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Chapter Text

Ned Stark was surrounded by papers on his desk with Maester Luwin hovering over them when Theon pushed the door open. He looked swamped with numbers and little details to be sorted out before the King arrived. Ned Stark sighed when Theon came in and put his work to the side. 

“M’lord?” Theon asked, the accent something he picked up from visiting Wintertown a few too many times. It did make Ned Stark quirk up a small smile though, so that was one benefit. 

“Theon, we need to talk, Luwin, fetch my sons will you?” Ned gestured and Maester Luwin quickly ducked out of the room, closing the door behind him, and Theon took the seat in front of Lord Stark. “You have to tell me who claimed you, Theon.” Lord Stark said as he settled back into his chair. 

“No one claimed me, my lord.” Theon repeated like it was rote. He was careful to make eye contact with Lord Stark. 

Lord Stark sighed, “Theon.” 

Theon stayed silent and refused to look away. 

Lord Stark sighed again, “It matters more than you think and more than they think. Did they tell you their reasoning for staying quiet?” 

Theon nodded his head, deciding to at least forgo some of the farce, “Robb said if Lady Stark thought it was Jon, she’d have us mated and sent away. Get rid of an embarrassment and me at the same time,” Theon didn’t know if Lord Stark appreciated the candidness, but Theon wasn’t one for holding his tongue, “And if it was Robb, well…” Theon trailed off. 

Lord Stark just nodded, “They’d said the same to me.” Doubtless Lord Stark had interrogated his sons that night, before Jon even hit his rut. Robb had been with him in the solar for hours yesterday too. “But Theon, they don’t know what they’re doing. You need to tell me which one claimed you.” 

Theon met Lord Stark’s eyes, “No.” 

Lord Stark slammed a hand on his desk, “Theon!” He bellowed, but Theon didn’t flinch. He’d gotten yelled at worse before from Lord Stark and his father alike. Ned sighed and rubbed a hand on his temple.

A knock came at the door. 

“Come in.” Ned said and Maester Luwin pushed open the door, gesturing both Robb and a very tired looking Jon into the room. He ducked out immediately. Jon slunk into one of the chairs at the edge of the room. Theon hadn’t seen him since before the rut, he wondered how it must’ve gone for Jon to look so weary. 

“Boys.” Ned greeted as Robb sat next to Theon. Neither Robb or Jon looked happy, they all knew what this was about. “I’m hoping we can settle this situation once and for all.” 

“It was an accident, my lord.” Theon said again, if only to repeat the story that the three of them had agreed on.

Ned smiled knowingly and just a little bit frustrated, “As you’ve said. I hope you don’t think I’m a fool.” 

“No, my lord.” Theon hurried to say. 

“Good, then we can forgo all this nonsense and you can tell me which of my sons bit you.” Ned leveled him with another stare. Both Jon and Robb tensed and Theon finally saw the reason for calling the two of them here. With just Ned Stark, Theon’s place was clear, it was all “my lord”s  and niceties. Robb and Jon were from a separate world where they didn’t have to see Theon play by the rules of King Robert’s cruel game. 

Theon swallowed. “No, my lord.” He repeated, nervous this time. He never refused Ned anything and both Robb and Jon were watching. 

“Theon.” Ned warned with the same kind of alpha wolfish growl that Robb and Jon leveled at him when they were annoyed. Theon dutifully looked away, feeling in his body how the growl affected him. Even though he wasn’t a wolf, he was nervous and anxious not to upset him further, especially after Jon had shoved him against a tree. 

“Apologies, my lord, but it was truly an accident.” 

Ned growled again and Theon still stared at the wall, “I expected this from my sons, but not from you, Theon.” 

“You can’t expect him to tell you, father,” Robb said, interrupting whatever kind of excuse Theon was going to try and tell, “It’s a bad outcome either way. For him, for us, for you. Just let it be an accident.” 

“I expect,” Ned emphasized the word, “You all to be truthful with me, at least here where we can negotiate the consequences.” 

“And what are they? The consequences?” Jon asked wearily from the back of the solar. Theon hoped the truth wasn’t too obvious in either Robb or Jon’s scent, not with the four of them stuck in this room together. 

“Theon belongs to the North now. I’ll be sending a raven to his father informing him that Theon will be mated appropriately based on his station and the station of his pack alpha.” Which depended on which one of the two bit him. 

“I am heir to the Iron Islands.” Theon protested. He wasn’t going to be sold to some Northern wolf and done with. 

“A title which will now pass through your sister.” 

Theon blanched, “You’ll mate me to a man.” He asked, knowing the answer. 

“The Krakens have no such compulsions about sex, and no, I’ll mate you to a titled alpha.” It was worse. 

“I didn’t choose to get claimed. My father will not be happy to see me mated off to an alpha.” Theon left out that he also would not be happy about it. 

“Well if it was Jon who bit you, Jon can mate you,” Ned compromised, finally narrowing in on the key consequence, “If it was Robb, Lord Karstark has an alpha son and Karhold is east of here.” He would send Theon further away from the islands. Further away from Robb. Further away from Winterfell. 

“You can’t mate him off, father.” Robb protested for Theon who was still stunned into silence. 

“He’s already of the age of it,” Ned said, gesturing to Theon like a political pawn, “And his father has shown no intention to make a match for him.” 

Theon looked down in shame. He’d known it was true and he could even understand his father’s reasons for it, knowing how the Iron Islands worked better than anyone else, but for Greenlanders, a lord like him should have been set up with a match by his age. Especially since he was supposed to be the sole heir. 

Theon looked at the two alphas and saw all of his options in front of him and hated them all. “It was an accident. It’s not a bite.” He reiterated. Ned growled and rounded the desk. 

“I won’t have any more of this Theon.” He threatened, but Theon didn’t back down, standing up to meet Ned’s height. He met Ned’s eyes with no fear just like Dagmer Cleftjaw had taught him. 

“What happens if we don’t tell you what happened in the woods, my lord?” Theon pushed, “You won’t make me a match. I will still have Pyke.” 

Then Ned’s hand was around his throat and he was shoving Theon back against the wall with the strength of a man who fought in countless battles. Theon went with it, shocked, and heard both Jon and Robb rush to their feet. Robb’s voice called out, but it was Jon’s growl that cut through the room. 

Ned let go of him fast enough and then the room ended in total silence, Theon reaching up to his own neck as if it was just a dream that it all happened. 

“Robb, you’re dismissed.” Ned said as he turned back to his desk. 

“Father-” Robb started. 

“Leave.” Ned ordered as he sat down.

Robb looked towards Theon once, then left the room. As Jon sat back down in his chair and Theon took the now vacant one next to him, he wondered if it had all been a ploy to get Jon to reveal himself through his growl. 

“Father-” Jon then started and Ned just growled and it was enough for Jon to shut his mouth. Theon wondered what their scents were saying to each other. 

“Robert Baratheon is coming to Winterfell, the news arrived yesterday,” Ned said and both Jon and Theon sat silent and waiting, “I’m sending you both North. You’ll take lands close to the Gift in the mountains. I want you to stay there. Mate at your next rut and forget your lives in Winterfell.” 

“My lord-” Theon tried but Ned just held up a hand. 

“No more, Theon,” He sounded weary, “Neither of you will understand now, but I’m saving you.” 

“Don’t do this, father, please.” Jon begged, staring down at the floor, looking even worse than when he’d entered the solar. 

“Next summer, if the two of you still question why I’ve done this, come to Winterfell, but I hope to never hear from either of you again.” 

Theon felt the anger rise in his, “You can’t send us away like this. I’m a Greyjoy. My father-” 

“Has been distant since the rebellion, do you truly expect a welcome return to the Islands after all these years, Theon?” 

Theon’s mouth snapped shut and he glared at Ned. It wasn’t fair. He’d taken him away in the first place. It was all his fault. It was things like this that made Theon feel younger than his years and wished that the lessons Dagmer and his mother had taught him told him what to do when his fate was decided against him. 

“I’m your son.” Jon said, a light growl at the back of his throat even as he was too afraid to lift his head. 

Ned didn’t say anything at first and Theon watched the emotions flit across his face as he broke at the cruelest words that Jon had ever uttered. Then, he said something even worse, “And you will make me proud.” 

The words barely had time to settle over the room before Jon was on his feet and storming out of the room with a bang. Theon jumped and watched the doors clang back closed behind Jon’s back. Then he turned back to Ned in shock to see the Lord with his head in his hands grieving something that he himself had done. 

“You might not captain a ship, but you will be lord over lands, Theon, this is more than your father would give you, know that.” Ned said, still rubbing his hand over his forehead in distress. 

Theon almost made another cruel remark, almost wanting to follow Jon’s lead and force the honorable Ned Stark to his knees, but he stopped himself. The truth was out. There wasn’t a point pretending anymore. He looked down at his hands, “How can you be so sure?” It didn’t matter if Theon was already sure of it just as much as Ned, he had to know for how long Ned had looked at him with pity. 

“You’ve said it yourself, not in so many words, but that Ironborn never follow anyone who hasn’t proven himself. That they hate Andals and the First Men. Beached fish never survive long.” 

“You won’t have leverage over my father anymore.” If he was going to be a pawn in some grand game, he was going to at least be honest about his role. 

“I don’t think you ever would have been enough.” 

Theon closed his eyes briefly, letting the words wash through him like the truth that he had almost known. He’d never been an heir anyway, that had been Rodrik, then Maron, then Asha, but it never could’ve been him. He was never a true Greyjoy like his siblings. 

“Blame me, Theon, you’ll live long enough to understand my choices after I’m dead.” 

“I think the only way to have won my father to my side was if I’d slit your throat ten years ago.” It would have been the Ironborn thing to do. Krakens didn’t play these diplomatic games like the greenlanders. 

Surprisingly enough that made Ned Stark laugh and Theon looked back up at the man who finally seemed to relax. “How much would have changed if we were honest about this years ago?” 

“I would’ve gone and joined the Second Sons.” Theon joked and Ned’s lip twitched upwards. 

Then Ned’s face turned serious again, “Can you do one last thing for me, Theon, I know it isn’t fair after what I’m taking from you.” Theon didn’t want to make the list, but he knew that it started with Pyke and ended with Robb. 

“I won’t forgive you for it. Never.” Theon said, already feeling everything that he and Robb could have been slipping him by. He saw all the dreams of his youth burn to ash as his new future presented itself as a blank emptiness that scared him beyond compare. 

“I’m giving you Jon.” Ned said like it could match all the things he was taking away. 

“We hate each other half the time.” 

Ned shook his head like there was still something that Theon couldn’t understand, but continued nonetheless, “Protect him, will you? If not for me, for Robb’s sake.” 

Theon pulled back in surprise, “You said to never come back.” They were to be banished and now he was supposed to protect Jon for Robb’s sake? When they’d never see him again if Ned Stark had his way?

“You’ll understand in a few years, sooner rather than later, but there may be a time when you both can return and Robb will mourn the time that passes just as much as you both.” 

Theon leaned forward and put a hand on the desk between them, “My lord, you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to send us away.” Theon wasn’t sure if it was logic or pleads that came out of his mouth, but it was somewhere in between. 

Ned Stark looked at him with a soft shake of his head, “If the world was a different place, maybe, but being a Lord means making different decisions, Theon, and you best remember that.” Lord Stark stood and Theon took the dismissal as it was. As he walked out of the solar door he hated Ned Stark more and less than he had when he’d first walked in. 

But there was one thing he knew. He would’ve traded anything for Robb to be the one sent North with him because perhaps then he could have borne the lonely cold long years ahead of him.

Chapter Text

Jon was not pleased with their change in circumstances. That much was clear based on the steady frown that had been on his face the entire time they’d been riding. With the King due to arrive in Winterfell, the two of them had been rushed out onto the road, a few horses and packs of supplies. Lady Stark was happy to see the both of them go, a paper in hand saying they had the lordship over some keep and village far enough out in the woods that there wasn’t a road that ran the whole way there. 

All Theon knew was that they were going North and Jon was promised to mate him at his next rut instead of joining the Night’s Watch like his uncle and neither of them were happy about it.  

“Well…” Theon said because they’d been riding for most of the day and Jon had kept to stoic silence. They had a train of horses with them, carrying things, but it was just the two of them and it would be for days along the road. Lord Stark said there would be small folk at the keep who they could employ, but Theon wasn’t going to expect much. He’d come far from being a prince of the Iron Islands and his high expectations had always seemed to hurt him. 

“There’s an inn up a ways. We’ll stop there for the night.” Jon said without even looking at him. 

“I do hope I’m not in for a loveless marriage.” Theon muttered and Jon finally looked back at him, but only to glare angrily. “Jon-” Theon started, more serious, thinking that maybe it was best that they got along better, and thinking of the kinds of things that Ned had said to him just the day before, but then he stopped himself. 

“What?” Jon asked and Theon just shook his head. 

“Things will be better for us up here.” Theon said even though it was not even a day and he already missed Robb dearly. Almost as much as the warmth within Winterfell’s walls. But then he thought of the looks that Lady Stark gave to him and Jon daily. He thought of Ned Stark’s sword and the execution block. He thought of Sansa, her looks cruel and mean towards both of them as well.  

“I wanted to join the Night’s Watch.” Jon complained. 

“I wanted to mate your brother.” Theon countered and they both just glared at each other some more. 

They both turned back to the road. Theon looked back to make sure their four horses were still with them and the road behind looked just as boring and cold at the road in front. 

---

The inn was just as all other inns in the North. It was in a little town, a few farmers and local people from the surrounding areas were in the inn that night. Jon had gotten him and Theon a room since they were Lords traveling on the Kingsroad North. They’d stabled the horses and paid a stable boy extra to watch them at night to make sure nothing went missing. Theon still expected to find at least something stolen come morning. 

Theon had left Jon stewing over his stew in silence and gone up to the barmaid, leaning closer to her and eyeing the cleavage that spilled down her chest. She was pretty enough for him and he hadn’t lain with anyone in what felt like far too long. 

“What do I gotta do to get a mug of ale?” Theon asked, smirking as usual and he saw the girl look at his own face in interest. He was handsome and he knew it. He would be better than anyone else the girl saw in her own little village. 

“Ask the right person, I suppose.” The girl teased and Theon smiled even wider. A good body and a funny attitude. This was looking like a better and better night. Then the girl’s eyes landed on his chin, she pointed at it, almost going to touch, but thinking better, “What’s this, then?” She asked and Theon wondered if she was used to patrons who weren’t wolves. He'd expect a question about his gills or fins first. 

“An accident,” He covered up, reaching and grabbing her hand poised in the air with his own, massaging his thumb into her palm, “Nothing to worry about. I’m not a wolf anyway.” 

“Hmmm…” She said, but still she pulled back her hand from his and Theon internally groaned at the loss. He was horny and he just wanted a night off from having to worry about dumb newly matured alpha Jon Snow and everything of the last few days. “You came in with that alpha though. The Lord.” She said as she watched something, probably Jon, over Theon’s shoulder. 

“I’m a lord myself. And that alpha doesn’t rule over me.” Theon said, putting his hand on her waist instead and pulling her slightly closer. He was going to try his best to win her over because he wasn’t sharing a musty bed with Snow. Not if he couldn’t help it. 

He heard the growl before the hand clamped down on his shoulder. As soon as he heard it, he wondered why he expected anything different. “You’ll have to forgive my betrothed, he overreaches himself.” Jon said to the girl as his other hand grabbed Theon’s upper arm and bodily pulled him back into Jon’s space instead of the barmaid’s. 

Theon tried to push the hand off and only succeeding in getting some more space between him and Jon, before the hand tightened threateningly, “Snow,” Theon hissed, angry, “Fucking let go.” 

Jon’s angry eyes flickered to him then, no longer the posturing alpha warning away Theon’s potential suitor, and now all the anger was directly solely on Theon. Theon was reminded that it wasn’t actually that long ago that Jon’s teeth were at his neck. “You don’t touch anyone else, Theon, not anymore.” He threatened. 

“I’m not as honor-bound as you, Snow, I have needs.” Needs including getting his dick wet significantly more often than never. Theon pushed again at the hand and it still didn’t budge. 

“Needs which I am responsible for.” Jon said like it was a lecture for a child even though his cheeks were red and he was talking low enough that people nearby wouldn’t listen in. 

“Oh, so you’ll suck my cock, then, will you?” Theon had no such compulsions. He emphasized his words with a shove at Jon’s chest and it made enough space for him to see that people were watching them out of the corner of their eye. The barmaid had been smart enough to make herself scarce though and Theon wondered what Jon’s scent was like at that moment. Was some musky alpha anger filling the room that Theon couldn’t smell? 

Jon growled and dragged him towards the inn stairs to their little room. Theon let himself be dragged with a little smirk, knowing that their fight was nowhere near done and back in their rooms Theon could be even nastier to Jon than he was in the inn. 

Jon shoved him in the little room, making him stumble, and slammed the door shut, pushing the latch into place. 

“Well?” Theon spun back around towards Jon after he got his feet back under him, “Get on your knees then.” He grinned at Jon, daring him to follow through with his earlier boldness. 

Jon growled and stalked back towards him fast enough that Theon took two steps hastily back before Jon’s hand was on Theon’s arm again, and then Jon’s other hand was right between his legs. Theon froze, his eyes going wide. He hadn't been expecting that.

Jon added pressure, then his eyebrows furrowed. “Theon…” Jon prompted, his hand flexing again and Theon’s eyes slid closed even as he tensed even further. It felt good at the same time that Theon knew his farce was done. 

“It’s because I’m a pureblood Kraken.” Theon answered the unspoken question. Since it was probably impolite for Jon to ask where his cock was. He opened his eyes again and watched Jon’s face. Jon didn’t move. “Here.” Theon said, and snuck his free arm down, sliding under Jon’s hand and doing the quick adjustment that he’d perfected years ago. Just a light press and release and then Theon pulled his hand away and Jon’s hand was finally cupped around his erection. Jon squeezed as if to make sure it was actually real. Theon’s eyes shivered closed then open again. 

Then Jon was pulling away, taking two steps back and the cold air came back between them. “Take off your clothes.” Jon ordered like it was a military command. 

Theon gaped, “What?” He was caught between wondering if this was some kind of aversion on Jon’s part or something else. 

“I’m your alpha, Theon, do what I say.” Jon said, no question to be had. 

“Why?” Theon asked even though he’d never been self-conscious about his body. He’d only ever hidden things for the purpose of keeping the Kraken secret, nothing else. He’d fucked barmaids and stableboys aplenty, but he didn’t let them get their hands down there. He couldn’t have them seeing exactly what his parts were. 

“I need to know how to take care of you.” Jon answered and the way he said it wasn’t an innuendo. It was more than just that and Theon wondered how much Jon could feel through his trousers to get that hint of fear in Jon’s eyes. 

