Disclaimer: I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire.
Another dragon, another wolf, another stag
Chapter 14: Asha
"Talking"
"Thinking"
(Location: Riverrun)
Asha found her brother sitting waist deep in the water of the river. He only wore a pair of pants as he was continuously dunking his upper body into the water. It could've been possible to think that what he was doing was odd, if she hadn't seen him do it when he was a child. The first time he had done it, Pyke had nearly been torn apart trying to find him. It had been their grandfather who found him at the beach. Their father declared he was becoming a proper ironborn but all she remembered was how Theon stayed close to grandfather when Rodrik glared at him.
Despite what he might think, she did remember what Rodrik had threatened him with before he went off to reave during the rebellion. And she remembered why he had made that threat. Her elder brothers had been close before Maron had died out at sea. Rodrik blamed Theon for it. She blamed Maron. She at the least had been concerned about whether or not her little brother had been alive during those few days.
She strode out onto the bank, waited for him to lift his head out of the water, and said, "Still doing that, I see."
She watched as his back went stiff and still, like a cold wind had blown across it. "…I am," he finally said, not turning around to look at her.
She walked closer to him. "Still afraid to go anywhere near an actual bath?" she asked him. If he enjoyed bathing in moving water, bathing in still absolutely terrified him.
His back was still turned to her. "Is there something you need, Asha?"
She looked at his back, trying to find what it was her men had told her they saw that night. She saw no bandage at his side but there was a hint of something there, just peeking out from underneath his arm. "A few of my men saw you wearing a bandage at the green land prince's little court. Were you hiding something?"
If it was possible, his back became even stiffer. "If you don't have anything real to say to me, go away."
She wasn't going to leave him alone that easily. "I don't think so. What are you hiding, Theon?" She saw from how his body was tensing that he was about to leap into the current and swim away from her. Before he could do it though, she reached out and placed him in a hold around his neck.
He thrashed around in her hold, splashing water like a child, but her grip was strong. "Let me go!" he demanded. What she did instead was drag him out of the water back onto the shore.
There, she dropped him only to grab his head and force him to stand. She grabbed his arm and lifted it up, despite his protests. What was there she could see fully now. It was a scar, a thick angry pink of one that trailed down from his pit to where his stomach was. "What is that?" she demanded of him.
He tried to yank his arm out of her grip. "Let go."
"What is that?" she repeated, holding his arm still.
"What does it fucking look like? It's a scar." He yanked his arm free. In that same motion he reached down for a tunic and threw it on.
When he tried to move away, she blocked his path. "Where did you get it?"
"Why do you care? I got it in a fight."
He was lying. He didn't get that scar in a fight. She knew battle scars, she had a few herself, and that was no battle scar. If anything, it looked like a scar from torture. She looked him straight in the eye and he couldn't hold her gaze, staring down at the grass on the bank. That was all the confirmation she needed. "Who did this to you?" she demanded.
"What's it matter to you?" he asked. It could've been a challenge, if he wasn't still staring at the grass.
"That is not a wound from a fight. Who tortured you? Tell me, Theon, now!" she ordered him. He tried to duck under her arm to get away. All it got him was her forcing to him to his knees and holding him there. "Tell me!" He fought to get out of her grip and she found herself fighting hard just to keep him down. But she held on. "Tell me!"
"Why do you fucking care!?" he shouted at her.
"You're my brother!" That was reason enough for her to know what happened to him and who did it to him. Instead of getting a reply, he kicked out with his foot, getting her in the leg. It was enough to make her stumble and fall back. Her arse was telling her that she had had landed on a hard rock and it was enough to make her wince.
Theon almost scrambled away from her before stopping. He looked over at her and she saw the mixed look of shock and panic. His breathing was ragged and it took him more than a few seconds to calm it down. When it was, he looked at her like she was the one who did it to him. "I was almost flayed," he finally said in a voice so quiet, it could've been a whisper.
