#*theon* again. for her. the love in her eyes is undeniable.

[dirtytransmasc]

maybe it's because I'm in the "I'm so obsessed and hyperfocused on my little guys I will make any song seem like it's about them even if it couldn't be any father from actually relating to them at all" stage of my Theon and Asha hyperfixation but like...

I feel like 'I bet on losing dogs' by Mitski is about them.

it's about Asha and her relationship with Theon.

he's her baby brother. the baby brother who looked up at her smiled when she had gone in his room, intent on strangling him to stop his cries. he's her losing dog. the dog she keeps fighting for when no one else will. she never gives up on him, not truly, even when he is so clearly doomed, because she loves him, she won't give up on him.

and Theon is, in so many senses, a dog. he's been passed around from owner to owner, home to home, trained and beaten and domesticated, made to behave how his owner at the time sees fit. he's a good dog, a good beaten dog.

and now, in a way, he's Asha's dog. she doesn't want him to be her dog, she wants him to be her brother, and Theon's trying, he really is trying, she knows he's trying, but part of him will always be doomed to be a dog waiting to be hit, waiting for a command, waiting to be trained.

he's her losing dog, she knows it, knows he's doomed, deep down, there's little hope, he'll die a damned dog, but fuck it she doesn't care, he's her blood, her baby, he will be by her side no matter what. she'll always go back for him, she'll always fight for him, she'll always tell him to stay, she'll always give him a chance, she'll always try.

~~~~

[selkiewife]

Anonymous Asked: 

What do you think Theon's role will be in TWOW? I have seen many say that he's going to get killed or that he's going to make the King's moot null and void but I can't help but feel he has a much bigger purpose. One thing that often gets ignored, maybe because it's pretty much in the background, is the magical/supernatural elements of his character, which i think is going to be important either in terms of defeating Euron or helping with the long night.

Anon I agree with you wholeheartedly! I don’t believe that he will be killed (by Stannis anyway.) Though I do definitely think he will have a role to play with Asha in nullifying the Kingsmoot like Torgon Greyiron, the Latecomer. There is just no way Tris would have dropped that tidbit of highly applicable historical info while trying to seduce Asha if it was going to come to nothing. Then again, stuff like that happened in the TV series all the time but I doubt that will be the case in the books. GRRM is much more likely, I think, to never publish them at all rather than leave loose ends.

I agree with theories that there will be two Kingsmoots in the books and that the show chose to combine them. I think Theon will support his sister or she will support him. I honestly think that perhaps after all they have been through, Theon and Asha can finally experience a close familial relationship (which Theon has always yearned for) but which was never possible since they were separated from each other as children- and then were both competing for their father’s approval and trust as young adults. Now that Balon is dead, I really feel like Theon has the potential to find a true family with Asha as his true self- especially given the emotional reaction Asha had to seeing him again and witnessing what Ramsay did to him.

Now one thing I have always loved about Theon is how incredibly HUMAN his story is. It is intimate and focused on identity. And in the asoiaf world where people are seeking power or raising dragons or trying to save the world, it is refreshing that Theon’s story is focused on trying to discover how to be a person. How to keep one’s humanity in spite of how horrific the world is or the horrific actions one has undertaken themselves. There are beautiful themes of identity, redemption, and survival in his arc, but most notably, it does not revolve around magic the way other character’s plots have up to this point. 

However, I also think that it is undeniable that there is a magical element in Theon’s story as well. And I think the magical element surfaces when Theon is getting closer to his true self or facing the things he has done. When he is more entrenched in denial, the magical element of his story is suppressed. Yet during ACOK when feeling guilt over ordering the death of the boys, he has a green dream. And again, in ADWD, when he is reclaiming his name and his identity, Bran is able to make contact with him through the Heart Tree. And then again, when he is Stannis’ prisoner in the sample chapter of TWOW and he continually is speaking the truth and reclaiming his name- insisting that Stannis calls him Theon- Bran or Bloodraven are speaking on his behalf through the ravens, urging him to be brought to the heart tree. 

Now some people argue that Theon did not actually have a green dream in ACOK but I definitely think it was. I have quoted the entire section from ACOK under the cut, so you can decide for yourself. In it, Theon basically has a vision of the Red Wedding a book before it actually happens- In the dream, Robb and Grey Wind walk into a banquet all, bleeding from “half a hundred savage wounds.” Some have said that Theon’s dream wasn’t prophetic but more tied to his guilt but I disagree because there are the other people in it that Theon would have no reason to know about such as Lyanna. “The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna.” Theon would obviously have known about Lyanna but there is no way that he knew about her dying in a “bed of blood.” That is something that is only revealed in Ned’s memories. And Ned told everyone else that Lyanna died of a fever. So he is dreaming accurately about things that he wouldn’t know, which is why I believe this specific dream is a green dream as opposed to only guilt.

So to answer your question. I believe that Theon has to survive at least being a prisoner to Stannis because there is so much more that has been foreshadowed for him. There is the Ironborn plot and then there is also the fact that Bran is trying to contact Theon. I think that Bran is extremely important when it comes to the fight against the Others and the Long Night, so the fact that he is reaching out to Theon made me feel that Theon is also important to that aim in some way. That being said, the show made me doubt Bran (or Bloodraven’s) intentions with Theon- like is he just going to be offered as some sort of sacrifice? I sincerely hope not. 

Luckily, what gives me hope is Asha’s plan for invalidating the Kingsmoot and the idea that he still needs to defeat Euron... Plus EURON himself, unlike in the show, is an incredible force of potential dark magic to be reckoned with. And there is also the really incredible symbolism of the sea-reek with Theon- which I talked about briefly on my other blog here and which I think shows that he still has much to do with the Ironborn narrative. Invalidating the Kingsmoot seems like it would have to occur after whatever happens once Bran or Bloodraven get Theon to the Heart Tree so hopefully, that means they do not have any nefarious plans for Theon. And perhaps it also points to the fact that he is, for some reason, important in the coming battle against the Others. Perhaps because of how very human his arc has been up to this point? Some Theon fans have said that they think the idea of him becoming a huge hero of the series would almost cheapen his very human journey. And I do get that. But I think that he has already become a hero honestly and that his very humanity that he has worked so hard to find within himself may be a key to help against the long night. Or at least, that is what I would like.

Here is Theon’s Dream from A Clash of Kings:

That night he dreamed of the feast Ned Stark had thrown when King Robert came to Winterfell. The hall rang with music and laughter, though the cold winds were rising outside. At first it was all wine and roast meat, and Theon was making japes and eyeing the serving girls and having himself a fine time... until he noticed that the room was growing darker. The music did not seem so jolly then; he heard discords and strange silences, and notes that hung in the air bleeding. Suddenly the wine turned bitter in his mouth, and when he looked up from his cup he saw that he was dining with the dead.

King Robert sat with his guts spilling out on the table from the great gash in his belly, and Lord Eddard was headless beside him. Corpses lined the benches below, grey-brown flesh sloughing off their bones as they raised their cups to toast, worms crawling in and out of the holes that were their eyes. He knew them, every one; Jory Cassel and Fat Tom, Porther and Cayn and Hullen the master of horse, and all the others who had ridden south to King’s Landing never to return. Mikken and Chayle sat together, one dripping blood and the other water. Benfred Tallhart and his Wild Hares filled most of a table. The miller’s wife was there as well, and Farlen, even the wildling Theon had killed in the wolfswood the day he had saved Bran’s life.

But there were others with faces he had never known in life, faces he had seen only in stone. The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. Her brother Brandon stood beside her, and their father Lord Rickard just behind. Along the walls figures halfseen moved through the shadows, pale shades with long grim faces. The sight of them sent fear shivering through Theon sharp as a knife. And then the tall doors opened with a crash, and a freezing gale blew down the hall, and Robb came walking out of the night. Grey Wind stalked beside, eyes burning, and man and wolf alike bled from half a hundred savage wounds.

Theon woke with a scream, startling Wex so badly that the boy ran naked from the room.

~ A Clash of Kings, George R. R. Martin

[nyangibun]

Day 3 - At Last, My Lonely Days Are Over

Valentine’s Week - Love Songs

@jonxsansafanfiction

Song - At Last by Etta James

Ao3 Link

...

The truth is Jon Snow has been in love with Sansa Stark since he was eight-years-old.

Although, at that age, he didn’t exactly know that what he was feeling was love, but he knew that how he felt about Sansa was different to how he felt about Robb or Theon. With those two, they were his friends and he liked hanging out with them, and like any eight-year-old, they sometimes fought over stupid things like who ate the last chocolate bar and whether or not cops and robbers was a better game than tag. But with Sansa, all he wanted to do was make her smile. Anything she asked of him, he’d happily follow along, and it wasn’t just that Jon wanted to make little Sansa happy but he simply enjoyed being with her. She made him laugh. She was always so caring, in a way that Robb and Theon just weren’t.

Of course when they got older and Arya came along, they stopped playing as much but Jon never stopped wanting to make her happy. If he heard she wanted a particular type of snack, it’d appear in her room the next day. If boys were picking on her at school, Jon would take them aside and threaten them until they stopped. And when Harry cheated on her, he picked her up from the party, drove her around Winterfell all night until he finally got her to smile again.

But even as he did all these things, Jon never realised how he felt about Sansa. In his mind, she was a little sister he cared about but different from Arya because he knew the latter could take care of herself. With Sansa, he always told himself he paid extra attention because she was a fragile girl with a heart too big for her chest.

It was after the summer Sansa spent in Paris with her Aunt Lysa that everything changed. Those three months had been the longest they’d gone without seeing one another and when she came back, it was as if he was seeing her for the first time. Sansa Stark at fourteen was more beautiful than any girl he had ever met or known, and in those few seconds after she came home, Jon realised he was undeniably, helplessly, and ridiculously attracted to her.

But being seventeen and perpetually awkward around girls, Jon did what any kid his age would do: he pretended nothing had changed. If they had a party in the back garden and Sansa came out in a little sundress, Jon would volunteer to man the barbecue all afternoon just to avoid looking at her for too long. And if she asked him over to talk about boys like she used to before, Jon would just grit his teeth and imagine sicking one of the Stark dogs on them.

But it didn’t work – not that it mattered anyways.

Jon turned eighteen and moved to Edinburgh with Robb and Theon for university. He had had every intention of coming back, seeing her during holidays and allowing himself those brief moments of self-indulgence where he could just look and speak to her, but his mum died and going home didn’t feel so great anymore. He came for the funeral but he hardly remembered it. Everything blurred together in a dark haze and all he remembered was packing his things, selling the rest and moving everything to Edinburgh with the purpose of never returning.

He didn’t mean for it to happen. He wasn’t even sure how it did happen but after awhile, he lost contact with most of the Starks.

After his mum died, Jon dropped out of uni and started working in construction. He still saw Robb and Theon on the weekends but Robb eventually moved to Spain for his year abroad and stayed out there when he met a girl. Theon as well moved down to London to work for the family business after graduating. And everyone else just grew up without Jon realising the years had passed them by.

When he was twenty-five, he did think about reaching out again. He even reactivated his Facebook to look them up but that’s when he saw it: her engagement announcement. She was only twenty-two and she was already engaged. He couldn’t believe it; he especially couldn’t believe the blond-haired twat she was engaged to. The idea of really losing her felt like a distance too insurmountable for him and Jon decided to deactivate his Facebook and resign himself to the fact that that part of his life was really over.

So at twenty-nine, Jon is not bitter about the lost years but he’s not exactly thriving as he thought he’d be. He has a decent job managing the construction firm he joined ten years ago and a group of friends he has drinks with at the pub after work. He even has girlfriends from time to time but he doesn’t ever manage to fill the void where the Starks used to be. He doesn’t want to reach out either because the truth is he’s ashamed. Not just for letting them go so easily without a fight after all they did for him but for where he ended up. He’s not ashamed of who he is now, who he had to become after his mum died, but he does regret not going back to uni and making more of himself. He may not have had a dream but he does think he could have been something more.

That’s probably why when he does see one after all these years, he promptly decides to down the entire club’s collection of whiskey single-handedly.

Or maybe it’s just her that elicits this kind of response.

“Slow down,” Edd says, slapping at his hand as he’s reaching for the bottle once more. “I’m not carrying ya out of here. We already got our hands full with Mr Dancing Queen over there.” He gestures to the dancefloor where their big giant ginger friend is shaking his hips with a bunch of women from a hen do.

Jon snorts. “I’m fine,” he says with a wince. He managed to grab the bottle back and the whiskey is burning its way down the back of his throat. It stopped tasting like anything but regret several glasses ago.

“Clearly,” Edd rolls his eyes and snatches the bottle back to hand over to Sam on the other side of the table.

“What’s gotten into you?” Sam asks, those big eyes wide with concern, and because he’s so twisted up inside right now, Jon only feels resentment towards his friend.

“Nothing.”

But it’s not nothing. It’s very much something and she’s moving across the dancefloor, long red hair swishing behind her, as if she’s taunting him. He hasn’t seen her since she was sixteen but she must be twenty-six now. Fuck, she looks good. She looks so much better than good and it kills him.

Had he always had this strong of a reaction to her?

Jon doesn’t remember. He can’t even recall a single memory from the last time he saw her. The funeral had been so god-awful that all he wanted to do that day was disappear. And those weeks after. And the months after that.

She’s standing by the bar with her friend now and from this position, he can see her more clearly. She looks taller, more slender and toned than skinny, and she has a form-fitting emerald green dress on that is doing far more to him than he has any right to feel.

“Who’s the redhead?” Edd asks.

Jon curses under his breath and tears his gaze away. “Nothing. No one. I’m fine. Can we drop it?”

Edd glances at Sam and the two of them shrug but thankfully stay silent. His friends are observant and they can read him better than he gives them credit for but they also know when to push it and when not to. For that, he is grateful.

After a few minutes of tense silence, Tormund comes tumbling back towards their table and falls onto Edd, who kicks him hard. There’s a brief fight before the two settle down in their seats. Physically, Tormund resembles a terrifying red grizzly bear, but personality-wise, he’s more like a very horny golden retriever with little tact.

“If we want, they said we can join them!” Tormund exclaims happily.

Edd shakes his head. “You know their idea of a strip club doesn’t have women, right?”

The smile on his face slowly disappears, replaced by a pensive frown. “Then who does all the stripping?”

Sam hesitates. “Umm… men?”

“Dudes!?” Tormund shouts. “But why - oh, yeah that would make more sense.” He then shrugs. “I still wanna go. I mean I’ve never been to a dude strip club before. Maybe it could be educational.”

“Educational?”

“You know, for future moves,” Tormund smirks, wiggling his hips even though he’s seated. The rest of them groan and kick him again from all angles. He yelps but then laughs uproariously.

“I am not going to a male strip club just so you can learn some new moves,” Edd says flatly. “That requires a lot more alcohol than we’ve got.”

“Say no more!”

Tormund jumps out of his seat before either of them can tell him no and goes running across the club to the bar. Simultaneously, all three of them groan. It wouldn’t be the weirdest Saturday night they’ve ever had, not since Tormund joined the construction firm five years ago, but it’s definitely a lot more than Jon wants to deal with right now.

Although now that his attention is back on the bar, he doesn’t see her anywhere. At first, panic rises to his throat, but he reminds himself that he had no intention of speaking to her anyways so what’s the point? Sansa is his past, and even if circumstances were different, she’d never been his to have. He has no more claim to her than anyone else and just because, even after all this time, she still makes his heart race and his palms clam up, it doesn’t mean he should go talk to her. No, it definitely does not.

“Are we really going to go to a male strip club?” asks Sam with a resigned sigh.

“No,” Jon says.

“Probably,” Edd counters at the same time.

They look at each other and Jon cracks a smile for the first time tonight.

“Well, look at that, Broody Git Snow knows how to fucking smile for once,” Edd snorts. Jon lobs an ice cube at his friend’s head and the two chuckle. The anxiety is still knotted deeply in his stomach but some of it eases knowing his friends are all weird idiots that are there for him.

“Guess what!” Tormund shouts before he’s even reached the table (because he is that bloody loud). “I found my long lost sister! See, she’s ginger too!”

“What?” Sam immediately says.

Jon turns to look and his body goes cold.

“Jon?”

Her voice is still the same, yet it’s somehow older, more mature, and it twists him up inside. “Sansa,” he breathes out. Every nerve in his body is on fire and he’s dying to run away but he’s blocked in by Edd and Sam on one side and Tormund is now standing right in front of his only route of escape.

A brilliant smile appears on her face and Jon stands as she leans forward across the table. Her arms go around his neck and the feel of her sends his heart skittering at a worrying pace. He holds her anyways, hands wrapping around her slim waist, the tickle of her long hair against his cheek. She smells like Sansa: bright and fruity and all her.

God, is it possible to still be into her after all this time?

“How long has it been?” she asks, pulling back. Jon is reluctant to let go but he does. She smiles at him. “Robb’s never going to believe this.”

Robb…

 The Starks…

He remembers now why he didn’t want to talk to her. The shame of his own cowardice and weakness.

Jon’s smile is faint as he says, “yeah, it’s been a long time.”

Thankfully, before she can ask him any more questions, his drunk, beautiful friend says without tact, “as fun as this reunion is, do you girls wanna go to a strip club? A male strip club?”

The conversation immediately changes and everyone is joyously discussing whether they should go and why or why not it’s a good idea. Jon stays quietly out of the conversation; he’s trying pathetically not to look at her but even as kids, he was always acutely aware of her. Her movements, her laughter, just the way she speaks draws him in like no one ever has, and dimly he’s aware, like no one ever will.

After ten whole absurd minutes of discussion, they decide to go and Jon finds himself walking down Edinburgh at one in the morning with Tormund, Edd, Sam, Sansa and Sansa’s friend, Jeyne, who, he finds, is as exuberant and mischievous as Tormund is.

