elnysa | video; un: ironborn

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video; un: ironborn

I’ll not congratulate anyone for the beginnings of this cure.

[ Oh, look, it's that guy who pisses everyone off. The corner of his mouth quirks into a cruel smirk, but his teeth are clenched too tightly and his eyes burn too fiercely for any proper smile. It’s a struggle for him to remain as guarded as he would prefer, and there are cracks in his armor: he’s clearly angry and upset. ]

My sister was among the ill. Was. I have been informed that she has since returned to the pods—still uncured.

[ He tries to keep his tone even and cold, void of emotion, but his voice breaks ever so slightly. He and Asha weren’t close, not like he’s known siblings should be, but it’s a deep cut to be abandoned again, and it hurts to know that one of the few people he felt he could trust in this place is gone. Clearing his throat, he continues.]

Which leads me to the question at hand. What reason do I, or the worried, or any of the ailing, have to trust the maesters here? Healers--whatever name you may know them by. Months, this has gone on, to the point where someone is gone and remains unhealed.

[ He knows better than to critique those who have done nothing but help, but his anger is directionless otherwise, so he chuckles cruelly, and that cheshire smirk widens. ]

They’ve been all but useless.

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[ Jon’s acceptance of him is still one of the strangest parts in all of this. Whether it’s a ruse or not, it leaves him feeling raw and exposed, like anyone can see right through him and read his every thought. Sometimes, Theon thinks back on that conversation they had in the tavern, on how Jon seemed to immediately know Theon’s eternal struggle between two halves: northman and ironborn. It’s more than anyone should rightfully know about him. He’s never spoken of it to anyone, not even to Robb. ]

Stop.

[ He snarls the word between clenched teeth, still struggling to keep some semblance of that smirk in place. ]

I am not your family. I have never been your family. Robb said it himself.

[ It had hurt most to hear it from Robb, so Theon hasn't allowed himself to forget. ]

[He won't say anything else, but the look on his face shows he hasn't changed his mind about Theon's place among the Starks.]

Robb hasn't forgiven you. [A beat.] We learn to forgive in our own time.

It doesn't change what you are to us.

[ It might have been easier to hear, if Theon remembered things differently. But he remembers Robb being the only one who didn’t keep him at a cold distance, who didn’t place a wall between them. Those walls were wise, given the circumstances, but they turned Theon into the bitter man he is today. He might not have taken a torch to Winterfell, but he took a torch to the only true friendship he ever formed in Winterfell. He doesn’t think Robb should forgive him, but he selfishly wishes he would. Meanwhile, he can't accept that Jon actually does forgive him. ]

You mean a prisoner? Your father’s ward? A temporary guest of honor in your home until Lord Balon sparked a second rebellion and his last remaining son lost his head? Or did you mean a turncloak?

[ He chuckles darkly. He’s pushing them all further away, but it may be for the best. Distance means they can’t hurt him with their lies, and Ramsay can’t hurt them with worse than that. ]

No. It doesn’t change what I am to you. Nor should it.

You make yourself into those things, Theon. My father treated you well, no differently than he treated me. He was like a father to you. [While Theon hadn't said it out loud to him before, he knew it instinctively. He had even said as much to him in Dragonstone and never heard an objection.] You have to answer for and accept what you have done, just as we have to come to terms with them.

[It was all so tiring. He pushed and tried to help Theon see that this was genuine, but he could only do so much if Theon wasn't willing. He could understand, having his own crimes to face and accept as well.]

We aren't in Westeros. The world we knew is gone. Now we have a second chance. You don't have to live in the past anymore. You are only kept there by yourself.

[ Theon inclines his head, gaze cold. Again, he recalls differently. Even he can’t turn Eddard Stark into a monster. He was never a cruel man, and he always treated Theon fairly, but never warmly. The shadow of what could happen always lingered between them.

Theon is too resentful to see how hard Jon is trying or how genuine his words are. Worst of all, he can’t recall a time when he didn’t feel that way. He’s always felt a burning hatred in the back of his throat for everyone and everything, for the situation he never asked to be placed into, for the father leagues away who seldom wrote to him, for the Northmen who expected him to be grateful, for himself and his inability to decide who he wanted to be. Even now, now that Westeros is gone, that hatred hasn’t been snuffed out. He’s no less miserable than he was before. ]

Like a father to me indeed. He would have taken my head at the first sign of rebellion. Who are you to say that that was my making? Who are you to say that I chose to be taken from my home?

[ But Jon’s words are all true. The only person keeping Theon miserable is Theon. He can’t move forward because he can’t forgive himself, and he can’t forgive others. ]

You're a fool, Snow.

[Much of his life had been the same, this deep, unrelenting anger for what he was and what he was born into. He had been petulant and lashed out at a number of people, even his Uncle Benjen. But eventually he grew out of that and learned to accept who and what he was. While he hoped to help Theon, offering him an extended hand, he knew that Theon would have to find the answer in his own time.

It didn't seem as if he was ready for that now and so he reverted to what he usually did, lashing out.]

I didn't say you chose to be taken from your home, but he never treated you like a prisoner. He educated alongside Robb, he saw you trained with a bow, taught you to ride a horse. He could have given you a small, bare room. He didn't do that.

