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They were camping at the abandoned mill when Brienne saw the first raven.
Pod and her were huddled under their cloaks, near the fireplace, but hesitant to light a fire so close to Winterfell. Stealth was not something Brienne could hope for, not in these times, not being what she is, but it would not serve to alert to her presence sooner than necessary.
"I will bring your daughter back, my Lady," she had promised the Lady Catelyn. "I will bring back the Lady Arya."
The Lady Arya was a prisoner at Winterfell, a captive to the Boltons, wed to a monster. Of all the impossible demands the Lady Stoneheart had put onto Brienne, this was the least bitter. The Lady Stoneheart insisted on justice. Brienne wasn't sure what that was any more, justice, but to rescue a princess in need, at least, was most certainly a just quest. I will fulfil both our oaths, Jaime, I will prove it was meant true. Maybe then, the Lady Catelyn would find peace.
It was not an easy task to accomplish, though. So Brienne sat, weighing her options, Pod curled up at her side, when the bird fluttered in.
"Help," it said. It sat on the window ledge, black and shaggy, eyes glinting. "Help," it said, again. Brienne ignored it, disbelieving her ears.
The next day, it came back with friends.
Pod and her were slowly moving through the snow, careful and wary. They were in dangerous territory, enemies always nearby. Brienne felt a pang of guilt, not for the first time, at the sight of Pod's thin, pointy face. He deserves better. He deserved to squire for an actual knight, who would take good care of him, feed him well and teach him patiently, not this not-ser-not-lady who would drag him into cold and danger, always on the run, always on a fool's errand. Pod insisted there was no place he would rather be than by her side, though.
The ravens settled all around them.
"Help!" they screamed, in unison.
Brienne and Pod exchanged a look.
"Do you..." Brienne didn't dare finish. "Hear them, yes, Ser. My lady. The ravens, I mean. Talking ravens."
The birds fluttered westward, then stopped again, three fat, black birds, insistently staring at them. They are waiting for us to follow, Brienne realised. Oh, well... it's not as if they had much to lose, Brienne thought, as she obeyed.
She saw the girl first, shivering in her pink coat, kneeling in the snow, half hidden between bushes and rocks. The ravens flew away, task accomplished. The girl looked up with huge, fearful eyes, her long brown hair tangled and frosted, her face narrow.
"Lady Arya," Brienne recognised.
The girl flinched, quivering. She's afraid of us, but too exhausted to run. Or too injured. There was a second figure lying in the snow at her side, unmoving like a corpse.
"We won't hurt you," Brienne promised. "My name is Brienne. This is Podrick. I was sent by your mother, the Lady Catelyn, to rescue you, my lady."
Her words had no calming effect. The girl sat frozen, as if petrified by her terror. The corpse shifted, reached out a hand to press at the girl's arm. It was an old man, Brienne saw, frail and white-haired. His touch seemed to shake the girl out of her stupor.
"Arya," she nodded, frantic. "Yes. I am Arya. Please, please, you must help us. Help us, please."
"We will," Brienne promised.
"Take us away, please, before he... please, please, take us away."
"We will take you away," Brienne promised, again. "Can you ride, my Lady?"
The girl stood. She was a tiny, skinny thing, and much too young to ever have been wed.
"I think so," said Arya. "But... he must come, too. Please, he saved me. He carried me through the blizzard and then some more until he couldn't... You must help him, too."
The old man was struggling to sit up, but failing. He looked more than half starved, dressed in dirty rags. If he fled all the way from Winterfell, girl in arms, in that state, Brienne could only imagine.
"We will help the both of you," Brienne promised. "You will ride with me, and he with Pod." Neither of them looked heavy enough to bother the horses.
If the girl escaped, there might be search parties. There was no time for gentleness, so Brienne heaved the man over Pod's garron, lifted Arya by her armpits to settle her at her front, and they took off in haste.
It was much later that they first dared stop -- needed to stop --, long past the mill, twice past the river, past the southern hills. Arya was blank-eyed and shivering, the old man was unconscious. They would need a fire, Brienne decided. They would need warm water.
Brienne guiltily thought of the half-truth she had told the girl to get her trust and compliance. "I was sent by your mother." She would have to tell her, eventually, about the ... changes, in the Lady Catelyn, but there was no need to add to the girl's fear and grief just now. The girl had been through hell and back, that much was clear. Fading bruises covered the side of her face, and the constant fear in her eyes spoke volumes. The Lady Catelyn had described Arya as wild and bold, curious of strangers, but that was before the girl had been terrorised into submission. Now, Arya was jumpy and timid and flinched at every sudden movement. Part of Brienne would have liked to ride straight to Bolton and put him to the sword for what he did--him and every man that just sat and watched it happen. But bringing Arya to safety was her priority, now.
