Work Text:
The King looks at him with disgust clear in his features.
“You’re a disgrace, boy,” he spits, the iron chains rattling against his chest. The crown he wears is iron too, spiked and unadorned. An ugly thing, Theon thinks, but imposing nonetheless. He’ll wear that crown soon enough, and he’ll have to learn to bear its weight.
“Fish and clams,” snickers one of the King’s advisors, “and a trinket box lacquered in gold. The Drowned God is cruel, Your Grace, to leave you with such a son.”
Theon grinds his teeth but says nothing. They are not wrong, after all: he is the weakest of the King’s sons, and the only one left alive, at that. All his brothers were claimed by the sea, and only his sister remains, savage like the raging waves.
“Are we fishermen, boy? I told you to bring me something of worth!” The King’s voice is always cruel, always furious; Balon Greyjoy has never known peace and he has never let Theon live in peace, either. A cruel man, with a cruel mouth, and cruel hands.
“That is what the sea gave me,” Theon grinds out, he can be brave, too, like his sister, “and that is what you get, Your Grace. If you want something else, go find it yourself.”
He doesn’t have time to duck. By the time the last word leaves his mouth, his father is already crouching. The King takes the trinket box in one of his old, wrinkled hands and throws it at him with all his strength. One of the corners hits him straight on the eyebrow and he feels the skin break, the blood gush out. That will certainly leave a scar, and his eye will bruise purple, too. His mother flinches at his father’s side, her silver circlet gleaming under the candlelight, her silver hair cascading over her shoulders.
Theon touches the wound. His fingers come out wet and crimson, the blood dark and warm against his skin.
“Get him out of my sight,” the King growls. Theon isn’t keen on being manhandled by his father’s brutes, so he turns on his heels and marches out. The doors close behind his back, silencing the voices from the throne room, but he doesn’t stop, not until he’s turned the corner and no one can see him. He feels too lightheaded, the blood won’t stop running. He leans on the stone wall behind him and presses his forearm to the wound. It’s not big, it’s barely there, actually, but by the way it’s bleeding you would think he’s on the brink of death. Alas, that wouldn’t be so bad, anything is better than this cold castle, he thinks.
“Sweetling,” his mother calls. The Queen is a grey thing, from her skin to her hair to her eyes. Theon waits for her to close the door to his solar and take a seat beside him by the hearth. She is not so old, her bones still strong. Her skirts pool around her on the floor, the deep green of her dress coming alive under the flames. The dress is a gift from her husband from his last raid, five years ago, Theon remembers. Now the king is too old and sickly to go raiding anymore, and it is Theon’s job to bring treasure home.
“I liked the trinket box,” she says kindly, “I shall use it to store my jewels.”
“If I ever bring you some.”
“Your father is too cruel,” she sighs, “you are only just a boy. He didn’t think he’d have to teach you to be a man… we thought you’d have your brothers to guide you.”
Dead, one after the other. Drowned by the very sea they loved, each and every one of them returned to the shore swollen and mottled and dead. Maron had been the worst, his handsome face eaten by the beasts, his broad chest caved in on itself; a net of his own boat had caught on his feet and his own spear had pierced his throat. Theon remembers the body being washed and sewn up, his mother’s shrieks filling every room in the castle, making his ears ring. He’d been ten years old. But that was a decade ago.
“You will grow into yourself, Theon. You will become a man your father would be proud of.”
Theon smiles. His mother talks and never listens, and so he never bothers himself with an answer. What good would it do him, to remind her he is a man grown already? What good would it do him, to dwell on the thought that his father has no true heir, just a weakling son and a savage daughter?
“The sea has not been kind, is all,” he says instead. “I will sail again on the morrow,” he adds because that is what his father will ask of him. Treasure and glory and blood and steel.
“Sail north, past Cape Kraken and the Rills, past the Stony Shore. Sail further north, to the Bay of Ice and the Frozen Shore. You will find your treasure there.”
