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When they said their farewells, at the small sandy cove where Robert Baratheon had precariously anchored his galley, Asha threw her arms around Father's neck and whispered in his ear to not worry, that they would run at the first chance, that it might take some time but they were both old and brave enough to show the wolves what it meant to rise again, harder and stronger.
How? Theon shivered, his eyes darting helplessly to the figure of the wolf helm and great Valyrian sword that waited open-armed by the plank. What can we do against a man this cold and unyielding?
They were bundled like babes in sealskin against the chill of the North, and seawater was dripping down their hair - it was supposed to be a blessing for the journey, but Theon thought it was so no one could tell if they started crying. Asha bit down a sob as she was disentangled, but Theon could not cry even if he had forgotten what shame felt like.
He received the farewells and advice and his mother's kisses deaf and dumb, the cold starting to sneak under his skin already, leaving him hard and unfeeling. We're dead already, he thought as Lord Stark took his hand and led him to the ship. This is just a thousand miles' walk to the gallows.
He had expected to be led down undercover, maybe put to rowing - he was good at it, nuncle Dagmer had made sure - but they were given free rein on the deck, and he chose to lean over the parapet, watching the ruined castle that had been his home fade smaller and smaller in the distance. He made a lunge for his sister's hand when she passed by him, but Asha only looked for a moment, then flinched away, wrenching free of his grasp.
"You could at least have let us the time to dig our brother out of the tower, if waiting to bury him was too much kindness," she snapped at lord Stark before disappearing below the deck.
He saw Lord Stark frown slightly. Without his helm on, he looked younger and much shorter than the king. He raised his spurned hand, nibbled on his nails. The numbness was starting to leave his body shiver by shiver, his legs shaking when he stepped away from the parapet. He smiled. "It's a lot of work to dig him out just to bury him again, I know, but it's to bury him at sea. On the ground - my nuncle Aeron told me, on the ground we eat fish and we - we all go about our business but under the sea the fish eat us, and the crabs have their kingsmoots in our ribs. That's only fair, don't you think?"
He didn't say like we used to in Nagga's bones , as uncle Aeron had. Even if it had been just a drunk ramble of the poetic sort it felt sacrilegious to talk about that sort of thing to a greenlander. He didn't want to say but you killed him too either, but he forced himself, and threw in his other nuncle on the Harlaw side and nuncle Rodrik's boys and his own brother Rodrik too, surprising himself with how much it stung as he spoke it. He knew sooner or later he would choose which of them he wanted to kill, but he wanted him to be indecisive as long as possible.
He closed his eyes against the coming slap with a smile, but received only an uncertain pat on the shoulder as he was left alone on the deck.
***
He was very brave all through the journey, he thought - it wasn’t so terrible, and when he felt about to cry he could just close his eyes and imagine they were just going to Harlaw or Great Wyk or Lannisport, and if the voices of the northmen on the deck were too loud for it, there was always the shame. But when they docked down at the Saltspear and he saw the sun glint off the thin blanket of snow on the banks he truly couldn’t take it anymore.
“Of course, the summer’s just begun,” Asha reassured him when he asked if it would ever melt, but she didn’t sound convinced, and he could feel his stomach twist and jump every time he looked down carelessly and saw the harsh cuts of dark hoofmarks against stark white.
Asha wiped his tears furtively the first time, but when he took his last look to the sea before the smooth grey shard of the Saltspear vanished out of sight he could only sink his face into the horse’s mane to let them fade, instead of freezing accusatory on his cheeks.
It was a good horse, shiny and sleek, bigger than the scrawny garrons he was used to. He called him Harren, because he was so black and the Northmen hadn’t told him his name and fed him the purple berries he found off the edge of the road out of his hand when they made stops, and a few days in he grew bold enough to gallop and swerve a bit off the road to jump over the fallen logs. One of the dour commanders from the Northern host wanted to get a pony for him when they stopped in Barrowtown, but Lord Stark dismissed him. He didn’t think he could go anywhere even if he tried to run, evidently - but Theon found it hard to be angry about it. He hardly got to ride anywhere but the barren hilly road to Lordsport, at home, and it would be nice to enjoy the freedom until he was going to be locked into Winterfell for the rest of his life. To Asha Lord Stark offered to ride in the least worn out of the baggage carts, apologizing awkwardly that he had not thought to provide anything suitable for a young lady as he departed for war, but she refused, even as as her eyes were bruised and she was stiff as a scarecrow on her too-tall horse.
