A/N: This chapter details HM's POV from the epilogue of The Assassin's Apprentice (chapter 60). It specifically deals with the section of the epilogue which begins, "The handsome assassin, choosing to occupy himself with various pursuits in Braavos after leaving the girl on her ship, found amusement in the usual way..."

"Someday, you will tell me your name," she whispered.

All of his fleeing had been in vain; all of his efforts to drown out her voice, a failure. He could not leave her behind. He could not escape her, not in his dreams. Here she was, taunting him, as ever, and all the wine and women and steel had not silenced her; could not keep her from him. He was defenseless against her. He was laid bare.

Gaelon's head felt strange—heavy—and he struggled to turn toward the little wolf's voice. The light in his chamber was dim, as it always was, and he saw only hints of her angular features painted in the varying shades of grey which comprised the nighttime of his dream. She appeared to be so close to him, standing there with her black and white acolyte's robe brushing against the edge of his mattress, yet it felt as though she spoke from far away. It took a moment for him to understand what it was she had said to him.

"I already told you my name," he tried to reply but his tongue was thick and uncooperative in his dream, just as it had been as he fell asleep in the strange bed above a raucous tavern, rendered so by fatigue and drink (overwhelming amounts of each). The handsome assassin seemed unable to master his speech just then and his words died on his lips. He stared up at the girl until he was finally able to speak. The words that came to him then were different than what he had originally intended to say.

"I thought you could read a man's most secret thoughts as easily as a maester reads a raven's scroll," the assassin teased the apprentice. "Can you not use your vast talents to ascertain something as simple as my name, little wolf?" He smirked, though he had not meant to; he knew it would displease her.

She frowned at him, the look of disapproval reminiscent of the expression Gaelon had seen so often on Tyto's face when he had been but a young boy, more exuberant in the temple than was considered seemly or respectful. The Myrish man reached out his hand and encircled the girl's slender wrist, pulling her down into his bed in his practiced way. He wrapped her in his arms, erasing all errant thoughts of his former master. As it always did at these times, Arya's woolen robe vanished into nothingness and the bare skin of her back felt cool and smooth under the palms of the master assassin.

"It is not so easy as reading a scroll," the girl grumbled, her pique leading her to attempt to pull away from the master's grasp. He held firm.

"Kiss me then," the handsome man commanded hoarsely. "That is easy enough."

"With the company you've been keeping of late, I'm surprised that you have any want of my kisses," his companion whispered, her words a reproof. Still, she wrapped her lean leg around his thigh and tilted her head up to place her lips lightly against his own.

"Jealousy?" Gaelon marveled when she pulled her face away from his. He raised one eyebrow and looked at her. "Can it be true?"

"Why must I be jealous?" the girl retorted. "It was merely an observation of the facts. I think you must have bedded every whore within two leagues of the Purple Harbor in the past two days. Aren't you exhausted? Or, at least... sore?"

She seemed to be teasing him, but there was something beneath it.

Concern, he decided, and perhaps... a touch of hurt? The thought brought a queer sort of ache to his chest.

"A ridiculous exaggeration," the assassin declared dismissively. "It wasn't every whore. It was only three. Or, maybe four."

The apprentice growled at him but he pretended not to hear.

"And besides, they weren't all whores," the assassin sniffed. "This most recent one is a serving wench."

"You called her little wolf," Arya chastised.

"Did I? Well, she does have that chestnut hair," the master remarked carelessly, shrugging. He lifted his hand to the girl's head, gently smoothing her hair back from her temples before threading thick ropes of her mane around his fingers and tugging softly. He enjoyed the feel of it. "Anyone could make the same mistake."

"I'm fairly certain she has white hair, like a Targaryen."

"They all look the same in the dark!" he hissed, losing his humor.

She rolled her eyes. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it.

The girl tucked her head beneath Gaelon's chin, pressing her cheek against his neck. He started to relax but then she sighed, "Will this make you happy?"

The master was silent for a long moment, and when he finally uttered his quiet reply, he sounded bitter.

"Since when do you care about my happiness?"

"I don't know when it happened, precisely," she admitted, lifting up onto her elbows to gaze down at his face. "Does it matter when?"

He glared at her, his look both skeptical and irritated, but he made her no answer.

The girl's own look was imploring as she said, "The point is, I do. I do care."

"Bah!"

Arya looked at him sympathetically (or, perhaps it was patronizingly—it was hard for him to tell in the dim light streaming through his small window). Shaking her head slightly, she smiled and then dropped her lips to his neck, trailing kisses there. The girl moved slowly, softly, making goose flesh of his skin. He fought it briefly, but then surrendered his control and shivered.

The apprentice nuzzled Gaelon's jaw, murmuring, "You have no right to be angry with me. You know it wasn't my choice to leave."

He was torn between allowing her to continue uninterrupted and speaking his mind. Finally, he could contain himself no longer.

"Perhaps it wasn't your choice," he allowed, "but if you had been given the choice, you would not have chosen differently." As he knew she would, Ayra stopped kissing him and pulled back to look into his eyes. Her expression seemed to be filled with sorrow, though whether for herself, or for him, he could not be sure. The girl drew in a steadying breath and Gaelon braced himself for what she was about to say.