“Past Bear Island, too? The Mormonts will not let me through, you know that, Mother.”
“You will take a single ship with white sails and name yourself anew. They will let you pass.”
“Father will not consent.”
“The King will never know,” his mother bites back. “You are the only son I have left, I will not have you treated like scum. You will bring me golden scales from the tail of a young siren and the King will name you his heir.”
There is iron on his mother’s voice for the first time in years.
“I will, Mother.”
He takes a single ship as the Queen instructed, but he puts up the Kraken sails, the beast golden against the black cloth. He will not sail as an unknown fisherman but as the Crown Prince. The Queen purses her lips when she sees, but says nothing.
“You’ve got a long journey ahead of you, little brother,” his sister says, “and yet I see no whores boarding your ship. Whatever will you do when you get lonely?”
Asha’s smile is as sharp as her axe.
“Ill luck to bring a woman aboard, big sister,” Theon smirks.
His mother kisses his cheek for good luck and his sister pats him on the back, never one to show affection. He boards and off they are, northern bound. His ship is small, his crew smaller, and the cook is a nasty fellow who feeds them fish stew with charred bread every single day. Life at sea is a dull affair, but the wind tastes of freedom, salty and heavy on his tongue. The seals and the dolphins swim close to the ship, looking like they haven’t got a care in the world, and Theon wishes he could be more like them.
They pass Blazewater Bay and the Rills without a problem, but the further north they go, the worse the weather. The first storm catches them near the Stony Shore and one of the sailors —dark haired and grey-skinned and mean like a stomach ache, true iron born— falls off the boat and into the grey sea. They find him floating hours later on a wooden log, the remains of some other unlucky ship. They pull him aboard and cover him in blankets, and the sullen cook forces fish stew down his throat. He might lose his fingers, one of the sailors says, lest he gets some heat into his body, they’re looking blue.
Theon lets his man deal with the unlucky fellow and hides into his cabin to have a drink. He should have brought a woman with him, superstitions be damned.
The roaring waves sound like his dead brother’s booming laughter. Rodrik used to throw him in the air to make him squeal, back when he was a babe. He had a kind smile, despite his many scars, and hands that felt rough against his childish skin. Rodrik had taught him how to use the bow and arrow, and how to scratch the dirt from underneath his fingernails with a dagger. He’d once or twice handed him a back blow still covered in armor, too, and chipped his tooth in the process. It had been Theon’s fault, in truth, he should have known not to speak to him when he was in an ill mood. Rodrik had been quick-witted and brave, and a bit bad tempered, too, the bolder of the brothers, the King’s favorite, and the smallfolk’s, too. They had loved him, their strong prince, loud and boisterous and always ready for a fight.
They had loved Maron, too. Sullen Maron, who would throw him to the sea to teach him how to swim, back when he could barely walk. Maron, who had tended to his scraped knees himself a thousand times, and who used to call him “little squid”. Maron had been gentle when the others were cruel, and demanding when the others had thought nothing of him. Maron had believed Theon to be worth something and had pinched his thighs until they had bruised purple and Theon had no other choice but to stand up, grab his practice sword, and keep on fighting. But Maron had died, as well as Rodrik, and all he had left was Asha. His sister had been almost a woman grown when their brothers had died; it had been her who had tended to his cries when their mother fell ill with grief, and her who Balon had turned to when Theon failed to prove himself worthy.
The waves roar once more, deafening his thoughts. It does not do to dwell on memories, but life at sea leaves him with little else to do.
The Mormont fleet is not impressive, but it is enough to sink his ship. Bear Island is far enough that the thick winter fog covers its shores, but the pine trees are as tall as giants, and they break the surface with their pointy tops. The island is a bunch of rocks and trees, its inhabitants nothing more than bear cubs. Still, Theon shouts for the white flag and they raise it upwards until it flutters in the wind.
A girl, young and lanky, but still as tall as any man, welcomes him into the ship.
