#ii. ( hell's empty‚ all devils are here / arc i. ) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

foradecision · 3 years

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‘ the agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food. ’ — mary shelley ; frankenstein.

HARRAN COUNTRYSIDE, DAY 175 ; 14:56:23.

“— goddamn it. of course.”

the tank is dry, nothing but stale air coming through the siphon hose. same as the last one. same as the last dozen fucking vehicles he’d checked, gutted, stripped, and abandoned, up and down this fissured backroad to nowhere. from nowhere. this whole place is nowhere.

a thin line of trees borders the gravel to his left, curtaining the wide spread of empty fields like a patchwork quilt. farmland, mostly. dead and disused. to his right, past the scrub, the ground slopes gently downward to a rock - lined creek. there’s a spitting toad nearby; he can hear the guttural heave of its bloated throat from here.

distantly, high up on a cliffside, an eagle’s cry goes unanswered.

the creek is tempting. he’s tired. sore. filthy, to the point where it’s getting to be a concern. where, if he were to walk up to the gates of jasir’s place looking the way he does right now, they might mistake him for a zombie and shoot him on sight. threadbare amusement curls the edges of that chasm in his chest, just for a second: then it’s gone again.

leaving his buggy where it’s parked, fishtailed at the road’s grassy shoulder — useless, gas gauge riding on empty — crane hangs a right and heads for the water.

a bolt is loosed from his crossbow. the toad falls before it can hit him with an acid burn. there’s a scar on his neck from the last time, an inch or so of rougher tissue that runs above the line of his collar.

he does a quick scan of the shoreline. two or three biters linger maybe a hundred yards away, but they haven’t noticed him. they’re slow. far enough that he’ll see them long before they get too close.

fuck it.

he unloads his gear. strips off gloves, vest, boots; clothing peeled from his skin layer by layer until he’s bare except shorts and the grime - caked chain around his neck, dog tags sticking to his chest. one set, of the two he was issued. deanna has the other set.

no. no goodbyes.

no goodbyes. just hold onto ‘em for me.

it’s a freshwater creek; murky and tinged green with algae, but clean. uncontaminated. he wades out until he’s waist - deep, takes a breath, and dives beneath the surface. the shock of cold wakes him up like a rush of adrenaline. he stays under until he can’t, and then he stays a few seconds more. when he comes back up, there’s a clarity to it: a sharpness to his senses, focused as the finely whetted edge of a knife. he swims again to the shallows and starts to wash.

this is day ten, since the others returned to the slums. since they’d chased a clue given to them by a dying man delirious with fever. since their last - ditch, desperate search for a cure had come up empty and every move he’d made leading up to it — everything they’d done, everything they’d lost — slipped through his fingers like fine sand. he couldn’t face them. none of them. couldn’t stomach the thought of going back, of walking into the tower to tell lena and brecken and everyone else that it was all for nothing. he just needed time. that’s what he’d said. just a little time to work through it all, get it straight again in his head. camden was still working, sure. still holed up in old town in a lab littered with corpses. he’d hit some kind of breakthrough, but his labors since then hadn’t borne fruit. bad samples. limited testing material. crane doesn’t understand the science of it. what he understands is that a month after that radio call, people keep getting sick. people keep turning. people keep dying.

crane, why do you even give a fuck what happens to these people? you don’t belong here! this is just a job for you!

no. not anymore it’s not.

there’s no contract now. no mission objective. no target. there’s just him, and them, and a long stretch of nothing.

this is day ten.

the afternoon sun hikes steadily across the cloudless sky. six hours ‘til nightfall. he fills his canteen, redresses, gathers his gear. shuffling footfalls and the solitary groan of a biter drifts downwind towards him. a pause, mid - step. a glance over his shoulder.

she trips up the slope as she tries to follow. he doesn’t glance at her again.

there’s a gas station up the road, beyond the fields and half a klick east of the creek. a ten minute walk without interruptions. all told, he makes it in less than fifteen. the pumps are a no - go, but he finds enough fuel left in a semi and a rusted jeep to fill his jerrycan two thirds of the way. gnats hum in his ears as he cuts through the tree line and he’s sweating again by the time he returns to the buggy. fucking gnats. fucking heat.

fucking harran.

the buggy itself is a battered thing. mesh and steel, spikes up front, hood rigged with electrical cylinders to fry at the push of a button. UV lights mounted to a protective cage around the single seat. at some point, the paint job was blue. it’s lost under a spattering of mud and streaks of dust, blood in varying shades: dark brown to copper to fresh sprays of red. she’s not quiet, and her suspension’s been shot halfway to hell since he flew off that overpass near the train tracks, but she’s solid. fast. decent off - road traction, even through the roughest terrain. she gets the job done.

crane turns the keys in the ignition. a loud, vibrating rev, a scrape of tires against gravel. behind him, the biter from the creek makes a clumsy lunge for the vehicle’s rear. he leaves her in the dust and drives.

he’s been doing a lot of that. driving. maybe he missed it. maybe he likes the solitude, except for that ribbon of isolation that runs through him constantly like a wound spreading poison. no: what draws him is something else.

static crackles through the radio hooked to his dash.

“kyle, can you hear me?”

the skip of his heartbeat drops back to a dull rhythm. he should have known better. communication between here and the slums is shaky on a good day, worse down here behind the mountains.

“yeah, bilal, i hear you.”

“i’ve got the parts to fix your ride, if you want to come by and let me take a look.”

“she’s doin’ fine for now.”

“you sure? it’s no trouble. hell, i can probably have her running again by —”

“yeah, listen, i’ll stop by tomorrow, alright?” he says it without the intent to follow through on it.

“whatever you say, brother. hey — don’t be a stranger, okay?”

“sure thing.”

he ends it there. veers left to avoid an upended van and a spill of toxic waste. doesn’t correct to avoid clipping the biter crouched over a strewn mess of gore, greedily devouring someone’s remains. or several someones. the buggy jumps a little. his expression stays as unmoved as if he’d just bucked over a speed bump or a pothole.

the sun is behind him now, dipping westward.

he drives.

it’s beautiful out here, in its own right. the kind of place he might’ve visited by choice, before, when the world wasn’t like it is now. the road unspools behind him, twisting south towards the dam. he hears the water before he sees it. rushing noise off to the right. he doesn’t stop. keeps going past the turnoff and down a winding side - road until he pulls over onto a patch of asphalt that used to be a small parking lot. a couple of vehicles, a truck, a trailer hitched to a hatchback with luggage piled high. he’s checked them all before. cleaned out the bags and the gas tanks, salvaged what parts he could from under their hoods. there’s a single building, a two - story cottage converted to a restaurant converted to a safe house, UV bulbs strung along the balcony railing like christmas lights.

past it, where the road dips into a curve, the open maw of a half - collapsed tunnel is just visible beyond the scattering of trees and abandoned cars, biters meandering listlessly in the afternoon heat.

four hours.

he parks the buggy and climbs up to the balcony, barricading the door once he’s inside.

no one uses this place. that’s why he’d picked it. quiet, deserted, off the beaten path. no one uses it because of its proximity to the tunnel. deep within the reeking darkness, volatiles nest and thrive. they prowl too close after nightfall. no one wants the risk.

no one except crane.

