Chapter 18 - A Place in the Family

Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters or the world appearing in this story, they are creations and property of the fantastic George R. R. Martin. I’m not sure if I can claim my OCs as my own, so I’ll play it safe and dedicate them to GRRM.

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Author's Note: A warning! This chapter contains sentences that may be offensive to readers with regard to current gender norms. I want to clarify that these views are not reflective of my own beliefs, but rather a representation of the societal norms within the story's setting.

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[Year - 298 AC]

He was on a ship.

‘When was the last time I was on a ship– at Ten? Eleven?’ he wondered as he looked around the huge longship.

It was an oddly pleasant experience, better than he ever expected a ride on a ship to be. The ship was cruising along the turbulent waves as if they weren’t turbulent at all and everything was a trick of his eyes. He could clearly see the storm raging across the seas, but it left alone his ship as if it were miraculously protected by a barrier. There was even a soft wind blowing across the ship. It caressed him and it felt cool and pleasant on his face.

Not to leave out the woman standing by his side on the deck. He was sure that he’d never seen her before, but she looked at him with a sense of familiarity on her face. Her hair was cut short and she looked more ‘man’ than most men he’d seen – but she was a woman still – he could tell… for some reason.

She was also talking to him, but nothing fell on his ears. He didn’t really want to hear anything she had to say either. Her wicked expression and mocking smirk told him what mattered. He figured whatever she had to say, it couldn’t be anything good.

Turning away from her he got back to looking around the ship. He could feel her getting agitated at being ignored. But he couldn’t really bring himself to care, especially when he’d just noticed something.

Looking up at the mast, he squinted at the flag in disbelief. The Kraken?

‘No,’ he thought as his hands began trembling, ‘I – I can’t be here! What the fuck is happening!?’

"What in the seven hells?" he bellowed, and as he did, the barrier containing everything shattered, and suddenly everything sprang to life. He was assaulted by the cacophony of sounds that had laid silent till then; The fierceness of the storm, the creaking of the hull, the drawl of the woman next to him – he could hear everything, he could feel everything.

“A second father?” the woman snorted in derision, and then her derision gave way to a sneer. “Seems like you’ve made it a habit of betraying fathers, eh?”

He backed away from her in fright – frantically. Her words brought forth a feeling in him, a feeling he’d never felt before.

He kept retreating, hardly caring for the rain battering across his body, making it difficult for him to even open his eyes. His frantic retreat made him slip – the rain having wet the already slimy moss-covered deck – and he fell overboard.

‘I didn’t betray anyone!’ he thought to scream as he fell into the sea.

But then he was at Winterfell again.

‘Did something happen just now?’ he wondered. He had a feeling that something had just happened – something to do with a ship and… was there a woman?

Walking through winter town, he made his course towards the castle. He noticed that the town was empty, too empty even; it was never empty during the day.

‘Why am I at winter town? I should be at the grounds about now,’ he thought to himself.

Reaching the castle gates, he looked on in surprise. There were no men manning the gates. ‘I’ll have to tell Lord Stark about this.’

As he walked in, he was overwhelmed by a wall of smoke. His eyes widened as he took in the burning castle. His mind went completely blank at the impossible scene. Then everything rushed back at once. His first thought was of Robb.

‘Winterfell is under attack! Robb– I have to find Robb!?’

He ran into the fire, uncaring for his safety. The only thing on his mind was to find Robb. Dodging and ducking under the debris, he made his way to the castle as quickly as he possibly could push himself.

He didn’t come across a single living thing in his dash across. Time was not of the essence as he kept running – until he felt like he should have already run across the castle twice through. After what seemed like hours, he finally ran into something. A dead grey direwolf. Its head was separated from its body.

Theon’s heart broke at the scene. A voice at the back of his head poked at him, it told him that he should know what it was– who it was.

He pushed forward – his body urging him to save the others. ‘The others… what others?’ he asked himself as his body kept pushing forward, uncaring of his thoughts.

He hadn’t taken ten steps forward when he ran into another direwolf. This one with a hole in its chest. And then another, with a slit to its throat.

He broke down crying right in front of the direwolf. It was just an animal, why was he crying? ‘Why am I crying?’ he repeated to himself as he tried to see reason, however, his body didn’t listen.

His body kept stumbling forward, forcing him to move even if he had to crawl to do it.

Pushing ahead, he saw prints on the ground. Of direwolf paws. Two went to the South, with one breaking away to the East. And one solitary pair moving to the North.

He pushed even ahead. And he saw himself.

The man in front looked just like him, maybe a little more weary and tired.

The other ‘him’ had two direwolves in front of him and a sword in his hand. The man swung the sword at the wolves.

“NO!” he screamed, his mind and body catching up to each other.