“It’s a secret,” Theon said even as he pulled on the laces of his shirt, “That pureblood Krakens are like this. Only the Ironborn know. You shouldn’t have…” Theon trailed off. 

“What?” Jon almost growled, “Touched you? When we’re going to be mated anyway?” 

Theon’s protests died on his lips. It was true. He’d never have been able to keep a secret for that long anyway. That was why he’d only done brief encounters and never any longer relationships back in Winterfell. He didn’t want people getting too familiar. 

“I’m just telling you, because you should know.” Theon said, shucking his shirt and pulling his boots off. His erection had quickly died and he felt it slink back inside of him and figured that maybe it was better this way for Jon to understand. “Just that it’s a secret, is all.” 

Then Theon was pulling the laces on his trousers, and pushing them off to the floor. The air was cold in the inn, even though it was summer. Theon shivered in his bare skin. He wasn’t built for the Northern climates. 

Jon’s eyes immediately went to the sparse hair between his legs and the noticeable lack of a cock poking out from it. Theon watched his face. He knew that the First Men used to be more like the pureblood Krakens, but years and years ago that had all faded away. Only the pure lines of Krakens were still like this, a womb and a cock. 

Jon stepped towards him slowly, then pushed him back towards the bed. Theon went, both of them watching each other’s eyes warily. Then Jon was pushing him onto the bed and pushing him to lie back. Theon tensed, but followed where Jon’s hand guided. The two of them were silent. 

Then Jon, the lord’s son, fully clothed and honor-bound, was pushing against the inside of Theon’s thigh and Theon let his legs fall open. 

Jon sat between them. 

His fingers traced lightly up Theon’s thigh until they were nearly there, then he pushed more, opening Theon even further. The fingers danced over the sparse hair, nearly touching Theon’s superheated skin. It was always damp down there, it was the nature of Krakens, but Theon felt a stronger heat in his crotch and he was sure the skin was shiny with slick. 

Embarrassment hit Theon too fast and it was too quiet, so he reached and grabbed Jon’s hand and pulled it slightly up and pressed it to the skin above his opening. “That’s my cock, can you feel it?” He pushed Jon’s fingers to it and the skin was hot and heavy. Jon’s eyes snapped up to his. Theon wondered if his face was flushed. He’d never let anyone linger on his body like this. It was always too dangerous. 

Then Jon’s fingers slipped down slightly, touching at the opening and Theon gasped loudly and grabbed Jon’s wrist to stop him. 

“You don’t know what you’re doing.” Theon said. He didn’t know how to explain it. That he was the same as his sister in every way. That honor-bound Jon would never touch a maid like this and that’s what Theon was, or at least that’s how Jon would understand it if he knew. But Theon didn’t want him to know. 

Jon went to pull his hand away, as always dutiful, but Theon’s grip on his wrist didn’t let him move. Jon’s eyebrows furrowed. 

“Theon?” Jon asked, hesitant and almost worried. 

Theon couldn’t bear to say anything so he just stared at Jon’s eyes and didn’t let him pull his hand away. They stayed like that for a moment, until Jon seemed to understand and he pushed his hand forward once again. 

It was euphoric as soon as Jon’s fingers were back there at his opening. Theon was collapsing back on the bed, eyes sliding shut, and moaning up at the ceiling like an expensive whore. His legs twitched further open and he pushed at Jon’s hand until his fingers slid inside. 

“Jon!” Theon cried helplessly and his hips thrust out of control and Jon’s fingers only slid deeper and Theon groaned and clenched his eyes shut at the feeling. 

Jon growled and then he was hovering over Theon, his other hand propped by Theon’s head as he drove his fingers in with a purpose. The growl was the same alpha growl that Jon had quickly grown into over the last few days, the kind that meant he was only focused on one thing: Theon. 

Theon cursed and prayed and begged and his hand reached up and grabbed at Jon’s back and shoulders and his ass, before settling on his neck and pulling Jon’s mouth down just to shut himself up. 

--- 

In the morning, Theon rode his horse with an extra loose sway in his hip. He had a lazy grin and his hips rolled with the movement of the horse under him in a way that he was always too tense to do when he hadn’t slept with anyone in too long. Jon was watching him carefully too, but Theon just grinned more and winked at Jon. 

All Krakens were heathens, everyone knew that. Theon wasn’t going to let Jon’s silly wolven ideas of sex and men and women govern him. What Jon didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt him. 

He’d let Jon finger him with a vengeance for a long while the night before, until he was pulling Jon’s fingers out of him and pressing his own erection out and stroking himself off with quick movements. 

He’d gone to pull Jon out of his own pants, but Jon had pulled back and away before his hands could touch him. Instead, Jon had pulled himself off, staring at Theon’s naked body covered in seed and slick. 

Both of them had been too tired to talk after that. 

“So…” Jon started as soon as they were a ways out on the road, the only people for miles. 

Theon sighed. It was about time to get the questions that Theon had purposefully avoided last night. Jon was at least smart enough not to bring it up back at the inn. At least he could trust Jon to know that this was the kind of secret that needed to stay secret. 

“It’s just purebloods?” Jon asked. 

“The Greyjoys and a few of the old families. It used to be all Krakens, but intermarriage made us more like the greenlanders.” Theon looked over at Jon, trying to read his reaction even as Jon kept his head resolutely ahead.

“Why is it a secret then, that mens’ cocks go back inside?” Jon asked and Theon had to look away a moment. 

“Because that’s not all there is to it. Because any greenlander would see what you saw last night and treat Krakens like women.” 

Jon looked over at him carefully and Theon sighed. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that we don’t have men and women like you all do. We just play roles.” 

Jon seemed to still and a confused look came over his face, “Your sister…” He trailed off. 

“She’s the same as me. My father and mother too.” 

“Then can you get…” Jon stuttered and his face turned red. 

Theon laughed, just at the ridiculousness of it all. This was something he was born understanding after all. “Pregnant? Once I’ve been drowned, probably.” Theon looked out into the forest wondering how bad it really was that his gills were still sealed. “Balon was the one to carry me. My mother carried the rest of my siblings.” 

Jon looked at him with a face full of shock. 

Theon smiled a sad smile, “They say you take after your sire more than your carrier.” Balon never did like him that much growing up. Neither had Maron or Rodrick. And he had the Harlaw coloration, and the Harlaw name, but that wasn’t something that Jon needed to know.

“Theon.” Jon’s voice sounded choked, probably still trying to comprehend how different Krakens were from Wolves. 

“One of the oldest kings of the Iron Islands was born to an male omega Wolf,” Theon said, “It was the Andals that made men sires and women carriers.” It was the kind of history that got lost when the Andals ruled the seven kingdoms. Even the North had a hard time remembering its own history sometimes. 

“So then what are you?” Jon asked pointedly. 

“I’m a Kraken.” Theon answered. There wasn’t more to say to it. Sure he was given a man’s name and a man’s role in life, but it didn’t change what he was. He was Ironborn and he was a Kraken. They would never be men and women like the Andals understood it. 

Jon looked back at the road, almost like he didn’t have any idea what to say. “I shouldn’t have touched you last night.” Jon decided on.

Theon laughed, “I’m not a maid.” Things like that didn’t matter for Krakens anyway. 

Jon shook his head, “But you are, in the ways that it matters-” 

Theon cut him off. “No. I’m not,” He wasn’t putting up with things like this, “Krakens take no offense to fucking before mating. It’s only the Andals with women and the Wolves with Omegas and highborn women that take offense. And I’m no woman and I’m no omega, so you’ll touch me or I’ll find someone else to.” 

Jon growled at the threat and Theon urged his horse ahead to ride in front. “Theon…” Jon seemed to warn. 

Theon glared back at him, “Don’t treat me like a wolf, bastard. I’m not one.” He flared his fins just to prove the point and decided that he was done talking. Jon wouldn’t talk with him yesterday at all and Theon was done talking to him now. A loveless marriage in the cold icy North with a prickly bastard. That’s what his life was looking like now.

Chapter Text

Theon nudged a rotted piece of wood with his foot. Jon was on the other side of a fallen wall rooting around in the remnants of the keep that was supposed to be their new home. Theon had been numb since they’d ridden up, but that piece of wood finally broke the silence. 

“You just had to listen to your fucking father didn’t you.” He scowled in Jon’s direction. The entire keep was in disarray, no one living for miles and just piles of stone and rotted wood where they’d been promised a village and a castle. 

Jon didn’t deign to give him a response, just walking through the ruined section to get to the half of the keep that was at least still standing. Theon followed, if only to berate him even more. 

“Once we rode out of Winterfell we could’ve gone anywhere. Could’ve gone to White Harbor and sailed east even. But no. You had to listen to your damned father and take us to empty lands and ruined castles!” He shouted. There was no one around to hear. The maps and detail that Ned had given them gave direction to the keep and said there was a town right to the west by the river. The keep was in ruins and the town, along with the river that he and Jon had left behind yesterday, was nowhere to be found. 

“We’re to be lords of this?” He spread his hands and gestured to the fallen rocks and rotting wood, “In a land that’s had no lords for generations? We were fools, Jon!” He yelled, “Drowned God, why did I even follow you!” He cursed and grabbed at his hair. It was too much. A promise of lands up North closer to the wall, a place where no one would bother them and where they couldn’t get in Robb’s way. A promise of smallfolk and an easy income and an easy life. 

“Even if there’s a village here, they’ll rob us and leave us for dead, not give us tribute. No lords have ruled here in ages! You’re not like to change that!” Theon shouted at Jon. Why didn’t he just fucking respond!

“There’s nothing!” Theon screamed in anguish and kicked a rock. They’d traveled for more than a week for nothing! They had hardly any rations left and not the kind of supplies for spending longer on the road. They were too far now to turn back to Winterfell too. They were stuck out here, no ravens, no smallfolk, no keep. 

Jon walked back out of a room he’d been investigating, “This one’s closed off.” He said. 

Theon groaned in frustration, “That doesn’t matter! We can’t stay here, not like this!” 

Jon glared at him, clearly annoyed with his shouting, “We’ll stay the night. Find the village in the morning.” Jon started back towards their horses. 

“The village is supposed to be due west. I see no village. No sign of the village.” Theon said, already skeptical that they’d been sent on a wild goose chase. If he wasn’t so sure that this was the keep Ned Stark had directed them to, he would have begged Jon to ride further in search of their real lands. 

“They moved the village, it happens.” Jon shrugged, pulling their packs down from the horses. Theon didn’t move to help. 

“And the river that’s supposed to be west of here?” They had been following the river for ages heading north, then left the river’s trail when they gained sight of the crow’s peak mountain. The quite obvious landmarks along the way guided them here, but the river had disappeared the day before and they hadn’t heard it at all since. 

Jon shrugged, but there was a tenseness in his shoulders that Theon could see, “The river moved.” 

“The river moved?” Theon’s voice was almost shrill. 

Jon growled and threw their roll of furs at Theon’s chest, forcing him to grab it. “Set up camp in that room and stop whining.” 

Theon didn’t budge, “We should turn back now, while there’s still some light.” They could camp on the road again, so long as it meant finding their way back to the farmstead they left behind nearly four days ago before they ran out of all their rations. 

Jon shook his head, “No. We’ll find the village in the morning.” 

“Are you kidding me?” Theon pushed, reluctantly following as Jon lugged their packs back toward the ruined keep, the furs still clutched in his hands. 

“Mind your tongue, Theon.” Jon said with a glare. 

Theon scowled again, “I’ll leave you here. There’s nothing for us. Just an empty lordship that will get us both killed.” 

Jon growled a warning and Theon decided to just push past Jon with a mean shove against his shoulder into the closed off room he’d found. He was done arguing if Jon was going to get all alpha about it. He dumped the furs on the part of the stone floor that seemed to have seen the least amount of wet and damp. He spread them out and heard Jon start to build a fire behind him. 

Theon resolved against talking to Jon, at least until morning. Then he’d either convince Jon to leave this place behind or set off on his own, Northern law and alpha be damned. 

It didn’t quite turn out how Theon planned. 

Jon let out a tired sigh as he sprawled onto his back beside Theon. Theon just stared up at the stone ceiling, still panting and gasping for breath with how hard the last orgasm hit him. He heard Jon start to stroke himself, finally taking the time to take care of himself. 

“You can’t fuck me to convince me that us being here isn’t a horrible idea.” Theon protested, completely breathless and already feeling convinced enough that he wouldn’t abandon Jon in the morning. 

“How many times did you come?” Jon asked as he jerked himself, his breath airy and rough since he’d licked and sucked Theon for longer than Theon thought anyone could. 

“Somewhere between not enough and too many.” Theon finally closed his eyes as his body relaxed after the last orgasm. His thighs fell open more and knocked into Jon’s arm. He would be glad for their furs soon, but for now everything around him felt far too hot. 

“Then I think I succeeded.” Jon said and tugged his orgasm out with a satisfied groan. 

Theon tilted his head to look at his blissful face. “I still hate this place.” He said. 

Jon opened his eyes to look back at Theon, “Fine.” Jon agreed and Theon gave into the urge and twisted onto his side so he could kiss Jon, tasting himself on Jon’s lips. 

“I want to leave.” He muttered after he’d had his fill, falling back against their furs on Jon’s side. With the long days and nights on the road, the two of them had quickly become accustomed to sleeping closer to each other. That way they could share some of the furs and stay warmer. 

“We’ll be fine.” Jon said, putting a hand over his eyes as he got ready to sleep too. 

“No we won’t.” Theon’s pessimism would still remain even after ten orgasms. He may not leave Jon behind tomorrow, but his complaints wouldn’t be going anywhere either. 

“We’ll sort it out in the morning.” Jon said as both of them looked up as Ghost came trotting into the room. Ghost had been out in the woods since midday, no hair or hide of him, and he looked satisfied with his hunting, lying down on the opposite corner of the room. 

“Fine.” Theon agreed and reached to pull the furs over him, tossing one at Jon’s chest while he was at it. Jon took the fur without complaint and then they both went to sleep while the fire died with a direwolf curled up on guard.  

---

In the morning they set off east, planning to go until they reached the river and then follow it north or south until they found the village. Theon was less than thrilled with the plan, but he had to admit that it was sensible. He could admit in the dawn of the new day that they were both good enough hunters to survive out here for a time if they couldn’t find the village. 

“Do you have a plan for making sure that the smallfolk don’t just kill us first thing?” Theon asked, still relaxed from their night previous. 

Jon shrugged up ahead on his horse, not responding. 

“Really?” Theon asked, exasperated, “They won’t take kindly to us showing up and declaring ourselves lords if they haven’t had a lord here in generations.” They’d be facing scorn, laughter, and maybe even blades by the end of the week. 

“What do you suggest?” Jon looked back at him annoyed. 

“Well,” Theon started, more than happy to keep up their chatting as they rode through the forest, “I was always told growing up that Krakens would only follow you for three reasons, fear, love, or necessity. Now this might not be important to you Greenlanders since you don’t need votes to stay captain of your ship, but this is what I was taught.” 

“Let me guess,” Jon said, still sounding annoyed, “Fear’s the way to go?” Theon couldn’t begrudge him the assumption, that is how Krakens presented themselves to the greenlanders, ruling with an iron thumb. 

“Not unless you have the strength to back it up,” Theon explained, “Dagmer put it like this: Fear is what stops them from turning their backs on you. Love is what makes them want to stay with you. Necessity is what proves to them that they got no other options.” 

Jon slowed his horse so that the two of them were side by side, finally seeming interested in what Theon was saying. It wasn’t often that the Kraken knew more about lordship than the Wolves. “Go on.” 

“The best ruler has all three cause each of them are too weak on their own. Makes you liable for mutiny and betrayal. Now we don’t have the force to make anyone bend the knee out of fear, not yet and the smallfolk here have no reason to love you. That’ll all take time. The quickest way to get power is to make yourself necessary.” 

“But as you said, these people have been living without a lord for generations. They won’t see a lord as something necessary.” 

“Well, yes, they certainly don’t need someone taking a tithe of their crops, but that’s not all a lord does, Snow.” Theon rolled his eyes. Jon was smarter than this and he knew it. If anything Jon was just being purposefully annoying. 

“So I’ll win them over by offering them protection with zero men behind me and making trade deals with who, Castle Black?” 

Theon shrugged, “I don’t know. These are smallfolk, they might need protection from a bear for all I know. Just find out what they need and figure out a way to provide it, that’s all.” 

Jon seemed actually willing to discuss the topic as they kept riding, finally seeming to understand why Theon was so worried about their inevitable arrival. Jon was just lucky that votes weren't what kept you in power up in the North and that he’d been able to get away with being an alpha for his whole life so far. 

When they finally did stumble upon the river, Theon reluctantly agreed that yes, the river must have moved over the many years since the last cartographer was this far north. They didn’t have to ride very far up river until they found a bend that had become a deep lake and the village that they’d been promised. 

They stopped by the edge of the trees before they were all cut away to make room for the little town. Just over on the other side of the lake was another village with people milling around. The town had an open area around a well, with a number of frames up for drying pelts and furs and a large fire pit for smoking. The fields were all closer to the water’s edge, with some up by the edge of the forest beside the houses of the residents. It wasn’t a large enough town to have an inn or a central hall or anything like that, but when they arrived, it was clear that everyone in the village instantly knew about it. Women looked up from the fields to stare and men stopped on their way through the village with wheelbarrows. 

Jon dismounted and Theon followed. “Hold the horses and stay in the back, alright?” Jon asked as he handed Theon his reins. Theon nodded. It was the smart decision. He would look doubly the outsider here surrounded by all these wolves. 

“Who’s there?” A woman stood up from her herb garden, her hands propped on her large hips, to shout out at them. 

“Jon Snow, son of Eddard Stark, Warden of the North, and my promised, Theon,” Jon said and walked forward, “And you?” 

The woman looked back at Theon warily, probably noting his fins. “Yaren. Of Mountmouth.”

“Yaren, pleased to meet you,” Jon smiled. He had good enough looks that he could charm the villagers over if he put enough effort into it, “And who is alpha here?” 

“Cybelle and Esther. Mort’s their mate, he can take you to them.” Yaren pointed over to a man who was watching from a little ways into the village. 

“Thank you.” Jon nodded and turned to go. 

“Your promised, then, Theon was it?” Yaren continued, leveling Theon with a curious glare, “What’s wrong with him? He ain’t got no scent.” 

“I’m not a wolf, miss.” Theon answered for himself before Jon could do it for him. 

“He comes from the sea.” Jon offered. 

“We’re far from the sea.” She said with the kind of tone best reserved for shooing people away. Theon would’ve bristled at it if he wasn’t on edge entering this town in the first place. 

“We mean no harm, miss.” Jon stepped in. 

“A strange titled alpha and a man from the sea?” The woman huffed to herself and then turned back to her garden. She waved them off and Theon cautiously walked up to Jon. 

“And she is?” Theon whispered the question. 