the note was pinned up on an old door used as a bulletin board at jasir’s farm. warning people away from the area, to steer clear at any cost. during the day, the hive is full. they only scatter when darkness falls, emerging to hunt, to feed, to roam the countryside freely and without borders. that’s what he’s counting on.

but there’s a trick to it. something he discovered — stumbled upon — when he went looking for sabit and found a nest instead. volatiles can breed. they’re not made exclusively through the natural evolution of the virus, but nor do they procreate in a traditional sense. hive mother is the closest comparison he can make: sentient creatures within the hives that somehow trigger the mutation. again, it’s a science he doesn’t fully understand. he knows the logistics. he knows enough. destroying those things stops the spread.

kill the beating heart, and you kill the beast.

he hefts his duffel bag onto one of the tables and unzips it, a side pocket where a tightly - wrapped pouch is nestled within the folds of a spare shirt. inside, a medical injector and tool slots that used to house five vials of antizin. the final vial is loaded into the injector. the shot is quick. practiced. another four days bought on the calendar; beyond that, the pages are blank.

it should worry him more than it does.

after he checks the alarm on his watch, crane moves to the sleeping bag unrolled on the floor and lies down fully clothed. he’s trained himself to fall asleep like he’s stepping off a curb. no thought, just muscle memory.

four hours, then he can go.

dreams are less muscle, all memory. he sees them every time: living faces turned to dead ones turned to taunting, hungry ghosts. children screaming. a little girl and then a little boy, the plush yield of a bloodstained teddy bear under the tread of his boot. you can’t go yet, i thought of a name!

someplace safe.

the monsters are gone.

semper fi, marine.

residual hallucinations blend seamlessly, threading sepia and bronze through the black and mottled grey, the arterial red. jade’s voice brushes the threads like a hand searching for fever; soft, then bleeding, then telling him to let her go, and then jade isn’t jade, she’s deanna, and she isn’t saying let her go — she’s saying let go.

no goodbyes, remember?

make it count.

you don’t know what suffering is.

there’s an old ache just under the hook of his left clavicle. a starburst of pain sings sharply outward with the waking breath he sucks in, then pushes back out. he presses the heel of his right hand against the scar from rais’ dagger, the one he didn’t dodge fast enough. that’s a running theme. not fast enough. not soon enough. not enough. his other hand lifts, wrist tipping, as the digital numbers on his watch go from 20:59 to 21:00.

he cuts the alarm.

night out here sounds nothing like night in the slums, or in old town. there, it’s all infected moans, wind rippling through tarps and rustling trash; it’s all crackling fires and the creak of scaffolding, clangs of metal as virals throw aside manhole covers to scrabble out into the streets.

here, it’s quiet. crickets chirp, cicadas chitter and hum. an owl hoots from somewhere in the trees off to the right of the cottage.

he waits by the balcony door until he hears them passing by. ragged, growling breaths. heavy steps. they come out of the nest in droves but then they scatter. then they fade into the dark.

crane hops the railing and heads toward the tunnel’s waiting mouth.

years ago, on the ground in fallujah, he led a stealth mission of five other marines to infiltrate a hostile - run outpost at the city’s downtown core. tactics he relied on then to evade detection are called back on now. he stays low. hugs the shadows. mindful of every move, every breath, every beat of his heart. the first biter he kills doesn’t have the time to react. he snaps its neck, fast and clean. drags it off into the cover of the trees and slices a deep line across its swollen belly. then a second line, stem to stern.

bandanna tightly secured over his mouth and nose, he reaches gloved hands inside the wound and begins to cover himself in gore.

the smell is overpowering. sour and almost chemical, thick with rot, seeping through the fabric. but overpowering is the entire point. dahlia claimed she had a magic potion to move amongst infected, to blend in; everyone thought she was crazy. so did he, or delusional at the least — until she’d asked him to gather what she needed to make more tincture. one whiff of those mushrooms, and he understood.

she didn’t have a magic potion. she just knew which plants were odorous enough to mask the scent of living flesh.

and if that worked, crane figures this will too.

three measured strides into the tunnel confirms it. the biters don’t turn. don’t react at all. he passes them in silence, a chameleon, unnoticed and undisturbed. this is the easy part. the deeper he goes, the more perilous the risk. virals twitch and mutter, grouped around piles of reeking carnage mounted nearly ceiling - high in some places. he doesn’t turn on his flashlight for chancing exposure. it takes his eyes a few minutes to adjust to the gloom.

he has eight hours, give or take, before the volatiles return and this excursion goes from dangerous to suicidal. eight hours is plenty.

bones. the ground is littered with them, crunching underfoot. some are smaller; animal, maybe — birds, rodents — but most aren’t. bigger things. human. skull fragments that are all teeth. the smell has gotten incrementally worse, distinguishable even through his own cloak of viscera. it’s suffocating and rank. biological. metallic like a slaughterhouse. choked with dirt like a grave.

edging a pool of stagnant water that fills the crevice between cracked slabs of cement, he pushes on.

he’s getting closer. he can hear it now. an unearthly vocalization that pitches above the rest, echoing off stone. it’s a howl and a groan and a wail and a scream all in one, wordless, feral, made of pain and desperate hunger.

he sees it near a blocked door to a maintenance hall, in front of a wide wall of concrete debris. tethered to the earth by flesh and tendon like roots. there’s no lower half: only a head and torso, its other parts impossible to identify. the head is thrown back. spikes of bone push through bloody sinew in odd places, and the jaw is split along both sides, a wide, disjointed yawn. nothing about it is human. nothing about it suggests that it once was human.

circling behind it, crane braces one hand on its shoulder and draws his blade with the other. the machete is driven clean through, back to front, gleaming point emerging from its chest.

kill the beating heart —

the death rattle is jarring, a wet, retching sustain, and then it stops. the thing stills, goes limp. he pulls his blade out again.

— you kill the beast.

there are three more of them, nestled deep within the labyrinth. he finds them by sound, repeats the same routine with each. in a way, it feels merciful. killing sabit was merciful. he wasn’t long in this state when crane had found him; too far gone to save, but with enough human left in him to plead for release.

these ones don’t plead, but release is granted anyway.

because of how deep the nest goes, of how careful he is in navigating it, it’s coming up on midnight by the time he turns around to work his way back. that isn’t worrisome: sunrise starts washing the horizon in swaths of pale peach at 5:30, doesn’t fully spread her rays ‘til six. he still has a seven - hour window, and all he has to do is reach the cottage again. the camouflage is working. his pulse is steady.

everything is playing out accordingly, right up until it’s not.

a viral staggers from behind one of the vehicles in the tunnel, an old city bus that blocked it from view. he misses it, focused on a through - path to avoid the others. it knocks into his shoulder. hard.

crane stumbles a little. it wouldn’t be enough to throw him had his footing been on even ground.

his boot slips off the edge of the crevice.

his ankle, the same one roman had fucked up months before, torques harshly in a direction it isn’t supposed to go, skewing his balance sideways.