He trails behind, unable to join in the good-natured joking as he might’ve done another night. He’s watching his feet as he walks, trying to remember the last thing he ever said to Sansa, when she sidles up next to him.

“You’d think after ten years, you would’ve figured it out.”

Jon looks up, startled. “What?”

“I couldn’t understand it,” she continues on; either she didn’t hear him or she chose to ignore it. “At first, we all respected that you needed the space but you never came back. I don’t mean to Winterfell; I mean to us. We thought - well, we thought we were your family too. Robb especially. But not just him, you know?”

He doesn't have an answer for her. Nothing that makes sense anyways, so he stays silent and lets her get it all out.

“Can I be honest?” she asks, though it’s not a question that requires a response. “I was so angry with you for leaving us like that. I know we weren’t as close as you are with Robb or Arya, but I was still mad.” She chuckles softly, the sound bereft of humour. “I was mad at you for hurting them. We cared so much about you and it takes ten years for one of us to finally see you? And not even on purpose?”

Jon is trying to think of an appropriate response when she grabs his wrist and stops them. “Say something!”

“I wish I had something better to say to you,” he says, still not looking at her. “But people grow up, Sansa. They grow apart. I’m sorry it happened but that’s it.”

Unfortunately, he can sense her anger without having to even look at her. “What the fuck, Jon? Is that all you have to say?! You’re sorry? That’s it?”

Something snaps inside of him. Not anger but frustration. “What do you want me to say?” he responds. His eyes finally snap to hers, unable to hold it in any longer, and his breath catches in his throat at the way she’s glaring at him. “My mum died and I didn’t handle it well. I had to get out and I did. I’m sorry that it meant we lost touch.”

“You’re such an asshole,” she murmurs. She lets go of his hand and begins to walk off.

This is what he wanted, right? For everything to just go back to how it was, for Sansa to go home and forget about him like she’s done the past ten years. But why does the idea of that fill him with such dread? Why does every single cell in his body feel like it’s dying the further she moves away from him?

Jon pulls at the ends of his hair in frustration before running after her.

“I was a coward,” he shouts. Several drunken stragglers turn to look at him but he ignores them for the redhead currently standing stock-still a few feet away from him. “I was scared of – shit, I don’t know, everything, I guess.”

He walks forward, moving a little closer, but still giving her space.

“After my mum died, I couldn’t deal with anything. I dropped out of uni and I just fell apart but even as everything was going to shit around me, I didn’t want to involve any of you. Dumb as it might sound, I was trying to spare you guys all the hassle of putting up with me.”

Sansa does turn around at this but only to give him a repulsed look.

He laughs. “Yeah, I know. I was nineteen. Emotional maturity was not really my strong suit… not that I got any better.” He sighs and steps a little closer. “I didn’t want to go back to Winterfell. It was too painful but I never intentionally tried to cut you guys out. I still saw Robb and Theon and I just figured I’d have time to reconnect with the rest of you when you got older. But Robb and Theon both moved away and none of you came to Edinburgh so by then I just didn’t know how to keep in touch with anyone anymore.”

“You could’ve just rang us. Or even texted.”

“I tried.”

The anger around her eyes have softened and it feels like it’s time to come clean, even if it means he has to go back to never seeing her again, because the truth is – the stupid, absurd, inexplicable truth is he’s still in love with her.

“When?” she asks.

“When I was twenty-five,” he says slowly. “I logged onto Facebook for the first since uni and I clicked on your name and that’s when –” He stops, hesitates for a brief moment as self-doubt wars inside of him, but the curious look in her eyes urges him onwards. “You were engaged. You were engaged to some guy I had never even met, with a life I was never apart of, and I don’t know what killed me more. Knowing that I had already lost you to someone else or knowing that I had been the one to create this distance between us.”

Her eyes widen and her mouth parts but he doesn’t give her a chance to speak.

“I was a coward, Sansa. Instead of being happy for you, I ran away and by the time I realised how much of an ass I was being, it felt like it had already been too long and I was ashamed. I let go of the only family I ever really had because I was too scared to let any of you see how fucked up I really was. And – don’t get me wrong, I’m not unhappy now, but I never went back to uni. I never made something of myself and I didn’t know how to face up to that.”

“You know what’s the most fucked up part?” she asks but she doesn’t wait for his answer. “The part where you thought any of us would even care. Jon, did you know Arya left just before her third year of uni and ran off to Asia to go traveling with some guy she worked part-time at a garage with? Or that Robb knocked up that girl he met in Spain? Or that Bran nearly died because he was dumb enough to go climbing without a proper harness?”

She steps right into his personal space and says, “or that I got engaged to a complete and total wanker who decided to cheat on me with one of my bridesmaids?” She pokes him harshly in the chest. “We’re all fucked up. You don’t have a monopoly on making bad decisions, Jon Snow! But we’re family and we support each other even when we mess up!”

“I - I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t know! You didn’t even bother to reach out!” she shouts at him, her chest heaving up and down. “You didn’t even bother to ask if I felt the same way! You just assumed and assumed and left without so much as a word!” Tears began slipping rapidly down her wind-bitten cheeks. “You weren’t the only one who got their heart broken, you know?”

His heart feels like lead in his chest. He wants to reach out for her but he knows that’s the last thing she’d want. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Sansa. For everything. I know it’s too late now to ask for your forgiveness but I really am truly sorry.”

“There you go again, assuming!” Sansa grabs him by the collar of his shirt and pulls him towards her. Their lips crash together, painful and bruising, but the shock of it is quickly replaced by needy desperation. He pulls at her waist, fingers pressing into her skin, until they’re flushed against one another. It’s not the kind of first kiss he had always envisioned with Sansa; there’s no sweetness here, no whispered confessions of love or gentle shy touches. This is angry and aggressive; it’s a kiss born out of a decade of frustration and missed opportunities and terrible, pathetic mistakes.

When she pulls back, her lips are swollen and red. “I’m not forgiving you.”

“I know.”

“You hurt me, Jon. You really hurt us.”

“I know and I don’t deserve a second chance but if I had it, I would spend the rest of our lives making it up to you, to everyone.”

“They’d probably forgive you right away, you know? They don’t hold grudges. They just miss you.”

“But you hold grudges?”

There’s a faint smile on her lips and he can’t help kissing her again, just a small peck, brief and chaste.

“Oh yeah,” she says. “You might really have to spend the rest of your life making it up to me.”

He smiles now too. “I’d be more than happy to.”

“Good because for some stupid reason, I’m still in love with you and if you –” Sansa glares at him, tears springing to her eyes again. “If you leave again, I will never forgive you.”

“Sansa,” he murmurs softly, wiping at her tears with the pad of his thumb. “I’ve been in love with you since I was eight and spent the better part of ten years without you. I don’t want to ever do that again.” He presses his forehead against hers. “I promise. Never again.”

“Okay.”

He leans back to look at her, his heart beating wildly, feeling like this moment right here is too good to be true. “Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Jon nods. “Okay.”

[greiqoy-a]

now  that  i'm  running  on  more  than  three  hours  of  sleep  ,  i  want  to  quickly  summarize  the  differences  in  my  BOOK  PORTRAYAL  vs.  my  SHOW  PORTRAYAL  of  theon  .

***  SPOILERS  BELOW  FOR  THE  NEW  EPISODE  +  THE  BOOKS    (  for  those  of  you  who  haven’t  read  them  but  wish  to  do  in  the  future  !  )

I.   HIS   CURRENT   ARC  .

A)     looking  at  the  show  ,  theon  is  finally  getting  his  redemption  arc  .  it  started  when  he  helped  sansa  escape  from  the  boltons  and  has  come  to  it's  conclusion  with  him  travelling  north  for  the  starks  (  not  for  the  iron  islands  ,  not  for  daenerys  ,  but  for  them  )  .  the  last  time  theon  greyjoy  was  in  winterfell  ,  he  burned  it  down  -  now  he's  here  again  ,  pledging  himself  to  it's  daughter     ;     TO  IT’S  LADY  .

arguably  ,  theon  has  begun  to  regain  himself  again  ,  he's   putting  back   the   shreds   and  pieces  of   his   broken   being   and   he's   HEALING .

B)     in  the  novels  ,  theon  has  not  ,  and  probably  will  not  ,  regain  himself  to  the  extent  that  his  show  counterpart  has  .  he's  a  ghost  -  and  not  just  in  appearance  .  and  that  is  the  symbolism  i  want  to  push  in  my  portrayal     ;     just  how  much he's  been  through  .  what  he  suffered  at  the  hands  of  ramsay  is  far  worse  and  if  you  think  it  was  bad  in  the  show  ...  oh  boy  .

as  of  now  ,  and  from  what  we  see  in  the  winds  of  winter  snippets  ,  theon  is  being  held  hostage  /  prisoner  by  stannis  bartheon  , who  plans  to  execute  him  following  his  battle  with  the  boltons  (  he’s  kept  around  because  of  the  information  he  might  have  on  ramsay  -  almost  as  if  that’s  another  way  to  say  that  theon’s  only  use  now  is  ,  and  always  will  be  tied  to  ramsay  .  )  whether  theon  will  survive  ,  we  can't  know  for  certain  ,  but  a  happy  ending  is  not  in  play  for  him  either  way  .

II.   HIS   RELATIONSHIPS   .

A)       SHOW  WISE  ,  his  most  significant  dynamic  ,  other  than  the  one  with  asha  ,  is  with  sansa  .  he's  come  to  fight  for  winterfell  ,  yes  ,  but  it's  sansa  he  pledges  his  loyalty  to  ,  and  she  he  would  die  for  -  sansa  and  her  family  ,  the  one  he  previously  betrayed  .

i  can  talk  for  hours  about  their  dynamic  ,  but  let's  keep  it  short  :

-  theon  never  will  see  himself  as  someone  worthy  of  sansa's  attention  /  love  /  etc.  despite  that  though  ,  in  the  latest  episode  ,  him  keeping  the  eye  contact  between  them  is  a  tiny  detail  ,  but  powerful  in  it's  own  right  .   it's  a  habit  he  has  now  ,  to  lower his  gaze  to  the  ground  -  he  does  it  with  jon  ,  he  does  it  when  speaking  to  daenerys  ,  but  he  doesn't  do  it  with  sansa  .  she's  the  only  person  he  finds  comfort  in  .  whether  it  be  romantic  or  platonic  ,  he  undeniably  loves  her  .  she's  the  symbol  for  his  entire  arc  .  it  starts  and  ends  with  her  .

B)        IN  THE  NOVELS  ,  he  only  has  jeyne  .  the  only  person  that  showed  him  any  sort  of  kindness  during  his  reek  arc  was  jeyne  (  his  interactions  with  jeyne  are  opposite  of  those  with  sansa  :  jeyne  pleads  for  him  to  save  her  ,  to  take  her  as  his  wife  ,  she’s  kind  to  him  ,  talks  about  their  times  as  kids  and  reaffirms  his  identity  in  her  own  way  .  sansa  is  hostile  ,  rightfully  so  ,  and  firm  when  she  reminds  him  who  he  is  -  theon  greyjoy  ,  not  reek     /    they  both  bring  up  memories  of  his  past  life  but  do  it  in  such  different  manners  )  and  she  symbolizes  so  much  more  that  that  .  there's  a  contrast  that's  very  clearly  shown  in  theon's  rhyming  of  names  :  '  reek  ,  reeks  ,  it  rhymes  with  weak / meek / freak  vs  jeyne  ,  jeyne  ,  it  rhymes  with  pain  '  with  the  first  ,  he's  reminding  himself  that  he's  reek  ,  so  he  doesn't  forget  ,   'lest  ramsay  takes  another  part  of  him  .  with  jeyne  ,  he's  reminding  himself  that  she's  not  arya  ,  she  never  will  be  arya  ,  she's  jeyne  .  (  shown  also  in  his  constant  referring  to  her  eyes  ,  '  brown  eyes  ,  not  grey  , someone  will  notice  '  ,  yet  it’s  only  he  that  seems  to  do  so  )  she's  his  last  connection  to  theon  ,  to  his  life  before  .  and  he  revels  in  that  .

-  when  he  helps  her  escape  ,  there’s  so  much  weight  to  it  .  jeyne  is  the  steward's  daughter  ,  she's  not  noble  ,  nor  was  she  ever  anything  to  theon  before  .  his  character  was  once  defined  by  his  personal  romanticizing  of  ironborn  culture  ,  his  disregard  for  women  ,  especially  those  of  lower  status  .  when  he  saves  her  ,  it's  not  a  redemption  arc  ,  it  doesn't  make  up  for  what  he  did  to  the  starks  -  it's  personal  growth  .  he  hasn't  been  redeemed  ,  but  he's  grown  .

IN  SUMMARY  :      my  book  portrayal  will  be  much  heavier  in  terms  of  topics  it  covers  .  he's  broken  ,  almost  beyond  repair  ,  but  the  glimpse  we  see  of  theon  are  there  .  (  his  pride  when  he  talks  with  stannis  about  how  he  had  saved  jeyne  -  it's  the  first  heroic  deed  theon  has  done  .  reek  died  the  moment  he  made  the  choice  to  aid  her  -  presented  by  the  fact  that  the  chapter  was  titled  ‘  THEON  ’   )

my  show  portrayal  , whilst  also  dealing  with  the  symbolism  of  ghosts  and  death  ,  will  mainly  focus  on  his  healing  ,  his  redemption  ,  and  his  love  for  the  starks  -  his  desire  to  die  by  their  side  .

[fedonciadale]

To go South - chapter 50 - Swinging scales

So, here is the second Bran chapter on the Battle of Winterfell. Hopefully, all his plans are clear now. I love the clever 3-eyed raven.... Also on AO3.

Bran tried to move his muscles in a reassuring smile. He had buried his feelings so deep, that he could not have said, if he smiled really. Theon’s eyes were wide, but he tried to have a grip on his nerves. His bow was ready.

“Shoot, when I tell you to, not before.”

He closed his eyes again or his eyes were closed. He didn’t know. He could feel the childrens’ excitement. The dragons will die, I promise. Some of their excitement ebbed away.

Bran briefly checked on Sansa. She was on her way out of the crypts, Olyvar and Ghost by her side. She would know what to do. She had survived Littlefinger. Bran did not dare to check on Arya. Time was getting short.

The dragons circled the sky. It was strange to watch them. They had an undeniable beauty. The silver light of dawn was painting patterns on their scales, and Bran wondered if the would ever see a wondrous sight like that again.

Winterfell’s towers went up in huge explosions. Bran could see the green light even through his closed lids. A huge curtain of light appeared in the sky or maybe he just felt it in his mind. He sensed the White Walkers being pulled behind that curtain. The voices of the children shouted in triumph. Then Bran heard the shrieks of Rhaegal, and so strong was his connection that it was as if he himself fell. He could feel how the earth and water magic was set free, the scales swung. The children bore on his mind heavier than ever before.

He fled to the dragon, merged with the dragon, relishing in his fire and fearing it. Through the dragon’s eyes he saw Jon. Jon had fallen on the dragon. Rhaegal had turned to protect his rider. Bran felt the dragon’s trust and flared it highly. For this it was crucial that Rhaegal trusted them.

Jon! His cousin groaned and picked himself up with difficulty. He had blood on his face and held his hand over his left eyebrow, where he had been cut deeply. Jon!

Jon half walked half crawled to the dragon’s snout. “Bran is that you?”

Yes, Jon, you have to set Rhaegal free, now! You have to do it!

Jon was clearly dazed. “Set him free?”

Fire made flesh. Set him free, so that he can be pure fire again.

Bran saw tears running down his cousin’s eyes, they mixed with the blood on his face. “You mean I have to kill him? Why didn’t you tell me?”

No, send him home, set him free. He’ll do it by choice.

Bran could feel that Jon joined him in Rhaegal’s mind. The dragon was in pain, but he trusted. He went all still, as if he knew it was important.

Bran could feel the children hammering at his mind urging him to hurry, pleading with him to just kill the dragon and be done with it. The other dragon was flying fast to the weirwood.

Bran could hear his own heavy breathing echoing in his ear even though he was in Rhaegal’s mind, but he did not relent. Jon had already begun to remove the earth around Rhaegal’s fire. The coals of the dragon’s mind burned in a steady beat. Bran helped along and he could feel the dragon’s mind picking up heat.

“What do I do now?” Jon asked loudly. Bran could feel the dragon slipping out of their control, but he still trusted.

Show him the way to his light, to his fire, the fire behind the curtain of shadow.

Bran felt confusion from Jon, confusion and hurt. “Why do I have to do this? Why did you not tell me, that this would be necessary?”

Please, just do it. You have been beyond the veil, I can’t do this. If we bring just one dragon home beyond the veil, the other will follow, eventually. Fire magic has to die, as well as ice magic.

Jon understood. He embraced the fire in the dragon’s mind, took it into himself and then Bran could feel him no longer. His body had slumped at the head of the dragon and Bran was thrown into his own body again.

Theon shook him and pointed. “The dragon, the dragon.” The children in his mind were screaming as well. The pressure in his mind was less. In their fear they finally let lose their grip on his mind. The huge black dragon hovered over the weirwood. Bran could see Daenerys on his back, her silver hair flowing behind her, she was bathed in the eerie light of the wildfire that still burned.

Bran did not allow himself to smile. It wouldn’t serve to alert them to his real plan.

“Now, Theon, now! Aim true.”

Theon’s arrow flew at the same moment that Drogon opened his jaws and bathed the weirwood in flames. The children shrieked in horror.

Theon’s arrow found the eye of the dragon, made stronger by the destruction of the weirwood and the loosening of its magic.

The dragon faltered. Bran became dizzy with the impact of the scales of the world dancing wildly.

Theon loosened another arrow. This one took Drogon in the other eye and he fell.

