looked at him in silence, and then another man followed him.
"They stole my horse too!"
"Thieves!"
Gendry payed no attention to them, he had better things to worry about than the fact that two strangers' horses were stolen in some old inn. As long as they didn't steal his horse...
The innkeeper arrived with the bag full of food for a couple of days and some skins of wine and water, and Gendry payed him the coins that he owed the man. He took the bag and the skins, stood up from the stool in which he had been sitting for the last few minutes that he had spent waiting, and made his way to the door. He walked outside the inn and towards the stables, where his horse was resting. He looked up at the sky: it was clear, and it didn't look like there was another storm coming, at least for the moment. He hoped it stayed that way, or finding Arya would be a more difficult task than he thought at first. Well, he never really thought that it was going to be any easy, to begin with...
He tied the bag and the skins to the horse's saddle, and then he took the horse out of the stables and mounted it, resuming his way down the road. He had no idea where he was going, because he had no idea where Arya and Jaqen had run off to, and he had no way of tracking them. He was just riding south, hoping to find them or find any clue that would lead him to them. The storm hadn't made that very easy.
Frustrated, he galloped down the road between the woods, determined not to give up looking for Arya.
The gods must have taken pity of him, because luck found him a couple of hours later. He was still galloping down the road when he saw a man approaching in the opposite direction, going north. The man himself didn't really stand out for anything, but he was holding the reigns of a horse that Gendry recognized immediately.
"Where did you find that horse?" he asked he man with urgency once he reached him. The man looked at him with distrust at first, but when he saw that Gendry meant no harm he answered.
"In the woods, not far from here. Poor beast was scared to death. Must have been the storm, probably threw its master off its back."
Gendry remembered then the two men complaining that their horses had been stolen. He realized then that it must have been Arya and Jaqen that had stolen them, to be able to keep riding south!
"That horse is the property of Winterfell. Take it there and tell the lords where you found the animal, they are looking for the man that was riding it. Where exactly did you find it?"
The man pointed with his finger in the right direction. After Gendry bid him farewell, he spurred his horse and raced in that direction. If he was lucky, then maybe he could catch up with them...
A fortnight later, riding at a good pace and almost non-stop, Arya and Jaqen reached King's Landing. She hadn't been in the capital since the day that Daenerys Targaryen conquered Westeros on top of her dragons, burning down the Lannister army with their deadly fire. She still remembered that day perfectly, because she had been riding one of those dragons with Jon; they had ridden Rhaegal. Sansa had been on her own riding another dragon, Viserion, while Daenerys Targaryen rode Drogon. Arya had had that opportunity because she had travelled to Meereen with her sister when they found each other, because Sansa had been on a journey to find her kidnapped (or so she said) son, Ned. They had gone in search of Daenerys' help, and she had granted it to them, but little Ned Clegane was never found. After that Arya had left with her family to go to Winterfell. Now she was back to go on a ship and sail away from home and from Westeros.
Why am I doing this? she asked to herself. She didn't really find much sense to her decision anymore.
Did she really want to leave because of what Gendry had told her? She had at first, but in those last weeks she had had time to think about it, and now she knew that all of it had been stupid. Gendry wasn't guilty for what had happened. Even if the magic could have been the reason why that massacre happened, his blood was taken against his will, if what he had told her was true. She shouldn't have been so mad at him, and now she kind of understood why he hadn't wanted to go near the Twins. She could understand perfectly what it was to be haunted by nightmares. She had experienced it before, and knew the fear that one felt.
However, it was too late to turn back now, she couldn't go back home. She hadn't changed her mind, she was still going with Jaqen to Braavos, even thought she couldn't find a strong reason to do so... But she felt like she had to.
She had kept having nightmares like the one she had had on the first night, about her being trapped in that strange tunnel, though it wasn't the same. Some details varied, she could hear people talking and walking around her, though she couldn't see them or understand what they were saying. She saw fire, and she saw arrows, and blood... She heard wolves howling to the moon in pain. And she heard Gendry's voice calling her name, but she couldn't see him. She couldn't find any sense to those dreams.
She shook her head to forget those dreams. She had to forget them. She had to forget Gendry. She was going far away, where she would not see him again.
That is what you want, isn't it? To not see him again. But why? Why is it that reason? Why isn't it because you don't want to be a lady, or because you want to be a fierce warrior, or go back to the House of Black and White? a little voice in the back of her head kept asking her everyday.
She thought she knew the answer... But she was scared of it. So she didn't think about it.
She was waiting for Jaqen. They had sold the horses and they had received good coin for them, to buy supplies. Jaqen had gone off to buy them a passage to Braavos in a ship, and he had left an impatient Arya in the port.
Their relationship during their little trip had been... strange. Arya did not know how else told describe it. neither one of them had mentioned their kiss, not even once. It was as if it had never happened, but Arya was completely sure she hadn't imagined or dreamed it. I had been real, and she could still remember how it had felt. It startled her, really. She still didn't know what had moved her to do such a thing, or how come Jaqen had kissed her back! Sometimes she wanted to forget it, and sometimes she wished that Jaqen would at least mention it. Just once. But he didn't.