The snow grew sparse along the shoreline, then thickened as they went North, light falls dusting over their camp every night. Hardly anyone spoke to them, and there were so many guards around their tent he couldn’t sleep for all the pacing. He kept thinking he should ask Asha if they should try to run, but the skins of the tent felt so thin and the snow made everything feel so quiet even as the chatter and song of the camp were just nearby, so he didn’t dare.
He woke up shaking the first time the silence was broken by a commotion, the night they were camping near a village south of the great lake of the Rills, the shouts echoing through his bones as the collapse of the walls of Pyke once had. When he timidly ventured out of the tent he found not the guards but Lord Stark himself, looking sleepless and with his hair in disarray, and he all but jumped out of his boots when he stopped and smiled at him.
"Have you been a squire at home, Theon?"
"No, I don't know any knights," he said, though it wasn't true. The smile didn't reach the man's cold gray eyes.
"You've been taught how to swing a sword, though?" Theon nodded, biting his lip. "Then perhaps you will enjoy it. I need to take you with me on a small ride, if you wish."
He knew better than to ask too many questions - he made to saddle Harren, but Lord Stark stopped him. "It's not a very long journey. We'd best ride double."
He knew better than to refuse. It hurt to sit stiff enough that he wouldn't lean against him as the great grey palfrey moved, and the greatsword he was given to hold was very heavy in his lap, but he focused on counting the pretty swirls of the Valyrian steel and calmed down.
He heard more than saw through the fog the small group of guards flanking him. He breathed in and out. I've done nothing wrong. The wooden roofs of a small village appeared, then four people awaiting them on the square, two burly young farmhands and the man tied between them, a plump woman with a log cradled in her arms like a babe, better dressed than most peasants, but with her face streaked with tears. The village square was clear of snow, but as they approached the small group walked out to meet them on the grass, the morning frost cracking under their boots.
They dismounted, Lord Stark's hand firm on Theon's shoulder. The woman deposited the log at their feet. Oh.
"That's him who bashed in my poor husband's hand, my lord, and anyone in town will tell you, after he'd drunk our ale too."
The soldier kneeling in the snow grinned. His filthy cloak had been white and grey, his beard a shocking duckling-yellow in his bruised weathered face. "He was giving as good as he got, m'lord, that's not me fault that I always win."
He spoke like an ironborn just as much as the innkeeper's wife was doing her best to sound like a prim lady's maid. Theon felt about to laugh until he cried, but only smiled instead, tense and frozen as Lord Stark spoke to the witnesses and then his own soldiers. The man spat when Lord Stark offered him the Wall, and Theon couldn't help but giggle, though only one of the guards heard him and shot him a reproachful look. Would he be offered the Wall, when the time came, to take the krakens out of his doublets and spend the rest of his life sulking on a snow mound to fight fairies and grumkins and elks, or would it not be enough of a punishment for his father, to have the Greyjoy line wither and die with him? What would he even offer Asha? There were girl septons, but none of them prayed to rainbows.
The scabbard was so light in his hand he felt like he had been disanchored when Lord Stark seized his greatsword. The blood dug warm channels in the snow and lapped around his boots.
Breathe. You've done nothing wrong. Lord Stark wanted him to be his squire - he could be a better squire than any squeamish Northern little boy raised playing snowballs and chasing marmots. He wouldn't want to kill his good, dutiful squire, and for a moment every other concern floated away in the mist. The head was not as blood covered as the ground, its eyes mercifully closed - Theon held his breath and stepped forward, picked it up careful not to stick his fingers in any hole, looked around for a sack that may have been prepared to put it in and, not finding it, simply wiped it as well as he could and presented it to Lord Stark, sinking on one knee.
Someone laughed and quickly turned it to a cough. Lord Stark's gaze was indecipherable and yet pinned him in place as well as an arrow would. Finally he seized it and handed it brusquely to one of the lads from the village. "Bury him or burn him. I don't want to see any sacrilegious displays."