“What’s a Greyjoy ship doing so up north, Your Highness?” she spits, her northern accent thick and jarring.
“We mean you no harm,” Theon smiles, ignoring the bite in the way she says his title. “I would speak to your captain.”
“You will speak to me,” she says. She reminds him of his sister, with the same choppy hair and iron in their eyes. But this girl is a she-bear, and in her teeth he might as well find certain death.
“Do you speak for House Mormont?”
“I am its heir, aye.”
“Lady Mormont, I am a prince. Surely you can feed me salt and bread, and hear what I have to say?”
“You are a prince, aye, but not mine. I owe you naught, for I am pledged to the north. Still, I will not refuse you guest rights. Come, I will hear what it is you’ve got to say. Lads, watch his ship. One wrong move and you have my leave to sow the sea with their iron blood.”
The Mormont girl turns on her heels, her movements far more elegant than he would’ve thought possible for such a tall woman, and she leads the way without looking back to check if he is following. He would hate her if she weren’t so like Asha.
Her cabin is messy, but she pushes some maps aside and makes space on the table for a servant to place a tray of brown bread and salt before them. There is cheese, too, but no wine. Alas, beggar princes can hardly ask for more.
“Pardon me my lady, but I do not know your name.” Lady is hardly the word he’d use for the wench, and his curtsies feel empty on his tongue, but the woman’s got a longsword strapped to her back and a mean mouth that speaks trouble.
He bites into the bread, aware of her eyes on him.
“Dacey.”
“Say, Dacey, wouldn’t you have some wine?” he has never been good at resignation.
Dacey scowls.
“What business does a Kraken prince have up north?” she asks again.
“Your bread is far better than the charred leather my cook feeds me, I fear.”
Dacey grinds her teeth. Theon feels himself again. Every time he faces his kingly father, he loses a piece of himself, his sense of worth disappears. But annoying women… that is a talent he possesses, and he revels in it. He will not be so lucky as to bed the she-bear —and he truly wouldn’t mind, she is pretty, in a savage way—, but he can still get under her skin and push her buttons until she is wound up tight against his fingertips.
“Don’t test my patience, princeling. I do not mind getting blood on my boots.”
A fierce thing she is, he doesn’t doubt it. But Theon is a man of pleasures, and nothing seems more pleasurable to him right now than to make her lose her mind. He bites into the cheese, rolls it on his tongue, and he takes his sweet time chewing before he is forced to swallow.
“I sail further north still. I’ve got business on the Frozen Shore.”
Dacey purses her lips, “There is no business there, only certain death.”
“That is nice to hear.”
Dacey is quiet, studying his face. He knows what she sees, a handsome lad with an insolent smile, who could use a good beating. Aye, same thing as his father sees, he is sure.
“You seek the merfolk,” she says, her voice thick with something he cannot place.
“My mother sent me to fetch her siren scales in exchange for a crown.”
“Then your mother has sent you to die, and you are a fool for heeding her. Stronger men than you have tried, and they have all died.”
“I mean to live. I find I rather like the beating of my heart.”
“The old Kings of Winter used to bed them and wed them, but it’s been at least five hundred years since we had a Siren Queen. You will fail in your quest. But I will not stop you. Go north, then, you big fool. I will be sure to send your body back to your father when you wash up dead on my shores.”
He should have listened to the bear girl. The storms grow worse and they barely see the sun anymore. The sea is restless, the skies heavy with rain and thunder. He sees the first girl three days away from Bear Island. She breaks the dark blue surface of the sea and stares him dead in the eye. She’s got green hair, long and knotted like seaweed, and eyes as dark as night, bottomless and bulgy, they stare and stare and stare, deep to the roots of his soul. Her mouth curls into a cruel smile, showing a row of pointy teeth dirty with flesh and blood. The seafoam covers her body, but he can see the strange structure of her collarbone jutting out underneath her pale, grey skin.
