Hereafter

TeeFade

Disclaimer: I am so glad George R. R. Martin allows me to play in his world
with his characters,and goodness knows their genius does not belong to me!

Please enjoy this, my first AsoIaF fanfiction. I have this unhealthy obsession with Jaqen H'ghar,
and I hope you will enjoy a look into a man's mind as much as I enjoy writing it. I am not sure
exactly how long this will be. Reviews with thoughts and feedback will be greatly appreciated!
I am thinking next chapter will be Arya's POV. Cool?

ooooo

It is not only the face that changes. Whole beings shift in and out of existence, and not without a price. Structure remains but its use chages—one may have perfectly functioning eyes yet is unable to see. Preferences, favourites, perceptions, opinions; all of these change, and more. If they do not change it is incomplete, for a man cannot cease to exist if there are trinkets kept, as if stuffed in a chest to be brought out on occasion and remembered fondly. It is impure. Wrong. Unprofessional. There should be no semblence of life after death.

Yet a man had been doing just that for many moons. He did not keep everything, only that which a man could not bear to part with. Her stare, stern and scowling and wrought with challenge. The feel of undoctored hate that always surrounded her. The smug, arrogant tone of voice that spoke his name and doomed him. A man had never come across such a creature—more wolf than child, and untameable at that.

There had been a long stretch of time where he'd heard nothing of her. Back then his box of trinkets only opened at night as flashes of dreams, so blurred and quick he felt he'd imagined it in the morning.

He hadn't meant to purposely think of her again. Of course he'd heard mention of her name in his travels. Even though her family had been all but demolished, the Stark name was on everyone's lips. It was the nature of the rumour in which he'd heard her mentioned that ultimately tempted his memories so. The box of trinkets he'd kept so closed and close to himself that he hadn't even known had been there burst open, overwhelming him with a sigh of relief.

Arya Stark. He had known Arya Stark. She had been fierce, stubborn, and intently lethal. Her eyes were hardened steel and whatever fear was in her was overcome by hate. Her life had been torn and broken but she'd childishly clung to the hope that vengeance could fix all of her problems. She was a dirty, snarling little thing. She had herself half convinced she was a boy and the other half of herself convinced that she was some sort of impenetrable vessel of judgement. She had many lessons to learn and much growing up to do. When he left her, she had been but a child betrayed.

But she had been found now, they said, and was the maiden reincarnate on her way to the marraige bed of Ramsay Bolton.

The thought brought on an unusual wave of anxiety. He should not know her, for Jaqen H'gar was dead, but he could not help it. The only way he can imagine her behaving long enough for the sickening man to throw his cloak around her shoulders was if they had her tied and gagged. A muzzle for the wolf girl. The thought made his stomach drop.

His face changed that night—his name, family, everything. As he made his way north to Winterfell posing as one of the many bannermen on their way to witness the union, his box of trinkets followed, opened so that he could pick through the memories whenever he needed.

Indeed the girl had brown hair, and it had grown ever so long since he had last seen her. She was a slight thing with hardly a woman's body. He had clenched his teeth and had already started tallying the list of who would need to die that night to free the wolf girl once again.

"A man remembers," he whispered as soon as he could sneak himself close to her. She would not know his face, but she had never been a stupid child. She knew what he was.

Her body twisted, her chin jutting out as her thin face tilted up to gaze at him. Too thin. And the lips too full. The eyes were the wrong colour and were filled only with thinly veiled fear.

This girl was no wolf.

He retreats before she can say anything, for her lips are twitching with want to ask questions and he will not be able to answer her honestly. This is not Arya, Arry, or any other of the silly names she'd given herself. This girl is innocent. Born with enough class and similarity to the Stark girl to pass as her for those who'd never met her before. She was in for a lifetime of hell and he was silently glad for it.

He stole away from Winterfell that same night, guiltless as he left the poor girl to suffer the consequences of chance. The longer this girl played the part, the longer his wolf girl would be safe.

He was satiated for a while with the knowledge that she was safely lost somewhere. His face changed again, and the box of trinkets was tucked away for safe keeping. But it wasn't going to last forever.

It took six months before the box burst open again.

He began to wonder, as if of a past life, how things would have been if she had said yes and gone with him. They would have crossed the Narrow Sea together, he would have shown her Braavos and she would be safe to grow into a fine faceless man.