He extended his sword at Theon, and he shuddered and closed his eyes until he realized. He picked up the scabbard he had laid in the snow and held it steady as Lord Stark slid his sword back in.
"You've done a good job."
Theon nodded, blinking, even as the voice was so far away and unsmiling it might as well have been the wind. He should clean his hands, but he realized only when he was already ahorse, and the thought of reminding Lord Stark of that was terrifying. He wiped on his cloak instead, the blood seeping through the soft fur of the lining, through the wool his mother had embroidered. The smell closed his throat for a few agonizing moments - he coughed and rubbed his face. Is it the first time you see blood, that you're sniveling like a stupid little girl? He had sparred and gotten into fights and cut his foot on the mussels like anyone; if it was his brother or uncle or father telling him that he could answer Greenlander blood smells worse.
But it was just the voice in his head and he would never see any of them again and he was on a strange horse behind Lord Stark God knew were in the desolate North and all he could do was hold his breath against the smell. The fog had darkened even as the sun should be higher in the sky now , and his heart was still thumping too fast, so fast he felt it smack against his ribs.
I've done a good job. I've done nothing wrong. Maybe that meant he was going to be offered the Wall, then - he would get to kneel and thank and kiss Lord Stark's feet. He raised his hand to rub slow circles over his chest, the cold hair peeling under his shirt like a knife, then clamped it over his mouth when he felt he was about to gasp or cry out. He could feel the matted bloody beard under his fingers again, the smell turning his head, clumping the fog into dark spots before his eyes. The clouds twisted on their hinges, and in a moment he was on his knees in the snow, two sets of hands clasped on his arms.
"No, not now, I've done nothing wrong," he heard himself sob as he was raised up. His legs were as loose as jelly and he dropped when he tried to shake away. He pressed his palms against his ears, trying to blink the memories away from under his eyelids, but to no avail.
"Quiet, Theon," Lord Stark said softly. He felt his hand turn his face over, thread carefully through his hair. "Are you hurt?"
He shook his head, suddenly distantly aware he was cold and wet and sore. All he wanted was for him to let him go, and it was in that moment that Asha darted onto him, shoving Lord Stark aside. "Where did you take him? He's a baby!"
Had they gotten to the camp already? The ride had felt like one painful moment, not at all like the first journey. He took a glimpse of his sister's furious face and wild hair and had to close his eyes, hugging his knees under his chin. "Don't," he exhaled, and then the tears started to flow out, hot slow trails as the blood in the snow had flowed, and he dropped on his back to let the cold swallow him.
He didn't know who carried him onto the cart, only distantly hearing the flaps close behind them. Asha took off his wet shirt and wrapped him up, cursing under her breath all the while. He laid shaking in the sleeping furs, the sounds of the gathering camp fading in and out of his ears. They were brought a meal as the column was restarting, but the stew turned his stomach and the cold of the water made his head throb, so he just had to sip a lukewarm cup of milk and honey, his head raised in his sister's lap.
He could feel her shiver through the skirts, so he tried to sit up to huddle together, but now they were in motion the hide roof of the wagon began to pitch sideways the moment he shifted and a fresh bout of nausea pinned him down.
"What's wrong? Did he hurt you? Hit you?"
"No." He wet his lips, swallowing down the It didn't use to bother you as much before. "It's just the - I fell down my horse and it's really cold…"
Her lips twisted into a doubtful grimace. "Where did he take you?"
He breathed out. It was better not to have to explain what was wrong with him, better to change the subject, but it still made his heart beat faster. "To chop a head off."
Asha scoffed, running her fingers through his hair. "Strange bloody bastard."
"He made me hold a sword, be his squire…" He felt a little embarrassed now to admit he had complied with it, but that was it. "You shouldn't keep insulting him, he might decide it's just easier to kill you, you know."
That made her laugh. "He's not allowed to kill us whenever he wants. That's now what he decided with the king, and he's a real wolfdog, that one, and Father couldn't rebel now even if he wanted."
He fought the instinct to close his eyes against her soothing touch through his hair. "Yes he can," he spat out. "That's why he took us both, because he can pick which one to keep."
