CHAPTER 2

Euron was having a complete meltdown. He had his men scour the entire city and even the outskirts. Five ships had departed recently and any one of them could have been slave ships for all he knew. Ivy was gone and any trace of her was gone too. He was being a complete and utter tyrant. The other pirates were completely miserable because of Euron and relentlessly searching for that girl. They were glad when he finally gave up on the girl and they had left port a few days later.

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She left her baggage by the pool as she searched the entire cavern now that she had light. Another tunnel led to a huge room filled with huge dirty terracotta pottery urns and old wooden crates filled with containers of gold and silver coins, nuggets, ore, cut and uncut gemstones. There were dry old skeleton bones of long time dead people with rotted clothes laying around. Ivy thought, 'It's a huge room filled with treasure!'

Ivy searched every inch of the cavern and tunnels. She found a bundle of old candles covered in layers of dirt and grime with a half burnt one covered in dirt and sand. She took off weapons, jewelry and things from the five skeletons. Ivy figured they wouldn't need it anymore anyway. She found gold, silver, diamonds, garnets, tourmaline, amethyst, opals, sapphires and rubies. It was like a hoard with some stones already cut and some gold and silver in coin form. Everything was all under an inch or two of dirt and sand, so it had obviously been here a long time. She found a beautiful longsword with scrollwork on the blade that it glowed, a set of four jeweled daggers, some useful knives, rotted coin purses and some jewelry pieces. Ivy was looking over the objects she had found on the skeletons. One in particular, looked like a strange iron coin. She had a pain shoot into her head holding her hands to her head and closing her eyes. She got a vision of a man with this kind of coin telling another man, "Valar Morghulis. Braavos." The other man nodded and answered, "Valar dohaeris." The man gave him passage on the ship. Ivy saw a large building with a black and a white door.

She opened her eyes and held the coin up to the light, inspecting it more. She then was inspecting the pendant she found by holding it up looking at the details and designs on the etched gold. The chain had a tiny key on it with a big round garnet in the middle of the pendant that had a keyhole in the back of it with a door. Ivy took it all, grabbed her baggage and walked down the tunnel with the candle. She sat on the floor by the pool of water and started pulling out her dried food. She opened the back of the garnet gold round pendant about three inches around. Behind the back of the pendant was a big round tiny hinged door. It was a black hole inside. Ivy stuck her finger in it and nothing came out the other side, which shocked her. She turned it over into the palm of her other hand and gemstones and coins came out. She turned it back up and dumped the items back inside of it grinning. It was a magical space to store everything inside.

Ivy spent four days inside the cave filling the pendant with gold, silver and copper ore and nuggets with cut gemstones, uncut gemstones, gold and silver coins. She even counted the coins and had in total 125,444 gold dragon coins, 67,510 other gold she assumed were gold honors Euron spoke of and 13,298 silver with moons on them. She got everything to fit and even broke up ore rocks if they didn't with a large hammer she found. Ivy had about 20 cut gemstones and 27 uncut gemstones that wouldn't fit that were enormous. She estimated the round hole in the back to be about 2 inches.

Once she had cleared the room and skeletons picked clean of items, a longsword with writing on it, a decent looking tricorn leather hat that was old and still intact, several chains from around their necks, a few rings, a whetstone, a spyglass of some kind, two treasure maps on leather in a little wooden box in one particular skeleton's pocket. She had left the cave, putting the necklace around her neck inside her shirt, taking her bag with the big gemstones and everything inside of it out of the cave. Ivy headed back in the direction she came from to find Myr in all that sand.

After hours of traveling in the same direction, she saw the city on the horizon. She rented a room at a decent looking inn. She was able to take a bath in her room with a water pump and a tub with a drain. Ivy scrubbed herself clean from head to toe and then washed her clothes and laid them out to dry. She laid down and rested, falling asleep from exhaustion. She didn't sleep in the cave well, but slept hard locked in her room until the next day.

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Ivy got up, dressed and went out to get a black gauze cowl hooded cloak. She then ate a big breakfast. She went out to the docks and looked for a ship headed to Braavos. The one she found leaving the next day in the afternoon, she showed the coin and said, "Valar morghulis." The captain nodded and said, "Valar dohaeris." Ivy nodded and went back to the inn and paid for another night and bought enough food for herself on her month-long journey to Braavos and anything else she needed.

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After a month passed, she got off the ship in Braavos. She was walking around looking for the house with the black and white doors from her vision. She found it after a few inquiries and sat out on the steps in front of it loitering. Ivy was eating a handful of nuts and was sitting inside the entrance when a young eighteen year old man in a cloth robe with the hood up walked up to the door. He looked down at her but she was covered up.l

He said, "What does a person want?" She looked up at the handsome young man about eighteen years old with reddish brown hair and a couple streaks of white hair with grey eyes. His eyes got big looking at her. He was mesmerized by the beautiful little girl's face and blue green eyes.

She said softly, smiling, holding out her hand to him, "I found this and I thought you might want it back." He held his hand out and she placed it in his hand as he took it from her.

He looked down at it and looked back at her, cocking his head to the side. He said softly, "How did a girl find such a coin?"

Ivy said smiling, "I fell through a wall in a sandstorm and found it on the skeletal remains of a man who died long ago outside of Myr."

He said offering, "A girl can come inside. Come." She got up with her baggage and the sword and followed him through the door. It was dark inside so her eyes had to adjust for a moment. He led her through several corridors like a maze. She tracked the turns she made so she knew how to get back out of this dim lighted place.