“An alpha,” Jon said and turned towards the man, Mort, that she had pointed them to, heading off in his direction, “And he’s an omega.” Jon added as soon as he got the scent. “Hello,” Jon greeted the man who seemed more hesitant to talk to them than Yaren, “Can you take us to your mates?” Theon saw dual bite marks along the side of his neck. 

“I can, yes.” Mort said as he wiped his hands on a rag hanging on one side of his belt. He didn’t move to lead them anywhere. 

“Is there a problem?” Jon asked, bolder than Theon would be. 

“Just that they don’t like troublemakers is all,” He shrugged, “Normal folk round here aren’t troublemakers.” 

“We aren’t here to cause trouble. Just to talk.” Theon added and Mort looked at him briefly then quickly away. 

“I had to put the last troublemakers’ heads on sticks in the fields,” Mort said, then pointed over across the lake to the village on the other side, “And they’d only come from the other side of the lake.” 

Theon swallowed and he looked at Jon. They both had swords. But swords against a mob of villagers? 

“I promise, Mort.” Jon said and Theon really wished that Jon had the ability to stand up to his father and that they’d never come up this far. 

Mort shrugged, and led them into the village. The people had come out of their fields and houses to watch as they passed, the village gone entirely silent. Even the children were quiet as they watched. 

“Cybelle, Esther.” Mort gestured to two women who stood at the center of the village. Cybelle was covered in flour, still dusting off her hands, and Esther was wet from her knees down, probably doing the washing. And both of them were heavily pregnant. 

Theon ventured a guess, and would’ve broached it aloud to Jon if Jon wasn’t five steps ahead of him, that both of them were alphas. The two alphas of this little village. 

“Ladies.” Jon greeted. Both of the women looked back at him with stoney faces. 

“And who are you?” Esther asked. Theon looked on warily as the entire village seemed to gather around them all in the square. 

“Jon Snow, son of Eddard Stark, he’s Warden of these lands,” Jon answered, “I’ve come of age and so he’s named me protector of these hills.” 

Esther seemed to chew on that a moment, then turned to Cybelle, “I’ve never heard of an Eddard Stark, ‘ave you?” 

“Me mum used to talk of some great Lord that came and stayed at that keep in her grandmother’s time. Back when it wasn’t all in ruins.” Cybelle answered, never taking her eyes off of Jon even as she spoke. 

“A lord from north or south?” Esther asked. 

Cybelle shrugged, “What’s it matter these days.” 

“I’ve been sent to help this land and its people.” Jon jumped in.

“‘ave you?” Cybelle narrowed her eyes at them. 

There was a gasp to the back of the crowd of villagers and Theon spun his head to watch as the whole group of villagers hastily backed away as Ghost trotted into town. Whispers spread through the crowd, women clutched their children closer and men grabbed whatever weapon was closest. Then Ghost sat right at Jon’s feet. 

“Warg.” Someone whispered. 

“Skinchanger.” Another. 

Both Esther and Cybelle’s faces got more wary and reserved as they watched Jon and Ghost at his feet. 

“Let us break bread. I’m sure we can come to an understanding.” Theon stepped forward. This wasn’t the kind of conversation to have in front of the whole village. Especially if the villagers were pointing fingers and saying magic. The whole group turned to look at him, then, the curiosity abounding even further as they saw his fins, “We’ve brought gifts.” He reached into their saddlebags and brought out their jar of honey. He tossed it across the clearing and Cybelle caught it in her hands. 

“Is this honey?” She asked, looking at it with wonder. This far north they probably only used tree sap for sugar, easier than trying to set up a hive. 

“We can bring new trade up here. Get hives if you want.” He hadn’t seen any as he was walking into the village. Which meant they wouldn’t have honey or mead. Tapping trees was a slow way to get sweets in comparison. “Is that enough to get us a conversation?” He pointed to the jar. 

Esther and Cybelle seemed to communicate between themselves for a moment, before they stepped aside and gestured towards their house, “The direwolf stays outside.” Esther warned. Jon nodded, and led the way into the house. 

The hearth was lit inside and the table was covered in flour and dough. The entire house smelled of bread. Theon and Jon stood to the side before Cybelle gestured towards the table and all four of them took their seats. A moment later, Mort joined them, but he stood to the back of the room, just observing. 

“You’ve been sent to be lord of these lands, then?” Esther guessed. 

“Yes,” Jon answered, “Though we did expect to find an intact keep, so it seems like things up here are a lot different than we thought.” 

“There hasn’t been a lord here for generations.” Cybelle said as she stood to gather drink for them all. 

“You’re alphas of the largest town up this way, right?” Theon asked, leaning forward on the table and nodding his thanks when Cybelle passed him a cup. 

“Mountmouth was,” Cybelle continued, “Back in our great grandmother’s time. Before the traitors moved across the lake.” 

“Across the lake?” Theon had seen the village on the opposite side when they’d arrived. He’d assumed both villages were one and the same, seeing how close they were, but he should’ve guessed from the lack of boats to take people to and from the further shore. 

“They call themselves Giant’s Rest, after the mountain up their side of the river. It’s said a Giant built the mountain from the stone he dug from a mine. This lake here is that mine he dug, only now it’s full of water and has been for some time.” 

“We don’t trade with them,” Esther continued for her mate, “The dirty bastards,” She cursed and spit, “So we go up river, it’s two days with a cart, to Neverford for anything we need. There’s a few other villages, but they’re too far out to send a cart very often.” Theon had noticed the lack of roads. It was only small hunting paths with travelers' marks that they’d found, nothing more. 

“Why don’t you take the river up to Neverford?” Theon asked, finding himself curious, but Esther just shook her head. 

“The rapids are quick and freeze too much even in summer up here. It’s not safe. We haven’t the skill for it. Not anymore.” He could guess that’s probably where Neverford got their name from. The rivers up here in the mountains were probably prone to floods too. 

“What happened with Giant’s Rest?” Jon turned back to the start of this all. Both Esther and Cybelle shared a look then, almost as if they were trying to decide whether to tell the truth or not. 

“My mother told me the story,” Cybelle said, “That years ago all the villagers had decided to break down that keep and dig up the crypts and storerooms. There were legends that great riches were hidden inside and well, they needed the riches to give the wildlings in exchange for their daughters. They dug up the crypts, but when finally the walls were felled, it was empty. Accusations were hurled back and forth. The night before the men of Giant’s Rest must have gone in and stolen the jewels because the next day they disappeared across the lake with their daughters in tow. Mountmouth never got ours back. The wildlings burned the keep and the town that day and it took a generation to rebuild. Only the next time the wildlings came, they only raided Giant’s Rest so we got our due.” 

“The Wildlings raid here often?” Theon asked. 

“Often enough. We’re close to the wall, they always come crawling over,” Esther said, “But it’s the bastards at Giant’s Rest who fuck us over more often.” 

“Mort said two caused trouble recently?” Jon asked. 

“It was more than two,” Mort said with a disgusted look on his face, “Scared the rest of them off.” 

“Esther! Cybelle!” A woman’s shrill voice yelled from outside. 

“Oh not this witch.” Esther muttered. 

The witch pushed her way into the room, and it was Yaren from the edge of the village. “You know what the legend says, don’t you?” 

“Oh don’t keep on with all those prophecies you say you have!” Esther complained, shouting at the other woman. 

Yaren shouted back, but then Cybelle leaned over towards Theon and Jon to whisper an explanation, “She says she’d a woodswitch, and she’s got some talents I suppose, but she’s never told a true prophecy or done any bit of magic in her life.” 

“It says that the land will have no lord and fall into darkness until the two villages are brought together again!” Yaren yelled. 

“Stop spouting nonsense!” Mort added in his own yell even as both Cybelle and Esther shouted back. 

“And that no wolf can be the one to bring the villages together!” Yaren shouted over their complaints, “A warg ain’t a wolf, just as much as a direwolf ain’t either! Look at who’s come to our village!” Yaren gestured wildly towards both Jon and Theon and then the three mates all stopped their complaints to stare over at them. 

“We don’t want to bring the villages together.” Mort said. 

“Yet the legend says that the villages will fall into darkness if we do not join together again. The lake is rising, you know this, and the forest is getting thicker.” 

This, Theon realized, was what the village needed. This was how he and Jon had to make themselves necessary. Theon spun to send Jon a meaningful look and saw the exact same recognition on Jon’s face. Both of them nodded as one. 

They were going to become heroes of legend.

Chapter Text

Jon scowled as he walked along the river path south of Mountmouth trying to find some suitable path over to the other side of the lake. It wasn’t exactly that he wanted Theon around, but to have the audacity to demand that Theon stay in Mountmouth as he journeyed to Giant’s Rest like he was some kind of insurance grated at him. Did he care for Theon? No, hardly at all. Did he have some new instinct to protect Theon at all costs? Frustratingly, yes. Every time Theon was out of his sight ever since that bite there’d been a lingering pressure right at the base of his skull. It was almost like a headache that never went away.

If they were still in Winterfell Jon was sure he could have managed and mastered it. He could’ve pawned Theon’s pack needs off onto Robb and gone back to worrying about how to stay in the good graces of his father and Lady Catelyn. He wouldn’t have to worry about an exceedingly annoying, talkative, and needy man who only ever seemed to be bearable to be around after eating or fucking. 

Then there was the fucking. 

Jon was almost embarrassed about it, but they were to be mated anyway. Plus, it was fun. It felt good and Jon actually liked the feeling of having Theon pressed under him and Theon obviously liked it too. But the fucking had only exposed the additional thing for Jon to worry about. 

It made him more nervous to leave Theon behind alone in Mountmouth, though he knew that Theon would hit him if he said it out loud. He knew that Theon was starting to fill some space in his instinct-raddled brain that Theon would only ever rebel against and Jon was helpless to stop it. He was starting to see Theon as someone who needed protection, not as a rival.

He had to go a ways downstream to find a place along the river to ford across, all the bridges long destroyed and Jon wasn’t in the position to row himself across the lake after hearing a short reference to a spirit of the lake that liked to drag people under. He’d leave the sailing to Theon and take his chances fording across a shallow section of the river where the water was slow moving enough that he could cross. The water lapped at his boots as he crossed and on the further shore he stood on the pebbled beach and shook the worst of the water and mud off before turning back north. 

He went over the plan in his head again. Somehow he was to satisfy the conditions of the local legend in order to win the residents of Mountmouth and hopefully Giant’s Rest to his side. Only with their acceptance could he hope to rein in the rest of the villages on his land. A lord was no lord without land and loyal smallfolk after all. He was to make his way to Giant’s Rest and win an agreement from their alpha to connect the two villages once again. 

It was all according to the prophecy that Yaren had laid out for them. It spoke of the land falling eternally into darkness unless the two villages could be joined together, which out of a terrible winter would be born a new age of prosperity. It said no wolf could bring the lands together again. It was that point at which Jon had argued Theon had better journey across the river with him, but Yaren had only pointed at Ghost and called him a warg again. 

That dreadful word only reminded him of the stories that Old Nan would tell of the times before Brandon the Builder and before the Andals reached Westeros. Winterfell was modern enough that tales of magic like this were legends in their own right, something of the time past to be laughed at instead of entertained. But the townsfolk in Mountmouth had all taken the word seriously, gaining a hesitance around Jon and Ghost that neared some kind of godlike reverence. Perhaps tales were more than tales this far north. 

Yaren’s insistence on the prophecy was enough to sway Cybelle to send Jon across and attempt a reconciliation. Mort had been steadfast in his refusal to break bread with Giant’s Rest. He was evidently responsible for the deaths of two villagers from across the lake, so the reluctance was expected. Even though Cybelle and Esther had worked to calm Mort’s protests, his anger only added to Jon’s nervousness leaving Theon behind. 

It was high noon when he finally approached Giant’s Rest. The village was on the higher side of the lake, looking like a kind of flat mesa before the steep rise of the mountains further northwest. The welcome he got was frostier than the welcome that they’d received at Mountmouth. 

“I’m here to treat with your alpha?” Jon asked the first villager he saw. 

The villager looked him up and down, then turned away and scoffed. “Hope you’re good with that sword then.” 

“Sorry?” Jon pressed, not believing that he heard him right. 

“He ain’t talking to you unless you prove you’re stronger than ‘im.” 

Ah. So he was a more traditional alpha-type. The headache was coming back even stronger. Jon really wasn’t keen on getting into a fight today, not after all the arguments he’d already witnessed in the morning. “And the village head, his name is?” 

“Marwin,” The villager pointed towards a little house that stood apart from the rest of the village, up on a little hill overlooking the town, lake, and Mountmouth in the distance, “You’ll find him there.” 

Jon nodded his thanks and turned towards the house on a hill, resigned to doing what he had to do to make sure he and Theon survived the day, but the villager called him back. 

“You’ll want to be careful, too, he’s a habit of claiming anyone who challenges him. And you’re pretty enough that he won’t be able to resist, even if you’re an alpha.” The villager scanned Jon up and down in a way that made Jon want to cringe back, but he held himself firm, not willing to be seen as a craven in a land like this. 

But the warning made Jon pause. He’d heard tale of alphas like this, but it was more akin to a wildling warlord hoarding mates than a man of the north. It was baked into tradition for alphas to fight over land and power, even if Winterfell had attempted to end the practice years ago, but keeping mates like that was even more uncommon. It was something Jon would expect from the times before the Andals, not from their modern day. “How many mates does he have?” Jon asked.

“Five now. But an alpha from further up on the mountain challenged ‘im last year. Harwin claimed ‘im and kept ‘im around for a few months then tossed ‘im in the lake.” 

Jon looked towards the lake. “I’m guessing that’s where the stories of the spirit of the lake come into play.” 

“He got pulled under fast, he did.” The villager grinned with a wide and gleeful mouth. 

Jon swallowed. He was starting to see that maybe Mountmouth was the nicer of the two places. He nodded his thanks to the villager even as he turned towards the hill with regret. This was his test, he knew, to treat with both villages in order to secure his lands. A few words on a piece of parchment would never mean much to folk in the north. Theon warned him as much, but still Jon had never fought another man before. And this would be no simple fight, but an alpha challenge for territory and control. 

He saw the alpha before he smelled him, he was perched at the end of the long main road up the hill sitting on an upturned log with an axe embedded in the ground at his feet. He sat and surveyed over his land like a king. As Jon walked, the scent of overpowering and aggressive alpha hit his nose with a vengeance. It stung at his senses like the stench of foul cheese. He reached and held his hand on the hilt of his sword, ostensibly to just keep it steady as he walked, but this place made him feel unsure. 

As he passed the houses and buildings of the village, eyes poked out of windows and doors to watch him go. The place seemed more haunted than lively, but Jon couldn’t tell if the ghost was him or the silent crowd that began to follow him. 

The alpha had been watching him walk up the hill long enough that when he reached the top Jon stopped and waited. He saw the man eye him up, looking at his sword and his body to sense what kind of challenge he was. And he saw the man’s leery smile that told him of overbearing confidence. 

“You’re not from around here.” Marwin said as a greeting. 

“Jon Snow, son of Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell. I’m to be lord of these lands.” Jon tried to speak as assertively as he could, channeling the alpha side that he always got told was too strong when he was younger. 

“You’ve come to challenge me,” Marwin said with a grin. He chewed on nothing and then spit to his side as he stood, “I accept.” He swung his axe up onto his shoulder, rolling them just to put all his muscles on display. Jon swallowed. This wasn’t a fight he thought he could walk away from. 

“I’ve come to talk. About reuniting the villages.” Jon said and forced himself not to take a step back and not to flinch as the man took one threatening step closer. He closed his hand more solidly around the hilt of his sword. 

“I don’t talk.” Marwin stopped right in front of him, a stoic strong stance with a heavy scent on unfriendly alpha. 

Jon swallowed and smelled as more villagers appeared on the edges of the clearing, watching the two of them face off. He thought of Theon back in Mountmouth and how keen he was to just leave and go back to Winterfell. As he pulled his sword from his sheath he realized that Theon probably had the smarter idea. “Alright, then we’ll fight.” 

He pushed the fear down deep inside and dug back up the feeling of alpha protectiveness that had been hovering at the edge of his brain since he bit Theon. He took the stance that he’d been trained in and held his sword aloft. A stab of shame raced through him when he saw the upwards prick of a smile on Marwin’s face. “You sure you don’t want to just go running off home, lad?” 

Jon scowled and shook his head and then forced all the false confidence that he could muster into his voice to speak with a heavier alpha voice than he ever used on purpose, “These are my lands.” He growled. 

Marwin’s face let out a hint of surprise as everyone was when they realized how strong Jon’s alpha side was, but then the burly alpha was grinning, letting out a heavy hearty howl of his own that shook Jon to the core. These were wild lands. 

Then, the axe came swinging at him all at once. 

“The key to battle, lads, isn’t having the heaviest blows. Aye, that’ll do you good, but the fast and the skillful often win out over the brawn, unless you’re really in the thick of it.”

Rodrik Cassel’s voice came to him and he jumped to the side, dodging the blow and hoping that the heavy swing of the axe would force the other alpha off balance. But Marwin just went with it, letting the axe fall and instead using the momentum to kick Jon right in the gut where he had jumped out of the way. 

He stumbled back, coughing, the blow heavier than he expected and then he heard something entirely different. 

“Ghost!”

It was a call in Jon’s own voice without any sound leaving him at all, but Jon didn’t have time to think about it before he raised his sword again and launched towards Marwin’s side. The alpha grinned and parried it back. Jon’s sword and Marwin’s axe met again, Jon’s steel digging into the wood of the axe handle, and the shock of the force of the two weapons meeting sent a shiver through Jon’s arms. 

He saw claws scratching through a dirt path. 

Marwin pushed him back with all his force and Jon growled, ducked under the swipe that the axe made for his head, and shoved his way into Marwin’s space, shouldering him in the gut and then slicing him across the thigh when he danced back out of his space. 

A stream rippled over smooth pebbles and a heavy splash sent the coursing water flying up towards his face. 

He barely met Marwin’s next blow with his sword, bringing it up too slow and the head of the axe dug into his upper arm. He grit his teeth against the pain and felt a snarl deep in his throat that never came out. 

He yelled and pushed back and even as Marwin’s axe withdrew his hand came around and like a hammer hit him across the face. Jon went flying to the dirt. 

“A boy alpha challenges me!” Marwin’s voice boomed as Jon pushed himself round on the dirt to watch for any incoming blows only to see Marwin shouting at his fellow villagers. He pointed down in the dirt at Jon like it was proof of his strength and Jon saw the answering support in the faces of the smallfolk. 

Jon pushed himself back up to standing, keeping his hand tight on his sword hilt, “What good have you brought your people, Marwin!” He challenged and the bullish man turned back to face him with a sneer. “Trade? Prosperity?” It had not escaped his notice that Giant’s Rest was worse off than Mountmouth. And yet, the home of Esther and Cybelle was obviously poorer in comparison to this alpha’s house at the top of the hill. 

