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Gendry watched the raindrops hit the yellow stone at his feet. The sun was still baking down in Braavos; the day golden and bright as ever in spite of the rain, and the moisture evaporated as soon as it hit the ground. The water would never reach the canals, which was a pity as they could have used a good flushing out- they were growing a bit smelly and stagnant in the heat.
In a moment, the fat little grey storm cloud that had blown up off the sea had passed and only sweat was left to cool his brow.
He forced himself to stand and push open the door, every movement a struggle with his will in this damned weather. He’d thought that Tobho Mott’s smithy and the red walls of King’s Landing had been hot. Nothing was hot like Braavos.
It was worse inside the hall, if you could call it that. It wasn’t a large place, really, but it had been divided into so many compartments with screens and curtains he wasn’t sure that he could accurately judge the size of it. Everything was decorated with silks, tapestries and hangings, and low platforms stacked with pillows, the floor covered with woven grass mats for those too poor to pay for a lounge.
The men on the lounges had silver and brass trays to hold their lamps, which were a work of art of themselves. The fine glass domes, delicate metalwork and enameled painting belied the ugliness of their purpose- smoking tears of the poppy. Some called it catching the dragon, but Gendry thought you might be better off to actually face a real dragon than to spend your life here. The crystals were brought around to the various platforms by women dressed in gowns of silk, and for a coin you could buy some, and use of the lamp to warm it and the pipe to smoke the vapors. On the floor you only got a clumsy clay pot and little more than a candle to light it, but the resulting stupor would be the same.
The air was still and heavy inside, the smell of the poppy tears and incense like a heavy cloying perfume, underscored by the smell of unwashed bodies, piss, and the burning oil of the lamps. He longed to pull aside the hangings and filigreed window coverings so the air could get in, but beyond the trappings the place was little more than a shack, and it wouldn’t do to spoil the illusion.
Gendry stepped over bodies on the floor one at a time, the men never stirring but their hands still clenching their pipes, sucking down the smoke when they came out of their high. He would imagine many of them just stayed there until they ran out of coins. You started on the platforms, ended up on the floor, and then you wasted away and they carried you out as a husk of what you’d once been. If you were lucky you’d still be alive and you’d have a chance at sobering, if you survived the withdrawal. If the pipe stayed in your skeletal fingers you’d never get out again.
He saw her whirling away from him in her silk robes, the heavy crystal jar in her arms. Bony fingers reached up to her from a platform, and she gave the man a lump of the amber resin with her little silver tongs, and took his little silver coin in return. She wore bracelets and rings and kohl around her eyes, harsh against her pale skin. She also wore a dagger strapped to her thigh, but he doubted any of the men there had noticed its shape under the drape of the cloth.
She ducked behind a screen and he followed, the glass jar hard as a rock between the press of their bodies, but there was recognition in her eyes. She was never surprised to see him. He held onto her tight and the lid on the jar shifted, the glass singing a sharp hollow song.
“Platform or mat?” she purred, her voice smoke roughened and affecting a Volantene accent today, if his ears heard true.
“Come away from here,” he urged, a familiar argument in familiar walls. “You look tired. Thin. You look like them.”
Her expression was wistful. “I look like a lot of things.”
Someone was calling, for a god or a taste of the smoke. He wasn’t sure which. She started to pull away to tend to him, but Gendry caught her by the arm. His fingers fit a bit snugger around it since the last time he had found her here, even though he came every day and Arya did not. He pinned her in place with a look, her grey eyes dull and a little red from the smoke when they finally met his.
“Today?”
She looked at him in consideration. Her fingers traced the blade she carried under her skirt, and she nodded at last.
“Today. Tonight. I’ll meet you on the leaf bridge. I promise, Gendry.”
~
He had come for her every day since he had found her. She should not have worn her own face again after he discovered her, but when she came as someone else and covered her face with scarves he’d still be there, sitting outside on the stone waiting for Arya to come back. So Arya did, in all her folly, and brought her true face with her. It had been too good of a plan to abandon. A little flower to do her work for her, a little flower to free her. No one would know these faceless men now. But they still knew her in the rare moments of lucidity she saw in their eyes, and she always smiled sweetly down at them while they grasped for her desperately. She only gave them the poppy, and one by one they died like the flies that crawled over them.
He may not have been a wise decision, but Arya knew Gendry was the best choice she had ever made.
When night fell, she slipped behind a screen and sat down next to her last target. He would have never even known she was there, but she held water to his lips and dribbled the liquid down until he woke coughing. Recognition and fear shined bright and vital in his eyes, gone black with the stretch of his pupils.
“Hello,” she whispered, and hoisted the layers of silk to expose her leg and the secret she wore there. She wouldn’t miss any of this, not the silk or the heat or the masks she had worn. His hand came up to clutch hers when she held the dagger to his neck.
“The poppy…”
She twisted her wrist, and blood spilled over both of them.
His last word was “more”.
~
When she met him at the bridge she only brought her smile and her sword.
“I sold the jewelry. It was cheap, but I got a little coin for it. This is what I have.” she told him, pressing the purse into his hand. There was more there than she got from selling a few necklaces, but he knew better to ask. It would be enough to take them home.
They walked to Ragman’s Harbor, the day’s heat still radiating from the stone. It would be almost morning before the city cooled enough for comfortable sleep. It didn’t matter, by morning they’d be gone. He’d found a ship willing to leave port a little early for extra coin.
They stood for a moment in shared silence, listening to the waves lap against the moorings and the sounds of the city stirring behind them. A breeze blew up, faint, and Arya sighed into the wind.
“It’s so hot,” dark strands of her hair caught and whipped against her cheek, and she held her arms out to embrace the cooling air. “This is the first night in a long time I won’t wish for a storm.”
Gendry couldn’t say which of them really pushed the other off the dock, but they both hit the water in the bay sputtering and laughing at the same moment. In the moonlight he saw the silk fanning out around Arya like wings, and the cheap dye of her gown began to run, rivulets on her skin that looked like blood washing away with the tide.
They had spent an eternity of nights like this together in Braavos, but this was the last.
On those nights they’d find an alcove or sometimes a cheap room until morning, and he’d take that gown off of her, peel her out of the silk and the sweet, sickening smoke smell she wore. He’d kiss every little notch in her spine, every scar, every freckle he could find and she’d give up her burdens until dawn came to steal her away again.
Soon they would crawl onto the sand and board their ship, and it would take them away from here.
Tonight he scrubbed her clean in the sea.