Disclaimer: I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire.

Another dragon, another wolf, another stag

Chapter 18: Theon

"Talking"

"Thinking"

(Location: Riverrun)

"That is sickening!" Cersei Lannister screamed for all in the hall. Theon looked up from his own food to see her staring down at a boy in front of her. The boy was holding Tommen firmly by the shoulder and the Lannister didn't look exactly happy.

"What's going on over there?" he wondered briefly before deciding that he didn't care and went back to his bread. It was too early in the morning to pay attention to irritating women. Just like his sister, Cersei might be beautiful but under the surface, she was a bitch. But unlike his sister, Lady Lannister lorded her bitchiness over everyone she thought beneath her. Asha just reserved hers for people she personally disliked.

He heard a chair pushed back roughly, crashing down to the ground. He looked and saw one of the Vale clansmen standing with angry look on his face. "What did you say, woman?" he growled. "Shagga, son of Dolf, did not hear you."

Theon recognized that name and once he heard it, he recognized Shagga from when he visited Winterfell. He was staring at Lady Lannister with a look that demanded an explanation or blood. "Oh, this is not good." The westermen and the valemen sat at opposite tables where they could easily see each other. Other Stone Crows were beginning to stand up. Lannister men started to stand up in response.

Cersei looked down her noise at Shagga. "You heard me. What your despicable son suggests is completely sick. How can you allow this?"

"You spit on what makes us First Men?"

"If that is what makes a First Man, perhaps it is a good thing that the Andals came and invaded Westeros! I will not let your son do that to my boy!"

Everyone in the hall was watching the shouting match, even the king and the royal family. It looked like it was going to come to blows. "Well," Theon thought as he picked up the bread and began eating it, "I'll get a show."

But then Sansa stood up from where the Starks sat and made her way quickly down the center of the tables. She stood between the two groups and curtsied to the lion bitch. "My lady, please forgive me," she said quickly. "But this is a misunderstanding, one that is easily explained."

The bitch looked down at her. Her sneer was still on her lips but she somehow managed to look polite again. "And how do you care explain that they intend to make my son a sword swallower, Lady Sansa."

An involuntarily snort escaped his lips when he heard that. "That's what she thought was going to happen?" It was almost too funny. The other ironborn looked at him but he was too busy watching what was going on.

"Lady Cersei, to have a back brother doesn't mean they have to swallow swords. I don't think they have the right kind of swords for that." If it had been anyone else, those words would've been said mockingly and would cause laughter to erupt in the hall. But since the way Sansa had said it was so honest and forthwith, no one laughed loudly. Theon knew that there were repressed sniggers because he was one of them.

Sansa kept on speaking, ignorant of the suppressed sniggers. "Amongst the First Men, having a back brother means that you have someone you would trust to guard your back in a fight and you would do the same in return. There's not a friendship deeper than that."

"Aye, Lady Sansa has the right of it," Jack Mormont said, standing up from where he sat. "Ash might be a pain in the arse sometimes but I'd have no other man watching my back in the thick of battle."

"I can say the same," Asher Forrester replied, standing up too. He cast a glance at the Mormont and commented, "Although we could do something about that smell."

"I'm not the one who smells, Asher. You're the one who stinks like he bathes with pigs," he retorted.

They laughed and the Southerners looked confused, like Theon knew they would be. Some of the ironborn laughed too. "Aye, the lads have it," Shagga declared. "To be back brothers is great thing among First Men." A frown crossed his face, which made it even fiercer. "But it takes a warrior to command boys to be back brothers."

"We were commanded," his son told him.

"Who gave that command?"

"Jon Stark," he answered like there was nothing wrong with what he had just said.

But the entire dropped to a silence so loud, a stone could've fallen to the ground and everyone would've heard it. Theon didn't need to look at the Stark table to know full well that Lady Stark was not happy. "You're fucked, Snow." He didn't think there was a way for the bastard to get out of this.

Lady Lannister lost her enraged look for one that was both smug and poisonous. She turned to look at the Stark table and at Lady Catelyn. "Is that so? I did not think that Northerners would let their bastards parade around with trueborn names."

Lady Catelyn rose from her seat. Words were about to leave her mouth when they left Tomman's Lannister's mouth first. "Um, he didn't say he was a Stark, exactly."

All eyes turned to him and he tried to meet them all, without much success. Theon though that he looked like a dog trying to greet everyone at once while also trying not to piss himself. "Explain yourself," Lady Catelyn told him.