“Steady, lads. Keep rowing, don’t pay them any mind,” he shouts over the wind picking up. He feels his heartbeat beating against his throat and tastes the fear on his tongue. What is dead may never die, but he is still alive and breathing and he would very much like to keep it that way.
The song starts sweet and gentle. He grinds his teeth and pays it no mind. The monster is hideous, and he is not about to die at the hands of an ugly girl, siren or human. The wind blows cold against his brow, freezing the sweat on his skin, carrying the song over with the force of a thousand voices. He looks at the sea, sees three other girls, grey and green and black like the first, pointy teeth hungry for human flesh. He should have stayed at Bear Island and charmed Dacey off her smallclothes, life would have been much sweeter that way.
But life is not a song, and the skies part for a second, enough for a strike of lightning to rip the air in half and hit the ship. The echo is what he hears, and then the heat is licking up his arms. The wood goes up in flames and Theon looks around, not understanding, not quite grasping what is happening. His ears are ringing; he feels his breath ragged on his chest. Through the silence of the shock, a sweet voice creeps into his brain, singing a song, and in that song, his name. A man jumps off the ship into the sea, fleeing the flames, and Theon thinks him wise. He means to do the same until he sees the hungry mouth waiting for him underneath.
He takes a step back, shakes his head to clear the fog in his brain. The ship is aflame and he is trapped, but rain hits his skin, washing him clean of fear. He is ironborn, he will be brave. Around him, he hears screams, the teeth tearing into flesh, the roaring storm shaking the sea.
He is ironborn, and so he jumps into the sea, hoping against hope the sirens eat his comrades and are too full to come for him.
Luck favors the brave, as does the Drowned God, it seems. He wakes on a frozen shore, the snow so thick and packed under his cheek that it feels like a rock. Half his body is still in the water, but he crawls with his arms until he is safe ashore. He remembers jumping into the sea and one of the creatures reaching for him immediately with pale, long arms and curled fingernails long as spears. He remembers sinking his dagger into the mottled flesh of her belly and pulling upward, upward, passed her chest and reaching to her throat. He remembers nothing else, except waking up frozen to the bones on a snowy shore.
His limbs ache with frostbite, but he forces himself to keep crawling until feeling returns to his legs and he is able to stand on all fours. Then he crawls some more, and some more, and some more. The sky is a clear blue, the air crisp against the flesh of his lungs. Around him, there is only miles and miles of snow and the weak sunrays rippling on the pure, white surface. Still, he endures, and he crawls.
The cabin appears before him like a mirage, hours after his knees have grown numb. He doesn’t care for stealth. He gathers the last of his strength and stands, just enough to run to the door and push with all his might. It is not much, but it is enough for the door to give under his weight. It wasn’t even properly locked.
The inside is as cold as the outside, but there is a cot with a pile of furs in one corner and a hearth in the middle. A chair looks over the view of a window, and the body lays frozen in a sitting position. Theon pays him no mind —dead men can’t hurt him after all— and crawls underneath the furs. He will rest for a little bit, just a little bit.
He shouldn’t have slept. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he knows he shouldn’t have slept. His brain feels even foggier than before, and his limbs, weaker. Stronger men than him have died like that, and he isn’t keen on kicking the bucket just yet.
The cabin must be sturdy enough, though, for the pile of wood in the corner is not damp at all, and he manages to start a fire, small as it may be. It is enough, and he brings his hands closer to the flames. Two of his fingers are not looking quite there, but he ignores them. He is alive.
He is restless in the cabin, and the body, like it or not, unnerves him. He can walk now, and there might be more survivors on the shore. Surely four sea creatures were not enough to slay his whole crew.
White bears and starving wolves might be creeping, though, and he takes the dead man’s dagger. He lost his own deep in the sea.
He tries to ignore the terrible thought that tells him he will not live long. It sounds suspiciously like his father.
