Archive of Our Own ^beta

His guilt twists inside him like a madness. It calls him to Winterfell. It calls him to leave his sister's embrace and the hope of reclaiming their home. It calls him to return, to sacrifice himself. His guilt reminds him that his life is nothing. He is nothing without his guilt. It is the cruel knife that carves him into a man who can hopefully be of use to those he has harmed. The shame is interwoven into the very fabric of him. It will never be enough. And yet, he keeps going. Trying to repair what cannot be repaired. Trying to mend what is irrevocably torn apart.

A riot of ravens circle around him as he leads his men through the gates of Winterfell. Maester Wolkan greets them. Maester Wolkan who stood by and watched as Reek was stripped naked in this very courtyard and flogged before the people of Winterfell until he lost consciousness. 

Ramsay had bits of metal and bone tied to the ends of the tips and each lash would pull some flesh away. Wolkan was always on hand for these kinds of displays, to advise Ramsay on just how much blood Reek could lose before he would be unsalvageable. Not that Ramsay always heeded the warnings. Wolkan was also there after each of his punishments, healing him just enough to ready him for more torture. 

As Wolkan leads them to The Great Hall, Theon feels hatred and loathing rising up inside of him. But then he passes the place where he'd hung the charred bodies of the murdered children for all to see. You deserved it, he thinks as he bows his head. You deserved it all.

As he waits in the Great Hall for an audience with Lady Sansa, he worries about her reaction. Will she allow him to stay? Will she accept his help? Will she look at him like everyone else does, with contempt and disgust in her eyes?

Yet when she sees him, she halts in her stride and her steely eyes soften into shimmering blue pools. He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. She looks so well, so strong, so safe. It is a transformation that makes his heart ache. He goes down on his knees, making his explanations to Queen Daenerys. He allows himself a sliver of pride for assisting his sister in her escape. And then it is time to turn and ask her.

“I want to fight for Winterfell, Lady Sansa,” his words are soft and sincere but he can’t hide the mournful flicker of fear that crosses his face at the thought that she may reject his offer. She would be completely within her rights to deny him, after all that he has done- and after how many times he failed her personally. He takes a steadying breath and adds, “If you’ll have me.” 

She doesn’t say a word, but tears slip down her face as she swiftly crosses the space between them and takes him in her arms in front of everyone. He breathes in her sweet scent and drifts back to the day they parted in the icy wood. She put her arms around him then too. He was too ashamed and wretched to return her embrace back then. But now, he allows himself to slowly reach out and pull her as close to his body as their mutual armour will allow. He buries his face into her shoulder and closes his eyes. 

He has been relentlessly running, fighting, failing, enduring… Now, with his face pressed against her shoulder he can rest for a moment. He can exhale.

And it is enough. More than enough.

It doesn’t last. 

“Bran is here,” she says to him.

He freezes in her arms. 

“He wishes you no ill,” she assures him. “In fact, you will find him much… altered.”

He does not see Bran right away, but he thinks of him. He thinks of him as he helps where he can. He cannot repair the damage he’s done, but he can still be of use. No. He needs to be of use. He needs to find some way to focus, to escape the constant parade of gruesome ghosts and memories that seem to slither through the crevices of his mind at every opportunity. To crowd out the jeers and whispers of Turncloak, and Traitor, the spit at his back. Sometimes he is even greeted with that dreaded name... Reek. He endures it. What else can he do? He has earned these names and more. He is surprised the people of Winterfell do not level more abuse at him.

Jon asks him to help with the training in the practice yard. And so he teaches the crossbow to men, women, children, farmers, and winter town brothel girls. They suffer his assistance and as he helps them, he thinks of Bran. He thinks of Bran as he helps a young woman load a crossbow. He thinks of Bran as he helps a lad with raven black curls master the long bow. 

He thinks of Bran trying to hide his tears after Arya embarrassed him in front of Lord Stark with her superior archery skills. He remembers Bran’s little fists rubbing fiercely at his eyes as if that would still the traitorous tears. 

“Sisters are like that,” Theon told him gruffly as he shrugged. But when that kind of bucking up didn't help the boy, he grabbed one of Bran’s wayward arrows and pretended to be The Woeful Knight tilting at watermills until Bran fell back, laughing through his tears at the jape.  

The Woeful Knight. Theon had almost forgotten. He was a sort of comedic folk hero in Old Nan’s tales. Meant to be mocked and laughed at, yet Bran loved him all the same. Sansa as well. Sansa, in particular, use to love to sing The Woeful Knight’s song with a sincerity and sweetness that completely missed the original cynicism of the tale of a poor, old, ragged man who went mad with grief after the death of his family and believed himself to be a true knight of the seven kingdoms. He wasn’t, of course, and his attempts to sally forth into the world righting all wrongs caused more damage and destruction than anything else. In one of the most infamous tales, he nearly drowned himself trying to battle a water mill he mistook for a giant. If the Woeful Knight was a cautionary figure to be mocked and ridiculed, then the point seemed to have completely escaped both Sansa and Bran.

“The Woeful Knight doesn’t even know who he is, Bran, he doesn’t remember his name,” Theon would point out. “Even Hodor knows his own name.”

“He’s a hero,” Bran would respond simply, as if that explained everything, and would carry on reading his tales of bravery and righting unrightable wrongs, against all odds.

Bran always dreamed of Knighthood, long after that dream became impossible.

Theon turns from his memories before another one can invade his mind. A memory of Bran crying, pleading, and screaming in this very courtyard as Theon hacked off the head of a true knight with the skill of an untrained butcher.

“Relax your bow arm, Satin,” he instructs, as he returns his thoughts to the task at hand. 