"Well, he made mention of Lord Arryn visiting Winterfell and Ned asked him if he was a child of the Stark in Winterfell, which he said yes to. He didn't say he was an actual Stark." He looked over at his so-called back brother. "How did you know his name was Jon?"

The clan boy threw him a look. "I paid attention and listened. Clean out your ears." Instead of being insulted and retorting like Theon would've, the Lannister boy quailed and looked away.

Shagga watched this all with an eye that could've been called keen on someone else. "Is this Jon bloodied?" he asked.

This made all the Southerners look confused. They looked at one another like headless chickens trying to find a head. Even the royal family was confused. Theon only had to look at them to see the confusion on their faces. "Pray tell, my lord," said the queen, "but what do you mean by that?"

He didn't answer. Sansa did. "It is a term from the First Men, your Grace," she said, curtsying towards the high table. Theon saw Arya over at the Stark table roll her eyes and make gagging motions out of sight of her mother. He smiled at her antics momentarily and went back to his food. "To be called bloodied means that you have taken and given blood in combat. Only when you are bloodied are you considered a proper warrior and all the rights given to that title."

"Aye, the girl has the right of it," Shagga growled, barely even looking at Sansa. "But is this Jon bloodied?"

No one seemed to have an answer for that, even though Theon knew that there were people who had it. He looked at Sansa, waiting for her to say something, but she only stared at the ground. The silence was beginning to grow and yet, no one answered the Stone Crow's question. "Ugh, you owe me this, Snow," Theon thought to himself as he stood up and said, "Aye Jon Snow is a bloodied warrior."

Everyone turned to look at him. He could feel the gaze of the ironborn and his sister on him. He ignored it to keep his eyes on Shagga. "Who are you?" the Stone Crow growled.

"Theon, son of Balon, of House Greyjoy," he answered. "I was there when Jon Snow took and gave blood. He helped rescued his trueborn siblings and Domeric Bolton from Domeric's bastard brother, fighting the bastard himself and emerging victorious." He remembered the bastard bursting out of the trees and tackling Ramsey Snow, the both of them falling over the fire and rolling through the snow. Their swords were drawn as they came back to their feet and fought. In the end, the Bolton bastard was dead on the ground with a nearly decapitated head and the Stark bastard stood over him.

Both Sansa and Bran nodded in agreement with what he said. Lady Stark lost her anger but the unpleasantness of it was still there. Cersei lost the poisonous look on her face, it being replaced with a look of irritation. She looked back at her son but it was too late. The Stone Crow boy had dragged him back to his side of the hall and sat him down. Together they started eating, although the Lannister boy looked a little unsure.

"Killing one bastard boy is hardly something to be called a battle," Ser Loras called out disdainfully from where he sat at the Tyrell table. The Tyrells sat together with so much green they almost clashed with the Lannister red to their left.

"Indeed," the Bilge Rat agreed. "You make Jon Snow sound like a hero emerging victorious from a battle of the age. He endured one fight against another bastard. I'd hardly call that worthwhile."

The Pack grew angry at those disdainful words. But before anything came of it, Osha spoke cutting words. "It'd still be one more fight than either of you." The hall filled silence as both the Knight of Flowers and Obara Sand turned their glares to her. The glares turned to the rest of the Northerners when they started sniggering.

Theon found himself sniggering too. But the constrained laughter died away when Dom said, "And to call Ramsey a bastard would be to call him human, my lady. That would be a kindness he didn't deserve." He had the hall's attention and his quiet voice reached every ear. "My bastard brother was a monster. When he came to Winterfell with his man Reek to join the Pack, rumors soon followed afterwards of his hunting women through forests with dogs. It was discovered at a feast that he had meant to poison me in order to take my place as the heir to the Dreadfort. That same night when we all thought that he was behind bars to await our father and judgement, he abducted me along with Sansa and Bran Stark. If it had not been for the rescue party set out by Robb Stark, Prince Viserys, Theon Greyjoy, Jon Snow, and Osha there, I think it would be very likely that the three of us would not be alive now."

Both the Reachman and the Dornish woman lost the sneers on their faces at those words as Dom sat back down. Theon just felt the loss of his appetite as the scar throbbed slightly. He put down the bread in hand and stood up from the table as the normal buzz of words filled the air again. His feet began to take him to the training yard so he could practice. Since the king was finally here, the tourney could now begin. What started that afternoon were the beginnings of the archery contest. He intended to win the thing. If he was going to get something out of this damn tourney, it would be proving that he was the best archer out of them all.

