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The sun rose, casting a gentle light that washed over the North. In unison, a thousand meek heads look up to the source of the warmth on their faces, realizing they have survived the Long Night.
Deep in the heart of the Godswood, Sansa Stark is screaming. The sun means nothing to her.
She had terrible dreams leading up to this night. The Night King, taking away her family one by one; Jon, Bran, Arya. She had gone out into the woods to find them once the wights fell, the battle was won, and the crypt opened; everyone had known the Night King would go after Bran, and Sansa knew Arya would have gone after him. But in her desperation to find her siblings, she had forgotten who swore to defend Bran until his dying breath.
Theon, prince of the Greyjoys, her father’s ward and her childhood friend, the sworn man to her brother Robb before his death in what felt like eons ago, lay crumpled in the snow. Somehow, he almost looked peaceful; one might have mistaken him for a man asleep, were it not for the broken spear sticking out of his chest, or the deep contrast of scarlet blood he was laying in against the white backdrop of winter.
Theon, who had returned home to her and asked for her permission to help defend Winterfell. Theon, who had embraced her so tightly as himself, not as the broken pet Ramsay had turned him into, that she felt like she forgot how to breathe. Theon, who she had watched train some of the less experienced men before the army of the dead arrived. Who she had been spending time with when the bells of the watchers signaled the arrival of the Long Night.
She had come across Arya and Bran, and they had smiled at her, and for one silent moment, Sansa was happy. They were melancholic smiles, full of sadness. She had thought it was because of the bodies around them, all the people who had died fighting for them. There were Northmen; House Karstark had been in the Godswood. Their poor, young lady Alys had likely perished in the fighting, along with the men from her house. But the bodies littering their immediate area were Greyjoy men.
Her breath had left her when she realized Arya and Bran were standing next to a body. Greyjoy armor, fancier than the rest. A mop of curls. A bristly, stubbled beard.
She had never once considered Theon wouldn’t come back to her.
Sansa fell to her knees at his side in the snow, fumbling with her hands. She wasn’t sure what she was trying to do, just wanted to do something, anything, to make him open his eyes and crack his half-smile up at her, which he had only just recently started to do again. And when he had done it - gods when he had done it, she had really started to feel like things would be all right.
She buried her face against Theon’s chest, vaguely registering the unmoving corpse of the Night King in the same clearing as she did so. Frankly, she did not care.
Her hair brushed her face of its own will, and Sansa’s heart stopped. The entire world, dampened already by the snow, grew silent around her. She paused, and waited to see if it was a trick of her mind, the wind. But the faintest, faintest breath of warmth tickled her ear again. A heartbeat later, it did so a third time.
Sansa’s eyes widened, her frost-tipped fingers frozen and lingering on Theon’s neck. It was faint. His body had cooled in the night. But there was an undeniable dusting of warmth, a soft thrum of a weak heartbeat against her skin.
“He’s alive!” She screamed into the air, to whoever was listening, with every bit of strength from within her; so much so that she saw stars across her vision. That did not matter, she did not matter - she was not the one with a bloody spear in her chest. “Please, help! Theon’s alive! ”
Someone grabbed her shoulder and tried to pull her away from him, and Sansa lashed out, struggling, memories of all the men who had forced themselves upon her rushing back to her mind in that moment, as though Ramsay Bolton himself had come with the army of the dead and was trying to stop her from saving Theon. Sansa continued to scream and lash out, striking her assailant in the face.
“Sansa!” The one holding her cursed. It was Jon. Her brother. So he had also made it through the night. She was in tears as she repeated her pleas for someone to save Theon once again.
She was not sure when Jon had dropped her, only that she saw him and Tormund pick up Theon’s body and take him away. They did not remove the spear from his chest. She tried to follow after them, but suddenly her legs were not working and gave out from beneath her. Sansa tumbled and landed in the snow again, unable to stop the tears from blurring her vision.
Someone else arrived at her side, silently. Arya? Bran? An assassin? She was not quite sure until she awoke safely in Winterfell the next moment.
Sansa sat up in bed. Had it all been a dream? Had the Night King not arrived yet? Or even worse, all of it - suffering at the hands of Joffrey and Ramsay, the death of her father, the torment of being dragged around by Lord Baelish - had all been some cruel nightmare? At least none of those scenarios would mean Theon had died.
She turned over the side of her bed and wretched. No, no it had to be real. Theon’s blood had been everywhere…
“Ah, good, you’re awake,” a quiet voice spoke up, causing Sansa to practically fall out of her bed and into her own vomit in shock. She looked up to find her sister laughing, and any anger she might have had instantly melted away.
“Arya…” she croaked. It was so, so painful, to see her sister for the first time in ages. Not just see her, but really put her eyes on her, to recognize how much she had grown. How much she had changed.
“You really gave us all a fright, you know. Jon has been checking in on you every half an hour. I finally convinced him to get some sleep. Oh, he is going to hate me.”
Sansa smiled, but her expression fell the more she thought. “How long was I unconscious?”
“Just under a day. You passed out in the Godswood and I took you back here to your room. The maesters said you weren’t injured, but we could hardly believe them with all that blood on you. They found no wounds on you, though. I guess it was all Theon’s blood.”
Sansa looked down at her hands. They had been washed, but they still shook a bit with her sister’s words. She had not realized she had gotten Theon’s blood all over her.
She looked back up to her sister, and Arya’s expression was pity.
“Theon is dead, is he not?” Her heart shattered just hearing herself speak the words.
