Debts Unpaid

[Garnet]

Holy crap it's Garnet! I'm not dead, and I've strangely been in the mood for writing lately, both original and fanfic-type universes. So. Buckle in for some stupid.

I've been picking my way through the Song of Ice and Fire books by George R.R. Martin. They made the first into an HBO show this year, you might have caught Game of Thrones on TV. I definitely love the series, but the minor and supporting characters often end up being my favorites over the main cast, haha. Case in point with Jaqen H'ghar, a cool assassin guy from the second book. I wish he'd stuck around longer, but alas. That just means I'll have to torture him instead.

Hopefully nothing in here is too spoilery, it's pretty much just a modified existing scene but I tried to keep it vague. Intended to be a one-shot, since he's just a side character, buuut he's pretty fun to write so I might play with him a bit more if it's well-received. Anyway, enjoy!

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The eyes of both bath attendants and their attending bather settled on the lanky, filthy figure of a young girl standing in the doorway. Arya Stark shifted her weight warily, leveling her own gaze firmly on Jaqen H'ghar's familiar red-and-white hair. Finally. She wished he wasn't naked, but at least she'd found him.

"I have a message."

The Lorathi's eyes narrowed in unspoken understanding. He waved a hand to dismiss the bath attendants. Arya waited until the two women had made their egress, wise enough not to give her any queer glances or questions, then started closer to Jaqen. She paused abruptly when he held up a hand again, stalling her movement, and glanced towards his face. The man had a strangely distant expression that hadn't been there a few seconds ago, lips slightly parted and nose beginning to crinkle.

"What's the matter? I can't stay..."

He flashed a glance aside at her, brows steepling. "Patience," he bid, "A man must sn... sneeze..."

Oh. Arya waited, obedient, as he let the sensation gain on him. His typically handsome features crumpled into an irritated cast of desire, breath hitching delicately as a forefinger emerged from the water to press just at the pointed tip of his nose. A beat, two, then the Lorathi abruptly shivered with a relieving splash of sound.

"Hehk-- schiue!" He sneezed, more sharply than she'd expected. His head came up for a moment, slender nostrils twitching wide, before collapsing his expression again with a second, neatly contained behind one hand. "--Hck..tschiuu!"

"Bless you," Arya offered automatically, without having any idea why. Most of the courtly niceties drilled into her from a young age had been hard learned and easily forgotten, but Jaqen was... well. Not a friend, admittedly, but she was still glad he was here in Harenhal. Especially glad for the debts of life he owed her. It was probably worth being polite.

He smiled lightly, though there was still a vague tremble to his mouth and brow. "A girl speaks too soon. A tickle is p... persistent.."

She squirmed impatiently in place, mentally ticking off the moments and debating how long Weese would notice her missing, if at all.

Jaqen agonized quietly for another few seconds, nose wrinkling open and eyes wetting with tears of irritation. "H-hah..."

Finally, Arya's frustration bubbled over as she lashed out one hand, light and quick as a water dancer, to rub the pad of her finger just under his nose. Stupid, her brain told her even as she snatched the limb back. Indebted to her or not, the Lorathi was a dangerous man and might not think twice about breaking her arm, even out of reflex.

Fortunately, Jaqen seemed too surprised to respond, especially as the quick, wriggling pressure had the intended effect of releasing his sneeze.

"-- Hekkt-SHIUU!!"

He gave a small, satisfied sigh in the aftermath, rubbing a long forefinger against his nostrils to dispel any lingering itch. "A girl is bold."

"Bless you. A girl is going to get in trouble," she corrected him, mimicking his strange pattern of speech. "Can I tell you now?"

Jaqen tested the state of his nose with a quick sniff, considering, then nodded. "A man is relieved. He listens."

She bit her lip, glancing towards the door, then as an added precaution ducked in close to him. She was glad the heat and soap of the water kept the rest of his body obscured from sight. Furtively pushing a few wet strands back from the white half of his hair, she leaned down to whisper a name in his ear. He showed no outward reaction or sign of acknowledgement, but pointedly used one finger to scratch the tip of his nose.

One name left.