"Drink, my lady," she told her, pressing a warm bowl into her hands, but Arya was too busy fretting over her companion. Now that Brienne had time to look at him better, he looked even worse than at first glance, skeletally thin and at least as battered as Arya, dirty wisps of white hair clinging to a scarred scalp. The cruelty of men knows no bounds... A servant of Bolton, maybe, mistreated to the brink of death, who yet took pity in the poor bride.
He made an effort to sit up, squeezed Arya's arm. "Drink," he insisted as well, and Arya complied. "For you," said Brienne, giving him a bowl as well. He held it awkwardly with both hands and when he opened his mouth to drink, Brienne saw the broken teeth.
"Where will you take us?" Arya asked.
"To the Riverlands, if I can. The Lady Catelyn is there, and her allies. Except, of course, if you would rather I take you somewhere else, my lady."
Arya shook her head. "I have nowhere else to go."
Pod leaned forward to offer her a piece of smoked fish from their proviant bag, throwing her concerned glances. Brienne distributed more food to each of them.
For a while, they ate in silence. The old man gave his strip of meat to the girl and drank the water from his bowl, in tiny sips. Swallowing seemed to hurt him.
"What do I call you?" Brienne asked him.
Arya opened her mouth, as if to answer the question. "This is--" she started, but the man said: "Theon Greyjoy."
Pod's eyes widened in shock and Arya scrambled backwards and Brienne realised she had jumped to her feet, sword in hand.
"You!" she shouted. "It was you! You... you hurt Lady Catelyn, you broke her heart, what you did... " Brienne would never forget the pain in the Lady Catelyn's voice when she told her of her sons' death at the hands of Theon Greyjoy, she would never forget her own helplessness as she inadequately fumbled for words of comfort. "You murdered her sons, you snuffed out her hope."
I want them all dead, Brienne, Catelyn had told her. Theon Greyjoy first.
Brienne raised her sword and Arya wailed. "Don't hurt him!" The girl had thrown herself across Theon Greyjoy's chest, clutching at him. To cut him, Brienne would have to cut through her. Greyjoy was trying to pry himself lose. "Let go," he whispered. "Arya, it's fine, let go," but Arya clung tight, sobbing.
Brienne stepped back, confused. "He murdered your brothers," she said.
"He saved me," Arya replied. "Please, you don't know what it was like. You don't know. He was the only one who helped me. The only one."
Something here wasn't right. Theon Greyjoy was a young man, Brienne remembered. A year older than her, maybe two. This old man... But his sunken face wasn't lined, his skin sallow but unwrinkled. The white hair, the frailty... He was flayed inch by inch, so it was told. He was starved, he was tortured.
"What is your name?" she asked again, making sure.
"Theon Greyjoy," he answered, smiling. With the broken and missing teeth, it was a horrible sight. There was an iron kraken holding his cloak together at the shoulder, she saw. The Greyjoy sigil.
"You deserve to die," Brienne said, remembering the Lady Catelyn's tears.
He didn't deny it. "That's true, but... " He looked to Arya. Arya's arms were still wrapped around his waist, protective, possessive.
Was that the way of it, then. Theon Turncloak, traitor and child murderer, needed to stay alive, because a girl took a liking in him. Not any girl. Arya Stark, maybe the last surviving daughter.
"You can kill me later?" he offered.
Brienne sat back down, defeated. So much for her morally unquestionable, obviously just rescue quest. If Lady Catelyn could see them, now... But Theon Greyjoy was right, in a way. The priority was to get the girl to safety, and if this was better accomplished with a murderous turncloak tagging along, so be it.
And so they continued their uneasy journey south, the four of them. Pod and Brienne never had been much for talking, but it was the first time they had travel companions so very quiet and skittish. The silence stretched uncomfortably. They obeyed her every word, though, never complained of the pace, nor of the weather. The girl soundlessly wept most of the time. The loudest she was in her sleep, where she pressed close to Theon Greyjoy for comfort and yet woke screaming in terror more often than not. As for Greyjoy, he rarely slept at all, as far as Brienne could ascertain, eyes fixed in a perpetually haunted haze.