“Last thing you were screaming was that he was alive, you know,” Arya crossed her arms. “When I last checked the maesters were still fussing about him, trying to remove that spear without killing him. But as far as I have heard, he is still alive.”
“Can I see him?”
Arya shook her head. “The way you reacted in the Godswood, flailing about and hitting Jon in the face… I don’t think it is a good idea for you to see him until he has been cleaned up. And…” she took a deep breath. “Sansa, there is still a good chance he may die.”
She deflated, but nodded grimly as she knew she was in no state to see him so close to death. She sat, numb, as she listened to her sister list off every casualty. She would mourn all the people lost during the Long Night, especially the people of the North. But the one person her heart ached for most had a fate that was still hanging by a thread.
~*~
Some time later, Sansa disregarded her sister’s warning to visit him too early when someone else came to summon her to Theon’s side; Yara Greyjoy.
Daenerys was dead; Cersei and Jaime were dead. Jon was gone. Yara Greyjoy had overthrown her uncle’s regime and claimed the Salt Throne of the Iron Islands as its queen. Bran, her baby brother, and the one Theon had put his life on the line for, was the king of the realm. It was all a hard truth to swallow, but none was harder than her own coronation. Now two queens stood side by side in Theon’s old room of Winterfell, where the adult version of that same boy she had grown up with hung on within an inch of his life.
He was gaunt, cheekbones sunken, something that reminded Sansa painfully of the time she spent with him in Ramsay’s clutches. Starving, wasting away. Theon was pale. She knew him to be strong, an Ironborn through and through, and yet he looked so fragile laying in the bed. She hated it. She thought back to their embrace when he had returned to Winterfell, the feeling of his arms around her, how steady and strong he had felt then.
He still looked peaceful, at least.
“Theon is going to remain in the North until he awakens,” Sansa said sharply, staring down at the aforementioned man. The sight made her gut twist; Arya had been right. It was hard for her to look upon him in this state, with bandages around his chest that had to be changed every three hours lest they become overfilled with his own blood, without collapsing into more tears. Sansa held on to her strength by reminding herself of how long he had remained alive thus far. If there was one good thing they could have gotten out of their shared torture at the hand of Ramsay Bolton, it was that it would take everything the gods had to kill the two of them.
Yara snorted. “My brother’s bein’ held hostage by House Stark again? Theon, will you ever be able to live on the land of our ancestors?”
Sansa snapped her head toward the other woman, opening her mouth armed with all sorts of angry retorts and snips, but they died on her tongue when she saw Theon’s sister was laughing.
“So you jest?” She asked, somewhat bewildered.
“Of course I do, Queen Sansa. Sure, I came to collect the bastard, but one look at him now tells me he wouldn’t survive the trip across the seas. Best not to move him while recovering. Besides, I’m sure he’s bein’ taken care of very well here in Winterfell.”
Sansa felt her cheeks heat, turning another shade darker when Yara laughed even louder in response, even though she was not even sure what the Iron Queen was insinuating.
“Of course,” she mumbled to her feet. “The best treatment I can afford him in the North.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Yara snickered some more. “I meant that Theon has always been able to appreciate the companionship of a beautiful woman, as all Ironborn should,” she shot Sansa a wink. “And Ironborn are just as irresistible to mainlanders as well. Or so I’ve been told.”
Sansa distinctly remembered the Iron Queen celebrating with a different woman in each hand every night she had spent in Winterfell, but the fight had been taken out of her after becoming so flustered, so she did not bite back.
“Theon is family. It was never by blood, but my father was still a better father to him than Lord Balon ever was.”
“Aye, I can never disagree with that,” Yara nodded. “I only hope I’ve made your opinion of his trueblood family a little bit more favorable.”
Sansa agreed, wholeheartedly; the moment she learned Yara had tried to rescue Theon from Ramsay against the wishes of their father, she had thought as much about his elder sister. “Anything you request of me for him, I will honor it.”
“Oh? So what if I ask to wed my little brother to you, Queen Sansa?”
Sansa blushed again. “I would say he cannot consent to that marriage for himself.”
“I think it would be an enthusiastic yes…. But ah, point taken. Send word when he wakes up,” Yara clasped a hand on Sansa’s shoulder, causing her to look into the other woman’s eyes. She was serious again. “Because mark my words, he will wake up. He’s Ironborn. He’s hung on this long, I think it could only mean the Drowned God threw him back to us.”
~*~
Sansa spent many days, after Yara’s visit, as much time as she could spare, at his side. She talked to him, confessing her deepest secrets at his bedside, anything to get him to wake up. They were in the middle of winter. She was grateful not one lord or lady had called for the care for Theon to stop.
“It is probably because they are calling you ‘Theon Greyjoy, Prince of the Iron Islands and Hero of the Godswood’,” she was telling him, running one hand through his curls while the other clutched his hand, needing to feel that small flame trapped beneath his skin. His pulse was still slow, but it was strong. Every day he was feeling more alive; deeper breaths and less pale, and every day her belief became stronger and stronger in the fact that he would wake up.
“You? A hero? If you woke up right now and I was naked on top of you, you would still probably believe that was real over your title of hero,” she laughed. “But it is true. You saved the man who became the king of Westeros. Oh Theon, you would love the songs the bards are singing about you…” she gave a sigh. “I miss you so much.”
The days spent by his side confirmed what she had been suspecting from the moment he returned to her in Winterfell. How he all about ignored everyone else - including Daenerys, who most men could not take their eyes off of - and spoke only to her, spent any of their free time with her. Her innocent, fairytale crush on Prince Theon when they were younger had returned in full force.
