Chapter Text
Jeyne isn't sure what she expected, really. Talking ravens, maybe, or moving trees.
But Theon just sinks to his knees into the snow, presses both palms and his forehead against the tree's bark, and remains like that for a very long while. So long, in fact, that cold starts creeping up Jeyne's legs and restlessness unfurls in her chest. The guards, never too far away, give them the occasional look. Aly stands next to Jeyne, scowling. The longer they stand still, the faster Jeyne's thoughts gallop, the greater her fear grows.
I shouldn't have told them my name. Theon is right, no one cares about Jeyne Poole. Arya Stark could request to speak to a king. Arya Stark could command northmen. Jeyne Poole is a liar and a whore and they will hurt her. Her truth is all for nothing. No one cares for what she knows. It doesn't matter who killed Bran and Rickon, they disappeared all the same. It doesn't matter who burned Winterfell, it's destroyed all the same. And it's Theon's fault and they will kill him for it and then Jeyne will be all alone again. What will become of her, now?
"My lady," Aly says, laying a gloved hand against Jeyne's forearm.
Jeyne realises that her breath has sped up in panic, that her cheeks are wet with tears. Aly's face is creased in concern. "Let's walk," she says. Jeyne nods, grateful.
The scrunch of snow under their feet helps to slow down her thoughts, some, so does Aly's warmth next to her.
"What's scaring you?" Aly asks.
Everything. Her own stupidity. Her helplessness. "Have you told Stannis?" she blurts out.
Aly doesn't need clarification.
"There is no rush for that," Aly answers. "Though it is right for you to say the truth of it."
It is? Seems to Jeyne her situation is unimproved. She can't help herself; she can't help Theon.
"Theon said no one would care for Jeyne, but Arya might get protection."
Aly's face darkens.
"I offer you my protection," she says.
"Jeyne, if you ever wish it, there's a place for you at Bear Island. And a place for you with me."
Jeyne looks up. Aly is not a tall woman, Jeyne is nearly of a height with her, though you could fit three of her into Aly's width. Aly's eyes are brown, like her own, and they look at her without wavering.
"Why? ..." Jeyne can't help but ask, even though she knows how graceless it must sound. "I'm ... I'm just a burden, to you. Weak, helpless ... always crying. I can't fight. All I know to do is lay down and ... " Jeyne can't even finish that thought. The women of Bear Island are strong and powerful and entirely unlike anything Jeyne could hope to be. She won't learn to throw the axe properly, certainly Aly has realised that.
Aly lays both hands on her shoulders.
"Bear Island is not safe, has never been. That's why we fight, and worse is yet to come. Safety is not what I can offer you. But you are neither weak, nor helpless, and you can cry as much as you like. I won't send you to seek out fights, if you don't wish it. I'm offering you a place, if you want to take it. I would claim you in front of the king, and they won't hurt you."
Jeyne is crying again, long, heaving sobs. She's dizzy with something she hasn't felt in a very long time.
"You can do that?" she asks.
"I am the heir of House Mormont."
"Why would you want me?"
Aly smiles. "You're brave, and you survived much."
Jeyne can feel her mind resisting against what she's told, but Aly's face is entirely without mockery, entirely without scorn.
"You don't have to decide now, Jeyne. Think about it. If there is something else you want to do instead, I will aid, if I'm able to."
Aly squeezes Jeyne's shoulders, glances back the weirwood.
Theon hasn't moved.
"Well, that's enough of that," Aly decides.
They walk back to the tree.
"On your feet, turncloak," she hears Aly commanding. "We're done here."
--
Theon walks slowly, on the way back; the hours spent kneeling in the snow didn't do him much good. His lips are bloodless, his gait unbalanced as ever. It took him several tries to obey Aly's command.
Jeyne doesn't dislike the time it takes them to reach destination for her mind is full of information to process. She can't remember when she was last given a true choice for anything at all. What might she want, if she allowed herself to want? And brave. That is the last thing she'd have expected to be called. Pretty, once, maybe, though she certainly can’t be any more, not after Baelish and Ramsay and the blizzard's frost. A good girl, once, maybe, though Jeyne couldn't name anything she ever did that was good. Maybe she's always been bad, in truth. Jealous, petty, spoiled, a coward. She never even fought back. She just agreed to everything. But Aly thinks her brave.
Theon stumbles, next to her, would have bumped into Aly, had Aly not reached out an arm to steady him. He jerks away from the touch, a sudden motion that causes him to lose his footing entirely and faceplant in the snow. The violence of his reaction makes Jeyne jump as well, like a well-trained rabbit. Her heart races, then slows down again. She got used to Theon tolerating her touch; she forgot the depth of his fear.
