"He who makes a beast of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man."
(S. Johnson)
He knew Robb was dead from lord Ramsay. "The Young Wolf was butchered by the Freys, my dear Reek, you know that? They tore his pretty head off and in place of it they stuck his damned wolf's one... now they can righteously call him Young Wolf!".
He told him just this way, the Bastard, on an ordinary night, and he had a good laugh about it. It was raining as if the world was going to end. "Are you sad, Reek? You going to cry for your little friend? No, you won't cry, will you, because you don't even know who this Young Wolf was... you're my dear old Reek!"
He didn't cry. The days when he still could cry had gone long since. But that night, in the putrid darkness of his cell, he sat with his knees by his chest and thought. He thought back to his whole life, listening to the sound of the rain echoing throughout Dreadfort. For one night, just one deadly dangerous night, he was Theon Greyjoy again. He was the shy little kid, always subdued by his elder brothers, somewhere far away on a stony island. He was the child who cried in a corner hearing the battle raging down below from the window of the tower. He was the child looking with dismay at the snowy walls of a great castle, tightening the cloak around his body against that hostile cold. He was the kid playing in the yards with Robb, and the one that with Robb caught the scoldings after some mischief. He was the boy who brawled with Jon, the one who blushed with pride to the rare compliments of lord Eddard. He was the boy who learned archery, getting more and more aware of his own talent, and the one who strutted about his love affairs with anyone who'd listen. He was the most trusted friend to the young and disorientated lord of Winterfell, and the one of the proud King in the North. He was the warrior always by the Young Wolf's side in the dust of the battlefields, the one who risked his own life to defend his. And he was the one who embraced him in a misty evening, leaving with the promise of bringing back a fleet for him. And then...
Thinking of what came next made him grind his broken teeth in pain. He fought to repel the images that crowded in his mind. A golden necklace contorting on a brazier. Two howling direwolves. Two terrified children with swords on their necks. His horse burning alive.
It's all my fault. Robb died because of me.
He cuddled up on the floor, shaking, scratching the rotten soil with the nails of the fingers he was left, unable to catch his breath. He saw it right before his eyes, that pretty head. He could see Robb's eyes as if they were looking at him emerging from the darkness. Only, now they were blank and misted and covered with flies.
They tore his pretty head off and in place of it they stuck his damned wolf's one...
Retches contracted his empty stomach. "Robb" he whispered to no one, in dismay. Absurdly, cruelly the prayer to the Drowned God flashed through his mind.
What is dead may never die, but rise again, harder and stronger.
"Robb..."
He didn't shed a single tear, but he felt with plain clearness that he exhaled even his spirit or what was left of it in the frantic breaths that choked in his throat. He fell asleep little before dawn, with that name still held tight between his teeth and nothing more inside.
When he got back to his work next morning, he was himself again. He didn't even think about that name any longer. He forgot it, and with it also the one that used to be his own.
Theon Greyjoy had died, forever.
What is dead...