The other him hesitated for a moment before he swung nonetheless. Completing his swing, the man dissolved into nothing.

He fell down in shock. Looking down, he saw his hands caked in blood. Crying out, he wiped his hands on the floor as if frenzied, the only thing he wanted at the moment was to be rid of the blood. As he sat there rubbing his hands on the floor, two heads rolled towards him. Lifting his head he looked at them. “Huh!?” he exclaimed softly.

They were wolf heads, not direwolves.

“Ha–Ha–Ha–Ha…” he laughed in relief, only then realising just how stiff his body was. Relaxing, and letting himself fall back, he laid down on the ground.

“What’s so funny… my prince?” A voice called out as it grated on his ears. It was a scratchy voice.

He lifted his head to lay eyes on the person; only to scream in horror. The man – or the thing – didn’t have any skin on him; no, it.

He scrambled desperately, trying to get away from the thing. Only to find that his hands and legs were chained. He was stuck flush to the wall with his hands and legs splayed out. He couldn’t budge an inch.

He cried – more than he’d ever cried before, as the thing brought its hand to his nether.

"Are you crying, your grace? Only girls cry, my prince… and last I checked, girls don't have cocks!" the thing screeched and cackled.

It slowly slid its hand over his stomach and proceeded to pull down his breeches. As he looked down, he noticed a knife in its hand.

He screamed – a scream more primal than any before. He screamed and screamed until a scream was all that remained.

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“Gasp!” he drew in a long breath as he opened his eyes wide. He was trembling – whether due to the cold or something else, he couldn’t say – and he could feel his body drenched underneath his shirt.

“I didn’t think I could make you feel that good, milord,” a girl said from his side, a little flirtatiously.

Theon whipped towards her, startled by the voice.

The girl, who was laid to his side, had most of her clothes off, with only a skirt covering some modesty. One of her hands was kneading her tit and the other working his cock at a steady pace.

Theon cringed and his body acted before he could think.

Slapping away the hand giving him pleasure, he slithered away from her. ‘Why did I do that?’ he asked himself. It had been instinctive, but he couldn’t figure out why.

“I – I’m sorry, milord,” Bessa said fearfully, “I hadn’t meant to–”

“It’s alright,” Theon said gruffly, cutting her off. “I need to be alone, leave quickly.”

Unquestioning his abrupt orders, the girl rolled away from him. Not even bothering to pick up her clothes, she only threw on a blanket as she scurried away.

Theon sighed as he took in his surroundings. Slowly it was all coming back to him, he’d come to the Smoking Log yesterday. ‘What happened the past few minutes?’

He’d been on a task yesterday, something for Harry, but then he’d seen Bessa. So he’d come to the inn and pulled her into a room with him. He remembered everything that he did to her, but nothing after that. Well, not nothing. He’d had a dream. That much he knew. He just didn’t remember what the dream had been about.

Pushing himself off the bed, he pulled on his breeches and made his way to the chair. He remembered having draped his cloak on it from the hazy memories of the night before. Picking it up, he shook it, only for his gaze to land on the sigil embroidered on it. The Kraken. There had been one in the dream.

His hands trembled as he concentrated furiously; he needed to know what he’d seen, he needed to remember. He tried pulling at all the threads, to get something – anything. However, to his utter dismay, whatever thread he was holding onto, had broken without giving anything.

Shaking his head in frustration, he threw on the cloak. The day was not off to a good start.

Walking out the room, he entered the alehouse right as it was being cleaned. He could see the mess from last night’s business. There hadn’t been a celebration or anything of that sort, but the mess was still enormous.

The innkeep gave him a nod as he dropped some coin on the counter before walking out.

He had to squint as he walked into the sun and he finally understood just how late it was. It had to be midday at the very least.

“Shit!” he yelled as he ran towards the castle gates. People were milling about all across winter town and it struck him as odd, although it wasn’t. He got the same feeling again as he laid eyes on the castle gates, but he just couldn’t place a finger on what it was.

Walking through the gates his eyes immediately found Robb and Jon. His heart ached as he looked at Robb. Theon’s gaze moved to the other boy’s torso, searching for something; something he didn’t find.

It appeared that they had finished their daily sparring session and taken a break to rest their tired bodies, while Bran continued to shoot arrows from the sidelines.

“Theon,” Robb enunciated slowly in an accusing tone. “Your trailing last night seems to have yielded very good results – too good even, I would say…”

Jon moved to say something, but Theon spoke over him.

“Oh, get off it,” he said, brushing Robb off. “You’ll learn to enjoy the touch of a woman soon enough – a proper woman that is.”

“I enjoy it well enough,” Robb looked a little put off by the crude words while Jon kept mum, “but duty always comes first.”

Theon only mumbled under his breath, not voicing out his complaints.

