I do not own Game of Thrones
All his life, Theon been raised on stories about the Drowned God. So, when his elder brother's tell him that he can actually meet said God, who is he to question them. He sets out in a storm so bad that without his brother's help, he never would have managed to even find the water's edge. It's not until he realizes that he's alone in the small boat, his brother's laughter echoing from dry land, does he realize that he's been tricked.
With no paddles, he'd have no choice but to swim back to shore, but things were not that simple. As soon as he'd tried to stand, the small row boat was rocked so harshly by the waves that he was thrown back down. The heavy rain made it impossible to see, and he could barely catch his breath without inhaling water. His hair and clothes were plastered to his skin, sending a chill down his spine as the cold took hold of him.
The lights on Pyke were becoming nothing but dim lights in the distance as the sea pulled him further and further away from land. Not for the first time, he wished for his mother to come and get him. He huddled down, his tears mixing with the sea water and rain that soaked him from head to toe.
"Please," He whispered, not sure who he was asking or what he was going to say, but whatever he had been going to say never left his lips, for the boat was suddenly tipped over.
The sea was harsh and unyielding as it pushed him down into the darkness. The coldness stole the breath from his lungs, and he could do nothing but watch as his last breath rose towards the surface, where the sea still tossed and turned in anger.
It was as his vision was beginning to fade that he saw the tendrils of hair surround him.
"Little shit, actually lived through that storm." It was the voice of his brother that awoke him. His body stiff and achy, launched forward as memories of the night before came rushing back.
"A mermaid!" He immediately shouted, only to have his brother's roar with fits of laughter.
"He must have hit his head on a rock," Rodrik said, turning to leave.
"No, I didn't," Theon growled, standing up and looking at his surrounds.
He was on the same beach his brothers had brought him last night. How he'd got there? He didn't remember, but what he did remember was her, whose hair glowed like fire, which not even the sea could hide away.
"What that you've got there?" Maron asked, his eyes fixated on Theon hand.
Lifting up his hand, Theon opening his palm and was amazed to see a scale. It was a few shade's paler then red of her hair, but he knew it belonged to her. It gleamed in the sunlight, appearing to flash green when the spray of the sea hit it.
Kneeling at the water's edge, he dipped his hand in the water and watched in fascination as scale turned from a pale red to a sea green.
His fascination was quickly taken away when Rodrik tore the scale away, holding it close for inspection.
"Give it back." Theon cried only to pushed into the sea.
Just as Rodrik was about to reply, their mother's voice rang out. Alannys Greyjoy wasn't the most beautiful woman Theon had ever seen, but she was the one he loved above all else.
"You'll hand over whatever it is you've taken from your brother." Rodrik did so without complaint because even his elder brother loved their mother too.
Theon watched Alannys as a sea of emotion flashed across her face. "Where did you get this?" Her voice was soft but held an air of threat to it.
His elder brothers looked at him suddenly, and he knew they thought he'd stolen it from their mother. No sooner had they both gone to beat him, had their mother placed a hand of their shoulders.
She knelt before him, her eye's searching his own, for something he wasn't sure she'd find. "My little prince, were you in the sea?"
He knew to tell her the truth, for if he lied she'd know. "Yes, I was looking for the Drowned God." He told her honestly, leaving out the part about his brother's.
She had this all knowing look in her eyes, as her hand caressed his cheek.
"This scale," She said as she pressed it back into Theon's hand. "Is very precious, so you should keep it with you always. It will keep you safe whenever you enter the sea, and whenever you find yourself on dry land, a part of the sea will always be close."
Swallowing, Theon opened his hand again to look a the gleaming scale and he wondered if he'd ever seen her the girl with the fiery hair again.
He hadn't known what to do when the fighting broke out. Just when he thought to grab his bow and fight too, he was pulled into a dark hallway. His mother's sweet voice kept repeating his name over and over.
"They've taken my boys, but I still have you. Theon, my little prince, I'll keep you safe and entrust you to the one person who'll keep you from harm."
He was a boy in the middle of a war, he had no choice but to allow his mother to drag him down below the castle, where his sister Yara waited.
"Mother, we need to hide. They'll find us here." Yara pleaded as she watched as his mother dragged him knee deep into the water.
"No!" Alannys whispered, her fingers digging into Theon's shoulder as she pushed further into the icy water. "She'll come, she has to save my boy."