Arya did catch him looking at her sometimes, thought, She wasn't sure if he knew that he had caught him or not, but she could see him from times to time staring at her with the same fire in the eyes with which he had stared at her when they kissed, and when she had accidentally tripped over him on the bed. And when Arya caught him watching her, she blushed. She felt like a stupid girl, like all the rest. It was so unlike her.
Sansa is the one that blushes, not me!
But how could she not blush, after having kissed Jaqen H'ghar?
It hadn't been the first time that she had felt the desire to kiss someone. Thought she didn;t want to admit it, there had been some times... several times... when she had wanted to kiss Gendry. Whenever she stared into his deep blue eyes, she just felt that ridiculous desire! It was one of the things that had scared her away, because she knew that even thought she had wanted that, Gendry hadn't. If he had he wouldn't have acted like such an idiot... Right?
She hadn't felt the same thing when she had wanted to kiss Jaqen than when she wanted to kiss Gendry. There was some mysterious force that made her want to get closer to Gendry, be with him... When she had kissed Jaqen, it felt like she was relieving an ache, or applying cold water on a burn on her skin. She did not know how to describe the two cases, but it frustrated her so much. SHe did not want to be acting that way! It was stupid!
"You'll understand when you are older" Sansa had once told her some years ago when she did not understand people and their relationships, that it was all too complicated and didn't make sense. Well, now she had confirmation that it didn't make sense, but she was starting to get a bit of understanding on how difficult dealing with grown up feelings of a different kind than she had ever had was.
She hadn't realized that Jaqen was back and standing besides her.
"Arya?" he called her, making her snap out of her thoughts. He looked down at her with a small smile. "A man has the passaged to the ship."
"Can we go in now?" Arya asked with little patience. She was a bit nervous, standing there where she could be recognized by anyone who knew her from her previous visits to King's Landing.
Jaqen nodded. "The ship will leave soon. We must hurry."
Arya followed him trough the dock until they reached the ship. It was a fairly big ship, so it should be comfortable during the voyage when it came to space. She then followed Jaqen to their cabin.
"It was the only one available" Jaqen told her when they went in. It wasn't very big, and it only had one old-looking and small bed that seemed uncomfortable, but it would feel like paradise after having slept on the cold hard ground for so much time. "Is a girl happy with it?"
She nodded. She didn't find anything wrong with the cabin, it served its purpose.
"Good. A man will go back to the deck, to ask the captain when we are leaving."
"Where are you going to sleep?" she asked him then. She was looking at the only bed that there was on the cabin. There was nowhere else for a person to sleep.
"A man will find a place. A man can sleep on the floor."
"You don't have to" Arya kept saying, though she hesitated a bit before speaking the words. "I mean... the bed is big enough for two people..."
Silence. Long... uncomfortable... silence. Jaqen just stared at her, barely blinking, holding her gaze. It felt like a challenge that Arya was not willing to lose.
"Is a girl not afraid?" he asked, taking one step towards her.
"Why would I be afraid?"
"Most girls would."
"Most girls are stupid" Arya said for the hundredth time in her life.
"A girl has more courage than sense" Jaqen said, bringing Arya memories from when she was Arry and not Arya, and she couldn't hold a chuckle from escaping her mouth.
"I've heard that before" she whispered. Next thing she knew, her back was against the cabin wall and they were kissing again.
It was similar to the first kiss, hungry and passionate and at the same time careful, if that was possible. Jaqen put his hands on her waist and pressed his body against hers, trapping her between the wooden wall and himself, and she put her arms around his neck instinctively, pulling him closer to her. She had very little (next to non-existent) experience on that kind of things, so she just did what felt right. Her lips moved at the same time that Jaqen's did. When his tongue touched hers, she was a little bit startled. Was it supposed to be like that? But it felt good, oh so good, so she didn't stop. their lips and tongues danced together, making the kiss something wild and wet, yet their hands remained in the same place as before. Jaqen's hand had a tight grip on Arya's waist. Arya couldn't resist it and removed her arms from around Jaqen's neck, carefully moving her hands over his chest, feeling the muscles underneath.
A deep groan sounded in the back of Jaqen's mouth, and Arya smiled against his mouth. She touched his neck, slid her hands over his chest, put her arms around him... She wanted to explore. This was something completely new to her. She had always been interested in sword fighting and shooting bows and arrows and going on adventures and that kind of stuff, but she was just starting to discover this very feminine part of herself and the burning feeling in the pit of her stomach that came with it. Se was curious, and she sent away the embarrassment that she felt so that she could explore in peace.
So this is how it feels to be... a woman? She wondered as she kissed Jaqen and he kissed her and she realized how good it felt. I shouldn't have made so much fun of Sansa and Jon and everyone else...
They stopped kissing and gasped. They needed air, and the y breathed heavily. Arya's face was hot, and she could sense that Jaqen's was too.
"I thought you were... mad at me..." Arya said, panting. "After that night... you didn't say anything, didn't do anything..."
Jaqen raised an eyebrow in that very particular way in which he always did it whenever Arya asked something that he found funny or amusing"Mad at you? How could a man be mad at a girl...?"