Not to mention that the bards of the North had taken to singing about their queen’s dedication to their hero; when Sansa first heard the lyrics to “The Flight from the Battlements”, she had turned the same shade as her hair. She was lucky that only some bard had witnessed her and Theon escape Winterfell that day, and that he hadn’t reported it to Ramsay’s men.
“I have fallen in love with you, Theon,” she whispered, for his ears only. “When you wake up I will probably throw myself at you, crying, and kiss you all over. Then you can tell me if you feel the same or not,” she laughed a bit at her own ridiculous words, but she also felt like they were true.
She looked up at Theon’s face, as if expecting her words to coax him from his sleep. Disappointedly, they did not.
She lifted his hand to her lips, gently pressing a kiss into each of the fingers of his hand. They were still cracked and mutilated due to his time under Ramsay’s thumb, but that made them more special to her. The only person in this world who could ever begin to understand what Ramsay had done to her, and she felt like she had helped pull Theon out from the shell of himself Ramsay had made him. She knew he thought of himself as emasculated, but she thought his survival made him one of the most brave men she had ever known. She pressed that sentiment into each of his fingertips with her lips. Those fingers, who suffered as she had, were surely the only fingers she would ever let touch her again. She told Theon as much, but still he did not wake.
Heaving a sigh, Sansa decided she had been avoiding her duties for too long today at Theon’s side. She wanted to remain with him at all times, so she could be the first one there when he woke up, but she still had the entirety of the north to run. So she said her goodbye to him, promising she would be back on the morrow, and pressed a kiss to his temple before leaving the room.
When Theon woke up a few hours later, he was busy pondering the odd sensations on his fingers and forehead, the feeling of missing someone who had been there, when the maid who had come to change his bandages entered the room and screamed in surprise, alerting all the guardsmen to Theon’s awakened condition long before it reached Sansa’s ears.
~*~
She had been in court, listening to reports of rebuilding Winterfell and the other towns across the north that had been devastated by the Ironborn invasion, Ramsay Bolton’s takeover, and the army of the dead. Important, such important things for the Queen in the North to be dealing with. But not a single member of her court protested when the maester assigned to Theon’s condition rushed into the room.
“Your grace,” he gasped. “Prince Theon is awake!”
She very nearly flew from her seat at the words. That was truly how she was beginning to define her feelings for Theon; the feeling of flying. The feeling of being free. No other man who had tried to marry her had ever made her feel such a way. “The Flight from the Battlements” had only been the beginning.
The bards all knew it; sang it around town so all of Winterfell knew it, and if Winterfell did then it would spread to all the lords and ladies of the north, if it hadn’t already. She was sure Yara Greyjoy knew it, and hell, all-knowing Bran probably told Arya and Jon. It seemed the only person who didn’t know Sansa Stark was very much in love with Theon Greyjoy was Theon Greyjoy himself.
Sansa did not, in fact, immediately throw herself at him and kiss Theon all over when she arrived.
Instead she stood in the doorway to the bedroom like a gawking fool, as if afraid that stepping across the threshold would do something, would cause Theon to disappear or fall comatose again, or even worse, die in her arms.
“ Lady Sansa ,” he breathed, like she was the only thing that mattered, like a pious man before the gods, and the world nearly shattered around her. Whatever force that had been holding her back gave way, and she almost tripped and stumbled in her effort to get across the room.
She kneeled at his bedside, took his hands in hers, and cried. She explained all about how she had found him with a broken lance protruding from his chest, how she thought him dead until she felt his faint breath against her, felt his feather-light pulse still beating. Theon sat in silence and listened to her, but when her tearful explanation devolved into unintelligible sobs, he had sat up, taken her up into his arms, and held her close to himself, like he was trying to squeeze all the tears out of her. It was one of the most wonderful things in the world.
“Thank you,” he croaked as he held her. “Thank you for rescuing me.”
Sansa shook her head. “I am sure Arya would have realized you were alive soon enough. I just could not stand the sight of you, laying in the snow with that spear in your chest. I acted like a madwoman. Probably made it worse, really.”
“I’m sorry,” she could feel his muscles, weak from his bedrest, tense against her. “I’m sorry for making you worry about me.”
“Theon…” she whispered against his shoulder.
“Hey, that’s Prince Theon, remember?” He said, his voice rough from prolonged disuse, but with the distinct ring of teasing. “I fought hard for my sister to acknowledge me.”
Sansa let out a laugh. It was a terrible sound, choked from all her sobbing, but it was one of pure joy. “I have rank over you now. I think you should have to call me by my full title; Sansa Stark, the Queen in the North.”
She pulled back out of his arms so she could see his reaction, and it nearly caused her to burst into tears again.
Theon’s eyes widened, his mouth slightly agape as his pupils darted all over her face, as if trying to gauge if she was tricking him. He must have decided otherwise, because a beat later he gave a soft whisper, letting the words dance on his tongue as if getting used to them: “ My queen .”
Sansa tenderly brushed her fingers through his hair again as she leaned over Theon, fully prepared to kiss him over hearing those words. He would know how important they were. He would have uttered a similar phrase when he swore his allegiance to Robb.
But then the maesters arrived once again, and the entire room flipped upside down with chaos over Theon’s condition, and so Sansa instead made herself very scarce.
~*~
“Hero of the Godswood?” He repeated, as though he thought he heard her wrong.
