His mind ran a league a minute as he pondered the implications of what he had just seen.

The Stark Sigil, placed directly below that of his own families.

It was a message, he realized, for him. It was a message that it was too little, too late. That the boy masquerading as his son had played his hand too soon before even arriving on shore.

That boy thinks himself Northman and Ironborn both. His loyalty was divided, and he doubted he'd win out in that contest. Not after so many years, and so few shared memories.

My son is dead. He died the day they took him from me, and now they send this mummer in his place to claim his name and my throne.

His stomach dropped. He felt something wet trickle down his cheek.

What have they done to you boy, to make you forget yourself so?

His face twisted into something ugly, rage and disgust marring his features.

Ten years was long enough to forget, a voice said. One that suspiciously sounded like his own fathers.

It was not my fault, he reasoned. I had my hands full with Rodrik and Maron. They were too rough around the edges, too brittle. I needed to prepare them for the future. I had no time for a third son barely out of his swaddling clothes whilst planning a war.

But you could have made some, the voice replied. How many times had you ever held him tight and spoken his name and put a hand upon his head in pride?

Only once, he realized. Only once.

The day he lost him.

But now he comes again, under his new families banner.

Something akin to hope filled him.

The Gold Kraken still flew. Not all is yet lost, for he has still come home.

No matter what damage had been done to him, he was still born of salt and rock. Any damage done could be undone.

It would just need time. He would make time.

I would show him all his old haunts. His brother's rooms, the Seastone Chair. I would bring him to the Ten Towers and make Alannys smile again for the first time in a decade.

I would show him who his real family is.

My son. My last son. I will show you the way. Your sister, your uncles, we will show you.

The tradeship meandered ahead, slowing a touch as it neared Lordsport.

Balon turned away, marching away in the direction of his throne room.

I would meet him again in the place I had thought him forever lost.

And we would speak man to man, and embrace as family.

(X)

When the doors to his throne room slid open, screeching their protest as their rusted hinges slid aside, he nearly forgot how to breathe. From this distance, he could only see his son's figure, a hooded cloak covering his face from view.

He was tall. Near enough to his height. Mayhaps even taller.

His son was frozen still. He could see him slowly shift on his feet, eyes no doubt roaming the room.

He could not tell what memories the sight returned, if any.

Then he spoke, voice nearly a whisper. Only the echo carried it forward to his ears.

"Father."

His voice was soft and youthful. He still sounded like a boy.

"Son." His raw-hide voice came away whisper-thin, nearly as inaudible.

He saw Theon twitch at the word. He knew not what that meant.

"Ten years." He said with a frown. His fingers tapped against the Seastone Chair's armrests, nails digging into the oily black stone. "The Stark's had you longer than I did."

Theon didn't move. Did not reply.

The pit in Balon's stomach grew wider. "And now Ned Stark is dead."

He saw his son's shoulders tremble at the name. "He is."

"And how do you feel about that?" He asked, his voice free of inflection. He stood from his throne and watched his son shrink before him.

He thought he saw his son duck his head and work his jaw before replying, but from this distance, it was impossible to tell if the movements were real or imagined.

"What's done is done." His son said, in a voice just as empty, and Balon supposed that was answer enough. To more than just one of his questions.

He feigns indifference poorly. He grew to care for the man. Which means he must care for his boy son, despite being four years his elder.

"Come closer. I would see you look me in the eye and answer me again, this time truthfully."

Theon hesitated a moment before obeying him. But after a time, he slowly trudged forward until there was only ten or so feet of distance between them.

Balon's eyes roved over his son's attire with thinly veiled contempt. He wore a black velvet doublet with the Great Kraken of his house besmirched by the color grey, silvery grey breeches, and silken black gloves with gilded embossing over the knuckles resembling crashing waves. His belt was a stark white and his cloak a northern black, pelted from a wolf, not sealskin akin to his own. His boots were the only thing he wore that merited approval.

I would have preferred you come to me naked, if this is how you conduct yourself.

