[There's a young person sitting along one of the avenues in the Water Sector, just out of reach of the foot traffic but in a good, visible spot. It's hard to tell if she's a boy or a girl at first, because she's dressed in shapeless rags--they're warm and clean, but rags nonetheless--and her head is shorn. There's a plain strip of cloth tied around her head covering her eyes, and she's holding a long walking stick, just a little taller than herself (all of five feet, this one) with leather wrapped just below the top. Just in front of her on the ground is a cracked wooden begging bowl.
She never made it to the Welcome Center. She's spent the last few days trying not to panic, trying to decide if this is a test or if the test is over, and she failed. Has the kindly man sent her away, to this city she doesn't recognize? It's not Braavos, and it doesn't smell like anything she knows. She knows the smells of Lys and Volantis, Pentos and Myr. Even the people smell wrong here, their language wholly alien to ears accustomed to the sounds of different tongues. She's heard the name Keeliai but it's the first time in her life she's heard it. How can that be? Somewhere beyond Essos, then?
But she will not panic. If this is still a test, she will not fail. She will not let them expel her from the House, not forever. So she sits patiently with her bowl and her stick and her dead eyes, and savors the sound of metal clinking in her wooden bowl, and wonders what new kind of food she might be able to try tonight before she finds some corner or back alley of this new city to sleep in.]
B) Wildcard - B is for Brothel!
[In Braavos she knew all of the taverns and brothels. She knew the girls who worked in the brothels and she knew the barkeeps and she knew the best times to visit each, who would give her something to eat and who would send her away, and who had the best stories. She doesn't know this new city half so well. There simply hasn't been time. But she's learning.
Currently she's been adopted, more or less, by the girls (and a few boys) at one of the brothels in the Fire Sector. In their free time (and it seems to be a slow night) they sit with her, asking her about the city she comes from and telling her stories about Keeliai and the people in it. She sits quietly, eagerly sponging up the information they impart, even the bits that don't seem important at all. Who's pregnant. Who's sleeping with the higher ups in some gang she doesn't recognize. She doesn't even question that they give her this kind of information, as young as she is, because she's used to it by now. This is her life. She is no one, and no one can learn an awful lot by being quiet and listening.
And if the girls at the cat house wrap her in soft clothes and the boys offer her sweet things to drink and coo at her, she's not going to complain. She'll stay wary, but it's the most comfort she's had in... weeks? Months? She can't even remember.]
Arya Stark | A Song of Ice and Fire
[There's a young person sitting along one of the avenues in the Water Sector, just out of reach of the foot traffic but in a good, visible spot. It's hard to tell if she's a boy or a girl at first, because she's dressed in shapeless rags--they're warm and clean, but rags nonetheless--and her head is shorn. There's a plain strip of cloth tied around her head covering her eyes, and she's holding a long walking stick, just a little taller than herself (all of five feet, this one) with leather wrapped just below the top. Just in front of her on the ground is a cracked wooden begging bowl.
She never made it to the Welcome Center. She's spent the last few days trying not to panic, trying to decide if this is a test or if the test is over, and she failed. Has the kindly man sent her away, to this city she doesn't recognize? It's not Braavos, and it doesn't smell like anything she knows. She knows the smells of Lys and Volantis, Pentos and Myr. Even the people smell wrong here, their language wholly alien to ears accustomed to the sounds of different tongues. She's heard the name Keeliai but it's the first time in her life she's heard it. How can that be? Somewhere beyond Essos, then?
But she will not panic. If this is still a test, she will not fail. She will not let them expel her from the House, not forever. So she sits patiently with her bowl and her stick and her dead eyes, and savors the sound of metal clinking in her wooden bowl, and wonders what new kind of food she might be able to try tonight before she finds some corner or back alley of this new city to sleep in.]
B) Wildcard - B is for Brothel!
[In Braavos she knew all of the taverns and brothels. She knew the girls who worked in the brothels and she knew the barkeeps and she knew the best times to visit each, who would give her something to eat and who would send her away, and who had the best stories. She doesn't know this new city half so well. There simply hasn't been time. But she's learning.
Currently she's been adopted, more or less, by the girls (and a few boys) at one of the brothels in the Fire Sector. In their free time (and it seems to be a slow night) they sit with her, asking her about the city she comes from and telling her stories about Keeliai and the people in it. She sits quietly, eagerly sponging up the information they impart, even the bits that don't seem important at all. Who's pregnant. Who's sleeping with the higher ups in some gang she doesn't recognize. She doesn't even question that they give her this kind of information, as young as she is, because she's used to it by now. This is her life. She is no one, and no one can learn an awful lot by being quiet and listening.
And if the girls at the cat house wrap her in soft clothes and the boys offer her sweet things to drink and coo at her, she's not going to complain. She'll stay wary, but it's the most comfort she's had in... weeks? Months? She can't even remember.]
C) Choose your own Adventure
[Throw something at me!]