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He's standing at the Red Keep, he's never been there but he knows what it is,
and he sees heads on pikes,
and he knows what's to come,
the head turns around and it speaks to him,
I raised you as one of my sons, why have you done this,
and the scene changes,
and he's in a camp, full of soldiers, in a tent, all alone,
a man comes in, he's wearing the garments of the King in the North,
but on his shoulders there's a wolf's head,
and it opens its snout,
and out comes the voice he's missed for so long,
and the voice says,
Am I your brother, now and always?
And he sobs and wants to scream,
and suddenly he's back, back in Winterfell,
and the maester begs him not to do it,
the maester who taught him, tended to his scraped knees,
and he backs away, backs away into a solid form,
and he turns around,
and there's the old master of arms, his head hanging from his neck, barely connected,
and Ser Rodrik takes his own head, he tears it off, he holds it towards him,
and the head speaks,
Now you're truly lost,
and he knows he is,
and it's dark all at once, and he's walking on walnut shells,
and they break and scream beneath his feet,
and he smells them before he sees them,
hears a sizzling sound,
and they come, they drag their charred forms over the ground, hoisting themselves up on burnt limbs,
they open their mouths, just holes, but their eyes are theirs, only boys, and they ask,
Why? Why? Why?
and he has no answer for them,
and again he's at Winterfell, the maester is there,
and the maester cries,
and he wants to help him, he says,
You're not the man you're pretending to be,
and he wants to answer the same as then,
but he's gone again, the maester, and he's alone,
on a ship, fire raining down,
his sister comes, her mouth opens, but it's not her voice he hears, only gushes of blood pouring out between her lips,
and yet her voice echoes in his mind,
Baby Brother...
and his uncle steps behind her, and he slices her throat,
and her eyes look upon him with pure disappointment,
and he's alone in a dark cell, and it smells of dogs,
and the master's coming, and he has no jaw, the dogs have taken it, ripped it off,
and his maimed hands reach at him,
and he turns around to flee, but he can't, there's something behind him,
and it's a creature he never wanted to see again,
and it looks at him with eyes barely alive, it opens its mouth,
I'm you and you are I, now and always
and he wants to scream when he realizes it's a mirror,
and he shatters the mirror, shatters it with his bare hands,
and he's at the gates of Moat Cailin,
and the men welcome him in, their muscles and sinews red with blood, their skin taken from them, and they whisper,
We can go home? We will go home?
and Winterfell again, and Sansa's lying on her wedding bed, her dress torn,
and she's weeping,
and he wants to help, but he can't get to her, he can't,
an old woman sitting beside her,
and her skin is missing, too,
and the master is there again,
and the master calls for him,
and he turns around,
and he drowns, he drowns at home, he's at the kingsmoot,
Yara should be in his place, she isn't, she can't be,
he surfaces again, but it's not Damphair standing over him,
it's the bastard, the good bastard, the Winterfell bastard,
and in his hands is Ice, like it was, like it had been all the time,
and he knows, just knows, it's there for him,
and he bares his neck, he wants it to end-Jon sits beside the bed, watching Theon writhe, scream, sweat, hears him crying out names that make Jon want to kill him.
It's hard for Jon to find some kindness for this man, the man who betrayed his family.
But he tries, for Robb, for Theon, for his own peace of mind.
Jon does not want to be cruel.
So when he hears his own name he reaches out and puts a steadying hand on Theon's back, the man turned away from him on the bed, and Jon talks to him,"Hush. It's over. It's over. You're dreaming. Wake up."-and nothing happens, but he hears a voice, hush, it says, it's over, it says, and it's Jon's voice,
and Theon holds on to it like to a lifeline, he wants to follow it,
and the master holds him back, his eyes still blue,
but they're not his eyes like they used to be, a different kind of blue, a dead stare,
the stare of a different kind of monster, the monsters Jon is trying to fight, and he screams in horror-"Wake up!"
And Theon sits up with a jolt, he turns around, grabs Jon's wrist, he holds it, his eyes wide with a fear he'd hoped never to feel again,
and he screams at Jon,"Did you burn the corpse???"