Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/29947.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire_-_Martin, Game_of_Thrones_(TV), A_Song_of_Ice_and
      Fire_&_Related_Fandoms
  Relationship:
      Jaqen_H'ghar/Arya_Stark
  Character:
      Jaqen_H'ghar, Arya_Stark
  Additional Tags:
      General
  Stats:
      Published: 2007-11-21 Words: 3467
****** A Man Owes Three ******
by rabbitprint
Summary
     Spoilers. Set during Feast for Crows, pre-Cat of the Canals. Whether
     in the House of Black and White or out in the woods, some parts of
     life continue on.
The House of Black and White was not the most miserable of places to be.
Braavos was a city that welcomed in strays; it was accustomed to visitors of
all faces and tongues, and the gods that stood in the temple were testament to
the motley. No one who looked at Arya seemed to expect a refugee of House
Stark. She could probably have stood on her head and called herself Joffrey,
except she was brave, not stupid.
The temple was safe enough, almost pleasant, with her lumpy bed and nest of
blankets. The peace of it was at times unnerving; there were no wars on the
roads here. Arya had a full belly, and never had to fear the whims of filthy,
slobbery guards who were as likely to stab a person as hand them their used
dishes. No one was trying to rape or kill her, or both.
The nights were less comfortable. Her room was safe -- the luxury that she had
a room was incredible enough, one that she didn't have to share or worry about
knifers coming to search her smallclothes for pennies -- and she was warm
enough. The dreams were what bothered her. Most of the time, she slept straight
through until dawn. But other nights, she had what she called her Arya dreams -
- the ones that weren't just about wolves, but also about people.
Sometimes her mother was there. Sometimes Jon. But sometimes there was Jaqen,
and these dreams were the strange ones, filled with places she'd been since her
father died and places that never existed before. Only instead of being a ten-
year-old grubby with smoke, with mud, she was an Arya who never was: an Arya
who was happier and stronger and sometimes was a girl and sometimes looked like
a boy and was big enough to push Jaqen back whenever he put his hands on her
shoulders, chuckling softly with a voice that sounded like hot water bubbling.
But sultry looks were no longer things that Arya cared for, not even in
jealousy. Being able to pass for a boy did her more service than ever a gown
could have saved her. Sansa could not have escaped pursuit the same way. It
made no sense for Arya to want to look like something that would kill her.
Anyway, Jaqen -- with his fine pretty cheekbones -- made a better Maiden than
she did.
The dreams themselves were usually kind enough not to bother with all the
complicated reasons why Jaqen would have been there, when she was not herself
and he was wearing a face that might never have been his own, and also why they
were wrestling in the back of sheds and smoking barns while brigands were
outside. Normally the dreams jumped past all the details and landed her right
in the middle, just when she was feeling warm and content and strong. They
never got around to explaining just how he even got there, let alone why she
was drowsing in the crook of his ribs and arm, or why she was letting him run
his palm down her stomach, stroking her like a cat.
The first time she'd dreamed of Jaqen, she'd woken up confused and disgusted.
Her sleeper's mind clearly did not understand what should be a priority, even
though it recognized boys as being uninteresting whenever Arya was awake. Jaqen
wasn't a boy anyway. Jaqen was Jaqen, dangerously polite and sweet and
obedient, like a well-trained hunting hawk whose jesses had been accidentally
picked up by Arya's hand. For a time, she'd held control over him. He had given
his vow to her so easily that he could have been lying, but he'd obeyed her
with each death she'd commanded.
Even the last, in its own way.
For weeks, she tossed and turned on her cot. The dreams came erratically. Jaqen
was a frequent visitor, much to her dismay; she wasted too many of her nights
touching him, sprawled over him or beside or underneath. His presence made her
feel better, somehow, even despite his constant smile and his awful red and
white Lorathi hair.
The next time she closed her eyes and saw wolves, it was a relief. The forest
was thick around her. Her feet were already in motion across the grasses,
propelling her easily over the rotting logs and brambles cluttering her path.
The pack was in motion all together, their bellies sated from an earlier kill.
They coursed like grey, furred waves.