“Did you at least manage to follow him back?” Robb asked assertively.

Theon sighed. He really wasn’t liking being faulted the first thing in the morn. ‘I should have stayed with the wench,’ he thought to himself.

“No, I did not,” Theon admitted, not wanting to drag this on any longer.

“What did I expect?” Robb voiced out in disappointment and Theon felt his heart clench.

“Remember, Theon,” Robb said, “if anything gets out, it’s on you.”

Theon clenched his hand, enraged at the accusation. After all he had done, this was what he got.

“I–” he began but was cut off.

“It’s alright,” Jon quickly interrupted, “I followed the boy. I hadn’t had anything to do, regardless.”

Theon eyed the other boy and gave him a nod. He wouldn’t have expected Jon of all people to come to his aid. He had always been close with Robb and had come to regard him as a younger brother. However, his relationship with Jon had never been very intimate.

“And what did you find?” Robb questioned, getting off of him for a moment.

“He was a spy,” Jon confirmed, “I paid him off, however. Also gave him the raven.”

Robb seemed sated as he exhaled a heavy breath. “Good… that’s very good.”

Turning to him, Robb voiced out, “This is what is at stake, don’t you see, Theon?”

He felt his ire rise yet again. “It wasn’t as if he would have sent a message that very day!” he yelled.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed Jon shift in place; and Theon’s heart sank. ‘I didn’t betray anyone!’ he heard the words echo in his head.

“I suppose so,” Robb conceded with a sigh, not having noticed Jon’s actions.

Theon was drowning in despair. He had nearly messed up.

However, he just remembered something from the dream. Was there talk of betrayal? Why would betrayal be mentioned in the dream? He wouldn’t betray anyone… would he?

“Robb! Am I holding this wrong?” he could hear Bran complaining from the field. “It keeps slicing sideways!”

Robb left his seat with a sigh – to attend to Bran, most probably.

“Theon,” he heard Jon’s stiff voice from the side, “are you alright?”

“Yes,” he said, trying to pull up his usual cocky smile, although, from Jon’s grimace, he could gather that it had come out as anything but.

With a perplexed expression on his face, Jon gazed at Theon and was about to say something, but suddenly he shifted his gaze sideways, to behind him, and blushed.

Taken aback, Theon turned back to see Arya running out, as she usually did, along with Meera and Jojen.

Theon shuddered as he saw Jojen eyeing him. That boy always unsettled him.

Looking back at Jon, he could feel his mood lift a little. “Fancy the mudgirl, do you?”

He could see Jon visibly getting angry. “Don’t call her that.” He said.

Theon’s face morphed into a mocking smile, trying to goad Jon. “You might as well forget it, Snow. However filthy their lot might be, even a swamp-dweller wouldn’t marry off his daughter to a bastard.”

He had barely finished his statement, but Jon was on him in an instant. He could see a punch heading his way, so he quickly stepped back and leaned away from the fist.

“Jon!” he heard Arya shout. Rapidly pivoting towards Jon, he saw Robb holding him back.

“What are you doing!” Robb snapped at Jon.

“It's nothing,” Jon mumbled back, shifting his gaze downwards. Theon’s anger roused yet again. Why wasn’t he saying anything?

“There has to be something!” Arya shouted, her group having joined them.

“What did you say, Theon?” Robb asked him, correctly discerning the reason behind Jon’s outburst.

“The truth,” Theon replied simply.

“What did you say?” Robb repeated.

“No,” Jon said, interrupting from the side. He was walking away from them. “Just leave it be, Robb. It’s not worth it.”

Arya glared at him as she followed Jon, and Meera followed them. Theon’s blood boiled at the dismissal.

Robb looked even more disappointed at him than before. Without a single word, he walked away.

Theon dropped his head as his hands clenched tight. Even the bastard had a family – where was his?

“You’ve dreamed,” said an inflection-less voice from the side, interrupting his self-loathing.

Theon whipped towards the boy, his face contorted in pain and anger. “What?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“You had a dream – a prophetic one,” Jojen repeated.

“So what?” Theon snarled back.

“What did you see?” Jojen asked, with not an ounce of fear from being screamed at.

“I don’t remember now, do I?”

“You had better make an effort to remember it. The dreams always come true.”

Theon started, wanting to bite back, but stopped himself at the last moment. ‘Always come true?’

“Always?” he asked, his anger dissolving and giving way to dread.

“Always,” Jojen confirmed, before walking away.

Theon looked on in a daze, trepidation boiling within him. What did the damn dream say? Who was he going to betray? Had he… seen someone die…?

Even the vague images that oft stayed behind after his dreams were absent with this one.

“Although,” Jojen said as he paused in his saunter, “my sister claims that dreams can be changed. Maybe you can be the one to succeed in that endeavour.”

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