"He took us both because they hate us more than death itself," Asha said, slowly, her voice sharp and cold. "Because he never wants anyone in our family to feel any joy ever again. But the pacts are pacts, and no man ever died from bending his knee. We'll see how he thinks he can stop us when our time comes again."
No, that's wrong, don't make me keep fighting him so I don't leave you alone again, I'm so tired, he wanted to beg, but he wanted to believe her so much, to believe he could still fight so much.
He closed his eyes, and this time she didn't pull away when he clung to her hand. She sang to him through the journey, rubbing his temples and stroking his hair. He was not supposed to let her, he was not a baby, had she ever seen a man die, to act so superior now? Yet all protests died on his lips when she was singing the same songs Mother would never sing to them again, and she let it lull him to sleep all the same.
***
"When I was little, my grandsire wished for me to marry your brother, my lady," Asha told Lady Stark the day they were presented to the wolf family as a whole, in a small solar that felt suffocatingly hot after their journey through the snow.
"And did you like the idea?" Lady Stark was five and twenty, red and lovely and heavy with child, a small equally red son and daughter at each side. She smiled in actual amusement that made her eyes sparkle at Asha's words, and Theon for the first time wondered if it was not thinking of an execution that Stark had decided he preferred to take them both. The thought was disturbing.
"I was only five, my lady, and my grandsire died soon after. My father, though, he would prefer me to marry a man."
The blood on the snow flashed through his mind again, blood on the sword and blood in his hands because of course they would make him wrap up the head to send home and blood on parchment when he would write to his parents what had befallen their only girl - not that he wasn't now their only boy, but it didn't feel the same - and what he had done about it. Theon dug into his pocket for the wildling arrowhead he had found in the wolfswood and hurled it against a vase of flowers in a fall of pretty colorful shards right by the little lady Sansa's feet.
It was not entirely surprising that this was the outcome, then, he thought resignedly as he and Asha darted through the courtyard and pushed each other to the top of the great sentinel pine by the edge of the Godswood.
"You can slow down, children. I will not chase you up that tree even if you fail to reach the very top." Lady Catelyn shook her head, her hand meaningfully at the root of her protruding belly. "Yet, Asha, be honest with me, I can hardly believe you were never taught needlework at home."
"But that's so, milady," he said gravely. "Below the Neck we all go about naked as babes."
Asha snorted on the branch above him. "She's southron too, stupid-"
He leapt out and pressed his hand against her mouth, making her giggle. "Very sorry, milady, I promise I'll come embroider with you if you're so desperate for it, but trust me that this girl you do not want."
Lady Stark sighed. "I have no interest into making you do embroidery, nor wear gowns if you will fight me every step of the way. We do not keep our girls under glass bells here in the North, and you can choose to climb trees and ride and hawk as you wish, but you must have at least learned to knit and weave with your mother, haven't you? Do you not think she will be pleased to see you're good at it when she sees you again?"
Asha gasped beside him, he felt the air charge up as if before a thunderstorm. He let himself fall down the branch, hanging upside down from the hollow on his knees. "Asha is a spoiled little bitch, if it pleases milady. Mother let her do as she liked."
Asha elbowed him, then burst out laughing. "Alas, milady, I fear he's telling the truth. But there I had the sea, and here all the alternatives are duller than needlepoint, so you keep trying, maybe someday I'll be desperate enough to join you for a day or two before I rip out my own eyes."
Theon had enjoyed the idea of going hawking together, but out of solidarity he howled in response, clasping her hand when Lady Stark opted to waddle away without answer.
It seemed like a waste to have gotten all the way there just to come down, so they held their feast on pillaged pine nuts that night, breaking them under their boots and throwing them into each other's mouths with a considerable seeding at the bottom of the tree.
"I don't feel bad," Asha told him even as he didn't dare say anything first. "Her daughter's going to be old enough to sew with her way before I can see Mother again. She can wait."
They curled together to watch the sun set over the Western Wall, and Theon tried to imagine what that return would look like, how old they would be and how and where, but he couldn't. Asha didn't say anything else, and he wondered if she really could either.