He saw the younger Sand Snakes stand up too and he wondered briefly what they were doing. "Oh right, they've got a lesson." He fixed them with a look and they froze in place. They stayed there as he left. He had told them that they should never go into water right after eating. It would be the end of them.

He found the training to be full of archers firing their bows at targets. They must've had the same idea he did. It didn't matter. So long as there was a free target, he would be fine. And there was one, at the far end. He grabbed a bow and a quiver of arrows before walking down to the target. He ignored the looks of curiosity, disgust, or disdain sent his way, even though he wanted to stick an arrow into each of them. He had been getting those looks ever since he had come to Riverrun, especially from those who fought against his father.

He found the target and readied himself there. He pulled out the arrows from the quiver, holding them in his free hand. The others would line up their arrows in neat little rows, some even going so far as to make sure that they were perfectly aligned. He found that to be more than stupid, almost bordering on ridiculousness. It didn't matter how they were placed, so long as the archer could nock them onto his string.

So he stuck the arrows into the ground like he held them, forming a cluster. He picked an arrow from the outer edge and nocked it to the string of his bow. He brought it up and pulled the string back, breathing deeply and keeping his gaze focused on the target. As he drew the string back, he heard that annoying voice behind him, saying "You're going to miss."

He almost jerked on the string and almost sent the arrow up into the air. But he didn't do that. Instead he kept his nerves and focused on the target. He released the string and the arrow flew true, striking the target. "I think not," he finally said, looking over at the Sand Snake.

She sniffed disdainfully at him as she idly tapped her fingers against her leggings. "One shot out of many missed doesn't make you good. It makes you lucky," she retorted.

While she was rather irritating and he would have loved to shut her mouth with a fist, Theon could admit that as he looked at her he found his cock stir. The Sand Snake in front of him looked like a Summer Islander with her black hair cut short but was still curly. The leggings and tunic she wore did nothing to hide her breasts and curves. If he didn't know any better, he would've thought it was done on purpose. There was a way with her eyes that almost seemed to see everything that in her sight, even him.

Yes, she was a beauty, not in the green land view of it but a beauty. Hers was a beauty almost like his sister's. But the difference between the two was that his sister's arrogance came from confidence of being a captain. The Dornish bastard was arrogant because of who her father was and what her family was. "I haven't seen you pull a bowstring back, so you shouldn't have anything to say."

She scoffed. "I don't need to show my skills off to you. I already know that it is much better than yours."

It sounded like she was planning to join the competition that afternoon. If that was to be the case, he had an inkling that she would not do well if she didn't practice. "If your skills as an archer are anything like your skills as a swimmer, I guess that the rest of us will not have anything to worry about. Now if you will excuse me, those of us who take our training seriously need to work on our skills. After all, we're not little girls who play at war."

He turned back to the target, pulling another arrow to the string and nocking it. "What?" he heard the bastard ask from behind him.

"I know you're not deaf. I called you a little girl." He pulled the string back and aimed at the turret. He breathed in and out, focusing solely on the target.

"I am a woman grown and a warrior too."

He released the arrow and it flew at the target, striking close to the center. As he lowered his bow, he scoffed at her. "The first is only barely and the second I disagree with. A warrior who proclaims that he does not need to work on his skills is the day he becomes a braggart or dead. Since you're not dead, you must be a braggart."

He could hear her breathing getting angrier and he smirked. It wasn't so nice to be on the receiving end. He continued his practice and ignored her. He found it easier to do when she wasn't talking. "I am not a braggart," she finally said.

"You are," he replied.

"I am not and I will prove it."

He still didn't look back at her as he nocked another arrow and pulled back the string. "How?" he asked.

"I will join the archery competition and defeat you there."

"If you can get to the final round," he replied. He let the arrow loose and it struck the target.

"Trust me, I will get there, I will win, and I will make you admit to all who are there that you are nothing but a pathetic piece of ironman scum."

That was a slur that he had heard before. It hurt but he didn't let it show. "And if I win?"

"You won't."

"But if I do?"

"You won't," she replied, still confident about it.

He didn't give her the pleasure of seeing him get irritated. She already had seen that once and he would be damned before the Drowned God before letting that happened again. "So if I win, you will do what I commend then?"

"I did not say that."