She'd have to make it count. Trying not to wonder if this one was worth it or not, Arya hurried back out of the baths, head down and praying that her absence hadn't been observed.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Garnet

[SterlingSilver]

Me when I see the legendary Garnet has posted one of her amazing works of literature: OGDSHEFH{OIGHSOWEG(H!!!!! *mindles fangirl babble*

I've ALWAYS loved your stories, Garnet <3. I read them before I was even a member here, and you are one of the top names I remember when I first started reading sneeze-fiction. "Shifting Interests" with Alucard and Integra is still burned into my mind to this day xD (that WAS you, right? ^^'')

Anyway, wonderful little fic right here. What an interesting set of characters xD. Jaqen has a funny way of talking xP

[Garnet]

Akjhskdjsh you flatter me aww aww. Yes Shifting Interests was mine haha ANCIENT HISTORY, but I'm super glad you enjoyed! My ego has been thusly stroked 8)

And thank you much He definitely does speak strangely, it's one of my favorite things about the character haha.

[NameTaken]

Akjhskdjsh you flatter me aww aww. Yes Shifting Interests was mine haha ANCIENT HISTORY, but I'm super glad you enjoyed! My ego has been thusly stroked 8)

And thank you much He definitely does speak strangely, it's one of my favorite things about the character haha.

I'm admittedly a huge fan too. All of your fiction is amazing, regardless of the fandom. Incidentally, this is gorgeous.

[pinknose]

huh. i don't know this series. now i might have to investigate. i wiki'd this character and he looks awesome. curious girl is curious.

[Neesan]

THAT WAS THE MOST AMAZING THING I EVER READ SJFSFJSOFJSWJIOTWIJ(I$I(_@)!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG I PICTURED IT IN MY HEAD AND THEN I DIED AND REZZED AND THEN READ AGAIN AND JUST OH GOD.

FJSOIFJJIWFwtrfoaw9r9iq3i9002

YOU WIN 5EVA.

[Garnet]

WHOO belated replies and update are belated, but here we go!

@NameTaken - Aww, thank you much for reading! You guys are gonna give me a complex, I swear...

@pinknose - Ee, and thank you too! I definitely recommend checking the series out if you're into medieval fantasy and/or political intrigue. It can be a bit dark, but I dig it.

@Kisa - YOOOU LOVE IT ssshdkfjhd thank you BB <3 Khal Drogo and Hound and ALL THE PEOPLE are next when I'm done going through this weird anthro phase, I swear.

And now, here's another part! This might be the only other one, since I don't think there are any other spaces in the story I can sneak an interaction between this two. Not without bending the plot a bit or timeskipping ahead many years, so. We'll see, and enjoy!

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Arya admittedly liked Pinkeye a fair bit better than Weese. He was bad-tempered, disgusting, and threatened violence loud and often, but he never actually followed through. And he didn't have a dog. He was less attentive, too, so she could steal off to the kitchens or forge to see Hot Pie and Gendry more frequently.

It was a week or so after Weese's untimely end when she had a tray of soup, bread, and hot wine thrust unceremoniously into her hands and ordered delivered to a room on the far side of the castle.

She scowled. Stewarding was usually preferable to cleaning or serving in the great-hall, but some of the attended lords made her blood boil. Most of them did, actually.

"Whose?"

"I told you where, none of your business whose. One of them Bloody Mummers, or Lord GivesAShite. The fucking stableboy for all it matters to you, Weasel. I've a mind to..."

Arya left him ranting and raving after her while she darted away towards the described room. If it was one of the Brave Companions... the 'Bloody Mummers', she prayed for someone besides Vargo Hoat. It might require too much effort not to fling the hot soup in his awful swollen face.

She went quickly, quietly across the length of the enormous keep. Like the mouse... no, the ghost she was. The Ghost of Harrenhal, mercilessly taking the lives of first Chiswyck and then Weese. That much brought a smile to her.

When she'd reached the appointed chamber, she knocked with her forehead and stood back to wait. She nearly dropped the tray in surprise, however, when the real Ghost of Harrenhal unlocked the door.

Jaqen H'ghar seemed likewise startled, though his reaction was contained to a slight arch of his brows. "A girl is unexpected," he greeted, voice sounding uncharacteristically thick and a bit hoarse.

"So are you," Arya replied bluntly, then raised the tray a little, as if to justify her presence. "Can I put this down inside?"

He stepped aside to permit her entrance, closing the door quietly behind them. That made her slightly nervous, but she tried not to show it as she searched for a place to set the tray. Like she, Jaqen had possessed nothing when Gregor Clegane claimed their lives for Harrenhal, but his skills and recent company with the Mummers seemed to have earned him far more accommodating service since then. The Lorathi moved to clear the nearby writing desk of a few papers, giving her space for the tray, and then hesitated with the disorganized stack in hand and arm upraised.