Reek is so cold. So very cold. It is a coldness that settles deep inside his bones and won’t let him rest. He reaches out for the hounds, for some kind of warmth and finds Hellicent. She smells of blood and she is so still. He knows she is dead, so she won’t mind if he uses her body for warmth. He takes a knife and hacks through her body trying to create a shelter for himself against the relentless bite of the cold. He nestles deeper and deeper inside of her, wriggling his body through blood, sinew, and bone. Yet the further he burrows, the more she opens up until he is walking through a frost tunnel and there is no warmth or rest to be found. 

He walks through the tunnel of snow and ice and into the middle of a forest. He sees a gigantic, gruesome heart tree towering above him. Bran stands in front of the tree, his arms outstretched- a sweep of black feathery wings. He trembles as something compels him to walk forward. As he gets closer, he realizes that Bran is not Bran at all, but Ramsay. He freezes. But Ramsay’s blue eyes are no longer pale, like ice chips that threaten to flay him apart. No, they are a different kind of blue… glowing, unearthly, like cold, blue flames… He can’t bear to look Ramsay in the face anymore. But as he drops his gaze, his vision falls upon the two farm boys he killed, standing next to Ramsay, looking up at him with their tiny, gaunt faces. 

No…. Please…no….

When he looks back at Ramsay’s face, his mouth gapes open in horror. Now, it is no longer Ramsay standing before him. It is his younger self, smiling in that cruel way he use to. It’s only a game. 

The boys begin to walk toward him.

“Put him back where he belongs,” Theon Greyjoy commands them. And the boys sink their wolf teeth into Reek, tearing him to shreds. 

“Lord Greyjoy?”

He peers through the darkness and recognizes the looming form of Maester Wolkan. He shrinks back, too paralyzed to scream. His lips tremble and his limbs become painfully rigid.

Please… no….

Wolkan will hurt him. As horrible as Ramsay’s punishments are, Wolkan’s ministrations are worse. Wolkan keeps him alive. Keeps him living another day to be retied to the sartre. Another day for Reek to nearly bite his tongue off with his shattered teeth as he tries desperately not to scream “Please!" Another day of feeling his skin being brutally separated from his muscles in a long trail of bleeding agony. Another day being willing to do anything- any sordid, debased, and hideous thing- to make it stop. 

Maester Wolkan reaches out to touch his leg and he scrambles back. “Don’t touch me!” He cries out with a forcefulness that surprises him.

“You were having a nightmare. Lord Bran sent me,” the old man reassures him. At those words, Theon freezes with a different sort of fear. But as his eyes continue to adjust, he sees that they are in one of the larger chambers of Winterfell. The fire is still smoldering and his men are spread out around him on their pallets. He notices Soren, one of the young Ironborn volunteers looking at him concerned. But at Wolkan’s nod, Soren immediately lowers his eyes and turns on his back. Theon swallows, his fear dissolving into deep shame.

“Do you know where you are, Lord Greyjoy?”

Lord Greyjoy. He has never heard Wolkan refer to him like that. He hears a high pitched giggling and wonders if it is Soren. It takes him a moment to realize that it is he, himself, who is laughing. He presses his lips together in an attempt to silence himself.

“Lord Bran wishes me to give you dreamwine to help you sleep…”

Theon recognizes that Wolkan is saying something to him, but his words have no sense. 

“Bran?” He manages to ask.

“For the nightmares, My Lord,” Maester Wolkan continues.

Theon feels the heat rise to his face and a leaden feeling begin to take hold in his gut. 

“I didn’t mean to wake anyone,” he says, trying to keep Reek's pleading tone out of his voice. The tone that begs not to be hurt, not to be punished. But no, Bran is not like that. Bran would not do that. He is not a monster like Ramsay. He is not a monster like him.  

“He would also like me to bring you to a separate chambers, my Lord.”

“No… there’s no.. need,” Theon begins, uncertainly. “Lady Sansa already offered me a room, but I should be with my men.” He didn’t need special treatment. He didn’t want special treatment.

“Please, Lord Greyjoy, this will be best for everyone.” Theon risks a glance back to his men and sees that more of them are stirring. They need as much sleep as they can get before the coming battle. He is only disturbing them by staying here. He nods and gathers his things, following Maester Wolkan out of the chambers.  

As he follows the maester through the shadowy halls of Winterfell, fear twists through his chest. This is a trap! A Trap! What if Bran wants him to be taken to the dungeons or strung up for more torture? What if Bran wants to make an example of him? No… if anything, Bran is like his father and Robb. He will have him executed swiftly. Perhaps Arya will do it? With the little sword Jon had Mikken forge for her. Mikken, who he had put to death before him. She couldn’t take his head with it, but she could slit his throat. She could stab him through his rotten heart. He should have known that he would not be permitted to die with honor. There was no shred of honor left in him. 

As Maester Wolkan leads him to a small servant’s chamber, he steels himself, anticipating that he will find his death on the other side of the door. But there is no one there. His heart clenches painfully and tears of relief spring into his eyes. He will not die tonight, dishonored and forgotten, so he is not sure why he is crying. He wishes Wolkan would just leave, but he can’t quite work out how to ask him to do this. 

“Apologies for the smallness of the room, my lord, but the larger chambers are being used for the soldiers and people still coming from the villages.” 

“Of course…” he says at a loss as to why Bran and Maester Wolkan were being so considerate to him at all. And still not quite able to shake the feeling that this was all just to give him some small reprieve before being punished again.

"The dreamwine is just there, Lord Greyjoy,” he indicates the small side table next to the narrow bed. 

“Theon,” Theon says, through clenched teeth.

“My Lord?”

“It’s… it’s just Theon. Call me Theon. Please.”

“Theon…” he says and hesitates long enough for Theon to turn to him, wondering why he won’t just leave.

“We may all die soon, Lord Theon. I would have your forgiveness.”

Theon’s mind turns in on itself. The idea of someone asking his forgiveness seems ludicrous. He can only stare at him, stupidly, like Reek. 

