"Be careful what you wish for, it might come true."
Theon Greyjoy, prince of Winterfell.
Theon kept on repeating these words in his mind, trying make them sound grand as he wanted, while he walked with heavy steps through the walkway on Winterfell's walls. That day not even the wind was brave enough to make its voice be heard in that desolate castle. Theon's steps were the only sound, and they seemed to reverberate in the whole dark sky above his head. After all those years, the northern silence still made his flesh creep when he was alone. And in that moment he was more alone than he had ever been.
Once, he had tried to tell Robb. "There's too much silence here. I don't like it". He was twelve, more or less, and Robb was seven or eight. "Why?" the kid had asked. Theon loved seeing him hang on his every word. It made him feel regarded. Eddard Stark was nice to him, but there was never interest for him in his eyes, nor love. Catelyn Stark, she always eyed him up and down, and Jon Snow steered clear of him as much as possible. Robb, instead, simply started to love him since the day they first met, like only a child could do. So Theon found an answer meant for effect for the kid who was looking at him with curiosity. "In Pyke, there's never silence. In Pyke there's always the sea's breath. The sea is like a big sleeping animal that breathes... it always breathes. Here there's no breath, and an animal that doesn't breathe is a dead one". Robb's mouth literally dropped open. Since that day he had started asking him about the sea very often. Back then, Theon still remembered Pyke and the Islands pretty well. In time, his memories went more and more hazy and dreamy, thus his accounts became more unlikely.
Maybe that's why Pyke seemed so bleak when I came back, Theon thought bitterly. Winterfell, with its melancholic solemnity, was undeniably more beautiful.
Theon Greyjoy, prince of Winterfell.
He looked at the woods lost in the mist south-east.
Robb's thought tormented him more than anything else. More than those two children slain. More than his father's contempt. Robb saying goodbye to him at his departure. "I count on you" he had told him, and in those few dry words there was more than he could've told him in hours.
Robb Stark, prince of Winterfell. Robb Stark, King in the North.
His trust betrayed. His oath broken. How could I get to this?
Maybe one day they would meet again. He would be dragged before Robb as a prisoner and the King in the North would rip his head from his neck for betrayal. "I didn't really kill your brothers" would be his last words. He wouldn't ask for forgiveness. Maybe that day would come soon.
How could I?
"I am the prince of Winterfell" he said to the landscape that was slowly emerging in the feeble light of dawn.
The northern silence was the only one to answer him.