Arya carefully laid down his meal, then glanced back up with an uncertain frown. Jaqen's expression was in apparent agony, hovering the crook of his arm just before his face. His nostrils were flushed an uncomfortable-looking shade of pink, fluttering weakly as his jaw trembled and mouth deformed into a sneezy grimace.

"Huh...! --H' ahkkschiu!" He released a moment later, tightening his arm to suppress a second with greater success. "Hkt--kssmphff!"

"Bless you..."

He straightened with a sigh and wiped his eyes. "A man apologizes," he sniffed. "His nose troubles him."

"You caught a cold," Arya observed, taking stock of his wasted features. He seemed paler than usual, weak and drawn, though there were dark circles beneath his eyes and a blush of raw pink beneath his nose. There was something strangely unsettling about that. Something... off. She had no doubt that the Lorathi was only a man, if a mysterious one, but she had the impression that she was seeing something she wasn't meant to.

"It is so," he agreed, stacking the papers aside and pouring a cup of the hot, mulled wine. He held it out to her. Arya had grown accustomed to this as well, testing delivered drinks or foodstuffs for poison at the behest of paranoid lords and men with many enemies. Even within the walls of Harrenhal. It was usually more torture than blessing -- a small taste of rich meals did little but tease her, but she obediently took a tiny sip of wine. She didn't care for the sweet, fermented taste, but the burn of it slithering down to her belly was nice. It reminded her of feasts in the great hall of Winterfell. She passed the cup back with a nod.

"She brings him something else?" Jaqen prompted, taking a long pull of wine.

Arya blinked in confusion for a moment, then down at her feet with a sudden chagrin. He wanted her third name. "Oh... no. I haven't decided."

He seemed disappointed. "Patience wears thin, sweet child."

"You didn't say there was a time limit," she protested.

"Just so," he admitted. "But he tires of his debts. He has other duties to keep."

He offered no further threats, but he didn't need to. Arya swallowed nervously. Apart from Gendry and Hot Pie, she had no friends or allies here. Even those two she could not surely count on. Jaqen was neither friend nor ally, not really, but as long as he was in her debt, she felt safe. Any man in Harrenhal, in Westeros and beyond... he had promised their end. Until then, he couldn't hurt her. But when that last name was gone, then what?

"I know, I just... need time to think. Please."

It wasn't the only reason he lingered here, after all, waiting to pay off the debt of his and his companions' lives. .... Was it?

"Soon," he reminded her, but seemed to accept this answer. "A man..." He hesitated, nose crinkling gently as he set the cup of wine aside and tried to continue the intended sentence. "A ma--hh...!"

"A man must be resting," she finished for him with mild frustration. His eyes watered and slivered shut.

"Just s-s-- hahkschhiuu!"

"Bless," she muttered. "You're not even taking care of yourself," she added, glancing aside to his neatly-made bed, obviously unoccupied for some many nights. Maybe he occupied somebody else's bed. But that wouldn't help if he was sick. "Here, take your boots off and get in." It was mostly a bid to distract him from the current focus of their conversation. She reached to turn the bed-covers down, exposing the clean white linens beneath.

"She grows too familiar," Jaqen replied, voice cold, although admittedly less threatening with the undercurrent of congestion.

"I'm not," she defended, pointing to the bed again stubbornly. "Just a servant. And if you get sick and die, you'll die in debt," she added.

Strangely enough, that comment seemed to sober him into complacency. He sighed and lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, beginning to tug off first his boots, then his tunic. "Very well, he yields."

He drew the covers up over himself, which was fine because his bare chest didn't embarrass her, but she wasn't exactly sure she wanted to go brushing her hands against him accidentally. She did move the tray of soup and bread to a stand beside his bed, though, trying to ignore his eyes as they followed her.

"What else?" She prompted. Friends or not, favors or none, she might buy at least a little more time to think if she was nice to him.

Jaqen sniffed wetly and simply looked at her, hair a mess of fire and snow spread across the pillows.

"Handkerchiefs," Arya decided for him. "Where are they?"

The Lorathi nodded towards a small clothes press on the far side of the room. She went to the chest and dug about inside, pushing away a dark cloak, a plain wooden mask (where had he even gotten that?), a leather vest...

"A child would hurry," Jaqen quavered from behind her, and she glanced back to see him poised in bed with a finger curled at his nosetip, holding back another verging tickle. There was a genuine misery in his narrowed eyes and furrowed brow as he struggled to contain himself. "He must sneeze again..."