The girl’s red hair looks like liquid fire in the middle of the snowfield. She sits on the edge of the ice with her back to him, her bottom half dipped in a pool of water surrounded by ice caps on all sides. He can still make out the golden scales that crawl up her body, so bright that they hurt his eyes. He is not sure he’s made any noise, and yet the girl turns to look at him, eyes as blue as the beaches in the Summer Isles. She smiles, her teeth perfectly normal, and jumps back into the sea. Theon thinks that is the end of things, but she emerges once again and rests her arms on the edge. Her wet hair is still the color of a flame.
“Good day, stranger,” she says, her voice sweet like honey. She is not hesitant, her voice carries no fear, which is how he knows she is a creature to be feared.
Theon knows he should stay away, stories never end well for men who let themselves be lured in by beautiful women, but he cannot help himself. He’s always known his weaknesses. He stands at the edge, looking down on her; mayhaps this way he won’t feel as scared. She is nothing like the girls who attacked his ship, but he can feel she is just as dangerous.
“Good day, my lady.”
Her golden tail splashes behind her in the water, stealing all the light from the sun. If he skinned her, he could coat his breastplate with her scales and sail to battle unmatched.
“Have you lost your way?” she asks, smiling the sweetest smile. Everything about her is sweet, her voice, her pink lips, the creamy flesh of her shoulders. She is a lovely thing, beautiful like a piece of honeydew in the middle of a desert. His throat feels parched, raw with sea water. He gathers a handful of snow to suckle.
“Aye, some girls attacked my ship and ate my crew,” he says, smirking. It is so much easier to smirk than to cry.
The girl cocks her head, displaying the beautiful arch of her delicate neck.
“They must have been delicious,” she says, licking her lips.
Theon feels the sweat freeze on his nape.
“Doubt it, they were an ugly lot. And dirty, at that.”
“What a pity. Say, stranger, would you care for a truth?”
“A truth?”
“A piece of advice, from me to you,” she says, and points at his left hand, “cut off those fingers. You are going to lose them, anyway.”
Theon flexes the hand in question, startled. He is wearing gloves.
“It is nothing,” he insists.
“Come find me when you’ve cut them off.”
She smiles one last time and dives back into the water. Her tail is the last thing to disappear under the ice.
It is not uncommon for ironborn to lose their fingers in the finger dance. Theon tells himself this is no different as he hacks both his fingers off. First the ring finger to the knuckle, then the little one. The siren was right. Could be worse, he tells himself, could have lost a hand.
He finds her in the same spot, and he knows she is waiting for him. The same sweet smile greets him, and she rests her cheek on her crossed arms. This is her home, the snow her castle; she does not feel the nipping cold as acutely as Theon, if she feels anything at all.
“Let me see,” she says, and he shows her the bloody stumps. He left the fingers at home, too squeamish to carry them with him. “Come closer,” she whines.
Theon sits by the edge, careful not to get too close, lest she gets it in her head to drown him. But the girl is not deterred and she hoists herself up, enough to reach and grab his hand. He means to fight, but she is stronger than she looks, and her grasp never wavers. She brings his hand to her mouth, licks the dry blood clean and kisses the stumps with plump, soft lips. He is distracted by the warmth of her mouth, by the soft curve of her naked breasts.
Then she sinks her teeth, quick as lightning, and Theon screams. He thrashes, trying to break free, but her teeth sink even deeper. He should have known that sirens are always starving for human flesh.
“There,” she says once she releases him, “it will heal faster now.”
She returns to the sea, only her head above water.
“Pray tell, stranger,” she says while he tries to recover his breath, “what is it you want? What are you searching for, in these frozen lands?”
Theon is still shaking when he answers, “Golden scales.”
She smiles sadly, “I cannot give you that.”
She is gone before he can say anything else.
He finds her every day in the same spot, no matter the hour or the weather.
“What do you want?” she asks him.
“Your scales.”
“I cannot give you that.”
“What of the dead man? Did he want your scales as well?”
The girl scowls and leaves without an answer.