Another wolf snapped its jaws near her, but instead of being afraid, Arya
turned and bit the air back, pulling ahead of the group with a stretch of her
paws. That wolf was one that had tussled with her before, she knew. He'd chased
her across the fields but had never managed to keep up; she had woven across
the hills as surely as if she could fly. He had always given up panting halfway
while she was still running strong, and only when she trotted back to the pack
would he flatten his ears in an exaggerated yawn, pretending disinterest as he
whuffed at her neck.
This time, she slowed deliberately, turning at the fork between a slope and the
river. He came bounding up the trail too eager to notice her trap; when she
sprang out like a snake, he went down rolling underneath her weight. His whine
made her giddy with energy. She tussled, mock-biting at his throat, until they
were tumbling together like overgrown puppies full of enthusiasm and life.
Then the forest vanished. Arya was standing in the dungeons of Harrenhal,
underneath the Widow's Tower, shivering on two legs instead of four. Down the
hall, she could hear the work as Biter and Rorge went at it, slaughtering the
scalded guards.
Jaqen came towards her slowly through the carnage. His sword was dripping; his
hands were as well, and when he reached for her, she already could predict the
words coming out of his mouth, recited back from memory.
"A girl should be bloody too," he said. "This is her work."
When he reached for her shift to wipe the sword on it, she flinched away
instead. He chuckled and knelt, extending one blood-slick palm towards her
cheek; she let him touch her, expecting him to be cold and sticky and not at
all like he'd come straight out of a scented bath. He even smelled the same,
perfumed hair and all.
She edged closer, reaching experimentally for the sword. But when she took it
by the hilt, the blade became Needle in her hand, and she leaned against Jaqen,
feeling miserable and stupid. He kissed her hair, again and again, just like
the first time she'd opened her eyes on her straw bed below the Wailing Tower
and found him whispering promises into her ear.
"Come with me across the sea," he invited, but Winterfell stretched out behind
her, beckoning to her with its clean skies. When she did not move, he faded
away and then Winterfell did too, leaving Arya alone on a field of fire and
smoke and her mother's screams.
She woke up feeling sick. When she washed her face, she thought she could taste
charcoal on her teeth.
Dreams sometimes had meaning, that much Arya knew. These ones, however, seemed
to play by no rules that she could puzzle out. In her sleep, she was always the
one to tangle fingers in Jaqen's hair and yank him downward, until he was
pressing his chest against her cheek and laughing. But when she was awake, it
wasn't Jaqen's touch that she craved, but his knowledge: how to change his
face, how to kill, how to smile while doing it all.
Not all nights were lewd. Sometimes she saw her father again. They spoke of
little things. Once she dreamed they were in the kitchens handling the dulled
knives the cooks would use on fruit, and her father was lecturing her
methodically in all the ways a person was not like an apple. Sometimes, it
wasn't her father, but Jaqen wearing her father's face.
Those ones were the worst. They always left her feeling twisted and confused,
missing her father and missing Jaqen all at once, missing everything she might
have been taught if only things hadn't gone so wrong. If her family had stayed
in Winterfell where it had been safe, by now she would have been probably
forced into dresses -- but it would have been worth it to have everyone alive
again. If she had gone with Jaqen, she would have given up her desire to return
home, but she'd never reached Winterfell anyway in the end. Now there was no
one.
If Jaqen was with her -- or Jon, or her father, or Syrio Forel with his clever
swordwork -- then maybe one of them would have known what to do, and she
wouldn't have had to muddle around anymore getting further and further away
from Winterfell. It left her angry, angry that they were gone and angry at
herself that she wanted someone else to be there at all. The lone wolf had
survived. She could take care of herself.
Except that some part of her body apparently disagreed. She wondered why, of
all times, such dreams had decided to haunt her now. If her name day had not
come and gone, then Arya was still ten. If it had already, then she was still
too young, as she measured it. She did not want to become a maiden flowered;
she did not want to be married off somewhere to spread her legs for a stranger.
Her opportunity to ask for help appeared the next day. The candle reserves were
running low, and Arya was supposed to make sure there were enough for the
youngest acolyte to refill them, except that there hadn't been any in the rest
of the temple either. When the kindly man had noticed her attempts to flap her
hands uselessly at the acolyte for communication, he had told her to look for
more in one of the workrooms during the afternoon hours.