“oh, f—”

the curse is caught before it’s anything more than a breath.

he falls. water splashes around him.

four feet away, the viral lets out a screech.

the noise. that’s all, he tells himself: just the sudden noise drawing attention. but the filthy pool around him begins to turn filthier, a runoff of blood and entrails slipping from his clothes. he freezes. holds absolutely still, unblinking, barely breathing. three more virals and a handful of shuffling biters are starting to congregate around the water. sensing some disturbance, some change in the air. one of them presses in closer. he realizes what’s about to happen a microsecond before.

the biter trips over the slab and lands in the pool with him, dousing him in a second wave. he scrambles backward, kicks it back when it lunges, but the damage is already done.

they smell him now. they see him.

crane jumps from the pool and bodies the first viral that comes at him. the tunnel fills with shrieks and groans, a ravenous stampede with a single piece of prey.

his machete cuts through the nearest throat. then he breaks into a run.

the firecrackers he throws behind him buy enough time to clear the tunnel’s entrance, to dip into the trees, to move at a flat sprint until ultraviolet lights wink at him between the black canopy. he vaults the awning, grabs hold of the balcony rail.

a volatile’s hunting cry reverberates through the moonlit night.

HARRAN COUNTRYSIDE, DAY 176 ; 6:02:45.

“lena. lena, do you copy? ... shit.”

still nothing, just the static noise of a poor signal. the transmission is weak. he curses under his breath, throws a glance down the ridge behind him, hikes further up the crest. the air thins. he stops and tries again.

“lena, come in. do you copy?”

this time, finally, the static catches traction.

“crane? is that you?"

“thank god. yeah — yeah, brecken, it’s me.”

“holy shit.” relief, even through a weak transmission, hits him center mass. “it’s good to hear your voice, mate. it’s been too fucking long.”

“i — i know, man. i’m sorry. really. i —”

“nah, nah, save that for later, okay? tell me you’re finally through with this poxy country holiday and you’re ready to come home.”

home. that hits, too. emotion swells in his throat. a dammed flood he’s been so diligent to keep at bay.

last night was sleepless. he’d kept watch until sunrise, kept alert, because it occurred to him when he’d hit the water: he doesn’t want to die. losing hope is a dangerous thing. and maybe it is hopeless. maybe the antizin will run dry and he’ll turn, and one of them will have to put him down, like he did rahim and jade, and there won’t be any stopping it. no cure. no way out.

maybe he thought he did want to die — or maybe it was just that he didn’t care if he lived.

home. come back home.

it’s not about him. it’s not himself that he’s living for.

not anymore.

“yeah,” he manages. “yeah. i, uh — i think it’s past time for that.”

brecken blows out a breath. “sanest thing i’ve heard you say in a while. look, let me grab the others and —”

“no. no, don’t do that. i don’t have a lot of time — could lose the signal again at any second. brecken ... listen, just — just tell ‘em i’m on my way, huh? tell ‘em ...”

“yeah. i will.”

“i’m sorry.”

“i know, crane."

a steady inhale is pulled and released.

he hears something. something that seems to shake the air around him, above him; something a lot like the whirring engine of an aircraft. but it can’t be that. there haven’t been any drops in months. squinting against the sun’s rays, crane scans the skyline, searching —

“hang on,” brecken says, “you hear that?”

“what? you’re not tellin’ me it’s loud enough t—”

“there’s a — oi, get ayo up here, right now! — there’s a fucking plane. what the fuck, crane, i thought the GRE weren’t dropping supplies anymore?”

“no, they’re not, they’re — wh— hang on, what do you mean there’s a plane? there’s a plane right —”

“listen, call me again once you’re close, okay? get your ass back here as soon as possible, we’ll talk then.”

“n— wait — brecken, don’t —”

the radio goes dead.

overhead, a fixed - wing transport plane banks left and makes a hairpin turn to circle the cliffside. minimum altitude over rural land is five hundred feet. it’s close.

close enough to catch a flash of color from the massive logo painted on its fuselage.

a medical cross inside a circle, bold letters spelling out GRE.

#battle journals.*#ii / i. hell is empty and all the devils are here.*#are we anywhere near this point in the arc? no #did i write this anyway? absolutely i did

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spencer-reids-adventures · 3 years

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Reid-ing List: Seasons 1-6

Here is my list of episodes from seasons 1-6 that are Reid-centric or have good/important Reid moments! As with the list for episodes 7-15, this completely subjective, and also I'm not perfect and I'm sure I missed things, but I did my best :)

Purple and bold: Episode more or less centered around Reid Purple and italicized: Good/important Reid moments Just purple: Directed by Matthew Gray Gubler

Season 1

1 "Extreme Aggressor" 2 "Compulsion" 3 "Won't Get Fooled Again" 4 "Plain Sight" 5 "Broken Mirror" 6 "L.D.S.K." 7 "The Fox" 8 "Natural Born Killer" 9 "Derailed" 10 "The Popular Kids" 11 "Blood Hungry" 12 "What Fresh Hell?" 13 "Poison" 14 "Riding the Lightning" 15 "Unfinished Business" 16 "The Tribe" 17 "A Real Rain" 18 "Somebody's Watching" 19 "Machismo" 20 "Charm and Harm" 21 "Secrets and Lies" 22 "The Fisher King, Part 1"

Season 2

1 "The Fisher King, Part 2" 2 "P911" 3 "The Perfect Storm" 4 "Psychodrama" 5 "Aftermath" 6 "The Boogeyman" 7 "North Mammon" 8 "Empty Planet" 9 "The Last Word" 10 "Lessons Learned" 11 "Sex, Birth, Death" 12 "Profiler, Profiled" 13 "No Way Out" 14 "The Big Game" - beginning of Hankel arc 15 "Revelations" 16 "Fear and Loathing" 17 "Distress" 18 "Jones" 19 "Ashes and Dust" 20 "Honor Among Thieves" 21 "Open Season" 22 "Legacy" 23 "No Way Out, Part II: The Evilution of Frank"

Season 3

1 "Doubt" 2 "In Name and Blood" 3 "Scared to Death" 4 "Children of the Dark" 5 "Seven Seconds" 6 "About Face" 7 "Identity" 8 "Lucky" 9 "Penelope" - obviously this is Penelope-centered but Reid just looks really good in this episode, lol 10 "True Night" 11 "Birthright" 12 "3rd Life" 13 "Limelight" 14 "Damaged" 15 "A Higher Power" 16 "Elephant's Memory" - (n.b. this is my all time fave) 17 "In Heat" 18 "The Crossing" 19 "Tabula Rasa" 20 "Lo-Fi"

Season 4

1 "Mayhem" 2 "The Angel Maker" 3 "Minimal Loss" 4 "Paradise" 5 "Catching Out" 6 "The Instincts" 7 "Memoriam" 8 "Masterpiece" 9 "52 Pickup" 10 "Brothers in Arms" 11 "Normal" 12 "Soul Mates" 13 "Bloodline" 14 "Cold Comfort" 15 "Zoe's Reprise" 16 "Pleasure Is My Business" - another random excellent Hotch episode that no one asked for <3 17 "Demonology" 18 "Omnivore" 19 "House on Fire" 20 "Conflicted" 21 "A Shade of Gray" 22 "The Big Wheel" 23 "Roadkill" 24 "Amplification" 25 "To Hell…" 26 "…And Back"

