120 AC, Braavos

It was a remarkable thing, Jaqen mused, to levy the full weight of his gaze on someone who could finally feel it. He knew it felt heavy to a boy so currently panicked, but he cared little. A boy should feel the full weight of his choices for a man doubted he ever had before.

Arrogant, just as all nobles were.

Confident, just as all boys were his age.

Uncaring, just as all Targaryens tended to be.

Jaqen did not so easily forget what it was that forced his people to remove their faces and forget their names. He did not forget what was done to his people that death seemed the only release. But he had not been born in those mines and a boy had not held the whip.

But he hated him all the same.

And while Jaqen had worn many faces over the years – the faces of beggars, of bastards, of kings – he could not wipe clean what had always lived underneath them. Here, in the privacy of his own mind, Jaqen could forgo the charade and embrace the last shreds of himself.

Here he was still Jaqen H'ghar for at least a little longer.

Even if he did not always wish to be.

Aemond threw himself out of the heavy double doors, desperately trying to hide the way he had started to cry. But a boy continued to move forward towards the tacked boats, scrabbling hands and feet over the wet stones, the wailing moving from a load cry to a chapped, weak mumble. His hands grabbed the edge of the nearest boat, pale fingers moving along the rough wood to find the best place to heave himself over the side.

Jaqen was impressed.

And he remained impressed when Aemond managed to find a pair of oars. Jaqen stepped into the boat behind Aemond, the ghost of a smirk finding its way to his lips as a boy reeled back, causing the boat to rock violently.

"A boy should be careful," Jaqen said, making himself comfortable on the hard boat seat. "It is hard to find up from down in the water without your eyes."

The oar moved towards his head without much purpose.

Jaqen leaned down, allowing it to sail over the top of his head.

"A boy will need to practice his aim."

"Why are you here," Aemond asked, pulling the oar back to hold in front of his chest. He looked around frantically, unseeing eyes focusing on everything and nothing all at once. "You already bade me to come back tomorrow."

"A boy cannot return tomorrow if a boy does not make it home today," Jaqen said. "And so a man must remain."

"You do not have to sound so happy about it," Aemond said, finally dropping the oar back down to the water. "Are you going to at least tell me where to go?"

"A man will not."

It was a miracle Aemond had managed to find his way to a boat.

It was an even greater miracle that he managed to steer his way back to the main docks of Braavos, over an hour though it may have taken.

But he was frozen after that.

Frozen in place, frozen in his new world of darkness, frozen as the rest of the world moved around him.

Jaqen remembered the feeling well. A perversion of the toxic gas that had once blocked out even the memories of the sun, a mimicry of the deepest parts of Valyria where all men of all faces – who worshipped all gods and who dies with their names on their lips – suffered the same fate. He had once thought to meet the same end, as a starving youth liberated from a slave ship.

But he had been too arrogant then.

Just as a boy was now.

His loss of sight would serve as his teach more than Jaqen could hope to, the fear the blunt instrument of his lessons.

Aemond remained frozen in place, turning around in place as he struggled to pick which direction he should walk in.

"A boy should move."

Jaqen knew he should not mock. It was unbecoming and unnecessary. A Faceless Man had not need for debasing themselves, for they cared not for the revelries at suffering or the prolonging of death. He wanted to, just as he wanted to banish Aemond from their ranks and forget that he ever met the Green Witch of the Riverlands.

Aemond whirled around in place.

"Leave me alone!" He cried, milky eyes filling with tears. To his credit, he did not let them fall. Instead, he lifted a clenched fist and scrubbed it against his eyes. "Just…just leave me. I will come back tomorrow, I promise."

"A boy is unsafe out here alone," Jaqen said.

"A boy is unsafe without his eyes," Aemond snapped back, practically snarling. A few of the tears that he had tried so hard to at bay slipped out. "What did you do?" His voice was a little weaker than before, very much that of a ten year old boys and not of the young man he had been playing at for the last several weeks. "You did not even touch me."

"Does a man need to touch a boy to cause him pain?" Jaqen asked, leaning down to whisper in Aemond's ear before he stepped back, folding his hands together in front of his stomach. "Or can a boy cause such misfortune all on his own?"

Aemond swiped his right arm out, hoping to catch just a bit of Jaqen.

Just a piece.

Just enough to wrap his arms around and force him to undo whatever plague he had set upon him.