***
The first time Lady Stark braided Asha’s hair in the northern style, she decided to cut them all off. Theon thought that was wiser than keep refusing her, but once they were at the moment, when her hair was braided straight and wet and he was holding the shears in front of his small mirror, she changed her mind.
"I'll wait if we go to White Harbor and give them to the Drowned God to help us escape."
They put it up the way Mother used to do it - close enough, considering he certainly wasn't in the habit of hanging around looking at this girls' business, and that Asha could hardly do a lot more than hand him the right strand, with her hands behind her own head. It still came out as a pretty good tight little crown, and Theon had to try hard to not think too much of when they had been a prince and princess.
He wanted to grow his hair too, so he could braid them like a reaver, but he had his mother's curls, and they just would not get long enough. He could put them into a sad short mousetail, or make a few tiny braids here and there, a single curl split three ways and smoothed down with the rose oil Asha stole from lady Stark, but that would not look terribly intimidating. A real reaver would have rings in his hair too, treasures he had paid the iron price for, but he didn't dare steal anything yet, and chances to kill anyone were slim in Winterfell. He added a request for Mother to the never-quite-finished letter he kept in his room, for her to send him a few beads like those she made for Maron, and Rodrik when he was too a green boy unable to kill for his ornaments, pretty things but common and cheap enough on the islands that no one could said they were paid with gold - tin and cuttlefish bone and even ivory. He erased it, splashing the ink on both sides of the paper to hide it properly, then added it back, figuring it was not his fault if that could fit in a purse at a raven's leg and a battle axe wouldn't.
Asha did make him one bead in thanks, carved with an arrow in the middle and wisps that might have been tentacles at the top, but it wasn't fine enough for the little braids, though he had to admit the red-stained weirwood was more intimidating than anything else he had seen on the islands. He put it on a little leather ribbon then and pulled his hair in a knot atop his head with it, and Asha assured he looked fierce enough.
It was wasted, sparring with babes waddling in padded armor with wooden swords, but that was what he had to work with. Six they were, or close enough to make no matter, lord Stark’s heir and a dark little bastard, seemingly inseparable, though he couldn’t imagine a proper haughty lady like Catelyn Stark being happy with them practicing together. “I guess it’s only practical to find out early which of you could kill the other,” he told them when they couldn’t answer why they were allowed, but they were too little to understand, though the bastard didn’t come stare at him at the archery targets anymore after that - and right when he was starting to look like he might actually utter a word to him.
The trueborn wolfling was not fond of the bow, but more agreeable. He followed him once as he tried to vanish to the hot springs after practice, a tiny bright-eyed thing with fluffy curls like auburn down, yet unafraid of grabbing him by the sleeve even as his parents must have filled his little head with recommendations to not get too close to the wild reaver children.
"Does the boy die?"
He froze for a moment, and the child went on. "In your song. Old Nan says it's a vile thing to start a song and not end it."
"Do you even know what that word means?" He shook his head. He likely wouldn't be trying to talk to him at all if he knew anything less than sweet. "He doesn't, just pushes the two halves of his face back together and goes on with the scar. He was - he's my old master at arms. He loves that song."
Rodrik Cassel may believe music to be for girls, which was why he had taken to humming to give himself the rhythm, but that was not how Theon had been raised. Was anything pleasant or rousing truly so foreign in the North that the wolfing had paid such close attention to a few over morbid whispered verses?
"But why did his brother want to kill him?" The child insisted, now following alongside him like an obedient pup, a frown on his pink little brow.
"He didn't want that." He truly paid him too much attention, poor little thing, and Theon felt a pang of frustration that it was seemingly only him who noticed his defiance at all. "The throwing axes, that's a game, a dance - does ser Rodrik think dancing is for girls too?" The wolfling shrugged. "Well, on the islands brothers dance the finger dance all the time and hardly anyone gets killed."
He thought of uncle Aeron and uncle Urri then, but the boy didn't need to know that. There was a lot of brother-slaying in the history of his house, and he wondered fleetingly if that was what they'd come up with the finger dance for - plausible deniability when it was needed to pass it for an accident.
That was stupid, though, sounded like a slander one of the snotty greenlander maesters in nuncle Rodrik's books might say. They were at the pools now, and he didn't know if it was madness or loneliness, the familiar chill of water dripping down his hair or the looming shadows of the godswood, but at some point he took little Robb Stark's hand and said "I'll teach you."