Season 5

1 "Nameless, Faceless" 2 "Haunted" 3 "Reckoner" 4 "Hopeless" 5 "Cradle to Grave" 6 "The Eyes Have It" 7 "The Performer" 8 "Outfoxed" 9 "100" 10 "The Slave of Duty" 11 "Retaliation" 12 "The Uncanny Valley" 13 "Risky Business" 14 "Parasite" 15 "Public Enemy" 16 "Mosley Lane" 17 "Solitary Man" 18 "The Fight" 19 "A Rite of Passage" 20 "…A Thousand Words" 21 "Exit Wounds" 22 "The Internet Is Forever" 23 "Our Darkest Hour"

Season 6

1 "The Longest Night" 2 "JJ" 3 "Remembrance of Things Past" 4 "Compromising Positions" 5 "Safe Haven" 6 "Devil's Night" 7 "Middle Man" 8 "Reflection of Desire" 9 "Into the Woods" 10 "What Happens at Home" 11 "25 to Life" 12 "Corazon" 13 "The Thirteenth Step" 14 "Sense Memory" 15 "Today I Do" 16 "Coda" 17 "Valhalla" 18 "Lauren" 19 "With Friends Like These..." 20 "Hanley Waters" 21 "The Stranger" 22 "Out of the Light" 23 "Big Sea" 24 "Supply & Demand"

#cm reid-ing list 1-6 #spencer reid #maya's reiding list

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quazartranslates · 3 years

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Welcome to the Nightmare Game II - CH3

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

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Chapter 3: Resurrection Overture (III)

Qi Leren stood in front of the door that had once made him beyond salvation.

After the huge stone door, Maria’s sword was held high and the black dragon was crucified. Seven days ago, there was a former friend sitting on the throne that belonged to the Pope, smiling at him.

Now that I think about it, I still feel like I had a nightmare.

Worried that there was some unknown danger inside, Qi Leren removed "Devil Etiquette", changed it to the perception skill "Rain-Day Clothing", put his hand on the stone door, and pushed it gently. The stone door opened almost automatically before his eyes.

Maria and the black dragon were still there, but the metal sword in Maria’s hands had ceased to exist. Qi Leren's eyes fell to the blood on the ground, and the dragged blood seemed to bring back the scene before his death.

He took a step and wanted to go there, but the first step made this dead and broken church glow with incredible changes—

The statue of Maria exuded bright light, and countless cracks spread from its head. Qi Leren stared at this horrible scene and the cracks became more and more dense, spreading from Maria to the immortal body of the black dragon. The two statues with a height of more than ten meters were destroyed in an instant by time, turning into countless fragments and dust that poured down, rushing to the earth like waterfalls!

The entire site of the Vatican collapsed in a frantic tremor.

During this collapse, Qi Leren, who had been knocked down by the shock wave, looked towards the Maria.

Maria's phantom stood there, holding an object that seemed to be a scepter in both hands and coming towards him.

The ground shook so much that Qi Leren couldn't stand up at all, but Maria's phantom came to him as if on flat ground and handed the thing in her hand to him: "Please, bring this to the Prophet, you must give it to him personally."

"Who is the Prophet? Where is he?" Qi Leren asked, confused.

"He is in the judge’s seat of the Twilight Township. If you meet Ning Zhou, don't let Ning Zhou touch this thing and don't let him see it," Maria said.

Qi Leren looked down at what Maria gave him and held out his hand. The name of this item was [Scepter of Hell], which was made of metal, heavy and dangerous. There was a huge groove at the top of the scepter and the gem originally embedded in it had disappeared, leaving only this metal scepter with evil power. This was an extremely powerful and fearful demon item, which can even pollute the power of faith.

"I understand, I will give it to the Prophet." Qi Leren understood that the matter was important, so he put away this scepter and solemnly agreed.

"Thank you." Maria smiled, leaned over Qi Leren, and left a gentle kiss on his forehead.

The gentle kiss was like the blessing of God. Countless golden and silvery spots spread from Maria and she began to become blurred. However, these spots rushed into Qi Leren's body and he suddenly felt himself immersed as if in a hot spring. The warm energy soothed his stiff and tired body, injecting vitality and vigor into him again.

Indulged in this comfortable power, Qi Leren forgot where he was until an angry roar came from above: "How dare you! Maria! Again and again you have... I will not let you go!"

The Witch of Desperation, who found the body of the Devastator destroyed, roared. Storm clouds condensed with thunder and lightning and the terrible demon energy brewed the power of death. Countless bats came at them!

Maria nodded to Qi Leren languidly: "Good boy, go, remember my words."

Saying this, a bright white light rose from Qi Leren's feet, pierced through the dark clouds in the sky, and wrapped around Qi Leren to fly him towards the distant land of dusk.

In this dazzling silvery white light, Qi Leren felt his body float uncontrollably just like in the dream before, rising higher and higher, and the white world was full of magnificent and majestic vitality, solemn and quiet. Wrapped in the holy light, he flew in the sky like a gliding bird, moving forward in a pure white.

Suddenly an ethereal music sounded ahead. Qi Leren woke up from his dreamy state and looked in the direction of the music.

Countless little angels with flowers and musical instruments in their hands flew out of a magnificent gate, joyfully spreading petals and playing graceful music. That gate seemed to be the door to Eden. From the open gate, he could see a garden full of flowers. Angels holding musical instruments were playing the piano and singing songs by the fountain, singing praises to Father God.

A petite young female angel came out of the garden and her feet lightly landed on the clouds, smiling at Qi Leren.

Qi Leren tried to see her face clearly, but she seemed to be a light-year away from him.

"I am the Prophet," she said. "Give it to me."

Qi Leren's eyes were empty and that person's voice seemed to be God's will, which made him want to obey her orders involuntarily.

Give the Scepter of Hell to the Prophet, and she is the Prophet... This was firmly rooted in his mind.

Qi Leren took the Scepter of Hell in his hand without thinking.

[Rain-Day Laundry: At present, the remaining sensing times are 2/3.]

Qi Leren suddenly woke up. How could he believe that this unknown person was the Prophet?! This brainwashing power was simply terrible! He almost handed over this thing!

"Hmm?" The angel on the other side let out a confused hum as the projection of an archangel emerged behind Qi Leren, holding a rapier to cut the heavenly gate.

In a blaze of holy light, the world was silently torn apart and all the dreamy things in front of him disappeared in an instant.

Under the curious gaze of hundreds of millions of human beings and demons, this white holy light that shone in an arc across the sky paused for a moment in a cloud of black mist, then pierced the darkness and continued to fly towards the Village of Dusk on the eastern coast.

In the garden of Dawn.

"An unexpected miss. It’s not enough to use the avatar projection in front of him, I was too hasty," the petite woman sighed.

"You can't stop using the field’s power. After all, it’s the last of the Holy Nun’s power," the man taking a slow sip of wine said lightly.

"But to use ‘Utopia’, it will be weakened after being pierced by that holy light, it’ll do more harm than good. Forget it. Anyway, I already know that thing’s whereabouts, I’ll just ask others to keep it for the time being," the woman said and smiled again. "But that child you like is quite vigilant."

The red wine in the goblet was swirled gently, its thick red color like blood.

"People with secrets will always be more vigilant. I really wonder how many secrets he still hides."

The Village of Dusk on the east coast was shrouded in the afterglow of sunset all year round.