It was Theon’s fifth day out of bed, and so Sansa had arranged with her advisors to take off the day so she could guide Theon around Winterfell. She knew there were incredibly painful memories for him there, and he was still regaining the strength in his legs, so she thought it important that someone walk with him. Not just anyone though. The Queen in the North had his arm looped in hers, supporting him as they walked through the snow. It was only ever going to be her who helped him.
Sansa smiled to herself, the disbelief in his voice was so utterly what she expected of Theon. “I knew you would take to that title.”
“Well, I certainly don’t feel like one,” he waved, though, as people called to their queen and her company, their hero. Sansa found the smile on his face was so dazzling, she had to look away from it lest she go blind.
“I think you are the most worthy of it,” she said, her voice low to keep her words between the two of them. “Not just because of the Night King. But because of your father, Lord Balon. And because of Ramsay. You have been through more than enough to deserve it.”
“I betrayed Robb for my father. And I was certainly no hero against Ramsay,” he frowned.
“You helped me escape from Ramsay,” she reminded him. “And you survived what he did to you, and came back to defend the North.”
“Sansa, he did worse to you. I wanted to kill him so badly for it, and yet I couldn’t find the strength to.”
She reached up, pressing her palm to his cheek and turning his head to face her. Her thumb caressed his chin; his beard had thickened, she noticed with some delight. “But you know what I suffered, and I know what you suffered. You are a hero for not letting it define you in the end.”
Her gaze lingered on Theon’s lips, once again parted in an innocent gape of surprise by her words. It would be so easy to kiss him now, holding his face in one hand. Theon would gasp a little, caught off guard, but eventually his hands would find her waist, and he would pull her in close again just as he had done when they reunited at his bedside. Sansa knew her hand would end up in his hair, she was so enamored by his curls. His beard would tickle her face, but she was incredibly certain she would like it. Theon, who would likely have once kissed like a blazing inferno, would be so gentle with her. Not just because of what she had gone through, but what he had as well. He was hesitant in a lot of things. She would kiss him slowly, gently, patiently pulling Theon back into the open from where he had retreated.
He would probably be mortified being kissed by the Queen in the North in such a public place. Her honor, and all that, kissing a man she was not being courted by. She hoped kissing him would rectify that quickly.
Sansa wondered if he would taste like the salty breeze of the sea, or the mead of Winterfell. Even if he tasted like the blood dribbling from his mouth after being stabbed by the Night King, she wouldn’t care.
And then someone, bless the townspeoples’ hearts, shouted that the Hero of Godswood was awake and walking around with their queen, and Sansa was separated from Theon in the moment by a sweeping tide of northerners gathered around him. It didn’t make her smile falter in the slightest, but it did make the guards very, very angry.
~*~
The newest joy to the Queen in the North quickly became watching Theon practice his archery once again.
She used to do it all the time as a young girl, sneak up to watch Theon practice or watch him duel her brothers. She’d found Theon so handsome back then; as much of a jerk as he was and as snooty as she had been, he’d been everything she wanted from a romance. He was a prince, and not just any prince but a pirate prince, strong and arrogant, swashbuckling and always able to keep toe-to-toe with Robb and Jon.
Then when he had returned to Winterfell to ask her for permission to fight for the north, it had been the most handsome she’d ever seen him.
Now he was recovering from the brink of death, and she was queen, and yet she was still going back to her old ways of sneaking around and spying on him. It was like no time had passed, that his body had not gone through what she knew it had; his wide shoulders tense as he pulled back the string of his bow. Knowing that Ramsay had taken so much from him physically and mentally, she’d thought Theon would never fully be able to match the skill of the young boy at Robb’s side. Ramsay had removed fingers from his dominant hand, which she expected would have hurt his ability to draw the bow the most. It seemed that was not the case, and she felt pride swell in her chest for him.
An image flashed before her eyes, of a man she hated, shooting her brother in the back with an arrow. Sansa shook her head, to get him out, trying to focus on the image of the man she loved in front of her.
If only Theon, and his perfect aim had been there. Maybe then Rickon would be alive, and Theon would have gotten his revenge on Ramsay Bolton.
She was tired of being interrupted before she could tell him how she felt; that she wanted him to stay in Winterfell, forever, that she wanted him to court her, that she didn’t care about the things that made him not worthy of being her lord husband in his eyes; because he was Theon and he was the only person not of blood relation that she completely trusted with her entire body and heart.
He let another arrow fly, a dead-on bullseye. Even missing fingers, even with the tremble in his hands she knew he had yet to be rid of. Surely he had to be the greatest archer in Westeros.
“Is there a reason Her Grace is spying on me?” Theon asked, without having once looked in her direction.
She blanched. His tone wasn’t cross, in fact it sounded a bit amused, but Sansa was embarrassed to have been caught. Still, she stepped from her hiding place, toward him.
“I love watching you practice. I used to spy on you when we were kids,” she answered, her voice soft as if worried being overheard would cause some interruption yet again.
Theon smiled to himself. “Yes, I never imagined you would do so as queen.”
She was surprised. “You knew all along?”
“Lady Sansa, you were never quiet as a child. This time, at least, I only caught you because of your breathing.”
Sansa looked down shyly. Now was her chance. The words were right there on her tongue: Theon, I love you.
She looked back up toward him. He was in Greyjoy armor, not the fanciful set of the Ironborn prince; that set had a gaping hole in the chestplate. What he was wearing was lighter, plainer. It still cut an image of Theon as a courageous, handsome knight from those fairytales that had once filled her girlish head, that she had long ago given up on, though the reminder of them made butterflies fill her head. He dropped his bow to his side, leaning on the fence, waiting expectantly for her to gather her thoughts. Sansa focused in on his sea glass eyes, the way his eyelashes framed them. Sansa thought about how she might love to kiss those eyelashes while whispering sweet nothings against him.