But he touched nothing but air.

And Jaqen could not help but smile at the effort.

His misguided movements, committed to his goal though they were, sent him tumbling forward. The ground arrived at an incredibly speed and Aemond slammed into it with more force than should have been possible, splitting his lip straight down the middle.

"A boy will get up." Jaqen stepped forward and made to grab him by the shoulders. "The sun is down and the night is dark."

Aemond rolled over, kicking his leg out.

"Leave me alone."

"As a boy wishes." Jaqen stepped back, allowing Aemond to get up without any further assistance. He had already helped too much and so he remained content to watch.

And when a boy finally managed to claw his way back to the gardens of his brackish host, Jaqen found himself the most impressed he had been the entire evening.

Aemond collapsed on the first bench he came too, skin clammy and red with sweat. Jaqen watched his chest as it moved up and down. He would take his leave of the boy and trust that he would return to their halls by evening next. He had spent too much of his time on his already, neglected his other duties and denied several lucrative contracts, for the sake of the impertinent, ungrateful boy.

Jaqen spared not glance for the boy as he made his way through the garden.

It had been years since he had been in a house so fine, though he had paid visits to the lords who liked to inhabit them what felt like a thousand times over. But he was not here to claim another for the Many-Face God and as such he felt not need to hurry his escape.

"Do not be frightened," A light voice said, speaking low and careful. "The cat won't come back with me here."

Jaqen, at home in the shadows, slunk back to watch the girl as she scooped the little bird into her pale hands. A girl for a boy. Jaqen knew her face well. He had watched it from afar for long enough, observed the way she seemed to move in tandem with the boy current suffering not one hundred paces away.

She lifted the bird up to her lips, speaking to it in hushed whispers.

"I cannot help you, little friend."

The thought pained the girl and when she moved her hands, Jaqen saw the little smear of blood that now pooled in her palms. So a cat had meant to make a quick meal of bird.

Such was the way of things.

"Perhaps you might try," A familiar voice said, causing Jaqen to slink even further into the dark.

Alys Rivers.

That abominable green cunt.

Jaqen was meant to past such feelings of anger and hatred, yet he found himself overwhelmed by them all the same. Her posture was more open here – now that she was free of the white and red shackles that she claimed were fastened to her – and he hated her all the more for it.

Why should she walk free?

Why should she bear no marks from all that she had done?

Oh, to have someone utter her name.

But Jaqen did not think even the Many-Faced God would accept her rotten soul.

The girl turned around, clutching the nearly dead bird close to her chest, and looked for the source of the interruption. Her eyebrows, curiously dark for one so fair, scrunched together.

"Excuse me?"

"Perhaps you might try to help your friend," Alys pushed again.

"Alys?"

"Good evening, my lady." Alys dropped into an affected bow, inclining her head to the much younger girl. "Forgive me for intruding. I had not thought to find a member of your house out so early."

"I couldn't sleep," The girl said, looking back to the bird in her hands.

"Prince Aemond will return."

"I know."

"And yet you worry all the same." The girl looked up, swirling bronze eyes sharpening. "Forgive me, my lady. I should not speak to you in such a way."

"What did you mean? That I should try?"

"I really should not…" Alys trailed off, voice simpering and false.

Wearing a face that was not hers.

Masking her intentions.

Jaqen felt his lip curl into a scowl. She had not pledged herself to his god and yet she tried to honor him all the same. But it was a mummer's farce. The girl was simply too young and too green – nauseating color that it was – to see it.

"No, you speak as if you know what you are talking about," The girl cut to the quick, he would give her that, and already he found her more tolerable than the boy currently writhing around on a stone bench. "I would have you tell me."

More tolerable, but no less arrogant.

"It's just, your mother was a Royce. I've heard rumors is all, just the gossip of fishwives."

"And you believe it to be true? About me?"

"Your family rides dragons. One does not seem more impossible than the other," Alys said, keeping her head inclined. But even from the shadows, Jaqen could see that she had gotten her wish out of this conversation and that her unnaturally red lips were already creeping back into a smile.

Jaqen was supposed it was a feat, tricking a ten year old.

But then again, he should not look to judge.

He had blinded one.

But his ten year old seemed to be of the most annoying sort and hers the sort that wept over nearly dead birds. They were not the same.

"Impossible," The girl repeated, looking back down at the bird.