He knew that she didn't say that but he didn't care. "You have to let me hold to something that should encourage me to win."

"You're not going to win," she told him, getting annoyed with him.

"If I'm not going to win, why would you bother joining the competition?" he asked her like he would ask Jon Snow a mocking question that was intended to infuriate. Clearly, it worked just as well on Dornish bastards as it did Northern ones.

"Fine!" she finally declared in a snap of her voice. "If you win the competition, which you won't, I will do one that you command of me."

That made him pause in his practice. He thought over the implications of her words and a smirk pulled across his lips. "I accept," he finally said. "I will see you at the competition, bastard. Now, would you mind allowing me to get back to my training?" She just stomped off. He took it as a yes.

He spent the next two hours there in the yard, firing arrow after arrow, retrieving them when he had run out, and starting over again. He kept training until his arms turned heavy with exhaustion and practice. Most of the other archers had left the yard by now. They were probably the ones who were also joining the joust and the melee. He'd leave that to them and bet on Robb for the joust. The Stark boy knew how to hold a lance. For the melee, he didn't know who it would be. But he knew that it would be one of the Pack.

When he was finally done, he put away the bow and the quiver full of arrows. He made his way down to the riverbank where he had started teaching the little Sand Snakes how to swim properly. He got there and saw a girl, younger than the Sand Snake he just had the irritation to talk to, practically undressed and standing feet deep in the water.

He came down to the bank and she turned to look at him. "You're supposed to go all the way into the water if you want to get wet, not just stand there," he told her. She didn't say anything back. Instead, she just chose to stare at him with wide eyes. She looked a little familiar to him. "Have I seen you around the castle?"

She blushed. "You saved me from the river, my lord, me and my sister."

As soon as she said that, it came to him. She was a Sand Snake, the eldest of the younger group if he wasn't mistaken. "What are you doing here?" he asked, getting to the point.

"You are teaching us to swim, aren't you?" She gave him what she probably thought was a demure and shy look. To him, it was nothing like it. He had fucked serving girls and whores who looked more convincing.

"I'm teaching yours sisters, not you," he told her bluntly. "If you weren't there for the lesson, I'm not going to bother teaching you."

She lost the look for a surprised one. "But, but you pulled me form the river."

"And?" he asked her. He waited for an answer even though he didn't expect one. He rolled her eyes at her. "Just stay out of my way, girl. I don't need a nuisance while I teach your sisters." He stood there on the bank, watching the river churn past him.

The younger Sand Snakes came down to the bank five minutes later alongside their mother. "Good morning, Lord Theon," Ellaria Sand said to him.

"Morning," he said back shortly. He looked briefly at the younger snakes. "Strip and get in the water."

"How far?" asked the youngest of them. She didn't hesitate to wiggle out of her dress and stand there in her smallclothes.

"Until I tell you to stop," he told them. He didn't tell them to get moving. They waded out by themselves, walking with determined looks on their faces. The first time they had done this, they had run in joyously, splashing around in the water like it was some kind of fun game. That quickly ended when he yelled at them for rushing in recklessly. That was the kind of trouble he assumed was what caused the first incident.

"Stop," he finally called out to them and they did. "Sit down, lay on your backs."

"What?" the eldest of the three, Obella as he remembered, said in surprise.

"Sit down, lay on your backs," he repeated, letting a note of irritation creep into his voice.

"But we'll be underwater if we do that!" They all turned their heads to look at him with indignation and a frightened look.

"Then move yourself until only your face is above the water." This was their lesson today. It might seem weird but he knew what he was doing. His grandfather had done the same with him. They would be safe.

He waited until they were properly settled into the water. Then he waited more. Their sister and mother gave him odd looks but he ignored them. Finally he asked them, "What do you feel?"

"I feel something pulling on me!" the youngest snake told him. She was wiggling around in the water, trying to find the pull and where it was coming from.

She wouldn't find it. "That's the river's current. That is what you need to respect if you ever want to swim in a river, the same way you need to respect an ocean's pull if you ever go swimming in an ocean."

Obella looked up and back at him. "Why would we go swimming in an ocean?"

He could feel the rough bark of wood underneath his hands and the roar of the ocean filled his hands. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and forced himself not to think on those memories. "Pray to the gods that you never will, but it never hurts to practice for it."

"Oh, okay."

"What do we do now?" Dorea Sand asked him. She hadn't moved from her spot but she was curious.

"You don't do anything. You stay there until I say otherwise," he replied. He felt a curious gaze on his neck but he ignored it.