Theon Greyjoy was no physical threat to any of them, that much was clear. Despite her knowledge of the man's crimes, Brienne couldn't help her pity when she saw him struggle through the simple tasks of eating or walking. Not that he did much eating, in fact, mostly opting for sliding his food over to Arya. It couldn't be easy to chew anything substantial with these teeth. When he washed his hands in the river, Brienne saw the three missing fingers. The way he limped made her think he might be mutilated in other ways as well. It troubled her. Lady Catelyn deserved to see justice done to the man who murdered her children, but it was the Bastard of Bolton who did all this, a man known for his own atrocities. There was no justice in it.
Brienne shuddered at the thought that the tiny girl Arya had been wed to the man who had done all this to another. Brienne was no stranger to cruel games of betrothal, but this...
"Are you well, my lady?" Pod was asking the Lady Arya. Pod had taken to dote and fuss over the girl, gentle and courteous to a fault, helping her up her horse and down her horse, holding out an arm to help her step over rocks, always a blanket at the ready when they stopped to rest. Arya, who had been scared of anything that wasn't Theon Greyjoy, who had wailed at any attempt of even brief separation, had come to tolerate Pod well enough, silently accepting his attentions. It is only me she is still afraid of, Brienne thought, grimly. Of hulking Brienne with her muscled shoulders and awful face and huge, broad hands. Brienne was not built to be a fair maiden, but she certainly wasn't built to be a girl's fantasy of a gallant knight, either.
This is not what the girl cares about, Brienne tried to remind herself. The girl has been through hell and back. She is not afraid of me because I am big and ugly, she is afraid because she has been hurt, and everybody scares her. Theon Greyjoy was uglier than Brienne, now, and the girl was unafraid of him.
"Are you a knight, my lady?" the girl surprised Brienne by asking, one evening.
"I am just Brienne."
The girl had to know that women were not accepted as knights. But the Lady Catelyn had told her a bit about Arya. Maybe she was asking about something else. "Your mother told me you took lessons in fighting as well," she offered.
Arya blanched. "I'm sorry... I don't, I don't really know how to fight..." She clutched her hand at Theon Greyjoy's frayed sleeve, seeking comfort. "I just meant... that you saved us."
Brienne felt herself redden. Why did she feel so perpetually inept at talking with this wounded child? Fighting monsters with swords was easy, in comparison.
"You had escaped already," Brienne pointed out. And what bravery that must have taken to accomplish. "We are not safe, yet, but I will try... I will try my best," she finished, inelegantly.
"Thank you so much," the girl said, eyes big and earnest, and Brienne felt both weighted and uplifted with the responsibility of her task.
Despite the clumsiness of their communication, something shifted, after this.
Arya gradually unglued herself from the turncloak's side, started to exchange quiet words with Pod, smiles, sometimes, even. She still whimpered in her sleep and spooked at the softest of unexpected sound, but hope had returned in her eyes. The turncloak, while not exactly putting on weight, started to look slightly less ashen in the face and he had washed his hair in the river. Brienne had long not solved the problem of what to do with him, once they reached the Riverlands. Certainly, Arya Stark had as much right to decide the man's fate as the Lady Stoneheart had? Brienne didn't dare ask Arya about her dead brothers.
"Why are you helping her?" Greyjoy asked her, one morning. Arya was crouching by the water, next to Pod, helping him clean their bowls. To see them like this, one could forget they were two children wandering homeless through a broken world. Pod flashed a smile, and Arya giggled at something he said.
"I promised the Lady Catelyn", Brienne replied, unthinking.
Greyjoy looked at her. He didn't, usually, nor did he usually talk. Most of the time he was walled-off in silence, grimly concentrated on the task of pushing his frail body forward, and shied away from glances as much as touches.
"But if you hadn't?" he asked. "If it didn't matter to anyone?"
Brienne felt a surge of irritation at getting her motives interrogated so by the likes of Theon Greyjoy.
"Are you asking if I would have left the girl to her fate if the Lady Catelyn hadn't sent me?" She might not have started on the journey north, it's true, but Brienne did not need her Lady's orders to know to help a scared girl found trembling in the snow.
Greyjoy nodded, expectantly, as if the answer wasn't as obvious to him as it was to her.
"I would help a girl in need, no matter who did or did not send me. Some of us have honour and chose not to harm children."
The barb had no effect on Greyjoy.
"You really would help her? No matter what?" he asked again, seeking reassurance.