“Theon, I… want you to remain in Winterfell,” she lost her nerve suddenly, and wasn’t sure exactly why. “I know there are some memories of Ramsay here for you, but my memories of him are all here. Your presence comforts me over it. And frankly, I do not think there is anyone in the world I trust more than you right now. Perhaps Jon and Arya, but they are not here for me. I need someone here at my side.”
He was quiet while she spoke. “I would love to remain with you, Sansa,” his reply was gentle, just like her voice. “I love my sister, and I know Yara will be cross with me for not returning to Pyke and serving at her side on the Salt Throne. But I have never fit in with the islands. I’m too gentle. Too sensitive. Too mannered. And I enjoy too much of the finer things in life,” he chuckled. “I think I would like to be done paying the iron price.”
No , Sansa wanted to argue. You are perfect. You have passed through fire. You are all the best of the Greyjoys and the Starks. You are a warrior, with blood of salt and iron. They’d be fools not to accept you as their prince . A lump formed in her throat as she tried not to think of him sailing away on the ocean, back to his people.
“-And besides,” he continued, and Sansa immediately paid attention again. “I don’t know if I could ever leave in good faith, knowing none of your family is here with you. But are you sure I will be welcome here as a member of your court?”
As my lord husband . She wanted to say, but something deep within her forced her to hold her tongue again. “They would be stupid to reject you. I told you, you have become a hero to the people of the north now. And you have always been a hero to me, from the moment you pushed Myranda from the battlements. Anyone who disagrees with my decision will be dismissed.”
Theon chuckled. “The Queen in the North is a fine queen indeed.”
She approached him, making a gesture inquiring about the bow in his hand. “Ramsay once boasted to me that he was the greatest archer in the North. I think I would have quite liked to see you bury an arrow in his throat.”
Theon did not flinch at the mention of Ramsay, as she had expected. A surge of prideful warmth filled her chest. “I was still better than him when I was his pet.”
Sansa gave a small smile. “Then he would be no match to you as you are now.”
He gave a sigh and pushed a hand through his hair. Sansa feared for a moment she had upset him, until Theon spoke. “I could write an epic on all the ways I would kill that man, over and over again.”
Her smile widened, and for a moment, Ramsay’s ugly grin flashed in front of her eyes again. Sometimes, she hated to admit that he had been right. She, and Theon too, would carry a piece of that bastard with them for the rest of their lives, along with how they would always be missing parts of themselves, things Ramsay had taken. Perhaps the only way they could deal with such a thing would be to revel in how they would hurt him. “I would quite like to hear them, sometime.”
~*~
Theon was at her side when the first proposal reached her ears.
Sansa had been holding court, though the desperate whining of a cadet branch of House Bolton had quickly bored her. Theon’s eyes drifted to her often, expressing not only his own frustration with someone so closely connected to Ramsay daring to set forth demands upon her, but also his own concern of her wellbeing. Sansa was busy admiring the black leather he was adorned in now, the longsword sheathed at his side, and the posture with which he held himself, as though he were truly a knight of the realm. Yes, the Queen in the North had soon found entertainment in the Ironborn Northman at her side.
She liked the taste of Theon hailing from both the Iron Islands and the North. He was born a kraken, raised a wolf. Many northmen, and she was sure Ironborn as well, had once teased him as such. A kraken could not survive on land, nor would a wolf swim for long in the sea without drowning. But Theon had reclaimed the mockery, earned respect both among his Ironborn kinsmen, and the bannermen who served under Jon and Sansa. Even one of the bards’ songs written about Theon, “The Iron Prince” agreed with this sentiment. She had jokingly asked if he would consider renaming himself Theon Starkjoy, and build a new house in the north. But Theon had balked at her suggestion, mumbling that he hardly found himself worthy to be a member of the northern Queensguard.
It was an informal position, of course. She did not expect knights to appear at her side, nor did she want men in white cloaks swearing off marriage and family and inheritance for her. But to have a group of soldiers whom she trusted swear to protect her, the foremost of those being the man who had saved her life, and then played no small role in saving all of Westeros from the undead; she certainly felt more comfortable in her role with them around.
Besides, Sansa still had not quite figured out a way to tell Theon how she felt. Until she could overcome whatever ridiculous nerves were preventing her from doing so, she intended to keep Theon as close to her side as she could.
“Your Grace, forgive my interruption,” the Maester was at her side suddenly, and Sansa was forced to tear her eyes from Theon, and with it, any remaining attention to the blubbering man before her. “A raven has arrived for you this morning. From Lord Cerwyn.”
A deep frown fell upon Sansa’s face at the news, as Theon dismissed the Bolton man with just a pinch too much enthusiasm.
Cley Cerwyn was an ally of hers, it was true. But Sansa only fully put her trust in the houses that had answered when she and Jon begged for help against Ramsay; Lord Cerwyn had refused their raven summons, despite Sansa’s knowledge that Ramsay had flayed his father, mother, and uncle in front of him when his father refused to bend the knee to anyone but the Starks. She had tried to convince Jon to visit Castle Cerwyn so she could plead his support personally, but Jon had decided it was time they could not waste. He later claimed he regretted not fighting for them against Ramsay - after having been chastised by the younger Lady Lyanna Mormont, gods did Sansa wish she still had House Mormont and its young head among her bannermen - but then had also sat out the Battle of Winterfell. House Cerwyn had refused to answer for the Long Night as well. So she was skeptical to give in to any of Lord Cerwyn’s demands, unless it was something that concerned her as well.
