Theon
He woke in utter darkness. I'm in a dungeon, he thought, before he realized the ground was rough and uneven, weathered rock and not shaped stone. He wasn't manacled either, just soaked to the bone and chilled as much so. He tentatively got to his knees, reaching out into the darkness, hand finding only air. A bit of panic set in. Am I dead? Is this a hell of some kind? He wondered before he heard the stirrings of another. The sound made him jump and he felt his hair touch a ceiling closer than he expected. Any higher and I'd have cracked myself good. A bit of luck at last… He started to inch around looking for his companion in the darkness, only to hear a startled gasp and a stream of calls and cries in a harsh savage tongue. Dothraki, he knew. "Stop screaming-" A sharp inhale told Theon to duck as what felt like a fist whipped over his head. More panicked Dothraki gibberish. "This one's head hurts." A new voice called from several feet away. "Who's there?" Theon called, again avoiding the savage's fist. "This one is Red Flea. I cannot find the weapons I fell into the water with." Theon's new friend reported. An Unsullied…that's right, we went into the sea. Well, they did, I jumped…. Then he remembered why he'd jumped. What use would I have for a mermaid? Fuck, what use would a mermaid have for me? he thought. Finally the Dothraki's fist found cave wall and with a high-pitched wail the swings at Theon stopped. "I'm…Theon Greyjoy. The gold squid on the black." Theon said into the darkness. "This one remembers. You are from Her Grace's country." Red Flea replied. Her Grace. Daenerys Targaryen. Asha's idea… Theon thought before he tried to move again. "Careful. The ceiling is not so high as you'd expect." he warned. Predictably there was a thunk an am uttered curse as the Dothraki's head met the ceiling. "Where are we?" Red Flea asked. Theon knew they were trained from birth to be fearless and all that, but he could hear the uncertainty in the man's voice. Join the landing party, Theon thought. He put his hand to the walll and began to walk, gasping when there was a break in the stone. The wall started again about three feet past. "A doorway. Come to me, slow. On hands and knees if you must." Theon called, the Unsulled reaching him first. Finally the Dothraki got the message and came closer until the three of them were less than a foot apart. "Alright. We're going to go slowly down this hallway. Got that? We're going to go straight." Theon said slowly. "I speak the Common Tongue." Red Flea said with a hint of derision.
Theon tried to squint, tried to see anything but there was not a mote of light. Suddenly the Dothraki began to rattle off again. "What's this idiot saying?" "He says the walls feel strange." Theon frowned, stopping to give it another go. Only when he focused did he realize that the walls were worked stone. Of a kind, anyway. Over and over he ran his thumb over what could have only been a clam shell carved in the wall. Others, too. Fish, waves, circles… Theon realized the wall was covered in runes. Raised out of the wall instead of carved in, he thought. "Aye. Shapes from the sea cover the wall, what of it?" he asked as if it were trivial. "This one is ignorant of the Queen's lands. Ones that walk in caves and carve sea shapes in stone without need of light are unknown in Essos." the Unsullied answered. In Westeros too, Theon thought. Then he remembered the night of the storm. The bulging yellow eyes. They reeked of fish. Their stink will give them away if they're near. He shut the thought out of his mind. Down the hall they went, the Dothraki muttering fearfully. Not used to being shut up in darkness, eh? Theon thought as they inched along. We're going up, Theon realized with a hint of relief. Maybe we'll find a cave mouth. Instead the air got somewhat warmer and the fish-stink hit, the screamer's muttering getting more agitated. Then there was a wet croak from further in the darkness and the three froze. "Who's there?" Theon asked, his own voice sounding shaky to his ears. A wet slapping sound started, getting closer in pairs of twos. Feet. Webbed feet, Theon realized until the stink got so bad it made his stomach turn. He's right in front of us. Staring at us. He knows we can't see him. The croaking resumed so close Theon jumped, foul break reeking of bilge wafting right in his face. Short, he thought. The croaker wasn't so tall as a man, or at least as tall as Theon. The breath was coming from somewhere at shoulder height. "I can't imagine you could repeat all that in the Common Tongue…" Theon asked. "He says you're going the wrong way." A voice from the far side of the corridor said, the light of a torch igniting. Theon whirled around in surprise to see a man about his age in a loincloth holding the torch staring at him still as stone. Healing burns covered him head to toe, puckered scars making him look striped as a zorse. He was completely hairless. Likely lost in the blaze that had given him those scars, Theon thought. For the first time Theon got a glimpse of his companions as well, Red Flea turning out to be one of the Ghiscari and the Dothraki looking wide-eyed as a child during a scary story.