Brienne frowned in annoyance. "Yes, I would. I have and I will help her. Why did you, anyhow?" Why help one of Stark's children after he murdered two others and betrayed a third?
He shook his head. His reply was near too soft to hear. "I didn't. I was too scared." His dark eyes were looking straight at Brienne's now, and Brienne found she couldn't endure the gaze well. "We jumped when it was much too late."
Brienne felt very cold, suddenly.
"Not too late for her to live," she said, surprising herself with her need to offer comfort. "For you both to live."
Arya and Pod had taken to exchange songs, and Pod had taught Arya a throwing game with sticks and pebbles, and sometimes Brienne woke to their quiet whispers. Arya was fond of stories, so she learned, and Brienne, as unskilled as storyteller as she was in anything requiring the art of conversation, still agreed to tell stories of the Island of Tarth. When she told of the blue waves crashing against the silver beaches, even Theon Greyjoy was listening intently.
Brienne would have expected that the further distance they put between themselves and the Bastard of Bolton and the closer they came to reaching the girl's mother, the more reassured Arya would grow. At first, it seemed so, but after a while, the effect seemed to reverse itself, what progress had been gained seemed lost, and even Pod seemed confused and dismayed at Arya's renewing tears and fears.
Brienne worried. She had been dishonest with the girl about what really awaited her in the Riverlands, she knew. Had the girl gleaned the truth anyhow? Did she sense something was amiss with her mother? Sometimes, Arya sat close to Theon Greyjoy and they whispered, too quietly for Brienne to hear, though at least once, they seemed to be arguing.
Eventually, Brienne decided to address the elephant in the room.
"Something has been troubling you, my Lady."
Arya flinched. "No... I mean, yes, no... I'm sorry."
Brienne sighed inwardly. If only she was better at this kind of thing.
"Are you worried what your lady mother will make of Theon Greyjoy?" Brienne plunged, unable to carefully arrange her words for tact.
"Theon?" Arya asked, surprised, eyes darting left and right. "Uh... yes. That's, that's what I worry about."
Something was off, but Brienne couldn't put her finger on it. The girl looked guilty, of all things. She shouldn’t be. "You must know no one would blame you for making him your ally, not considering ... the circumstances you were in." Brienne wanted to believe the Lady Stoneheart wouldn't, at least. The Lady Catelyn had been good and kind and brave. The Lady Stoneheart was... still the Lady Catelyn, at heart, she had to believe that.
Brienne steeled herself. Brienne prayed to all the Gods that her clumsy tongue wouldn't make her say things she didn't mean, for the last thing she needed was to add to the girl's troubles. The girl was courageous and innocent and Brienne would never imply otherwise. But they had to talk of this before they reached Lady Catelyn, they had to. "I would never want to assume, my lady," she said, "so forgive me for asking so directly. But I wondered ... what would you have done about Greyjoy's betrayal and ... and what he did to your brothers?"
Arya kept knotting and unknotting the laces of her hood.
"Theon didn't ... actually kill Bran and Rickon, you know," she told Brienne. "R-... My..." She couldn't say the name. "He told me ... he liked to tell me all about it. What happened at Winterfell." Arya looked up to Brienne. "He liked to brag ... he burned Winterfell, and faked Bran and Rickon's deaths."
There was no doubt about who 'he' was. Brienne felt dizzy with realisation.
"Are you saying Greyjoy was framed?"
"I... no... I don't know. Just... nothing is as it seems." Arya started sobbing. "You've been so good to me. I'm so sorry."
What could the girl possibly be apologising for? Brienne felt entirely out of her depth.
"Don't cry, my lady. Don't... don't trouble yourself, please. I will talk to Greyjoy."
Arya nodded, face covered in tears, eyes locked in an expression of terror.
Brienne found Theon Greyjoy kneeling by the river, washing his face in the water.
"Arya tells me you didn't kill her brothers."
It shouldn't sound as accusatory as it did, maybe, but Brienne was furious to find out about this only now. Greyjoy cringed and Brienne realised she was looming over the man. She took a step back. She didn't mean to threaten violence.
"I'm sorry," Greyjoy said. "If I knew where Bran and Rickon were, I would tell you. I would. But I never knew. I lost them... You must believe me. I'm sorry."
That's not... that wasn't what had been at the forefront of Brienne's mind, though Greyjoy was right in his assumption: If Bran and Rickon were still alive, Brienne should want to find them and bring them back to their mother as well.