He took it more seriously than either of his brothers had ever tried to teach him anything, in his opinion, starting with throwing sticks for the first day so the wolfling could get used to the movement and to letting it twirl in the air before grabbing it. Rodrik had promised to take him with him on his first journey, in the sweet-drunk haze of the first few days he was made a captain - taught him the Northern star and the sail knots and a bit of a whaling song from Ibben, before he faded to just usual-drunk and cursed him out of the ship. Theon much doubted he would ever sail with any say on where he was going again now, but his hands still retained the memory of the knots when he decided to take it up a notch and start attaching daggers to the sticks, the wolfling watching him work with his feet dangling in the water.
He was good for his age, easily coaxed to stop crying when he happened to slice his hand with a compliment or a sweet word, always following his every movement so impeccably to repeat it. He showed him the squirrel nests deep in the forest and the best trees for climbing, explaining the route to him branch by branch as if he were the elder now. Theon found it oddly intoxicating, the attention, to the point it was hard to find his bearings again that he was in Winterfell and a prisoner once they were done and out of the sheltered circle of the trees, yet he couldn't stop.
Robb forgot they were not supposed to do it in front of anyone sometimes, throwing him the wooden sword after they were finished sparring and giggling when Theon could only pretend it had taken him fully by surprise. Everyone was used enough to his antics though, apparently, because no one ever came to drag him to the dungeons for endangering the heir to the entire North, and the dancing continued.
It was Asha who caught them first, nestled up in the weirwood over the pond where they went to play. Robb stopped in the middle of his turn to throw, frowning up at the red leaves, then stomped his foot. "You stop hiding from my lady mother, the baby's mean enough to her already."
His sister slid down the trunk scowling, leaves in her hair and goosebumps on her legs because she was wearing her dress from home again, no furs in sight and her feet bare against the bark. "You know Theon never danced the finger dance at home either, right? He's too little, he's teaching you all wrong."
"That's not true!" He flushed hot for no good reason. "I know how to throw an axe and I've seen men dance, that's more than enough."
She laughed. "Defending yourself to swaddled babes now? It was sad enough when you tried this with Rodrik." She turned to Robb. “You get lost, and you can tell your lady mother where she may put her needles.”
He truly thought for a moment he was about to burst into tears and they were going to both get whipped out their skin, but he just winced back and ran when Asha hissed at him to hurry up.
“What’s wrong with you?” he snapped at her.
“You’re actually enjoying this, then?” Her smile was utterly joyless. He shrugged. “I don’t know how you can, the game we played with our brothers that they murdered-”
“Maybe you played it. To me they made me fetch the axes they dropped and hit me over the head when I bent down.”
He heard a squeak in the distance, the wolfling exclaiming something and the crunch of the leaves as he ran after whatever had made it. Asha took his hand shakily. “All the same you shouldn’t fraternize with the son of the bastard who stole us, why do I even have to tell you? What do you think will come of that? He’s a sweet little babe now, but they’ll teach him to hate you soon enough. We only have each other here.”
He blinked away the stinging in his eyes. Lord Stark won’t be so happy to kill us if it will make his son cry, he wanted to say, or Ser Rodrik won’t let me have an axe and I must well practice something - he had thought of that when they were playing, he wasn’t an utter fool. Yet all he could say was “I’m not going to have anyone once they marry you off to God knows where.”
He shrieked as his back collided against the water, his feet smashing painfully against the edge. His sister’s eyes were red and wide about to burst. Theon blew a jet of water in her face.
“I’ll teach you,” she sniffled as she slid into the pond, grabbing his wrist tight. “I’m sorry, I’ll steal the axes from the armory and then we can dance together all the time, when we show everyone -”
The words dried out - she pushed his head under the water instead, laughing as he yelped and struggled and then swam down to pull her down by the ankle. They’ll kill you first if you, and then I’ll be here alone anyway, was pushing like a stone at the edge of his throat, but the still little pond felt almost like waves against their splashing hands, stuffy warm as a mother’s womb, and he couldn’t find the strength to say it.