"I'm looking, I'm looking," she insisted, pawing through gloves and an empty satchel and... there, finally. Snatching up a clean square of fabric, she let the lid slam shut as she darted back to Jaqen's side. Quick as a mouse, a weasel. Evidently he did not have quite the same confidence in her speed, or else the irritation in his reddened nostrils had grown too vast to bear, for he was already sitting sharply forward with a rocking sneeze but the time she had the hanky unfurled.

"Hakt-TSHIUU!!"

Snapping the cloth open, Arya reached across and had it ready to catch a predictable second.

"Hekt--kshmpff!!" The Lorathi sneezed, the force of it felt against her hand, though fortunately she was spared any unpleasant wetness. Mindful of the handkerchief corners fluttering slightly with Jaqen's shaky inhale, she held it patiently to his nose, trying not to frighten when his hand closed over her own, steadying.

"--IHSHMPHff!" He got out a final, hanky-muffled sneeze, both of them dipping in unison, though Arya squirmingly withdrew her hand afterwards and let him take the cloth.

She said nothing as he carefully recovered himself with a few short, nose-clearing exhales into the fabric, interspersed with careful wipes. Eventually, his gaze found her again, tired, unsure whether to be grateful or annoyed.

"A girl wearies of blessing him," he mused, startling her into bleating a dutiful 'bless you'. He chuckled. "It is appreciated."

"How did you turn Weese's bitch on him?" Arya asked suddenly, if only to avoid the awkwardness of making a poor nursemaid. The question had been burning in her mind anyway, and now that she had him alone and relatively helpless...

Jaqen's expression didn't change, vaguely smiling as ever. "Clever girls watch and listen with open ears, then she learns," he said simply, but did not elaborate. Still, the words struck Arya as queerly familiar, something Syrio might have said. It clashed with the overall... mildly disconcerting feel she garnered from Jaqen. She thought of his cohorts, of the black cell, of that wooden mask and his strange speaking style, but none of it seemed to lead to any worthwhile conclusion.

"You're not... just a first-rate King's Landing criminal," she began, not meaning the words to be reassuring, just prompting, exploratory. "Are you?"

Jaqen sniffed, tending to his nose lightly with the edge of the handkerchief. "And she is not a second-rate water dancer," he remarked, startling her. He recognized the style, that was all... "Nor a Flea Bottom urchin, nor a Lord's daughter."

Suddenly, her mouth felt dry and her chest felt cold, and she wanted to be anywhere but in his room. "I... I'm not... I'm just Arry, Weasel, lowborn." Had Gendry told? He couldn't have...

"Just so?"

"Just so," she insisted, hot again in her face and hands. She was lying, he could surely see it, but she didn't want to know what he knew. "I...I should get back."

Jaqen pinched his nose shut within a fold of the handkerchief, evidently warding off the threat of another ticklish sneezing fit. "A man will miss her succor."

Was he teasing her? She couldn't tell, didn't want to think about him at all anymore as she suddenly put her head down, anxious. "I'll give you a third name, soon," she misdirected hastily, and was already hastening out of his quarters as fast as her feet could move. His hoarse laughter seemed to follow her back across the entire expanse of Harrenhal.

[Dusty15]

Garnet!!! I don't even know this character, but I love Arya and I love this story! I should get around to reading more than half of the first book, huh?

Thanks for sharing!

[Winged]

Aaaah, YOU'RE the mastermind behind Rhombic Dodecahedra?? Good lord, I've been obsessed with you for forever - and NOW you write Game of Thrones fic? My poor fangirl heart can't take it. Just go on without me! leave me here with your fic. I'll be okay, I swear.

Anyways, this is brilliantly done! You nailed the voice of Arya, which isn't easy. For example, your little insert "Quick as a mouse, a weasel" was totally in character, and very Arya. I love it. Also, Jaqen is one of my favorites! I just started "Dance With Dragons," and I'm hoping against hope he pops up again

Thank you for your work, lovely Garnet! I look forward to reading more from you

[SterlingSilver]

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <---- That's all I can manage to say, really.. Such amazing characterization, and the sneezing was divine

[Anonymouse]

Sweet Lord above. This... was... innfff. No words can describe how amazing you are at describing the sneezing process. I've never even watched this show but that didn't stop me from enjoying this.

[Watercolor Daydreams]

Oh my lord...sorry, don't mean to bump, but...I concur with everything that's been said. BEAUTIFUL job on this. I didn't know I wanted a Jaqen fic until I read this. Lol. Either way, fantastic job.

[TouchOfGrey]

Omg... he is totally my GoT crush, he is so f#!&*in hot!!! So much yes.