Time slowed, the world was on the edge of destruction, the voices of the children were raging at him, screaming betrayal, but they became fainter, as the fire ate up the weirwood. Drogon fell onto the burning tree, but as he touched the ground, he was pulled. For a brief moment, there was a shadow curtain that stood black against the sky, and then the dragon was gone.

The scales still swung, but their rhythm slowed down. It felt like an eternity. Theon was breathing heavily at his side, as if he had run for miles. He probably felt how narrowly they had evaded the end of the world.

The scales came to an almost halt, but they were not all balanced. They were tipped just a tiny bit. Bran could feel a small spark of fire magic, a tiny spark, a life spark. He smiled. Jon is alive!

The childrens’ voices had become very faint, but still they insisted. They wanted him to tread on that tiny spark. But he wasn’t theirs to control. Not any longer. And there was another way.

“Theon,” he said. “You still have one arrow?” He stretched out his hand.

Theon gave it to him.

You attuned me to your magic. He knew the children would hear him. You gave me a tool to bring balance.

He took the arrow and picked up the magic, changing it to the ice magic that was the opposite of fire. It flowed into him, as if it had been meant to do that. The arrow vanished. The scales came to a halt, balanced.

All of a sudden, Bran could feel, he looked at the dawn and sunrays touched his face and he laughed, he laughed. He could feel everything. He could feel his own heart beating, he could feel the breath in his lungs, he could feel the blood pumping through his veins, everywhere. He pushed himself up, he could feel his legs. He could feel his legs. But they were to weak to carry him and he wobbled and fell. His eyes met the blackened ground where the dragon had fallen on the weirwood, and where Daenerys lay, bundled like a puppet. And then he wept.

[devilinthebox]

Asha Greyjoy Facts

* She is sweet and caring, proving if need be that authority and strength can coexist with a good heart. * However, she is adaptable - much like her little brother. Her tender side remains hidden as it would undermine her in the eyes of many Ironborn. She won’t sabotage her future, as she is shown to be ambitious. She refuses her uncle’s offer to become Heir to Ten Towers instead of confronting Euron, after all. “I can protect myself. Nuncle, I am a kraken. Asha, of House Greyjoy.” She pushed to her feet. “It’s my father’s seat I want, not yours. Those scythes of yours look perilous. One could fall and slice my head off. No, I’ll sit the Seastone Chair.” * She seems quite sociable. Her men respect her but she doesn’t refrain from being friendly at times. * She has no manners and honestly this is a wonderful contrast with her brother. Aside from the trademark Smirk, they act quite differently while sharing a similar physique. * I don’t know why, but this line: “Asha sucked grease from her fingers. A lock of black hair fell across her eyes. “ Try being this cool while sucking grease from your fingers. * I can’t stress this enough: she cares, she cares, she cares so much. it shows in her passion for Qarl, the undeniable affection she has for her friends and family - Rodrik and Alannys and this unbreakable bond with her baby brother that a broken childhood and missed opportunities did not severe. 

* As I said, she loves her mother deeply. She admires her. Alannys Harlaw never had the sort of beauty the singers cherished, but her daughter had loved her fierce strong face and the laughter in her eyes. On that last visit, though, she had found Lady Alannys in a window seat huddled beneath a pile of furs, staring out across the sea. Is this my mother, or her ghost? she remembered thinking as she’d kissed her cheek. * Another detail that’s underappreciated: she feels more comfortable at Ten Towers than Pyke. Symbolically speaking, this leads the reader to associate her with Alannys and Rodrik the Reader - not Balon. (This reminds me of Theon: ‘not a home but the best i ever had’ about Winterfell... They both suffered at Pyke.) It was good to walk these halls again. Ten Towers had always felt like home to Asha, more so than Pyke. Not one castle, ten castles squashed together, she had thought, the first time she had seen it. She remembered breathless races up and down the steps and along wallwalks and covered bridges, fishing off the Long Stone Quay, days and nights lost amongst her uncle’s wealth of books * I have spoken enough of her heart. what about that mouth? Asha is the sassiest pirate out here, a queen in a family of sass masters. Seriously, she serves some of the best lines in the series. I mean... “Every word you spoke to me was a lie.” “Not every word. Remember when I told you I like to be on top?” Asha grinned. That only made him angrier. 

* She has doubts and regrets. Still, she takes responsibility for her choices. She knows what she wants and who she is.  Botley blinked, as if he did not quite understand what she had said. “You... I thought you would wait. Why...” He rubbed his mouth. “Asha, were you forced?” “So forced I tore his tunic. You do not want to wed me, take my word on that. You are a sweet boy and always were, but I am no sweet girl. If we wed, soon enough you’d come to hate me.” “Never. Asha, I have ached for you.” She had heard enough of this. A sickly mother, a murdered father, and a plague of uncles were enough for any woman to contend with; she did not require a lovesick puppy too. “Find a brothel, Tris. They’ll cure you of that ache.” * Her weapon of choice is ......... an AXE??? how ...cool is that? * I mean, she is a pirate. She is a CAPTAIN. her ship is called the Black Wind. what more do you need?  * Oh, and she isn’t dumb. at all. Her discussion with her uncle Rodrik the Reader demonstrates this very well. Also, she reads through Theon’s bullshit excuses very easily. Asha shook her head. “How could you be such a bloody fool? Children…” “They defied me!” he shouted in her face. “And it was blood for blood besides, two sons of Eddard Stark to pay for Rodrik and Maron.” The words tumbled out heedlessly, but Theon knew at once that his father would approve. “I’ve laid my brothers’ ghosts to rest.” “Our brothers,” Asha reminded him, with a half smile that suggested she took his talk of vengeance well salted. “Did you bring their ghosts from Pyke, brother? And here I thought they haunted only Father. * Yes, she is capable and oozes charisma. she was an underdog nevertheless, until she proved herself as a competent leader (oh, misogyny). Even then, she still fears being humiliated, which shows in her arrogant demeanor during the Queensmoot Arc. The smiles and jokes are for protection, it’s a Sibling Thing, apparently. His sister looked at him a long time. “Then hold it you shall,” she said, “for the rest of your life.” She sighed. “I say it tastes like folly, but what would a shy maid know of such things? At the door she gave him one last mocking smile. “You ought to know, that‟s the ugliest crown I‟ve ever laid eyes on. Did you make it yourself? (If you look past the sass, it’s obvious she cares but refuses to show it - damn these two Stepford Smilers) * Her character is so fascinating that she won the heart of many readers in spite of having a secondary role in the narrative. Like theon, asha defies stereotypes. she is never an archetype. her ‘masculinity’ (in the traditional sense, echoing theon’s ‘femininity’) doesn’t reduce her to the token Action Girl role. She is brash and arrogant and badass and sensitive - she feels like a person, flesh and blood and emotions. Theon is my favourite character, but I’m much more proud whenever someone tells me Asha is a favourite of theirs. We need more characters like her.

* One last overlooked quote: “I have never met a man I didn’t provoke, you should know that well enough by now “ Oh, these complex, risk-taking, smirking Greyjoy Siblings. How they push people to keep the upper hand.

[poorquentyn]

Have you entertained the possibility that Euron may not end up being a significant part of the story? No dragon binding, no wall breaking, no confirmed connection to Bloodraven, etc. Just a minor-ish (yet very interesting) character.

Everything about how GRRM has written Euron “Crow’s Eye” Greyjoy suggests that he is a very significant character indeed, someone to fear and take seriously. This is true whether you’re talking about the setup before we meet him...

“Euron Crowseye has no lack of cunning, though. I’ve heard men say terrible things of that one.”

Theon shifted his seat. “My uncle Euron has not been seen in the islands for close on two years. He may be dead.” If so, it might be for the best. Lord Balon’s eldest brother had never given up the Old Way, even for a day. His Silence, with its black sails and dark red hull, was infamous in every port from Ibben to Asshai, it was said.

“Euron Greyjoy is no man’s notion of a king, if half of what Theon said of him was true.”

Aeron was almost at the door when the maester cleared his throat, and said, “Euron Crow’s Eye sits the Seastone Chair.”

The Damphair turned. The hall had suddenly grown colder. The Crow’s Eye is half a world away. Balon sent him off two years ago, and swore that it would be his life if he returned. “Tell me,” he said hoarsely.

…the way he’s presented when we do meet him…

“We shall have no king but from the kingsmoot.” The Damphair stood. “No godless man—”

“—may sit the Seastone Chair, aye.” Euron glanced about the tent. “As it happens I have oft sat upon the Seastone Chair of late. It raises no objections.” His smiling eye was glittering. “Who knows more of gods than I? Horse gods and fire gods, gods made of gold with gemstone eyes, gods carved of cedar wood, gods chiseled into mountains, gods of empty air…I know them all. I have seen their peoples garland them with flowers, and shed the blood of goats and bulls and children in their names. And I have heard the prayers, in half a hundred tongues. Cure my withered leg, make the maiden love me, grant me a healthy son. Save me, succor me, make me wealthy…protect me! Protect me from mine enemies, protect me from the darkness, protect me from the crabs inside my belly, from the horselords, from the slavers, from the sellswords at my door. Protect me from the Silence.” He laughed. “Godless? Why, Aeron, I am the godliest man ever to raise sail! You serve one god, Damphair, but I have served ten thousand. From Ib to Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray.”

The priest raised a bony finger. “They pray to trees and golden idols and goat-headed abominations. False gods…”

“Just so,” said Euron, “and for that sin I kill them all. I spill their blood upon the sea and sow their screaming women with my seed. Their little gods cannot stop me, so plainly they are false gods. I am more devout than even you, Aeron. Perhaps it should be you who kneels to me for blessing.”

The Red Oarsman laughed loudly at that, and the others took their lead from him.

[Here’s GRRM’s pre-emptive strike against Euron skeptics] “Fools,” said the priest, “fools and thralls and blind men, that is what you are. Do you not see what stands before you?”

“A king,” said Quellon Humble.

The Damphair spat, and strode out into the night.

Sharp as a swordthrust, the sound of a horn split the air.

Bright and baneful was its voice, a shivering hot scream that made a man’s bones seem to thrum within him. The cry lingered in the damp sea air: aaaaRREEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

All eyes turned toward the sound. It was one of Euron’s mongrels winding the call, a monstrous man with a shaved head. Rings of gold and jade and jet glistened on his arms, and on his broad chest was tattooed some bird of prey, talons dripping blood.

aaaaRRREEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

The horn he blew was shiny, black, and twisted, and taller than a man as he held it with both hands. It was bound about with bands of red gold and dark steel, incised with ancient Valyrian glyphs that seemed to glow redly as the sound swelled.

aaaaaaaRRREEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

It was a terrible sound, a wail of pain and fury that seemed to burn the ears. Aeron Damphair covered his, and prayed for the Drowned God to raise a mighty wave and smash the horn to silence, yet still the shriek went on and on. It is the horn of hell, he wanted to scream, though no man would have heard him. The cheeks of the tattooed man were so puffed out they looked about to burst, and the muscles in his chest twitched in a way that it made it seem as if the bird were about to rip free of his flesh and take wing. And now the glyphs were burning brightly, every line and letter shimmering with white fire. On and on and on the sound went, echoing amongst the howling hills behind them and across the waters of Nagga’s Cradle to ring against the mountains of Great Wyk, on and on and on until it filled the whole wet world.

“Crow’s Eye, you call me. Well, who has a keener eye than the crow? After every battle the crows come in their hundreds and their thousands to feast upon the fallen. A crow can espy death from afar. And I say that all of Westeros is dying. Those who follow me will feast until the end of their days.

“We are the ironborn, and once we were conquerors. Our writ ran everywhere the sound of the waves was heard. My brother would have you be content with the cold and dismal north, my niece with even less…but I shall give you Lannisport. Highgarden. The Arbor. Oldtown. The riverlands and the Reach, the kingswood and the rainwood, Dorne and the marches, the Mountains of the Moon and the Vale of Arryn, Tarth and the Stepstones. I say we take it all! I say, we take Westeros.”

Euron seated himself and gave his cloak a twitch, so it covered his private parts. “I had forgotten what a small and noisy folk they are, my ironborn. I would bring them dragons, and they shout out for grapes.”

“Grapes are real. A man can gorge himself on grapes. Their juice is sweet, and they make wine. What do dragons make?”

“Woe.” The Crow’s Eye sipped from his silver cup.

“What do you want?”

“The world.” Firelight glimmered in Euron’s eye.

…or perhaps above all, the visions GRRM grants us of Euron’s eldritch soul he keeps hidden behind that eyepatch.

“Have you seen these others in your fires?” he asked, warily.

“Only their shadows,” Moqorro said. “One most of all. A tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood.”

Beneath her coverlets she tossed and turned, dreaming that Hizdahr was kissing her…but his lips were blue and bruised, and when he thrust himself inside her, his manhood was cold as ice.

Clad head to heel in scale as dark as onyx, he sat upon a mound of blackened skulls as dwarfs capered around his feet and a forest burned behind him.  

“The bleeding star bespoke the end,” he said to Aeron. “These are the last days, when the world shall be broken and remade. A new god shall be born from the graves and charnel pits.”

Then Euron lifted a great horn to his lips and blew, and dragons and krakens and sphinxes came at his command and bowed before him. “Kneel, brother,” the Crow’s Eye commanded. “I am your king, I am your god. Worship me, and I will raise you up to be my priest.”

“Never. No godless man may sit the Seastone Chair!”

“Why would I want that hard black rock? Brother, look again and see where I am seated.”

Aeron Damphair looked. The mound of skulls was gone. Now it was metal underneath the Crow’s Eye: a great, tall, twisted seat of razor sharp iron, barbs and blades and broken swords, all dripping blood.

Impaled upon the longer spikes were the bodies of the gods. The Maiden was there and the Father and the Mother, the Warrior and Crone and Smith…even the Stranger. They hung side by side with all manner of queer foreign gods: the Great Shepherd and the Black Goat, three-headed Trios and the Pale Child Bakkalon, the Lord of Light and the butterfly god of Naath.

And there, swollen and green, half­-devoured by crabs, the Drowned God festered with the rest, seawater still dripping from his hair.

The dreams were even worse the second time. He saw the longships of the Ironborn adrift and burning on a boiling blood­-red sea. He saw his brother on the Iron Throne again, but Euron was no longer human. He seemed more squid than man, a monster fathered by a kraken of the deep, his face a mass of writhing tentacles. Beside him stood a shadow in woman’s form, long and tall and terrible, her hands alive with pale white fire. Dwarves capered for their amusement, male and female, naked and misshapen, locked in carnal embrace, biting and tearing at each other as Euron and his mate laughed and laughed and laughed…

Of course, I get that not everyone is gonna love this stuff like I do; creeping cosmic horror is very much my wheelhouse. But looking at all of the above, I cannot see how anyone can come to the conclusion that Euron is unimportant to the plot and themes of ASOIAF. I think part of the problem is that Euron is keeping his true intentions hidden from the Ironborn (besides Damphair, of course), and so some readers were fooled along with the captains and kings. But the truth was always out there, and it became undeniable after “The Forsaken,” in which the monster wearing the pirate suit emerges, fangs glistening, for his closeup. 

Urri shook his head. “Worms… worms await you, Aeron.”

When he laughed, his face sloughed off, and the priest saw that it was not Urri but Euron, the smiling eye hidden. He showed the world his blood eye now, dark and terrible.

[roombagreyjoy]

people are hating on Theon for what he did in the last episode and I'm so mad. he's obviously still struggling a lot. and also, what choice did he have? he could have never beaten Euron, so he would have ended up dead. In vain. let him live, literally. he probably still feels like he has to make it up to the Starks so maybe he's gonna join them.

Oh. My. God. This is going to be a long ass post, so prepare yourselves. Also slight hints of anger and butthurtness from my part. Sorry!

First of all, I’d like to say that I actually got into a serious argument with a so-called friend over this entire scene. She said with zero context whatsoever: “dude, I fucking hate Theon more than I ever have. At first I was alright with you liking him but I don’t even want to see him anymore. He’s the worst”. So I obviously got mad. When I asked her what he was to blame for, she exposed these issues.

1. “He is a coward for abandoning the ship”; I replied I would have totally done the same. He is a survivor, he has not gone through this much to give up and drop dead now. Seriously. Any sane person would have done the same. Don’t lie to yourselves thinking you would have played the hero because only a VERY SMALL PERCENTAGE of people would have (and they probably would have died). And I doubt any trauma survivor (ahem Theon ahem) would have.

Seriously, people, he kind of even went back into his Reek state again. Here are the facts that prove it (that are basically Alfie Allen’s superb acting. What a guy, my goodness)A) His eyes. Full of fear and anxiety. Seriously. Just look at him. He looks like he’s about to shit himself. Literally.B) A change in his breath. He starts having trouble to keep a normal breath (as if he’s having an asthma attack, kind of. Trust me I know what I’m talking about)C) THE FUCKING NOISES. THEY’RE THE SAME SMALL LITTLE WHIMPERS HE MADE WHEN HE WAS REEK. HOW CAN YOU NOT NOTICE IF THEY LITERALLY LOWER THE BATTLE SOUND FOR YOU TO HEAR. Duh.

No victim abuse could have possibly stayed back and fight, especially if they knew they couldn’t win.

Because they could not win, and he was not the only one that knew.

I have rewatched the scene a couple times and I noticed that when Yara is up deck she sees the fire blasting and burning their ships. She sees her men get slaughtered and she seizes the numbers. They were going to loose. She knew this, but she couldn’t surrender (obviously) so she did what any ironborn (who then again is not an abuse survivor who is going back into Reek state, bo-hoo) would: keep fighting until the end. Why is that? Very simple: she sees her armada get destroyed (although that’s not exactly how naval battles were, but cinematographically it’s amazing to watch) she is blinded by rage at the sight of Euron. Seriously, she jumped over to try and get a hold of him even though this would mean she would have possibly landed badly and had no time to recover and get into defence position again until it was too late and the enemies would get to attack her (which is exactly what happened, duh)

War is messy and Yara had no time to think with a cool mind. But she is a warrior, she kind of was supposed to? Her heart was on fire and she was blinded by both rage and fear of losing. She should have kept a cold head but at the sight of Euron she just couldn’t. It’s understandable, and undeniably what happened here. (While Euron is a great warrior used to fight on board and not only that but enjoys the fight. He was having a grand time hunting them let’s be real)

Anyway I think it’s time to move forward to the next point.