Rather than face the horror behind him Theon stepped to the fore. "Who are you?' he asked after a hundred other questions came and went in his mind. "No one you need be concerned with. Coem." he hooked a left around the corner and the three hurried after him. The croaker behind them pursued slowly. We're being herded, Theon realized. They continued to go up, the corridors at a slight incline until they came into a much larger chamber bigger even than Winterfell's Great Hall. Several pools glowing bright with strange light dotted the ground and a lake in the middle of the huge chamber made the three stop in their tracks. A huge rock jutted out of the lake and at least a dozen mermaids lounged on it, lazily dipping their tails in the water or weaving shells and seaweed into each other's hair. The Dothraki's eyebrows went up in perfect surprise. Upon noticing their visitors a great outcry of giggling broke out and the whole collection slunk over to the water's edge nearest them. Some were blonde, some were redheads, and all batted their eyelashes coquettishly. The rather bolder leaned their elbows on the stone, letting their chests show. "Bad luck, girls. Two of us haven't got fishing rods and the other's deathly afraid of the sea." Theon finally gasped out. The thing behind them croaked at the mermaids in translation, their faces falling in dismay and sinking out of sight sulkily. The Dothraki slowly turned to him with lips pursed in a look of blackest disdain. "What are you going to do? They can't come to you, and Dothraki piss themselves when they get in water higher than their ankles." Theon spat. With more than a bit of trepidation he turned to take the measure of their captor. A hard swallow and a lungful of moist stale air didn't make facing it any easier. It stood perhaps five feet tall on spindly legs ending in webbed claws, its arms ending in more of the same. Its neck was nonexistent, head much like that of a fish but for the yellow eyes. They took Theon in and flitted across his companions, advertising a mind no less quick than a man's. Savage though. Like a wildling, Theon supposed.
"Right." he said, addressing the burned man. "Not that we don't appreciate you scaring us shitless, but why are we here?" "Because we have a message for the one you serve." A rich deep voice empty of weakness made Theon turn back to the rock. This time he gasped. The man standing before them had sea-blue skin and his hands were webbed as well. Powerful corded muscles tapered to a chest that would make a maiden blush and he likewise had on only a loincloth. In one hand he held a trident, in the other a conch. After the man-fish he supposed he'd seen all this place had to offer but this new man quite set those thoughts aside. The mermaids had resurfaced, all looking at the man with dreamy expressions, looking up adoringly. He set his gear on another rock and strode up to Theon bold as you please. Wait a second, Theon thought. He took in the burned man again. The same chin, the same nose. "We serve Daenerys Tar-" Red Flea fell silent ass from out of the pools a legion of the man-fishes emerged, some shorter and others with hunched backs. A new mermaid clambered up to the rock, facing away from them. Theon caught sight of a pink tail and long brown hair. A proper fucking town, Theon thought. Well, if I were one of a waterborne race I'd probably just wear a loincloth, too. Red Flea swallowed and continued. "We serve Daenerys Targaryen." Their translator plied his trade. A chorus of croaks broke out among the creatures. The sea-skinned man raised a webbed hand and they quieted at once. "What does a kraken want with a dragon?" the mermaid asked in perfect Common. Theon thought carefully, sensing that her patience was not to be tried. "My sister wants to procure the Iron Islands' independence from the Iron Throne. By supporting Daenerys's own claim to a throne she seeks to strengthen her own." More mermaids began to meekly comb their mistress' hair with shells as she listened, content to remain facing away. "The Seastone Chair." she finally said. When the translator croaked his part the walls rang with angry voices, one small individual poking Theon with a bit of soaking driftwood. "Aye." he said finally, wondering what care this place had for the world above the waves.