She got back up, fury flowing through her vines. "Who did it?"
She didn't know if it was her voice or he carried it for so long, but the words just fell out of his mouth as he explained. "Dom's bastard brother, Ramsey. He came to Winterfell wanting to be a part of the Pack, only he soon fled with his brother and two of the Starks. I and a few others went after him. I found him first. I thought I had him but he was able to survive."
"And you allowed yourself to be flayed?" If she wasn't so furious, she might've scoffed at his weakness. No true ironborn would've allowed himself to be flayed like that.
He looked at her with a scowl. He probably thought she was scorning him. "He knocked me unconscious and when I woke, he had me chained to a tree branch. I could've fought back, aye, but I saw the others getting into position to surprise him. So I distracted him by talking and he decided to take a pound of flesh off of me to shut me up." His voice trembled as he spoke, either from fear or anger. It wasn't the only trembling as his hands shook too. "It worked. The fucker died."
There was probably any number of things she could've asked her. But there was one she felt that stood above the others. "Why did you go after the Starks brats?" He didn't answer her and he couldn't even look her in the eyes. She figured it out and it made her sick. "Oh, Drowned God save me, you actually think of them as your family."
He didn't say anything to her, not right away. When he did finally drag his gaze away from the bank of the river towards her, there was a hesitance in his eyes. "What if I did?" he asked. Even though he probably meant that to be defiant there was also a measure of curiosity and hope to it too. He actually wanted to be a part of them.
It just made her even sicker. "How dare you forget about your actual family? The one that you bear the name of!" she shouted at him.
His eyes lost their hesitance and instead became filled with rage. "The Starks were more a family to me than the Greyjoys ever were. Eddard Stark was a more of a father then Balon Greyjoy!"
"And what of Quellon Greyjoy?" she asked. The anger left him and he looked at her in surprised shock. She was expecting it, so she continued. "What say you? Have you forgotten your grandfather? The one who cared for you? The one who took you to sea to teach you how to fish? The one who taught you how to hold an oar in your hand? The one who taught how to furl a sail properly?"
"No, I've not forgotten him. I will never forget him."
"But you decide to abandon the rest of your actual family from the ones who took you, is that it?" She had learned of what happened to Theon the day after he had been taken aboard the Stark ship and sailed away from Pyke. She had been angry then about what Stark had done and now she was angry about what he did to her brother.
His anger came back and he took a couple of steps towards her. "I wasn't taken, I was given away." He came even closer to her, thrusting his face towards hers. "Balon Greyjoy gave me away, his only remaining son, like a mangy mutt he didn't want to look at anymore!"
Both of them heard the sounds of more people walking on the bank. When they turned to the sound, they saw the Tyrell with the cane, along with the Dornish slut and three of her children, all crowding around her skirts. The Summer Island bastard stood close, looking like she didn't want to be there. "I beg your pardon," the Tyrell said politely. "Is this a bad time?"
She looked at him with a glare that warned him to shut up. A quick look at her brother told her that he had the same look on his face too. "What do you want, green lander?" she asked him.
"I do not want anything, Captain," he said, still polite. "Rather, it is she who wants something." He gestured at the slut.
She stepped forward to them, her hands in front of her. Her daughters stayed where they were, watching with curious eyes. "My lord," she said to Theon, bowing in a curtsy. It was a short one that she came out of quickly. "I would ask a favor of you."
He stepped away from Asha, his look of fury slipping into one of uncertainty. "What is it?" he asked her.
"I would ask that you teach my daughters to swim properly."
It was a question that neither she nor him were expecting. A green lander was asking an ironborn to teach their children to swim? Asha thought that it was something she wouldn't hear of, much less see. But now it was happening before her eyes. Theon looked even more surprised than she was. He was never one to hide away his emotions. "Me?" he asked. "Why?"
"That is indeed the question," the bastard muttered.
Oddly enough, it was the Tyrell who spoke rather the Dornish. "Sarella," he told her in a gently stern voice, "it was her choice. Stop before you start."