2. “Yara cured him of the abused suffered by Ramsay.”

“And how exactly did she do that?” I asked.“She talked him out of it,” my friend said.

Oh, yes, that’s it. She talked him out of it. On the tavern scene. When she’s looking for some ass (not to blame eh that’s some nice ass) and trying to make it quick so that her brother would “man up” and just “get over it” because she was tired of seeing him cower like a beat dog. I do remember that scene. Oh, yes, the memorable scene in which years of abuse are cured by the so-called “kind” words of a lovely sister.

I want to get one thing straight and that is: I love Yara Greyjoy. (And I hope she’s alive) I don’t blame her for anything. She is one of my favourite characters, seriously. But she’s not a soulful person and she can’t and presumably have not given Theon the support he needed, sentimentally speaking.She is a warrior and therefore she’s not made to comfort people. She is rough and strong and that’s why she has a hard time understanding what Theon went through. Even if we presumably got more brother-sister moments in which she tries to comfort Theon, it is obvious the trauma is far from gone.

Yes, he can fight already, and I’m so happy to see him do it, just like any other ironborn. But being able to fight and overcoming mental trauma are two very different things.

Theon is still getting over Reek.

A GOOD EXAMPLE IS WHEN ELLIA SAND asks (more like commands him but hey it’s whatever) him to get her more ale and he, after a moment of hesitation, takes her cup and submissively refills it.“He’s not a servant,” Yara says. But Theon brushes it off and simply replies with an “it’s fine” in a low voice.

He may hesitate but his almost immediate response is to obey. Years of abuse and submission have their repercussions, you know? (And no, they cannot be cured just by some sweet talk. It takes time and Theon obviously hasn’t had it)

3. This is something I added, from the books. I know D&D don’t pay attention to them but I do. So here it’s my last point to it.

Theon is scared shitless of Euron.

That’s it.

In the books he says it sometime and he describes Euron as anything but nice. He is terrified of him.

Not only in tbe books but on the show we see the clear effect Euron exerts (exerts? idk English is not my native language so beg pardon for the mistakes) on Theon. He just stands there, contemplating him in fear.

On season six we see he stays still like a stick when Euron approaches him, and so does when Euron has Yara. He doesn’t know what to do, he can’t bring himself to move. Friendly reminder that Theon, as a kid, grew up on an abusive environment even before he ever went to Winterfell. He is terrorised. There is no way he could have stood up to his uncle all alone.

Moreover, the only person with whom he could have possibly stand up to Euron up to this point is, newsflash, in Euron’s hands with a weapon on her throat. (And I still love Euron. What a great guy. No, this isn’t sarcasm, I’m dead serious)

SO AFTER ALL THE EXPLANATIONS:

Basically this whole scene triggers the most basic human reaction in existence, ever: FIGHT OR FLIGHT.

Theon could not fight, so he flee. He is absolutely not to blame for that because it’s basic human nature, with or without all the details I said above, it’s instinctive behaviour. What I love so much about this story, universe or whatever you want to call it, is the -relatively- closeness to reality. People don’t cure themselves five minutes after being wounded. The “good boys” don’t always win. It’s somehow realistic in the aspects in which it can be (although thank God we don’t have a crazy ass teenager riding on some dragon burning people alive because YOLO in real life). People need time to heal. Theon needed time to heal. Maybe (probably) he will never heal completely.

Theon had no other option but to run. Theon is a severely damaged person who obviously is one of the most misunderstood, misjudged and unfairly criticised characters that have I ever seen. Cut the boy some slack you insensitive fucks. It’s easy to judge but sometimes people don’t think of the reasons behind the actions. Well here are the reasons I see.

That is all.

[robbmywolf]

Wolf on a Leash

Hey all! This is the first little fic I’m writing in the GoT fandom and I’m super excited. Lemme know what you think pretty please? xxx

Pairing: Robb Stark x reader 

Summary: Robb mistakes the feeling he has for you as loathing. You mistake the returning feeling you have for Robb as disgust. After 16 some odd years of having to deal with the feuding that’s been going on between his eldest and you, Ned finally takes jurassic measures to put an end to it. 

Tags: AU where Jon Arryn doesn’t die and all of the Starks stay in Winterfell, Ned is a class A troll, Ayra’s a little shit, Stark family feels, fluff, humor, s l o w b u r n, angst at some point probably

Prologue 

Ned Stark is universally known for his wisdom and fair mind, his gentle but blunt ruling hand, his honorable intentions, his kind smile and sympathetic heart. But never in your entire time living with the Starks have you witnessed this level of fuckery.

Growing up with the Starks never made you a Stark, you aren’t naive, but they treated you like family all the same. 

Jon and you are practically related, and not by blood but by the fact that you were both orphaned by your mothers (and in your case your father too) which formed a bond between you that was untouchable much to Robb’s extreme chagrin. Sansa…tolerates you, much preferring her dresses and stitching and titillating conversations of marring Princes and Lords to your blunt company. Ayra simply loves you, as you two commonly practice swordplay together secretly out in the woods boarding Winterfell. Brandon genuinely looks up to you and Rickon follows you around like a shy newborn foal. 

As for Theon Greyjoy, the other Stark-adopted stray, he mildly irks you but you don’t mind him too much. Mostly you dislike him because he and Robb are so close. And that brings you to Robb.

Robb Stark is charming, handsome, kind, a bit naive but counters that with a strong fair-mindedness, undeniably brave, proud and impatient as all young men are, and most importantly an absolute asshole. 

Well, he’s an asshole to you anyway. 

At this point you don’t even remember why Robb and you became literal mortal enemies, locked in this endless emotional (and sometimes physical) warfare. You met Robb as a shivering, tiny, skinny-as-a-stick three year old who was brought in from the harshness of the cold wildness by Ned Stark. You were found half dead curled up in a gnarled cradle of tree roots with an icy blanket of snow dusted over you. Ned had been teaching three-year-old Robb how to ride in heavy snow in the Northern forest surrounding Winterfell when they cantered past you. It was actually Robb and his young sharp eye that spotted your skin tinted an unhealthy grey-blue hidden in the roots and fresh snow. Ned had dismounted and quickly pulled you under his furs, ridding at a harsh gallop back home with Robb struggling to keep up on his pony. 

Honestly you don’t know how things managed to escalate from mild annoyance to matured literal hatred. The older you both got, the more you both despised each other. But all this brings you to your current predicament because finally, after sixteen years of bickering and fighting and slapping and punching and taunting and insulting and food fights and sword fights and much much more, Ned has snapped. 

Robb and you stand both grown ass adults, both nineteen years old, both bowing your heads like scolded children before Ned who’s seated behind his desk in his study. 

Last night at dinner you both had at it again, flinging stinging words and petty names at each other across the table like you were twelve. Your nemesis status is quite known in the household and is so normal at this point most of the family ignored you two, instead easily continuing their meals with their own small talk. Most of the family, except Ned who honestly was done. 

Starks aren’t known for their patience. And Ned is surprised he’s let this go on as long as it has. 

“I have had enough,” Eddard begins with easy authority, not even looking at you two but signing some official looking scroll rolled out on the desk below him. Only silence and the scratching of his quill against the thick parchment dare respond to his words. 

You can feel Robb bristling beside you even as you stand as far apart from each other as possible, both of your hands clasped respectfully in front of you despite the tension in the room.  

“You are both far too old for all of this nonsense and I expect much more from both of you.” He pauses to give an official Stark Grunt™, dipping his quill in the ink pot, before continuing to write and speak, “I am going to force you both to fix this. I have tried many times to mend whatever vague issue you two seem hell-bent on holding against each other, but I will not have it continue. I refuse to live among this unnecessary toxicity any longer.” He finishes in a deep flourishing baritone, his words final and inexorable. 

There are a couple more suffocating minutes of verbal silence, Ned letting you two simmer uncomfortably in it a bit in a small form of retaliation for ruining dinner (again), before collecting himself and sighing.  

“Come here,” Ned prompts as he carefully sets down his quill and opens one of his desk drawers. 

As you both step up to the desk in irking unison, a heavy metal clanking sound muffles dully through the wood of the desk and both Robb and your hearts begin to speed up. The second Ned pulls out worn steel shackles with a generously long chain of knotted iron connecting the circles of metal, you know shit just got real and the gates of hell have just opened.

“Father?!” Robb exclaims in open, sudden confusion and disbelief, his voice cracking with the force of his alarm and potent discomfort. 

You feel like you just got slapped in the face as you stare speechless at the shackles in Ned’s hands as he places them on the desk like this is the most normal thing. Your mounting disbelief matches if not trumps Robb’s, but you have always expressed your emotions differently than him. 

“Not a single word Robb.” Ned silences his son with a tone of dense impatience and a very effective Stark Glare as back up while he remains unruffled and scarily calm behind the desk, motioning for Robb to give him one of his wrists as he maintains challenging eye contact from his seat.  

When Robb doesn’t comply, face twisting into rebellion and looks like he’s about to argue – let’s go with the describing word: passionately – you take a deep breath and surrender to your fate not wanting to anger Ned further. 

So. Here you are, salvaging what’s left of the civility in the room as you gallantly offer your right hand to the man that’s been a Father to you and given you a home and a family (your compliance is the very least you can give in gratitude). You do this silently and respectfully with the only sign of your protest visible in your eyes which you hide expertly behind the shade of your lashes. You can feel Robb’s horrified gaze on your profile, shocked you caved so easy and counted on for once having you back his side of the argument. 

The irony that Robb somehow feels betrayed by you in this moment is truly earth shattering. 

Unlike Robb who shares actual blood with Ned, you don’t have such a privilege and therefore have no right to argue against Ned’s wishes anyways. You don’t want to become unwanted in this place that you have considered your only home, and even worse you don’t want to be kicked out because you didn’t concede to Ned’s wishes no matter how insane they are.  

“Thank you Y/n,” Eddard says in that tender fatherly voice that you are so lucky to have had guiding your head and heart most of your life, sending you a grateful smile when you briefly glance up and catch eyes. He gently takes your hand in his two broad sword-calloused ones, “Been out in the woods with Ayra have you?” Ned asks with a knowing amused smirk when he spots matching callouses on your palms from wielding a practice sword. 

You nod and try to smile but end up grimacing when the uneven, but smooth with age, weight of the cool metal shackles close with a dooming clack around your wrist. Ned makes the metal loose enough that it won’t chaff too much, but tight enough that you couldn’t squeeze your wrist out. 

It takes another hour with you standing awkwardly with one arm stretched out, hand cuffed with metal, watching as the two Starks argue and fume, to get Robb’s left wrist into a shackle. Once the metal makes a shuck noise when Ned finishes adjusting the tightness on Robb, and locks the thick cuffs on both your wrists with the handcuffs’ key, you can honestly say you have never understood the meaning of dread more purely than you did just then.

It wasn’t until you both passed Catelyn Stark, grumbling and pulling at each other down a long stretch of stone corridor, that some severely concerning circumstantial problems were brought to both of your attentions. 

Catelyn did a double take as she at first was shocked you two were walking side by side, and then looked again when the noise of metal chains clanked between your bodies. 

“By the Gods!” She exclaims with a comical expressive gasp shaping her face, before shuffling in her intimating but graceful way over to you. “What in the name of the Seven is going on here?” She demanded accusingly of you – like it was by our own wills you chained yourselves together – in her easily recognizable tone of authority that she only used when she was well and truly upset, wanting honest explanations. 

Robb immediately launches into a rant about the atrocious happenings of the past hour. You roll your eyes at his usual dramatics and yank on his chained wrist when his wild gesturing pulls your own wrist annoyingly with it. 

What a mama’s boy, You think bitterly, bristling in an extraordinary state of unhappiness at Robb’s side when he continues complaining about Ned and his idea of problem solving, piercing your own version of the official Stark Glare at his profile. 

When he finally finishes Catelyn’s face peddles through a myriad of expressions: amusement, shock, cautious approval, mild marital exasperation, and finally settles on a surprising one you didn’t foresee at all. 

“And just how are you two going to maintain cordial propriety?” Silence greets her words as she stares you both down with a cocked head and hands placed on her skirt covered hips. “How will you sleep or relieve yourselves?”

“Relieve ourselves?” Robb questions with a quirk in his brow and a familiar twitch that tugs at the corner of his mouth. His head cocks to the side too, ironically mirroring his mother. The resemblance between them in that moment is so blatant.

It makes a small tucked away part of your heart sad, knowing you never have or will physically resemble the Starks. Although your habit to bite the inside of your cheek when you’re nervous you inherited from Ned, you secretly pride yourself on it. 

“Yes Robb, how are you both going to pee and shit?”

Catelyn has become more Stark than Tully over the years. 

Robb’s face goes red for a second before embarrassment is quickly overwhelmed with another wave of fury. Before he can voice this anger, Catelyn speaks again saving you from another rant.

“I’ll speak to your Father about what amendments are to be made to this…endurment.” Catelyn says to the both of you (your heart flutters when you hear Catelyn refer to Ned as your father too, making you temporarily forget your caged hatred for the woman for abandoning Jon and causing him so much undeserved pain), a little unsure of what to call your current predicament, before blinking quickly a few times and taking in a sharp breath, “Rules will be announced at dinner. Make do until then and please, for the love of the Gods, attempt not to kill each other.” 

You both know she pleads this with genuine warning before hasting regally away to Ned’s study.

Dinner was obviously a disaster. 

When Ned finished reading off the “rules and boundaries” of this joined punishment from a ridiculously official scroll Catelyn had drawn up before the entire family seated at the dinner table, Robb and you were quite ready to saw off your hands instead of endure this torture. 

The Rules and Boundaries included the following:

You will stay chained always — even throughout the night; you will both retire to either of your personal chambers where Robb will sleep on the floor and Y/n in her bed in her chambers

Ned wiggled in his seat under the mighty glare of Catelyn at this. Mother Stark was obviously upset she lost the debate to have you both sleep in separate chambers. But Ned had argued no impropriety would go on between you two since you could barely stand to breathe the same air, let alone willingly touch each other. You could also feel the rage that was throbbing off Robb as he sat next to you at being forced to sleep on the floor instead of a bed. 

Robb had gasped in horror and fierce protest, “I will not–!”

“Oh yes you will,” Ned interrupted with matching heat, “Maybe it’ll teach you a few manners and a bit of humility.”

You grinned savagely at Robb’s responding expression and this small victory.

You will need my, Eddard, express permission to unlock yourselves for self-relieving purposes — If for any reason I am unavailable your Mother, Catelyn, will see to any assistance you may require 

The entire table erupted in giggles when this was read as Robb and you burned under your own cheeks.

No one is to interfere with or assist in the release of Robb and Y/n from their confinements, unless given permission by either me or your Mother

No one is to further antagonize or tease Robb and Y/n as they adjust to their new accommodation

Ayra looked crestfallen at this; the little shit you thought affectionately.

You will only be released from this joint endurance when I, Eddard Stark, deem you ready 

The horror of the last declaration almost made you faint.

After dinner Robb and you agreed on something for the first time in a decade.

Ned and Catelyn had handed the shackles’ key to a trusted Stark sibling for safe keeping for the evening, and like the dire wolves that roamed the halls and fields of Winterfell, Robb and you teamed up and were hell-bent on hunting whoever that was down. 

“Jon, who has the key?” Robb demands of his brother in an impatient almost-whine (which you would have teased him for but decide against it seeing as there’s only a mere foot of chain to stretch between you, providing you with minimal chances of dodging his usual retaliation of a knuckle-sandwich) since the tactic to intimidate Jon into giving up the answer proved to be as useless as trying to carve a hole through stone with your bare fingers. 

You already know the answer as you watch pity wipe clean over Jon’s originally amused facial expression. 

“Ayra.” 

Robb gravely closes his eyes and drops his head back to face the boards in the ceiling as you petrify beside him. The shackle grows heavier by the second. Your eyes widen to saucers like one of Sansa’s porcelain dolls, your hands clench into tight unforgiving fists, and doom blooms clear as a spring dawn on your face. 

You are fucked. Ayra wouldn’t give up that key for anything. Even her love for you wouldn’t trump the responsibility bestowed to her by Ned. 

Something within you snaps and habit mixes with frustration, creating a poisonous brew to boil through your veins and aid fire to your words when you speak, 

“Maybe if you spent less time treating her like an incapable little girl, and more time getting to know her and maybe, I don’t know,” You pause dramatically and swing your hands around in a wild gesture purposefully wrenching your connected hands so his wrist would chaff a little in the metal, “Practice swordplay with her, then maybe Ayra would give us the key if we asked her for it! But since you don’t give a crow’s droppings about her, now we’re stuck like this!”

Robb stiffens further in his already frozen stance before whipping his head over to you and flashing you his crazy eyes: his button (multiple buttons actually) successfully pushed. He falls into easy habit with you.

“Well if you were a Stark, as in actually apart of my family, then you would have the right to advise me on how to treat my sister. But as you are not a Stark and not part of this family, I suggest you shut the fuck up!” Robb replies in a wavering Northern accent in matching hysterics, waving his arms around too making you both start a painful yanking fight over the chain between your shackles. 