"If I wanted to hurt you, I'd have done so long already," Aly tells Theon, as he struggles back to his feet.
Theon scoffs. "How would I make it through even a day without the gift of such crucial information, one wonders."
Aly inhales, face indignant. "You are not in a position to give me lip like that! Do you want me to hurt you?" Theon doesn't bother dusting off the snow from his clothes, just grimly straightens his knees. "Get it over with, then." Maybe he wanted it to sound defiant, but it really just sounds dejected.
Aly frowns, but won't let herself be provoked. For all that she hates Theon, Aly has yet to hit him, something that cannot be said of several others in Stannis' camp.
"You won't have to wait for death very much longer, turncloak."
"No," he agrees.
Jeyne feels tears filling her eyes again.
"I wished Theon didn't die," Jeyne reminds the world, uselessly.
Neither Aly nor Theon have anything to reply to that.
Jeyne offers Theon her arm for balance, silently, and he takes it. The sky is darkening at the horizon, the late light tints the snow blue. Theon's white hair dances in the wind, the wispy dirty strands of it. Ravens are cawing nearby.
"What did you do with that tree?" Aly asks, several slow feet later. "Don't you pray to that drowned God of yours?"
Theon is trudging between them, concentrated on his task. "I was too arrogant a child to do much praying," he replies. "Besides, I was taken away from the sea when I was ten."
Aly frowns some more, and leaves it at that.
--
"Aly offered me a place on Bear Island," she tells Theon, as soon as they are close to alone.
"She says she will protect me as Jeyne Poole."
Theon looks utterly exhausted, but Jeyne wants to speak of this. She wants him to know this. He turns his face to her.
"She said it like that?" he asks, incredulous, hopeful.
"Yes."
He twists his lips, like he can't quite believe it, like there must be a catch that she's missing. Jeyne is surprised by how upset this makes her. He opens his mouth to say more, but before he has the chance to state his doubts, she quickly speaks over him.
"You want to be called Theon, not turncloak, not... anything else." He closes his mouth, flinching. "Well, I want to be called Jeyne. Because that is my name. I don't want to be Arya. I am Jeyne."
It's true, she realises by speaking it out loud.
Might be it would be smarter to use Arya's name. Might be that's what someone clever, someone reasonable would do, someone who knows to play a situation to her advantage. But her fake name was forced onto Jeyne and tastes like blood and pain in her mouth. Every time she must lie for it, she feels trapped all over again. Every time she hears herself called by her true name, she grows more solid. She can't keep the mummery up. She won't. Even if it makes her more vulnerable.
"He made me Arya... all of you did. I don't care that they don't care for Jeyne. I won't pretend anymore."
She's crying again, but she feels strong and hot inside, surer of herself than she felt in a very long while.
"Jeyne," she says, defiant.
If she expected him to protest, he doesn't.
"Jeyne," he agrees. "Your name."
She nods, smiling.
"It is."
They sleep well, this night, in spite of everything. Jeyne doesn't remember her dreams, and she doesn't hear Theon scream even once.
--
The next morning, when Aly comes, Theon looks her in the eye and says: "Thank you."
It must be the first time he has addressed her without being prompted. It might be the first time he's spoken to anyone that isn't Jeyne without being prompted, in fact.
Aly's eyes narrow in mistrust. "What is this about?"
"Jeyne told me," he stammers, suddenly looking scared all over again. "What you offered ... for her."
Aly presses her lips together. There are a number of cruel things she might retort, here. I don't need the thanks of the likes of you, turncloak, maybe. This is not meant to make you feel better, villain, I'm not doing it for you, it's not your place to speak of this.
But Theon's eyes are wet with tears, relief and gratitude so palpable when he repeats: "Thank you," and Aly is not cruel. She just humphs an acknowledgement, looks at him nearly pensively.
Then she steps aside to let Asha enter behind her. Asha and her must have come to some agreement, for Aly turns around to leave the three of them together. Aly settles down outside the hut, starts cleaning her weapons, near enough to keep an eye on comings and goings, but out of hearing range.
Asha scuttles closer to speak quietly to Theon.
"I saw Tris and Qarl", she whispers. "Theon, I won't leave you to die, not again."
The half-light is dancing in her dark eyes, her thin face looks determined.
"I hoped Stannis might hesitate whether to burn or to behead you, but he won't. He needs to get this over with."
Theon nods, calmly, as if they were discussing the death of some distant relative.