It was an odd thing to say, but it made her comply. "As you say, Willas," she said. From what Asha had seen of green landers, the boy should've chastised her and demand that she call him Lord Tryell. But he did nothing of the sort. All he did was smile gently and nod at her.
The slut looked at her brother and said, "You said it yourself, Lord Theon, when you saved my daughters. They should not go near the river unless they learned how to swim proper. In light of that, I don't know of anyone more fit to teach them how to do just that."
Theon looked at her and then at the daughters, all still standing there. "You want me to teach them?" he repeated.
Asha rolled her eyes at her fool of a brother. "She said that already, you fool. Why are you acting so surprised? This is a chance to prove the name given to you, even if it's just pathetic to do so." He looked at her with a glare, like he wanted to hit her. She would've welcomed it. It could've given her a chance to knock him down on his ass, something that she felt he really needed.
"Name?" one of the girls asked, peeking out from behind her mother's skirt. She didn't look like the one Theon pulled out of the river. She looked younger. "Don't you already have a name?"
The Tyrell smiled at her, his eyes shining knowingly somehow. "Lorenza, it is like how your father is called the Red Viper. I believe that Lord Greyjoy has been given a name." He looked up at Theon with curious eyes. "Can you perchance tell us that name, my lord?"
Theon looked back at Asha but she didn't say anything. She might've given him the name but that was all she had given him. She was not going to be his fucking herald. So she avoided his look. "It's Theon Tidebreaker," he finally said, not as proud as he should be.
The bastard scoffed. "A stupid name if I ever heard one."
"Sarella," said both the slut and the Tryell boy at the same time in the same tone of voice. Apparently, they were used to chastising her. If they had done it so much, it was obvious that it hadn't worked. What that girl needed was a good clout on the head and Asha was more than willing to provide it.
But then Theon did a strange thing: he looked at the little girls standing close to their mother for a long moment. Then he dragged his eyes up to the bastard and opened his mouth. "You'll have to forgive me," he said with a voice that dripped with mockery, "the name of Ignorantly Arrogant was already taken, so I was forced to make do." He smiled, adding to his jest and mockery.
The bastard's eyes flashed bright in rage. "Says the hostage of a beaten fool and the son of one too," she spat at him.
Asha would have thought that he would kill there if he could just by looking at the rage on his face. But he closed his eyes tightly and when they opened, he lost his mockery and anger. Instead, his eyes were serious and determined. "Says the man who dove into the river to save your sisters while you stood on the bank like soft-headed fool," he spat out between clenched teeth. "And unlike you, I have earned the name given to me."
She laughed mockingly at him. "How?" she challenged him. "Did you play on the beach and the waves couldn't knock you down?"
The anger came back greater than before. Asha thought her brother would truly be an ironborn then and there and strike her down. But his blow didn't come. His fists stayed by his side. Instead of striking her, he just regarded her with a look that said she belonged with barnacles to be scrapped off a ship's hull. Then he ignored her in favor of the children's mother. "Do you want their lessons to start now?"
A hopeful look appeared on her face. "Will you teach them?" she asked.
He looked down at the children. They were still staring up at him from behind their mother, all wearing green land dresses. "Not in those clothes," he said, looking down at the children. "Strip to your smallclothes."
"I will take my leave, Ellaria," the Tyrell told the woman with an incline of his head while the children started taking off their clothes. He started to walk away before looking at Asha. "Captain, if I could have a word?"
She eyed him. The last time he had asked her that question, it had been the day after he insulted her before her entire crew. She had thought that he came to her to continue where he had left off the night before. Instead, he actually wished to talk about dogs at sea. He was a breeder of animals and wished to know. It had turned out to be one of the more interesting talks she had since coming to Riverrun.
She didn't say anything in reply, choosing instead to walk in his direction and then past him. It didn't take him long to hobble after and catch up. "Would it be presumptuous of me to say that means yes?" he asked with a small smile on his lips.