“I could have put you out of your misery… countless times,” Wolkan continues. “Any maester knows the common poisons, of course, which I could have administered at any time. You would have died in agony, but there would at least have been an end to your pain. I could also have given you an overdose of sweet sleep that would have given you a quick and painless death. But I did not because… because…”

Theon knew why. Of course he knew why. It is the same reason he stood by and wordlessly watched Ramsay commit atrocity after atrocity, the girls he hunted, Kyra and Tansy ripped to shreds by the jaws of the hounds. He could smell their blood on their mouths for days afterwards. The old woman that was flayed to death-flayed to death- because he lacked the courage to light a candle for Sansa… Sansa… he closes his eyes. 

“Lord Theon?”

“Just Theon, Maester Wolkan, please,” he manages to get out. He sighs heavily. “I am not fit to give anyone else forgiveness after the things I’ve done.” 

Maester Wolkan bows his head. “Still, I should have helped you and I did not.”

“You helped me to live,” Theon tells him, “and I am grateful. I wasn’t before, but I am now.” As soon as the words leave his lips, he realizes the truth of them. He is happy to be alive. He is happy to be relatively safe. To not be tortured. To feel Yara and Sansa’s arms around him. To loose a bow again. To be able to eat soup and stews without pain. To be given the opportunity to work his way toward a shred of hope. 

Wolkan nods his head. “Goodnight, Theon. And good luck in the coming battle,” Maester Wolkan says before shuffling out of the room and closing it behind him. 

After Maester Wolkan leaves, the small chamber feels a little like a prison cell and he feels his isolation keenly. He sighs. He told Maester Wolkan he was grateful for this life and he is. But he can still smell it, the burnt flesh of the boys’ corpses, the blood on his hands. He needs to dedicate his life to something worthy. He needs to make his life be of some use. Otherwise it is not enough.

He doesn’t take the dreamwine. It’s stronger than normal drink and he wouldn’t want to lose complete control of his faculties- not even for a good night sleep. He sits on the bed hesitantly. It is impossibly soft. He allows himself to sink into it and curls into himself. The tears come, sliding silently down his face as his body convulses. These small kindnesses are more alarming than outright hatred and contempt and he is still getting use to how to react to them.

So Bran wants him to be comfortable. Why? He still has not seen him or spoken to him. Theon didn’t want to get in his way or bother him with memories, with his own guilt. Especially when everyone had much more important things to worry about. 

Or perhaps you do not want to see him, a traitorous voice whispers. Perhaps you are just a coward.

And yet Bran spared a thought for him. But how did he even know? Was his nightmare loud enough to wake Bran? Not likely. Or is it because Bran is now “The Raven?”

He shivers and curls further into himself as memories lash at him. This isn’t the first time that Bran has caught him in a nightmare. Often growing up at Winterfell, he still had nightmares of the fall of Pyke. When he was fifteen and Bran was nine, he had awakened to see Bran at the edge of his bed. It took him a few moments to swim into consciousness, for the fiery blaze of Robert Baratheon’s torches to fade and for Bran’s sweet childish voice to be heard over the thunder of the collapsing south tower of Pyke during Robert's breach of the castle.

He remembers looking into Bran’s concerned little face and realizing with growing embarrassment that his own face was wet with tears. It made him feel shameful. He was older than Bran. A man grown. Far too old to still be having nightmares about events that happened years ago.

He remembers clearly the harsh bite of his words. “Why are you in my room?” He demanded, trying to sound cold and superior and not succeeding in the slightest. 

And then Bran, that honorable little brat, looked at him with the saddest eyes and said, “It’s only… that I’m a little frightened, Theon, I had a nightmare,” and he scrambled up into bed next to him, “Can I sleep here tonight?” He asked as he nestled up beside him. 

The thought that Bran lied to spare him embarrassment comforts and shames him all these years later. He curls up more tightly and finally falls into a restless sleep.

The next day, the preparations throughout Winterfell are more harried as the men from the Night’s Watch arrive. The Army of the Dead will be here soon. It seems surreal. The Army of the Dead.

“Our enemy doesn’t tire. Doesn’t stop. Doesn’t feel. We can’t beat them in a straight fight.” 

Theon stands at attention in the Winterfell library, trying to focus on Jon’s plans, but all he can do is watch Bran. It is the first time he has seen him since he arrived. 

Bran sits still and undisturbed in a chair with wheels. Too still. It is disquieting. Even after the fall, Bran never completely stopped moving. He always seemed like a dancing fire ball of energy, despite having no control of his legs. Now he was as still and impenetrable as ice. Theon searches Bran’s blank face for any hint of the little boy who begged him not to take Ser Rodrik’s head. 

Bran’s face in that moment still haunts him. The way his lips trembled uncontrollably, tears streaming down his face. His voice breaking as he pleaded with him, so filled with desperation and fear. 

Please, Theon! Please! I’m begging you!  You said no harm will come! You said no harm will come! I’ll do anything please! 

Yet now Bran’s face could be carved from stone for all the emotion it betrays. Something happened to him out there in the northern wilderness. Something changed him irrevocably. My fault. 

Please, Theon! Please!

Say please again and you’ll wish you hadn’t

Ramsay’s voice now crowds his mind. Ramsay was Theon’s monster. Was he Bran’s?

“The Night King made the wights. They all follow his command,” Jon’s voice continues. “If he falls- getting to him may be our best chance. 

And then suddenly Bran speaks. His voice doesn’t sound like Bran at all. It is otherworldly and eerie. Theon shivers. Is this his fault as well? But of course it is. His actions have caused Bran to become unrecognizable. Just like…

But this is mercy. I’m not killing you. Just making a few alterations…

“He’ll come for me,” he says in a distant monotone that makes the hair on the back of Theon’s neck rise. “He’s tried before, many times, with many Three-Eyed Ravens.”

“Why? What does he want?” It is Jon’s friend who is speaking now. Tarley.