You actively fight against the sting in Robb’s words that’s trying to transform your anger into pain and loneliness. Instead of hurting you immediately his words settle patiently in the marrow of your bones and sit heavily in the pit of your gut to beat you to tears later when you’re alone under your covers. You physically jolt like a whip had snapped in all your nerve endings when you realize there won’t be a later. Because Robb is chained to you and will be sleeping beside you. 

Your entire soul revolts at the thought of crying in Robb’s presence no matter if you could manage it without him knowing. Bile rises thickly in the back of your throat. If he saw or even sensed a new weakness of yours he’d only add it to his already existing short list of ammunition against you. 

The look on your face outwardly hardens opposing your insides that weaken as you glare up at him.

“Robb,” Jon gently chastises his half-brother at his words, but before Snow can say anything more to break down Robb’s anger and aid as a catalyst to its current transformation into guilt, Robb rushes past him and hauls you with with him.

Robb ignores your sharp cries and shrieks of protest as they bounce loudly off the stone walls while he yanks you through the different wings of Winterfell. He eventually brings you to his chambers and bursts in through the thick, beautifully carved wooden door. The pain that the metal abuses into your wrist mutes temporarily when you take in the generous chamber. 

You’ve never been in Robb’s room before. 

Without any warning or time to fully take in your surroundings, Robb quickly rounds the room and snuffs out most of the candles (leaving a few lit just in case), and makes for the large bed still completely clothed in his day wear. The slept-in-sheets, thick feather down comforter, and multiple fluffy furs all wink invitingly at you through their crinkles and folds as Robb stubbornly throws himself down on them. You gulp discreetly as you off-handedly wonder if his pillows smell like him. 

What an odd thing to think about. 

Before you can register what he’s doing, Robb is yanking the metal chain so you crash harshly to the thin fur carpet on the floor beside the bed. He chucks one balled up fur down at you like a soft cannon ball before settling with his hands curled into his chest as he rests on his side towards the edge of the bed, facing you. 

The position of his hands makes your right wrist dangle uncomfortably mid-air against the wooden frame of the bed. You tug stubbornly at it to bring it back down to you but Robb braces against the pull. You try this for a solid thirty heart beats before huffing extraordinarily loud and giving up. You can feel Robb smirking in small petty triumph. 

Grey Wind comes trotting in at that moment and stops to assess the current situation with a weird wolfy pout. His large beautiful grey head tilts to the side, much like how his master does oddly enough, and instead of hopping up on the bed to sleep with Robb the beast sidles up next to you. You feel a small sense of vengeful victory at this. Grey Wind nuzzles his big wet nose against your cheek in a shy kiss, his stretched out body on the floor practically the entire length of your own, and gives an animated huff as he settles and stills. As you run your free fingers through the wolf’s course winter fur (the smell of pine, cold sunshine, fresh snow, and earth wafting up from the disturbed hairs) Robb gives a classic Stark Grunt in mild aggravation at this minor betrayal. 

You respond with your rendition of a Stark Grunt stubbornly, shifting awkwardly and uncomfortably in your tight corset and day shift, heavy skirt hem still chilled from the cold stone you walked on just a few moments ago making your toes turn to ice. Your head spins and you fist your fingers in Grey Wind’s coat. You prepare to become walking dead because there is no way you’d be getting any sleep tonight. 

Part 2

Alright so idk how well this will be received, but I hope yall like it :) Lemme know if you have requests xxx

[kittensjonsa]

A flash Jonsa AU. Again, sorry, couldn’t resist. :)

*******

The Healer

“Miss Stark! Come in here, we need you! Quickly now!” a voice jolted her out of her drowsiness. She hadn’t had any rest since the booming blasts heard not far away wheeled in dozens of screaming young soldiers, injured, burnt and in agonising pain.

“Anything you need Dr Davos?“ Sansa rushed in to a smaller and more private enclosure of the large medical tent. She stared at the body laying lifeless on the worn canvas stretcher. He looked familiar.

“Hand me that gauze and stop the bleeding as much as you can. He’s losing a lot of blood. We’ve got to save him, no matter what,” the elder gentleman commanded as he took the cotton gauze from her hands and placed it on the gaping wound that was spurting blood. The shells had hit an arterial vein. The gush was bright red and copious. There was no way this young man would live. Even for a terrible nurse that she was, she knew there was no way he would survive it. Still, she followed Dr Davos’ orders.

“Doctor, I don’t think we can stop the bleeding. There are other soldiers out there who need treatment-”

“Miss Stark, do you know who he is?”

Sansa shook her head. She had seen many faces, most of them young and reminded her of her brother Robb and his friend Theon but she hadn’t a clue who the body that laid before her belonged to.

“That’s Jon Targaryen. Grandson of the Duke Aerys Targaryen the Second. Do you know what that means?” Dr Davos asked her again, as he frantically changed the soaked gauze with clean ones. Sansa wasn’t sure yet she understood, that he must be someone incredibly important. More important than the other young men out there, it seemed.

“But Dr Davos… he has no pulse. I’m sorry,” Sansa lessened her grip on the gauze, releasing the wound she was assisting Davos with. More than five minutes had already passed. Jon Targaryen was possibly clinically dead. Davos paused and bowed his head, taking off his glasses. He glanced at the young lady and back to the fresh corpse before him.

“Miss Stark, this man.. This man is the future of England. He has in him dreams that would make our nation great. I know there’s something in you.. I don’t know what it is but I know you can help him. Please, Miss Stark, I’ve seen the soldiers you’ve treated, it’s as if you have the hand that gives life. Do something for this young man. He is important to us, whether you know it or not,” he said quietly, ignoring the commotion and frantic calls for him outside the private space that held the three of them.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dr Davos. I-I should be returning to the others, they need treatment,” Sansa tried to dismiss the hint of the suggestion that Davos was implying. She was about to take her leave when she felt a gentle grip on her elbow.

“He saved my life once. And I vowed to make sure he’s to return alive and well to his family once all this is over. Miss Stark, please think about it.”

Though the slight waver in his plea seemed earnest, Sansa didn’t look back. She found herself almost running out to tend to a writhing young man who had burns all over him.

It was three in the morning when Sansa restocked the medical supplies. She counted the bottles of iodine and counted them again and again, distracted by the earlier conversation Dr Davos had started with her. She glanced across at the enclosed space of the tent that kept the body of one Jon Targaryen. Dr Davos had ordered all who were on duty to keep out of that space, except for him and herself, to tend to the patient.

Sansa didn’t know what came over her when she decided to cautiously walk over to it and tiptoed inside. The whole tent was silent in the dead of night, save for the occasional groan and quiet sobbing of the patients while trying to sleep through their pain. The scene was of great dire and despair.

Sansa looked at the body and let her fingers linger along the muscular arms that laid stiff at the sides. He was frozen to the touch.

He saved my life once… He’s to return to his family when all this is over..

Sansa sighed deeply. Every time, she laid her hands, it took something from her. She wasn’t quite certain what it was but it often left her drained and dizzy and incapable of standing. Ever since she was a child, she was told she had a gift. And they said time and time again, that her gift would change the world.

The Starks were direct descendants of a long lineage of witches and magick. Everyone born of Stark blood had some supernatural ability within them. Arya had the gift of strength; Bran had the gift of vision. She, well, had the gift of bringing back life from the dead. She was warned not to use it often, and only when needed but the death and disease that encamped all around her was too devastating to ignore. She would deal with the consequences when it comes. At that moment, Davos’ plea was the only thing that echoed in her mind. She liked working with him and he had become a sort of father figure to her while she was far away from home and family. If he said it was important, she believed it to be true.

Sansa took the cold wet cotton cloth in the basin of water that was left earlier for washing. She wiped away at the dirt and blood that streaked his face and tucked away the curls that covered his closed eyes. She wondered what colour his eyes could be. Sansa grabbed the medical shears that were in her apron pocket and sliced through the thick fabric he was clothed in. Sansa had to look away from the large hole on his side that greeted her the instant she took off his uniform. She was still not accustomed to the sight of bloody wounds and the white of exposed bones jutting out from their flesh.

Sansa cleaned the dried blood from the wound and dipped her finger onto the red fluid and smeared some of it onto the spot where his lifeless heart had stopped beating. Sansa shut her eyes and began chanting under her breath.

There is none other

than the great Mother,

Who gives us life and light

and who brings the end and night;

O’ great Mother, you are the one

to whom we seek and to whom we run;

I call on your name to give your breath

back to this vessel claimed by Death

To return to its former self and might

I proclaim it with your blessing of love and light

Sansa whispered again this time into his ears and gently blew her breath on his face and leaned down to do the same on his wounds and chest. It took her three gentle blows when she felt as if she was knocked hard on her chest by some large force. Sansa stumbled back, suddenly feeling exhausted and her heart racing. Sansa inhaled deeply and clung onto the stool in the form of a large wooden stump, that stood beside the stretcher. Sansa willed herself to sit up and regain her composure. It got harder every time she did it. But she was determined to stand by her decision. If this man was really who Davos said he was, then perhaps, she had made a difference.

Sansa watched Jon intently, her insides stirring, as if ominous that it was about to happen any moment. Sansa gently thumbed along Jon’s arms again and hoped that this man would really be someone she could trust her hopes and dreams with.

A sharp gasp for air startled her, almost made her lose balance off her seat as Jon started to heave and huff to draw in air to revive his once dead body. Sansa stood up to face him. Jon’s eyes fluttered open to stare up above him. His dark grey eyes darted to her in a state of panic and fear.

“Shhh.. Mr Targaryen. It’s all right. You’re fine now, you’re in the medical tent and treated for your injuries,” Sansa assured him gently, her eyes roamed towards his open wound that had shrunk to a small hole. Jon’s eyes drifted to her direction and felt with his hands where the hole was.

“But I, I was shot.. There was an explosion… My men, they were.. Who are you?” Jon opened his mouth to speak, his speech slurred but audible. He winced as he tried to get up but Sansa gently pushed him back to lay down again.

“Gently, Mr Targaryen. You’re just recovering and you.. You need to rest. My name is Sansa Stark, your attending nurse.”

Jon was still confused and his pained facial expression made her want to embrace and comfort him. She wasn’t quite sure why.

“Now, Mr Targaryen, I would sug-”

“Jon, please call me Jon,” Jon interrupted, his breathing now steady and his revived heart establishing a somewhat normal pace. His dark grey eyes that hovered on her was somehow unsettling to Sansa. She suddenly felt a hot flush spreading to her cheeks.

“Jon. I would suggest that you rest till the next morning. Your tired body needs it. If you need water or food, I shall get it for you. But please, promise me you will stay here till the morning? Till I come get you?” Sansa asked, not realising her hand planted firmly on his heaving chest. Jon grabbed her hand in his and Sansa almost let out a small whimper. Why did this man have an effect on her? What was it about him that made her feel things she never felt before?

“Yes, Miss. But you have to promise me that you’ll do me one thing. Please find out for me if my men are all right and well. I won’t be able to live with myself not knowing. I have their families to answer to. Please, Miss. These young men are sons who have fathers and mothers who miss them. I promised I would look after them.”

Dr Davos was right. She felt it in her heart that this Jon Targaryen was someone undeniably important. And special. His dark eyes shone with a deep ferocity she had never encountered before. Her senses tingled every time they made eye contact and goosebumps pimpled her skin. To Sansa, it seemed peculiar yet exhilarating. His now warm skin mingled with her own as he held on to her hand that was still on his chest.

Sansa nodded and pulled her hand away reluctantly. She kept her shears back in her pocket and handed Jon a blanket. The night was cold and his current weakened state would still be vulnerable to the elements. Sansa smiled and turned to leave.

“Miss Sansa.”

“Yes, Jon?” Sansa turned back to him. She felt glued to the spot, there was something about him that was pulling her in.

“Thank you. Whatever you did, thank you. I owe you my life and I will forever be indebted. My family and I.”

Sansa was truly blushing now and wished the lamp that was lighting the tent did not make it conspicuous.

“It is my duty and I’m glad that you’re alive, Jon. The doctor will tend to you in the morning when you’re up from your bedrest.”

Jon nodded his agreement, his eyes never once left hers.

“Sansa.. It’s a pretty name. I’ll remember it for as long as I live. Good night, Sansa.”

A sudden urge to leap onto him and kiss him came over her, but Sansa bit down hard on her lip and merely nodded shyly to Jon, who now wore a gentle smile on his face. Gone were the pain and panic. He looked like a true gentleman.

I’ll always remember you, too,

Sansa thought to herself. She gave him a smile, bid him goodnight and stepped out of the tent, hoping to find Dr Davos. She had never wished for morning to come sooner than ever.

********

sorry this went a little long! Oops!

[obsidianarchives]

Game of Thrones Recap: S8E1 - "Winterfell"

We’re back! After 12 years of waiting (okay, a year and a half, but who’s counting) Game of Thrones has returned. Mirroring the reunion of long-separated characters in-show, this episode at once feels like an old friend that never left, and yet has grown and matured in undeniable, but almost imperceptible ways. Compared to previous seasons, the episode maintained the improved (if breakneck) pacing of post-book content but has characters being written more consistently with their established arcs and motivations. They even trotted out a new intro this season. While in past years, the focus was just on how expansive this story truly was, ranging across countries on two continents, the focus is now much narrower and honed in on the remaining threats.

King’s Landing

In the capital, we see Cersei overseeing The Golden Company’s arrival in Westeros without much fanfare, and to the Queen’s deep disappointment, sans elephants. With precious little time left in the series, it seems unlikely the famed Essos mercenary troop will feature as much political intrigue as suggested in the books (with much of that being shifted into Jon and Daenerys’s storyline), they do at the very least come through suited and booted under the command of Captain-General Harry Strickland. The comparatively ragtag Second Suns these are not! Sidelined sidepiece Daario Naharis can eat his heart out while we see exactly what this portends for Cersei’s grand plans.

Speaking of royal jumpoffs, Euron again asks for a downpayment on his reward for aiding the Crown and asks to bed the Queen. She reads from the Book of Olivia Pope and demands Euron earn her, and then immediately lets him into her bed anyway. While most people are, to put it mildly, bemused by Euron’s continued prominence I’m (against my better judgement) at least willing to see where the writers are taking us with his character. It seems like there’s at least one twist left in his arc, at the very least as an obstacle in the Cersei/Jaime relationship. The story would have been better served setting it up during the meandering season 5 as the series stalled for George RR Martin to finish his books, but what’s done is done. If nothing else highlighted how truly alone Queen Cersei has become, it was her resignation in letting a Greyjoy into her bed, even if it was simply to keep him around and as a tool for her alleged pregnancy.

Meanwhile, after interrupting one of Bronn’s dalliances, Hand of the Queen Qyburn relays Cersei’s offer of gold to the sellsword if he will kill her “traitorous brothers” Jaime and Tyrion. And because she has no chill, she wants him to use Joffrey’s crossbow that Tyrion used to kill Tywin to do it. I think most of us would be surprised if he took her up on the offer and betrayed his friends, especially since he got paid up front, but this furthers the idea that one of her brothers will turn the tables and be the one to kill the Queen.

Finally we were reminded that King of the Iron Islands, Euron, whose ships ferried the Golden Company, still had Yara as a hostage in his ship. This is immediately paid off as Theon leads a successful rescue while crazy uncle “Crow’s Eye” is occupied plying his wares trying to send Cersei her queenly quivers. It’s still eff Theon forever around these parts, and while I remain unmoved by his inevitable redemption arc, he did come through for once. Despite her time as a captive Yara almost immediately has a plan and decides to retake the Iron Islands while Euron is abroad to provide a fallout shelter to survive the Winter should the Northern Alliance fail. Theon however feels honor bound to return to Winterfell and help his Stark kindred. While that’s cool and all, I’d be more worried about the other Northerners if they see him first. The last thing they remember is him allegedly burning the youngest Stark heirs alive and setting Winterfell to the torch among an infestation of Ironborn captors in the North.

Sidenote: Everyone is real cool about seeing Bran alive and wheeling around. Sansa knew Theon didn’t actually burn them because he slipped up, but everyone else should be a little more shocked he’s still alive.

Last Hearth

In Winterfell, we learned when the Wall fell, Sansa called all her banners to Winterfell to prepare for the long night. Ned Umber, underaged son of the traitorous Smalljon (who died in the Battle of the Bastards) and current lord of the Last Hearth, remains a straggler and was given more horses and wagons to transport his crew. You knew from jump nothing good was going to come from that late breaking news.

Cutting to the Umber’s house seat, we find out Tormund and the plot imperative remainder of the Brotherhood without Banners survived the collapse of the Wall and have made their way to the Northernmost castle in Westeros. It’s abandoned however, with obvious signs of a recent White Walker attack. In an eerie dark, they run into Lord Commander Dolorous Edd and what’s left of the Night’s Watch also making their way south. Momentarily fooled by Tormund’s gorgeous baby blue eyes, the two parties join up to find Ned Umber’s dead body bolted to the wall with the arms of several other corpses arrayed in a now all too familiar spiral pattern of the dead. Many viewers have noted the vague similarity between this and the Targaryen sigil. It’s possible “Fire and Blood” may have a deeper meaning than we originally thought, but before we can ponder that, surprise! Little homie ain’t dead!

Well, he is dead, but not dead-dead, which is still bad news for our group as he zombies back into the fight as Tormund’s back is turned. Luckily Beric Dondarrion and his flaming sword are there to burn him, but now they know the army of the dead is between them and their retreat to Winterfell.

Winterfell

WHERE. IS. GHOST?!?!?!?! Ahem...

We start in the home of the Starks, and quite expertly mirrored the start of the series with seemingly all of the North gathered to witness the procession coming to Winterfell and the arrival of the King and Queen. They even featured a young boy as Bran 2.0 climbing around and Arya hiding in plain sight betraying her noble bearing. Not to be forgotten is the Permit Patty looks of the Northerners as they see Missandei and Grey Worm rolling through the gates, and you can tell they have clearly not seen Black people in the North before.