The coin would give her safe passage, he knew, should she ever use it. And he would see her again, he knew, but not as she was. Not as she had been the last time he saw her, only a lovely girl, pleading and desperate.

Please don't go, Jaqen, she had said. The words were forever haunting him.

He might have stayed, too, if he were more than a servant to Him of Many Faces. If he were actually a man named Jaqen H'ghar. Or if he really was anyone at all. But this man had lost the priviledge to be his own person a long time ago.

Please don't go, Jaqen.

Her plead echoed, mingling with the memory of dark intent in her tone when she had spoken 'Jaqen H'ghar' as her third name.

A man had not felt more powerless than in that moment.

"Jaqen H'ghar," he would whisper sometimes, wondering if she still remembered that name, the dead man behind it, or even the Braavosi greeting he'd taught her.

Valar Morghulis. He can almost hear her words.

"Valar Dohaeris," he murmurs the reply to his memories.

ooooo

He was a sellsword that night. On the trail of some poor lout whose enemies had hired a group of them to rob him. The others in his group had barged ahead in the forest, intent on cutting the horse and rider off in the path above.

The horses' frightened whinny was the first sign. A cold chill pricked its way up his spine, and though the sellsword was not a coward he hid himself best he could. Leaving his horse in the path and covering his tracks in the snow, the man stayed, flickering furiously throughout trinket after trinket, hoping to remember every last thing about the wolf girl before they found him. The figures he glimpsed through dark, bare branches were paler than the snow, frozen wounds gaping, hair made of icicles and eyes of the most unearthly blue.

Men screamed. Grunts, clashing of swords, horses shrieking, but still he remained with his memories.

It was well in the dark hours of morning before a man disengaged himself from his hiding place. The monsters had been myths until this very night. Though surprised they hadn't found him, he was glad it would not be the last time he would recall her words.

Please don't go, Jaqen.

He should have been prepared for it. For anything to creep up on him. Instead, as he was rifling through the dead mens' pockets he was surprised at their arrival.

It was the hairs on the back of his neck that warned him. There was something there, something watching. He froze in his crouched position, withdrew his hand from the empty saddlebag, and turned slowly.

There were three of them, and more pairs of glowing eyes peering out of the darkness beyond.

The thought that crossed his mind was most ironic: he was a dead man.

Puffs of white breath curled from their nostrils and snarling snouts. Lean bodies tensed, ears flattened, half-crouched and ready to move at a moments' notice, they poised, waiting for something.

A man met the eyes of the creature leading them. The wolf was huge, larger by half than any of the others, almost as large as the horse he'd abandoned earlier. Her teeth were bared at first, but her lips slowly relaxed, her menacing eyes slid into slits, as if she were contemplating something. All wild with undeniable intelligence.

A man let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. The wolf took a slow step back, her stare never leaving him. Her pack retreated with low growls to the trees, but she alone remained to watch him leave.

A peculiar sense of familiarity raked through his chest, but all a man could do was breath, "Valar Murghulis," before retreating through the woods.

When he found a hollow to tuck himself into for the night he dreamed of a wolf with grey eyes. In the morning he was unable to say if it were the creature or the girl.

ooooo

Serving became a hard task to give himself to completely. He finished his promised jobs, for though he was only a sellsword he was as honest as they come, and then he could hold back no longer.

The House of Black and White called to him. Long overdue were his personal praises to the Many-Faced God. His serving abroad had gone on long enough, it was time to go back. These were the lies he repeated to himself until he had himself convinced there was reason more for him to return than the hope of seeing a lovely girl again.

Vale's Kiss was the name of the ship that brought him to Braavos. A man was a sailor, and on the worst nights—when the waves threatened to roll the ship with the force of their crashes, when all one could do was hang on and empty one's stomach until it was over—he wondered how the girl had fared on her way over.

Then he would once again repeat his reasons for his return, for he did not know for sure that she had come.

Braavos hadn't changed.

The same people filled the docks, the streets, the shops. The same smells as well—stenches of fish, wafts of stews, salt in the air. The House of Black and White stood in its dark glory, windowless, ebony and weirwood doors stark against the stone. Stark.

He searched the city by day and visited the temple by night, bringing with him a different face each time. Arya Stark was nowhere to be found.