“What is your name, wench?”
He’s been stranded for a week, now, and every day she brings him fresh fish and seaweed. There is nothing else this land can offer him.
“Sansa,” in her mouth, it sounds like a song.
“You look nothing like the seaweed girls, Sansa.”
She smiles, “My cousins. Ugly, yes. But fierce and loyal. Maneaters.”
“I noticed.”
“What do you want, stranger?”
“Theon.”
She seems startled.
“What?”
“My name is Theon Greyjoy, Prince of Pyke.”
She licks her lips.
“What do you want, Theon, Prince of Pyke?”
“Your scales.”
Her laughter is bubbly, like water from a spring, “I cannot give you that.”
“How come the cabin is always stocked with firewood?” he asks her one crisp morning.
No matter how much firewood he uses, the next day the pile is as tall as ever. Sansa shrugs her delicate shoulders.
“Magic.”
“Is it because of you?” he prods her.
Sansa shakes her head.
“That is not my type of magic,” she offers.
“What type of magic do you do, then?”
She is fascinating, every inch of skin covered in an ancient power he cannot begin to comprehend. He knows she is powerful, he feels it in the crackle of the air around her, in the warmth of her hands when she touches him.
“Warg magic,” she whispers, “I can become the wolves and the bears in the Frozen Forest, and I can see through eyes miles away from here. I’ve been a bird, flying over Winterfell, and a hungry cat hiding in King’s Landing.”
“You know the land,” he says, surprised.
“I have not always lived here, you know,” she says, haughty. She sounds like a brat most of the time. But a cute one, a lovely one.
“Where are you from, then, Sansa?”
She chews on her bottom lip.
“Winterfell. My father is Ned Stark.”
“The King?”
She nods, a blush creeping up her neck and dusting her sharp cheekbones.
“The Kings of Winter have not wed a siren in five hundred years, and Queen Catelyn is a Southron, everyone knows that. Are you a bastard princess, then?”
Sansa huffs.
“I am trueborn, and my sister Arya is, as well. We do not share our secrets with southerners, not anymore. But my grandmother was a siren, and I have siren blood in me.”
“I can tell.”
Sansa grinds her teeth. It is good to know he hasn’t lost his touch.
“You do not need to be so rude,” she says and makes to leave.
“Pardon me, princess,” he says in a rush, hiding the laughter that threatens to spill from his chest behind a wall of curtsey. It is lonely, in the snow, and she is his only friend. “Do tell me more about Winterfell, if it please you. What are you doing, so far from home?”
“My bones miss the sea something fierce whenever I spend too much time away. Winterfell is beautiful, and the springs, nice and warm, but every year I come here. The sea is my home, too, the other sirens my family.”
“This sister of yours…?”
“Arya. She is my little sister. We travel together, and soon we’ll return home together, too.”
“When do you leave?”
Sansa looks at him with sad eyes.
“What do you want, Theon?”
He hesitates for a moment.
“Your scales.”
“You know I cannot give you that.”
She had looked imposing that first day, but near a month has passed. Now he knows that from up close her eyes look gullible as a child’s, and her smiles are warm as sunshine.
“What do you want, Theon?”
He shrugs.
“My mother sent me to fetch her golden scales, so here I am.”
“Keep her waiting.”
Sansa is not at their spot. Instead, a smaller siren has taken her place. The girl is freckled where Sansa’s skin is smooth and pale, and she has grey eyes the color of a storm, and a tail to match. Her dark, knotted hair is coiled in a wet braid that cascades down her back as she waits for him.
“Disappointed?” she asks, a smirk curling her lips. Her voice is not as beautiful as Sansa’s, but it is still pleasant to the ear.
“Why should I be? You’re pretty enough.”
She dives for a second and comes back up spitting a stream of seawater back at him. Nasty creature. Even if she seems fun.
“We could eat man too… if we wanted. Did you know that?”
He doesn’t want to think about that.
“Are you Arya Stark?”