[You know nothing, Jon Snow. The words were a familiar ache, no longer the sting they once were.]

Aye, about a great many things. We are all fools.

Because I was the son of a Lord. He treated me as he was expected to treat me. To treat me as anything else would be dishonorable.

[ Theon has had ten years to stew on this, to work out all the odds and ends and reasons why things happened the way they did. He thinks he’s grown quite wise to all of it, and the only questions that bring him pause now are the ones that his uncle asks him: why didn’t he run if he was so miserable? Why did he remain long past adulthood when he had every opportunity to leave on his own? It’s something he can’t admit to himself, but he’d grown attached to his captors despite swearing to hate them. He loved them, wanted to be like them. The truth is hard to swallow. It always is. ]

Because you Starks are honorable fools. All of you.

[ Robb, Eddard, he even counts Jon among them. They’re all honorable fools. ]

[Now he was being difficult on purpose and all Jon can do is sigh in exasperation. No one was keeping Theon at a distance other than Theon himself. It made him the perfect victim for Ramsay's games. As much as he tried and wanted to help, Theon would only push him away.]

Not all fathers are incapable of affection, even for children that aren't their own.

[How did your father treat you, Theon?]

So why didn't you ever run away, if you were so unhappy? You had a number of opportunities.

[ A bark of laughter follows, just as bitter as every word that had come before it. ]

Do not repeat my uncle’s words to me.

[ They had hurt more coming from Victarion, though. His loyalty to Theon’s lord father had never wavered, making his words were just as good as if they had come from Balon Greyjoy himself. ]

I’ll tell you the same as I told him. Every man in the North knew my face. If I wanted a knife at my throat, that was a good way to go about it. And I'm no craven. I do not run.

Your uncle's words?

[He hadn't heard it or knew that he had an uncle here. It seemed like a common question, given his continual complaints.]

That is what you are doing now. You turn your back on the truth and prefer to shape Lord Stark to fit your anger. You have the chance to be part of this family, but you push it away.

That is craven.

Victarion.

[ His eyes flash as Jon names him craven. He’s a great many things: a turncloak, a fool, too controlled by his own anger, but he refuses to accept that he's a coward. Never once did he run. He stood his ground, even as his grip on Winterfell began to slip, and he sees the truth only as he knows it to be. There is no shifting his view. ]

You act as though I paint him as a villain. Your father treated me well. I know that. But he would have killed me all the same if it came to that. We both know it.

[He doesn't know that uncle, but that's not really the point of this conversation.]

You said that about Robb as well. He has every reason to kill you, but he hasn't. Lord Stark wouldn't have punished you for your father's crimes. He isn't Tywin Lannister.

[Even looking past what Tywin did to the families of men loyal to Robb, all they needed to do was think back to the fate of Elia Martell and her children.]

It seems you didn't know him at all.

[ It’s probably for the best that Jon doesn’t reveal his lack of knowledge of Victarion. Theon holds memories of talking at length about his uncles: Mad Crow’s Eye and his ship crewed by mutes, Victarion and his great battle axe, Aeron who drank far too much and purposefully enraged Lord Balon by wagering his ship against a flock of goats that he could douse a fire by pissing on it—and came out the winner. He was young and recalled them only with a child’s memories, but never built them up to be anything more than they actually were: terrifying. ]

I’ve all but asked Robb to kill me. I betrayed him, and I’ll not strip him of a right that should have been his to begin with.

[ He doesn’t know why Robb refuses. He doesn’t know how they can live in such close quarters without even a close call, but he almost wishes it would happen. At least his thoughts would finally stop racing and guilt would finally stop pressing down upon him.

He snorts, indignant. ]

I know your father to be an honorable man, and I know an honorable man would be expected to follow through. He’s beheaded a great many men. I would have been just be one more of them.

Robb won't execute you. He might not forgive you, but he isn't going to kill you. You are the one who wants to be punished. You should know him better than this. He won't take the life of his friend, even if it was someone that hurt him.

[Something Jon hadn't understood then, but he did now. Even with his rage towards Theon, he hadn't killed him either when they met on the beaches of Dragonstone.]

He has beheaded them, but he couldn't hurt someone he views as a son.

Friends can easily become enemies. And so I have.

[ I have, not we have. Even in the middle of the entire siege, he never viewed Robb as his enemy, never viewed him as anything to oppose or fight against. Theon alone brought that friendship to ruins, but he refuses to acknowledge the real truth in Jon’s words. He is the one who wants punishment. No one is threatening him with it, and no one truly has. It was him who put the suggestion out there from the start. ]

Your father never—

[ His jaw tightens in frustration, but he lets out a bark of laughter. He sees things so differently from Jon, and because of that, he believes he's being manipulated--by someone who's only trying to help. ]

Continue to lie to me. Continue to lie. I'll not be deceived.

[He's done his best but there is only so many protests and arguments he could give. Eventually, he had to admit that it seemed that Theon didn't want to be saved or reassured. He knew what Theon was forced to endure, but he couldn't force his protection on someone who clearly didn't want it.

Sansa might have better luck, reaching Theon in the way Jon hadn't been able to.]

Whatever you say, Theon. I hope you remember who you are and who is there for you.

[He will leave it at that and turn off the feed.]

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