Work Text:
He had promised the people of Winterfell no harm would come to those who yielded, and he was true to his promise. All who wished to be cooperative were given leave to seek refuge with the people of Wintertown before Theon had his twenty men douse every scrap of wood in Winterfell in oil and set it to the torch. He decided once they were close to Deepwood Motte and out of Cassel's reach, he would send half his crew with Black Lorren to take Meera and Jojen Reed to Asha, in case any Northern lords were to give her trouble. He would phrase it to her as an offer of reinforcements, to aid her in her hard-won long-suffering task of holding the castle, bowing deeply with a smile on his face. He actually later decided he had no time to actually show up himself at Deepwood Motte and see his sister’s face at his triumph, but he could still picture it, as he paced dreamily among his packing men and wondered if they knew what sort of satisfaction he, their benevolent prince and captain, was giving up for their sakes.
With Beth Cassel, he was not quite sure where he stood regarding her counting or not as a lady, so he decided to be merciful. “You just tell me yourself which way you prefer it,” he asked her, squatting down to look her in the eye. “Do you want to remain here to live in Wintertown with Joseth and his girls or Old Nan or whoever else will take you? Or to come stay in a nice castle room with my sister at Deepwood?”
She did not answer, only curled away from him and sobbed. Very well: he knew which way he would have answered it himself, but he had been a boy and well-used to living on ships, not a dainty little maid. Moreover, perhaps Asha might have some use for a defense against Rodrik Cassel as well, he figured. He had found that he didn’t want her to die, not if he could humble her first. Perhaps they could even go to battle together again, once she was made properly aware of her station compared to him and was willing to take orders. Whether she proved loyal or not, anyway, he found himself having no wish of giving his mother another heartbreak.
The rest was simple enough. The wolves proved harder to find than he had hoped, but he set his full twenty armed men to the task, tied up the smaller boy as bait in the middle of the Godswood and they both came running soon enough. He kept the black one’s pelt, running his fingers through the smooth fine fur and picturing it threaded with trails of gold rings or pinned closed with a silver scythe. Though Urzen and his ilk insisted on this counting as the iron price, he made them leave the grey one to rot unclaimed on the grass, every trace of it to disappear in the ashes.
It was the hardest thing of all to watch the castle burn, even though he knew the most of the structure would remain. The temptation of remining to rule the North from there had been strong, but he couldn't swear that it was only that. He thought of his first kiss in the mantle of blood-red leaves, of teaching Robb to swim in the Godswood pools and beating him in the yard, of allowing himself the new forbidden joys of climbing trees and hunting squirrels and the brief exaltation of holding Lord Stark’s Valyrian steel sword in his hands before he found out what purpose it would serve. But he made himself do it, and he made himself look the whole time, just as lord Stark would have had it.
He had no choice. When he had allowed Asha to take him to Harlaw, he had thought the creature introduced to him must be aunt Gwynesse at first, her hair bleached white before her time, her eyes swollen and cloudy, seemingly unable to take him in. “You cannot be Theon,” she had said. “My baby boy is only ten, and he is never returning again to me.”
Then, when they had managed to convince her of the passage of time, the both of them laboriously detailing everything that had happened since, the succession of lords on the Islands and the births of King Robert’s children - so stubborn, she was still - she had raised her hand to touch the healing cut his father’s signet ring had left on his cheek. “Do they whip you very often, or was it because you tried to run?”
And so, it wasn’t really a possibility to allow himself to feel any regret, not even because he might have desired to possess this great and ancient castle rather than destroy it, not even for the sake of strategy, not even because he had liked to call himself Prince of Winterfell. Every moment he had enjoyed himself while his mother thought he was languishing should be erased from the face of the earth before he could ever look her in the eye again.
They found their eight ships waiting at the Stony Shore, heavy with the plunder of Torrhen Square if not with any more lasting victories, their companions having given up hope of seeing them again. He explained the victory to all who would ask, watching serenely as his men went to seek out their old friends on the crews he had left behind, hugging and drinking to survival. He smiled indulgently, not a speck of envy or hate in his heart: he knew now that this would come soon for him as well.
“Well, lad,” Dagmer said, his famous smile wavering for a moment when Theon dragged the two little boys aboard the Foamdrinker . “I sure hope this will bring you peace.”
“You cannot hold us here long,” Bran had spat out the exact second they had gotten far enough from Winterfell that he couldn’t possibly go back and hurt any of his people for his defiance, ramrod straight and serious with the wieght of his responsibilities. “Robb will come for us.