When she slid into the chamber, the kindly man was already parceling out a box
of candles. At first she waited obediently, watching the lines of rolled wax
build themselves into a bridge from one side of the table to the other. Then,
when the kindly man finished one row and began another, she spoke.
"You said not many women serve the God. If I start becoming one, and not
like..." her hand made a stuttering jerk towards the kitchens, not daring to
think about the waif, uncertain about Umma the cook, "will I not be able to
stay here?"
"Have you become so old?" The kindly man sounded a little amused and a little
sympathetic, but mostly practical. "If you begin to think with something other
than what's up here," and he tapped her gently on her skull with a finger,
"then I will give you an herb to distill in water, if it is your desire. Drink
it each night, and it will help you focus your energies better on your tasks
for the God."
"Wait," she blurted out at the last second. She closed her fingers on nothing,
jerking her palm back before he could place anything inside. It is the poisons
that have made her as you see her, the kindly man had said once of the waif.
Poisons took numerous shapes. "Would it do anything to me other than let me
sleep? Would it make me different?"
He regarded her steadily. "Is becoming different something you would fear, Arya
of House Stark?"
She did not know what to say. If she didn't change, then she would be
noticeable forever as Arya, Arya the Scruffy, Arya of Winterfell. But if she
did, then no one would ever recognize her again either. "Don't want to. Not for
dreams."
"Then control them," he answered her, with a gentle lift of one eyebrow, and
gathered another tray of candles out of the crate.
After that, she'd given up on trying to muddle any sense of meaning out of her
nightly misery, which was made worse because she often woke up feeling relaxed
and satisfied, her muscles slack as if she had been sitting in a hot bath for
hours. She didn't mind the excuse to bring a cup of water to bed, though, and
the cook always tolerated her request. Most of the time, Arya let the cup sit
all night and gulped it down in the morning to rinse out her throat, but
sometimes she would wake up and sip at it when she couldn't sleep, wetting her
mouth until it gradually felt less parched.
Other times, she stared at the packet of herbs by the light of her blue candle,
and brooded. She had saved Jaqen's life and he had remembered her for it,
unlike everyone else who had come and gone out of Arya's world after her
father's death. He had turned her from a mouse back into a wolf at Harrenhal.
The face she had known him by was gone -- his name was gone, if the kindly
man's reaction was to be believed -- but something lingered behind. He had been
her secret when she'd prowled Harrenhal. It was as if somehow, either by their
agreement or by killing him, Jaqen had woven a leash that reeled her mind back
as surely as a fishing line. He had been her hand in the night. He had been
made hers.
Not like the others, though. Killing them had done nothing but leave empty
spaces behind in her litany; she was not tied to them, and they never invaded
her sleep.
Ser Gregor, Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Ceresi, she
whispered as she curled up on her cot that night, but none of their faces
appeared. It was Jaqen again, his knees tangled with hers as they lounged in
the hay of a barn. Horses whickered sleepily in the stalls around them.
Outside, she could hear the clamour of a small anvil. The tanging ring of the
hammer working over horseshoes sounded like a chain rattling in the wind. It
was an afternoon that had never existed in Winterfell; Arya could think of
worse places to be stuck.
Jaqen laid his thumb against the junction of her jaw and ear like a molten
brand. "Here is another way to kill a man," he was saying, but Arya, restless,
had no patience for him. She bit his thumb. When he winced, she shifted her
mouth and lapped at it, sucking with the knuckle trapped between her teeth and
tongue until his expression went slack, and he made a quiet groan.
He ducked his head, going deliberately still against her; she could feel his
lungs working, but everything else was heavy with forced relaxation. He felt
good and warm and safe, a layer of muscle placed between her and the world. She
buried her nose against his ear.
If anyone came in and tried to stab her, she reasoned, they'd have to work
their way through him first. That was as useful as steel.
After a moment, she shoved at him. "Is talk all that you'll do?"
Jaqen pushed back at her, firm against the hay. "A girl's untampered virtue is
still of some worth when she is of a noble house, so this one has heard." Arya
winced at the reminder and he fell silent. She thought that was all, until he
began to add, "Provided that one's house remains -- "
"Don't say it," she ordered. "Don't."