Theon instantly knew who she was talking about, his mother had asked more than once to hear about her. The scale was tied around his neck with a length of rope, he hadn't taken it off since his mother had tied the knot. It was warm against his skin and grew even warmer the deeper he was lead into the water.
"Please!" His mother suddenly shouted catching him by surprise. "Save him, don't let them kill my boy."
"Mother! Stop this madness!" Yara shouted as she rushed into the water.
Theon couldn't find any words as he watched as his sister tried to pull both of them back to land. His mother released him as she was pulled back. "No! You have to save him!"
"There's no one coming," Yara shouted in return as she dragged their mother from the water, but when she turned to look at Theon he watched as her eyes grew large.
Their mother, on the other hand, dropped to her knees in the water. "Please, save my boy." She begged.
The scale was hot, it felt as if someone was there pressing their heat against his chest and that's when he felt it.
Wet hands encircled him from behind, a hot breath brushed against his bare neck and then his back was flush with a very female body.
"Little prince, I shall keep you safe." A voice said from behind as they pulled him deeper into the water.
His mother gave a relieved sigh, but Yara who had grown pale suddenly sprang forward.
"No, you can't have him, give him back." Yara cried once more trying to reach him, but Theon knew it would be in vein. He knew what had taken hold of him and no matter how good a swimmer Yara was, she was no match for the creature.
The last image he saw was Yara's out held hand, and his mother smiling brightly at him, while tears streamed down her blood splattered cheeks. His Father stood further back, a look of complete shock on his face as Theon was pulled beneath the water and away from any harm that may have befallen him.
His father had fallen, he was no King, but Sansa said that he was her Prince, that his father had never been a king.
'Sansa,' He thought as his hand reached for the scale around his neck. She'd kept her word to his mother, keeping him safe until the war had ended, then she'd returned him. His mother had been waiting along the shore, her eyes searching before they rested on him, Yara close behind.
His mother had been waiting along the shore, her eyes searching before they rested on him, Yara close behind. Turning he tangled his hand in Sansa fiery hair.
"I don't want to go back, I want to stay with you." He whispered as he clung to her. Sansa's world was so much more than his own, filled with many more colors than he'd ever seen before.
"Hush now," She soothed him, as her webbed fingers brushed the hair from his eyes. "As long as you keep my scale, I'll alway be with you." Her lips were warm as they pressed against his forehead.
Soon he was being passed off to his mother, who had sped into the sea when they neared the shore. Alannys watched Sansa with eye's filled with gratitude but dared not reach out and touch the beauty before her.
"How can I ever repay you." His mother asked as she tightened her hold on him.
Sansa's webbed hand reached out once more to caress his cheek. "See to it that no harm befalls the little prince, and you shall have no debt to repay." There was a threat in her words, but Alannys knew she would do her best to fulfill the mermaids wish.
There was a shout from somewhere behind, and Alannys turned with shocked eye's to find Yara gone from the beach.
"Quickly, you must leave." She pleaded to Sansa as she gripped Theon tighter. "My husband saw you."
It was all the explanation Sansa needed as she moved back towards deeper waters. "Farewell, for now, my little prince."
"Wait!" Theon calls before she can disappear beneath the waves. His cheeks burn red as he asks, "Might you kiss my lips farewell."
His mother gives a joyful laugh, and Sansa smiles sadly.
"One day my lips will grace yours, and on that day you shall be mine forever." His mother looks fearful, but Theon is enchanted by the words that leave Sansa's lips. "Until the day we meet again, my prince." It's a promise, one that Theon will look forward too.
Soon after, Ned Stark took him away from his home. He missed the sea, the smell of salt in the air, but most of all he missed her, his Sansa. Robb did his best to make him feel like he belonged, but the scale pressed against his skin reminded him otherwise. It told him where he belonged, and, to who.
Even years later he still felt her heat pressed against him. The scale the only reminder that she wasn't something he'd made up.
Once Lady Catelyn had seen it, he'd watched her eye's light with recognition. She asked to hold it, and then it reacted to her. He'd never seen it react to anything but the sea, yet the moment the lady of Winterfell touched it, it gleamed the colors of the sea, which he longed to see again.
She smiled at him then before saying. "The river and sea are more connected than you know." It made him feel slightly better knowing that someone else longed for the water like he did, but Lady Catelyn also had something else, she had those that she loved more than the water, her children.
As he grew older he dreamed of her more and more, of what would happen when they were reunited. It got the point where he needed to ventured down to Winter town more than once to satisfy himself, always seeking out someone with red hair, Ros being his preferred.