A gold chain held the cloak and the rest of his disgusting outfit in place. He presents himself as akin to Euron. All pomp and circumstance and niceties to hide the degeneracy and sickness that lie beneath.

Though his son's affliction was far less serious than his brothers.

"Who gave you those clothes?"

His son startled, as if shocked out of his own reverie.

"Was it Ned Starks pleasure to dress you as his besotted whore?"

A twitch at that name. His son floundered over his words for a moment, obviously perturbed, but he soon collected himself. "I dressed myself according to my station. If my clothes offend you, I would remove them."

"It is not the clothes that offend me, it is how you bear them. You did not pilfer them from a corpse or commission them from some great artist, nor have some fair maiden sew you them. You dress yourself like a Southron lord. Indeed Ned Stark did not dress you this way, for even I believe that craven would not stomach such grotesqueness."

His son soon took in his words with the appropriate amount of shame, head bowed. Balon spoke again. "You may well earn them in time, if you speak and act true. But I know not what station you speak of, for you have yet to prove yourself my son."

Balon's lips thinned. "Nor even revealed yourself to me in full."

His son's head dipped even further. It seemed that the same scared whelp that had been taken from him was the same one that had returned to him.

He did not yet understand why the thought comforted him.

He is still moldable.

After a moment's hesitation, his son reached upward and cast off his hood, his face laid bare before him.

His son's eyes were downcast slightly away from him. Balon spoke the words before his mind could process them.

"Look at me, boy. I want to see my son. Have you brought him here?"

At that, Theon finally raised his head and met his gaze.

His hair was as dark as the hour of the wolf. The same shade of raven black that matched his own, his eyes stormy coal. He bore a nose that had never been broken, a set of teeth crooked in just the right way to make all the highborn ladies swoon. He wore his hair long and dressed it like a woman, for he had never felt a man tug upon it in battle. His face was youthful, for the sea had not aged him. His skin was fair, for the sun had scare cast itself upon him.

It was as he feared. The Starks had made him weak.

And yet...

"You are mine, no doubt."

Theon visibly relaxed at his words. He should have known better.

"Now I would have you tell me true. How did you feel, the day Ned Stark's head left his body? Relieved that the axe above your neck had been lifted, at least for a time? Disappointment you were not the man to swing the blade yourself?"

His son shifted in place, face twisted. It was plain as day he was searching for the right way to tell him. Balon waved a hand and stepped a foot closer. "I will have no half-truths or lies in my keep. Tell me."

Theon's face twisted into an expression he could not recognize. He was slow to respond, and when he did, his words were clipped. "Disbelief, at first. Then a great disappointment. A longing. Then a great anger. The most I had ever felt."

"And why might that be?"

"He was a good-." His son stopped. "He was good to me. I was well treated."

"I will be sure to extend the man the greatest of courtesies for treating his hostage and bargaining chip with such due respect."

His son's face twisted again, this time into something he knew for sure.

Anger.

The words left his son's tongue in a flurry. "He was good to me." He repeated. "He taught me to hunt, to fish, to swing a sword and ride a horse and read my letters. Far more than-"

Balon inhaled, fists clenched, nails digging angry red lines into his skin. His son paled and shut his mouth before he could say anything else to regret.

After a moment's silence, he inhaled again before sighing, his rage shelved to the side. "I see."

He did not, and it was plain to see to both of them. "But neither of us are here to discuss Ned Stark. We are here about his son."

At that, Theon visibly perked up. "Yes. I come bearing his word as an envoy."

"You come as an envoy?" Balon smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. "You were bid to come? You do as he commands?"

Theon flustered, obviously taken aback. "No, father. This venture was entirely my idea." His back straightened, his backbone finally found and prodded into shape. "He heeds my counsel. He sees me as a brother."

And boy did he seem proud of that.

Balon nearly stepped forth and beat him for that word. "The son of the man who put your true brothers to the sword considers you a brother?"

He all but purred the word. Brother.

His son floundered again, realizing his mistake, but Balon had no time for it. "Come then. Show me what your 'brother' wishes of me."