“Arghhh!” Marwin yelled and swung the axe heavy with both hands. Jon stepped to the side and slammed his elbow into Marwin’s nose knocking him back a few steps. 

Dry dead leaves crunched under racing limbs. 

Marwin smashed into his side with the face of his axe, knocking Jon back to his knees with a shocked gasp for air. Jon tried to swing for his ankles, but hands grabbed at his shirt and lifted him up off his knees only to throw him. 

A panting breath made fog in the air as paws bounded against worn dirt. 

Jon gasped in pain as he landed against a log. A small cheer went up in the smallfolk as Marwin stalked forward, Jon barely able to see him through the stars in his eyes and the visions overtaking all his senses. 

The axe abandoned, the next object to meet Jon was a foot and then his world went black. 

And then it reappeared in shocking color. 

He was at the bottom of the hill looking up through the village again like it was when he had walked up earlier. Except now paws were racing him upwards, little pieces of gravel and stone getting stuck between his toes. 

Words were shouted in the language of men and sounds abounded above him, rough growls of the men-who-were-cousins and thought themselves full wolves. The growls always fell short but even then the growl sent anger bursting through his veins urging him on faster. The man-who-was-one was there and here all at once. 

Jon went along with the thoughts as much as he went along with the movements of paws over dirt, a watcher in some foreign body that welcomed him in like it was in their nature. 

He emerged at the top of the hill and saw his own body prone on the dirt and the alpha Marwin thundering above yelling in some indecipherable voice that the ears of this body couldn’t understand. He pointed down at Jon with his axe in triumph and white furred claws launched themselves into the air without warning. 

Ghost never made a noise but dug his teeth into Marwin’s arm, blood flowing into Jon’s own mouth. The alpha fell back on the dirt, shouting in alarm and pain. Ghost scratched at him, digging sharp claws through fabric and rending tears into soft flesh. The heavy scent of men-who-were-cousins faded from the clearing only to be replaced with blood and gore. 

Jon was launched back into his body only by the shock of the taste of blood and he coughed as he pushed himself up on the dirt. The shouting and growls of alphas and men faded back in, calls to get the beast off of him and shout of worry. 

Jon pushed himself up onto his feet, grabbing his sword and letting it hang at his side. 

“Ghost.” He called, heaving as blood dripped down his own arm. 

Ghost let go of Marwin’s arm in a second and immediately retreated to Jon’s side, panting like he’d just gone out for a run or a hunt. The shouts of alarm stopped and the whole village fell silent. The eyes of fearful reverence from Mountmouth were more exaggerated here, they looked at him like he was a children of the forest or some monster from stories that were still half-believed in these lands. Jon felt the power course through him like a wave of warmth and fire.  

“It’s done.” Jon said and it seemed that even the wind stopped. The leaves were no longer blowing in the wind. The sounds of the lake and water from far below dimmed. 

“What do you want?” Marwin asked, shaken on the ground, clutching his bleeding arm. Jon didn’t need to look down to see Ghost’s fur stained with blood, the warmth of it still flooded his mouth. 

“A meeting with Esther and Cybelle at the river. I’m bringing the two villages back together.” He said and he was more sure of it now than he’d been before. He was lord of this land and his people would be one. He felt taller than he’d ever been. He felt like a man grown. He felt like his father. 

“Dawn. Tomorrow. The Southern side of the lake. Be there or I’ll come back and take Giant’s Rest from you for good.” Jon ordered and only waited for Marwin’s nod before looking down at Ghost. 

“Ghost, to me.” He said and turned towards the lake. Eyes watched him as he passed through the crowd, sword in hand and Ghost stained with blood at his heels. 

He was an alpha and he was a lord and he wouldn’t let anything get in his way.

Chapter Text

The pretense of niceties left when Jon headed south along the river. Esther turned to him and suggested that it would be best if he stayed in their house until Jon returned, the lines on her face harsh and watchful. Apparently an alpha with an impressive lineage was good for keeping folk polite. Now they only looked at Theon with suspicion. 

Cybelle went back to baking bread when they were back in her house. She kneaded the dough with a force and a strength that made Theon feel even more cautious. He had no sword, only the knife at his belt for eating, and was surrounded by a whole host of villagers who had never seen a Kraken before. 

“How far are you along?” He could never seem to sit in silence for very long. 

Cybelle’s kneading paused. “Only a moon or two to go now.” 

“Your mate’s the same?” Theon guessed. 

“Round about.” Cybelle seemed to reluctantly respond. 

Theon toyed with a number of ideas on what to say next. He really loathed the idea of sitting here like a saltwife waiting for Jon to return, but talking with smallfolk really wasn’t his typical afternoon. He normally only talked with smallfolk if he was looking for a fuck, and that certainly wouldn’t go over well here. 

“How is it, with two mates?” He asked and Cybelle’s eyebrows went way up, Theon rushed to explain, “I only ask because Jon’ll want heirs.” He lied fast and easy. It was in his blood. 

“It’s normal, that’s what it is.” Cybelle said and threw another wad of dough down onto the flour. 

“Well, yes, I know that, but Jon seems resistant to letting me have any other partners is all.” 

“Well, you’re not mated yet, it makes sense he’d be possessive.” Cybelle said like it was obvious. 

“Does it?” Theon leaned forward as he asked. 

“And you’re not exactly a wolf either. Ain’t got no good place in the pack.” 

“It’s only, well, Krakens, what I am, we’re all typically solitary creatures. We only really interact for fucking and fighting and well, wolves are a lot different.” Theon explained, unsure why this was the path that he’d chosen to go down, but trying his best to gain some kind of rapport with one of the alphas of the village. 

“The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives,” Cybelle said and Theon had heard the phrase enough times in Winterfell that he wanted to roll his eyes, but he stopped himself. Then, Cybelle continued like there was some logical continuation of the phrase that Theon had never heard before, “And a wolf is only as strong as its pack.” 

Cybelle finished the second loaf and then lifted the tray with both and turned out the door without a backwards glance, leaving Theon behind as he tried to digest the new addition to his wolven phrase repertoire. 

The implication had to be that Theon’s strength was a reflection of Jon’s such that Jon’s suitability as an alpha and a lord would be interpreted not only through his own actions, but Theon’s. What remained to be seen was whether Theon would be expected to submit and be docile towards Jon in order to lift up his alpha power, whatever that looked like, or if it was something else entirely. 

Later in the day, after Theon had given up on niceties and reluctantly became part of the bread kneading process, which only served to dry his hands out even more in the northern weather, there was a bustle outside. Theon stopped kneading the dough and watched as Cybelle dusted off her hands and walked to the door. She sent a glare towards Theon first so he didn’t move from his spot by the table. 

She popped the door open only slightly, but Theon couldn’t see anything through the crack. He heard talking, Esther’s voice and Mort’s and the murmur of the whole town behind them. Then, Jon’s normally soft voice carried above them all. 

“Let me see my fucking mate.” He growled and then Cybelle pushed the door all the way open. Theon dusted off his hands and expected Jon to be the first to walk through the door, but Ghost padded in on the floorboards first, his white fur marred with blood around his maw. 

Theon stared down at the direwolf who seemed larger now than even that morning as he stalked up to him and sniffed his hand. Then, a boot thumped against the wooden floor and Theon looked back up and Jon was there, his sword bloody in his hand and a bruise already blossoming on his face beside the dried track of blood. He looked more like a barbarian than anyone that Theon had ever seen. 

“Theon.” Jon said as a hello and then crowded into his space, handing Theon his sword so that he could turn Theon’s chin this way and that way as if to check that he was still whole. 

“Jon.” Theon lightly complained and he felt Ghost nudge against his hand again. 

“We’re meeting at dawn at the river’s edge. I fought him and won.” Jon said with a hint of a smile. 

Theon reached a hand up to touch gingerly at the marks on Jon’s face. “Did you.” It had been a long time since he’d seen Jon bleed. 

“Ghost bit him.” Jon said and licked his lips like he could taste the blood himself. 

Theon pulled back. “Did he?” He looked down at the direwolf who was still staring up at him with an oddly intent look on his face. 

“Warg! We feast!” Esther yelled from outside, “And then you win us our village back on the morrow!” She added on and the crowd of villagers outside of the house cheered. Jon gave him a look and then they headed back out the house to join whatever meal the small folk had to offer, no doubt their own supplies were being put to use. 

After the feast, Jon and Theon were put up in a ramshackle house that was lying empty in the town. At least it had a straw mattress. Despite the damp and disrepair, even Theon could be thankful to trade the hard ground for something softer. He still draped their furs over the mattress nonetheless to try and keep the damp out. 

“What happened over there?” Theon asked, watered down wine heavy in his belly as he sat down beside Jon, handing him a rag as he looked at the few cuts that littered his body, one nasty gash on his upper arm that was the largest. 

“The alpha, Marwin, he wouldn’t listen unless I could beat him in a fight,” Jon said, “He knocked me down, but Ghost came running.” 

“And now what? He recognizes you as alpha?” Theon joked and lay back on the mattress, Jon glaring down at him as he did. 

“It’s not that simple, Theon, you know that.” 

“Okay, then what?” He gestured at the ceiling, “What the fuck is going to happen tomorrow? I was locked in a house today under threat of death.” 

Jon growled at that and didn’t look away from the cut on his arm. “We’re going to negotiate.” 

“Negotiate what?” Theon wanted to hit him. 

“Joining the villages, apparently. Following the prophecy.” 

“We’re going to get a meathead alpha to join sides with a village co-led by two heavily pregnant women? Do you really think that will go over well?” 

Jon threw the rag at him, “I have no idea and I need a wrap around this cut on my arm.” 

Theon sighed and sat up, grabbing the rag and then walking over to their supplies to pull out a piece of linen and the little jar of ointment that Maester Luwin had packed for them. “Do Marwin’s people like him?” He asked as he sat back down at Jon’s side and pulled his arm into his lap. 

“I don’t know.” Jon shrugged and watched as Theon dabbed the ointment onto the cut and wrapped the linen around his forearm. The cut wasn’t too deep, but the maester had always taught them to be careful.

“Do they fear him?” Theon pushed. 

Jon growled back, “I told you I don’t know.” 

Theon did hit him then, “Then tell me what you noticed over there.” Jon glared. 

“Anyone he challenges who can’t beat him, he mates, unless he kills them. Then if they’re an alpha, he keeps them around until he gets bored and drowns them in the lake.” 

Theon had to imagine for a moment the possibility if Jon had lost the fight and that not only Jon, but Theon, would be forced to belong to some northern alpha. “How many mates does he have?” He asked. 

“Five, I think.” 

“Remember when your father was dealing with the dispute between the Flints and the Littles?” Theon asked, leaning back on the mattress again. 

“And?” Jon looked down at him, already messing with the linen wrap that Theon had put on his arm. Theon scowled as Jon adjusted it. 

“Nothing. Just thinking about it,” Theon couldn’t help but compare some of the similarities, “These folk have been killing each other back and forth for generations.” 

“It wasn’t half so bad with the Flints and Littles, was it?” 

Theon scoffed, “Are you kidding? It was worse.” Significantly so. There’d been a whole slew of murders, raiding parties, and militias built simply for attacking the other family. It had waged on for more than a year before Ned Stark had found a way to put a stop to it. 

“Hmm… I guess it was,” Jon seemed to ponder and then he got up and shifted through their packs, “I can’t even remember how it ended.” 

“You were young then,” Theon had been ten and two or so, but Robb and Jon had still been too young to really know what was going on with the Flint-Little war, “Your father ended up striking up a trade deal between them and mated a pair of twins from one of those other northern families to the heirs of both clans. He made them family and with the threat of your father’s army weighing down on them, they settled.” Theon had even ridden out with Ned Stark during the course of the conflict. 

“And so you’re suggesting the same?” Jon said and rejoined Theon on the mattress. 

Theon shrugged, “We’ll see.” 

He wouldn’t be able to know what would work to mend the two villages until he saw Marwin for himself. 

In the morning, they walked south along the edge of the lake. Their party was made up of the two of them, Ghost in the middle, then Esther, Cybelle, Mort, and, reluctantly, the woodswitch Yaren. If Theon had been able to leave anyone behind, he would have left Mort back at the village, but Esther and Cybelle had insisted on having him present. Everyone was armed and that only contributed to Theon’s own tight hold on his dirk at his side. 

When they emerged at the ford that Jon had found yesterday, there was a group of six waiting for them. Based on Jon’s descriptions of the man’s size, Theon could guess that the bear of a man in front was Marwin. He assumed that the five people who stood behind him were his mates based on how all their necks looked mauled with claiming bites. The group from Giant’s Rest was armed too, axes and knives in their hands. Theon had hoped that some of Marwin’s mates would dislike him, but all of them had some steadfast resolution in their eyes that Theon couldn’t decipher. 

“Mountmouth.” Marwin said and spat to his side. Jon moved into the river, standing in the middle of the ford to keep one village on each shore. Theon followed, Ghost at his heels. 

“I said to you yesterday, we’re going to join the villages.” Jon started, looking hesitatingly at both sides. 

“He killed my brother!” One of Marwin’s mates accused, pointing at Mort. 

“And I’d do it again!” Mort yelled back and soon enough snarls and growls were being traded across the river. 

“Jon…” Theon hissed a warning. 

Jon growled loud enough to overpower the rest, “That’s enough. We’re not leaving here until we have an agreement.” 

“An agreement with thieves?” Esther yelled this time and the shouts and growls began anew. 

“Do you not know the prophecy?” Yaren had to yell her words twice to cut through the growls, “The villages reunited and prosperous once again!” She looked feverous in her belief. 

“But not brought together by a wolf!” Marwin yelled back. 

“But consider a warg instead!” Yaren shouted, just as impressed and Theon caught that glance of fear that Marwin shot towards Ghost. 

“He’s still a wolf as far as I’m concerned.” Marwin said, but still reached a hand to press at where Ghost’s bite must’ve been on his arm. 

“Then treat with me, instead, hmm?” Theon said and all the wolfish eyes flashed towards him. Theon heard the little growl caught under Jon’s breath. “I’m no wolf.” He rested his hands on the hilt of his dirk and his belt, going for nonchalance. 

Marwin looked at him consideringly. “You’re his?” He asked, pointing between Theon and Jon. 

“Promised to be. Theon of house Greyjoy, at your service.” He said with a little nod of his head. 

“Well, foreigner, you have until the sun touches the water,” He pointed to where the still rising sun had yet to mount over the tree canopy and land on the river, “I’ll listen and if I’m not happy, I’ll do a favor to your mate and leave without killing you.” 

Theon licked his lips, “Alright, fair enough.” If he was being honest, Marwin was reminding him more of Krakens than anyone ever had in the North. He knew how to deal with these kinds of men. He looked around at the group of everyone and saw Jon’s eyes warning him to be careful. 

“Jon,” He asked, somewhat quietly, “Who’s the lowest ranked here?” He couldn’t sense wolven hierarchy. 

“Her.” Jon gestured to one of Marwin’s mates that had shouted earlier. If Theon had a guess, he would guess that she was the youngest female omega here and that was what gave her the lowest status, but Theon turned to her regardless. 

“Miss,” He smiled at her and Marwin let out a warning growl, Jon putting an arm in front of Theon in warning, “Your name?” He resigned himself to ignoring the alpha posturing between Jon and Marwin for now. 

“Kysa.” She said, looking suspicious, her eyes flitting over towards the folks from Mountmouth in between glances of worry towards Jon and Ghost. 

“Perfect, Kysa, tell me something that you, your pack, or Giant’s Rest needs.” 

Kysa turned towards Marwin instinctively and Theon rushed to stop her. 

“No, I’m asking you, Kysa, not your alpha, I’ll come to him next. An alpha provides right? For the village and for you, what are you lacking?” Theon explained. 

“Are you implying-” Marwin started with an aggressive growl and a step forward, hand on his axe. 

Jon jumped in front of Theon and cut him off just as fast, “He’s not. He’s asking what you’re unable to get, not what you’re unwilling to provide. Right?” Jon twisted around to glare at Theon. 

Theon gulped. “Right.” He said and Marwin took a hesitating step back. 

“Uh,” Kysa seemed to stall, confused, “There’s herbs we ain’t able to get.” Theon let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. At least this was an easy one. “We ain’t trade east of the river so we only get the herbs from the mountain for treating wounds and such.” 

Theon nodded, “Okay, Yaren? Mountmouth? Is this something that we would be able to provide?” He looked at the woodswitch hopefully. 

“Yes,” Yaren said before anyone else from Mountmouth had a chance to, “There’s herbs I can’t get that grow up on the mountain too, so I’m sure we can trade.” She smiled, almost eager. 

“Perfect, so we can arrange a trade deal for that, and now, Mort,” He regretted turning to the man as soon as he did, seeing the blind hatred in his eyes, but Theon’s plan relied on going back and forth between the villages, “What is something that you or Mountmouth needs.” 

Mort clenched his jaw and continued staring daggers at the folk from Giant’s Rest. The longer the silence dragged on the more nervous Theon started to get. 

“Mort?” Theon pushed, hoping that the man didn’t decide to say something to incite violence. 

“Bees.” He said without looking towards Theon at all. 

Theon let out a breath again. Okay. They could do that. “Marwin, you wouldn’t happen to have any hives, would you?” Theon asked as a courtesy, but Marwin just shook his head as expected, but one of his mates started to look curious at the prospect. “Well, I already promised that Jon and I would bring a hive up for Mountmouth so you won’t have to trade for mead as much, but I’m sure we can arrange bringing two hives.” Theon promised without even knowing where they would find a hive to buy in the first place. Surely that was something he could leave to Jon to figure out. 

“There’s a disease, with one of our sap trees,” The curious mate jumped in, Marwin’s head swinging around in alarm at the sound, “It’s giving bad sap. We… we’re running low.” He said, glancing quickly over at Marwin as an apology for admitting it. 

“Then,” Theon carefully glanced between the two groups, “We’ll send for a hive earlier, and in the meantime we’ll trade sap across the lake, what do you have to offer for it?” He turned back to the man from Giant’s Rest. 

He opened his mouth as if to respond, but another of Marwin’s mates jumped in first, “Meat. We ran a whole herd of deer off a ridge a week back and we’ve got plenty.” 

“Howabout hide?” Esther asked, speaking up finally while rubbing a hand over her belly, “We’ve babes on the way and we’ll need some pelts to fashion for them.” 

“Aye,” Marwin grumbled reluctantly, “We can do hide.” 

The conversation carried on as Theon moderated between them, assessing needs for each village. They ran into snags, arguing over how much sap one hide was worth or how many lumps of coal it was feasible to ferry across the little ford from the mine west of Giant’s Rest to Mountmouth. When Theon suggested building a bridge, there were grumbles, but eventually he reluctantly got both sides to offer the labor of a few men to build one closer to where the river left the lake. 