"Are you awake, my love?" she asked. "I can get you something to eat if you like. Are you awake?"

The silver-haired serving girl was gently shaking the Myrish assassin's shoulder, pulling him from his dream. When he cracked an eye and saw her smiling shyly down at him in the early-morning light of her mean little room above a popular tavern, he groaned and suppressed the urge to slap her for waking him; for interrupting his much-needed rest. And for pulling him from the arms of another. His head was pounding and he grasped desperately at the edges of his dream, trying to call the little wolf back to him as he squeezed his eyes shut. After a moment, he realized it was folly and gave up.

"Are you hungry?" the naked wench prodded him as he sighed in annoyance and opened his eyes again.

Yes, Gaelon thought, but not for food.

He looked at the smiling girl before him and remembered the past day and a half of nakedness and drink and blood. Lust and violence and pain all coalesced for him then, weighing him down like a stone placed on his chest. The assassin allowed himself a small frown, wishing he could be confused, mistaking his memory for a dream; hoping for his recollection to be indistinct, made hazy by wine and overindulgence.

Alas, it was not.

He never recalled anything through a haze; his senses and insight were never dulled to him. Drunkenness and wantonness provided only the most temporary of reprieves. It was his gift and his curse, a trait which made him valuable within the temple and to the Many-Faced god. It was the gift of total recollection; an involuntary and uninvited attention to detail. The Myrish assassin could not be drunk enough, debauched enough, exhausted enough, or altered enough to lose his focus (but that did not mean he hadn't tried).

His focus and recall was such that he had been unable to force himself to mistake this bright haired wench for another girl (one dark of hair and dark of heart). He had tried to close his eyes and simply imagine her, but when he thought of the absent girl, the present one would speak and wipe away the image he had conjured so carefully.

Perhaps it was for the best. Had he been able to convince himself, he might not be so willing to return to the temple when his duty required it.

"You look tired, my love," the girl said sweetly, placing her palms on either side of his face. Her hands were far too soft. Her touch felt wrong, somehow. "I'll go to the kitchen and get you something. You just rest here, and I'll feed you when I return."

He didn't protest. He didn't say anything. He just watched her slip on her worn shift and leave the room, humming.

He knew what she thought. He understood what she wanted of him. The wench saw some sort of life together; a future with a man she had assumed would be helpless against her considerable charms. He was richly dressed when they met and she must have thought herself fortunate to have ensnared a man of means.

When she returned with bread and fruit and began feeding him bites, he thought perhaps it was time for him to say something. He had made her no offer, had not hinted at any match he could enter into with her. He did not need to employ sweet words or grand gestures or empty promises to win a woman's affections or inflame her passions, and he would not resort to it. Perhaps it was primarily his pride (his damnable pride) which dictated his behavior, but he found his life was simpler this way and he had managed to avoid inconvenient entanglements for years in just this manner.

The serving wench prattled on airily, holding figs to the assassin's lips and then bits of bread as she painted images for him of a little home above a shop or by the water and fine, fat babies in rocking cradles. The handsome man rolled away from her and onto his side, plagued by the realization that he had stayed too long. The silver-haired girl sidled up next to him, running her hands through his thick, black hair.

"Do you think our sons will have your dark hair or my light?" she asked him, giggling.

He would have disabused her of her silly, romantic notions, but he found it difficult to get a word in edgewise. The more she spoke, the more plain she made it who she was. It was even plainer who she was not. After enduring a quarter hour of this nonsense, Gaelon found himself driven to kiss her because it was the easiest way to stop her talking. He was not particularly attracted, though the girl possessed a sort of obvious beauty. But she had none of the darkness, none of the savagery he required. Her unrelenting optimism irritated him. He found himself bored by her artlessness. He lamented her utter lack of threat. Still, to mask his own creeping discontent, to smother his misery, and to prevent her animated chirping from driving him completely mad, he took her again and again. Over the course of their time together, any reasonable person could surmise the assassin had a hunger for the wench even though his hunger was really for peace. Still, the girl was only privy to Gaelon's actions, not his thoughts (and certainly not his demons), so perhaps he should have been more sympathetic when she told him she was sure she loved him. Instead, he was annoyed.

Her name was Lyyrillene or perhaps Luuriline (he wasn't quite sure which; he had not paid particular attention when she introduced herself. As he recalled, he had been more focused on her ample bosom and on consuming as much wine as possible than on what she was saying as she deposited herself onto his lap without petition or inducement.) The name was from an almost extinct dialect of Old Valyria. It meant something like melodic, or sweet-sounding, but that wasn't exactly right. It was hard to translate into Braavosi, a tongue created by hardy freedmen who had tried throughout their history to distance themselves from that doomed place which had oppressed their ancestors.

This girl, Luuriline (he was almost sure), was as different from the girl who occupied his thoughts as she could be. The wench possessed hair so blonde it was nearly white, but her skin was deeply tanned from time spent out of doors, trying to entice patrons into the dim and dank wine sink which employed her. She was buxom and chatty, two things which had initially served to distract the assassin from his burdensome thoughts (and two things which had annoyed him less when he was much more full of drink than he was at present).