“An endless night,” Bran says. “He wants to erase this world, and I am its memory.”

What? Theon tries to make sense of it all.

“That’s what death is, isn’t it?” muses Tarly, “Forgetting. Being forgotten. If we forget where we’ve been and what we’ve done, we’re not men anymore. Just animals…

He had to remember. He had to remember his name.

“How will he find you?” Lord Tyrion asks, turning the discussion back to the practical.

“His mark is on me,” Bran answers as he pulls back the sleeve of his right arm. The mark is in the shape of a hand, ghastly and red.

The brand sears into his flesh, marking him as the masters. Reek screams. Reek, Reek, it rhymes with shriek...

“He always knows where I am.”

There is no escape.

Jon’s determined voice interrupts his memories. “We’ll put you in the crypt, where it’s safest.”

“No,” Bran says, “We need to lure him into the open before his army destroys us all. I’ll wait for him in the Godswood.”

...and for one strange moment it seemed as if it were Bran’s face carved into the pale trunk of the weirwood, staring down at him with eyes red and wise and sad…

Theon inhales sharply. The Karstark girl gives him a look. 

“You want us to use you as bait?” Sansa asks, incredulous. 

Stay here. I’ll lure them away. 

Sansa’s voice is sharp. Theon knows what she is thinking. She doesn’t want to lose another member of her family. His throat tightens.

“We are not leaving you alone out there,” Arya agrees. 

He looks down at the map. This is it. This is his purpose.

“He won’t be alone,” he says with force. “I’ll stay with him. With the Ironborn.”

He feels Bran’s eyes on him and summons the courage to meet his gaze. He expects to be seared under his scrutiny. To be found repulsive and utterly wanting. To be rejected. But Bran simply stares at him, his face completely unreadable. 

“I took this castle from you. Let me defend you now.”

He is asking the impossible. To right the unrightable wrong. He is as foolish and broken as the Woeful Knight.

Bran nods. Theon nods back. It is done. 

“Greyjoy.” 

Theon’s heart plunges to his feet as Tyrion Lannister takes a swig from his flask and sits down beside him. He has been threading feathers onto the newly made dragon glass arrows from Gendry. He has to be of use wherever he can, wherever possible. He uses every waking moment to prepare. And fletching the arrows is not too hard with his remaining fingers. He has removed his gloves to work on them, however, and he is all too aware of Tyrion staring. After all this time together, Tyrion’s pitying looks rankle him almost more than his outright contempt. But he merely nods at him.

“My Lord Hand.”

“Isn’t it wonderful, here we are together, ready to die with our former enemies… at Winterfell” his voice drops bitterly on the last word and he takes another sip from his flask.

A noise escapes Theon. It sounds like a laugh that died on the way out of his throat. Theon has worried about dying at Winterfell his whole life. It is not a new fear for him.

“I just had the most interesting discussion with the young Stark boy…” Tyrion continues. "It looked as though he had forgiven you in there.” 

Theon thinks of Bran. What he saw in the depth of his eyes was not contempt or hatred. But it was not forgiveness either. It was... hollowness… emptiness. He shivers.  

“No. He hasn’t. But I do not seek it,” Theon remarks quietly as he continues his work, his fingers stuttering a little. He has been through these tense conversations before and all he wants is for this one to end so that he can fletch as many arrows as possible before he loses the light. 

“No?” Tyrion asks, observing him critically as he takes another sip. Drowned fuck the man is relentless. Aren't these needling confrontations getting repetitive? He wants to ask him. but instead he finds himself answering his questions.  

“I can never be forgiven for the things I’ve done. I don’t want to be forgiven for the things I’ve done.”

“Then why volunteer for such a dangerous mission?” Tyrion asks.

Theon stops weaving the thread through the grey goose feathers for a long moment. When he finally speaks, he chooses his words carefully. He always chooses his words carefully now. A skill he learned under the flaying knife.

“I always wanted to do what was right but I never knew what that was. So when I feel something is right now, I do it. And protecting Bran… It is the right thing to do.” It is what Robb would want. He adds in his head. But he doesn’t say it. He doesn’t owe Lannister that conversation.

“Well, at least he’s allowing your protection. You, Bran, and Jon. If our battle plans fail, you three may be the only thing that stands between humanity and annihilation.”

What miserable odds Theon thinks.

“It must be nice, for others to put that kind of faith in you.” Lannister’s tone is bitter. Theon supposes that makes sense. He remembers the look of humiliation on Tyrion’s face when Queen Daenerys insisted he remain in the crypts. Yet Theon does not completely understand why Bran put his faith in him. He can see this is equally baffling to the Lord Hand. It is an odd feeling, having Tyrion Lannister feel envious of him. Having anyone feel envious of him.

“Still, it is interesting. To allow someone like you to undertake such a dangerous mission after the… complications you recently had with your uncle.”

It is a sickening shame that washes over him now. Like a monstrous wave he cannot hope to run from. It is so hard to explain what came over him that night. He was fighting with Yara, but when Euron had the axe to her throat... He didn’t want to make the wrong move. He couldn’t watch as the blade sliced her neck. One wrong decision and it would have been over for her.

You don’t have the right! Robb’s voice rang through his mind. 

He looked down. And that was his mistake. All around him there were men getting their tongues hacked out, men being mutilated… He couldn’t go back to that! He wouldn’t go back to that! And then he looked back at Yara and locked eyes with his uncle. Blue eyes, blue eyes filled with malice and death… 

It is hard to explain how he froze. How he couldn’t move. How this utter meekness overtook him. His head was full of snow, his body didn’t feel like it was his own. He doesn’t even completely remember dropping his sword or jumping from the boat. But he does remember the look on his sister’s face. It will haunt him for the rest of his life, however long that may be now. 

