Theon has never seen snow before.

Of course, there are things he's never seen before, and there are things he will never see again; his mother and sister, his great drafty castle, his own bed. Instead he has Lady Catelyn, who smiled sweetly when she first met him and welcomed him to Winterfell, only for him to hear her whisper-shout later at Lord Stark for bringing home another stray, and didn't he care anything for his trueborn son, letting him grow up with a bastard and now a Greyjoy for companions— and two girls, one a babe in arms and the other a toddler, neither half as fascinating as Asha. Instead he has another great drafty castle where even the lowest servers eye him with suspicion and dislike, where he fears getting lost forever in every dark passageway and thinks every pair of footsteps is coming to kill him. Instead he has a new bed in a high tower room; his father's voice had told him to fling himself out the window last night, that his very existence was a weapon now, but he'd hesitated too long at the freezing wind and ended up shivering 'til sunrise under three furs.

(He is so very cold here.)

Not receiving any orders this morning, or having much attention paid to him at all, he roams the grounds aimlessly; a few of Stark's soldiers had taunted him without end on the sea voyage, told him that he'd be chained to the wall and fed pig slop the second he arrived, but last night he got to eat roast boar at a table, bigger, richer servings than he'd been allowed at home. Nor has he been locked up, but given his own room with a fireplace and drawers (where he'd stashed the only possession he has— a dagger Asha had told him to slip into his smallclothes and guard with his life.) And now he's escaped his captors long enough to feel dwarfed by the size of Winterfell, its dark forests and keep looming above him—

"Your reign of ty-ran-ny is over, Aerys!"

There's a clumsy parry with a wooden sword that the other boy sidesteps; Theon stares awkwardly at them, tightening his thick cloak around himself. He hadn't expected to find Stark's sons playfighting— little sons, a scornful mental voice says— and wonders for a second if he should walk away before he's noticed, but too late. They've both swiveled around to face him, their eyes gleaming with curiosity.

"D'you want to play, Theon?" the taller, auburn-haired one— Robb— calls out, his cheeks flushed from exertion. "I'm Mad King Aerys, and Jon is Lannister, and he's supposed to run me through."

The bastard— Jon Snow— purses his thin lips and lowers his sword, looking at Theon disdainfully. "Your mother says we're not allowed, remember? She'll be cross."

"Why would I want to play with you, anyway?" Theon demands before Robb can reply, straightening his shoulders to cover up his secret hurt. What does he care about Lady Stark keeping him quarantined? It's not like he was expecting to make friends in captivity. "I'm almost eleven, and you're just children. Are those wooden swords?"

"'Course they are," Robb replies with a confused look, as though Theon asked what a fork was for. "Father won't let us use real ones for a long time. We might get hurt awfully bad."

"At home, I had live steel when I was your age," Theon lies through his teeth, his tone sliding up past snooty. "I guess Northerners are even more soft than I thought."

"He's only telling tales, Robb," Snow says scornfully. "If Pyke was so strong, they wouldn't have lost the war, right?"

... They're just naïve children. They think war is a game they can play at with their stupid, flimsy little swords; they've never seen a man's head come off his shoulders, or hidden in the closet while their palace burned, or gagged on the smell of blood and salt mixed together. "What do you know, bastard?" he sneers, his mouth dry. "It's not like you're ever going to wear any house's sigil."

"Don't call me that," Snow snaps, color rising in his high cheekbones; he looks more a Stark than Robb, which is probably why Lady Stark loathes him so much. "'Least I'm not a hostage. If Pyke's bad again, Father's gonna cut your head off."

Before he can reconsider it, Theon shoves him as hard as possible. "You're a dirty little whoreson, and that's all you'll ever be," he taunts. If he doesn't make himself worthy of respect now, he'll never have any. "But I'm a prince of the Iron Islands."

Despite being small and skinny and only six years old, Snow doesn't fall onto his arse crying. Instead, he picks up that stupid, childish wooden sword and starts walloping every inch of Theon he can reach. "You're no better than me here," he declares fiercely as Theon wrestles him to ground. "Nobody wants you anywhere."

"Stop it before you get in trouble!" Robb commands, trying to pull them off each other, while Theon splits Snow's lip open and Snow tears a tuft of hair out of Theon's scalp. Gods, is this embarrassing, being walloped by a tiny scrap of a boy when he's supposed to be a grown warrior; he comes close to slamming his face into the dirt, only to receive a stinging sword whap straight to the collarbone.

"Enough," a voice booms as they're yanked apart by the scruffs of their necks like misbehaving kittens, and Theon looks up into the stern, unyielding glare of Eddard Stark. He hadn't even noticed him approach; if he weren't iron-born, he might quite be sick. "Fighting already? I want an explanation for this."

