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read lotsstory inpatre** : CaveLeather
The night wind off the Blackwater carried the sharp bite of deep autumn. It stirred dead leaves across the cobblestones of Pickled Meat Street, spinning them under the steady glow of the streetlamps.
Barristan Selmy walked with slow, measured steps. The street was quiet except for the occasional drunk stumbling out of a tavern to piss against a wall. Far off, the lights of the Ring of Order burned bright, and faint cheers from gamblers drifted on the air.
He should have gone back to his inn. There was work to do tomorrow. He needed to see Corleone again, make his final decision, and send word to Daenerys across the Narrow Sea. The situation over there was growing more complicated by the day. He didn't have time to linger in King's Landing.
But his feet kept slowing.
Rav's face kept flashing in his mind. That smile. Those gray-green eyes. The way he had looked at him right before Barristan walked out.
Barristan stopped under a streetlamp. The orange light washed over his weathered face as he frowned, replaying every detail from the tavern.
Rav had called himself the Mountain's former adjutant. Everyone in the Seven Kingdoms knew what that meant. Gregor Clegane's name was synonymous with atrocity—villages burned, women raped, children murdered. The stories were so grotesque that even the ones that were exaggerated still left a stain. If Rav had served under a man like that, he was no better.
Barristan had seen plenty of soldiers like him during his decades in the Kingsguard. Men who followed a monster and became monsters themselves. They took pleasure in cruelty. They killed for the sake of killing.
The way Rav had looked at him when he left… it wasn't the look of a man who had simply taken a bribe and let an old traveler walk away. It was the look of someone who had recognized him.
Damn it.
Barristan muttered under his breath and turned around. His boots struck the cobblestones in a sudden, urgent rhythm. The gray cloak snapped behind him as he ran back toward the tavern.
He didn't know why he was going back. This wasn't his fight anymore. He wasn't a Kingsguard. He was just Whitebeard—an old knight who had come home from across the Narrow Sea.
But his legs wouldn't stop.
That was the difference between him and men like Jon Arryn or Tywin Lannister. He had never been a politician. He was a knight. When he saw something wrong, he drew his sword. That was all he knew how to do.
The tavern door was half-open.
Barristan kicked it the rest of the way in and stepped inside.
The place was wrecked. Tables overturned, chairs smashed, broken bottles everywhere. The air reeked of blood, spilled ale, and something sickly sweet underneath it all.
Then he stopped.
Bodies lay scattered across the floor. All of them were the Lannister soldiers who had been eating here minutes earlier. Their lips were black, their eyes bloodshot, blood trickling from their noses and mouths. Poisoned.
In the middle of the room, Rav lay on his back with a thin, precise wound in his throat. His eyes were still open, staring at nothing.
And standing over the last body was a young woman pulling a needle-thin blade from the dead man's neck.
Barristan stared.
"Ally?"
The woman looked up. Her brown eyes were calm—far too calm for someone who had just killed over a dozen armed men.
She didn't answer. She simply stood there, the thin sword hidden along her forearm now, only the tip visible.
Barristan's hand went to his sword hilt. "You're not Ally."
Still no answer.
He took a step closer, voice hardening. "You killed them. Do you have any idea what you've done? Killing Lannister soldiers in a tavern like this? You've just painted a target on Old John's back."
The woman finally spoke. Her voice was cold and steady. "A girl does what she has to do when she wants revenge."
She glanced toward the corner where Old John was curled up, shaking and covered in blood that wasn't his. Her expression softened for a fraction of a second. "She's safe. When this is finished, you'll see your daughter again."
Barristan drew his sword another inch. "You're a Faceless Man."
She didn't deny it. She didn't confirm it either.
Then she moved.
One second she was standing still. The next she was lunging forward like a striking cat, the thin blade flashing toward his throat.
Barristan's body reacted before his mind caught up. He twisted aside, sword coming up to parry. Steel rang against steel.
The girl was fast—faster than he expected. Her blade was light and precise, slipping past his guard with unsettling skill. It wasn't Braavosi water dancing exactly. It was something colder. More lethal. Every strike aimed for a vital point.
Barristan gave ground, testing her. She was good. Very good. But she was still young, and she didn't have his strength or reach.
He stepped in hard, blade swinging in a heavy overhead cut meant to end it. She dodged, but he followed through with a brutal kick to her chest.
The impact sent her flying backward. She hit the floor hard, rolled, and came up on one knee, blood at the corner of her mouth. She still held the thin sword.
Barristan didn't press the attack. He stood ready, breathing steady. "You're outmatched. Your swordwork is excellent, but you don't have the strength to keep this up. Yield."
She didn't. She came at him again.
Barristan sighed and met her halfway. This time when their blades clashed, he stepped inside her guard and drove a kick into her chest again, sending her sprawling.
She landed hard but pushed herself up immediately, eyes blazing.
Barristan studied her. The way she moved. The fire in those brown eyes. It reminded him of something.
A memory surfaced—years ago in the Red Keep. A small, fierce girl with the same eyes chasing a black cat named Balerion through the corridors. She had stopped to glare at him when he laughed, looking ready to bite.
Arya Stark.
The pieces clicked into place.
Barristan lowered his sword slightly. "Arya Stark?"
The girl froze for half a second. It was enough.
Barristan took a careful step forward. "It's all right. I'm not your enemy. I served your father. I knew you when you were—"
She moved faster than he thought possible.
A dagger flashed from her sleeve and buried itself in the doorframe inches from his head. In the same motion she was already sprinting past him toward the open door.
Barristan turned. "Wait! Tell me your name, girl!"
She paused at the threshold, back still to him. Her voice was quiet, almost lost in the wind.
"I'm no one."
Then she was gone into the night.
Barristan stood in the ruined tavern, staring after her. The wind blew through the open door, cold and sharp.
In the silence that followed, he could have sworn he heard a whisper on the air.
"The North… never forgets."