Innocence Lost
Eleventh Day of the Ninth Month 293 AC
Rhiam clutched the knife as tightly as he could, his fingers slick on the rough cloth, the corners of his eyes stung.
It's just the smell, he told himself. He was fourteen now, a man grown, not a a bawling bade. Still, he could curse the stink and no one would think less of him. Cursing the stink was like cursing the magisters, the ones who made the slums into the festering pots of piss, shit, and offal that clung to you all the better so they would know you better if you dared to try and walk into the city proper.
"Are you alright kid?" Andrew asked, breaking the silence that had hung over the alleyway almost since they had made their way here to wait for their contact. Most of them were like a cat on a tin roof, but not Andrew. The Westerosi man as calm as if he'd just come out for a stroll, but you could still read the worry in his eyes, the suspicion.
By the Light and the Flame, please let this not be a magister plot, Rhiam prayed to the Lord of Light as his mother had taught him.
Among the dried leaves a rat moved, a fat one good for the pot. Rhiam's eyes weren't the only one to follow it, but no one said anything. They weren't just another gang scraping for the day's grub, they were the Breakers of Chains and they would break the magisters... all of them.
***
The woman didn't look like she belonged here, she walked down the rutted alleyway like her feet didn't even touch the ground, her dark blue cloak not even frayed around the edges, her words like silk and honey: "I promised you gold and gold you will have, but it will serve you nothing if you do not learn to restrain your anger to those who are truly to blame for your plight. A burning husk of a city serves no one, neither does one cut off from all aid and trade. You have been..."
"Braavosi whore!" Andrew cursed shockingly, his eyes burning with hatred. "So this is what it's about, eh? You are not the
real enemy since you don't have to
watch them put collars on us, no, you just keep your hands clean and and our legs open. Well guess what? We ain't too stupid to count past twenty like you think of us. It's cheaper to to braid rope and spin pots with bondsmen, cheaper to grow grain for you to gorge yourselves on while our children starve. Your silver's no less stained with blood just because it has to pass through another pair of hands first. So here's my offer if you really want to free all the damn bondsmen in Pentos, strip off all your silks and jewels, hand it over, and then go fuck yourselves. Maybe we'll get around to doing something about that 'friendship' and 'trade' of yours in a few hundred years, that's how long it took you to think about 'helping' us isn't it?"
The woman looked at Andrew, then at the rest of the men and women standing behind him. Rhiam straightened as her gaze passed and then gritted his teeth seeing pity there.
What right did the bitch had to pity them, like they were gnats beneath her boots?
"I am not Braavosi. If it soothes your mind to call me a whore than do so. I've answered to worse. I'm not here to use you, I'm not even here to persuade you to see things my way, only to see the world as it is. If you refuse to do so you will die as a man who walks into the sea convinced that there is no water will, surely drowning no matter how valiantly he charges in. I am offering to teach you to swim, far
far away from here," she motioned to the filthy alleyway as though it were nothing, as though
they were nothing, yet he could see some of those behind him were considering.
Old Tom who probably just wanted to drink himself to death, Maegie shuffling her feet and whispering, the damn snitch... Rhiam hated thinking of them like that, he hated that they were thinking about going against Andrew. Without them he really
would be nothing. The boy moved up without even thinking of doing it. He had to.
He threw his knife at the woman and watched in horror as it
bounced off her dress with a clink.
"I see," the Braavosi woman said as she turned on her heel and left.
***
Thirteenth Day of the Ninth Month 293 AC
The Breakers held together, it had been touch and go there for a little bit, but when Andrew agreed to have Rhiam flogged for breaking parley the others had settled down. As he took his lashings cursing, but not begging them to stop, Rhiam felt more a man than he had ever done. He'd kept his crew, his
family together. Andrew hadn't taken it well, he could tell from the way he had looked . He had not left his room since lunch...
Rhiam walked into the darkened chamber and for a moment he could not understand what his eyes were seeing.
Andrew slumped over the the chipped clay bowl, face turned blue, eyes staring and empty.
"No... no... no...no..." the boy babbled as he rushed toward the man who had taken him in off the streets, who had taught him how to fight and why to fight, but there was no one there, just another corpse. Soon there would be one more. Maegie had done this... he'd seen her carry the bowl in.
Clutching his knife, the knife Andrew had given back to him, the boy walked out of the room looking for her.
***
The little bitch was a liar to the end, she screamed, begged, and pleaded that is wasn't her, but he didn't listen. She had killed him for Braavosi silver. He'd make sure she would never get to enjoy it. Hands red with blood the man looked t his handwork, the ruin of her face didn't look like Maegie anymore... it didn't even look like a person.
From behind him he heard the others calling, they'd find him soon.
Turning his left wrist down on the table, in some vague notion that is how things were done, Rhiam slammed the knife down hard.
OOC: Tyene could have probably stopped this but the reason she did not is because she could not justify the time spent turning a gang of twelve people, it was the right thing to do as a representative of the Imeprium and as one concerned about the greatest good for the greatest number. Some tragedies will happen even with the best of intentions. 