When he had had enough, he tossed her a bag heavy with coin.

"But, m'lord," she gasped in surprise, "I told you, I didn't need your coin."

"Take it," he commanded. He wished her to forget any thoughts of rescue. He was not even capable of saving himself, he thought wryly.

"I'm no whore!" she cried, throwing the money back at him. It landed with a thud at his feet as he pulled his blouse over his head.

"If you were, I should not judge you for it," he told her, his voice suddenly gentler. No, not for that. Rather, he would judge her for something completely beyond her control; for not being someone else entirely.

"But..." she started, looking desperate. "I love you! I do! And... I..."

He sighed, saying nothing, impatient to be gone. Sensing she was losing him, the wench flung herself against him, grasping at his collar, trying to force him to look at her. He kept his eyes trained over her head, his hard stare fixed on the wall behind her.

Luuriline cried out, "You said I was your little wolf! You said you had no one! That you were no one! You... you wept! I don't know what ails you, but I can soothe it! You can't leave here. You're... you're broken! You said so!"

Gaelon grasped her hands firmly, pulling them off of him and stepping away from her. The look he gave her was fearsome, but it was a mask meant to hide the sharp pinching in his heart as he recalled those words that had once been spoken to him by another.

As he turned toward the door and strode away, he said to her what was once said to him.

"We are all of us broken."

And then he was gone.

Leaving the tavern quickly behind, the handsome man walked in the direction of the temple. His path took him from the vicinity of the Purple Harbor and through the market. It was there that the assassin passed a spicer's stall and noted a hint of cinnamon oil and cloves in the air. Without meaning to, Gaelon found himself remembering a time long ago, when two boys, perhaps just shy of their tenth year, still strove to master Tyto's lessons. He recalled how he and his brother stole from their cell in the acolytes' corridor and moved silently on bare feet into Umma's kitchen to snatch crumbs together. They always found two hunks of spice cake hidden away (though not hidden very thoughtfully). In the way that childhood truths remain unchallenged until something triggers further examination years later, it had only occurred to the Myrish master recently that Umma had known of his and Jaqen's thievery all along, and had sought to assist the boys in their mischief.

That the cook had indulged them (that she has indulged him) in such a way was immensely touching to Gaelon. Thinking on it brought a sad smile to his handsome face. It was truly the only indulgence he had ever known. Indeed, until recently, it had very nearly been the sole kindness in his life.

Until a ferocious girl had tempered her rage to offer him her friendship; until a vicious orphan had recognized in him his staggering losses and his vast need; until a savage wolf had understood the brokenness inside of him and had been sympathetic to his pain.

That this same girl had been the architect of his greatest loss and therefore the instrument of his most exquisite aching was an irony not lost on the assassin.

"Damn her anyway," the master muttered, quickening his pace. "She's well and away, and we're all the better for it."

He did not allow himself to dwell on Arya Stark further just then, either the Arya of his dreams or the one he had left on a Braavosi ship two days past. He was a servant of the House of Black and White and his lot was to work to fulfill the will of the Many-Faced god, not wallow in some misguided remorse over things that were not meant to be or things that once were but endured no longer.

His thoughts flicked to his brother then, but just as quickly, he dismissed the Lorathi.

"And damn him, too," Gaelon growled, the corners of his mouth turning down. He had no more time for grief now than he did when he had walked away from Titan's Daughter after foolishly whispering his name to the little wolf high above him. It was his need to avoid his grief that had led to his two licentious days. He could ill-afford another such commission. Certainly, by now the principal elder would be looking for his return. The Lorathi master's fate had been one of his own choosing. Gaelon could have prevented what happened no more than he could have prevented the Doom of Valyria. There was no profit in ruminating.

Still, upon his arrival at the temple that morning, there was something deep within the Myrish man which led him down the masters' corridor and past his own chamber. There was something inside of him which pushed him to place his hand on the latch to his brother's door. There was something which pulled him into Jaqen's cell; some urge; some need; some truth.

On the other side of that door, Gaelon found something he never expected: his brother, alive.

A cavalcade of emotions marched through him then; a litany of questions; a deluge of realizations. The handsome man could not grasp them all; could not decide which ones to voice. Instead, he simply said, "Oh." He sounded bored, but that was a lie. He sounded removed, but that was farce. He sounded arrogant, but that was merely armor.

Friendship. Pride. Love. Hate. Fear. Resentment. Jealousy. All of it beat mercilessly against the inside of his skull, creating a chaotic disarray of feeling he was unable to master. Try as he might, he could not set it to rights.

There were those things he knew to be true (deep down) but could not admit, and then there were those things he was willing to admit but which were not altogether true.

In the end, he was left wanting. What he desired, he could not ask for. He did not know how. And so, rather than struggle to be heard, he simply walked away.

In the end, he was left Faceless. The skin he had worn for so long was not easily shed. He was too fearful of what might remain underneath.

In the end, he was left, just as he had always feared he would be.

The Perfect Space—The Avett Brothers