“What if I am?”
“Then I would graciously tell you to mind your own business, princess.”
“Sansa is my business. If you try to take her scales I will have your guts for supper. Did you know that the more handsome the man, the better his flesh? My cousins told me that, squid.”
She dives before he can spit at her. His saliva hits the water’s surface, and he swears he can hear her clear laugh rising from the ocean.
When he is not with Sansa, he stares across the sea, waiting for a ship to appear in the horizon. He doesn’t know what he would do, if he’d shout for help or go back to his little cabin, pretend he didn’t see. It doesn’t really matter, it is just another way to kill time. No ships ever come.
“What is Pyke like?”
“Rocks on top of rocks,” he says, chewing on some slimy seaweed that she’s brought him.
“Don’t you want to return home?” she asks him, blue eyes filling half her face.
“Can’t. I don’t have a ship, darling.”
“I could swim to Bear Island and ask them to come and save you. They are sworn to my father. And I’m sure your father would be most grateful to House Stark and House Mormont both.”
Theon chuckles.
“The Mormonts have no lost love for us Krakens. And I think my father wouldn’t mind too much if I never came back. There is no lost love between us either.”
It should hurt more than it does, but then again, he’s always known the truth.
“Still, you cannot stay in this frozen land forever,” she insists.
“It’s not so bad.”
“What do you want, Theon?” she asks again, and her voice cracks and shudders. The sunshine feels weak and cold on his skin.
“Your scales,” he says like he always does.
He expects the same answer she always gives him, but this time she leans forward and purses her lips.
“Why, if you do not want to return home?”
He doesn’t have an answer for that.
He watches her swim in her pool of freezing water. She looks like a ray of sunshine, all red and gold, and he thinks he’d like to catch her for a second if only to feel her heat against his skin. She makes swimming look so easy, so graceful. She basks in his stare, turning this way and that for him to see, arching her back just so and stretching her arms just a little bit more, until all he can see are her long limbs glistening under the sun, and all he can think about is how he hasn’t tasted a woman in a thousand years, at least.
“I wish I could swim with you right now,” he says before he realizes he is moving his lips at all.
Sansa stops and stares at him.
“You’d freeze to death,” she tells him, as if he doesn’t already know. “But there are hot springs at Winterfell,” she adds, “I’d swim with you if you came to visit.”
“Would you have a siren tail then, too?”
“Not if I don’t want to,” she says, and smiles, unsuspecting of the fire taking root in his loins.
“What about now?”
He doesn’t dare hope, but still, the fire is burning bright within him.
“I am stronger like this.”
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” he says, and it is the truth.
She arches an eyebrow.
“Men take whatever it is they so desire.”
He’s been meaning to ask her again, but he’s never quite mustered the courage.
“The dead man… what happened to him?”
Sansa clenches her jaw and asks: “What did you do with him?”
“I threw him to the sea. What was I supposed to do with a dead man? What did you do to him?”
Sansa swims back to him and rests her chin on her crossed arms. He has her figure committed to memory, he’s seen her like this so many times. He strokes her wet hair, the curve of her cheekbone, the soft skin of her neck.
“He was a foolish lordling who thought he’d take me for a wife. I don’t even know his name,” she whispers.
“What happened?” he prods. His heart beats wildly at his throat and he sinks his fingers on her shoulder, wishing he could gather her in his arms and keep her there forever.
“Nothing. I am stronger when I am like this. He grabbed me by the hair and tried to drag me to the cabin, but I am slippery as a fish and strong as a boar. I managed to free myself and leaped back into the water. That same night… That same night Arya came up to the surface, shed her tail and walked on her feet to the cabin, where she slit his throat as he slept. She said we ought to keep him there to scare the men away.”
They are both silent for a long time. The waves of the pool lap at her back and the snow doesn’t feel so hard underneath him anymore. He’s grown used to the north, to the snow, to the ice.