“I don’t mean to offend you…” Tyrion continues, raising his hand as if that could ward off all potential offense. And Theon realizes he has been quiet for far too long, lost in his memories.

“It’s no wonder after the things you’ve gone through and seen. I can’t even imagine… And I’m sure those burning ships were not as pretty as you may have imagined them as a boy.” 

Drowned fuck. How does Tyrion recall, with such annoying detail, every misguided word he ever said to him? Tyrion doesn’t commend him for saving Yara. Why should he? It was his actions that put her in the clutches of his uncle in the first place. Nor does he tell him that there was no good decision he could have made in that moment. Why should he say that? Theon was a coward to leave her. Everyone knows. Everyone agrees. It is a complete mystery why Bran has allowed him to protect him at all.

“Well, Bran Stark likely has his reasons.” Tyrion says and Theon realizes with crushing embarrassment that he must have said those last thoughts out loud. “He has his own set of intricate plans that he doesn’t share with any of us. Especially those of us who have been banished to the crypts.” He says taking another long drink from his flask. 

“You’ll be in the crypts though,” Theon says, happy to change the subject. “You’ll be with Lady Sansa. You must protect her, keep her safe,” he tells him, and it sounds more like an order than a plea. Or perhaps even a threat.

“And has Lady Sansa forgiven you? For betraying her family?” 

“That is the least she has to forgive me for,” Theon says, trying to continue his work, but his hands have stilled as if frozen and he can’t seem to move them. Why can’t he just leave this be?

“Yes, I’ve heard the rumors,” Tyrion says, leading him. Theon doesn’t want to have this conversation. Not with so little time left. Not with Lannister. And yet, he can hear the pain underneath his carefully flippant voice. He cares for Sansa. 

“The truth is likely worst than what you heard,” he tells him.

“But you saved her,” Tyrion presses, grasping at hope, clearly disturbed by Theon’s acknowledgement. 

“Or she saved me,” Theon says, more to himself than Tyrion. 

“Still, you got her to safety. Not everyone was able to do that.” And does Theon detect a certain bitterness in Tyrion's voice? Jealousy perhaps?

Theon puts down his work and looks Tyrion straight in the eye. 

“I stood by and watched while he brutalized her. And I did nothing.” 

He’s grown accustomed to listing his crimes in front of others. He would like to believe it’s because he is taking responsibility, but a little voice inside his head knows differently. A voice that sounds like Reek. Good. If you act like a beat dog already, they won’t get any joy in beating us more. We’ll survive.

He watches Tyrion, sees his jaw tighten and his hand clench around the flask. And the disgust. The utter disgust on his face… and yet, he doesn’t have a cutting remark this time. Reek is right. A beat dog is no fun to kick. 

“But why didn’t you help her?” And when he says it, it almost sounds like a plea.

Why didn’t you, Lannister? Why didn’t you smuggle her out of Kings Landing when you had the chance? Theon would like to ask him that. He doesn’t though. 

“Ramsay… broke me.” He says instead. He offers no more words of explanation. No one understands that being broken is not something that made him better. They see him now, humbled and remorseful, and they think that is the result of being broken. But it isn't true. Submission cuts both ways. Ramsay’s torture only made him worse. Made him an accomplice to his evil. Made him even more of a monster than he was before. When he saw Sansa being brutalized and raped, the part of him that was Reek was grateful. Grateful that he was not flaying her as well. Grateful he was not mutilating her… Even though that makes no sense. 

Do what he says, do what he says or he’ll hurt you.

He already hurts me every night.

A part of him knew, always knew, that he was harming her irrevocably. That all of it was horrific and it does no good to quantify brutality. But he genuinely believed he was protecting her from more pain and torture. He was always so afraid to make it worse. And it paralyzed him. Froze him. And he stood and watched the horrors unfold before him, thinking he was powerless to stop it. And because he was so convinced it could be worse, that is exactly what it became, until he finally realized she was in danger of being turned into him, into Reek. He knew he deserved to be Reek, but she did not. Only then did he do anything to help her. Only then. 

The shame is suffocating.

Tyrion stares at him as though he is peering into a mirror and he doesn’t like what he sees. 

“It might surprise you to know that I’ve been in that situation before. When I was very young,” Tyrion says. “I could have helped someone but I didn’t. I could have refused to participate in… brutality… but I didn’t. Perhaps we shouldn’t judge our choices so harshly, when our choices are compromised by powerful,” he pauses, “by evil men.”

No, we should judge our choices harshly, Theon thinks, because our choices create a world. He knows his choices have. His choices have created a world where there was nothing but pain piled upon relentless pain. 

But instead he merely says, “I consider it one of my worst crimes.”

There is a long silence and then Tyrion offers him the flask. Theon shakes his head. So Tyrion raises the flask above his head instead, as if he is giving a toast. 

“To the cripples, bastards, and broken things. May you save us all.”

He continues fletching arrows until what is left of his fingers have gone completely numb and he is losing the light. People are beginning to light torches and lanterns. The cooks are bringing out kettles of steaming hot soup for the soldiers and peasants who have traveled from the countryside for shelter. It is almost time, he thinks and his heart sinks with dread. There are so many things that he has not done and may never get the chance to do again.

He hasn’t seen Sansa since he pledged himself to her. She is terribly busy, making sure everyone is armoured and fed, meeting with the lords, making preparations. There is no reason for her to meet with someone as unimportant as him. 

He has not spoken with Jon or Arya either. For all Jon’s talk of being a Greyjoy and a Stark, the Stark family wants nothing to do with him on what may be the last night of the world. And why would they? They have been kind to him. More kind than they ever needed to be, allowing him to fight by their side.

He does not visit Robb’s grave. He won’t either. The fact that he would not be welcome there goes without saying. But he also does not feel like he can look up into the carved face of that sculpture made of stone. He apologizes every night in his dreams to Robb’s piercing blue eyes, more searing than any flaying knife. He will not apologize to the empty eyes of a statue. It would be like apologizing to Bran’s stony countenance. 