"It was not my place, my lady."

"Where are you from again?"

"The Riverlands, my lady."

"And these rumors of my family have reached so far?"

"The blood of the First Men is heavy and it carries with it more than just the whispers that reach King's Landing."

"And you know of this? A maid from the Riverlands?" The girl's mouth seem to curl around the word 'maid', as if it was a concept that she did not believe. "Of things heavier than dragons?"

"Nothing is heavier than dragons."

"Bu-"

"But that does not mean others are not without their weight."

"You are speaking in riddles and I do not care for it," The girl said, straightening herself to her full height. "Not now."

"Prince Aemond will return."

"Is this something else a maid from the Riverlands would know?"

"No," Alys said, standing up as well. "Not a maid, no. But I was raised in the comfortable shadows of House Strong and I know of the infallibility and the heartiness of dragons. He will return."

"I should not be out of bed."

"Your new friend will die," Alys said, growing bolder as the conversation continued, continuing to draw the little girl in just as she showed signs of pulling away.

A witch's trick.

One that Jaqen himself had fallen prey too so many years before.

The girl looked down at bird once again, seeming to finally consider the witch's words. "I think it is already dead."

Her voice trembled and she looked around, posture sagging.

She really was a frightfully little thing.

Wispy.

Fleeting.

Unmoored.

And yet something crackled around her, something pulled Alys closer. Something called Alys Rivers here and forced her to haunt the steps of a child and Jaqen would do wise to not let his anger cloud him from trying to see it for himself. But he should also leave. He had already lingered too long after seeing his task done, indulged himself too much in his own curiosity.

Allowed too much of Jaqen to linger in the place that belonged to No One.

The girl turned her back to Alys – facing Jaqen in the protection of his shadowy hide -dropping her head low over the bird. Her pale hand reached down, fumbling for something buried beneath the fabric of her night dress. She pulled out a small blade – notched and made of common bronze – and palm it in her hand.

"I shouldn't," She said, still keeping her back to Alys. "Not like this."

"I have overstepped, my lady."

The girl ignored her, head tilting to her side. She raised her arm, holding the knife over the bird for the briefest of moments, before she brought it down and dug it into the meatiest part of her palm. The blood bloomed fast, coating her palm and the bird that held it.

Jaqen could not fight the impulse to lean forward.

To watch as the limp bird began to flutter once again.

To watch has it lived for just the briefest of moments before falling dead at her feet.

Behind her, Alys Rivers scowled.

And Jaqen knew that it was not mere accident that found them all in this garden. He made to move back, to extract himself from her web before she sense the tremors on the spidersilk.

The girl dropped the bird to the ground, thick blood forming a thread to connect them until it finally broke and she severed herself and sprinted away, back through the garden and in the direction of Jaqen's discarded pupil.

Taking a great weight with her.

"You can come out now, Jaqen."

Jaqen pushed himself off the garden wall that he had found purchase against, lingering for the briefest of moments as he prepared himself to bandy words with her. They had done this more times than he could count and he bore the marks of all her barbs in ways that would never be seen. He should have liked to deal with the other two of her merry band, if for nothing else than to watch her squirm.

Under the foot of Melisandre, she was nothing but a worm.

Under the gaze of Mysaria, she was nothing but a snake.

On her own, she was a terror.

And Jaqen was forced to endure her until his debt to her was paid in full.

For he would not be here without her intervention and the Many-Faced God would never have received his fealty.

One day, he sincerely hoped the Many-Faced God would receive her face.

If he were fortunate, he would be the one to cut it from her body.

"Did a woman find what was sought?"

"Aemond!"

Alys smirked, extending her arms. "See? We have all found what we are looking for tonight. No harm done. They are both home safe."

"After a witch had her fun with a girl."

"I assure you, I felt no pleasure from such things. Weak little bitch." Jaqen raised his eyebrows, tilting his head to the side to watch as Alys picked up the discarded bird. She squeezed it tight in her palm, taking great pleasure in watching its little body give under the crush of her fingers. "Tell me, did Aemond cry when you took his eyes, or would that be too much fun for you?"

"I took a boy's eyes as a man's Master took them. A boy will have them back when a boy learns his lesson."

"For what crime?"

"Arrogance."