If this was some game of his, she wasn't having it. "What do you want?" she demanded.
He lost the smile but kept pace with her. "Only to extend my thanks to you again regarding our talk about dogs at sea." He looked back at where they were walking but she didn't. "But I was also curious about your brother's name. It must've been fairly recent."
"And why should a green lander care about such things?"
"I am simply curious. If you do not wish to tell, then I shall not trouble you for it."
She looked at him again. This was not an ironborn man. An ironborn would've cursed her and told her to tell what he wanted to hear. But this man did not do that. He simply asked and waited, even gladly take the no if she gave it. He was dressed like a green lander too, all in silks and velvets of green. Even the stick he leaned on was rich in design and craft. She shouldn't be surprised at this. He was from the Reach, the very essence of what the Iron Islands thought of when they spoke of the rest of Westeros. The way he leaned on his stick screamed invitation to her to take what she wanted from him.
But she didn't. He watched her calmly and carefully and she did nothing to take what she wanted from him. Instead, she found herself saying "The name was given here but the reason for it happened before he was sent away. Our family was sailing back from Old Wyk. We were just outside of Pyke when a storm struck. Theon fell overboard and we all thought that he had been taken to the Drowned God's hall. Four days later a longship came to Pyke, carrying him. They had found him two days past, clinging to a piece of driftwood."
"He survived the sea for two days? How old was he?"
"Nine."
"By the gods," he said in a voice that showed he was impressed.
She didn't wish to dwell on that event. It was in the past, where it should stay. "What are you doing with that woman?" she asked him. "She's Dornish."
"Yes, and?"
"I thought the Reach and Dorne despised each other." That was known even to the ironborn.
"They do," he acknowledged with a nod of his head. "It's gotten more intense recently because Prince Oberyn gave me this," he shook his stick slightly, "during a tourney."
"And you are friendly with his woman?"
"And I get along with the man himself quite well, much to the annoyance of my family. I don't blame him for what happened. If anything, I'd blame the horse I had been riding and I'd blame my father for putting me in the joust."
It was an odd thing for any green lander to say, she was sure of it. "You should have just refused him."
He gave her a look that seemed to be part amused and exasperated, like she was supposed to know what happened to him but he found it funny that she didn't. "What makes you think I didn't?"
"Willas!" shouted a man's voice from ahead. Asha looked ahead and saw a tall, black haired and blue eyed man striding towards them. At his side wan another man and a woman, both of which shared enough Tyrell features that she knew they were the green lander's brother and sister.
"Lord Renly, it's good to see you this day," he said to the tall man, bowing his head ever so slightly.
"As it is to see you," he replied with a generous smile. His eyes found her and the smile widened slightly. "And who is this fair maid?"
She started to reach for her axe, wanting to trim the man's nose off a little, when the green lander spoke, "This is Captain Asha Greyjoy. Please refer to her as such, my lord." She looked at him with a small hint of surprise in her eyes. She never thought she would see the day a green lander would defend her.
But the other green lander just laughed. "A woman as a captain?" he said in clear disbelief. "You jest, Willas." The other man and woman showed that they believed the same with their expression, even if they didn't say anything.
This time, she did pull out her axe and held it out to his neck, pressing down enough he could feel it. The humor left his face as he stared down at the blade. "He might jest, but I do not," she said to him. "It's Captain, green lander. If you have a hard time believing that, talk to my crew. I am sure they would be willing to correct you."
She heard the sound of steel being drawn and saw the younger green lander holding his sword out at her. "Remove your axe from his neck or I will remove your head from your shoulders," he told her, a furious look on his face.
She would've welcomed the challenge. But then Willas Tyrell did something she considered odd: he stepped between them and placed his free hand on his brother's arm. "Loras, put it down," he ordered in a firm voice. When his brother looked to argue, he continued, "Renly put himself in this situation. Put down your sword."