Bran… Did he make Bran the way he is? Is Bran trapped inside the Three Eyed Raven the way he was trapped inside of Reek?

He looks out into the courtyard and instead of the usual gruesome visions and tortured memories, he is greeted by happier ghosts. The seven of them in a massive snowball fight. Summer snow was the prettiest. Blue summer skies above, snow on the ground, and smiles on every face.

“Have you eaten?”

He looks up and sees Sansa standing before him. His breath catches. Her hair is the brightest thing in this bleak castle and her eyes are blue as the promise of spring. 

He rises immediately, almost upsetting the bucket of arrows.

“I have not, Lady Sansa.”

He could just as easily say "my lady" but he loves to form her name with his lips. Sansa. Each time he does, it is further proof that she is real. She is her. She is safe and strong and beautiful, commanding such respect and love. His heart swells with something akin to pride- but not quite pride. Pride would mean that he has something to do with it. He has nothing to do with it.

“Will you sup with me?”

He knows he should decline. She likely has much to do, much to organize. And... she should spend these last hours with her loved ones, with her family. But try as he might he cannot bring himself to deny her company or even bring up the fact that there is more worthy company for her to keep. He lets himself have this.

“Thank you, Lady Sansa. I would like that.” He says it almost timidly. Had he really ever been the arrogant youth that would have maids panting up against these very courtyard walls? Had anyone ever truly desired his touch?

She smiles and it is as if the darkening courtyard is suddenly alight with dozens of candles. 

Supper is a hot and delicious soup that is easy on his teeth. She pours a little of hers into his bowl. “For strength,” she says. He isn’t sure what he ever did to deserve the concern she gives him, but he basks in it like it is the sun on this dark, cold night.

Theon tries to hang onto every minute of this, all too aware as each moment between them evaporates. Tonight, every moment is a gift. A gift he doesn’t deserve, he knows that. But for the first time in a long time, he allows himself the sweet comfort of it without fear or self reproach. Well, almost without self reproach. The guilt is always there, lurking beneath his skin. Ramsay found it, slid his knife underneath and exposed it, and now he wears the truth of his shame on his body. Each scar and marking, a reminder of what a repulsive creature he is. But at least both he and Sansa have their armour on tonight. 

Sansa does not urge him to change his mind about protecting Bran. She does not tell him not to sacrifice himself. Why would she? He owes a grave debt after all. Not just to the Starks, but to the world. They do not talk of the past. Not tonight. It is almost as if they know that if they do, it will shatter this fragile moment of peace and solace between them. 

Some lad is singing Jenny of Oldstones. It echos into the courtyard from the Great Hall. Theon and Sansa eat in companionable silence as they listen to the plaintive strains of the song. He drinks her in with his eyes as he eats his soup. At one point she lifts her head, a soft look in her usually steely eyes. In this light they could almost be smiling. In this light, they could almost be lovers. There is a ghost of a smile dancing across her lips and the sight of it makes his rotten heart break. She looks as though she is about to say something to him and he lowers his eyes, not knowing if it will be words of kindness or admonishment and not knowing which he fears most. 

And then the horn sounds. 

Any words they might have said freeze in their throats as the entire courtyard is gripped with cold and chaos. The dead are close he thinks with surprising despair. People are beginning to panic, grabbing their weapons and finishing their supper, refastening their armour with trembling fingers.

There is time for naught but a quick goodbye. 

“Protect my brother,” she tells him.

Aye, he will. 

He takes one last moment to look at her. For a moment it feels as if they are still in the frost filled woods, clinging to each other for warmth. 

I won’t survive without you

You will.

She may be the last beautiful sight he sees in this world and he never wants to leave. He wishes… so many things. So many things that can never be. He wishes he could embrace her one last time. 

He doesn’t. 

Neither does she. 

He is eerily calm as he wheels Bran out to the Godswood. His body is determined, but his eyes are more vacant than Bran’s.

Theon has been practicing for death since he was ten. Ever since he first watched Eddard Stark’s great longsword come down on a condemned man. As a child he always wondered why the men knelt so peacefully before the sword, waiting meekly for their death. 

On the Iron Islands, when a condemned person is drowned, they struggle. It is part of the execution. The condemned are chained to large spikes and wait for the tide the rise so that they have to watch as death comes for them. But they are chained. They have no option but to wait bravely. And when the water does come, they all fight it, though it be futile. They are warriors in death. It is unnatural not to fight. When he asked Robb about the Greenlander executions, he learned that the condemned men waited for death because of honor and because the northerners believed that to fight the sentence would be cowardly. 

And now it has come. Death has come to Winterfell, but not at all in the way he once thought it would. And it has come for everyone, not just for him. 

A great gust of wind surges through the Godswood, a deep, bone numbing cold settling around them. He stands at the ready with his men. They form a circle of protection around Bran. The wind is blowing harder now and snow begins to fall. Snow or ash? He looks above him and sees the shape of one of the dragons in the vast, black sky. He can hear the deafening sounds of screams and bodies being ripped and torn apart by the dead as they swarm the living.

They come closer and closer. Theon swallows. Suddenly he sees a burst of light and flames in the distance. Daenerys and Jon must have found their target and lit the trenches. 

“They lit the trench,” he says. 

He turns to Bran. He is sitting in his chair beneath the heart tree, completely and utterly unperturbed about the massive death and destruction going on just beyond their small haven in the Godswood. Could this really be the same boy that wailed and cried over Ser Rodrik’s execution? Over one dead man? That Bran’s cries will echo in Theon’s mind forever. But this Bran who sits before him now, is ghostly still. Theon wants to talk to him. To reach out. To somehow apologize. It is now or never. 

He moves to walk up to him. His bad foot drags a little but then rights itself.

“Bran.”