Jon Snow returns to Winterfell after his quest for allies (and dragonglass), and he finally gets his reunion with Bran, who he hasn’t seen since episode 2 when he was hanging on for dear life after being pushed out of the Astronomy Tower by Jaime Lannister. Any hope that Bran may have gotten some chill in the offseason and settled into being a less creepy Three-Eyed Raven was immediately blown as he remains as cold and detached as ever. He rudely interrupts the formalities between a less than impressed Sansa and meeting the family Daenerys to remind them they “don’t have time for all of that” with the Night King on the march. He does have time for an old friend, but we’ll get back to that later.

We soon find out that Sansa isn’t the only one a bit chafed at Daenerys’s presence and what that means for the political reality of the North. The trillest player in the game, and Lady Olenna reincarnated, Lady Lyanna Mormont takes time out of her busy day of giving people stank faces to read Jon for filth. We all know Jon is only concerned about the Great War against the dead, and while you’d THINK knowing their only protection from the White Walkers which had stood for 8,000 years was gone would focus them, petty is gonna petty. Meanwhile Sansa asks the QTNA such as how are we supposed to feed these extra 100,000 people you just showed up to dinner with? Did you bring food for those two fully-grown dragons with you, or did you burn all that grain from Highgarden and spend the money on winter fits Dany?

The homecomings continue as former (and technically still, depending on your interpretation) husband and wife Sansa and Tyrion get to catch up for the first time since the Purple Wedding. We get to see how much Sansa has grown, and for all the earlier haters calling her naive and dumb, she’s the one pointing out the obvious holes in believing in Lannister promises. But the real meeting we’ve all been waiting for finally happened; Jon and Arya are together again! They both downplayed what they’ve been through, but we see just how much their experiences have changed them. Jon has spent seven seasons doing everything he can to be the shield that guards the realms of men. Arya in turn did everything she could, and killed anyone she had to in order to make her way back home to her family. It’s a subtle difference in perspective that Arya invited Jon to realize before his big picture thinking misses the forest for the trees.

And then there was Gendrya!!! Sorry, got a bit excited there for a second. We see Gendry already hard at work fashioning dragonglass weapons in the Winterfell forge. Arya comes in to ask for a custom made weapon, and also to flirt, and their obvious chemistry has not changed a bit. But before that, the Hound gets to be a proud papa bear and see his baby for the first time since she left him to die (and robbed him) at the end of season 4. It went about as gruff and awkwardly as you’d expect but there was obvious love there.

While Ser Davos, former hand of the former King in the North Jon Snow, talks to Tyrion about the seemingly inevitable marriage proposal to seal their alliance, Daenerys and her boo are looking for any excuse to get out of his folk’s place and get it on. She takes him out for a date, and apparently Jon has been putting it down so good she’s letting him borrow her car with the AKA plates. She invites him to get on Rhaegal and we finally get Jon, the not-so-secret Targaryen, riding a dragon!!!!!! The dragon named after his father no less, and while we all know — and the dragons clearly know — Dany and Jon are still in the dark about his true parentage. They fly off to a cave underneath a waterfall and Dany remarks they could stay there for a thousand years in obvious echoes of the dialogue between Jon and Ygritte north of the Wall.

After getting her back broken, Dany goes with her little buddy Jorah to thank Maester school dropout Sam for curing his greyscale. Upon realizing he’s a Tarly however, she also has to not-so-delicately break the news that she flambéed his father and brother for not bending the knee. Already crestfallen, Sam is pushed by Bran to reveal Jon’s true parentage as he’s paying his respects in the Winterfell crypts.

Always on time for heartbreak, we realize this is the first time Jon has “seen” his father since they parted ways on the Kingsroad in S1E2 when Ned promised to explain about his mother the next time they saw each other. What should have been another joyous meeting between best friends is soiled as Jon is less struck by the “you’ve been playing hide Longclaw with your Auntie” news than the whole “you’re the one true King” part, and is in full denial of a man who’s been given yet another promotion he never asked for. In the space of a single conversation, he now has to grapple with the feeling that his father Ned lied to him about who he was his entire life, whether this news cripples his alliance to save Westeros and defeat the dead, the realization that the love of his life is not only now a political rival but blood family, and the weight of another crown after he just refused the first.

In our final scene we see a hooded Jaime Lannister make his way into Winterfell after finally abandoning his sister’s evil to try and fight for the living out of honor. Unfortunately, the very FIRST person he sees is Bran, who’s been sitting in the same exact spot all night, waiting for his “old friend.” See, he didn’t have time for Jon to meet the family, but he did make time for Jaime’s ass after he pushed him out of the window.

With all the callbacks, this episode did a wonderful job of subtly (and not-so-subtly) reminding us of where we started so we can appreciate just how far we’ve come. While some were expecting a bang after so long off the air, the first episode of the final season focused on setting the final pieces on the chess board, and giving us a deep breath before the final descent into madness.

[nyangibun]

Jon x Sansa; The Drowned Rat Conundrum

Inspired by this fic. 

Summary: Jon meets Sansa one rainy afternoon right after she gets dumped by her girlfriend and he becomes acutely aware of his more than inappropriate attraction to her despite knowing she's not into guys. It only gets worse when Sansa turns out to be as fun to be around as she is beautiful. So, of course, that means Jon's life is officially over and he hates everything.

When Jon meets Sansa for the first time, she’s drenched from head to toe, wearing a large ratty hoodie and black leggings, with mascara smeared down her cheeks. As first appearances go, it’s not great, and considering she’s also sobbing uncontrollably, Jon shouldn’t find her as attractive as he does, but Sansa Stark is beautiful regardless of what condition she comes in. In fact, the drowned rat look is actually sort of cute on her, if she wasn’t crying and if his heart wasn’t breaking just by hearing that sound.

It’s a universally known fact that Jon doesn’t do well around crying girls or women. He’s awkward enough as it is around them when they’re happy. This is uncharted territory. He grew up as an only child with a dead mother, an absentee father and a boarding school full of boys.

But Sansa is crying and she’s standing there on his front stoop looking for all the world like someone had just thrown her puppy into the middle of traffic, so he approaches slowly.

“Um… hello?” Jon says, immediately berating himself for such a dumb opener. “Are you okay, miss? Do you need me to ring someone for you?”

Her eyes snap to his and they immediately narrow with wariness. Even though she’s the one crying in front of his house, Jon suddenly feels like he’s intruding. “Who are you?” she snaps irritably. “Do you live here? Is my brother home?”

“Brother?” Jon repeats, just as sudden clarity strikes him like a jolt of lightning. “You’re Robb’s sister! Sansa? Or is it… Arya?”

“It’s Sansa,” she answers, though still wary.

Well, Jon can’t blame her. Robb is friends with Theon and he’s a creep, so he’d be wary of Robb’s friends too. But the girl is still sniffling and looking sorely in need of something, so Jon raises his hand and gestures towards the door. “He should be home soon. I can make you a cup of tea while you wait?”

Sansa gives a small nod, her expression softening slowly, and as he leads her through the house, gives her a cup of tea (with two spoons of sugar and a good dash of milk), the softness is there in her eyes and lips and it just about takes his breath away.

God, Jon muses to himself. He’s never had such an instant reaction to someone before and he’s still too inexperienced with girls to know if that’s a good or bad thing.

“I didn’t catch your name,” Sansa says after a moment of silence. She’s sitting on the opposite sofa from him with one of the throw blankets wrapped around her. Jon is unbelievably glad that he had thrown it into the wash only a few days prior.

“It’s Jon,” he answers. “Jon Snow. I’m… Well, obviously I’m Robb’s housemate.” He chuckles nervously. “I uh… I also play rugby with him.”

“Oh,” she nods, taking another sip from her mug. “I know you. Robb talks about you.”

“Hopefully good things?” Jon hedges with a smile.

But Sansa doesn’t hear him because she abruptly drops the mug to the coffee table and angle her entire body towards him. “Jon, you like girls, right?”

“What?” He’s too incredulous to answer, and to his horror, his whole body begins to flush just from that question alone.

“I mean you’re into girls, right?” Sansa asks again, a bit more forcefully this time. He nods, which gives her prompt to continue. “Then tell me, tell me why girls like playing games so much. Is it because they’re incapable of committing or is it just me, you know?” Sansa runs a hand through her hair and growls. “We were together for eight months! Eight months. And before that, she knew I was wary about getting back into a relationship but she promised it’d be different. And then she goes and… Well, what kind of person just wakes up one day and says they’re in love with someone else? Who does that!”

Her voice had gotten steadily higher and higher the more she told him, and while he commiserates with her heartbreak, Jon is aware of one thing and one thing only: she’s not into guys. And just like that, what unexpected and unwanted hope that had seeded itself into his mind the moment he saw her wilted and died. Then to add insult to injury, Jon is immediately wracked with guilt because here’s Robb’s sister confiding in him over her girlfriend and all he’s doing is having creepy thoughts about her.

Jon grounds his teeth and forces the thoughts away. He is not a creep. He is not going to get upset because one girl out of a million just happens to fancy girls as well. More power to Sansa for being so open and confident with her sexuality. Right?

God, he thinks, he’s an asshole.

“I… I don’t think that’s exclusive to girls,” Jon says, and immediately regrets it when she throws him a sharp look. He puts up his hands in defence. “Sorry. I just mean… there’s always going to be those people who will come into your life just to break your heart.”

She arches her eyebrow as if to say, ‘what are you on about?’, so Jon continues, stumbling over his words like the idiot that he is.

“What I mean is I don’t want you to… close yourself off. Because that’d be bad, a shame really, and you deserve to be happy. Really happy with someone. So I just wanted you to know not all girls will break your heart. That’s it.”

Sansa stares at him for a beat before she starts chuckling. “You’re really bad at this, you know that, right?”

He rubs his hands over his face and sighs. “I’ve never had to do this before!” he grouses. “Most of the time when one of the lads is going through a breakup, I just take him to the pub and we get pissed.”

“So let’s go.”

Jon drops his hands, and this time, he stares at her for a long second. “What?”

“To the pub,” Sansa says, as she stands up. “Let’s go right now.”

“Don’t you want to wait for your brother?” Jon asks hesitantly, though he stands up as well, realising he’s probably going to be unable to deny this girl anything.

Sansa rolls her eyes. “Honestly, he’s worse than you. I don’t know what I was thinking coming to him.” She chuckles again. “I guess I just thought he might be able to help because he knows Margaery as well, but he’d probably muck it up and I’d just feel worse.”

“Right…” Jon contemplates what he’s about to suggest, but then he decides it’s not about him today, it’s about her. “Pub then?”

Somehow in the months since helping Robb’s little sister drown her heartbreak in tequila, Sansa had become a permanent fixture in his life. She’s always at the house, either to pester Robb into doing something, or she’s in his room quietly studying or watching a film with him. And in that time, Jon finds that Sansa is smart, her wit as sharp as a knife, and she’s also compassionate, warm and loving, with heart far too big for her chest. He is also excruciatingly aware of how attracted he is to her and how utterly off-limits Sansa is. Even if she isn’t only into girls, she’s also Robb’s little sister and friendship or not, Robb would punch Jon in the face for even thinking about her in a way that isn’t platonic. Of course if Sansa is into boys as well, Jon would happily be punched in the face for her, but she isn’t and that’s the biggest problem. He’s crushing on someone he can’t have and it’s making him feel rotten and gross when he knows she only sees him as another big brother.

But Jon supposes he’d still rather have Sansa in his life than not, which is the only reason why he agrees to go to a Halloween party with her where her ex-girlfriend will be, so he can be there for her. In a totally platonic way.

It has to be said though that Jon hates Halloween and so he’s made zero effort in dressing up, which is the first thing Sansa comments on when she sees him.

“You’re not even trying, Jon! What the hell are you even supposed to be?”

Robb snickers by his side, dressed as bloody Flynn Rider from Tangled. But Jon’s too busy trying not to stare at Sansa’s corset-hugging dress that shows far too much cleavage to be conducive to his mental state. She’s Queen Mary Stuart from that historically inaccurate show she loves so much and there’s a red flower crown on top of her head. He’s not sure how anybody is supposed to guess what she is, but she definitely looks like a queen. Jon would certainly ride into battle for her.

“I’m Han Solo,” Jon says with a wry smirk. “Look, I have a gun and this vest thing.” He pulls at the black vest to show her.

Sansa huffs and swats at his arm. “Pathetic. Honestly, pathetic.” She then looks to her brother and pretty soon the two devolve into some age-old argument over the best Disney princes that Jon immediately tunes out.

They walk into the house party, the main foyer already filled with drunk people swaying this way and that, and the bass of some pop dance music reverberates throughout the room. Robb disappears almost as soon as they walk in, apparently to find his date, who is the Rapunzel to his Flynn tonight. And if Jon puts his hand on the small of Sansa’s back, it’s only to guide her through the throng of people towards somewhere they can breathe and maybe find some cups for their drinks. It’s totally not because she’s gorgeous and undeniably the most perfect woman he’s ever met.

“Do you see her?” Sansa hisses to him. “I don’t see her. She’s here though. She posted on her stupid Instagram.” They find the refreshments table just fine and grab two cups to pour their vodka punch concoction. Sansa downs the first drink in record time. “Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. That’s the couple costume she has with this other girl. It was my idea! Margaery doesn’t even like comics.”

“You don’t either,” Jon points out.

It’s clearly the wrong thing to say because she punches him, hard, on the shoulder. “Well, no, but that’s not the point. Are you on my side or not!”

Jon wraps an arm around her and smiles. “I’m always on your side, Sans.”

Her reciprocating smile is just as fond as his and he wishes more than ever that he could just tell her how he feels. But that, he knows, is a wasted effort and he should probably try harder to move on. No one needs to have their pseudo big brother perving on them.

The night surprisingly is uneventful. Margaery does show up with her new girlfriend an hour into the party and Sansa exchanges pleasantries with them up until they walk away when she hisses to him that Margaery’s new girlfriend makes for a lousy Poison Ivy because ‘she’s not even a redhead, Jon; Arya says that’s blasphemy!’

By one-thirty, Sansa is so drunk he decides to call for a cab and take her home. He’s waiting for her outside of the party when Margaery sidles up next to him with a near-passed out girlfriend in tow.

“Jon, was it?”

“Yeah,” he nods. He’s polite and friendly, but out of solidarity, he tries not to be too friendly.

“Does she know?” Margaery asks, a twinkle of something Jon doesn’t like in her eyes.

He plays dumb. “Know what?”

“That you’re in love with her.” But when Jon doesn’t immediately respond, Margaery continues, laughing. “Word of advice, if you don’t want to tell her, you might want to dial back the longing looks.”

Before Jon has a chance to defend himself, Margaery jumps into a car with her girlfriend and their friends and disappears down the street. He’s still incapable of speaking when Sansa returns and they get into the cab in complete silence. Thankfully, Sansa is too drunk to notice and she passes out, her head resting on his shoulder, a minute into the ride back to his place.

The next morning with much more (sober) clarity, Jon decides Margaery’s right. He can’t keep doing this to himself. Or to Sansa. She’s not into him, and no amount of pining is going to change that. He needs to get over her and to do that, he needs to put distance between them. So with a heavy heart, Jon texts her. Simple and clear.

Hope you’re feeling okay today. Got a few exams and courseworks to work on so gonna be busy for the next month. Will text you the all clear after.

Like he expected, Sansa does text back, but he doesn’t answer. And he knows her so well now that he can predict when she has enough free time to swing by the house and he makes sure he’s at the library when that happens. Of course Jon still sees her from time to time, but the interactions are different. They’re less intimate. She never stays the night anymore; she never just walks into his room and flops onto his bed after a bad day; or ring him in the afternoon to gush about the cute dog she saw on her run earlier. In fact, they’re practically strangers again after a month goes by of Jon actively doing his best to avoid her. He knows he’s obvious and perhaps that’s why she’s distant with him too, like she can’t quite understand what he’s doing but she’s too proud to admit she’s hurt.

It goes on for awhile that even oblivious Robb starts to notice and that’s when it all goes goes to shit.

They’re at rugby training. They only have one last tournament before Christmas holidays, but that’s a whole month away, so they’re just playing an easy skirmish between each other. Robb’s on the opposite team and when the whistle blows and the rugby is passed to Jon, Robb’s there, sprinting and tackling him to the ground with so much force it knocks the wind from Jon’s lungs. He lies on his back, wheezing and coughing, trying to catch his breath, as Robb stands over him with a scowl on his face.

When Jon finally is able to speak again, he jumps to his feet and shoves Robb back. “What the fuck?”

“What the fuck?” Robb repeats incredulously. “I could ask you the same thing! What the fuck are you doing with my sister?”

Jon stares, blinking rapidly, unable to process the question. “What?”

“Why the fuck have you been avoiding her?” he asks. “And don’t give me that bullshit excuse you gave to Sansa because I know you don’t have any big exams coming up.”

He rubs a hand over his face and pointedly ignoring the stares of their teammates around them. “It’s none of your business.”

“She’s my sister!” Robb shouts. “She’s always going to be my bloody business! Now tell me the truth or I swear to god I’ll kick your broody ass, Snow.”

Jon shakes his head and begins to walk off of the pitch. Robb immediately follows and shoves him again when they reach the sideline. Jon stumbles for a bit but gains his balance quickly before turning around. “Stop that.”

“Then stop being a prick and just tell me the damn truth,” Robb says. “And for fuck’s sake, have the goddamn decency of actually breaking up with my sister in person instead of just ghosting her!”

Wait, what?

“I’m not dating your sister…” Jon says, but his words trail off like a question. He’s too dumbfounded by Robb’s assumption to think of anything better to say, like maybe ‘no, they’re not dating,’ and ‘Sansa is into girls, you tool.’