"Because... Because I don't know..."
"A girl is not a girl no more. A girl is a beautiful woman. A girl should know what she can do to a man now."
They kissed again, just as fiercely as before. Arya could sense that Jaqen was hungry for her... To be honest, it gave her an strange sense of power, knowing that she could provoke a man like him to feel like this...
But she knew that there was more to it. This was just kissing, nothing more... She wasn't sure of what she was doing, but slowly and awkwardly, she removed her arms from around Jaqen's body and with unsure hands and trembling fingers she started unlacing her tunic...
Jaqen's hand left her waist and grabbed her arm, stopping her from unlacing her tunic. He pulled away from her, and she gasped with surprise because of that brusque interruption.
"No" he said.
Arya was confused. No? What did he mean, no?!
"But I thought..."
"A girl thought wrong."
She was even more confused than before.
"But I thought... I thought that you wanted me..." she said, and she actually sounded hurt.
Jaqen stood in silence for a few seconds before he let out a small and low, almost silent, laugh. Arya was about to feel angry, thinking that he was laughing at her, but he quickly proceeded to take her out of her mistake.
"A man does want a girl... very much. As a man said before, a pretty girl has turned into a very beautiful and fierce and brave young woman. A man wants a girl very much... But a man cannot have a girl."
His words actually shocked her. What did he mean? Why not?!
"Why?" she asked. Her voice was shaking.
Jaqen released her arm and caressed her cheek with his hand.
"Because a girl needs to be loved. And a man cannot give that to her."
"I don't understand..." she whispered through trembling lips.
"A man cares about a girl very much. A man will always be there for a girl when a girl needs him, but a man cannot give a girl what she needs. A man cannot give love, for Faceless Men cannot love. Faceless Men are instruments of war and chaos and death. Maybe, if the war was still happening and a girl had that same rage and hatred and darkness that she had before inside of her, and what she needed was more darkness, then a man could have been hers. But times have changed."
Arya was shaking almost violently. Jaqen held her face between his hands. He never stopped staring at her.
"What a girl needs now is peace. A man cannot give that to her. But there is someone else who can."
Arya broke down in tears then. She was crying... because he was so right.
She leaned forward and hugged him, and he hugged her back. She cried on his shoulder for what seemed an eternity, even though in reality it was just a few seconds. When she stopped shaking she moved back again to look at the man in the eyes. She still couldn't speak, she was too shaken up, but Jaqen knew her mind perfectly.
"A girl needed to do this journey to realize her true desires, those that are not easy to understand at first. A girl wants to forgive, does she not?"
She knew what he meant by that, and what he had meant earlier when he had mentioned "someone". Was there really anything that escaped Jaqen's knowledge?
"I cannot go back now" was all she said. "Can I still go with you? To Braavos?"
He nodded. "A girl can. A girl will always be welcome in Braavos."
"But will I be welcome at your side?" she asked then, in a fiercer tone than before. "What if what I want isn't peace? What if I don't mind the darkness and chaos that you bring?"
"Is that a girl's heart truest desire?" he asked, answering like that to her question.
No. No it wasn't.
"I care about you too" she said, not wanting him to believe that she had kissed and attempted to give herself to him just like any common whore would have.
"A man knows... But there is someone else in a girl's heart for whom she feels more than affection, is there not?"
She didn't answer. She looked down to the floor, embarrassed, and she wiped the tears out of her face with the palm of her hand. Her breath became a bit steadier, and then she looked up again to stare into Jaqen's eyes.
"How did you know?" he asked. It was a genuine question, because he had realized the truth even before she had.
"A man could see it in a girl's eyes..."
"Well then... I-I don't care. I don't care about my truest desires. It doesn't matter what I want if he continues to act like an idiot and doesn't care about me... So I'm still going to Braavos, even though you probably don't want me there."
"A man just said that a girl is always welcome-"
"Yes, but you don't want me at your side! I bet that once we reach Braavos, you are going to leave me there on my own and you are going to go off and do your on thing!"
Jaqen shook his head. "A man swears that he will never leave a girl alone whenever she needs him to be there. And a man can also promise to a girl... That she's not as alone as she thinks she is."
Arya frowned, a bit confused. What did that mean? Of course she was alone, right now she only had him! But she didn;t reply anything to his words. Jaqen leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on her hair, but Arya quickly moved her head and captured his lips in yet another kiss. This last kiss was, however, softer, and a bit innocent, very different to the others they had shared... It felt like a good-bye kiss, even though they were not parting their ways yet. It was more sort of a token of appreciation that Arya wanted to give him, and that Jaqen accepted.
When they parted, they looked at each other for a few seconds, and then Arya turn around and left the cabin. She needed to go up to the deck and have some air. Too many things had happened, and she needed to think about everything that Jaqen had said to her. It angered her that he was right and she couldn't deny anything. She never thought that she would... fall in love. She always thought that only stupid girls did that and that it didn't make sense. But it had happened.
She had fallen in love with the stupid bull, and she was just running away from it, because she was so scared...
She quickened her pace to get to the deck. She needed to know when that bloody ship was going to set sail.
Well, at least Jaqen turned out to be an honorable man...