Your Grace,
I make no illusion to your disappointment in me during the year before and the one since your coronation. But you have ruled Winterfell and the North justly. My father believed in House Stark, and died for it. I cowarded by the death of my father, mother, and uncle. That is the only apology I sincerely have to offer.
It is my wish to see you with a husband and children born strongly of northern blood, and I feel many of the other houses feel the same. A way to cement the North’s independence by making a clear message to both our countrymen and the neighboring kingdoms. To this end, I would ask to be your lord husband.
The position of head of House Cerwyn I would gift to my elder sister, Lady Jonelle Cerwyn. You and Lady Lyanna Mormont proved that women can lead in the North just as well, if not better, than men. House Cerwyn has timber and men it could offer to you, should the call to arms be raised once more. By the gods, I should hope we will not have to see battle for another thousand years.
Lord Cley of House Cerwyn
Her heart stopped, reading the words. A bloody marriage proposal, sitting in her hands? After it had hardly been a year since the death of her monster of a husband? Lord Cerwyn certainly was not that stupid; she had been married to the same man that flayed his family alive. Surely he had to know her marriage to the Bolton bastard would not have been pleasant. Might have made her sworn off marrying for the rest of her life, had Theon not survived his wounds during the Long Night.
“What is it?” Theon’s voice cut through the red she was seeing; Sansa realized she had not announced the content of the letter.
Her eyes slid to him, and her heart sank. The moment she met his gaze, she could tell Theon knew. His expression was guarded, though his eyebrows did knit together angrily for a moment. This made her sunken heart jump for a moment. Whether Theon was angry on her behalf, or his own, she selfishly was happy to see it.
“A marriage offer, from Lord Cerwyn,” she spoke loud enough, so the others gathered in the hall could hear. Her heart began pounding, wondering what else Theon would do. “He apologizes for his inaction during the Long Night, and says he would make his sister, Lady Jonelle, the heir of House Cerwyn should we be wed.”
“A most fine suggestion,” the maester agreed. But Sansa’s attention, try as she was to hide it, was focused on Theon.
“A northern lord,” Theon hummed. “I think it would be the correct choice for the first northern queen.”
Sansa felt the world shatter around her. He couldn’t really mean that. Trying to keep her emotions in check, Sansa steeled herself and dismissed everyone from the room, save for Theon. It was the worst kept secret in Winterfell that he was her closest confidant, and the fact he was the target of her affections was the next; only because the only one who seemed not to know it was Theon Greyjoy himself.
“You really believe a marriage to Lord Cerwyn would be a good idea?” She asked him, after giving him a minute to read the letter for himself.
He took some time to think over his response. “I do. He acknowledges his mistakes. He makes a good point about how your husband and your heir should both be of northern blood. And he suggests making his sister his heir. That would put another woman among the noble houses of the North. It’s unprecedented, and it shows attitudes are changing.”
“You are giving me the answer of an advisor,” Sansa couldn’t quite hold back her hurt any longer, and so anger trickled into her voice, like the dam of a river about to burst. “I want the answer of a friend.”
Theon sighed, pushing a hand through his hair. He always did that when frustration was building. “Of course I don’t want you to marry him. You shouldn’t be required to marry ever again after Ramsay.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. So Theon did know how she was feeling; that was, aside from her desire to take him as her lord husband. “Good. Thank you. I’ll write back to Lord Cerwyn this evening and send the raven on the morrow.”
“But Sansa,” he cut in. “Lord Cerwyn isn’t the only one. More proposals will come. His is likely the best offer. He is the only northern lord, to my knowledge, of similar age to you. The rest are either old and married, or children.”
“Lord Cerwyn did not fight for Winterfell in the Long Night,” Sansa spat bitterly. “I could never fully trust someone who was not there, no matter how important of an ally they are or how good their proposal is.”
She opened her mouth to continue, but no sound came out. ‘You fought and nearly died. You saved Westeros. The bards sing songs about you. They sing songs about the two of us because of how long I waited at your bedside for you to wake up, never knowing if I would see your eyes again. You protected Bran, and that was after you saved me from Ramsay. How could I marry anyone else, when you are here, sworn to me?’
If Theon knew she was thinking about him, or that she was continuing on in her thoughts at all, he did not show it. Instead, he bowed.
“Forgive me, Lady Sansa,” he said. “I should have known you would feel that way.”
No matter how much she might have adored him addressing her as ‘Lady Sansa’ before Daenerys on the day he returned to Winterfell, or how he gasped ‘my queen’ when she had informed him she had been crowned Queen in the North, his use of titles for her was starting to grate on her nerves. She knew he was using it to push her above him. And she did not like it.
“You will address me as Sansa from now on,” she leveled her gaze at him, nearly faltering at the look of shock and adoration that he returned to her. But she steeled herself once more. “Not ‘Your Grace’, not ‘my queen’, not ‘Lady Sansa’. Lest I start referring to you as Prince Theon, as the songs all do.”
Theon flinched, as though she had slapped him. In truth, he was likely very confused as to why she was cross with him. “Yes, Sansa.”
“Good,” she stood up from her throne, adjusting her skirts. “Inform the guard that I am ending court early today. Let the maester know I will have my response to Lord Cerwyn to be sent off by the morning. And do join me down in the hot springs once you’ve finished, Theon.”