On the long coastline, Chen Baiqi was smoking on the seawall and her sister Sissi was catching crabs. Suddenly, she found a shiny stone. She screamed with surprise and took the stone to Chen Baiqi: "This is beautiful, I want to show it to Xiaozhi!"

Chen Baiqi glanced at the stone, but it was only a rare sea stone. She rubbed her sister's hair: "Okay."

"But I haven't seen Xiaozhi for a long time." Sissi was worried about her little friend. "Is it the Prophet who won't let him out?"

"Maybe," Chen Baiqi replied absently, full of melancholy. "We’ll go home in ten minutes and go to the Undead Island in the afternoon."

Sissi cocked her head and suddenly realized: "Is it Qi Leren’s seventh day?"

Chen Baiqi responded gently and let out a sigh.

The little girl who didn't know her sister's worries kicked the sand under her feet and muttered, "Why did he die?"

"People will always die," Chen Baiqi said lightly.

Sissi felt her sister's heavy heart and took her arm obediently. She was well protected by Chen Baiqi, but that didn't mean she didn't know anything. She had met many of Chen Baiqi's customers. Those young men and women came to her store to buy what they needed. Some of them came very often while others came rarely, but gradually these people disappeared.

Those who had disappeared had never returned again. There would always be new faces coming and disappearing like those people.

Sissi remembered that when she was a little girl, a beautiful little sister always brought her delicious candy which was wrapped in colorful cellophane, and each one was sweet. She loved the candy brought by that little sister. Every time, she had collected these beautiful candy wrappers and put them in a small tin box until she had saved a whole box.

Then one day, when she saw the tin box, she suddenly remembered that she had not seen the little sister for a long time. She asked Chen Baiqi several times, and Chen Baiqi was silent for a long time, saying that she would help her find out.

She happily went back to her room, folded a string of paper cranes with those cellophanes, and prepared to give it to the little sister.

But in the end, she could only give the folded paper cranes to her tombstone.

On the Undead Island, which was just outside the Village of Dusk, the warm sunlight had illuminated her tombstone with her name on it and the days she had lived. There were only two simple lines that summarized a person's short life.

She had felt that she wasn’t very sad, but at the thought that she would never eat that delicious candy again, she had burst into tears.

Later, she learned where to buy this delicious candy that tasted sweet, but it wasn't from that little sister, so she didn't like it anymore.

She thought that, in fact, she didn't like that kind of candy very much, she just missed the little sister.

It was a carefree little girl who taught her the meaning of death for the first time.

"Jiejie*, you seem to have liked him very much?" Sissi asked.

*{E/N: “older sister”}

Chen Baiqi smoked a cigarette and the smoke blew away in the sea breeze: "Because a friend of mine likes him very much."

"How much did you like him?" Siss smiled and asked, "Does jiejie like me so much?"

Chen Baiqi looked at her sister's innocent face, smiled, and kissed her face: "Maybe I liked him more than jiejie likes you."

Sissi gave a "wow": "You must’ve liked him very much."

However, Sissi was a little sad again: "How sad will your friend be now that he’s dead?"

Chen Baiqi could not speak and her hand holding the cigarette was shaking. There was a little bit of sweet pain in the sour despair; even if it was just a bystander like her, she was almost suffocating.

She wouldn't be able to forget for the rest of her life. On that rainy day, Ning Zhou, who had gone to the Holy City with Qi Leren, suddenly returned to the Village of Dusk and knocked on her door. She was puzzled, but was shocked by Ning Zhou's calm dead eyes. Ning Zhou had braved the heavy rain and told her what had happened. Then, despite her dissuasion, he resolutely went to Neverland. He didn't even know whether he could survive the torture of the spiritual enchanment, or if it would leave him sleeping in the cold tundra forever.

Fortunately, Ning Zhou's tombstone had yet to appear on the Undead Island. It seemed that he had successfully arrived at his soul’s former hometown, bid farewell to it, and went to a world full of thorns and sufferings.

Thinking this, she suddenly heard Sissi let out a loud scream. Chen Baiqi raised her head and looked at the sky in astonishment—in the far west, there was a bright light streaking across the sky, magnificent, holy, and unparalleled, and all the places it passed were the projections of heaven. It stopped over the Village of Dusk and turned into a vertical beam of light.

A huge projection of an archangel appeared in the void, behind which countless wings danced slowly in the setting sun, almost covering the sunset. The wings were dying, like a white rain, and the projection of the archangel was getting weaker and weaker. He put his hands on his chest, bowed toward the distance, and disappeared into the golden red sunset.

Sissi was stunned. After being shocked, Chen Baiqi’s mind suddenly raised countless thoughts: Which of the Holy See's field-level masters had come to Dusk? The place of arrival also happened to be in the spot where the Prophet had landed at dusk... No, it should be just residual energy. If it was really a field-level master, they would not reveal such a big movement at all. And the Court’s enchantment has not been alarmed... Who was it?

"Sissi, go home, I'll check it out and I'll be right back," Chen Baiqi said, and inserted a card into her card slot. A projected book turned to a certain page in her hand. A white unicorn appeared beside her and she turned around to mount the horse. The winged unicorn flew in the air to the place where the projection of the archangel had landed.

She arrived at her destination in less than half a minute due to the short distance. On the rolling sea waves of the beach, a confused figure was looking in all directions at a loss. Seeing Chen Baiqi approach, he waved at her in surprise and ran quickly to her.

Chen Baiqi's cigarette butt fell to the ground, and shock and joy were intertwined. She couldn't wait to express her incredible mood with 10,000 swear words: "Shit Qi Leren, aren't you fucking dead?!”

-----

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poorquentyn · 7 years

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Remember Your Name, Part 2: Always Smiling

“You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.”

--1984

At first, I did not understand whose chapter I was reading.

“The rat squealed when he bit into it...” Wait, Reek? Didn’t he turn out to be dead after all? That was the big reveal at the end of Theon’s A Clash of Kings arc: Reek had died in Ramsay’s place, and the man we knew as “Reek” was actually Ramsay all along. So who...

...no.

Oh, oh no.

It can’t be.

It is.

George RR Martin did not exactly hide his intention to bring Theon Greyjoy back to the forefront in A Dance with Dragons, after two books and thirteen years offstage. This opening chapter had already been released as a teaser in 2008, three years prior to the book’s release, and the author had repeatedly hinted at Theon’s return on his Notablog. But I wasn’t paying attention to any of that at the time. I wasn’t plugged into the fandom in 2011; this was just a new book I was eager to read. I was ready to see how Jon and Stannis interacted after the former was named Lord Commander. I was ready to see how Dany handled her enemies in Slaver’s Bay. I was ready to see what really happened to Davos, after Cersei was told in AFFC that Wyman Manderly had him executed (I didn’t believe it for a second). What I was not remotely ready to see was that name blazing across the top of the book’s unlucky thirteenth chapter: REEK.

And I would argue, in retrospect, that this was the most appropriate context in which to first experience Reek I ADWD. You should be immediately confused about who you “are” within the chapter, because our POV is as well. You are dropped into the dark corner of a Dreadfort dungeon with no explanation, your mouth filled with rat and your ears with squeals; you have to reassemble the world along with him. You are not permitted to stand at a distance, shaking your head and clucking your tongue at this pitiful creature, as so many people do in-universe. You are there, in a world that feels far more like horror than high fantasy, remembering his name as he does.