Bran turns to him. His face calm and impassive as ice. 

“I just want you to know…” Theon begins and then halts. No that wasn’t it. He wants to reach him. The way Sansa did for him. Perhaps he could remind him who he was before it was too late. Could he remind Bran of who he was? Could he remind him of the little boy that loved riding and reading stories of the Woeful Knight? The little boy who was brash and laughing and loved to climb? 

He begins again, “The things I did…” 

“Everything you did brought you here. Where you belong. Home.”

Home? 

Theon has always wanted to hear someone tell him that. Winterfell is not his home, of course. It never was. Not when he was a child hostage and not when he tried to make it his home by force. But Winterfell is the closest thing to a home he’s ever had. And he wants it to be his home. He still does. Even now. Even after everything that happened here. Sick, sick, he is sick. And he has wanted to hear someone say it was his home, for so long. He wanted Robb to say it, or Ned. And now he is finally hearing those words, on what might be the last night of his life- of all of their lives- when he least deserves to hear it.

So why does it feel so hollow? Just a hollow ache where relief or happiness should be.

“I’m going to go now,” Bran intones.

What?

“Go where?” Theon asks. But Bran merely looks up until all Theon can see are the whites of his eyes. And then he is gone. His body is there, but Bran is no longer with them. They are alone.

Theon takes a jagged breath as the dead begin closing in on them. There are the disquieting sounds of shrieks and screams in the distance and the unmistakable stench of blood. And then the dead are charging toward them, a horrific wave of cresting corpses. 

What is dead my never die, he thinks. But kill the bastards anyway, his sister’s voice, finishing the oath in his mind.

He dips his first arrow into the fire. They will use their regular arrows first, dipping them into the fires in order to burn the wights. The dragon glass arrows for the white walkers were at the ready in the bucket next to his foot.

“Here they come!” He shouts, “Steady lads, steady now,” he draws the arrow. “Make every shot count.”

As he looses his first arrow, the Night King’s dragon flies above, breathing blue flame which decimates the walls and stones of Winterfell worst than any destruction Theon or Ramsay ever wrought.

Theon looses arrow after flaming arrow. Nock, draw loose. Nock, draw, loose. Like a dance, over and over, his arrows fly into the masses of dead. He draws an arrow for Bran. He draws an arrow for Sansa. He draws an arrow for Jon. He draws an arrow for Arya. He draws an arrow for Yara.

Kill the bastards anyway. 

Arrow after arrow he draws and looses as his men fall in heaps around him. Soon he is out of the regular arrows. He moves on to his bucket of dragon glass arrow, but the dead just keep coming like a relentless tide. Sucking out and then crashing back upon them, a giant sea of muscle, an ocean of animated bones, unable to be vanquished. The snow has picked up and is swirling viciously. Yet he keeps nocking and drawing. Nock, draw, loose. Nock, draw, loose. Loose, loose, it rhymes with Roose. NO NO. Just focus, focus. 

Kill the bastards anyway. He hears his sister’s voice in his head, as if she were standing tall by his side. 

Kill the bastards anyway. 

Kill the bastards anyway. 

Kill the bastards anyway.

And the dead keep coming, always more and more, unrelenting. They remind him of being ripped apart and pounded by the fists of the sea. When he was quite young, Rodrik and Maron flung him into a huge wave while they were swimming and the current sucked him out. It was mind numbing. The terror. The certainty of death. He battled the current, throwing his tiny body into the war of water as hard as he could, but he couldn’t move. The rip paralyzed him. The sea is relentless. A cold, monstrous thing, just like the army of the dead. And fighting them has left him just as paralyzed under the pressure of their onslaught. 

But I survived then, I can survive now, he thinks. They are deadman. Well, what is a deadman against a drowned man? 

What is dead may never die.

But kill the bastards anyway.

He looks down and sees that his last arrow is gone. Drowned fuck. Drowned cunt. A deadman charges at him with a spear and he bashes against him with his longbow, seizing the wight’s spear and stabbing him through with it. Again and again, he stabs and fights off the dead. But they are never down for long. Jon should have been here by now. Daenerys should have been here by now. 

The sweat pours down his face, turning to ice crystals on his skin and hair. He fights until his limbs give out and still he fights. His bones are heavy and tormented. His body feels like it cannot move another muscle. Moving in any way requires the greatest effort and carries with it the most acute pain and yet he keeps going. There is a way to keep going when your heart and mind and body have given out. It is a lesson Reek taught him well. Keep going. Keep going.

Finally he has beat back enough of the dead that he is granted a moment of reprieve. He leans over, trying to catch his breath and feeling like he is going to keel over. Darkness almost invades his vision but he fights it desperately. As he slowly rises back to standing, he sees that Bran’s eyes are as they once were. Big and brown and calm. He is staring off into the distance, at the opening of the Godswood. 

The dead have surrounded them. They are completely outnumbered. He watches as the Night King walks through the trees and ice grips his heart. The Night King’s eyes are blue. Blue eyes. Fucking blue eyes. Theon stands there, paralyzed by exhaustion and pain and looks into Death's eyes with sickening despair. He remembers his uncle’s blue eyes, smiling with malice. Ramsay, his master’s- light blue and impenetrable, like dirty chips of ice. And now The Night King, haunted and glowing, lighting his way to an afterlife of hells and torment, or perhaps only darkness. The abyss.

“Theon.”

Bran calls to him and Theon turns and faces him.

“You’re a good man. Thank you.”

Why does it feel so hollow? 

Bran’s voice reminds him of Reek’s voice when he is pretending to be Theon. It is mournful and eerie at once. Yet perhaps there is a part of Bran, deep down inside the Three Eyed Raven, just as there was part of Theon inside of Reek. Perhaps Bran is truly here with him now. He wants to believe it. His eyes fill with tears. There is nothing more to do, so Bran is thanking him. Thanking him for his failed attempt. Thanking him for his death and sacrifice by calling him a good man, something Bran knows Theon always wanted to be. It is an extraordinary kindness. It is also completely wrong. Theon is not a good man and no amount of pretty lies will make it so.