“There’s one last thing,” Theon said as their arguments settled and midday approached, “Jon’s lord here and you’ll all need to recognize him as such.” Jon seemed to stand straighter as everyone’s eyes shifted back over to him. 

Marwin looked skeptical, which made sense, but even Esther and Cybelle were hesitant. 

“Look,” Jon spoke up, “My word and Theon’s word is what holds these trade agreements together. If either of you break the agreements, then I step in and make sure you hold up your end of the bargain. My agreement with you is to build a bridge, bring hives and new trade to both villages and work on some roads connecting the lake to villages you trade with often. It’s a fair trade, we get shelter, meat, and mead, and you get a lord’s assurance that your trades will go through and an end to the violence between the towns.” 

“No more deaths.” Theon added, looking at Mort and then over at Marwin, the two of whom seemed to be the most violent of the day’s participants. 

“Yeah, alright,” Marwin said first, surprising Theon, but addressing only Jon, “But you ain’t spending all your time over in Mountmouth, you hear? Else I’ll be marching down there myself, taking him,” Then Marwin looked over at Theon, “And negotiating us better terms.” 

Jon growled low for a second, but then cut himself off, “Fine, we’ll split time between the villages, at least until we’ve a house to ourselves.” Theon could already sense that there’d be an argument around where said house was going to be located and dreaded that even more. 

“So long as they ain’t turned you against us.” Marwin said with a rude look over at the folk from Mountmouth. 

“We could say the same to you.” Cybelle challenged back and it was looking like all their negotiations were already going to be for naught when Jon stepped in. 

“Alright, that’s enough. You don’t have to like each other to trade with each other. Esther, Cybelle, thank you for your hospitality, but it seems like Theon and I will be spending the rest of the day in Giant’s Rest. We will see you on the morrow with the expected two pelts and three pounds salted meat and bring in exchange the jug of sap and thirty feet twine as promised as the first good faith trade. Understood?” Jon’s voice left no room for disagreement. Both sides nodded hesitantly and then they broke apart, Theon and Jon heading towards Giant’s Rest. 

“Our things?” Theon whispered as they traveled behind Marwin’s group who were muttering quietly amongst themselves. 

“Good faith to leave it there,” Jon said in return, “Besides, we have our swords.” Jon clenched his jaw and Theon understood. They had swords for the worst case scenario, that Giant’s Rest wasn’t to be trusted and without their things, they would be able to flee Giant’s Rest with ease and make it back to Mountmouth. 

“Let’s just hope we don’t have to use them.” Theon countered and watched as Ghost finally trotted off into the forest on a hunt. At least he didn’t seem concerned with today’s turn of events.

Chapter Text

Jon didn’t particularly want to be building a bridge. He didn’t particularly want to be sending Theon out to search for a village with bee hives. He didn’t particularly want to be lord of two villages who hated each other, but here they were. 

As expected, no one in Mountmouth or Giant’s Rest knew how to build a bridge and so he had enlisted the help of the best carpenters of both villages to puzzle over plans while Theon and a few men built up the area with rocks and river stones where they were going to build the bridge. It was a whole endeavor that took more than two weeks to finish, but Theon had coached him through it multiple times, reminding him that the physical bridge was the first step to getting the villages to interact more which would eventually turn them both to each other’s side. 

For now, Jon just had to deal with idiots. 

“Exactly how many barrels went missing?” Jon rubbed at his temple. Only a few days after the bridge was finished and already there was allegedly a raiding party from Mountmouth that came and stole—

“Four.”

—four barrels of mead from the storehouse in Giant’s Rest. Jon sighed. This day was getting long and it had barely even begun. Theon wasn’t even around to help him deal with it either, too busy riding out to find where the villages got their mead and who had a damn beehive this far north. “And you think—” Jon started. 

“Those bastards from Mountmouth came and took ‘em.” The man spat to his side. Jon was lucky that the man, Jaryl was his name, had come to him before getting Marwin involved. 

“Right,” Jon let the accusation stand for now, “And you’re certain that they’ve been stolen?” 

“What? You callin’ me a liar?” Jaryl made a face of disgust and his particularly rank scent shifted to the choking scent of anger. 

“No, no, not at all,” Jon sighed again, “Just making sure that they didn’t get misplaced or miscounted.” 

“Nah, nah, I keep track of my barrels,” Jaryl said, looking quite proud of his rudimentary inventory system in the main storehouse of Giant’s Rest, “I make slashes on this here wall,” He pointed and Jon leaned closer to get a look at the rows of slashed lines under a carved symbol of a tankard, “And they’re four that be missing.” Jon was looking forward to actually transferring the inventory systems in both villages to ledgers and writing because it was getting doubly confusing for him to deal with Yaren’s color coded system for her herbs, Esther’s idea of seeds in jars, and now Jaryl’s slashes on a piece of wood. 

“What do you do when you use up a barrel?” Jon examined the whole slew of different markers on the wall, tracking things like barrels of mead, meat, and goods throughout the storehouse. 

“Another slash, you see?” Jaryl looked quite proud of himself. Jon could only assume that this was why the first of the First Men created writing so many years ago, to deal with confusing systems like this. 

“And when you run out of space?” He gestured to the wall. This couldn’t have been an accurate accounting of all time, perhaps only since the beginning of the year. 

“I scrape off the top layer and start anew.” Jaryl’s smile got even wider. 

“Ah.” Jon said and looked back at the wall, starting to see where layers and layers of wood had been scraped away as the years went by. 

“And after a few years I move to a different wall.” Jaryl pointed around the storehouse and Jon saw more evidence of the slash system. It was unsustainable and left absolutely no records of previous years or winters to inform stockpiling for the next. Jon was trained on ledgers and merchants, not on half-assed countrymen and forgotten promises. 

“Alright,” He sighed again, “I’ll go see what I can find in Mountmouth.” He said and left the storehouse before Jaryl could continue to attempt to amaze him with his revolutionary inventory system that just made Jon want to vomit. As he left the storehouse, headed back to where he and Theon had stashed half their things, which had been another whole day of arguing that Jon wished he didn’t remember, Ghost trotted up and sniffed at his hand. 

The direwolf followed him inside the little rundown wooden house and watched as Jon latched on his sword and shouldered his pack. He was about to leave the house when he finally stopped in front of Ghost again. He narrowed his eyes at the direwolf. “You think you can track four barrels of mead, Ghost?” He asked and Ghost just wagged his tail. 

Jon smiled. At least one thing was going well for him today. 

“Good. You’re back.” Jon said when Theon stepped through the door into the dark house. 

“Drowned fuck,” Theon jumped and cursed, “You just sitting here in the cold?” Theon immediately moved to hearth, piling up some more logs.

“I was thinking.” Jon disagreed and finally stretched his legs for the first time in hours. He’d been waiting a long time. “I’m also hungry.” He noticed. 

Theon huffed a sigh as he finally got the logs to light. “I brought back a groundhog, so you’re in luck.” Theon shook the poor creature in Jon’s direction then tossed it onto their table. Jon caught the hint and stood up to carve it up. Theon, at least, arranged a pot over the fire with water and tossed in the roots that they had. 

“Robyn stole four barrels of mead.” Jon said as he worked on the meat. 

Theon paused for a second, then the sounds of him arranging the hearth started back up again. “What did you do about it?” He asked. 

“Nothing yet.” He hadn’t decided what to do yet. It seemed like a big moment. “Did you find where we could get a hive?” 

“Finally figured out what village actually has got bees and so I’ll see what they want for them tomorrow. It’ll be a few days trip though.” Theon said. 

“Bring goods with you then, see if you can’t get one hive now and another later.” Jon cut a large chunk of meat off the bones. 

Theon made another soft sound and Jon scented the air as if he might be able to guess what Theon was thinking. “What’re you going to do about the theft?” 

“Return the barrels.” Jon answered easy enough. 

“And the thief?” 

Jon didn’t respond. Theon let it lie until all the meat and roots were in the pot and then they were both just sitting there again and after Theon had given him a few meaningful looks, Jon gave up putting it off. 

“I don’t know what to do.” 

“I mean he’s a thief.” Theon argued and Jon glared. 

“I know that. It’s just that I don’t want Mountmouth getting angry about it on his behalf. I don’t want a war over four barrels of mead.” Jon had gone back to Jaryl in the afternoon, let him know that he’d been looking into it and that he’d figure it all out on the morrow. And he’d specifically said not to tell Marwin about the theft. He didn’t want more attention on it than was necessary.

“Well that’s what justice is for, isn’t it? To stop things getting out of hand.” 

That scared Jon even more. His father had always been the North’s justice and now he was supposed to dole out justice here? “And if they turn on us?” 

Theon made a face. “It’s possible. Marwin would back you if Mountmouth turned, most like, but there’d be blood spilled.” 

Jon rubbed a hand over his face. “The problem is that I know who’s got the mead now, but one man can’t have stolen four barrels alone.” 

“There were at least three others involved then, and if the theft was at night, probably more.” Theon guessed. 

Jon sighed again, “Tracks make it look like it was upwards of ten, maybe more.” Which meant almost a tenth of Mountmouth’s whole population was involved in the endeavor. If Esther and Cybelle knew about it too, there’d be hell to pay. 

“We don’t have a dungeon and folk don’t trade in gold here so it’s not like you can fine them.” Theon gave him a meaningful look as he spoke, as if Jon was supposed to realize something from those words alone. 

Jon just sighed, “I know.” He’d run through his father’s methods over and over. Fines imprisonment, hard labor, lashes, death. There wasn’t much more to the Northern penal code. “Could take a tithe of their crops or goods?” 

“You could.” Theon was still giving him a meaningful look. 

“What?” Jon finally pushed, a little bit annoyed. 

“Nothing,” Theon looked away just as fast, “Just Krakens are meaner than Wolves. You can decide to do what you want.” 

“Just spit it out.” Jon was too tired for this. 

“My father, or my uncles for that matter, would probably kill one and beat the rest.” 

Jon scoffed, “I’ll be facing an uprising if I do that.” 

“I wasn’t suggesting you do it!” Theon defended. 

“Then why’d you say it!” Jon pushed back, annoyed. 

“Seems like something to at least consider! Or take into account.” Theon crossed his arms over his chest and sat back in his chair. The pot over the fire started bubbling and Theon just raised an insolent eyebrow at him. Jon glared and went to stir the pot. 

“Look,” He said after he’d been tending to the stew for some time, “Hard labor, maybe, but if I beat a man I’m just begging for the bridge to be burnt and for us to get stabbed in our sleep.” Which Jon was trying to avoid as best as he could. 

Theon sighed too and leaned forward in his chair, clasping his hands together between his knees, “Bring Marwin, Esther, and Cybelle together. Get Jaryl and Robyn too. Sit ‘em all down and hammer something out.”

Jon just hummed in response, still unsure. Making these kinds of decisions was the daily life of a lord, but he was really only a lord in name here. All his power rested on the continued support of Marwin and Esther and Cybelle and even that was tenuous. 

“Oh,” He suddenly remembered, “Ran into Mort. He says I’m too lenient with you.” Jon looked up at Theon as he handed Jon their bowls for the soup. 

“Lenient!” Theon scoffed and took the bowl back when Jon had filled them. 

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Mort thought Esther and Cybelle were too lenient with him.” Jon added. All in all, Mort seemed to have more in common with Marwin and the folk from Giant’s Rest than his mates, who were peace loving in comparison. 

“What does lenient even mean?” Theon seemed to roll his eyes and Jon’s instincts had him glaring over at him. 

“He’s not wrong,” Jon pushed, angry suddenly, “Not completely at least, unless I want a reputation as an alpha chaser.” A reputation like that wouldn’t be horrible, but he’d certainly see some more push back from the small folk trying to test him. 

“Well as far as I’m aware, you’re not even a wolf chaser.” Theon poked and Jon growled. 

“Watch it.” 

“Oh is that what he means by lenient?” Theon laughed and Jon felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“He means I let you get away with too much.” 

“Yeah give me one example of Esther or Cybelle stopping Mort from doing whatever he wants.” Theon shoved more soup in his mouth. 

“Said that you were talking with Cybelle about third mates.” Jon said and Theon froze where he was sitting. 

“Is this going to be a problem?” Theon asked after a moment of dead silence throughout the house. 

“Not unless you want to make it.” Jon warned and watched for Theon’s reaction, trying to guess why he’d even been asking about it. 

“I asked her about what it was like, having two mates, not about trying to find one for myself.” 

Jon wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. He knew the Theon from before the bite. Theon now was barely held in line by the threat that Jon, and everyone else, would smell any affair on him before he ever got a chance to wash it all off. “It doesn’t look good, you asking before we’re even mated.” Jon said because he wasn’t about to accuse Theon of something he wasn’t even sure of yet. 

“I wasn’t-” Theon cut himself off with a sigh, “Fine.” He sounded annoyed which made Jon furrow his eyebrows more. 

“Appearances matter, Theon.” 

“I know!” Theon nearly shouted, clearly just as annoyed as Jon was feeling and it only heightened the feeling in him. 

“Just don’t…” Jon fished for what he was trying to say. He just needed Theon to be more wolf and less Theon. He needed Theon to see and treat him like his alpha, not just some annoying fling. He needed Theon to not call into question Jon’s authority just by existing. 

“Don’t what?” Theon interrupted before Jon could find a way to finish the thought in a way that wouldn’t make Theon storm out on him, “Don’t rejoin the villages? I was the one that got them to agree to it, you know?” 

Jon grit his teeth, not even understanding the emotions coursing through him. He knew all of that of course, he’d been almost embarrassed when Theon had taken charge and had been trying to make up for it in the weeks since. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

“You were going to say something equally as dumb. Probably something about shutting up and letting you do everything.” 

“You are helpful!” Jon protested. 

“Oh! Helpful, that’s it?” Theon threw his hands up, affronted. 

Jon spluttered, “Well, I don’t know, useful! I wouldn’t have known what to do without you!” He cringed to hear himself say it, only grateful that they’d been arguing when he said it, otherwise it almost sounded as if he liked Theon. 

“Well you sure have a good way of showing it!” Theon shouted back and Jon stood because all the anger coursing through his body had nowhere else to go. 

“This is what he means by lenient!” Jon gestured between the two of them frantically. 

“Please, just because you’re not a traditional alpha,” Theon exaggerated the words, “Doesn’t mean there’s something wrong. It’s not like I’m a wolf anyway, let it go.” 

“They’re my lands and they’re my people.” Jon said, not really knowing why, and Theon’s face immediately shut down. Both of them were breathing heavy from the argument and suddenly the little wooden house felt a lot smaller and a lot quieter. 

“So that’s the problem,” Theon finally challenged, “You’re worried I’m going to steal your land like some kraken reaver?”

“No.” Jon said and then cringed since he couldn’t even quite believe himself. 

“So it bothered you, then, that I got them to make the trade deals.” Theon huffed. 

“No. Wait--” 

“Don’t even try, Snow.” Theon snapped, crossing his arms and looking away. 

Jon sighed and let the silence hang for a minute longer. He knew to wait however long it would take until Theon would let him try again. They’d played this dance before. “Alright. It made me feel a little… unimportant.” Even if he’d been the one to fight Marwin, that day Theon had seemed to take the lead in all the ways that mattered. And Jon was supposed to be the alpha. 

“Cybelle said that a wolf is only as strong as its pack,” Theon turned back to him suddenly with the non sequitur, “She said that the lone wolf dies, the pack survives, but that the wolf is only as strong as its pack.” 

Jon pulled back, “That’s how it goes, yes.” The phrase had been repeated who knows how many times throughout his childhood. Every wolf in the north learned it, along with all the children’s stories of lonesome wolves trapped in a snowstorm because they abandoned their pack. It was just to teach children to form pack bonds, that’s all. 

“No, no it’s not,” Theon said adamantly, “You lot,” He pointed directly at Jon’s chest, “Always just said that the lone wolf dies and the pack survives. You never said that the wolf is only as strong as its pack.” 

“So?” He didn’t see the point. It was still just some words repeated for the sake of the pack, nothing more. They didn’t mean much of anything, if Jon was being honest, and he’d always hated them. Probably because his own pack never seemed to welcome him very much. 

“So?” Theon sounded angry again, like Jon was missing something obvious, “We’re pack,” He gestured between the two of them, “Right? So my fucking success is yours too. And if we actually work together maybe something will come of it.” 

Jon did feel dumb all of a sudden and a loss of words. “We are working together.” He said just for the sake of speaking and Theon rolled his eyes. 

“Look, if you need to act all alpha,” He exaggerated the word, “To feel good about yourself, fine. I’ll play whatever fucking part you want, but these are our lands. Not yours. And we’re going to hold them. Together. Because the other options are death or destitution and I’m not particularly interested in either.” 

A third option popped into Jon’s head only briefly, the thought of returning to Winterfell, tail between his legs and begging his father for another chance. 

They couldn’t. It would be a disgrace. Jon couldn’t face anyone back home if they failed. He’d rather sail away from the North forever than come back to Winterfell as the bastard that couldn’t manage to become a lord over the smallest bite of land. 

“You gonna sit down and actually listen to me now?” Theon’s voice was still grating and Jon hated listening to him and needing to take him seriously, but there wasn’t any other choice. 

Jon grit his teeth in determination and sat back down in his chair, biting down the feeling that he just lost a battle and promising himself that he wanted to be a better alpha than this, “Alright. Let’s come up with a plan.”

Chapter Text

Jon kept his eyes on the ties as he laced Theon into the leather, tugging it tighter against the thin shirt protecting his skin from the rough edge of the armor pieces. He threaded each lace through the eyelets and tightened them one by one. Early pre dawn light drifted through the slots in the wood of their little house and Jon knew their time was running out before they had to emerge. 

“Jon.” Theon whispered and Jon just tugged the laces tighter at his side and Theon stopped. Theon’s armor was different from Jon’s which was still packed away. The leather was more fitted to him, more like Kraken armor apparently, and meant to be tied tight to his chest. 

“You understand your role?” Jon asked when he finished with the chest piece and moved to grab the bracers and tie those onto Theon’s arms. 

Now that Theon could look at him, he seemed intent on watching his every move and Jon wanted to hide from his gaze. “I do,” Theon said, “Do you?” 

Jon swallowed, hoping to wipe whatever emotions Theon had seen on his face off it once and for all. “It’s all for show.” He said. 

“It is,” Theon agreed, “But if you keep looking like that then your scent won’t fool anyone.” 

Jon growled a bit only to stop the worry from eating him inside and out, “I’ll get it under control.” Jon could control his scent, Theon didn’t need to be worrying about that. 

Before Jon started on the second bracer he handed Theon his knife from their bed and Theon tucked it into the greaves that Theon had already tied onto his shins before they had started this whole process. 

