Chapter 8: Theon IV: 302 AC
The houses were growing more and more sparse as they hopped over two canals, and passed at least half a dozen fish wives. They were in a small pinewood now, Theon stood next to a mossy, ancient looking carved soapstone grotto.
"Jeyne, look at–"
She impatiently took his arm, "come."
He wondered why he let himself be pushed around by such a little thing. He turned to look over his shoulder, catching a final glimpse of the antediluvian structure before his vision was overtaken by the giant pines.
"I want to stop there on the way back."
It seemed that only seconds passed before he smelt the air and saw the boulders at the parting of pines. I know where we are.
"Why are–"
She turned around and looked at him for half a second before turning back around.
"Hush! You will see!"
She climbed simian like down the steep rock face. He followed with no where near the amount of sure footedness. Once at the bottom, she smiled and held out her hand, offering him assistance. His pride did not let him take it, and instead he shot her look of contempt and dropped the two yards between him and the ground. I should be sleeping. We've yet to even break fast.
She smirked at him. He wondered who she'd picked that up from.
"Do you trust me?"
He looked at her, slightly taken aback.
She repeated herself "Do you trust me?"
"Yes?"
"Good."
She began to untie the silk ribbon from her neck, "Now turn round and close your eyes."
Hesitantly, he obliged and felt the ribbon blindfold his eyes. "Jeyne, what are you doing? Why are we here? What is all this?"
"Hush up!"
She took his hand and led him closer to the shoreline. He could hear the wooden pail knock her shins with every other stride she took, and the roar of salt water became increasingly louder.
"Now sit."
"On what? Where?" The annoyance in his voice was notable.
"The sand." She said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Groping for the ground with one hand and holding hers in the other, he sat in the cool winter sand. Soon she was tugging at at one of his boots.
"Stop, stop stop! What is all this? What are we doing here?" He tugged the boot out of her grasp and made to lift the ribbon from his eyes. Abandoning the boot, she grabbed both his wrists and pinned them to the ground.
She sounded angry now. And a little hurt. "Seven bloody fucking hells! Do you you or do you not trust me, Theon Grey–" she caught herself "Do you trust me or not?"
He had never heard her swear that...fluently. Nor had he ever gotten her angry enough to call him by his surname. He immediately regretted resisting.
"Yes," he nearly shouted his response.
"Then let me do this."
She removed both boots and instructed him to stand, he obeyed, the cold slightly damp sand sinking between his toes as he did so.
He felt two cool hands lace through what was left of his fingers and tug him forward. He walked blindly for twenty yards, occasionally being told to take larger steps to avoid crushed and jagged shells. Then, once he felt the icy waters of the junction of the Narrow and Shivering, a voice softer than air whispered "Are your eyes closed?"
"Yes." His voice was scratchy and deep, yet just as soft and quiet as hers.
She held his disfigured, three-digit left hand in both of hers,
"Do you know where you are?"
He was confused then. "Braavos' shore line. The Narrow Sea."
"How do you know?"
He made a face "Because we're in Braavos. And we've been to this shoreline before."
"But you don't know for sure, do you? It could be any beach. Just listen and smell. You don't have to be in Braavos. Where else could you be?"
Theon immediately realized what she was doing and wanted to rip his heart from his chest before it broke.
"Pyke." His voice cracked. In truth he doubted he would ever go back there. But...he wanted to see his mother. He needed a mother.
"What's it look like?"
He didn't know why she was doing this, and couldn't decide if he liked it or not.
"Nice. Ships. Fishing ships, not war galleys. Sloops mostly. No one else is there. Just you and I."
"What else?"
––––––––––––––––
He saw Jeyne and himself on the beach, holding hands. He looked like the old Theon, and Jeyne bore no scars of abuse. They were eating lemon cakes because Jeyne had insisted on it. She was talking about how beautiful everything was on the island. He was boasting that the small island had been the home of Krakens once, and that the powerful creatures on his sigil were the very same ones. Jeyne was unimpressed, and proceeded to tell him of the meaning of her family sigil.