"You never thought to tell me of your innocence?"
Greyjoy shook his head.
"I am guilty of everything you think me guilty of." Water was dripping down his chin and neck. "Only it was other boys we killed. We passed their bodies off as Bran's and Rickon's, hung them by the castle's gate."
Brienne shivered, remembering the noose around Pod's thin neck, remembering the skinny children at the crossroads.
"Did you burn Winterfell?"
"No. But it was burned because of what I did."
He didn't try to make justifications for his actions, and indeed Brienne couldn't think of anything that would justify the murder of children, the destruction of a home. Still...
"What did Arya tell you?" he asked, an edge of anxiety to his voice.
"Just ... just that. I asked her about you and she told me this."
He nodded, tensely.
"She is a good girl, you know. You said you would protect her."
"I will."
"You said you would protect her. No matter what, you said, you said..."
"And I will! What is going on with you?"
He recoiled some more, as they always did, when someone raised their voice, both the girl and him.
Then he started tittering.
"You are a knight. Your horse is not winged, but you are. You will help her, you will, you will."
He smiled his gruesome smile and kept giggling and Brienne had to look away, unsettled.
Arya and Theon huddled close together this night, and whispered quietly in the morning, and when Arya and Pod were cleaning by the water, Theon Greyjoy approached Brienne.
He had braided his white hair back and he stood straighter than the day before and while he still looked terribly gaunt and terribly sick, his gaze was focused.
"I have a confession to make, my lady."
He knelt down in front of her, making it pretty much impossible to do anything but listen.
"I forced the girl to lie," he said, "so you would help her, though maybe you would have anyhow. I made her do it."
Brienne frowned, confused, though pieces of understanding were starting to slide into place, terribly.
"She was forced to be Arya Stark. They needed a Stark in Winterfell. They needed a claim. She was wed in Arya's stead. She would have died ... she would ... if, if you hadn't helped."
Brienne felt her knees go weak. She spent weeks helping the wrong girl. No, not the wrong girl. This girl was in need of helping, and Brienne helped her, there was nothing wrong about that. But the Lady Stoneheart...
"Where is Arya Stark?"
Theon Greyjoy shook his head, looking genuinely sorry. "I don't know. No one knows."
Brienne had to sit down. The girl was watching the river, sat next to Pod. Both of them looked so impossibly young. She would not regret having helped her.
"What is her name?"
"Jeyne. Jeyne Poole. She was the steward's daughter. A prisoner at King's Landing, along with Stark."
Brienne glanced over to him, mistrustfully. "And you are Theon Greyjoy?"
He laughed, a sad hiccup of a chuckle. "That is my name."
Brienne couldn't go back to the Lady Catelyn, not like that. She had failed to bring her Jaime, rather purposefully so. She had failed to bring either of her daughters back. She had failed to kill Theon Greyjoy, as well, and she knew she wouldn't kill him, maybe she had known all along. There was no honour in killing a defenceless man on the run from monsters. Was Brienne cursed to be and remain an oath breaker, then?
It took an impossible effort to stand up in the morning and get ready for another day. Her legs felt heavy like lead. What's the point? She had no true quest, no true destination any more. If only at least Jaime was at her side. He would understand. That's not the way to be, Brienne admonished herself. The girl Jeyne mattered as much as any, and Brienne had offered her protection. They were deep in the Riverlands, now, theoretically close to their journey's end, though they would need to consider their options anew.
"Where do you want to go, my lady?" she asked the girl, Jeyne, again.
Jeyne sat pressed against Theon's side, fingers nervously knotted together. Her answer hadn't changed:
"I don't know... I don't really have anywhere to go."
Jeyne looked at Theon, as if he might have an idea, but he shook his head, as well.
"The Lady Catelyn," he said, finally. "I was told she was killed, but you ... you have been speaking of her as if she was alive. Jeyne was part of her household, once."
"The Lady Catelyn is dead," Brienne admitted. "She was killed. She was brought back from the dead and now she moves and lives for revenge. She is ... much changed."
Brienne's eyes filled with tears, because by speaking it out loud, she had acknowledged a truth she already knew but wished to forget. The Lady Catelyn had been good and kind and brave, but the Lady Stoneheart was something else. There was no guarantee that she would take pity in Jeyne, nor that she would forgive her for associating with Theon Greyjoy. Or for not being Arya.
"I wouldn't risk bringing you to her."