In that fateful first trip through this sawtoothed gauntlet of a chapter, it was only when our POV flashed back to the fate of poor Kyra did I remember the name Theon Greyjoy.

He had run before. Years ago, it seemed, when he still had some strength in him, when he had still been defiant. That time it had been Kyra with the keys. She told him she had stolen them, that she knew a postern gate that was never guarded. “Take me back to Winterfell, m’lord,” she begged, palefaced and trembling. “I don’t know the way. I can’t escape alone. Come with me, please.”

And so he had. The gaoler was dead drunk in a puddle of wine, with his breeches down around his ankles. The dungeon door was open and the postern gate had been unguarded, just as she had said. They waited for the moon to go behind a cloud, then slipped from the castle and splashed across the Weeping Water, stumbling over stones, half-frozen by the icy stream. On the far side, he had kissed her. “You’ve saved us,” he said. Fool. Fool.

It had all been a trap, a game, a jape. Lord Ramsay loved the chase and preferred to hunt two-legged prey. All night they ran through the darkling wood, but as the sun came up the sound of a distant horn came faintly through the trees, and they heard the baying of a pack of hounds. “We should split up,” he told Kyra as the dogs drew closer. “They cannot track us both.” The girl was crazed with fear, though, and refused to leave his side, even when he swore that he would raise a host of Ironborn and come back for her if she should be the one they followed.

Within the hour, they were taken. One dog knocked him to the ground, and a second bit Kyra on the leg as she scrambled up a hillside. The rest surrounded them, baying and snarling, snapping at them every time they moved, holding them there until Ramsay Snow rode up with his huntsmen. He was still a bastard then, not yet a Bolton. “There you are,” he said, smiling down at them from the saddle. “You wound me, wandering off like this. Have you grown tired of my hospitality so soon?” That was when Kyra seized a stone and threw it at his head. It missed by a good foot, and Ramsay smiled. “You must be punished.”

That, too, is appropriate, because this passage is designed to ground the reader in this disorienting environment. It reminds us of Ramsay’s nigh-peerless cruelty and sadism, how much of a bastard he is in the pejorative sense. We’d only heard about his Most Dangerous Game hunts before, and now we’re dropped into one from the prey’s POV. It’s a hideously ironic twist of fate for the accomplished hunter Theon Greyjoy, a significant moment in Ramsay’s deconstruction and near-destruction of his identity. After all, Ramsay was there--as Reek, no less--for Theon’s own (considerably less successful) human-hunt at Winterfell. There’s a further irony in that Kyra and Theon escape due to a drunk horny guard, which is in part how Osha helped Bran and his companions escape Theon in ACOK. These distorted, inverted echoes of his previous POV arc become even more pronounced when he actually returns to Winterfell; it lends his journey back to Theon an appropriate sense of the uncanny, as if he’s being drawn into his past before being spat out into his future. The flashback further blows the dust off of our memories of Theon’s ACOK storyline by bringing back Kyra, a woman he treated at the time as a prize to be abused on a whim. That power imbalance is now ash and dust, broken like Winterfell by the Bastard of Bolton. On the whole, this passage does a tremendous job of measuring the gap between our POV’s past and present (something he himself is having difficulties doing, as I’ll get into below and in my essay on Reek II). The man who ran still thought of himself as Theon. The man eating the rat thinks of himself as Reek, when he thinks of himself at all.

Upon reread, though, what struck me most about this sequence is how the author foreshadows the end of Theon’s ADWD arc right here in its opening pages. Theon thinks of this attempted escape as exemplifying the point at which “he still had some strength in him, when he had still been defiant,” but it also exemplifies the self-absorption that was his defining character trait in ACOK. Let’s be honest: when he promised Kyra that he would raise an Ironborn host and come back for her, he was lying through his as-yet-unbroken teeth. Not only because there’s no way in hell said Ironborn would follow the man they nigh-universally disdain on a suicide mission to save a greenland woman, but also because the Theon we knew in ACOK wouldn’t actually have asked them to do so, had he made it back safely. He would have breathed a sigh of relief and forgotten about Kyra, as he’d forgotten about the captain’s daughter. What was she to him, Theon Greyjoy, Prince of the Iron Islands and also (maybe, kind of, not really) Winterfell? Naught but a symbol of his eternally bifurcated identity, and Theon doesn’t exactly lack for reminders of that. When he told her that they should split up, it’s because he was hoping Ramsay would find her and not him. That is the person he was.

And yet, at the end of his ADWD storyline, our POV will once again find himself alone with a fellow victim of Ramsay, another woman from his past life begging him not to leave her, the Bastard hard on their heels...and this time, he will not attempt to abandon her. This decision takes place in the final words of a chapter entitled (at last, at last!) THEON. It is in this moment, with this moment, that Theon restores himself, and it’s ironically by doing something that the Theon we knew would never do. He recovers himself by improving himself; he returns to Theon by changing what it means to be Theon.

That’s how this storyline ends. But the name “Reek” is how it begins. So: why Reek? Why did Ramsay give Theon his dead servant’s name, and by extension, why did the author choose this name as his opening salvo in this storyline?

“Reek” is a cage. It is a name designed to enslave. Ramsay uses it to instill worthlessness, servility, and above all shame. It literally refers to the undoubtedly appalling smell coming off Theon after months in the dungeons of the Dreadfort, but more than that, it tells Theon that this smell is his fault. That reek is you. It represents who you are. You stink, from the inside out. You are unworthy, inhuman, an object more than a person. Ramsay, posing as Reek, enabled Theon’s heinous actions in A Clash of Kings, and now he has turned around and forcibly imprinted that identity and the crimes that go with it onto Theon. The most insidious element of this process is that the Bastard has forced Theon to take part in his own torture.

Reek had been whipped and racked and cut, but there was no pain half so excruciating as the pain that followed flaying. It was the sort of pain that drove men mad, and it could not be endured for long. Soon or late the victim would scream, “Please, no more, no more, stop it hurting, cut it off,” and Lord Ramsay would oblige. It was a game they played.

And that “game” supports the narrative that Ramsay has kindled and fed like a flame burning in our POV’s mind: you deserve what is being done to you. You know you do, or you wouldn’t be asking me to cut off your fingers and toes. I was there, whispering in your ear like a devil on your shoulder, when you committed that unspeakable crime at that mill near Winterfell. I know who you are, more than anyone, and who you are reeks. This is right. This is justice. This is the fate you have earned.

But...it’s not, actually. Not because the Theon Greyjoy we knew in ACOK was a good person--he was loathsome by any reasonable standard--but because nobody deserves this. No one should be flayed. No one should be racked. No one should undergo mutilation and starvation and solitary confinement. The conflation of torture with justice is one of the most vile cultural artifacts of our species, and George RR Martin is very clearly making that argument throughout this storyline. What has happened to Theon has rendered him all but unable to come to terms with what he’s done. He is far less able to do, be, and get better because of what Ramsay has inflicted upon him. The critique is aimed not only at the Bastard of Bolton, but at us. Every time someone posted on a forum that Theon deserved what he was getting: this is what it looks like. This is what you were rooting for. How does it taste? Does it taste like justice? Or does it taste like a sudden mouthful of raw rat, all fur and skin and squealing?