After the bracers were tied on, Jon stepped back to layer on his tunic and belt while Theon finished tying on his belt. His dirk was strapped on one side, his quiver and bow on the other. Then Jon tossed him one of the two northern style moon shields they had and Theon latched it on over his shoulder. Jon fell completely silent and watched as Theon efficiently braided his long dark hair back, tight to his scalp so that it wasn’t hanging loose to be grabbed. 

Jon felt himself stir and couldn’t stop from pushing Theon against the wall next to their door. Theon let him and just sighed when Jon popped open the buttons on his trousers and touched him until he was quaking against the wall and gasping into the soft morning air. Jon wiped his hand on their furs and turned back to finish putting on his own sword belt while Theon closed his trousers once again. 

Eventually they were both ready and Jon took enough even breaths that he could gain some semblance of control over his scent again. Then he opened the door to their little house in Giant’s Rest and led the way into the morning light. Theon was dressed like a warrior, leather armor and armed to the teeth like a guard keeping pace just two steps back and to the left of Jon. Jon wore no armor, just his tunic and lush northern pelts with his sword at his belt. Theon was the threat of violence today, but Jon was the lord. He’d tied back his hair, but nothing as ornate as the ease with which Theon had braided his. 

This was a performance, Jon told himself, as they went to fetch Jaryl, a performance that required him to keep his scent in check. He was to be the epitome of alpha control today and gods willing he would be. 

Jaryl took in both of their appearances and Jon’s serious scent and just smiled, “I see you’ve decided to take this seriously, then?” He grinned and Jon didn’t have to say anything to get him to follow the two of them back across Giant’s Rest to where Marwin was breaking his fast with a few of his mates in front of his house on the hill. 

“What’s this then?” Marwin asked when they appeared, his eyes lingering longer on Theon’s form where Theon stood silently with his hands carefully crossed over the hilt of his sword just as they’d planned. 

“There’s been a theft.” Jon said and Marwin’s face turned dark in a moment. 

“You’re not accusing me—” 

“No,” Jon cut him off and kept his chin high and his scent steady, “Four barrels were stolen two days ago by Mountmouth. I’m asking for you to send a representative with me and Jaryl to attest to any justice carried out.”

“A representative?” He asked as he tore into the meat he was eating with his teeth. 

“One of your mates, to assure the villages that the justice carried out will end this feud before it begins.” 

Marwin looked consideringly, then gestured for the woman sitting a few feet away, “Kysa. Go with them. See that the punishment fits the crime.” Kysa nodded and stood up. 

“We’ll be back when it’s settled, by blood or otherwise.” Jon said and turned away from Marwin just as he saw the hungry grin appear on his face. 

Jon kept his back tall as he led them down the walk through Giant’s Rest, knowing that Marwin would be watching their backs. Theon stayed silent by his side and everything was going exactly as they had planned. They crossed the bridge at the Southern edge of the lake and Jon hoped that the bridge would still be standing by dawn tomorrow. 

In Mountmouth, villagers stopped and stared when they walked by. One even spat at the ground when he saw Jaryl and Kysa, both of whom snarled back at him. Jon let the animosity stand since neither side pushed it any further and just brought their group to Esther and Cybelle’s house, where already the news of their arrival in town had spread. 

“What’s this then?” Esther asked with wary eyes. Mort appeared a few houses down, one of the children sent to fetch him no doubt. Jon ignored the distant anger on Mort’s face as he headed towards them and directed his attention solely to Esther and Cybelle. They were the ones in charge here, not their mate. 

“We’re here to settle business,” Jon said and then gestured Jaryl forward, “This is Jaryl, he’s in charge of the storehouse over in Giant’s Rest. He told me yesterday that four barrels of mead’ve gone missing. I tracked the scent to Robyn’s house. No doubt there were others.” Jon put the evidence out in front of them and then just braced his hands on his belt and waited. 

Esther looked between Jon and the three others beside or behind him, no doubt taking into account Theon’s armor and the presence of one of Marwin’s mates to understand the seriousness. 

“What’s this then?” Mort, the overeager bastard, finally got close enough to their collection of people and he already had his hand wrapped around the handle of a hammer. The excuse must be that he just came from working, but Mort was a threat to the peace. The omega always was. 

“Mort,” Cybelle must’ve sensed the tension increasing in the air, scents from all sides starting to war with one another and Mort’s presence wasn’t helping, “Fetch Robyn.” 

“What do you want?” Esther asked Jon as Mort turned away, only looking back with a brief curious glance. 

“I’m here to make sure the theft is dealt with. Jaryl’s here to witness and Kysa to report back to Marwin that the payment or punishment was satisfactory.” Jon said and then Esther just nodded. The group waited in silence until Mort came walking back up the dirt paths, his hand heavy on Robyn’s shoulder. 

Robyn turned pale when he saw them and Jon could smell the shift in his scent as he scanned from Jon, Jaryl, Kysa, and then finally to Theon. The acid scent of fear flowed off of him. Mort’s nose twitched and he held on tighter to Robyn, looking protective and angry all at once. 

“Jaryl,” Jon spoke even as he turned fully towards Robyn, not caring of the growing collection of villagers watching their impromptu court. He breathed slowly through his nose to keep his scent calm and under control, “How much does Giant’s Rest normally trade for four barrels of mead?” 

“Ten pounds of salt and a barrel full of salted mutton.” Jaryl answered after a pause. 

Jon raised his eyebrow at Robyn and the poor beta began to shake. “Are you willing to pay the price alone or would you rather share the burden?” 

Robyn shook his head then looked up at Mort with wide, scared eyes. Mort growled, the protective instincts getting to him no doubt, and Jon let the growl go unchallenged only because he could tell that Mort hadn’t figured out quite yet where to direct his anger, Jon or Robyn. 

“Robyn,” Cybelle spoke and drew the man’s attention away from either begging Mort to fight for him or fearing what would happen if he was given over to Giant’s Rest, “We don’t abide thievery.” 

“Especially not of our new neighbors.” Esther added, her voice tight. It wasn’t just a simple theft, but a disruption of the very fragile balance between the two villages that kept them from killing each other and raiding their homes for every single valuable item. 

“I didn’t!” Robyn yelled and Jon almost wanted to roll his eyes. At least they were finally getting to the denial portion of the trial. 

“Ghost tracked the scent. I’ve seen the barrels hidden behind your house.” Jon said and Robyn paled further at the reminder of Ghost. The direwolf was currently away in the woods hunting, elsewise Jon would’ve brought him here as an additional guard to have right at his back.  

“I didn’t put them there!” Robyn tried. 

“Good,” Jon smiled meanly just like he’d seen Theon do millions of times before, “Then tell us who did and I won’t have to make Ghost sniff them all out.” 

Robyn’s eyes widened, “I—” He started and stopped. 

When nothing more seemed to be forthcoming, Jon turned to Esther and Cybelle again, deciding to regard Robyn’s testimony as finished, “What do you do with thieves?” 

“They pay it back, with a good faith gift on top. Repeat offenders get whipped.” Esther answered. 

“Kysa,” Jon called her name, again without turning away from anyone from Mountmouth, “How does Marwin punish thieves?” 

“He locks ‘em in the mines or holds them under the lake. Until they’re sorry enough that is.” She answered and the tension of everyone’s scents playing off one another only rose. Esther and Cybelle started to smell worried, and Robyn’s scent spiked in fear again. Jon breathed through it and forced his own scent to stay still. This was a performance, he reminded himself. And the scents were part of it, so he pushed a bit more of the alpha control into his scent and hoped that the people would respond well to it. 

“I want to leave here today in a place where all of us can forget that this theft ever happened and I want to leave here today knowing that it won’t happen again,” Jon ordered at the surrounding collection of people, “There won’t be attacks across the river. There won’t be petty fights. And you both,” He pointed at Esther and Cybelle, “Are going to decide what’s done with him,” He pointed then to snivelling Robyn, “To make that so.” 

The silence stretched over the center of town, everyone staring at Jon’s finger pointing towards the thief. He counted the seconds, knowing this all to be a piece of theater that he and Theon had rehearsed in their heads all of the night before, Theon coaching him to make sure that he hit every single one of the beats. This was what the village needed, a strong alpha, a just lord, and proof that Jon and Theon were there to uphold it. Jon didn’t care what happened to Robyn or what happened to thieves, but he did care that his villages wouldn’t descend into blood feuds. 

Then, suddenly, Mort shoved Robyn to the ground with a growl. Jon forced the surprise not to show on his face and watched as Mort kicked the man over and over. Robyn cried out with each kick, bending and curling to protect himself on the ground to withstand the onslaught. No one moved to stop Mort or say anything at all. 

“You idiot.” Mort said and stopped as suddenly as he’d started and left the whimpering man on the ground and walked back towards Esther and Cybelle. 

Cybelle watched as Mort stormed into their house and closed the door. Once the door was shut, Esther began to talk, “We’ll put together a party to bring the barrels back along with a barrel of meat and a full jug of sap, how’s that?” She asked of Kysa. 

Jaryl started nodding, as if to accept all the gifts immediately, but Kysa simply folded her arms, keeping her skepticism obvious on her face. “And Robyn and the rest of the thieves?” She asked and looked over at where Robyn was still curled up on the dirt, moaning softly in pain. 

“Punished the same, by Mort.” Esther answered. 

Kysa looked between Robyn and Esther for a moment, then nodded and looked to Jon. 

Jon nodded as well and then turned on his heel, gesturing Theon to follow behind, “Deliver them by sundown and we have a deal. I’ll be back in Mountmouth on the morrow to make sure the rest was dealt with as well. Otherwise, my mate will ensure it’s carried out twice over.” He said, keeping his head high and stalked back out of Mountmouth, not looking down as he walked right by Robyn lying prone and pained on the ground.

Chapter Text

Theon knocked on Yaren’s door at the edge of the village. Jon was helping to finish getting the hives set up in Giant’s Rest and so for once Theon was left alone in Mountmouth. After riding around what felt like the whole of the north to find the hives, Theon had demanded a day of rest at least before he rode out again to work on the census of the lands. After his knock, there was a clatter and a thud and then a very vicious sound of cursing before Yaren’s voice carried through the door. 

“Who is it?” It was more of a yell than a question. 

“Theon,” He shouted back, “You’re a herbalist are you not?” 

The door pulled open just far enough that Yaren’s face could be seen but nothing else. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “And what’s it to you?” 

“Just that I need something to prevent these from cracking.” Theon gestured to his gills. They had reached the point of pain. Jon had gone to kiss him there and Theon had hissed and shoved him away the night before. Yaren looked down at the gills. 

“And they are?” She asked, skeptical. 

“Gills.” Theon would have thought it obvious, but he’d seen the way the villagers all looked at the lake. They didn’t fish anymore, too many tales of something deeper and darker hiding beneath those waters to scare them off. 

Yaren opened the door further. “And what’re you doing here?” She asked and Theon balked at first until he realized the question wasn’t directed to him. He looked back and Ghost panted from the edge of Yaren’s garden, staring at the both of them watching. 

Theon sighed, “Most likely watching me.” That’s what Ghost had been doing lately. He was obsessed with it and Theon had taken to teasing Jon, saying that his direwolf was picking up on his instincts too. Jon had consistently disavowed having given Ghost any instruction whatsoever, but Theon still didn’t believe him. 

“Hmmm…” Yaren hummed, considering the direwolf even more, “Well I guess you both better come in.” She pushed open the door wide and Theon nodded his thanks and ducked into the house. Ghost, seeming to understand what was going on, trotted in afterwards. 

Yaren hummed to herself again and pushed Theon towards a chair and then bustled towards her hearth, pushing a kettle back on and pulling two clay cups down from one of her busy shelves. The house was an eclectic mix of things, quilts and pelts laid out like in any house in the village, but then dried herbs were hanging from the ceiling amongst more pots and pans than Theon could ever hope to count littering the shelves that decorated each and every wall from top to bottom. It almost reminded him of the maester’s rooms back in Winterfell that were full of herbs and supplies. 

“Now, how exactly can I help you both?” Yaren sat down, placing both full cups onto the table but directed her question directly to Ghost who sat quite obediently by Theon’s side. Theon looked between her and the direwolf who seemed shockingly obedient in watching Yaren back. 

“Well, I wanted some—” Theon started and Yaren just cut him off with a hand wave, finally looking back up towards him. 

“Yes, yes, the gills, I know that already, but why are you really here?” She asked like she was some brilliant seer. 

Theon blinked. “I wanted to ask about the lake.” 

Yaren nodded sagely and Theon narrowed his eyes in annoyance. 

“I can leave if you’d rather.” He said and crossed his arms. 

“Not at all!” She hurried to say, smiling, “I’ll mix up something to do the trick with those gills of yours.” She jumped up from her seat and started to bustle around the crowded room, grabbing this and that as she hummed to herself. 

“And the lake?” Theon nudged her, honestly wishing he’d forgone this little trip entirely. Jon called Yaren a woodswitch, and so did plenty of the folk ‘round here, but Krakens didn’t have woodswitches. Naturally, it made Theon even more curious. 

“The old mine you mean.” Yaren said as she pulled a few herbs together. 

“Excuse me?” Theon leaned forward on the table, folding his hands around his cup. 

“Well it’s certainly not a lake,” The herbalist said like it was obvious before launching into the tale again, “Ages hence, a giant lived on this land and mined the earth right here, piling stone so high into the sky it looks like a mountain to us. It’s only been full of water since the river started to flow into it. Those were the years of the drought.” 

“The drought?” Theon asked. 

“It’s what everyone south of us calls it. The years the river just ran dry. There’re some legends that folk up this way broke the water over the edge of the mine to wash down some monster within, but that one’s a longer story.” 

“Folk in Giant’s Rest say there’s still a monster down there.” Theon had tried to convince some to go fishing and everyone had refused. It had even set Jon on edge and he’d forbidden Theon from going into the lake. Theon had half a mind to ignore him, but the dark depths of the lake were enough to make even him nervous and he was born by the sea. 

“Aye, that there is. You’ll see him sometime soon.” Yaren turned around suddenly and plopped a little bowl on the table in front of Theon, “There. Try that.” She said and propped her hands on her hips. 

Theon took a bit of the paste and rubbed it on his neck. It was slimy but coarse, “No, it’s too dry and…” He rubbed it between his fingers, “Sandy.” Yaren tsked to herself and turned back around. 

“Have you fished in the lake yet?” Yaren asked as she went back to her collections of herbs and poultices. 

“Not yet.” He’d spent some time, when he’d even been in the villages, looking at the lake and wondering, but he hadn’t gotten that far. 

“Good. There’s nothing to be found there,” Yaren said, “No fish. They swim into the mine from north and south and yet none of them ever swim out.” 

“The mine, how deep is it?” 

“How deep would a giant dig a giant’s mine?” Yaren said without turning back towards him. 

Deep . Theon knew. A giant would dig deeper than any man could . “You speak of giants, wargs, and others call you a woodswitch.” 

“Aye, that’s what I am.” She said and spat into the bowl she was mixing in. Theon flinched, but luckily her back was turned and he could school his face into nonchalance fast. 

“I’ve grown up with many a tale of grumpkins and ghouls, but never seen it.” Some doubted the magic of the land ever existed, and Theon was a skeptic as well. Bran had been insistent with all the stories growing up, but Theon felt he’d outgrown them before he even arrived in Winterfell. The North seemed like such a civilized place to have monsters of ages past still wandering around. The tales of Krakens in the deep far away in the Sunset Sea he could believe. Tales of magic from other lands he understood, but Winterfell had shown no sign of anything otherworldly. There were just people there and trees with faces, nothing more. 

“A skeptic, then, the gods won’t like that.” Yaren tsked and then plopped the bowl in front of Theon again. 

“What do you mean?” He said to hide his grimace as he spread the paste on his fingers. 

“You’re to be bound to a warg under the watching gaze of the weirwoods and the children of the forest. You’d best start believing.” 

“Warg…” Theon narrowed his eyes and pushed the bowl of paste back towards Yaren, shaking his head. 

“He’s no man or wolf, with a beast such as a direwolf bound to him.” She said as she pulled more herbs from her wall to mix in. 

“He’s a man, just like all of us.” Theon said. 

“And he’s listening now,” Yaren looked towards Ghost, “The direwolf watches over you like an alpha watches over their mate.” 

Theon looked at Ghost as well and the direwolf stared back without blinking. He started to doubt himself, feeling unsettled and shifting in his chair. “And wargs…” 

“If you want to know about them, just ask, your alpha wants to know as well, why else would he be here.” It was Yaren’s commitment to referring to Ghost as if the direwolf was Jon that unsettled him the most. He felt as if the woodswitch knew something that he didn’t. Something about him and Jon that neither of them knew about themselves. 

“I want to know.” It was one of the other reasons he was here, one that he had been hesitant to ask out loud for fear of looking foolish. 

Yaren smirked and put more elbow grease into grinding the herbs down as she began to spin the tale, “In ages past, when the children of the forest and the first men lived in harmony, magic flowed between them, gifted by the gods. Those blessed by the gods and the children of the forest gained power over beasts and nature. One such kind were the wargs, skinchangers,” She said the word with reverence, “Who could put off their own skin and morph into the body of another, capturing their mind and ruling their body as if it was their own. 

“Wargs ran with the children of the forest to places that the old gods had long hidden away from the sights of the first men. They broke bread with the children of the forest and knew the real magic of the land. They gained power, some more than others, and many still wander the snowy slopes of the northern mountains seeing through the eyes of boars, wolves, eagles, crows, and even, on occasion, men.” 

Theon felt a chill pass through the hut. 

“Your mate sleeps deeply, does he not?” 

Theon’s blood went cold. He’d noticed it, on occasion, how Jon’s body would go still almost as if he wasn’t breathing, then come alive again. It was brief, the moments like this, but often enough that Theon forgot to comment on how Yaren referred to them as mates already. 

“They say that the power of a skinchanger is born through their dreams. That it is there that the old gods visit them and the children of the forest whisper the ways of nature into their ears.” 

Yaren turned around then and if she noticed how Theon’s face had gone white, she didn’t say anything, just put the bowl of paste down in front of him for the third time. “You’re a witch.” Theon said and didn’t move. 

“Silly boy,” Yaren smiled, “I’m a woodswitch. Now tell me if it works.” 

Theon still didn’t move for the paste. He’d heard tales of the power of woodswitches and he’d only thought of Yaren the type of village woman who knew the healing arts and considered it magic, but now he was less of a skeptic. He was slowly learning that magic went deep into the bones of places this far north. 

Yaren smiled as if she knew the thoughts racing in Theon’s head of curses and hexes and poison. “You belong to the warg, boy, you’ll see no harm from me. A skeptic is only a child who’s yet to see how dark the woods truly get at night.” 

Theon reached and hesitatingly took the bowl with paste. 

“Check with him, first, if you’re not sure.” Yaren said and gestured to Ghost who still sat patient and silent by Theon’s feet like the third guest that they had round their table. 