He slid his hand down, working it between their bellies like a hot spider.
Clothing tangled under his palm, though he did not move it aside, simply
adjusting inch by inch until his fingers were finally pressed between her legs,
cupped as if to hold her there in case she thought to escape. They were so
carefully immobile that Arya found herself wanting to rub against them; pinned
beneath him, she could only squirm, which seemed to make the nerves worse.
Finally Jaqen removed his fingers, leaving her with a dull sense of frustration
that was far worse than before.
When she cursed him, Jaqen shook his head. "A girl should be careful," he
warned. "A girl may not know what she asks."
She scowled. His weight was becoming less comfortable by the moment. "And a
friend would not offer that which would harm," she retorted. "Not on purpose."
With that, he made a sigh, sitting back on his heels. "Just so, evil child."
His fingers tugged at the laces of her breeches until he had undone them
completely, exposing the skin of her belly and legs to the stable air. "Just
so."
She wasn't exactly sure what was supposed to happen after that. Some animals
just lay there and took it when they were mounted; whores were supposed to
squirm and squeal. But Arya was neither beast nor doxie, and the last thing she
wanted to do was be meek as Jaqen pressed his lips to her forehead, and nudged
her knees aside.
She fought him instead, fisting her hands in his hair, pulling and twisting at
his scalp and ears. He yielded wherever she pushed too hard; this both
disappointed and relieved her, egging her on. She craned her neck and bit him
hard in the thick muscle connecting his shoulder to his neck, and then Jaqen
finally jerked in reaction.
"A girl should know not to tempt her fate," he whispered. Something had
happened to his voice, turning it husky and thick. Because of me? Arya
wondered. The sudden inspiration of control was heady, even as she wondered if
she had finally pushed him too far this time. He had never hurt her before, but
she had always known there was a line in him that was dangerous to cross, much
like the kindly man.
"A girl sees no reason for her fate to be in danger," she shot back, refusing
to be intimidated.
As if this declaration was a final vow of war, Jaqen's mouth went solemn. He
pressed himself against her again, laying himself along her legs and stomach,
while one hand traced the skin along her neck. His grip was strong, not
painful. He shifted against her to lean closer and closer, and she was curling
into him despite herself, letting her hips move shallowly against his body in
clumsy, haphazard motions.
Even her dream was disappointing her. Jaqen did not seem to be doing anything
to her maidenhead, but finally something was loosening inside her, like an ache
or a muscle cramp, or some itch deep inside her that had kept building and
building as inexorably as wolves bearing down on a hart. When the spasm came,
it took Arya by surprise. At first it felt like a clench in her muscles,
painless but constricted. Then the tightness quickly eased out and melted back
into heat. Her skin was damp with sweat. Jaqen's hair kept tickling her face.
She was breathing slower, the tension still wound up in her body but gradually
ebbing, when suddenly Jaqen pulled back. His outline was poised above her like
a hawk.
"What is the third name?"
It was a wrong question; even in the muddle of her dreams, it was the wrong
question for him to ask. The real answer was ingrained in her memory -- Jaqen
H'ghar -- but dream-Arya lifted her head and hissed in his ear: "Arya Stark."
Jaqen shuddered. He shifted his weight onto his arms, lifting himself further
up, and then his face was changing, melting into the hook-nosed man -- and then
into people she had never seen before, dark-skinned and light and tan, until
all the skin sloughed away and revealed the grinning jaws of a wolf above her.
The bristles of its fur pressed thick and oily against her skin. It thrust its
hips a final time, and Arya bared her fangs and howled.
She woke up sweating. Her fingers fumbled at the table near her cot, finding
the cup of water set upon it. Half the herbs scattered as she tore the paper
wad open. She aimed them haphazardly towards the cup, dipping a corner of the
paper into the liquid by accident, and almost dropping the entire thing in when
her hand refused to stop trembling.
The cup was halfway to her lips before she could stop herself. Her reflection
shimmered back at her, its eyes panicked and wide. For a moment, she did not
recognize the person floating on the surface of the water.
She stared at it, and then dashed the cup on the floor.
The next night, she dreamed of wolves, and her mother, and nothing more.
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