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Jaqen made love to her one last time before he left, still wearing the face of Arron Snow. He left by the East Gate in the middle of the night, and kissed her in the light of the torches. He kissed her left cheek and then her right, and kissed her forehead and her nose and her chin, and he kissed one eyelid and was pressing his lips to the next when Arya took his face in her hands and crushed her mouth to his. He smiled against her mouth before he pulled away and ruffled her hair and she smacked his hand away and then he was gone and Arya looked down at her stinging palm and cursed herself for not having curled her fingers around his wrist instead.
She did not stir for hours to come, and it was only when the sun reached his hot fingers out to carress her cheeks that she shuddered herself awake and felt something thick and warm and heavy slide off her shoulders.
Arya looked down. A grey wool cloak lay crumpled at her feet. She frowned and looked back at the gate to see one of the guards watching her as surreptitiously as he could. He was shivering.
"Bryen."
"Aye, m'lady?"
"Thank you."
He made an effort to still his shivering and failed. "It's nothing, m'lady."
Arya picked up the cloak and walked forward to put it back around his shoulders. "And you call yourself a Northerner," she teased. "It is not so cold, you ninny-pinny."
Bryen hugged the cloak to himself and smiled apologetically. Arya stood beside him for a moment and watched the sun rise. "That Snow fellow," Bryen began, "He's gone, then?"
Arya bit her lip and nodded.
"Shame." He gave Arya a sidelong glance. "I made quite a bit of coin betting on him in your... practices."
Arya punched him lightly in the arm and turned away from the sunrise.
* * *
She went to the smithy two days later to find that her knives were done, and when Gendry put them in her hands she closed her fingers around them and began to cry.
Well. Not cry in the traditional sense of the word, with loud, shaking sobs and snot and tears running every which way, but as close to it as Arya had come in a very long while.
Gendry noticed the redness of her eyes and her furious blinking and frowned. "Arya?"
She shook her head and tightened her grips on the dagger hilts. "I have... no one to practice with now," she said at last. That was the whole point of these daggers. She had been so looking forward to holding these knives at Jaqen's throat, to drag them lightly across his chest while they were in bed and to kiss any wounds she might have made with them in the courtyard earlier.
"I heard. Your Arrow fellow's gone for good, then?" And gods bless Gendry, he didn't sound happy about it at all.
"Aye."
"Why'd he go?"
Arya shook her hair out of her eyes and met his gaze. "To kill someone."
Gendry's eyes were hot and bright and blue in the darkness of the forge. "Who?"
"There's a bastard girl in the Reach whose throat is yet unmarked. He has set out to fix that." She tilted her head to the side. "Does that bother you?"
"Which part of it? That he kills? Or that he kills women?"
"Valar morghulis." She bit her lip and smiled. "All men must die."
"And bastard girls, too?"
Her smile hardened. "Bastard girls, too."
"Have you killed bastard girls?"
"Oh, aye. I've killed baseborn girls and noble girls and girls who served the noble girls and girls who fucked for coin. I've killed men, too, fat men and thin men and young men and old men and ugly men and beautiful men and men with sharp eyes and wandering hands. I've killed a babe with eyes as blue as yours, and a little girl who cut the tails off cats piece by piece until her mum noticed and a little boy who fed the ducks even when he had hardly enough food to feed himself. I killed a man while he was in bed with me, and he smiled as he came and he smiled as he died and I kissed him and I cried and I left because I loved him, that man who smiled when he came, and I killed him because all men must die and he had to die by my hand because no other hand would kill him quite so sweetly as mine did. I've lain with men for love and I've laid with men for blood and I've lain with men just to feel something between my legs. I've got more blood on my hands than you've got running through your veins, Gendry Waters, and I want to be a Stark again but I'm more Braavosi than Westerosi now. I'm likely never to call you stupid or bullheaded again, and I won't wrestle with you like we did as children but I'll wrestle with you in a different way, if we both feel up to it. I've no more secrets I need you to keep for me, Gendry Waters, because I can keep my own secrets now." She ran her tongue across her teeth and inclined her head. "Does that bother you?"
His eyes bored into her own. "Why should it bother me?".
"Because you want Arya Stark," she whispered, "Only the trouble is, I'm not Arya Stark anymore."
"You've made that very clear." Gendry's voice was low.
She twirled the blades in her hands and asked, "Why did you love me?"
"I never said I did."
Arya laughed. "Out with it, blacksmith. I was ten when you knew me. You were too young to love me then. Why did you love me when I was gone? Why did you fall in love with my memory?"
He would not meet her eyes now. "Because you had grey eyes and you fought like a wolf. And I had no one else to love, so why not you? Why not the girl I thought I'd killed? It'd be the stuff of songs, eh?" He laughed, bitterly. "The bastard boy who loved a Northern princess whose death he was responsible for? Tragic. Romantic. Beautiful. Ladies at court would weep to hear it sung. It was the best story my life would ever be a part of, so I fancied myself in love with you. With a warrior princess who had grey eyes that bit sharper than the teeth of a direwolf ever could." His eyes darted up to meet hers. "Does that suit you, milady?"
Arya narrowed her eyes. "Liar."
Gendry scowled. A moment later the scowl slipped and his shoulder slumped. "I know."
"But you loved me when I was gone, that much is true. Did you love me when I came... home?"
"I loved your name. Arya Stark, long lost princess, returned home at last. It tasted... bittersweet, on my tongue, somehow."
"Do you love me now?"
"I fear you more."
"Good," she whispered. "I don't deserve your love."
"That's not it, not at all - "
"It's enough for me, Gendry." She brushed past him on her way out of the smithy. "Please. Let it be enough for you."