It didn't take long before one of them broke silence. "This is boring!" the youngest shouted.

"This will keep you safe," he told her, folding his arms. "I don't care if it is boring. You do it until I say otherwise."

"Is it necessary to shout at them so?" the first girl asked from his side. "They're just little girls."

"You want them dead if they go swimming?"

"No—"

"Then shut up. I already put up with one of you, I don't need another," he snapped at her, barely turning his gaze to look at her. She looked surprised and looked away. He had a hard time believing that she hadn't been snapped at before.

He looked back at the children and saw their mother looking at him intently. "What do you mean when you say that you must deal with another Sand Snake?" she asked him.

"It's not one of yours."

"They are all mine."

That, he scoffed at. "I doubt you gave birth to a Summer Islander."

She frowned. "I may not have birthed her, Tyene, Nym, or Obara, but I still consider them my daughters."

"Is that why the eldest of them run around like they own the very ground we walk on? You can't rein them in?" He didn't wait for her to answer since he already knew the answer. "Why would they? You're only the Red Viper's salt wife."

"…What did you call me?" she asked him after a moment's pause.

He finally deigned to give her a look. "You are his salt wife, that's what you are." He knew enough about the Dornish to know about paramours. They might dress up the name a bit but a salt wife was a salt wife. Why else would the Sand Snakes be bastards and not trueborn.

"The word you are looking for is paramour."

"Paramour, salt wife, it's the same thing," he said with a scoff. There was more he could say, if they were alone. But her daughters were here and he knew better than to say that stuff here. So he went to the basic one. "You're not his wife."

"Why should that matter?" she asked challengingly. "We love each other."

"Then why hasn't has he married you yet?" If they loved each other, they would have married one another.

"Does it matter? Love is love." Neither of them needed to look to see the girl beside them nodding in agreement.

"Can we do something now?" Obella asked, annoyed.

He looked back at the little snakes. "Do you feel the pull?"

"Of course we do!"

"Keep feeling it then." They all groaned in irritation at the command but did nothing else. Good they were learning. If they kept it up, he just might let them wade out to deeper water. As they kept lying there, he turned his attention back to their mother. "If love is love, then why haven't you married him?"

"I do not need to." She made a tsking sound at him. "Honestly, your northerners are strict with your concepts of love. A man does not need to marry a woman to love her. He may have his wife to build alliances and father a family, but his paramour is there to love him. In fact, I've known many lord and their wives who take their paramour to bed with them."

"If that is the case, why do the Sand Snakes and your lover hate the North and everyone that comes from there?" He had seen the looks the elder four had shot every Northman that had come into their sight. Their father wasn't any better. An idea came to him as he thought about it and the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. "They despise Lyanna Stark, don't they?"

She gave him a look. "One can hardly blame them for that, can they?"

He barked out a laugh. He had her now. "If you willingly believe that, then all of Dorne are hypocrites, none more so than Prince Oberyn."

"I beg your pardon?"

He knew that he had her then. "You said yourself that Dorne is freer with love and that is no problem for a lord to take a paramour. If that is true, than clearly King Rhaegar took Lord Stark's sister to be his paramour. So Dorne, and Prince Oberyn, have no real cause to hate her. Why, they should be honoring her for being the king's paramour."

She didn't say anything and before long she left too. The girl didn't follow her, choosing to look at him some more. He ignored her in favor of the little snakes. "Alright, get up," he told them. "Get up and move a little closer."

"My lord," the girl started to say.

He barely cast a look at her. "What? I'm trying to teach your sisters how to swim." She didn't say anything. Instead, her eyes just welled up with tears. It didn't make him sympathetic, just annoyed. "If you're going to cry, go follow your mother." He turned back to the little snakes, ignoring how she left the riverbank.

End

Author's note: Thank you for all the reviews you've sent me.

That's what a back brother means.

I know that Theon is essentially throwing Sarella's words back at her but those are words she had said in the books. I get the feeling that the Sarella here is different. And yes, I believe that Alleras is Sarella. The details match up too much.

I don't know the exact feeling Dorne has of Lyanna Stark because quite frankly, they never talked about it. They were always more focused on Elia's death. But I am going to make a guess that it would've been one of disdain. After all, this is the woman who bewitched Rhaegar away from his wife and had the audacity to hide in Dorne. It doesn't matter if she's dead or not, it's what she did.

I'll see you all next chapter!