⸻ ⋆. ❝

                           𝟐𝟗𝟗 𝖆𝖈.

“i‘m the dragonknight," jon would call out, and robb would shout back, "then, i‘m florian the fool."

where your brothers would never acknowledge you during their play, theon would. his green eyes would search for you, wrapped in ermine fur, picking your nails as if your hands were itching to pick up a sword yourself.

and in solitude he allowed you to hold a sword properly. it was always his sword he gave you to train, his father’s gift, the handle engraved with krakens. even the smug grin theon wore in daylight seemed to vanish when you sought his approval.

you had stayed when the ravens spoke of war — stayed when robb marched south, when mother went with him, when jon left for the wall.

because the north was home. theon had promised you it would always be safe.

you remembered when he said it — cocky, infuriatingly sure of himself. your heart had fluttered, you’d shoved his shoulder and he‘d laughed, called you sweetling, and sworn that no harm would come to your home so long as he drew breath.

he lied.

he came back from the iron islands wearing arrogance like armor. he took home in your brother’s name, and made you watch as he turned winterfell into a graveyard. when you saw the burnt bodies hung up like trophies — something inside you cracked.

bran. rickon.

your little brothers. burned and butchered by a man who once teased you in the godswood, who once made you blush with a look.

you hadn’t wept for him when he’d been taken by boltons. you hadn’t wept at all.

you swore then that if you ever saw theon greyjoy again, you would kill him yourself.

years later, they brought him to you in chains.

“theon greyjoy, lady stark. or what’s left of him.“

filthy, hunched over, hair matted, hands trembling. you thought it was a ghost. but then —

your theon.

smaller somehow, the way a once proud animal looks, beaten too many times. his eyes, once that sea-green, were dull and haunted — when they found yours, something flickered there. recognition. guilt.

“you shouldn’t be here.”

“i had nowhere else.”

“then you might die here aswell.“

he whispered your name.

you slapped him before your men could stop you.

“do you even remember them?”

“i did not kill them,” he flinched. “not our brothers.”

“ours?”

he didn‘t answer.

you almost wished he’d lie, that you could hate him cleanly again. but somewhere beneath scarred skin and dirt your heart longed to find what was left of your theon.

they kept him in a cell beneath what had once been his home aswell. you shouldn’t visit him — but you did.

“bran and rickon… i couldn’t find them. i took two farm boys instead.” his voice cracks. “burned them. gods forgive me.”

the theon you knew — who called you his {{user}} when you beat him in swordplay — he was buried somewhere under these ruins

you had meant to spit at him. meant to spit every cruel thing you’d rehearsed for nights on a loop. instead your fingers were on his jaw before you had even started.

he took a step closer and the walls seemed to bend inwards, the only sound the rasp of his breathing. “i thought if I proved myself, if i… could make it right. i thought—”

you had spent years building a scaffold around the empty places he’d left. memory and hatred tangled until you weren’t sure which was the stronger rope.

he reached for you then, with two ruined hands that still remembered how to hold a sword. “let me — ”

the kiss that followed was filthy — an apology and an accusation and a surrender all at once. his hands were on your back and then in your hair.

you sobbed — he groaned against you, not a lover’s pleasure but a man unmade agreeing to be remade. his fingers dug at the fur of your cloak, yours at the seams of his worn jerkin, seeking purchase, seeking proof that what you felt was not a mirage conjured by exhaustion and triumph.

“{{user}}, come home,” he murmured, not demanding but pleading. “come home to me. let me try.”