There was one place nearby that might be willing to take in an orphan girl used as pawn in the Lords' and Ladies' game of thrones. If Long Jeyne and the children still had control of the inn, if they hadn't been smoked out. They wouldn't thank her for bringing another mouth to feed but they wouldn't reject Jeyne, Brienne was certain.
"I might have another idea, though."
There was something heart-breaking about Jeyne and Theon's instant approval, because Brienne knew it wasn't trust, but lack of options, which made them so ready to accept any unknown.
"Will you stay with me?" Jeyne asked Theon in a whisper, as they came close to destination. She had anxiously attached herself back to his side, avoided leaving him out of her line of sight for even a second.
It seemed to pain him. "Jeyne ... you know that I ... it will be as it will be."
Jeyne clung tight to his arm, but offered no protests. They both had learned the lessons of powerlessness well.
"Where would you want to go?" Brienne found herself asking him, abruptly.
"What?" He looked surprised, then laughed.
"I'm asking in seriousness."
"What does it matter?" he spat.
"I will let you go," Brienne heard herself say.
He was incredulous. "Not only you won't bring back Arya, you won't bring my head, either?" Theon tittered. "Lady Catelyn wouldn't like that."
"I won't kill you, I decided," Brienne told him. "Where would you go, if you could choose?"
Theon looked at her, realised her earnestness, and lowered his head. He looked scared, as if the prospect of choice terrified him more than whatever she might have had in store for him.
"Home," he whispered, after a while. "If I could."
"The Iron Islands?" He had left there as a child, if Brienne recalled correctly; it hadn't been voluntary, she remembered.
"The sea, at least," he said. He smoothed his hands against his chest and for a moment, he didn't look old at all.
Then he shook his head, as if to jerk himself out of a dream.
"One day, maybe. For now, I'll stay with you," he told Jeyne. Brienne could see the girl relax. "If they'll have me."
They would have them, both of them, it turned out. Brienne was remembered at the crossroads inn, and their welcome was warmer than the last. The story of what she had done had been told, retold, and embellished. She had single-handedly fought a whole company of monsters and men, the way it was recounted, had heroically leapt into danger to defend the children. The fight was re-enacted in their play with much more flourish, power and grace than Brienne remembered ever having had, and her scar -- the gruesome twist of mangled flesh that marred the side of her face where Biter had chewed her cheek off -- was a source of admiration and wonder. It made Brienne half uneasy and half-elated, nervous to find herself transformed so. She didn't do what she did for thanks, nor for songs--she didn't think she did, at least, and yet--for a moment, she felt remade, like she was finally part of something big and true.
"It is not exaggerated at all," Pod told her. "It's much exactly how I remember it, too."
Brienne figured it might also help that her companions this time where two skinny children that seemed rather younger than their age and frail white-haired Theon, but Willow had them clocked right away.
"You're a failed noble, I can tell," she said, suspiciously inspecting Theon with narrowed eyes. "We don't want Lords' trouble, here." Brienne was baffled. Theon hadn't yet spoken a word, and, to Brienne’s eyes at least, still looked like a starved serving man. These children must have learned to see in ways Brienne hadn't.
Theon considered her objection. "I've been dead to the world for a long while," he said. "But I might also be trouble."
"He saved me," Jeyne interjected. "When no one else would. Expect for Brienne, but she came later."
"Aye, she likes doing the saving, that one," Willow grinned. "Then again, so do we. Where are you from?"
"The North," said Jeyne. "Far away," said Theon.
"Your troubles far away as well, then?"
A haunt briefly crossed Theon’s eyes. "Most of them."
“We can’t split up,” Jeyne insisted.
"Alright. Since you both came with Brienne. If you cause us trouble, you’re dead."
Theon smiled, broken teeth on display. "That’s fair."
Pod and Jeyne embraced for a long while, before parting, exchanged little knotted bracelets to remember each other by.
Theon found Brienne saddling the horses.
"Thank you," he said. "Though I don't understand why you let me live."
Brienne looked at him. He looked better than when she found him-- still grievously underfed, and scarred, but some strength had returned to his posture, some life to his eyes. She thought of the children.
"Will you help them as you helped Jeyne?"
"Yes," he promised.
"There you have it."
He shook his head, like he couldn't quite believe the existence of her, like she was a character out of a song come to life.
"What will you do, now?" he asked her.
Brienne thought of Jaime. Time to be a bit selfish, as well. She smiled.
"A quest of my own, now. There's a man I want to find.”