"Pride," Alys taunted, the meek maid gone. In her place, stood the woman who haunted his dreams. "And you know nothing of such things? Tell me, do you still carry her face in your pocket?"

Jaqen's back stiffened.

"A man will not speak of this."

"Of course not. A man would never kiss and tell." Alys looked down at the dead bird. "What was her name, your Targaryen whore? The one to whom you confessed your love?"

"A man will not speak a woman's name."

"Saera. Such silly name for a dragon. It holds nothing, commands nothing. She was a discredit to her house and her blood and you fell for the wet cu-"

Jaqen crossed the space between them and wrapped his hand around her neck.

"Enough."

Alys laughed, shaking her head even as he squeezed tighter.

"Can I see it?"

Her skin purpled and still she mocked him.

Her eyes bulged and still she smiled.

And when he could not do what he desired most she laughed openly in his face, pushing him back. He dropped is hands to the side and clenched his fists, anger bubbling up and down through ever single thread of his being.

"A woman is a liar."

"About a great many things, I am sure," Alys said, openly laughing at him now. "But what is it now? Have I lied about your pathetic love for Jaehaerys's whore? Have I lied about your debt? Have I lie-"

"A woman is a liar about a boy."

"Ah," Alys said, shrugging her shoulders as she looked down at the dead bird in her hands.

"And a woman has hidden the powers of a girl."

"Or lack thereof."

As if to make her point, she dropped the bird between their feet. It landed with a smack, splattering the girl's blood onto the bright stone.

"A girl shows promise."

"She is weak. Her powers will swallow her whole and Melisandre's little pet will die before she fulfills her mother's oath. It is the way of things. I can see why she would interest you – disturbing comparisons to your Saera aside." Jaqen lunged at her again, but she stepped back and waved her hands. "You share the same affliction, Jaqen. The same weakness. The only difference is that when it comes time for Ophaella Targaryen to die, she will do so in service of a greater purpose. You, however, will die with the blood of thousands on your hands and with liars words stuck in your throat."

Alys stepped on the bird as she moved closer, crushing it beneath her foot.

She pressed her lips closer to his ear.

"Does your god know that the faces you steal are not for him? Does he know you serve another master? Does he know that you serve me?"

"A man owes a woman debt. A man does not owe a woman his worship."

"No, you reserve that for Targaryen women. Do be careful with this new one, she looks like she breaks easy. But then again, that might be preferable for you. After all, you have another pocket."

Alys stepped back and smiled.

It was a wicked thing.

And even after all this time – even after all that he had seen and done – it still turned his guts to water.

"You will continue to train Aemond Targaryen."

"A boy trained will be a boy forgotten. A boy will be No One."

"He will never be no one. He will be everyone. He is everything and his is the fire that will free us. Have your girl. What you do with her is between you and Melisandre."

"A man wants nothing with a girl."

"Certainly. And a woman wants nothing with a boy."

One of them was lying.

And Jaqen H'ghar had never been in that business.

At least, not in his own mind.

She gave him one more parting smile before she waved her hand at him, mocking and dismissive, and disappeared back into the gardens. She watched the back of her black hair, waiting for her to be well and truly gone before he let his back muscles relax.

He had lingered too long.

Given in to his own desires too much.

He wanted nothing to do with the girl. He wanted nothing to do with any of them. But if his fate was to be tied to the Targaryens, if he was to be tangled up with them in ways that he had not been for nearly a decade.

Since Saera.

Ten years it had been since he dared utter her name.

Ten years it had been since she died.

Jaqen shook his head, riding himself of such traitorous thoughts. They were not the thoughts of No One and they served no purpose other than to make him angry.

Jaqen picked up the dead bird, cradling in his hands as Ophaella Targaryen just had. He ran his fingers over the blood that stained its feathers. He looked at it for a moment longer before he tipped it over the side and let its body fall into the water. A better burial than crushed beneath a boot and left to rot.

A better fate than to be left struggling in the web of witches.

To be left pulling to be free, only to be forced to rip one's own arms off in the process.

Jaqen knew the feeling well.

He had lost his own a thousand times over.

And tomorrow he would do so again when Aemond Targaryen returned to his halls and he began his next lesson.

But first he need to write a letter to a certain red witch and then he needed to sleep. Perhaps when he woke in the morning Jaqen H'ghar would have left him and he would be No One once again.

He did not hold onto that hope.

Such things had always been and would always be folly.