Her house was not a ruling house. Not even a noble house, but a knightly house. Centuries back, they had not even been a house, but a family of craftsmen, specializing in ceramics. Her 10 times over great grand father had saved Lord Theon Stark from an arrow loosed by a Bolton when the two houses still fought.
Centuries had made the line between truth and fiction blur, it was both said that he threw the plate and hit the archer in the neck, killing him before the arrow could loose, and that he jumped in front of Lord Theon, blocking arrow.
He smiled at her and told her that it was funny how history repeats itself. She smirked that charming way she had become so taken with recently and said that history never repeats itself. It simply "Re-tests us until we get the answer right."
He asked her, half serious, if she thought that they got it right.
She laughed and said they got it right the first time.
––––––––––––––
He told her none of that. "My mother is on Harlaw. I've never been there."
"Well then we must go there some day." She patted his cheek before kissing it, then the other. Looping her arm through his, she said "Happy twenty second name-day, brave kraken."
Stiffening, he pulled the ribbon down and looked at her in shock, "Name-day?"
"The 129th day of the year. Your name-day."
He eyed her almost surreptitiously "How did you know?"
She reddened at her ears "I...grew up with you."
He was painfully aware that he had no idea when her name-day was.
He embraced her tight, lifting her off the ground and spinning with her, causing her to drop the pail.
"Thank you Jeyne. Thank you. Thank you."
He felt her facial muscles curl up into a smile against his cheek as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
"You're welcome."
He placed her down and she smirked up at him again, then looked around at the people that were starting to come to the waterline, digging for clams.
She looked concernedly at the dropped wooden pail, and said more to herself than him "Damn. I wanted to look for shells with you." Picking up the pail, she gave a sharp look at the nearest woman.
Theon felt a stab of guilt at his earlier protests.
Pulling the ribbon from his neck, he tugged the knot out and walked up behind Jeyne, placing it at the flat of her throat. She stood up straight, placing a sandy hand to her neck, but she did not turn around. It took him a while. His remaining fingers seemed to have forgotten how to do something so simple. When he did finish, she turned around and patted the bow, making it lay flat.
She waited for him to put his boots back on, and walked the length of the beach in silence with her.
Then she started to muse aloud about revenge on a short-changing merchant. Something about freezing wet balls of sand and throwing them at him. He wasn't paying attention.
'Why did you save me?'
She had asked him that on the boat. How long ago was that? It couldn't be much over year if this was his twenty second name day. She knows my name day, he thought. He wondered if she was still five-and-ten, or if she'd had her name day already since they'd arrived in Essos.
It began to snow. He looked over at Jeyne and watched it kiss her face, cling to her black eyelashes and settle in her two inches of chestnut hair– melting, and turning the dark strands black.
It wasn't until then that he finally knew exactly why she had been worth risking everything for.
Jeyne began a slow poising process of Reek the first time she saw him, for she had called him Theon. Never Reek, even when he begged it of her. With her, it was as if Reek had never existed.
She was going on about freezing balls of wet sand still, and the pelting of a Westerosii merchant with them. He still wasn't paying any attention.
She must have asked him something because she stopped and stared at him expectantly.
I would die for her. Even if I had everything I ever wanted and I was happy, I would give my life if she asked it of me.
He wasn't sure if that was love or devotion. Loyalty, perhaps. In the end, it all came down to the same basic components: care and protection. And gods knew she was the only one he felt that for anymore.
He wasn't sure when he'd grown to care so much for her. He thought perhaps at Stannis' camp. Or maybe during the time spent in the woods with Tycho, when Jeyne curled up into his gaunt, concave chest and cried for hours. Or maybe before that, even. He knew it was before they arrived in Braavos. It was when she asked why I saved her.
He blinked hard and feigned interest in the merchant pelting situation.
"I do not think that would be wise," he observed, taking the ball of sand from her hand and casting it into the sea. She grimaced and made a face that evaporated the second she donned it. A large white conch still inhabited by the creature was in her hands. She looked at him pointedly.
"Do you know how to cook these?"
