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“Do you like pretending to be other people?”
Lady Crane’s question catches her off guard. She stares for a moment, then swallows.
Does she? Never before has she actually considered it. She has been so many people – she has been Arya, Arry, Weese, Weasel, Blind Beth, Cat of the Canals...
“Yes,” she says, before she can stop herself, and realizes it is the truth. She does like being somebody other than herself, it just wears on her now as she sheds her own name and her own skin for necessity, not amusement. Lady Crane smiles, and the girl knows that she understands, even if she doesn’t know. “Yes, I do,” she repeats, stronger this time, more sure.
“Mercy,” Lady Crane says, reaching out for her hand, and the girl takes it. The actress has a hand of hard skin but soft fingertips. No One tries to remember how her mother’s hands felt, but fails. “How would you like to leave Braavos behind?”
Braavos. Home to the Many Faced God, to Syrio her old dancing master, to the House of Black and White and the Faceless Men. Braavos. Protected by the Titan of stone that never saw her coming. Braavos. Home to so many people. Home to No One. But she is not No One, perhaps she never was. Braavos is not hers, and she wouldn't miss it.
“I would like that very much,” Arya says, before she can think better of it. And Lady Crane smiles a wide, beatific smile like the rising sun.
.
That night, as Lady Crane makes her up a palette in the corner, Arya pours the poisoned rum away on the floor – except for the drop she let fall into Bianca’s sweet lemon tea. The girl dies in the night, and Arya knows that the Many Faced God has had his due.
(The Faceless Men do not come that night, or the night after, or the night after that.)
.
Mercy, she learns quickly, loves the theatre. She learns more about Mercy too; her father and mother were dead, and they had been from Westeros, but Mercy had never been there. She had no siblings, but she’d always wanted an older brother. Mercy loves the squeaky boards and the long speeches, the painted faces and the songs. Mercy was born in Braavos, but it was never her home.
But most of all, Mercy loves Lady Crane.
Loves how she teaches her the tricks to crying on stage, loves how she makes sewing fun by showing her where the sachets of pigs blood can be placed and the folds where the dull blades are concealed until the appropriate moment, loves how she can do impressions of anybody in the troupe so well that everyone laughs so hard their sides hurt, even crotchety Izembaro.
Lady Crane is not Mercy’s mother, except that she is.
.
Slowly, Mercy grows to love The Gate theatre troupe as if they are her own family.
Izembaro is not a cruel man, though that is the impression people get of him at first – he is tired, and The Bloody Hand is more of a miss than a hit. He has been subjected to a life of rotten tomatoes, boos and little credit, but at night when his fury at the crowds has dissipated, he plays the lyre and sings in a cracked, worn voice that sends Mercy to sleep.
Bobono is just funny. He seems to have quick retorts and quips on the tip of his tongue for any given situation, his large nose having been acquired in a bar fight or five when he was too lippy for such a small man. He also doubles as the set designer, and he’s always up before anybody else, checking out the stage and fixing anything that may have gone awry in his absence.
Lorenzo is vain, and won’t stop going on about any perceived imperfections on his body. When they’ve had a good show, he’ll disappear with a pretty girl or two and not come back until the morning, grinning like a madman. Even though he tries to hide it, Mercy knows he has a soft spot for her as he smuggles her some parchment for her to practice her costume designs.
Carmello is crotchety, and leans too heavily on his mulled wine, but he knows how to make shadow puppets out of his fingers. One morning, when he was sick, Mercy was at his bedside and he called her Dinah, and said he loved her and if only she hadn’t died then he’d do anything to be with her. Mercy never mentioned it, but never mentioned his drinking again either.
Ginger is an odd-jobs girl – she steps in whenever an understudy is needed, she can do a huge variety of accents and loves brushing out the wigs at night, playing with all the different colour, and lovingly braiding the hairstyles even though they don’t really need re-doing. There’s a rumour that she’s Izembaro’s bastard, but nobody mentions it to her face.
They are Mercy’s family. Mercy’s new family.
But Mercy never had an old family.
.
Mercy, ironically, takes Bianca’s place as Sansa Stark after her unexplained death. She opens her mouth and looks shocked at the right times, makes her lip quiver like she was told, and flips her red wig like it is her own hair.
She knew a girl with hair like that, once.
“You were glorious, glorious,” Lady Crane says after her first performance, and gives her a bouquet of wild flowers. Mercy handles them as if they are red roses, and keeps them by her bedside. When they begin to wilt, she presses each and every one, so she can keep them forever.
“Glorious,” she whispers into her pillow that night, instead of her list of names. Mercy, or any of her previous incarnations, had never been glorious before.
.
Do you like pretending to be other people? she asks herself as she hovers in the wings and waiting for her cue, so used to the character of Sansa now that she wears her like a second skin. (Or a third.) I like being Mercy.
And so, she steps into another life.