The plan has failed. No one is coming to save them. No bastard hero or prophesied Dragon Queen, no broken boy vanquishing the army of the dead with the magic of his mind. That is apparently not the story that is being told. Instead, the last man standing between Bran- the memory of the entire world- and oblivion is him. Theon Greyjoy, depraved and desperate and damned. He would laugh if he could remember how. Instead a tear runs down his face and he turns back to the Night King.

Fuck this. He will not wait here for Bran to be killed. He will not wait peacefully for his own execution. No he will fight back. His trembling hands steady the spear, staring death in its face. 

In life the monsters win. He remembers Sansa saying that to him when she was still Ramsay’s captive. And she was right, he knows it to be true. Perhaps that is why there is no good hero coming to save them. If the monsters win, then it is a good thing that Bran was wrong when he called him a good man. Theon knows the truth. He is just another monster as well. It is a comforting thought. It will be one monster against another. What’s a Night King against a child murderer, a betrayer, someone who would watch as women were raped and mulled and flayed to death. What is a deadman against someone who has died again and again? 

What is dead may never die he hears his sister tell him. He hears her voice as clearly as if she is standing by his side. But kill the bastards anyway.

He has one spear against the army of the dead. The spear is not even tipped in dragon glass. There is no chance. But perhaps Jon is still somewhere trying to get to them. Perhaps he has only been delayed. If he can just hold the Night King back long enough, there may still be a chance for Bran, for Sansa and the rest.

He takes a breath and he runs straight for the Night King. A cry rips from his being as he charges. He will not let death claim them all. He will fight. 

There is no fight. 

The Night King disarms him with one humiliating maneuver and plunges Theon’s own spear deep into his stomach. It is almost brutally comic how fast it happens after all this time, after all the times he managed to escape death.

The pain is searing and spreading quickly through him. Yet Theon manages to raise his head and look the Night King straight in the eyes. His heart fills with abject despair as he dangles, helpless and paralyzed, like a fish caught on a spear. And then he is falling, crashing to the ground.

Stay down, stay down, or I’ll kill you. A memory stirs. That day on the beach... Theon does what he did then and tries to rise. He needs to keep the Night King distracted for just a minute, just a second longer. He struggles, trying to move, trying to do something, anything to protect Bran. But dying is more horrible than he had considered. He thought he could die as Theon, fighting on his feet. But in death there is no identity. Instead his body has been diminished to Reek… helpless, crippled, and humiliated as he loses control of all his bodily functions. His body is nothing but a useless, foreign, pathetic thing beneath him. 

The Night King looks down on him and then passes him by as if he is the most insignificant worm. All his life he has been underestimated. Assumed to stay beaten, to stay down. But that can be a strength. He saved Bran once before. In the woods, from the wildlings. They didn’t see him coming. He can do that again. There is still a chance. If he can just get his hand around the spear. If he can manage to pull it out… the blood will rush out of him quickly but perhaps he will have just enough time to stab the Night King in the back before the darkness claims him. It could buy Bran one more minute. One more second for Jon to get to him, or Daenerys…

But he cannot move a muscle. Blood rushes into his throat, burning like fire and making him choke like a drowning man at sea. Don’t die so far from the sea… Yara will be so angry at him. He wonders absently if drowning in one’s own blood could still be considered a worthy death for an Ironborn. No… no he can’t let death claim him yet. 

He sees the Night King walking toward Bran, paralyzed and powerless to stop it. Why did he volunteer, he who has failed at everything he has ever attempted? Why would he place himself before Bran and the King of Death? His guilt led him to this and it was just another form of arrogance thinking he could protect Bran. He supposes he’s always been trying to do the impossible thing. It was the one constant in each miserable version of himself. He thought he could protect Bran to make up for the things he’d done. He thought he could protect him. He thought he could help.

He hadn’t been paying attention. And he allowed the future to slip through his mutilated hands with that spear.

They say a man’s life flashes before him as he is dying. But what flashes before Theon are only childish fancies of a future that will never be. Bran, Jon, Arya, and Sansa safe and happy in Winterfell together. His sister, held beneath the waves of Pyke and then crowned in triumph. And he is allowed to be near them. He is allowed to heal and atone and to help build the new world with all of them, in spite of the harm he has caused. As usual, he tripped right past the story that should have been.

The Night King will kill Bran. He knows it, even as he tries to rise. His fault. Perhaps Sansa is already dead. Yara… there is a chance she will survive. They say the dead can’t swim. Though that doesn’t seem quite right. Some of them must. Theon’s own dead have followed him over every ocean. Robb, Ramsay, the two boys he killed...

He sees them now, the farm boys, crouched together by the heart tree, staring up at Bran. And Bran is staring up at the Night King, calm as ice.
No one is coming to save them. All is lost because of him and the Gods don’t care.

Perhaps life itself is meaningless... memory and identity, and everything else they have all fought to preserve this night... nothing more than an idiotic parade of destruction and horrors that hold no sense. No shred of hope to be found. An ending of only madness and despair. 

It wasn’t enough he thinks as death finally claims him.

And yet Theon tries to rise.

He tries to save Bran again and again. And as the light and life and meaning leave his body...

He dies rising. 

“Was it enough?” Theon asks the little boy as he looses one of his arrows in the practice yard. 

Bran looks up over his book. “What do you mean?”

“The Woeful Knight. Was it enough that he still strove, even though it was completely futile in the end?” Theon asks, trying not to sound too interested in Bran’s stories.

“He’s a hero.” Bran tells him, as if that explains everything.

“But was it enough?” Theon presses.

“I don’t know…” Bran admits with a small smile.

“Was it?”