That name change has to stand in for everything that’s happened to Theon, because the author chooses not to directly depict the torture. For GRRM, what happened to Theon is unfathomable. It defies description, elides elucidation, exposes the limits of language. It is beyond writing.

Now, I’m not making a general statement here. There’s certainly nothing wrong with going for a blunt, direct depiction. Yet there is also a real power in focusing instead on the aftermath, with the violence itself serving as a structuring absence festering in the back of our minds. What Martin is interested in conveying, more than what was done to Theon, is the state in which it has left him.

That state is one in which Reek does not want to be Theon again. For him, Ramsay has become a figure conjured out of and in response to his sins; the Bastard of Bolton is both tempting devil and avenging angel, destroyer of Theon, creator of Reek. In Theon’s mind, Ramsay stands in front of all the doors, holding all the keys, and what Theon wants most is to keep those doors shut. If they open, the past comes rushing in all red and screaming, and at this point, Theon would rather be Reek forever than face that.

Reek turned away from the torch with tears glimmering in his eyes. What does he want of me this time? he thought, despairing. Why won’t he just leave me be? I did no wrong, not this time, why won’t they just leave me in the dark? He’d had a rat, a fat one, warm and wriggling…

I am done. I am dead. Theon is gone, forget me, leave me in the dark. I am so sorry, not only for what I’ve done, but for existing, at all. I will try not to. I beg you, author-father-god: write about me no more.

George RR Martin refused. Instead, in an act of both cruelty and compassion, he shone the spotlight on Theon once more, insisting that his story was not yet done despite all evidence to the contrary. The show must go on. Do you remember your lines? Do you remember your motivation? Do you remember your name?

Some wait alone, some share their invisible rooms with others. Invisible, yes, what do the furnishings matter, at this stage of things? Underfoot crunches the oldest of city dirt, last crystallizations of all the city had denied, threatened, lied to its children. Each has been hearing a voice, one he thought was talking only to him, say, "You didn't really believe you'd be saved. Come, we all know who we are by now. No one was ever going to take the trouble to save you, old fellow...." There is no way out. Lie and wait, lie still and be quiet. Screaming holds across the sky. When it comes, will it come in darkness, or will it bring its own light? Will the light come before or after? But it is already light. How long has it been light?

--Gravity’s Rainbow

image by Marc Fishman

As I said in the introduction to this series, part of what makes Theon’s ADWD arc work so well is how it functions as a hall of mirrors in which everyone he encounters reflects his identity crisis back at him. That begins here, with the boys who call him back from the wings, back into the light.

The sound of the lock turning was the most terrible of all. When the light hit him full in the face, he let out a shriek. He had to cover his eyes with his hands. He would have clawed them out if he’d dared, his head was pounding so. “Take it away, do it in the dark, please, oh please.”

“That’s not him,” said a boy’s voice. “Look at him. We’ve got the wrong cell.”

“Last cell on the left,” another boy replied. “This is the last cell on the left, isn’t it?”

“Aye.” A pause. “What’s he saying?”

“I don’t think he likes the light.”

“Would you, if you looked like that?” The boy hawked and spat. “And the stench of him. I’m like to choke.”

“He’s been eating rats,” said the second boy. “Look.”

The first boy laughed. “He has. That’s funny.”

I had to. The rats bit him when he slept, gnawing at his fingers and his toes, even at his face, so when he got his hands on one he did not hesitate. Eat or be eaten, those were the only choices. “I did it,” he mumbled, “I did, I did, I ate him, they do the same to me, please …”

The sound of the lock turning, the scream of a rusted iron hinge...

Little Walder is Ramsay the Second, described by Theon as the Bastard’s “best boy” who “grew more like him every day.” Big Walder is something else entirely: George RR Martin’s Enfant Terrible, a tiny adorable squeaky-voiced child who is, nevertheless, one of the smartest and most dangerous people in the entire story. I’ll delve much more into his character when we get to Reek III (he’s a favorite of mine), but for my purposes in this chapter, what matters most is that it’s Big Walder who first poses The Question...

“Talk to me,” said one of them. He was the smaller of the two, a thin boy, but clever. “Do you remember who you are?”

The fear came bubbling up inside him, and he moaned.

“Talk to me. Tell me your name.”

My name. A scream caught in his throat. They had taught him his name, they had, they had, but it had been so long that he’d forgotten. If I say it wrong, he’ll take another finger, or worse, he’ll … he’ll … He would not think about that, he could not think about that. There were needles in his jaw, in his eyes. His head was pounding. “Please,” he squeaked, his voice thin and weak. He sounded a hundred years old. Perhaps he was. How long have I been in here? “Go,” he mumbled, through broken teeth and broken fingers, his eyes closed tight against the terrible bright light. “Please, you can have the rat, don’t hurt me …”

...and it’s Little Walder, the mini-Ramsay, who first gives The Answer.

“Reek,” said the larger of the boys. “Your name is Reek. Remember?” He was the one with the torch. The smaller boy had the ring of iron keys.

Reek? Tears ran down his cheeks. “I remember. I do.” His mouth opened and closed. “My name is Reek. It rhymes with leek.” In the dark he did not need a name, so it was easy to forget. Reek, Reek, my name is Reek. He had not been born with that name. In another life he had been someone else, but here and now, his name was Reek. He remembered.

It’s fitting that the Frey boys are the ones who kick off this struggle. The Walders themselves are constantly conflated and confused for one another, not only because they share a birth name, but because their nicknames upend expectations: “Little” Walder is the lumbering domineering bully, “Big” Walder the pint-sized silver-tongued backstabber. Moreover, they too were there for his rise and fall in ACOK; they remember Theon Greyjoy, the prideful Prince of Winterfell. That’s why they can’t believe at first that the shaking, stammering ghost begging them to leave him in the dark is him. They are his past, come for him at last.

“I know you,” he whispered, through cracked lips. “I know your names.”

Beyond that, the Walders and their question force Theon to start interrogating rather than merely accepting his environment, looking at both the world and himself with new eyes.

The air was cold and damp and full of half-forgotten smells. The world, Reek told himself, this is what the world smells like. He did not know how long he had been down there in the dungeons, but it had to have been half a year at least. That long, or longer. What if it has been five years, or ten, or twenty? Would I even know? What if I went mad down there, and half my life is gone?

When he raised a hand, he was shocked to see how white it was, how fleshless. Skin and bones, he thought. I have an old man’s hands. Could he have been wrong about the boys? What if they were not Little Walder and Big Walder after all, but the sons of the boys he’d known?

Billy Pilgrim Theon Greyjoy has come unstuck in time. He’s trying to reassemble a self that keeps re-fragmenting in front of him. It’s a painful, punishing process, but it’s also a necessary first step forward from the annihilating void of Reek and the dungeon in which he was (re?)born. Again, that void itself is not what Theon fears most right now. The questions he’s asking himself above, and their answers--that’s what he fears most right now, the pain and confusion and self-loathing that goes with remembering his name. Big Walder asking him to “tell me your name” opened up the Pandora’s Box inside Theon’s head and heart, and Little Walder answering “Reek” shut it for him. That’s what Ramsay set out to do: enslave Theon by rendering the void an attractive alternative to being himself.