She did not turn away fast enough to miss the flush that covered his face, but it was quick enough to prevent him from seeing her smile in response.
~*~
She had sent a missive to Theon’s sister about his recovery - she may have waited a week or three, “by accident” - but received one back that stated the sea ice around the North was too great, and the Iron Fleet would not be able to make the journey for close to five or six months.
Five or six months. She had five or six months before Yara would come to try and take Theon from her. Even though Theon had told Sansa he wanted to stay with her, and had joined as a member of her Queensguard, she also knew it would be hard for him to refuse his sister if Yara asked for him to return to Pyke with her.
She used this time well, spending as much as she could spare from her duties as queen with him. She ate meals with him at her side. He was present for her petitions. She watched him train men for the Winterfell guard. And she always enjoyed going on walks with him.
But she still was unable to bring herself to tell him how she loved him.
Maybe it was all the terrible men she had gone through during the war. Ramsay had only been the one Theon saw. Love had not been kind to Sansa. Perhaps some part of her feared Theon would become a monster if she uttered the words.
One night, after agonizing over Theon before bed, Ramsay returned to her in her dreams.
He was on top of her again in bed, hands pressing bruises into her skin as she cried out for help. She cried out for Theon.
“You’ve fallen for Reek, have you?” Ramsay snarled with a grin. “I always wondered if you would. He was quite handsome when he came into my care. I expect you probably thought so too, while growing up alongside him. Don’t worry my lady wife, I can arrange for him to watch us make love, again and again, if that’s what you want.”
“No…!” She sobbed. She didn’t care that Ramsay would likely punish her for knowing about her feelings, or kill Theon to torment her now that he knew. She never wanted Theon to see her like this ever again.
“It’s the only way he’s ever going to see you writhe like this, Lady Sansa ,” Ramsay purred, pleased by her despair. “He’s got no cock to put inside you.”
She looked, and she saw Theon - her Theon, dressed in black leather, not Ramsay’s pet Reek as he had been the last time he was forced to watch - standing by the door, a look of pure fury across his face. She pushed against Ramsay, screaming at him to stop, because she couldn’t stand the thought of Theon watching Ramsay torture her all over again. Ramsay had already done enough to him.
Ramsay’s hands moved to her back as she pushed, suddenly pulling her close to his chest. Still, she struggled, not wanting to give in to him. She looked up, and Theon was gone from the door.
“What did you do with him?!” She cried hysterically. “Theon!”
“I’m here, Sansa. I’m here,” came Theon’s voice, but it came from where Ramsay was holding her against him.
Sansa woke with a gasp, still half struggling. She was being caged in arms, and that was who she was fighting, but these arms had scars, his chin against her head was scruffy with a beard. Sansa looked up with a tear-stained face to find Theon sitting in her bed, holding her tightly.
“Oh, Theon…” she gasped softly, as she fought desperately but to no avail to stop from crying.
He smiled and looked down at her, realizing she was awake. “I hope I’m not intruding, your majesty.”
“No, never… but how are you here?”
Theon released one of his arms from around her, so he could reach up to her face and wipe her tears. “I haven’t slept much since waking up from the Long Night. A maid came and got me, she told me the queen was screaming and thrashing from her bedroom and calling out my name. I hope I guessed correctly, and I wasn’t your tormentor in your dream.”
“No, oh gods of course not!” She exclaimed.
“So it was Ramsay Bolton then?”
She nodded, before leaning her head against his chest.
Theon sighed. “I’m sorry I never stood up to him.”
“I’m sorry you never got your revenge on him,” she sighed. “But I did. I know he’s dead. He’s just come to taunt me.”
“Taunt you about what? Becoming the Queen in the North?”
“Taunting me about the things I’m too scared to say,” she replied, cryptically; a pause, and then she continued speaking. “Theon, will you please stay with me?”
She felt him press a kiss into her hair. “Anything I can do to protect you from Ramsay Bolton.”
“You, here, is enough,” she said softly.
Theon was silent for a moment. Then he spoke again. “If I could, I would kill him thrice over. Not for what he did to me. What he did to you. What he made me watch.”
“I only hope you are satisfied with the death I gave him,” she answered.
“If it wasn’t by my hand, no one else but you granting him death could satisfy me,” Theon gave a big sigh, one that wracked his entire body.
Sansa ran her fingers down his arm gently, across the scars that he allowed the world to see. Theon tensed against her touch, but didn’t pull away. She gently ran her fingers along his wrist, along his hand, thick and corded as a soldier, yet mutilated by Ramsay too. She laced their fingers, and felt tears beginning to prick her eyes at the sensation of only three fingers squeezing around hers. He was missing his two smallest fingers on that hand, along with all his fingernails.
“Theon,” she whispered, tilting her head so that her lips brushed along his ear. Her voice cracked a little just on his name. “Theon, I love you.”
He was quiet, stiffening at her words, but again didn’t pull away from her. She took that to keep going.
“From the moment you returned from the Iron Islands, I knew. The moment you asked me to defend Winterfell, I knew I had finally found someone who was never going to hurt me,” she gave a soft sigh. “I should have told you before you followed Bran into the woods, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it before. I selfishly want you to remain in Winterfell so that I can have you.”
“I cannot give you any heirs,” he finally said, quiet and meek, just as she expected him to.
“I don’t need you to give me heirs,” she smiled against his skin, softly kissing down his jaw. “I just want you.”
His grip around her tightened. “I can never forgive myself for handing you off to Ramsay that night in the Godswood. Presenting you, where it should have been your father or Robb. You should have been given to someone you loved. Only recently have I begun to wish it were me that night who received you.”