"Whose Sansa?" Robb asked one day, eyeing Theon from across the table.
"She's probably another one of his whores from town." Jon offered, ripping at a piece of bread.
"She's no whore, and you'll never impel it again, you hear me, Snow." Theon hissed, enraged.
"Wow, relax Greyjoy, Jon didn't mean anything by it," Robb said. "And if she's not one of your girls, the who is she?"
"She's someone who's waiting for me."
"Oh, so you've got a girl waiting for you back home?" Robb asked seeming interested.
"Not a girl, a woman," Theon said, the scale burning hot whenever Sansa was on his thoughts. "And she's not mine, I'm hers." His voice had grown softer, barely above a whisper.
"What's she look like?" Robb inquired.
"She's hair the color of fire, her eye's are the same shade as the sea that surrounds Pyke. She's also pale, she'd fit right in around these parts," He noted as he looked at those around him, who were also deathly pale. "Her voice was made for singing, I've never met anyone who can compare to her."
"And you think she's still waiting for you?" Jon asked, but Theon knew it was a genuine question.
"She'll wait," He knew she was waiting right now."And one day, I'll return to her and we'll have forever together."
Robb and Jon clearly wanted to know about Sansa, but he wasn't feeling up to sharing anymore about his love, and she was his love. He loved her more than anything in the world, and no matter the time they spent apart, his love for her would not change.
When word came of his Father's death, Theon thought he'd finally be able to return home, return to her, but it was not to be. Yara arrived soon after, claiming that their uncle Euron had returned and took the place of their Father and that he planned to kill both her and Theon.
If they returned they'd be killed, but Theon knew there was another reason Yara had sought him out.
"What is it you're keeping from me?" He asked when they were finally alone.
Yara avoided eye contact, bit her lips and frowned before she'd finally look at him. "He knows."
"Knows? Knows what?"
"About her, about that thing that came for you all those years ago." She took a breath. "He wants her, and he's become so obsessed that he's drowning little kids to try to lure her out."
Theon shook his head. "No, there's no way he knows about her. Unless you told him." He shouted at the end.
"He saw her, with his own eyes." She told clicking her tongue at the end.
"How?" When she didn't immediately answer he roared. "How!"
"She came looking for you, and instead she found me." She finally answered. "She waiting for you. Has been since the day they took you. Mother spoke to her briefly before she left, and Father? Well, he's lucky Euron got to him because she's been waiting for him to enter the water since the day they took you."
"We've got to go back."
"With what? More than half our people have sided with Euron, are your Stark friends going help take back our home?" She hissed.
"I'm going back, with or without you." He hissed back in return.
"He wants you dead, the second you step foot there you'll be killed."
"What else can I do?"
"You can help me take the Salt throne."
"You?" He laughed, if this was Yara idea of a joke, it was a bad one.
"If you go to her, then you'll never sit on the salt throne."
"What?"
Yara threw her hands in the air as she began to tell him about the myth. "Only a true Greyjoy can wed a mermaid, and in doing so, they shall have everlasting life. Father thought it all fable, until the day he saw her with his own eyes. If Euron catches her and weds her, he'll be unstoppable."
"He can still be killed."
"No, he can't, because the only way to kill him, will be to kill her and she can't be killed."
He couldn't breathe, his heart was beating in his ears, the scale which should have kept him warm in the bitter cold seemed to be stealing his heat. He knew at once something was wrong.
"Why did you really come here?"
Her eyes turned hard, as she regarded him. "She saved the last two kids, it's only a matter of time before he catches her."
"You!" He shouted his face inches from hers. "This is your fault."
"My fault, it's you who went into the sea that night, you who summoned her from the depths of the sea where the drowned God lives, if anyone is to blame, it's you." She roared in return.
"Me! You're blaming this on me?"
Yara laughed then. "Of course it's you, you're the first Greyjoy in centuries to ever ask for help when drowning, the rest just accepted their faith."
"So because I wanted to live?" He asked.
"You went out that night thinking you'd see the drowned God, instead he sent one of his follows to you. Now, now she's stuck here, until the day she gives away her kiss, and the only way for her to return home is if she takes the one she bestows the kiss upon with her. "
"What does any of that even mean?"
"It means, that the reason she didn't kiss you that day, is because when she finally does, she doesn't intend to stay here long."
"She wants to go home,"
"Yes, and when Euron takes her, she'll be stuck here forever, long after you and I meet the drowned God."