"Brother," the boy Tyrell tried to protest. Asha didn't know what the elder did but whatever it was, it was enough to make him put the sword down. He was still angry and it showed in how he rammed the sword back into his sheath.
She turned her attention back to the green land idiot. She was considering pressing her axe deeper into his skin, making him bleed. Her eyes also found the chain he wore around his neck. It was a pretty thing, made of gold and emeralds. It almost seemed a dilemma to her, to make him pay for his insult in blood or take the iron price for it. "Decisions, decisions," she thought to herself. She could also admit that she was enjoying the look of fear on his face. She despised green landers and how they thought themselves superior to ironborn. What stood in front of her was a prime example of it.
"My lord Renly, there you are," a fourth man's voice said, speaking from behind her. She wasn't the only one who turned her head to look at who it was but she knew right away that she was looking at a fellow seaman. It showed in his clothes, plain compared to what the green landers wore and well suited for traveling aboard a ship. It also showed in his voice, lacking the polish quality she heard so many times since coming to Riverrun. Most of all, it showed in his posture. He was not high-headed or arrogant.
It seemed like the idiot knew him too, for he said behind gritted teeth, "Ser Davos. Is something the matter?"
"Your brother has commanded me to come find you, my lord. You were supposed to meet him for lunch but you had not shown," the now-named Ser Davos said.
"Ah, I see. As it happens, I was just on my way to see Stannis. I pray he doesn't mind some company? I was intending to bring along Ser Loras and the lady Margaery." He gestured with a hand to the younger Tyrells standing behind him. "They are my foster family, after all."
The seaman looked at them for a long moment before turning his attention back to him. "Begging your pardon, my lord, but Lord Stannis had requested you and you alone. Bringing Ser Loras and Lady Margaery might cause problems." He looked at Asha. "Would you let him go, captain?"
"At least this green lander knows what I am," she thought to herself. "Aye, I'll let him go," she said aloud, taking her axe away from his neck. And as an afterthought, she cut the chain from his neck. "But I'll keep this as my price." She pushed past all the green landers, ignoring the looks of outrage she saw on their faces.
Her strolling led her to the tourney grounds. It was already built but the tournament hadn't begun yet. They were still waiting for the green land king to arrive. It was stupid. If the grounds were ready, then the tournament should start. That would've been the way she would have done it. She took notice of a pair green landers looking at the grounds too. At first, she thought it was just another knight and his squire. She almost left them out of thought, until she looked again and saw that it was the woman knight and her girl square, one of the Stark brats.
She looked at them more closely now. It appeared that once done with looking at the grounds, they were having a lesson in swordplay, with the woman teaching the brat patiently. They were an oddity, the two of them. In that sense, they were like her. If they weren't green landers, she might've been interested in talking to them. But since they were green landers, with weak and pitiful green land ways, it would all be rather pointless.
She heard a laugh behind her, not a proper laugh but the kind of titter green land ladies uttered that set her teeth on edge. When she turned around and saw who it was, her teeth were forgotten and instead, her anger brewed. Coming towards her was the dragon who killed her brother with some redheaded twit on his arm. The twit saw her first. "Oh!" she said in realization. "Good day, my lady." She dipped into a curtsy whilst still holding that arm.
Prince Viserys Targaryen didn't extend her any courtesy. He only said, "Captain Greyjoy."
The twit looked at him and then her. Realization dawned on her face (it took her long enough) and she smiled too widely. "You must be Asha! Theon has told us about you."
That was enough for Asha to know who she was. "You're the other Stark girl, aren't you? San something," she said carelessly.
While the girl reddened with shame, the green land prince was angry. "Her name is Sansa, you fucking squid. I'm sure you have enough brains in your head to remember that."
She brushed the insult with a course laugh. "Aye, I've got a brain in my head. I just choose not to care about green lander names," The laugh died away and she glared at him full in the face, "except for those who murdered my family."