 Robb rolls his eyes. “Oh, please. You two aren’t subtle! You’re always staring and smiling at each other and ugh, sneaking off to your room. Did you think I was dumb or something?”

“No, no,” he quickly says. “We’re just friends. It wasn’t like that!” Jon’s head is such a whirlwind, he just completely loses hold of his filter at this point. “Your sister’s not into me like that. Do I wish that she was? Sure. But I never crossed that line with her. What kind of creep do you think I am? I’m not one of those assholes that hit on lesbians just to prove my masculinity or something, alright?”

There’s a long tense pause as Robb continues to glare at Jon before he suddenly bursts out laughing, the slapping his thigh, doubling over kind of laughter too. This only perplexes Jon more.

“What?”

“You’re… a… fucking idiot!” Robb exclaims between laughter. He wipes at the tears forming in his eyes. “My sister is not a lesbian. She’s bi, ya moron.”

“What!” Jon says, eyes growing wide, as his heart begins to ram loudly in his chest. “Why didn’t… why didn’t anyone tell me that!”

“Because you never asked,” Robb points out. “So wait, you’re telling me that you’ve been pining after my sister all this time because you thought she was only into girls?” Jon nods and he laughs again. “Fucking moron.”

“Yeah, yeah, I gathered that,” Jon groans, running a hand through his hair in frustration.

“Uhuh,” Robb nods. And then he smiles, a devious, terrifying smile before punching Jon square in the jaw. “That was for messing with my sister’s feelings because you’re too much of an idiot to just ask. And that was also preemptive because I assume now you’re actually going to go boink my sister.”

Jon frowns and rolls his eyes. “Did you honestly say boink?”

“Just get the hell out of here!”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. Without even telling his coach, Jon runs from the pitch, grabs his bag along the way and hails a cab to Sansa’s despite the fact that he has a bus pass for this very purpose, but the buses are slow and unreliable and he needs to see her right now.

Although it cuts the journey in half, it still takes him ten minutes too long to get to Sansa’s house. But he jumps from the cab and runs up the steps to pound unceremoniously on the door. It’s six in the evening on a Thursday and he so desperately hopes that Sansa is home. She could be out with her friends. When no one answers right away, Jon knocks again, louder this time. He’s about to do so for the third time when he hears movement coming from inside the house.

The door peels open and there standing in a ratty hoodie and black leggings is easily the most beautiful person Jon has ever seen.

“Jon, what happened to your–”

“So I’m a moron,” he cuts her off. “This isn’t anything new, really, but this time, I really, really fucked up and I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t understand,” Sansa says warily. “What happened to your face?”

“It’s not important,” Jon waves off. “I came here to tell you that… shit, okay, I’ve never actually done this before so I’m probably going to muck it up too. But right…” He takes a deep breath. “Sansa, I’ve been mad about you from the first moment I saw you and it drove me crazy that I couldn’t have you because here’s the thing, I wrongly assumed you were only into girls. Not that you being also into boys means I can have you now. If you’re not into me, that’s fine too! And we’ll be friends. If you still want to, that is. I know I’ve been kind of a cock lately and stuff, but I’d rather be friends with you than not, okay? Shit, please just say something.”

There was an imperceptible look on her face, and for a long while, Sansa said nothing. She just stared at him with that impenetrable mask and it was doing a number on his nerves. But finally, with relief and dread, she sighs. “You really are a moron. You should’ve just asked me or asked Robb or asked anyone.”

“I know,” he admits, bowing his head in shame. “I’m sorry.”

“But you know what pisses me off the most?” she says. “It’s not that you just assumed my sexuality without asking, but the fact that you blew me off without ever giving me an explanation. I thought…” Sansa’s voice broke but there’s steel in her eyes so Jon doesn’t dare try to comfort her. “I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. That maybe I did something wrong. I thought that maybe you found someone else, someone better to be with like Margaery did.”

“Jesus, no!” Jon took her hands in his and implored her to listen. “Sansa, there isn’t anyone better than you. Trust me, I’ve looked and no one even comes close. I’m so sorry. I’m so bloody sorry I ever made you doubt yourself. But you have to know you’re the best thing to happen to anyone. You’re… I mean you’re Sansa Stark. You’re… everything.”

A faint smile pulls at her lips and Sansa’s cheeks flush pink. “For someone who’s not so great with words, you did quite well there, Jon.”

“Does that mean you forgive me?” he braves with a smile of his own.

Sansa shakes her head. “Not even close.” But before he even has a chance to feel heartbroken, she throws her arms around his neck. “But now you can make it up to me whenever you want.”

Jon laughs as he wraps his arms around her waist. “Oh, trust me, I won’t ever stop.” And without any further prompting, Jon dips head so he can fully kiss her the way he’s wanted to four months ago.

It’s too early to say those three little words, but the minute his lips press against hers, Jon knows he’s gone. Completely and utterly gone for this girl. And frankly, he doesn’t care one bit. Sansa is his perfect little drowned rat and he’s not letting her go.

[readbookywooks]

Theon

She was undeniably a beauty. But your first is always beautiful, Theon Greyjoy thought.

"Now there's a pretty grin," a woman's voice said behind him. "The lordling likes the look of her, does he?"

Theon turned to give her an appraising glance. He liked what he saw. Ironborn, he knew at a glance; lean and longlegged, with black hair cut short, wind-chafed skin, strong sure hands, a dirk at her belt. Her nose was too big and too sharp for her thin face, but her smile made up for it. He judged her a few years older than he was, but no more than five-and-twenty. She moved as if she were used to a deck beneath her feet.

"Yes, she's a sweet sight," he told her, "though not half so sweet as you."

"Oho." She grinned. "I'd best be careful. This lordling has a honeyed tongue."

"Taste it and see."

"Is it that way, then?" she said, eyeing him boldly. There were women on the Iron Islands—not many, but a few—who crewed the longships along with their men, and it was said that salt and sea changed them, gave them a man's appetites. "Have you been that long at sea, lordling? Or were there no women where you came from?"

"Women enough, but none like you."

"And how would you know what I'm like?"

"My eyes can see your face. My ears can hear your laughter. And my cock's gone hard as a mast for you."

The woman stepped close and pressed a hand to the front of his breeches. "Well, you're no liar," she said, giving him a squeeze through the cloth. "How bad does it hurt?"

"Fiercely."

"Poor lordling." She released him and stepped back. "As it happens, I'm a woman wed, and new with child."

"The gods are good," Theon said. "No chance I'd give you a bastard that way."

"Even so, my man wouldn't thank you."

"No, but you might."

"And why would that be? I've had lords before. They're made the same as other men."

"Have you ever had a prince?" he asked her. "When you're wrinkled and grey and your teats hang past your belly, you can tell your children's children that once you loved a king."

"Oh, is it love we're talking now? And here I thought it was just cocks and cunts."

"Is it love you fancy?" He'd decided that he liked this wench, whoever she was; her sharp wit was a welcome respite from the damp gloom of Pyke. "Shall I name my longship after you, and play you the high harp, and keep you in a tower room in my castle with only jewels to wear, like a princess in a song?"

"You ought to name your ship after me," she said, ignoring all the rest. "It was me who built her."

"Sigrin built her. My lord father's shipwright."

"I'm Esgred. Ambrode's daughter, and wife to Sigrin."

He had not known that Ambrode had a daughter, or Sigrin a wife . . . but he'd met the younger shipwright only once, and the older one he scarce remembered. "You're wasted on Sigrin."

"Oho. Sigrin told me this sweet ship is wasted on you."

Theon bristled. "Do you know who I am?"

"Prince Theon of House Greyjoy. Who else? Tell me true, my lord, how well do you love her, this new maid of yours? Sigrin will want to know."

The longship was so new that she still smelled of pitch and resin. His uncle Aeron would bless her on the morrow, but Theon had ridden over from Pyke to get a look at her before she was launched. She was not so large as Lord Balon's own Great Kraken or his uncle Victarion's Iron Victory, but she looked swift and sweet, even sitting in her wooden cradle on the strand; lean black hull a hundred feet long, a single tall mast, fifty long oars, deck enough for a hundred men . . . and at the prow, the great iron ram in the shape of an arrowhead. "Sigrin did me good service," he admitted. "Is she as fast as she looks?"

"Faster—for a master that knows how to handle her."

"It has been a few years since I sailed a ship." And I've never captained one, if truth be told. "Still, I'm a Greyjoy, and an ironman. The sea is in my blood."

"And your blood will be in the sea, if you sail the way you talk," she told him.

"I would never mistreat such a fair maiden."

"Fair maiden?" She laughed. "She's a sea bitch, this one."

"There, and now you've named her. Sea Bitch."

That amused her; he could see the sparkle in her dark eyes. "And you said you'd name her after me," she said in a voice of wounded reproach.

"I did." He caught her hand. "Help me, my lady. In the green lands, they believe a woman with child means good fortune for any man who beds her."

"And what would they know about ships in the green lands? Or women, for that matter? Besides, I think you made that up."

"If I confess, will you still love me?"

"Still? When have I ever loved you?"

"Never," he admitted, "but I am trying to repair that lack, my sweet Esgred. The wind is cold. Come aboard my ship and let me warm you. On the morrow my uncle Aeron will pour seawater over her prow and mumble a prayer to the Drowned God, but I'd sooner bless her with the milk of my loins, and yours."

"The Drowned God might not take that kindly."

"Bugger the Drowned God. If he troubles us, I'll drown him again. We're off to war within a fortnight. Would you send me into battle all sleepless with longing?"

"Gladly."

"A cruel maid. My ship is well named. If I steer her onto the rocks in my distraction, you'll have yourself to blame."

"Do you plan to steer with this?" Esgred brushed the front of his breeches once more, and smiled as a finger traced the iron outline of his manhood.

"Come back to Pyke with me," he said suddenly, thinking, What will Lord Balon say? And why should I care? I am a man grown, if I want to bring a wench to bed it is no one's business but my own.

"And what would I do in Pyke?" Her hand stayed where it was.

"My father will feast his captains tonight." He had them to feast every night, while he waited for the last stragglers to arrive, but Theon saw no need to tell all that.

"Would you make me your captain for the night, my lord prince?" She had the wickedest smile he'd ever seen on a woman.

"I might. If I knew you'd steer me safe into port."

"Well, I know which end of the oar goes in the sea, and there's no one better with ropes and knots." One-handed, she undid the lacing of his breeches, then grinned and stepped lightly away from him. "A pity I'm a woman wed, and new with child."

Flustered, Theon laced himself back up. "I need to start back to the castle. if you do not come with me, I may lose my way for grief, and all the islands would be poorer."

"We couldn't have that . . . but I have no horse, my lord."

"You could take my squire's mount."

"And leave your poor squire to walk all the way to Pyke?"

"Share mine, then."

"You'd like that well enough." The smile again. "Now, would I be behind you, or in front?"

"You would be wherever you liked."

"I like to be on top."

Where has this wench been all my life? "My father's hall is dim and dank. It needs Esgred to make the fires blaze."

"The lordling has a honeyed tongue."

"Isn't that where we began?"

She threw up her hands. "And where we end. Esgred is yours, sweet prince. Take me to your castle. Let me see your proud towers rising from the sea."

"I left my horse at the inn. Come." They walked down the strand together, and when Theon took her arm, she did not pull away. He liked the way she walked; there was a boldness to it, part saunter and part sway, that suggested she would be just as bold beneath the blankets.

Lordsport was as crowded as he'd ever seen it, swarming with the crews of the longships that lined the pebbled shore and rode at anchor well out past the breakwater. Ironmen did not bend their knees often nor easily, but Theon noted that oarsmen and townfolk alike grew quiet as they passed, and acknowledged him with respectful bows of the head. They have finally learned who I am, he thought. And past time too.

Lord Goodbrother of Great Wyk had come in the night before with his main strength, near forty longships. His men were everywhere, conspicuous in their striped goat's hair sashes. It was said about the inn that Otter Gimpknee's whores were being fucked bowlegged by beardless boys in sashes. The boys were welcome to them so far as Theon was concerned. A poxier den of slatterns he hoped he'd never see. His present companion was more to his taste. That she was wed to his father's shipwright and pregnant to boot only made her more intriguing.

"Has my lord prince begun choosing his crew?" Esgred asked as they made their way toward the stable. "Ho, Bluetooth," she shouted to a passing seafarer, a tall man in bearskin vest and raven-winged helm. "How fares your bride?"

"Fat with child, and talking of twins."

"So soon?" Esgred smiled that wicked smile. "You got your oar in the water quickly."

"Aye, and stroked and stroked and stroked," roared the man,

"A big man," Theon observed. "Bluetooth, was it? Should I choose him for my Sea Bitch?"

"Only if you mean to insult him. Bluetooth has a sweet ship of his own."

"I have been too long away to know one man from another," Theon admitted. He'd looked for a few of the friends he'd played with as a boy, but they were gone, dead, or grown into strangers. "My uncle Victarion has loaned me his own steersman."

"Rymolf Stormdrunk? A good man, so long as he's sober." She saw more faces she knew, and called out to a passing trio, "Uller, Qarl. Where's your brother, Skyte?"

"The Drowned God needed a strong oarsman, I fear," replied the stocky man with the white streak in his beard.

"What he means is, Eldiss drank too much wine and his fat belly burst," said the pink-cheeked youth beside him.

"What's dead may never die," Esgred said.

"What's dead may never die."

Theon muttered the words with them. "You seem well known," he said to the woman when the men had passed on.

"Every man loves the shipwright's wife. He had better, lest he wants his ship to sink. If you need men to pull your oars, you could do worse than those three."

"Lordsport has no lack of strong arms." Theon had given the matter no little thought. It was fighters he wanted, and men who would be loyal to him, not to his lord father or his uncles. He was playing the part of a dutiful young prince for the moment, while he waited for Lord Balon to reveal the fullness of his plans. If it turned out that he did not like those plans or his part in them, however, well . . .

"Strength is not enough. A longship's oars must move as one if you would have her best speed. Choose men who have rowed together before, if you're wise."

"Sage counsel. Perhaps you'd help me choose them." Let her believe I want her wisdom, women fancy that.

"I may. If you treat me kindly."

"How else?"

Theon quickened his stride as they neared the Myraham, rocking high and empty by the quay. Her captain had tried to sail a fortnight past, but Lord Balon would not permit it. None of the merchantmen that called at Lordsport had been allowed to depart again; his father wanted no word of the hosting to reach the mainland before he was ready to strike.

"Milord," a plaintive voice called down from the forecastle of the merchanter. The captain's daughter leaned over the rail, gazing after him. Her father had forbidden her to come ashore, but whenever Theon came to Lordsport he spied her wandering forlornly about the deck. "Milord, a moment," she called after him. "As it please milord . . . "

"Did she?" Esgred asked as Theon hurried her past the cog. "Please milord?"

He saw no sense in being coy with this one. "For a time. Now she wants to be my salt wife."

"Oho. Well, she'd profit from some salting, no doubt. Too soft and bland, that one. Or am I wrong?"

"You're not wrong." Soft and bland. Precisely. How had she known?

He had told Wex to wait at the inn. The common room was so crowded that Theon had to push his way through the door. Not a seat was to be had at bench nor table. Nor did he see his squire. "Wex", he shouted over the din and clatter. If he's up with one of those poxy whores, I'll strip the hide off him, he was thinking when he finally spied the boy, dicing near the hearth . . . and winning too, by the look of the pile of coins before him.

"Time to go," Theon announced. When the boy paid him no mind, he seized him by the ear and pulled him from the game. Wex grabbed up a fistful of coppers and came along without a word. That was one of the things Theon liked best about him. Most squires have loose tongues, but Wex had been born dumb . . . which didn't seem to keep him from being clever as any twelve-year-old had a right to be. He was a baseborn son of one of Lord Botley's half brothers. Taking him as squire had been part of the price Theon had paid for his horse.

When Wex saw Esgred, his eyes went round. You'd think he'd never seen a woman before, Theon thought. "Esgred will be riding with me back to Pyke. Saddle the horses, and be quick about it."

The boy had ridden in on a scrawny little garron from Lord Balon's stable, but Theon's mount was quite another sort of beast. "Where did you find that hellhorse?" Esgred asked when she saw him, but from the way she laughed he knew she was impressed.

"Lord Botley bought him in Lannisport a year past, but he proved to be too much horse for him, so Botley was pleased to sell." The Iron Islands were too sparse and rocky for breeding good horses. Most of the islanders were indifferent riders at best, more comfortable on the deck of a longship than in the saddle. Even the lords rode garrons or shaggy Harlaw ponies, and ox carts were more common than drays. The smallfolk too poor to own either one pulled their own plows through the thin, stony soil.

But Theon had spent ten years in Winterfell, and did not intend to go to war without a good mount beneath him. Lord Botley's misjudgment was his good fortune: a stallion with a temper as black as his hide, larger than a courser if not quite so big as most destriers. As Theon was not quite so big as most knights, that suited him admirably. The animal had fire in his eyes. When he'd met his new owner, he'd pulled back his lips and tried to bite off his face.

"Does he have a name?" Esgred asked Theon as he mounted.

"Smiler." He gave her a hand, and pulled her up in front of him, where he could put his arms around her as they rode. "I knew a man once who told me that I smiled at the wrong things."

"Do you?"

"Only by the lights of those who smile at nothing." He thought of his father and his uncle Aeron.

"Are you smiling now, my lord prince?"

"Oh, yes." Theon reached around her to take the reins. She was almost of a height with him. Her hair could have used a wash and she had a faded pink scar on her pretty neck, but he liked the smell of her, salt and sweat and woman.

The ride back to Pyke promised to be a good deal more interesting than the ride down had been.