His lord was merciful and kind. He might have flayed his face off for some of the things Reek had said, before he’d learned his true name and proper place.

The author’s strategic use of secondary characters to spur Theon’s identity arc continues when the squires bring our POV before the Bastard.

At the high table the Bastard of Bolton sat in his lord father’s seat, drinking from his father’s cup. Two old men shared the high table with him, and Reek knew at a glance that both were lords. One was gaunt, with flinty eyes, a long white beard, and a face as hard as a winter frost. His jerkin was a ragged bearskin, worn and greasy. Underneath he wore a ringmail byrnie, even at table. The second lord was thin as well, but twisted where the first was straight. One of his shoulders was much higher than the other, and he stooped over his trencher like a vulture over carrion. His eyes were grey and greedy, his teeth yellow, his forked beard a tangle of snow and silver. Only a few wisps of white hair still clung to his spotted skull, but the cloak he wore was soft and fine, grey wool trimmed with black sable and fastened at the shoulder with a starburst wrought in beaten silver.

GRRM chooses not to tell us directly who Ramsay’s dinner companions are. Only with context provided in other chapters (from Jon and Davos as well as Theon) can we fill in the gaps and realize that the one with “grey and greedy” eyes is Arnolf Karstark and the one described as “gaunt, with flinty eyes, a long white beard, and a face as hard as a winter frost” is Hother “Whoresbane” Umber. Names and identities cannot simply be assumed. They must be earned.

But again, even the most minor of supporting characters in Theon’s ADWD storyline has layers that reflect his arc. Arnolf and Whoresbane are inverses in terms of where their loyalties lie. The castellan of Karhold is publicly feigning loyalty to Stannis, while secretly planning to betray the king to the Boltons. The castellan of Last Hearth, by contrast, appears to be feigning loyalty to the Boltons, while his heart remains with the Starks (and his brother fights for Stannis). As such, Arnolf represents Reek, he who has given himself over to Ramsay, and Whoresbane represents Theon, with the best part of him--the part that loved a Stark like a brother--still intact down deep.

Beyond this subtext, though, these two characters directly engage with the question of Theon’s identity.

“There he is. My sour old friend.” To the men beside him he said, “Reek has been with me since I was a boy. My lord father gave him to me as a token of his love.”

The two lords exchanged a look. “I had heard your serving man was dead,” said the one with the stooped shoulder. “Slain by the Starks, they said.”

Lord Ramsay chuckled. “The ironmen will tell you that what is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger. Like Reek. He smells of the grave, though, I grant you that.”

“He smells of nightsoil and stale vomit.” The stoop-shouldered old lord tossed aside the bone that he’d been gnawing on and wiped his fingers on the tablecloth. “Is there some reason you must needs inflict him upon us whilst we’re eating?”

The second lord, the straight-backed old man in the mail byrnie, studied Reek with flinty eyes. “Look again,” he urged the other lord. “His hair’s gone white and he is three stone thinner, aye, but this is no serving man. Have you forgotten?”

The crookback lord looked again and gave a sudden snort. “Him? Can it be? Stark’s ward. Smiling, always smiling.”

Smiling. Always smiling, because what was there in life that would not swoon before Theon Greyjoy’s smile? Women, battle, the realization that there’s an invisible noose around your neck, the growing panic that you have no home and no family and will never be welcome anywhere--just smile, and laugh, and kick Gared’s head away as the blood gushes forth. What, me worry? It might be cynical and childish, but it worked...

...until it didn’t.

The last thing Theon Greyjoy saw was Smiler, kicking free of the burning stables with his mane ablaze, screaming, rearing...

Ramsay did not wipe that smile off Theon’s face, he broke it. He did not teach Theon a lesson, he took a hammer to Theon’s ability to learn, and think, and move, and eat. He did not bring this proud wicked man to justice. What he did was methodically cut away at Theon’s defense mechanisms until he found the quivering child they dragged from his room on Pyke, and then resumed cutting. We are left to catch up with the results, and “smiling, always smiling” is GRRM’s most poignant measuring of the gap between what was and what is.

Speaking of our host for the evening...if Theon sees Ramsay as a divine terrible force sent to punish him for his sins, Ramsay sees Theon as a vessel to work through his own identity crisis: the character-defining struggle to claim the name of Bolton rather than Snow.

If he’d had a tail, he would have tucked it down between his legs.

If I had a tail, the Bastard would have cut it off. The thought came unbidden, a vile thought, dangerous. His lordship was not a bastard anymore. Bolton, not Snow. The boy king on the Iron Throne had made Lord Ramsay legitimate, giving him the right to use his lord father’s name. Calling him Snow reminded him of his bastardy and sent him into a black rage. Reek must remember that. And his name, he must remember his name. For half a heartbeat it eluded him, and that frightened him so badly that he tripped on the steep dungeon steps and tore his breeches open on the stone, drawing blood. Little Walder had to shove the torch at him to get him back on his feet and moving again.

And for the moment, it’s working. The word “Theon” never appears once in this chapter, and at its end, Ramsay Bolton né Snow declares his war upon the world.

Ramsay Bolton smiled. “I ride to war, Reek. And you will be coming with me, to help me fetch home my virgin bride.”

The locked-in hell of the Dreadfort will be set loose from its cage, writ in red across the North once more...the inside will become out. Yet he also inadvertently kicks off Theon’s arc in this book, because the focus of Ramsay’s war is the most important supporting character in Theon’s ADWD storyline, more even than Ramsay himself: Jeyne Poole. It is her, more than anyone else, who helps Reek return to Theon. Of course, I’ll get much more into that in later chapters, but in this first chapter, the author grants us a brief glimpse of where he’s going with this:

“I remember her. Arya.”

“She shall be the Lady of Winterfell, and me her lord.”

She is only a girl.

Jeyne both reminds Reek of his life as Theon (connected as she is to Winterfell and the Starks) and offers the most poignant of the many mirrors he encounters in ADWD. She, too, is Ramsay’s victim, forced to bear a name that isn’t hers, and “she is only a girl” is but the first stirring of Theon’s conscience in response. The defiance is all internal for the moment, but it’s there, a choice beyond “eat or be eaten.”

I must not let him drive me mad. He can take my fingers and my toes, he can put out my eyes and slice my ears off, but he cannot take my wits unless I let him.

Again, you can see the end in chrysalis here at the beginning, and that’s what I call strong characterization and great writing. (Remind me why ADWD is bad?)

And so stage is set. As you may have noticed, there are no actual plot points of note in this chapter, because it’s designed to establish this singular mood and explore what happened to our POV offstage (it’s very much like “The Merchant’s Man” in that regard). The seeds for his later victory are sown, but that’s to add another layer upon rereads. First time through, the unmistakable takeaway is that Reek or Theon or whatever you want to call him is at rock bottom:

Even if he had wanted to resist, he did not have the strength. It had been scourged from him, starved from him, flayed from him.

But hey, as anyone who ever started on the long painful road to recovery told themselves over and over and over: there’s nowhere to go from rock bottom but up.

#theon greyjoy #theon in adwd #a dance with dragons #a clash of kings #asoiaf meta #ramsay bolton #kyra #big walder frey #little walder frey #arnolf karstark #whoresbane umber #jeyne poole

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