Sansa took his head in her hands, gently pressing a kiss to his temple as she did so. “We can arrange that,” she answered softly. “We can send a raven to Jon, to come and give me away to you. I know that your sister is already aware of my feelings for you. We can arrange for her to be our witness. We can do that, Theon. You can receive me as your lady wife. Nothing would make me happier.”
“I do not wish to be considered a king,” he told her, with some panic in his eyes.
“I did not expect you to,” she smiled, looking into his beautiful, sea-glass eyes. “I am the Queen in the North, you are my Hero of the Godswood. Nothing more.”
Theon leaned toward her then, his face merely a breath away, before he hesitated. Sansa sucked in a breath, waiting. The last thing she wanted to do was force him; the last thing she wanted was to remind him anything of Ramsay.
“I-I don’t deserve your love, Sansa,” he whispered, and she realized with a jolt that he was the one crying now. “You’re beautiful, and loyal and strong, and you come back to me to love?”
“No one is more deserving of my love,” she replied, tentatively stroking his cheek with her thumb. “You, Theon, are the strongest of all of us.”
~*~
“The Iron Prince” was playing in the courtyard the next time she and Theon went for a walk, and Sansa was overjoyed for Theon to hear it. If anything could convince Theon he was a hero in the North, if not the entirety of Westeros, worthy of everything he had woken up to; it would be the song that told his story.
Sansa had heard the song often enough, humming the tune as she walked beside Theon. He no longer required her to guide him as they walked, but as he stared in wonder at all the townsfolk singing the song back at him - about how he started as a hostage, grew to become Robb’s sworn brother, betrayed the Starks and suffered in Winterfell, and finally redeemed himself - Sansa had to steady and tug him along further. It was a song that recognized Theon was a Greyjoy, Ironborn, but that his heart was forged in the north. And that was why she loved him so.
“The Iron Prince,
Enemy of the Starks his house once was,
The Iron Prince,
With iron and salt flowing through his veins.
The Iron Prince, the Iron Prince,
Despite the scrutiny of all he does,
The Iron Prince, the Iron Prince,
Both a kraken and a dire wolf he remains.”
She giggled as Theon’s eyes became misty, and he desperately tried to hide it. But Sansa’s eyes widened as the performing bards switched quickly to a much slower, smoother cadence. A love song. She knew exactly which one; and despite admitting to Theon that she loved him - proposing to him, for gods’ sake - she still flushed with embarrassment and tried to hurry Theon along out of the square.
“The story of a princess and a pirate,
Held imprisoned by the snow.
Though they may desperately try to hide it,
Their affections made the dark halls glow.”
Theon paused, preventing Sansa from tugging him along. Her body weakly fell back into his, and Sansa looked up to eyes full of wonder. Nostalgia hit her like the winter winds, Theon’s face suddenly looking remarkably young and innocent and joyous .
“A vile hound, of gnashing steel,
Did tear him piece by piece.
But when he tried to make the princess heel,
The pirate pulled her from his reach.”
Theon’s hand squeezed her shoulder gently, and she knew he recognized the song for what it was.
“And they leapt from the battlements,
Spread their wings into the air.
The flight from the battlements,
To freedom they could share.”
Sansa’s breath caught in her throat. As much as she didn’t ever want to consider the events of escape from Ramsay as romantic - they were desperate souls, with Theon still returning to sanity - she couldn’t help but admit she did love the chorus of the song.
“One day the pirate came to her side,
Offering his sword to save her throne.
The princess with her eyes full wide,
My, had her carefree pirate grown!
In her eyes he sought redemption,
Saw his days numbered to zero.
He fought and bled, no deception,
That pirate branded himself a hero.”
As she lost herself to the sway of the song, realizing Theon wanted to hear it, she suddenly felt him pulling her, spinning her, in the middle of the crowd. She giggled, a bubbly, wonderful noise that came from her chest, something she hadn’t done in a long, long time. And Sansa sang along to the chorus with the bards, because the song was becoming true.
“And they leapt from the battlements,
Spread their wings into the air.
The flight from the battlements,
To freedom they could share.
Bittersweet devotion, a love that’s sweet and true.
Now she’s been born a queen and we await the day,
That love can be kindled anew.”
And then the world froze again, and sound drowned from Sansa’s ears, and she didn’t understand why she was having a hard time breathing until she felt her hands against something hard, but warm, and smooth. She felt a heartbeat through her fingertips, but unlike the last time, this one was strong, pounding in its chest.
Oh . She wasn’t breathing because Theon was kissing her. He kissed her ; though she had decided against it the night in her bedroom, scared of pushing him further than he was ready for, she gasped in surprise at such an uncharacteristically bold action from him. In front of the bards. In front of the entire square. Her entire face felt aflame. Her heartbeat thundered to match his within her chest. She threaded her fingers through his curls, encouraged by the eruption of cheers around her and Theon.
He smiled into her, and Sansa found herself practically swooning over the playfulness with which he kissed her. The feeling of his embrace was just right. The taste of his lips was both the salt of the sea and of Winterfell mead. She thought she might like to stay like this forever. All their combined anxieties - about him being worthy of her, about him leaving her to return to the Iron Islands - melted off her back like the last snow in spring.
He was awake, he was alive, and their love could be kindled anew. Five or six months seemed like plenty of time for such a thing. She thought Yara Greyjoy might be pleasantly surprised to get to wed her little brother to the Queen in the North, after all.