When they were well beyond Lordsport, Theon put a hand on her breast. Esgred reached up and plucked it away. "I'd keep both hands on the reins, or this black beast of yours is like to fling us both off and kick us to death."

"I broke him of that." Amused, Theon behaved himself for a while, chatting amiably of the weather (grey and overcast, as it had been since he arrived, with frequent rains) and telling her of the men he'd killed in the Whispering Wood. When he reached the part about coming that close to the Kingslayer himself, he slid his hand back up to where it had been. Her breasts were small, but he liked the firmness of them.

"You don't want to do that, my lord prince."

"Oh, but I do." Theon gave her a squeeze.

"Your squire is watching you."

"Let him. He'll never speak of it, I swear."

Esgred pried his fingers off her breast. This time she kept him firmly prisoned. She had strong hands.

"I like a woman with a good tight grip."

She snorted. "I'd not have thought it, by that wench on the waterfront."

"You must not judge me by her. She was the only woman on the ship."

"Tell me of your father. Will he welcome me kindly to his castle?"

"Why should he? He scarcely welcomed me, his own blood, the heir to Pyke and the Iron Islands."

"Are you?" she asked mildly. "It's said that you have uncles, brothers, a sister."

"My brothers are long dead, and my sister . . . well, they say Asha's favorite gown is a chainmail hauberk that hangs down past her knees, with boiled leather smallclothes beneath. Men's garb won't make her a man, though. I'll make a good marriage alliance with her once we've won the war, if I can find a man to take her. As I recall, she had a nose like a vulture's beak, a ripe crop of pimples, and no more chest than a boy."

"You can marry off your sister," Esgred observed, "but not your uncles."

"My uncles . . . " Theon's claim took precedence over those of his father's three brothers, but the woman had touched on a sore point nonetheless. in the islands it was scarce unheard of for a strong, ambitious uncle to dispossess a weak nephew of his rights, and usually murder him in the bargain. But I am not weak, Theon told himself, and I mean to be stronger yet by the time my father dies. "My uncles pose no threat to me," he declared. "Aeron is drunk on seawater and sanctity. He lives only for his god—"

"His god? Not yours?"

"Mine as well. What is dead can never die." He smiled thinly. "If I make pious noises as required, Damphair will give me no trouble. And my uncle Victarion—"

"Lord Captain of the Iron Fleet, and a fearsome warrior. I have heard them sing of him in the alehouses."

"During my lord father's rebellion, he sailed into Lannisport with my uncle Euron and burned the Lannister fleet where it lay at anchor," Theon recalled. "The plan was Euron's, though. Victarion is like some great grey bullock, strong and tireless and dutiful, but not like to win any races. No doubt, he'll serve me as loyally as he has served my lord father. He has neither the wits nor the ambition to plot betrayal."

"Euron Croweye has no lack of cunning, though. I've heard men say terrible things of that one."

Theon shifted his seat. "My uncle Euron has not been seen in the islands for close on two years. He may be dead." If so, it might be for the best. Lord Balon's eldest brother had never given up the Old Way, even for a day. His Silence, with its black sails and dark red hull, was infamous in every port from Ibben to Asshai, it was said.

"He may be dead," Esgred agreed, "and if he lives, why, he has spent so long at sea, he'd be half a stranger here. The ironborn would never seat a stranger in the Seastone Chair."

"I suppose not," Theon replied, before it occurred to him that some would call him a stranger as well. The thought made him frown. Ten years is a long while, but I am back now, and my father is far from dead. I have time to prove myself.

He considered fondling Esgred's breast again, but she would probably only take his hand away, and all this talk of his uncles had dampened his ardor somewhat. Time enough for such play at the castle, in the privacy of his chambers. "I will speak to Helya when we reach Pyke, and see that you have an honored place at the feast," he said. "I must sit on the dais, at my father's right hand, but I will come down and join you when he leaves the hall. He seldom lingers long. He has no belly for drink these days."

"A grievous thing when a great man grows old."

"Lord Balon is but the father of a great man."

"A modest lordling."

"Only a fool humbles himself when the world is so full of men eager to do that job for him." He kissed her lightly on the nape of her neck.

"What shall I wear to this great feast?" She reached back and pushed his face away.

"I'll ask Helya to garb you. One of my lady mother's gowns might do. She is off on Harlaw, and not expected to return."

"The cold winds have worn her away, I hear. Will you not go see her? Harlaw is only a day's sail, and surely Lady Greyjoy yearns for a last sight of her son."

"Would that I could. I am kept too busy here. My father relies on me, now that I am returned. Come peace, perhaps . . . "

"Your coming might bring her peace."

"Now you sound a woman," Theon complained.

"I confess, I am . . . and new with child."

Somehow that thought excited him. "So you say, but your body shows no signs of it. How shall it be proven? Before I believe you, I shall need to see your breasts grow ripe, and taste your mother's milk."

"And what will my husband say to this? Your father's own sworn man and servant?"

"We'll give him so many ships to build, he'll never know you've left him."

She laughed. "It's a cruel lordling who's seized me. If I promise you that one day you may watch my babe get suck, will you tell me more of your war, Theon of House Greyjoy? There are miles and mountains still ahead of us, and I would hear of this wolf king you served, and the golden lions he fights."

Ever anxious to please her, Theon obliged. The rest of the long ride passed swiftly as he filled her pretty head with tales of Winterfell and war. Some of the things he said astonished him. She is easy to talk to, gods praise her, he reflected. I feel as though I've known her for years. If the wench's pillow play is half the equal of her wit, I'll need to keep her . . . He thought of Sigrin the Shipwright, a thick-bodied, thick-witted man, flaxen hair already receding from a pimpled brow, and shook his head. A waste. A most tragic waste.

It seemed scarcely any time at all before the great curtain wall of Pyke loomed up before them.

The gates were open. Theon put his heels into Smiler and rode through at a brisk trot. The hounds were barking wildly as he helped Esgred dismount. Several came bounding up, tails wagging. They shot straight past him and almost bowled the woman over, leaping all around her, yapping and licking. "Off," Theon shouted, aiming an ineffectual kick at one big brown bitch, but Esgred was laughing and wrestling with them.

A stableman came pounding up after the dogs. "Take the horse," Theon commanded him, "and get these damn dogs away—"

The lout paid him no mind. His face broke into a huge gap-toothed smile and he said, "Lady Asha. You're back."

"Last night," she said. "I sailed from Great Wyk with Lord Goodbrother, and spent the night at the inn. My little brother was kind enough to let me ride with him from Lordsport." She kissed one of the dogs on the nose and grinned at Theon.

All he could do was stand and gape at her. Asha. No. She cannot be Asha. He realized suddenly that there were two Ashas in his head. One was the little girl he had known. The other, more vaguely imagined, looked something like her mother. Neither looked a bit like this . . . this . . . this . . .

"The pimples went when the breasts came," she explained while she tussled with a dog, "but I kept the vulture's beak."

Theon found his voice. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Asha let go of the hound and straightened. "I wanted to see who you were first. And I did." She gave him a mocking half bow. "And now, little brother, pray excuse me. I need to bathe and dress for the feast. I wonder if I still have that chainmail gown I like to wear over my boiled leather smallclothes? " She gave him that evil grin, and crossed the bridge with that walk he'd liked so well, half saunter and half sway.

When Theon turned away, Wex was smirking at him. He gave the boy a clout on the ear. "That's for enjoying this so much." And another, harder. "And that's for not warning me. Next time, grow a tongue."

His own chambers in the Guest Keep had never seemed so chilly, though the thralls had left a brazier burning. Theon kicked his boots off, let his cloak fall to the floor, and poured himself a cup of wine, remembering a gawky girl with knob knees and pimples. She unlaced my breeches, he thought, outraged, and she said . . . oh, gods, and I said . . . He groaned. He could not possibly have made a more appalling fool of himself.

No, he thought then. She was the one who made me a fool. The evil bitch must have enjoyed every moment of it. And the way she kept reaching for my cock . . .

He took his cup and went to the window seat, where he sat drinking and watching the sea while the sun darkened over Pyke. I have no place here, he thought, and Asha is the reason, may the Others take her! The water below turned from green to grey to black. By then he could hear distant music, and he knew it was time to change for the feast.

Theon chose plain boots and plainer clothes, somber shades of black and grey to fit his mood. No ornament; he had nothing bought with iron. I might have taken something off that wildling I killed to save Bran Stark, but he had nothing worth the taking. That's my cursed luck, I kill the poor.

The long smoky hall was crowded with his father's lords and captains when Theon entered, near four hundred of them. Dagmer Cleftjaw had not yet returned from Old Wyk with the Stonehouses and Drumms, but all the rest were there—Harlaws from Harlaw, Blacktydes from Blacktyde, Sparrs, Merlyns, and Goodbrothers from Great Wyk, Saltcliffes and Sunderlies from Saltcliffe, and Botleys and Wynches from the other side of Pyke. The thralls were pouring ale, and there was music, fiddles and skins and drums. Three burly men were doing the finger dance, spinning short-hafted axes at each other. The trick was to catch the axe or leap over it without missing a step. It was called the finger dance because it usually ended when one of the dancers lost one . . . or two, or five.

Neither the dancers nor the drinkers took much note of Theon Greyjoy as he strode to the dais. Lord Balon occupied the Seastone Chair, carved in the shape of a great kraken from an immense block of oily black stone. Legend said that the First Men had found it standing on the shore of Old Wyk when they came to the Iron Islands. To the left of the high seat were Theon's uncles. Asha was ensconced at his right hand, in the place of honor. "You come late, Theon," Lord Balon observed.

"I ask your pardon." Theon took the empty seat beside Asha. Leaning close, he hissed in her ear, "You're in my place."

She turned to him with innocent eyes. "Brother, surely you are mistaken. Your place is at Winterfell." Her smile cut. "And where are all your pretty clothes? I heard you fancied silk and velvet against your skin." She was in soft green wool herself, simply cut, the fabric clinging to the slender lines of her body.

"Your hauberk must have rusted away, sister," he threw back. "A great pity. I'd like to see you all in iron."

Asha only laughed. "You may yet, little brother . . . if you think your Sea Bitch can keep up with my Black Wind." One of their father's thralls came near, bearing a flagon of wine. "Are you drinking ale or wine tonight, Theon?" She leaned over close. "Or is it still a taste of my mother's milk you thirst for?"

He flushed. "Wine," he told the thrall. Asha turned away and banged on the table, shouting for ale.

Theon hacked a loaf of bread in half, hollowed out a trencher, and summoned a cook to fill it with fish stew. The smell of the thick cream made him a little ill, but he forced himself to eat some. He'd drunk enough wine to float him through two meals. If I retch, it will be on her. "Does Father know that you've married his shipwright?" he asked his sister.

"No more than Sigrin does." She gave a shrug. "Esgred was the first ship he built. He named her after his mother. I would be hard-pressed to say which he loves best."

"Every word you spoke to me was a lie."

"Not every word. Remember when I told you I like to be on top?" Asha grinned.

That only made him angrier. "All that about being a woman wed, and new with child . . . "

"Oh, that part was true enough." Asha leapt to her feet. "Rolfe, here," she shouted down at one of the finger dancers, holding up a hand. He saw her, spun, and suddenly an axe came flying from his hand, the blade gleaming as it tumbled end over end through the torchlight. Theon had time for a choked gasp before Asha snatched the axe from the air and slammed it down into the table, splitting his trencher in two and splattering his mantle with drippings. "There's my lord husband." His sister reached down inside her gown and drew a dirk from between her breasts. "And here's my sweet suckling babe."

He could not imagine how he looked at that moment, but suddenly Theon Greyjoy realized that the Great Hall was ringing with laughter, all of it at him. Even his father was smiling, gods be damned, and his uncle Victarion chuckled aloud. The best response he could summon was a queasy grin. We shall see who is laughing when all this is done, bitch.

Asha wrenched the axe out of the table and flung it back down at the dancers, to whistles and loud cheers. "You'd do well to heed what I told you about choosing a crew." A thrall offered them a platter, and she stabbed a salted fish and ate it off the end of her dirk. "If you had troubled to learn the first thing of Sigrin, I could never have fooled you. Ten years a wolf, and you land here and think to prince about the islands, but you know nothing and no one. Why should men fight and die for you? "

"I am their lawful prince," Theon said stiffly.

"By the laws of the green lands, you might be. But we make our own laws here, or have you forgotten?"

Scowling, Theon turned to contemplate the leaking trencher before him. He would have stew in his lap before long. He shouted for a thrall to clean it up. Half my life I have waited to come home, and for what? Mockery and disregard? This was not the Pyke he remembered. Or did he remember? He had been so young when they took him away to hold hostage.

The feast was a meager enough thing, a succession of fish stews, black bread, and spiceless goat. The tastiest thing Theon found to eat was an onion pie. Ale and wine continued to flow well after the last of the courses had been cleared away.

Lord Balon Greyjoy rose from the Seastone Chair. "Have done with your drink and come to my solar," he commanded his companions on the dais. "We have plans to lay." He left them with no other word, flanked by two of his guards. His brothers followed in short order. Theon rose to go after them.

"My little brother is in a rush to be off." Asha raised her drinking horn and beckoned for more ale.

"Our lord father is waiting."

"And has, for many a year. It will do him no harm to wait a little longer . . . but if you fear his wrath, scurry after him by all means. You ought to have no trouble catching our uncles." She smiled. "One is drunk on seawater, after all, and the other is a great grey bullock so dim he'll probably get lost."

Theon sat back down, annoyed. "I run after no man."

"No man, but every woman?"

"It was not me who grabbed your cock."

"I don't have one, remember? You grabbed every other bit of me quick enough."

He could feel the flush creeping up his cheeks. "I'm a man with a man's hungers. What sort of unnatural creature are you?"

"Only a shy maid." Asha's hand darted out under the table to give his cock a squeeze. Theon nearly jumped from his chair. "What, don't you want me to steer you into port, brother?"

"Marriage is not for you," Theon decided. "When I rule, I believe I will pack you off to the silent sisters." He lurched to his feet and strode off unsteadily to find his father.

Rain was falling by the time he reached the swaying bridge out to the Sea Tower. His stomach was crashing and churning like the waves below, and wine had unsteadied his feet. Theon gritted his teeth and gripped the rope tightly as he made his way across, pretending that it was Asha's neck he was clutching.

The solar was as damp and drafty as ever. Buried under his sealskin robes, his father sat before the brazier with his brothers on either side of him. Victarion was talking of tides and winds when Theon entered, but Lord Balon waved him silent. "I have made my plans. It is time you heard them."

"I have some suggestions—"

"When I require your counsel I shall ask for it," his father said. "We have had a bird from Old Wyk. Dagmer is bringing the Drumms and Stonehouses. If the god grants us good winds, we will sail when they arrive . . . or you will. I mean for you to strike the first blow, Theon. You shall take eight longships north—"

"Eight?" His face reddened. "What can I hope to accomplish with only eight longships?"

"You are to harry the Stony Shore, raiding the fishing villages and sinking any ships you chance to meet. It may be that you will draw some of the northern lords out from behind their stone walls. Aeron will accompany you, and Dagmer Cleftjaw."

"May the Drowned God bless our swords," the priest said.

Theon felt as if he'd been slapped. He was being sent to do reaver's work, burning fishermen out of their hovels and raping their ugly daughters, and yet it seemed Lord Balon did not trust him sufficiently to do even that much. Bad enough to have to suffer the Damphair's scowls and chidings. With Dagmer Cleftjaw along as well, his command would be purely nominal.

"Asha my daughter," Lord Balon went on, and Theon turned to see that his sister had slipped in silently, "you shall take thirty longships of picked men round Sea Dragon Point. Land upon the tidal flats north of Deepwood Motte. March quickly, and the castle may fall before they even know you are upon them."

Asha smiled like a cat in cream. "I've always wanted a castle," she said sweetly.

"Then take one."

Theon had to bite his tongue. Deepwood Motte was the stronghold of the Glovers. With both Robett and Galbart warring in the south, it would be lightly held, and once the castle fell the ironmen would have a secure base in the heart of the north. I should be the one sent to take Deepwood. He knew Deepwood Motte, he had visited the Glovers several times with Eddard Stark.

"Victarion," Lord Balon said to his brother, "the main thrust shall fall to you. When my sons have struck their blows, Winterfell must respond. You should meet small opposition as you sail up Saltspear and the Fever River. At the headwaters, you will be less than twenty miles from Moat Cailin. The Neck is the key to the kingdom. Already we command the western seas. Once we hold Moat Cailin, the pup will not be able to win back to the north . . . and if he is fool enough to try, his enemies will seal the south end of the causeway behind him, and Robb the boy will find himself caught like a rat in a bottle."

Theon could keep silent no longer. "A bold plan, Father, but the lords in their castles—"

Lord Balon rode over him. "The lords are gone south with the pup. Those who remained behind are the cravens, old men, and green boys. They will yield or fall, one by one. Winterfell may defy us for a year, but what of it? The rest shall be ours, forest and field and hall, and we shall make the folk our thralls and salt wives."

Aeron Damphair raised his arms. "And the waters of wrath will rise high, and the Drowned God will spread his dominion across the green lands!"

"What is dead can never die," Victarion intoned. Lord Balon and Asha echoed his words, and Theon had no choice but to mumble along with them. And then it was done.

Outside the rain was falling harder than ever. The rope bridge twisted and writhed under his feet. Theon Greyjoy stopped in the center of the span and contemplated the rocks below. The sound of the waves was a crashing roar, and he could taste the salt spray on his lips. A sudden gust of wind made him lose his footing, and he stumbled to his knees.

Asha helped him rise. "You can't hold your wine either, brother."

Theon leaned on her shoulder and let her guide him across the rainslick boards. "I liked you better when you were Esgred," he told her accusingly.

She laughed. "That's fair. I liked you better when you were nine."