Theon nodded, reaching inside a small pouch hooked to his belt and unveiling a rolled-up scroll. "The King in the North's terms."

Balon hummed. "For what, I shall see." He stomped forward and tore the scroll from his son's hands, unveiling it with a scoff.

He scanned its lengths once.

Twice.

Thrice.

Then he turned toward his son, an eyebrow raised. "He seeks to give me a crown?"

Theon's head ducked down a fraction. "An error. What is meant-"

"What is meant is what is said." He finished for him.

"He is ignorant of our ways, father. No offense was intended."

Balon hummed. "Truly? And you did not counsel him of his error? You say his appeal to me was your intent. And you did not counsel him to mind his words, quite obviously knowing of the Ironborn way yourself?"

His son coughed, eyes wide, obviously searching for some way to explain his most grievous error. "I-"

Balon ripped the scroll in twain. His son froze.

He then ripped those halves apart and let them fall free of his hands with a glower. "I am promised nothing in this letter I could not take for myself. What does the Young Wolf offer me Lord Tywin could not exceed by a measure?"

"Glory."

Balon blinked.

Theon's face paled. But then, somehow, he found that backbone again and swallowed deeply before speaking again. "Glory. We used to control every island sitting amidst the sunset sea. We used to control the Riverlands in their entirety and built the largest fortress in the world that no man but the Conqueror himself could have stood against. We used to be feared across the world. Conquering the North? That would be simple. But we should never hold it. No Northern Lord would fear us the way the Rivermen did. They would fight for every inch of every parcel of land in the North."

Balon scoffed. "And conquering the West would be any easier?"

"Why not? Robb has the entire Lannister army on the rout. He has won every battle he has taken charge of. The Lannisters are weak now, for the first time since Tywin wiped out the Reynes and the Tarbecks. We could be the House that finishes them off for good! Imagine it! Us together wiping out one of the richest and most prestigious houses in Westeros and taking every coin and every hall they call their own for ourselves! You could be King of the Isles and the Hills, with the most impregnable fortress left in the world as your seat."

And have it be your seat as well once I die, he thought.

The greed in his son's eyes was naked. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too.

But Balon let himself imagine it nonetheless.

King of the Isles and the Hills. The Hall of Heroes his own personal storeroom.

As Harwyn Hardhand had conquered the rivers and The Redhand the first throne, I could be the first man in the world to seize Casterly Rock. I could finish what the Red Kraken started and scour Westeros of the Lions.

He remembered the look on his brother's face when he'd come home after burning the Lannister fleet at anchor.

Victarion would no doubt jump for a chance at revenge.

And it was a chance they had. No Greenlander save Stark had come forward with any sort of treatise. They quite clearly expected him to sit the war out like a craven, like the craven his father had been.

They would not expect it. He could sack Lannisport and seize The Crag, completely cutting the Lannisters off from The Riverlands now that the Golden Tooth had been seized and that The Reach would no doubt resist any attempts at marching through their lands.

It could be done, he thought with a start.

He gazed upon his son again, eyes narrowed. "And Robb Stark would approve of this?"

Theon nodded fervently. "He hates the Lannisters for all they have done to him, and he would want his allies as strong as possible. He seeks nothing from the Westerlands. It would be ours for the taking."

Balon hummed. "You can attest to this truth?"

Theon nodded again.

"Unfortunately for the Young Wolf, I care not for hearsay or biased words. I would wish to discuss any future plans regarding the West with the boy of his own accord."

Theon raised a brow. "But he's deep in the heart of the Lannister territory. You would never be able to pull him from the field directly for a meeting."

"And he's just outside the outskirts of Lannisport?"

Theon nodded.

Balon shrugged. Imagined it. That title.

The King of the Isles and the Hills.

"Then I suppose I'll have to sail out to meet him."

Theon blinked in shock, dumb and slow.

Balon grunted. "I agree to nothing. But I'll make sure he knows he has my interest when Lannisport's ashes reach him on the wind."