"Father, he called me a bastard, and he shoved me first," Snow tattles, his swollen bottom lip sticking out. "Can't you send him back already?"

"Do you have anything to say to that, Theon?"

He can't even bring himself to meet his captor's eyes, as grey as the sky before a bitter storm. "No, my lord," he mutters— like Lord Stark will believe his word against his son's, baseborn or not. Best to keep his mouth shut for now and pray for mercy.

"It wasn't all Theon's fault," Robb says suddenly; Jon snaps straight up in betrayal, Theon in shock. "I mean, he did shove Jon first, and he didn't want to play swords, but Jon called him names too. Don't cut his head off!"

"Nobody's head is getting cut off." Lord Stark runs a hand down his face. "Robb, take your brother inside— we'll be having a conversation about this later, I promise. Right now, I need to speak to Theon alone."

Robb slings an arm around Jon's shoulders and whisks him away, shooting Theon a glance he can't place. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself," Lord Stark declares in a terrible voice, shattering the silence; Theon wills his bladder not to betray him. "Jon is four years your junior. Hardly a worthy adversary, don't you think?"

Theon says nothing, staring down at his boots. "Look at me when I'm talking to you," he demands, tilting Theon's chin up. "I'm sure Jon wasn't innocent, but this is unacceptable behavior. If you want to be a knight, you need to learn when to use your strength, not just how to throw your weight around."

Your idiot bastard should've kept his mouth shut around a prince of the blood, Father says. Hit me as hard as you can and see if I care, Asha says. "Forgive me," Theon says, his eyes filling with tears he tries his hardest to blink back as the last of his courage fails. He doesn't want to totally disgrace himself by crying in front of Lord Stark. "Please. I didn't really want to hurt him."

"You're frightened."

The comment is without judgement, but Theon still flushes with shame, unable to deny it. "You have nothing to fear from me," Lord Stark continues more softly, sighing, and releases him. For now goes unspoken— so long as your father behaves himself, so long as neither of you gives me a reason to use the sword hanging off my belt. "I've yet to lock any children in Winterfell's dungeons, and I won't start with my ward."

"I'm not your ward," Theon dares to choke out, kicking a pile of snow under his feet, "and I'm not a child, either. I know I'm your prisoner. So Father won't try to revolt again."

He expects a smack for mouthing off, at the very least, but instead the man plants a broad hand on top of his head. "I intend to do my duty in bringing you up, Theon, so long as you are here."

"Your bastard son told me otherwise."

"I suppose Jon doesn't much like the idea of sharing his favorite brother," Lord Stark replies, his lips twitching a fraction, before his face reverts back to its stony mask. "I'm sorry about yours, for what it's worth. They died honorable deaths."

"I don't miss them," Theon says with a little shrug. Rodrik had been a drunken lout, Maron a vicious liar with a taste for japes, and both had loved to give him good whippings whenever they could catch him; he remembers Asha much more fondly, how she swore to defend him with a broken axe, her jaw set, but he doubts Lord Stark wants to hear about a girl. After he'd heard the news, he'd felt a secret rush of glee learning that neither could ever put him to the stick again. "We weren't very... close."

"Perhaps you might grow closer to my sons," Lord Stark suggests noncommitally, "in time. But before then, no more fighting," he adds with a firm stare. "If this happens again, I'll thrash you both, mark my words. I won't have you boys beating each other bloody over your parentage. It's far from the most important quality in a man."

"Yes, my lord," Theon trips over himself to say, both relieved beyond measure and angered by that relief.

"Good lad." Lord Stark claps him on the shoulder. He shouldn't lean into the touch, but he does anyway. "Now, let's see if Ser Cassel has swords more to your liking— still wooden, I'm afraid."

"You're mean."

"Yeah," Theon says; he looks up from the book he was reading at his desk to face Robb, shifting from foot to foot in the doorway. "But I'm sorry about it. Honestly."

"Jon's got to stay in his room as punishment," Robb continues without acknowledgement. "D'you?"

"No," Theon replies hesitantly, unsure of where this is going. He supposes his relative newness to Winterfell is the only thing that kept him from a punishment of his own, but in all honesty, he'd prefer to stay in his room than leave it.

"I don't really have anyone else to play with, except Jon," Robb admits, and then Theon notices exactly what he's got clenched in his fist. "We could do King Robert and Rhaegar Targaryen. But I call King Robert."

He almost says no, but then he smiles. "Rhaegar Targaryen is going to win this time, then, unless you learn how to block properly."

He's never been the older brother before. Maybe this could be interesting. And Robb does seem the more tolerable of the two...

(Maybe Father and Asha will forgive him, eventually.)