The devotion of little boys truly was the most precious thing in the world. I will not tell you anything, it doesn’t matter what you do to me, he remembered having told Lord Stark when he, extremely softly and gently and with the consent of everyone in the room, war already won without a shadow of a doubt, had carried him off from his father’s solar.
“I sure fucking hope he does,” he grumbled. “Do you see me putting you two little pests to row? You do still have your arms. I have no desire to keep you for ten years as you did to me, we carry our own swords and fetch our own little messages here.”
That had made the boy tear up. “Keep Rickon then, keep him safe, but let me go, let me remain with Jojen and Meera. The tree-eyed raven is awaiting me, he said he will make me fly…”
“The three-eyed raven had better have a bigger ransom to offer than all of Cape Kraken, because I’m not giving either of you up for a copper less,” he laughed.
That meant he should enjoy himself now. Going crewman to crewman, he found two woady-blue tunics he found a scrap of time to cut down to something approximate to their length himself, though he was not about to sew them down to size too. Rickon’s hair had grown long and untamed, for he bit and scratched anyone but Lady Stark who had tried to cut it, but he didn’t make a peep when Theon sat him down in his lap and fixed it in a nice reaver’s braid, the crew laughing and shouting advice when he forgot which way a certain knot was supposed to be twisted. Now you know fear as well.
It didn’t feel quite as good to think about as he hoped. But then he reminded himself they would have all the time in the world to make themselves brave and strong again, before they even reached the age he had been when he was stolen, and everything he did felt nice and satisfying again.
He had bid Lorren to send a raven to his father from Deepwood Motte as soon as he reached the keep, but of course the man may as well have made a solemn vow to the Drowned God to never let that greenlander devilry that was the written word sully his eyes ever again, for all he ever responded to his messages, so he didn't let the lack of response mess with his head this time.
He didn’t bother to change himself after his voyage or announce himself or knock, but went straight to the solar, dismissing his men to do what they will with the brief respite before their next mission. “Father, these are my hostages from the burning of Winterfell,” he said, bringing in Rickon by his hand and Bran precariously straddled on a chair. "Prince Bran Stark, well, Brandon Stark, prince Rickon Stark, the Young Wolf's little brother, who I had the pleasure to meet before in Winterfell."
His lord father had been staring holes into a map which, he noticed, he had never bothered to update to show their ownership of Winterfell. He took a look at the boys, who had the good sense to remain mute. “Don’t think you will have some sort of grand vengeance on them,” he growled at him at last. “We will need to keep them to bargain with the wolf pup.”
“As you wish, Father,” he said, because the last thing he wanted was to say that this was indeed his plan, obviously, because why would anything else be, and for the old contrarian to change his mind and say instead that Theon must actually immediately choose one of the two to march to the surf and sacrifice to the Drowned God to put his brothers' restless spirits to rest - not that they, to be fair, wouldn't be the types to be greatly comforted by witnessing some suffering of children. Bran still sucked in a sharp breath, as if Theon hadn't explained everything to them both a thousand times. He rolled his eyes.
“You have disobeyed me,” he said then. “I never spoke about you going to Winterfell. You had not the men for such a task, nor the ships or horses.”
“I did,” he admitted, tilting his face to expose his yet-unslapped cheek. “But I had told you I like to make my own plans, and I told you that I wanted a castle.”
"You must not take any further foolish risks," he snapped. "Asha will be taken up on the mainland for a while, and you're the only heir I have on the islands."
Oh, we're all heirs now, aren't we. "I will try, so long as you give me better plans than the last."
He grimaced. "We're sending one of those two on Harlaw for safekeeping. The boy may try some sort of rescue, foolish as he is, and it will give your mother joy."
"Brandon," he said without hesitation. "I'm not inflicting the little one on her." For the sake of the boys, he did not elaborate on what sort of joy that would be.
He rose, at last. Theon stiffened his back, awaiting whatever reward or punishment his deeds had deserved him. His father stepped up for him, moved little Rickon as if he were a bale of hay in the way, and embraced him. Theon forced himself not to sigh, not close his eyes, and to return only a manly pat on his shoulder.
My return starts now, he thought, smiling. He did not allow himself to wonder what Bran and Rickon's return would be like, or what his should have been. All that mattered was the present. All that mattered was that he had deserved it.