Theon didn’t know why he did what he did, but he held the bowl of paste down towards Ghost who sniffed it, licked his nose, and then sat back on his heels without a change in expression. Hardly anything had happened, but something settled in Theon’s own mind, the worry fading away. 

He took the paste and brushed it over his gills and he could feel the moisture seep into the skin. “It’s good.” He said, almost unwilling to look into Yaren’s eyes. 

“Alright,” Yaren clapped suddenly and Theon jolted in his chair, “Go running back to your mate now, enough stories and tales for one day. And you!” She pointed at Ghost, “Keep your nose out of my garden, I catch you with my groundhogs again, I’ll pull your stomach out through your cock.” 

Ghost’s ears quickly lay back on his head. Theon blinked, not quite believing what he was seeing, but let the woodswitch usher him out of her hut as if the world that he walked back into was the same as the one he’d walked out of earlier that day.

Chapter Text

Screams echoed from inside the house as Jon sat outside on the front step and waited. It’d been going on since morning and the sun was far past its zenith now. Women bustled in and out of the house behind him, buckets full of water and rags emptied in the garden and then refilled at the well as fast as possible. The scent that hit Jon whenever the door opened was coated in pain and blood. 

Esther and Cybelle had both gone into labor at almost the same time, Mort busy in the house with the both of them while Yaren did all she could to help them along. But Jon could tell from the gradually changing scents from the women who came in and out and the types of screams from the house that the births were not going well. 

“How’s it going?” Jon asked one of the girls as she was on her way back in, making sure to keep his voice quiet. 

The girl looked between the house and him before she answered, “Esther might make it, the babe too.”

Jon just put his head in his hands and the girl darted back inside. 

Jon remembered Rickon and Bran’s births, they’d been hard but this was Esther and Cybelle’s first. Apparently it was harder, the first time. He rubbed a hand over his face and pondered what he would do if both Esther and Cybelle didn’t make it through the day. 

“What’s going on?” Theon jogged up to him outside the house. He’d been away all day riding through the neighboring villages and areas starting on a census for Jon and must’ve just gotten back. Based on his look, he must’ve run over here as soon as he figured out something was going on. 

“They’re in labor, the both of them.” Jon said and he sounded defeated even to himself. 

“How long?” Theon peered towards the house when there was a particularly loud sound. 

“Too long.” Jon just hoped the pups might make it. At least one to keep Mort company if he lost both his mates today. 

Theon didn’t answer but he did step past Jon and open the door to the house, too fast for Jon to stop him, but Jon raced up as soon as he could and grabbed him. 

“Hey, no, you can’t go in.” This was a delicate situation. Only people approved could go in. Any other scents would cause confusion. 

“I might be able to help.” Theon argued, not leaving the door even as Jon tried to pull him back. 

“How?” Jon argued, angry on Mort’s behalf that Theon was trying to enter. 

“How do you think?” Theon said with narrowed eyes and then Jon remembered. He looked down Theon and then back up again and Theon looked even more disappointed at that. 

“Right.” Jon felt dumb. 

“Lady Catelyn seemed convinced that she had to give birth on her back, so I’m just making sure that Esther and Cybelle aren’t making the same mistake.” Theon continued. 

“What?” Jon didn’t even understand what he was talking about. He’d never been allowed in a birthing room. Not even Lady Catelyn’s. Why Theon had been, he didn’t know. 

While Jon was trying to figure that out, Theon forced the door the rest of the way open and went into the house. Jon stood there, completely unsure what to do, and heard the growls start up. Then shouting. 

Jon jolted and froze between entering and staying outside. He was alarmed enough to consider forcing his own way into the house when Theon reappeared, a panicked look on his face. “Have we got a tub?” 

“A tub?” 

“Hurry up, Jon!” Theon yelled and started running to search the area, peering around the edge of houses and into the closer ones. Jon followed, not knowing what else to do. 

“We’ve got barrels and we’ve got troughs.” But that was for livestock and mead. The closest thing they had to tubs would be the small washbasins that every house had. 

“No,” Theon shook his head, “It won’t be big enough.”

“What do you need the tub for?” 

“For Cybelle, and Esther too if she needs it.” Theon stared around at the village and just put his hands on his hips before softly cursing. 

“What are you on about?” Jon couldn’t make sense left or right of what Theon was up to, but the man was on a mission, looking more serious than Jon had ever seen him. 

Then Theon turned to him, “I need you to help me get Cybelle to the lake.” 

Jon almost choked, “The lake?” 

“And I need you to convince Mort that it’ll work.” 

“That what’ll work?” 

“All Krakens are born in water, Jon, it helps ease the mother. Babes can survive under water even without gills, for a time at least. Jon,” Theon moved closer to him suddenly, his voice dropping to the same kind of whisper that the girl had used earlier, “She’s not surviving without it.” 

Jon watched Theon’s eyes for a moment then nodded. He would have to trust that Theon knew what he was talking about. Theon led the rush back to Esther and Cybelle’s house and Jon followed Theon inside. Both alphas were both struggling through the labor, Yaren at Cybelle’s side looking worried as Mort turned between the two of them as if unsure who to comfort. 

“Yaren—” Theon started and Yaren just growled. 

“I told you to get out, fish, what didn’t you understand?” Yaren herself was covered in sweat and a stench of blood. She’d been shut up in the house for as long as Esther and Cybelle. 

“Shut up, I know how to get the babe out,” Theon ignored Yaren’s warning and pushed closer to Cybelle’s side, leaning down and speaking directly to her, “We need to get you to the lake. The water will help you push and get the baby positioned right.” 

Cybelle screamed as another wave of pain wracked her body. Jon swallowed as both of the women struggled, the smell of sweat and blood overpowering his nose. Theon glanced back at Jon, begging with his eyes, but Jon was overwhelmed. He’d never seen a woman giving birth before and now he understood why so many women didn’t leave their birthing bed. Theon gave up and turned back to Yaren and Cybelle. 

“We’ll carry her there and I can help her in the water, please,” Theon urged, “It might be her only chance.” 

Mort heard that and then rushed back towards Esther’s side where the birth was going better and the bulk of the midwives were huddled around. He seemed unwilling to confront the possibility of losing Cybelle, more nervous about holding onto the mate that had a higher chance of surviving the day. Yaren, it seemed, had dedicated all her attention to Cybelle, but everyone in the house, including her, could tell that Cybelle’s chances were slim. 

“Mort!” Jon called to him, a burst of anger as he understood how everyone was gravitating away from Cybelle. Mort’s shoulders hunched and he grabbed Esther’s hand and squeezed and didn’t turn round to look at Jon or even acknowledge him, “Do we have your permission to try?” Mort flinched harder and closer to Esther. 

“Aghhhh! Fuck it!” Cybelle shouted and then half her body collapsed like all the energy had just drained out of her. 

Theon took that as permission enough and Yaren didn’t move to stop him when he grabbed Cybelle and carefully picked her up in his arms, making sure to support her back and legs. Cybelle groaned as Theon lifted her, but she was limp in his arms, not even pushing anymore. 

“Tend to Esther, I’ll help Cybelle.” Theon said and then was nodding at Jon to open the door, moving fast enough that Jon had to rush to get the door open in time. 

Theon moved as quickly as he could to the lake and didn’t even stop to think before he was wading in, Cybelle balanced in his arms. Jon stopped right at the edge of the water, along with two of the women from the house that had followed, shouting and wailing like Cybelle was being carried to her death. 

Jon watched, twisting his hands around one another uselessly as Theon walked out until the water was up to his stomach and then he slowly lowered Cybelle into the water. Cybelle’s cries of relief were audible from shore and one of the women, a beta, started crying next to Jon. Jon couldn’t hear what Theon was saying, but it was obvious that he was guiding Cybelle into some position and then using his strength to hold her head and shoulders above water as she pushed. 

The other woman beside Jon gasped and then pointed out at the lake, “The beast!” She screeched and the beta fell to her knees in hysterics. 

Jon’s eyes widened as he saw the trail in the water, the thin waves that were all the more noticeable on the normally still lake surface. “Theon! Get out of there!” He shouted and stepped a foot forward until the water was hitting his boots, but he stopped. He couldn’t go any further. “Theon!” He yelled as the trail in the water turned towards him and Cybelle. 

Theon, alarmed, looked towards Jon first and then over at the trail in the water, but he didn’t start rushing back to land. He seemed to almost hold onto Cybelle tighter as the woman screamed and pushed.

“Theon!” Jon shouted again and took another involuntary step forward before the fear froze his steps again. A fin crested out of the water, grey and blue and cutting through the water like a sword. That was all that he could see from this distance, but Theon must’ve been able to see more. The fin was going right towards them, closing in, only a few feet away when Theon’s voice boomed out with the Kraken volume that Theon had told Jon about but never used. He’d said it was to be heard over the sounds of storms and waves while manning a ship’s deck, but that it wasn’t a voice to be used lightly. 

Jon could understand why as the force of it blew through him and shook the very surface of the water as Theon shouted, simply, “ Stad !” 

The water stilled almost immediately. The fin disappeared as if it had never been there and the waves that had started up across the whole of the lake faded to nothingness. It was like a dark cloud that had been blocking the sun one moment had passed and the monster of the lake was gone. 

Then Cybelle’s scream got louder and higher until they subsided into a relieved shout and she went fully limp in Theon’s arms. 

Theon looked down at her again, turning away from the lake, and reached below into the water. The women beside Jon called out, one of them even rushed forward into the water as Theon lifted with one hand a babe out of the lake, cord still attached. 

Theon himself looked shocked and met Jon’s eyes from fifteen feet away as the woman grabbed the baby and the second one came rushing into the water to help take Cybelle and the baby back out of the lake. 

“It’s a girl!” Yaren’s voice came from the house down at the center of the village, the tone happy enough to tell Jon that Esther had survived. 

“It’s a boy!” The midwife shouted and held up Cybelle’s babe with glee. There were shouts around the village and Jon turned around to see a crowd of townsfolk all watching the lake with shocked faces. There would be a feast tonight, a party to celebrate the births, but as the women and townsfolk dragged him back towards the center of town Jon couldn’t stop staring at Theon. 

The feast was loud and boisterous, enough so that some fellows from Giant’s Rest crossed over the bridge to join in the festivities. The children wouldn’t be named for some time, but it was a celebration nonetheless with both Esther and Cybelle on track to make a full recovery. The fire at the center of the village was large and they roasted a whole hog over it. Some of the villagers brought out instruments and children danced around the fire, a few howling at the moon in celebration. 

At some point during the festivities, Jon saw Mort talking with Theon, but it was brief and then Mort was back by his mates’ sides, a babe in one arm. Theon rejoined him on the other side of the roasting pit where Jon sat just watching the fire. 

“What was that about?” He asked as Theon sat beside him. 

"Thanking me, that was all.” Theon answered and then put a hand on Jon’s thigh, high enough to be suggestive. Jon raised an eyebrow and turned to look at him. 

“Are you trying to tell me something?” He almost smirked, but stopped himself just to poke fun at Theon for longer. 

Theon, however, did smile, the normal lecherous smile that Jon knew too well, “Just wasn’t sure how long we were planning to stay here.” 

It seemed like no time at all before Jon was flinging the door open to their rundown hut and shoving Theon back against the wall as they kissed. He braced both his hands on the wall as Theon swung his leg out to kick the door closed. Jon growled into the kiss as Theon’s hands grabbed at his belt. 

“Oh you like that do you?” Theon muttered in the breaks between their kisses. 

“Shut up.” Jon nipped back and then kissed down to Theon’s neck to shove his nose there for no reason other than that’s what his instincts were telling him to do. 

Theon didn’t complain, but he did throw Jon’s belt off and then his own and he was shoving up both of their tunics, pulling out their laces, and then Jon was finally back on the program. Bare skin on bare skin, Theon’s cock against his own and Theon’s hands grabbing his ass and pulling him closer as Jon thrusted up against him. 

“Fuck, that’s right,” Theon threw his head back against the wall, “Just like that, come on.” 

Jon growled and did it again, both of them just sliding up against each other and their half undone trousers, tunics bunched up between them. Theon hitched a leg up around Jon’s thigh to get better leverage and Jon groaned as the pressure increased. It was messy and fast and Theon talked through the whole thing like he was coaching Jon through every step, but came first anyway. Jon growled as Theon gasped and thrust against Theon’s now slick and messy skin until he came as well. 

He leaned back after a moment and Theon brushed a hand through his sweat slick hair with a laughing smile on his face, “We didn’t even make it to the bed.” 

“I’ve been waiting for this since you scared off that monster.” Jon answered and stepped away to fully assess the state of his clothes. Everything was a mess and sticky, they’d all have to be washed. 

“I did scare off that monster didn’t I?” Theon said, clearly proud of himself. Jon busied himself with shucking off all his clothes, hoping that nothing would end up completely ruined. 

“I’d never heard the Kraken voice before, it was powerful.” Jon muttered and turned round to toss all his dirty clothes over onto another chair. They’d need to wash them soon. 

Theon plastered himself along Jon’s back, still mostly clothed, but his cock was soft and wet against Jon’s ass. “Was it?” Theon asked even as his hand snaked round Jon’s stomach to hold him in place.

“Are we doing another round?” Jon asked, turning his head to meet Theon’s over his shoulder. 

“Hmm,” Theon hummed like he was considering between two desserts, “Get the oil and we can. I’m feeling very alpha tonight.” Theon smiled again and Jon just rolled his eyes. 

The second round was on the bed, all of their clothes left behind on the floor so that they could reach and touch and grab at anything in front of them. In the end, Theon collapsed to the side of Jon, breathing heavily and tired as Jon twisted to face him, a content smile on his face even as the furs beneath the two of them slowly dried. 

“What did you say to the monster?” Jon asked as he let his hand fall onto Theon’s chest and just smoothed over his chest and stomach absentmindedly as Theon came back from his high. 

“Hmm?” Theon asked, his eyes still closed and Jon felt a surge of alpha pride that he was so tired. His soon to be mate was satisfied by him and that was the highest praise. 

“To the monster in the lake, what did you say?” He asked again and then flopped over onto his back. 

Theon paused for a moment as if he was thinking hard to remember, “I said to stop.”

Jon hummed, “Not in any language I know.” 

He felt the furs shift as Theon turned to look at him and he turned as well and saw the confused expression on Theon’s face. It quickly smoothed out into understanding, “Oh, it was the ironborn language. We use it on ships out at sea. Most everyone has forgotten most of the words, but my uncle was studying it.” 

Jon hummed. It made sense that some words from the people of the sea would have power over a creature like the one in the lake. 

Slowly, Theon’s chest calmed and both of them quieted. Jon’s mind drifted and he relaxed against their furs, the trials of the day drifting away as he was shrouded in the scent of their little hut. 

“Wait, why were you in Lady Catelyn’s birthing room?” Jon asked, caught on that little point of confusion even as both of them were starting to drift towards sleep. 

“Really?” Theon asked, exasperated. 

“It just makes no sense.” Jon had been trying to piece it together and the more he thought on it the less it made sense. 

“They’d been worried that she might not make it with Bran. I was sent to fetch the children and keep them elsewhere since I didn’t have a scent that would give anything away,” Theon explained, “And then I saw her on her back and it was the most idiotic thing. Your father looked about ready to kill me.” Theon chuckled as he must’ve remembered the scene. 

“Tried to convince her to get a tub, but they wouldn’t listen to me on that front,” Theon said, “But she must’ve been in a lot of pain to have listened to me at all.” 

Jon turned towards Theon, curious again about this new revelation, but Theon’s eyes were closed and his body still as he went back to trying to sleep. Jon watched him for a moment, thinking that he might be able to uncover something else new about the man who saved a woman who hated him on the birthing bed. Theon continued to be an enigma , was Jon’s last thought as he finally drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Someone from Giant’s Rest burned down the bridge. Marwin wouldn’t tell Jon who it was, but he’d spent a suspiciously long time up at the mines northwest of Giant’s Rest in the past few days and Jon had learned not to ask any questions. Thankfully, Esther and Cybelle didn’t see the bridge burning as an act of war, both of them far too busy with two pups on their hands, so Jon just got together all the folk from Giant’s Rest he could and made them rebuild the bridge. 

It was back up, good as new, in the span of only a few days. If that wasn’t a success, then Jon didn’t know what was. 

In that timeframe, with the bulk of the labor solicited from Giant’s Rest as payment for having burned the bridge down in the first place and the supplies carted in by Robyn and a few other men from Mountmouth who Jon suspected were his fellows in crime, they also built something else right beside the bridge. It was on the Mountmouth side of the river, but only because the land was more favorable there where the trees were less dense. They raised a house, a new one that wasn’t falling apart and Theon took the best bits of furniture from the two rundown shacks they’d been living in between the two villages and soon they had a hearth of their own. 

Of course, now Jon would have to stare at the damn bridge all the time, but that was neither here nor there. At least they had someone impartial to make sure it didn’t get burned down a second time. 

“What are you doing?” Theon yelled from the door of their new house. 

Jon looked around at the holes he’d dug around the area by the tree line that morning in the hours between waking up and dawn. To be honest, he hadn’t been particularly sure why he was digging the holes until halfway through. “Pigs.” He yelled back and turned to look at Theon.

Theon opened his mouth like he was going to question that further, then thought better and just turned around and went back into the house. 

The house was made of the same wood that the bridge was, the overabundant oak and pine that was scattered throughout the North. The walls were two layers thick with hardwood to keep out the cold. No pipes of water from hot springs would warm their walls when Winter came. Theon had dug out a root cellar to the right of the house with a few of the men and already they had some stores packed down there. Most of their stock was still up in the house, strung up on the wooden rafters to dry. The thatch roof would need reinforcing, but it was good enough for summer.

Slowly, Jon was learning the ways of animal husbandry and farming. First, the bee hives which had been difficult to find and trade for, and now he was trying to increase their stock of animals. He wanted a few animals and a small garden of their own by their house as well, to try and be less dependent on the good will of Mountmouth and Giant’s Rest. His plan was to tear up this section of the earth with a shovel, then let the pigs and chicken roam around it for a few weeks and then it’d be perfect for planting. He wanted to test out how well it worked before turning to increasing the arable land around the villages. They’d need more goods for trading.  

After the focus on trading, Jon wanted to turn to building more roads, maybe even connecting up with the Kingsroad. But that would require oxen and more men than Jon had available at the moment. 

“Theon!” Jon yelled back towards the house as he started walking back there, wiping his hands on his trousers. 

“What!” Theon yelled back through the open door, sounding annoyed. 

“I need the finished census of the lands. Sooner rather than later.” Jon asked as he came in. Theon had been sent out with paper and ink and the duty to figure out where all of their assorted villages and smallfolk actually were and map out their terrain and lands to the best of his ability. The smallfolk were invited to come to the lake to meet Jon as well, but Theon had been sent out with a message that Jon would be visiting all his lands soon. That and a second message that an invitation to Jon and Theon’s quickly approaching mating would be extended. 