"He's not to be swayed, so we're taking matters in our own hands."
"Will we go to the tree?" Theon interrupts.
"Yes. Anyhow, I know you're in a bad way, but you'll need to run, for a very short while. All you need to know--"
"This won't be necessary," Theon interrupts again.
Asha blinks. "Not necessary," she says.
Theon shakes his head. "Let them take me."
Asha furrows her brow half in pity half in frustration.
"Theon, our mother has been asking for you, every day. After all you've done, you don't get to just..." She waves her hand, at loss for words. "I won't have you eagerly look forward to your death," she settles for. Then, with a glance to Theon’s mutilated hands and something like guilt on her face: "You must be suffering a lot, I know. But we would find another way..."
Theon hunches his shoulders. "I'm not-- It's just. Sorry. This is where I need to be. I was told. The tree ... we've been speaking."
"The tree? The weirwood tree?"
"Aye," Theon says, then specifies: "The gods."
"You've been speaking."
Theon smiles. "Yes."
Asha groans, raking her hands through her shaggy hair.
"Seriously?" Her face is twisted in distaste. "Of all the family traits to inherit, that's the one?"
Theon looks down, then back up again.
"Family traits?" Jeyne asks.
"Our nuncle came back from the war like that," Asha explains. She deepens her voice, impersonating. "God chose me. He gave important tasks to me."
If Theon feels mortified, he doesn't show it. He sits with his back leaned against the wall, looking oddly serene.
Jeyne never knew about Theon's uncles, before. Theon never talked of his family, as far as she remembers. Jeyne learned the theory of it, of course, she's been educated by Septa Mordane about the Westerosi great Houses, though she has forgotten most of her lessons by now. But Theon had always been just Theon, Ned Stark's ward. It's not like it was possible to forget that he’s a hostage and a foreigner, but, child that she was, she hadn't quite realised there was a real place he had been taken from, before he was brought to Winterfell. Jeyne wonders what that would be like, to have a mother asking after you.
"Your nuncle the Crow's Eye?" she asks, finding herself curious to learn more. The Crow's Eye is the only uncle of theirs she remembers the name of.
"The Damphair." Asha's smile turns sad. "Whatever became of him. He wouldn't be pleased with your choice of God," she tells Theon.
He laughs. "That's the first thing he asked me about, when I came back," he recalls. "Well, I'm sure I've been disappointing in many other ways." He shrugs. Asha looks nearly pained.
"I want us to go back, Theon," she implores. "Together."
"Asha," Theon says, very softly. "I'm sorry. But this is how it must be."
Asha opens her mouth, as if to argue some more. Everything Jeyne learned about Asha so far suggest that she is not prone to backing away from an argument, that she won't easily give up on trying to convince another of seeing matters her way. But something about Theon's eyes must give her stop.
Asha silently reaches forward to squeeze Theon's arms, instead. He lets her. They press their foreheads together.
When she leaves, Asha's eyes are wet. She holds her head angled high, gaze up and sidewards, as to avoid a tear to spill, but Jeyne saw.
--
"Jeyne," Theon whispers at night.
Jeyne hasn't been sleeping; she’s been too busy crying. She understands why Theon must die, in the eyes of the North. She understands he's willing to let it happen, even when offered help. That doesn't change anything, for her. All Jeyne knows is nobody helped her, back at Winterfell, not a single one, not even Lady Barbrey who was soft on her, except Theon, turncloak villain that he might be, in spite of his own terror. Aly will never understand that; Aly wasn't there.
"You asked me ... You asked me."
"What?" Jeyne whispers back, not understanding.
"Where they went. At Winterfell. I didn't tell ..."
Jeyne sits up. She remembers. She remembers what he's speaking of. She locks her fingers together to keep them quiet, keeps her breath from speeding up.
A terrible haze is descending over Theon's eyes, like he's leaving his body behind to drown, but he goes on.
"The D-dreadfort." He can barely get the word out. "Last I ... last Reek saw. S-serving. Your friend-- Beth. Palla, too. Alive. Never saw Old Nan." He's shaking so much it's getting hard to understand him. "Kyra died." Theon curls forward to sob into his hands.
Jeyne can't offer comfort; she doesn't know what she could possibly say. They are tied together by fate, Theon and her now, no matter what.
"Thank you for telling me," she just whispers, after a while.
"You should hate me, you know."
Maybe. Maybe she should. Maybe he shouldn't tell her what to do.
"That's for me to decide," she says.
"All right," he answers.
That's the last they speak before they come to take him away in the morning.