They entered the room and the man asked smirking, "Does a girl know where she is?"

Ivy said smirking back at him, "Two rights, a left, a right and two lefts."

He smiled really big and said, "A girl is intelligent and very lovely. How did the girl know where the coin belonged?"

She thought about it but didn't not tell him about the vision. She said, "I saw one before and the man said, "Valar Morghulis. Braavos."

He asked curiously, "Where is a girl from?"

Ivy answered frowning, "Everywhere and nowhere. I don't remember anything, even my name. One and a half moon turns ago I was floating in the Narrow Sea and then I was on Euron Greyjoy's pirate ship 'The Silence'. I escaped him in Myr on the docks before he could, uh…. touch me or make me touch him. I ran out into the desert and found the cave in a sandstorm. That's where the man's remains were and had this coin on him. He was there for a very long time. Even his clothes had rotted away."

The man said, "The man was one of The House Of Black And White leaders from 121 years ago when the man disappeared. A girl has a destiny finding such a coin. The girl can ask one favor from The House Of Black And White."

She walked up to him looking up in his eyes and asked sincerely, "Can you train me to fight, protect myself and all that entails here? I will do chores and serve in exchange?"

He smiled really big and said, "A girl is on the first step to her destiny. Come, this man will get a girl a room and we can begin." She leaned in, wrapped her arms around him and hugged him saying thank you. He smiled at her and thought she truly was a lovely child.

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Eight years passed, a figure all in black creeps along in the shadows of the streets of Braavos. Keeping in the darkness of the hidden corners and blind alleys in the lack of illumination from a New Moon where there is no moonlight. The dark shape is completely stealth like a specter in the night. The silhouette climbs up the side of a two story building creeping up the trellis on the wall of vines and flowers to a window off to the side. The window was opened and was slowly opened fully as the dark form slipped inside the room as silent as the night.

In the room was a posh bedroom filled with an expensive collection of items from the far reaches of the known world. Gold trinkets and baubles laying on the dressers and shelves. The shadow moved silently seeking its target. In the bed was a man curled up holding a bed slave as he slept. As quick as a flash, a dagger was slitting the throat of the bed slave at the same time thrusting the knife deep into the man's heart with a twist cracking the ribs as the blade slid between the bones. The figure got to work collecting the face of the man and woman. The dagger and knife were wiped off and sheathed. The faces were rolled up and placed in a waxed canvas bag.

As fast as it had happened, the victims could not utter a sound. The shadow slipped out of the window, down the trellis to blend into the darkness of the night.

The assassin dressed in all black slipped through the door of The House Of Black and White. Silently moving through the hallway to the room of faces called The Hall Of Faces. The assassin mounted the face on the headpiece of stone in one of the alcoves that were housed for the purpose to cure it. The alcoves filled throughout the room from ceiling to floor.

A man in a cowl hooded cape with gray eyes, reddish brown hair and two streaks of white enters the room. He asks in a smooth voice, "Faces have been added to the room. Has a girl completed her mission?"

The figure in black knelt down before him in reverence and said, "A girl has. But may owe one life to the Many Faced God for the bed slave, even though slavery is forbidden in Braavos the target had one. The girl has taken the life of the bed slave for mercy's sake, for the bed slave would have been blamed in the dawn for the death. The bed slave would have been delivered to the Many Faced God on the morrow in a cruel way."

The cowled figure said, "So the Many Faced God got paid earlier than expected, but still got paid the death and the bed slave was given mercy early."

The black clothed female assassin said, "Yes, that is what the girl says to be true."

The cowled figure said, "The debt was still paid and the Many Faced God has his due by morning. The girl has done well and will be assigned another. Did The girl collect the bed slave's face?"

The assassin said, "Yes, the girl has." The cowled person nodded and turned to leave. She stood up and prepared both of the faces properly on the stone heads to cure. She then rinsed her hands in a special bowl at the door and left the room.

Ivy was in her room and stripped her clothing off completely by the light of a candle. She then removed the bindings wrapped around her breasts, so as not to inhibit her movement. The room was very rustic with only a cot, table, candle, four buckets of water on the floor and a bathtub of water with a drain plug in it. Not even a window. A bath had been prepared and left for her return.

She slipped into the cool water and soaped up her cloth and body, washing and rinsing the sweat off of her skin. Ivy washed her long dark hair and got out to dry off. Her body was perfectly toned, lean with beautiful curves and muscular with ample breasts. She was a rare and exquisite beauty at sixteen years old in 288AC. Ivy laid down and rested on the cot covered up with a light blanket.

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Seven days had passed and she was summoned to the Hall Of Faces, where the smooth talking cowl hooded man was waiting for her. She walked into the room and went down on bended knees before him.

The man in the cowl hooded robe said, "A girl has another task to complete. It will take a girl to King's Landing. The girl has performed her tasks making the Many Faced God happy with her. A girl must deliver the owed death of a man called Petyr Baelish. The fee has been paid to The House Of Black And White. A girl will leave in the morning for her task. Supplies, food and water have been provided."

She said, "A girl will not fail her task as always."

He subtly smiled a half smile because he was fond of her and said, "A girl is a lovely woman now. A man has been honored to teach and work with such a girl." Ivy stood up and looked him directly in the eyes, smiled and nodded. The cowl hooded man turned and left the hall.

She was packed up with everything in her bags, gear and belongings wearing a young man's face. She left for the docks. The ship was paid in advance and arranged to drop her off at King's Landing.