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Asha was not meant to be a caretaker. There’s a reason she’s never wanted to have children – not because she hated them, but because she was simply not the nurturing type of person. There was nothing she could do about that.
But she wanted to try at least a little for her baby brother’s sake. Theon deserved to have someone take care of him, especially after everything he’d been through. She wouldn’t have said that when she was younger – before the war, before winter and captivity and Euron and growing up. But she knew it now. They only had each other, in truth. He was blood of her blood and she carried at least a small portion of the blame for what had happened to him, even if she would never admit to it.
So, when Theon had his nightmares, she went to sit with him. She tried to talk him out of his strange, raging stupors that he always seemed to fall into after the worst of these episodes, muttering something about someone named Reek, about Ramsay Bolton and any other number of gruesome things. Uncle Rodrik said she ought to not judge him too harshly for it. Asha tried.
She tried, but sometimes she got frustrated. It wasn’t like Theon would let her in much. “You wouldn’t understand,” he claimed, looking at her with wide, bewildered eyes. Sometimes, that look made her want to slap him.
Instead, she bit her lip and forced herself to breath. Uncle Rodrik had also said that her anger wasn’t truly aimed at Theon. He was just there for her to take it out on. She didn’t know if he was right, but she also didn’t want to risk being that kind of person.
So, this night, like so many others, despite exhaustion from the responsibilities of a crown and little patience to be anyone’s nursemaid or confidant, she sat on the bed and dragged Theon’s head into her lap. “What was it this time?” she asked, running a hand through his hair.
“Rats,” he mumbled, his voice slurred as if his mouth was stuffed with cotton. “So many rats. They’re always bigger in my dreams than they were at the Dreadfort. Also, harder to catch.”
“You tried to catch them?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“To eat. In the dungeons. There was a period of time when they simply…left me there.” He made a small noise and tried to pull away from her. Asha did not want to frighten him, but she kept a firm hand on his shoulder to make him stay. She would never understand if she did not listen.
“Tell me.” She gnawed at her lip in the dark. “Please.”
Theon hesitated, but then lay back down in her lap and continued, stumbling over his words sometimes, but managing to get it all out as she began to stroke his hair. “They left me in the dungeons for…I don’t know how long really. Days? It felt like weeks, but no, I don’t know that anyone could survive so long without food. Sometimes, someone would come with water, just barely enough to keep me alive. But never any food. But there were rats. Large, juicy ones. It sounds…horrifying, but… When you’re that hungry even a rat seems like a feast. It’s large and meaty, it fills you a little. The only thing is that the corpse rots… It’s almost impossible to eat all of it in the dark without a knife so…”
There was a part of Asha that wishes she hadn’t asked. But what use was it to hide? If this was the truth, she just as might know it. Maybe it would make Theon trust her more. Maybe it would help her understand. Maybe it would help him move on and she wouldn’t have to be in this position at all anymore.
This was the only way they could move on and heal and have a chance at a future together as a family So Asha would try her best.