"The Seastone Chair as your kind calls it does not belong on dry land." the mermaid finally said. "Nothing from our world does." Her words made the sea-skinned man twitch almost imperceptibly. Their world? Then Theon remembered. That's right. Bleeding thing looks like it's covered in snot, like sweating stone. Unnatural. As Theon recalled the Ironborn didn't actually make the Seastone Chair, they'd just found it on the beach when first they settled the isles. Well, if I live to meet Uncle Rodrik again, that's one question I can answer. Rodrik Harlaw had ever had a curious mind, especially for an ironborn. "Then I can only guess you want it returned to you." he surmised. "To the sea." "Well, I'm sure I could get Asha to come 'round to the idea of pitching it into the waves." Then he got an idea. "What am I saying, of course I can." he dug inside himself for memories of wooing willful beauties. Easy ones had only needed a shared cup of ale and a kiss but a silver tongue was necessary for the more reserved. It was for that Theon that the man he'd become reached, speaking in a more measured- even cocky- tone. The mermaid got his meaning. "You can does not mean you will." "Aye. I'm just thinking that there's plenty also below the waves that belongs above them." The burned man bristled at once. "You're the pirate, not us, and a poor one at that." Touchy. "Did I say you were pirates? At worst I inferred you might be legitimate salvagers of lost and unclaimed property. Goods I'm sure you have little and less need for. Depending on their nature I could secure the return of the Seastone Chair posthaste. If in all the ages ships have roamed your waters not one has sunk with so much as a glass bead aboard, well then, consider the return of the Seastone Chair merely a gesture of my sister and her queen's amity with the World Beneath the Waves." There was silence. Then she turned to her right, face still hidden and her attendants stopped at once. The sea-touched man went to her side and he whispered for a few moments. "And if they have?" she asked finally. Who needs a worm on a hook when a tongue works just as well? Theon thought. "Daenerys will have plenty of supporters to reward when she takes the Iron Throne. Westeros is very large but there is only so much land. Treasure is not a coin so dear. In addition to the Seastone Chair, I'll see to it that anything we come across made by your people is set back from whence it came. In return, your countrymen such as they are can start returning what is lost to us but for your beneficence. They need not even go ashore, just send it with the waves so that it washes up on the beaches of Dragonstone. You know the island I wager.""I know it. Suffice to say we are nearby." "Splendid. Oh, there is a small matter of another Greyjoy, one titling himself Euron, Third of His Name. He claims to be the champion of the Drowned God-" "As has every man to claim a crown on those bleak isles." she broke in indifferently. "Of course. I can see to it we drop all that overproud foolishness if you could keep an eye out for him for us." "First we're pirates and now we're killers for hire!" the burned man said, scars going red with indignation. That fire must have hurt, Theon thought. "Did I say that? I only suggested you might keep us abreast if he should appear." Theon said mildly. "If he should meet a storm such as the one our fleet met, well…there's no need to go to his aid as you came to ours. Your stalwarts only plucked us from the water because you wanted to talk. We have, terms have been agreed upon, and now we only have to return to the surface."
Again the mermaid listened to the words of the blue-skinned man. Who is he to her? Theon wondered. The others looked to him besotted as harem girls, but the one doing the talking didn't so much as turn to face him completely when he whispered to her. He looked back to the burned man, still full of pride and piss and scars red with anger. All he could divine from the man's gaze was that he plainly thought Theon Greyjoy an utter waste of their time. The man with the mermaid beckoned to him suddenly and the burned man paled, gulping. He hurried over to the rock where the mermaid spoke to him directly, handing him something. He returned to Theon's side of the chamber alone. "Come. This audience is at an end. As you said, terms have been agreed upon. There is no more need for you to linger here." He walked on back the way they had come. Theon turned back to the rock. "Thank you for your hospitality my lady." he said before sauntering after his unpleasant minder. The light faded as they put the pools behind them, the orange torch all of a sudden positively abrasive to the eyes. It took a good bit of blinking to acclimate to such harsh light and when he had Theon found himself staring into another room like the one he'd started in, A gray-hair with his mouth gagged by slimy seaweed and his wrists tied gurgled loudly at them. "Might we take him, too?" Theon asked. The man's eyes went wide. "As you will. Careful, he's the kind of fish that bites." "So were the kind back there by your lady. Or were those needles in their craws for chewing seaweed?" "They are what they are. As you are or as I am. Alive and part of the world, jealously invested in keeping it from harm." The man's words made Theon's brow furrow. Before he could ask quite what the man meant he felt a rough cool sea breeze and heard the sound of waves. The Dothraki gave a happy gasp, the tears on his copper cheeks shining like bits of topaz in the torchlight. More of the fish-men loitered around a wide cave mouth, most holding spears. Theon led his party forward toward the breeze until they found themselves on a beach at dusk. The burned man pointed to a little dinghy. "Dragonstone is a few hours to the southwest." he tucked what the mermaid had given him into Theon's hand. He could feel four hard objects within. Dice perhaps. "Then we'll be off straightaway." he replied, the Dothraki and Red Flea wrestling the ornery old goat into the boat. When he turned back to the burned man, he was startled by the disappearance of both the man and the cave mouth. All that remained was a sheer rock face. He shrugged, got into the dinghy and they pushed off. Once away from the strange shore, Theon realized he recognized the stars. Indeed, we can't be more than a few hours from Dragonstone. He realized then that his companions were looking at him in amazement. "Allies are allies and coin is coin, lads. Their spears are no less sharp, their gold is no less golden."