He didn't look surprise at her words or that he even cared. "If I hadn't killed him, he would have killed me. There is nothing else to it," he told her bluntly.
It didn't cool her anger, only stroke it. "Yes, you were quite the killer, slaying my brother when he was overrun and not having the decency to treat his dead body with respect." She remembered seeing her brother's corpse afterwards. It had been beaten into the state she had seen by many feet.
"Decency to the dead should only matter when they are decent people," he replied, anger leaking out through his voice and lighting up his eyes. "It does not belong to a man who feels that it is his right to rape and pillage."
She was insulted by his accusation and responded in reply, "What do you know about the way of the ironborn, green lander?"
He took a challengingly step towards her, his hand closing into a fist. "I know enough that it would be wrong to call your lot people." With each step he took, he brought himself closer to her. "To say that you're scum would be a complement to scum all around the world! You are worse than scum! You all deserve to burn away into nothingness! You—!" He stopped suddenly and closed his eyes. When he opened them, they found the twit on his arm. She was looking at him in concern. He breathed out a long breath and looked back at Asha. "I know enough. Good day to you, my lady."
She knew that he said those last words to enrage her. But her anger didn't matter once she remembered what her brother had said. "You," she said to the twit. "What do you know about Theon's scar?" The twit didn't answer with her words, but her eyes widened in surprise and a hint of fear. To Asha, that practically screamed she had been there when he got it.
Viserys took a step towards her, placing the twit behind him like he was a shield. "I said good day, my lady," he said shortly. The two of them left together. She watched them go. They were talking with their heads leaning towards one another. Someone else might've thought them to be lovers but she knew that the dragon thought himself to be a wolf, just like her idiot of a brother.
"Your only brother," a voice whispered. She knew that. Theon was different from when he was a child. When she first saw him, she thought that he had just been turned into another weak green lander. But the more she talked to him, the more was revealed about what happened to him. He seemed less like a green lander but not enough to be an ironborn. It was like he stood in the middle between the two.
For a moment, she considered the idea. Then she dismissed it. If he wasn't ironborn, he wasn't ironborn. It was a simple as that. No one could stand between being ironborn and green lander, they had to choose. But then she thought if such a thing had to work, it would need an ironborn and a green lander to work together. Her thoughts found themselves thinking on the eldest Tyrell boy, smiling gently whilst leaning on his cane.
She decided he had a nice smile and left it at that. She turned her attention back to where she had seen the knight and the Stark brat. They weren't there anymore. She decided to go look for them, walking down the length of the tourney grounds. She wanted to see if they would be interesting. Perhaps she could goad the knight into a fight and see just how good she was.
End
Author's note: Thank you for all the reviews you've sent me.
Believe it or not, that was Asha's way of showing Theon that she still cared for him. She's not a woman in the normal sense of things for Westeros. She's not going to be kind or gentle about it. She's going to be demanding, she's going to yell.
Since he technically was part of the rebellion, Stannis had been punished for holding Storm's End. But since he didn't actively fight in the rebellion, Rhaegar decided to go with a less harsh punishment. He commanded that Renly be fostered with a house that had been loyal to the Iron Throne. In the end, Renly went to Highgarden, the seat of the very same house that had tried to starve him out. Needless to say when he grew up and met Stannis again, they had different views on the Tyrells. So things between them are pretty much the same as they were in canon, just for different reasons.
I think that when an ironborn calls the rest of Westeros the green lands, they are instinctively about the Reach. The way I've looked at the map of Westeros, the Vale and the Crownlands are too far away via sail to actually be worth reaving over, Dorne is too hot and sneaky to do so, and they don't have the most stellar of success rates with the North. That of course leaves the Westerlands and the Reach. Now I say they think of the Reach because of what is there. The Reach is one of, if not the most, fertile places in Westeros. They've got food, gold, jewels, and women to boot. If I was an ironborn, that would scream jackpot to me.
I'll see you all next chapter!