GOT ➨ Game of Thrones One Shots

{S5} Arya x Fem!Reader | All The Lonely People

[ "Waits at the window,
Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door-
Who is it for?
All the lonely people ... Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people ... Where do they all belong?" ]

Braavos had been your home city all your life- though far less populated in comparison to the great freed slave city Meereen, or King's Landing across the sea in Westeros, it was still plenty afresh with adventure and excitement. It was a city met with many a strange face- many a shady shift of hands exchanging coin for any known poison under the sun; blood money for bloody deeds- if you could imagine it (but wish you hadn't done so), it was probably being sold in Braavos.

Growing up, Braavos provided your innocently roguish mind a place you could constantly eavesdrop the carelessly told tales of assassins, smugglers, outcasts and runaway nobles alike- whether it be from a window left ajar or from the ceiling beams of an inn on the night, where for good reason the doors were shut to strangers, tourists and children. You cherished the tales of fellow women razing cities to the ground for noble conquests of power (though whether you heard the lady be told as the 'true queen' or as the 'mad queen' varied per place), of children working their way up from near-death on the streets to the high councils of noble houses across the sea-

but above all, the greatest stories you heard were set in your very own city- rumours, legends and alleged encounters with The Faceless Men. They were a discreet and well hidden group of people, but whispers ran through generations of the older families in Braavos- yours being one of them- and you heard your fill of horror stories about the men that could end a life within a fraction of a breath after someone spoke their name. Men who stole faces for a multitude of reasons according to the myths- your grandmother had told you it was because they sacrificed their identities: when they became Faceless, they were unbecome, and were thus nobody. This had puzzled you deeply as a child- the children stories of them being born with no faces, or no heads, or being demons made of shadow who could only survive in the day by living through a Man made more sense.

All these rumours and terrifying tales had enchanted you and ignited your curiosity, rather than made you averse to further investigation as you grew- and so you embraced the tales of the cunning, cut-throat and wily, growing to be a feisty, adventurous young lady at the age of 18 as you were today- you had spent so much of your life adoring these faceless beings without even beginning to consider what such a life would entail, and yet it was all you were certain you wanted.

It was a selfish thought- you cared a lot about your family and friends built up in the city, and you didn't consider the fact you might be sent to kill them- that you wouldn't be able to call yourself no-one and forget their faces so easily- and yet it wasn't until the day that you came across someone who had had intimate interactions with the Guild did you finally realise how naive you'd been.

Determined to be ready to join the Faceless in the next year, you had spent your teen years disciplining yourself by practising water-dancing with dual scimitars on an isolated spot of rocks by the docks, a winding path and steep hill away from your family's townhouse. You would twirl and lunge and spin the blades through the salty air till the sky went from pale pink to blood-orange, and in years had found solace in the spot, undisturbed as the day grew to a close.

Today things would change.

As you hopped down the rough, barely marked path, you were certain you spotted a silhouette hunched over by the rocks; it could've been the heat casting an illusion over the rocks, but you still drew your blades and found yourself slowing, tiptoeing down the path and instinctively keeping low- your heart pulsed in your throat with conflicting emotions. On one hand, you had heard tales of the Faceless ones chasing after a talented few to add to their ranks, and perhaps your day had come earlier than you could ever dream.