“If you asked, I’d get the Mormonts to come for you. I’d take you to Winterfell with me. Tell me, Theon,” she says at last, as he traces delicate patterns on the skin of her back, “what is it you truly want?”
Theon clears his throat, “You. Your scales. I don’t know.”
She kisses his knee.
“I cannot give you both.”
And she’s gone.
“Tell me, Theon, what is it you want?”
He ignores her question. He hasn’t got an answer, and he’d rather hear her voice anyway.
“What’s the sea like? Like, really like. What’s it like to go so deep any other human would split right open?”
She sighs, “Oh, it is marvelous, Theon.”
She describes it for him, and he can almost taste the freedom on the tip of his tongue. He reckons it must taste the same as her skin. Not that he’s tasted it. Yet.
The door to the cabin opens with a bang and all he sees is the axe. The steel shines whenever the light hits it, despite the thick layer of frost gathered. He goes to take his dagger, but the laughter stops him in his tracks.
“You’re alive!”
Asha throws an arm around his neck, an awkward attempt at affection, and Theon is so astounded at seeing her again that all he manages is to hug her back, both his hands clasping at her back. She smells like the sea, like storms and leather and wood.
“The bear girl said you’d sailed true north and I thought… I thought I was coming here to find your body and take it back home, so we could…” she doesn’t finish, but Theon understands.
He wishes he could offer her a cup of tea, but the only thing he has is fish stew. Asha doesn’t mind, and they eat huddled close together by the fire. His sister looks tired, thinner. He supposes she’s had a long, arduous journey.
“Did you see the girls?” he asks when he cannot stand the silence anymore.
Asha swallows, “Aye. Terrifying. They left my ship alone, though, when they saw me. Did they…”
“They ate my crew,” Theon says, “I don’t know how I managed to escape and survive.”
Asha rubs circles on his back, her nimble fingers as gentle as when he was a scared child.
“Theon,” she starts, and clears her throat before continuing, “Theon, the King is dead. Father is dead, and mother would have you return…”
He slurps on his stew. The King, his father. He is dead, and there is a crown waiting for him back home. The ironborn will not follow Asha as long as he lives, and he isn’t so sure they want to follow him, either. But the crown is his, should he want it. Asha looks at him with pleading eyes and his heart hurts for this girl, who would give up the crown she wants so much if it meant he’d come back. He loves his sister, the only good to ever come out of those islands.
“I would rather not.”
She is waiting for him, like she always is. He asked her, once, just how did she know when to come up to the surface. How did she know he’d be there. She’d smiled her sweetest smile, her most wicked one, and she’d flicked water at him before giggling. “You always are,” she’d said, simple as that. He supposes she’s right.
She lets herself float, her tail kicking the water gently from time to time in the playful manner of all sea creatures. She reminds him of a baby dolphin, sometimes, so eager to play and splash and laugh.
Her eyes follow him, her lips curling into a soft smile.
“I know what I want,” he tells her by way of greeting, and her lips form a perfect little ‘o’, pink like the bloody sky at dusk. “I want freedom. And I want you. And I want Winterfell, if it means I’ll get both.”
Tell the bear girl that the Stark princesses are ready to return home, he’d told his sister, and Asha’s frown had deepened, and to send a ship to the Frozen Shore.
He’s still standing over Sansa, his chest heaving from his trek through the snow like a madmen. More than once he’d feared for his neck, but he hadn’t been able to slow down. He’d wanted to see the look on her face when he told her, the same look she sports now, half curious cub, half elated maiden. She hoists herself up from the water, and her beautiful tail causes ripples in the water once more, shining like the sun before it disappears slowly, ever so slowly, and it turns into a pair of long, creamy legs. Sansa stands, wobbling a little bit as she tries to find her balance, and Theon can’t help but stare at her naked figure, at the way she curves and dips and glistens.
There’s a soft blush staining her cheeks when she reaches for his hand.
“I think I can give you that,” she says, and tugs him towards the cabin.