Theon had been chosen for this task because he was the better artist of the two of them. Plus, Jon had to admit, he had a knack for making people like him. He was charming in that way. 

“I’m working on it,” Theon grumbled as he tore into the stale bread that they had from the ovens in Mountmouth, “You know most of the smallfolk moved up into the mountains for better grazing.” 

“They’ll need to come south for winter.” Jon said, grabbing the piece of bread that Theon had just torn off for himself. Theon glared at him and tore off another. 

“Most of them have also never heard of, much less seen, a Kraken before.” Theon added, popping the bread in his mouth with a disturbing crunch. They would need to finish this loaf today. Jon moved to their fireplace to see if there was still any broth from the night before to soften the bread. He kicks the coals and the wood around to get the fire started again. 

“They give you any trouble?” Jon asked, already moving towards Theon and cornering him against their table, pulling Theon’s tunic open and tearing his own sweaty shirt off so that he could press them together to cover Theon in his scent. It had become a daily routine. Theon would need to smell like him if he was going out and about on his business. Theon just sighed and put up with it. 

“One asked when the mating was to be,” Theon said and Jon raised his eyebrow. There wasn’t a formal plan yet, dependent on the timing of Jon’s rut as it was, “I told him the date wasn’t set, but that they’d all be invited.” At least Northern matings and Kraken matings were similarly well attended affairs. Theon could at least know some of what to expect from the highly public ceremony. 

“It’s supposed to be my next rut,” Jon said, “At least that is what father ordered.” 

Theon nodded, “You know, there is something odd I noticed, the village yesterday was loading a cart with supplies, oxen to pull it and all, and didn’t quite want to tell me where it was headed.” 

Jon raised an eyebrow, leaning back a moment to look closer at Theon. “What are you thinking?” 

Theon shrugged, “There’s gotta be another settlement out there that they’re trading with, I just don’t know why they won’t say anything.” 

“Hmm,” Jon hummed. He had an odd feeling about this and it was enough to change his plans for the day. The two towns would have to do without him for the day. “I’m coming with you.” 

“You sure?” Theon asked, “I was going to head west today, this village is more northwards.” 

“I’ve got a weird feeling about it, is all.” Jon said and moved away to get the warm broth from last night to finish his breakfast. 

“Sure.” Theon agreed easily enough and pulled open the sack he’d stuffed with food to throw in more dried meat and cheese and bread for Jon too. 

“Ghost needs the exercise anyway.” The direwolf was getting into trouble chasing after all kinds of animals in the town. Where he was now, Jon didn’t know. But he knew that the direwolf was never too far away. 

The two of them saddled their horses and Jon had the first man they passed on going through Mountmouth extend his regret at leaving for the day. He’d been working on fixing up some of the main buildings in Mountmouth that a storm had damaged, but that would have to be postponed.

They rode the whole morning and Theon didn’t pause to eat, only tossing Jon the rucksack as they rode. Jon followed his lead, Theon had been out on these journeys occasionally for the past few weeks, his only instructions to return before nightfall or else Jon would go out hunting for him. So far, Theon had complied. 

When they entered the little village, it was obvious something was off just because of the crowd of people in the square. Normally people would be out in the fields working this time of day, or tending to the animals, not arguing in the street. 

The voices all came down when they rode into town and the little hairs on the back of Jon’s neck raised like the fur on the top of Ghost’s back when he was surprised. 

Jon let one of his hands fall from the reins to rest closer to the hilt of his sword. He pushed his horse forward towards the crowd. “Ho there, you met my betrothed yesterday. I’m Jon Snow, Lord of these lands.” 

The small folk mumbled. Theon dismounted his horse and came round to grab the reins of both his and Jon’s horses, but Jon didn’t get off. He wanted to be able to see clearly the whole group of smallfolk, something uneasy drifting through the air. 

“What happened with the cart?” Theon asked, “That axle got fixed okay?” Theon had told Jon about how the cart’s axle had been busted the day before. He said it was the only reason that he had even noticed the cart. 

“Yes, m’lord. We got it fixed okay.” One of the men said, but all the people were clumped in together too tightly for Jon to differentiate their scents. The woman who’d been talking loudest among the bunch before grumbled and looked away. 

Jon finally swung down from his horse. He scented the air and it was the usual mix of dynamics, but there was the underlying hint of nervousness that struck him as odd. “Everything alright, out here?” Jon asked, gesturing for Theon to stay with their horses even if he’d get told off from Theon about it later. If the villagers themselves were uneasy, it was only doubly so for Jon. He kept his hand close to his sword, but didn’t dare grasp it for fear of offending the folk. 

“Just wondering why we got a lord all of a sudden, is all!” The grumbling woman finally said amidst hurried hushes from her fellows. 

Jon narrowed his eyes. The woman was an alpha, that was clear just from the way she held herself in front of him if not by the growing scent of anger overpowering the unease of the larger group. “I’ve been given these lands by Lord Stark of Winterfell.” 

“I don’t know no Lord Stark.” The woman nearly spit the name. 

“Wylla, stop it!” The man who spoke earlier tried to grab her arm to get her to shut up, but she just shrugged it off. Seeing how the whole village deferred to her, Jon could assume Wylla was the alpha in charge of the whole place. 

So Jon growled low and it made the omegas and betas in the crowd back off immediately. Jon opened his mouth to snarl at the woman, too uneasy to play nice, when Theon grabbed his arm. 

“You all remember what I said yesterday?” Theon asked the crowd. Jon turned to glare at him. “A Lord doesn’t steal your crops like whoever you were sending that cart off to does. The Lord takes a piece of it in exchange for defending your lands, your people, and bettering them.”

“We ain’t need no defense!” Wylla yelled at Theon. Jon growled louder, pulling Theon towards him, but Theon just ignored it. 

“Then what are you so scared of you won’t tell us where that cart was headed?” 

The crowd started looking around, not willing to meet either of their eyes. Except for Wylla. 

Then Theon’s ear fins flickered and he startled badly, turning around so fast that Jon panicked and spun around just in time to see a massive man emerge from the woods. 

“They’re scared of me.” The man said, a deep alpha snarl that had Jon drawing his sword from his side before he even registered the furs and tattoos on the man’s face. This was no Northerner. He was a wildling. 

“You’ve all been supplying Wildlings.” Jon stated it out loud. The Wildling alpha had a hefty axe slung across his back. 

“We’ve got an agreement here,” The alpha said, “An agreement that some southern lord might get in the way of.” 

“What kind of agreement?” Jon asked, lowering his sword just slightly when it was obvious that the alpha wasn’t going to draw his axe. 

“No more raids, from anyone, in exchange for a share of the crops.” The alpha snarled with a wide grin. 

A border guard , Jon thought. 

“You’d be fooling yourself if you didn’t think most of the people on these lands aren’t wildlings themselves!” Wylla yelled behind them. 

“Alright…” Jon put out a hand. He and Theon were outnumbered here and there were no reserve forces that they could call upon later. They were out here on their own. “I’m sure we can come to an agreement.” One that his father would disavow if he ever heard of it, but Jon wasn’t in the mind to die today. He’d barely survived Marwin and bringing the villages at the lake together. He wasn’t going to fail and be killed by wildlings on his own lands. If the people living on his land were wildlings, then so be it. As long as they weren’t killing and rampaging across the lands, he could work with them. “I’ll take over payment of goods in exchange for peace.” It seemed fair enough, just like hiring mercenaries would be. 

“Hmmph!” Wylla scoffed, “A southern lord paying wildlings! Don’t listen to him, Bjorn!” She started laughing. 

“Jon…” Theon muttered beside him, a warning that they needed to get gone. 

“I’ve no intent to push anyone off these lands,” Jon said, “If you be wildlings, so be it, so long as there’s no trouble.” He was sure that if the people had an inclination towards causing trouble, he would’ve heard of it by now. But there’d been no signs of raids or widespread violence across his lands, not from what Theon had told him while doing the census. If these wildlings were border guards, then they were good ones. And they were already south of the wall weren’t they? Jon didn’t have close to enough power to push them back over. 

The wildling started to laugh, “Break bread with free folk? You’re welcome to, but you’ll do it on our terms.” Bjorn smiled widely. 

“Jon!” Theon hissed again. 

“We’ll break bread.” Jon said and he saw Theon looking at him wildly in the corner of his eye. It wasn’t like they had any other options. The town wasn’t going to let them leave freely after this, and they weren’t strong enough to fight their way out, even if that’s what Theon preferred. Like it or not, they were breaking bread with wildlings now.

Chapter Text

If Jon wanted to kill himself, he could bloody well kill himself, but he just better not drag Theon into it.

That’s all that Theon was saying to himself as they were corralled by the wildling villagers, their swords and knives taken from them and then pushed and prodded and led out into the woods. This wasn’t some journey to break bread with men, this was a death sentence. 

Theon glared at the back of Jon’s head. There’d been no chance to talk, just the two of them, and the villagers all seemed keen to keep them separated. Wylla, the angry woman from the town, held his arm as they walked, keeping a knife poised at his side. He understood why when he saw the flash in Jon’s eyes and a barely held back growl. Of course if Jon did anything wrong, Theon was the one who was going to have a knife sticking out of his gills. 

At least they hadn’t bound them. Technically escorting them through the forest like captives was still under the pretence of a friendly meal, just like the ones that Lord Stark would talk about whenever he journeyed to break bread with the Northern mountain houses. Ned would come back complaining of weeks long of roaring fires and massive roasts and mountain mead. But the Northern mountain houses were welcoming fellows. And their meals were welcoming as well. 

This was a farce, Theon knew, and Jon must know it as well. This was breaking bread with the beast that had hunted and haunted the north since the first of the Starks. And Jon wasn’t a Stark. And Theon wasn’t a wolf. 

There were tales from beyond the wall, that Theon had heard from Black Brothers passing through Winterfell, of wolves who turned to desperation in the cold far reaches of the north and hunted the rangers for sport. They would take them down like game and roast them over fires, cleaning the bones of men with their teeth and sucking out the marrow. There were men beyond the wall who ate other men. 

“Keep moving.” Wylla said at his side, shoving the knife even closer to his gills and Theon focused back on his feet over the wet leaves and roots strewn across the forest floor. 

“Move the knife back or he’ll tear out your throat.” Theon warned softly, still watching Jon’s tense form up ahead. 

Wylla scoffed, “I’d like to see the damn alpha try.” She said and held onto his arm tighter, the knife almost digging into his side, not hard enough to cut through fabric and skin, but a sharper warning than Theon was comfortable with. 

“Here.” Someone said and the forest ended in a massive, yet cramped clearing. Huts built with large pelts tied between poles hammered into the ground crowded the space. The place was bustling, full of folk wrapped in the same kind of wildling wear that Bjorn was. Pelts and furs were the currency of the north, and these folk were rich in them. Smoke from hearths poured out holes in the tops of the pelt wrapped huts and Theon realized that this was no simple wildling camp. 

It was a village of them. Full to the brim with women and children and animals kept in pens, snorting and clucking as they dug through the dirt for worms and food. They had more animals than Mountmouth did, maybe more than both the villages on the lake combined. And in half the space. 

There was a shove at his shoulder and a sharp reminder digging into his side that pushed him forward towards the largest of the huts, Jon already ahead of him, walking mostly unmolested. From what Theon could see, Jon was scanning their surroundings just as Theon was, hopefully realizing now that the two of them were never getting back to Mountmouth and Giant’s Rest. 

He had to duck under a low hanging log and through a hanging pelt and then the temperature rose as he entered the hut, a roaring fire at the center. A hand on his shoulder pushed him down at the edge of the room and Theon was forced to his knees. Wylla’s hand grabbed his hair and the knife shoved up under his chin. 

“Sit, kneeler.” Wylla threatened Jon. Theon clenched his jaw. 

Jon looked towards him, took half a step forward and then the whole hut, crowded now with everyone who had been walking with them, started growling at him. “Let him go and we can talk.” Jon spoke instead.

The hand tugged at his hair harder. “Sit.” She said again. 

“Come, kneeler,” Bjorn beckoned from his place across the fire, surrounded now by his fellows, all of them packed into the hut like the fire wouldn’t be enough to keep them warm, “Sit, no harm will come to him.” 

“No,” Jon clenched his hands, “Not while there’s a knife on my mate. If we’re to break bread then we will all break bread.” He said, sounding more confident than Theon thought he should be. 

The eyes in the tent turned towards Theon again, many of them all trying to assess him at once. Bjorn laughed and the eyes turned back, “That?” He referred to the knife that was cold against Theon’s throat, “That’s just to make sure the deal is in our favor, nothing more.” 

“We can’t threaten you, not here.” Theon argued and then pain coursed through his skull as his hair was pulled again. 

Jon finally did growl and the whole hut growled back. “Let him go, Bjorn, we’re no threat and if we’re to be friends, let us at least be friendly with each other.” 

Bjorn almost laughed at the word friends, but after a second signaled and the knife fell away, Wylla’s hand leaving his hair and almost dropping him fully onto the ground. 

Theon spent a second to catch his breath, then pushed himself to his feet. The whole collection of wildlings watched him warily. Jon scanned him up and down as if to reassure himself of Theon’s safety, then sat down opposite the fire from Bjorn. A hand pushed at Theon’s shoulder and so he moved forward and took a seat on the log beside Jon. 

Bjorn produced a loaf of bread from somewhere and started tearing it into pieces. The circle around the fire slowly filled with folk, Wylla and others from the village among them, and the people produced other bits of food or bread and slowly passed things around the circle. Theon took the bread that was offered him, but then Jon plucked it out of his hands, taking it for himself. 

Theon didn’t try to take anything else that was offered, letting Jon accept the food instead. Only after Jon’s silent inspection of the heel of bread and a small bite, did he hand it back. 

“Bread has been broken, kneeler, now tell us what you want.” Bjorn said without looking up from his food. Both his elbows were braced on his knees as he tore apart pieces of bread and meat and ate, bent over on the ground so he could spit out little bones that were still in the tough meat. 

“Peace,” Jon said, still toying with his own heel of bread in his hands, a cup of wine or some drink at his feet untouched so far, “We don’t want raids or trouble.” 

“We’re not raiders.” Someone round the fire said and there were hums and noises of agreement around the circle. 

“You are wildlings.” Theon pointed out and a few folk around the fire growled, making Jon reach over and grab Theon’s arm. 

“Free folk,” Someone corrected, “Not wildling.” Jon’s bruising grip slowly relaxed when nothing else seemed forthcoming. 

“We came over the wall at the beginning of summer,” Bjorn offered, “We’ve been here for a long time now and we’ve no desire to live out another winter beyond the wall.” Theon saw some people’s faces go ashen at the thought. 

“When you came over the wall—” Jon started and Bjorn sneered. 

“No kneeler, we did not ravage and rape across the lands like you seem to expect. True, there are devils among us as there are devils among all men, but we made our home here and there was no reason to turn the other folk against us.” Agreement resounded throughout the hut. 

“And now you protect the villages from the rest of the wil— free folk raiders who came over the wall after you?” Theon raised an eyebrow. Jon’s hand clenched on his arm again, almost as if he was mad at Theon for even talking in a situation like this. 

“We give them options,” Wylla from the village answered, “Peace or hope you can make it back over the wall before we kill you.” She smiled and Bjorn laughed. 

“Then there’s more in common between us than otherwise.” Jon said, pointing out exactly what was going through Theon’s head at that moment. 

“Except you’re kneelers.” Someone said like a curse and sounds of agreement resounded throughout. 

“I’ve been given lordship over these lands, true.” Jon said. 

“And we ain’t kneeling to you.” A woman spat on the floor. 

Bjorn laughed again, “No folk in these parts, even the kneelers, want anything to do with a lord.” He said.

Theon thought for a second since Jon seemed to have run out of things to say and then ignored Jon’s previous nonverbal warnings to shut up and spoke again, “We brought Mountmouth and Giant’s Rest back together.” 

A few chuckles throughout the hut stopped and slowly all the noises petered out. 

“Kneelers down that ways hate the free folk.” 

Theon scoffed, “Not as much as they hate each other.” He had learned that quickly enough. Even if the Wildling raids had been key to the start of the hatred between Mountmouth and Giant’s Rest, they’d quickly moved past it. 

“Did you lot ever know the prophecy?” Theon added and Jon turned to him with a confused and surprised look on his face. “It said that the villages could never be rejoined by a wolf.”

“And that’s you?” Someone scoffed and laughs echoed softly, but Theon just waited for them to fade. 

“No,” He said and looked up directly at Bjorn, “It’s him.” He nudged his head in the direction of Jon. The air seemed to stop moving in the hut and everyone turned to stare at Jon who seemed to freeze under the attention. 

“What do you mean?” Bjorn asked, his eyes dancing between Jon and Theon warily. Theon wondered if the scents in the hut were rising in stress or not. 

“Well,” Theon smiled, “He can show you, but he just needs a little help.” 

“What?” Jon asked, holding his hands up in preparation for something he didn’t know was coming as Theon stood up and turned to face Jon, “What are you doing?” 

“Find Ghost.” Theon said, gave a wincing smile of regret, and hit Jon on the head as hard as he could. 

Jon’s body collapsed onto the ground by the log. Theon stood over him even as the hush fell throughout the hut. He counted a few seconds and hoped that the tales that Yaren told were true. He turned and sat back down beside Jon’s unconscious body and picked up his bread and mead again and began eating like nothing had changed at all. 

“What is it, kneeler.” Someone snarled when the silence drew on too long. 

“Just wait.” Theon answered and looked down to triple check that Jon was still breathing. His head would hurt for certain, but Theon knew that even after the fight with Marwin, Jon was more of a skeptic than Theon was. A woodswitch went a long way to convincing you of magic. 

Fortunately, Ghost didn’t seem to be too far away. The hut ate in confused silence, Bjorn obviously signaling to everyone that he would sit and wait out whatever revelation Theon had. Then, a panting man ran into the hut. 

“Bjorn!” He said and rushed over to him to whisper into his ear. 

“What?” Bjorn said and his eyes flicked to Theon, wide eyed and nervous, then down at Jon, “Let the beast past.” He ordered and the man ran out. 

Theon smiled and took another draught of mead. 

Bjorn didn’t say anything else, but the soft conversations throughout the space came to a stop. 

When the pelt flap to enter the hut opened again, no man walked through, but just Ghost’s silent footsteps. It was like the whole space took a collective breath, the toughest looking of wildlings backed away at the sight of the direwolf even though he was still smaller than a wolf. The white fur and the red eyes were stark in comparison and Ghost was growing into his paws faster up here in the mountains. 

Ghost walked through the collection of wildlings easily, everyone moving out of the way so as to avoid even brushing up against his fur. Ghost came up to Theon, sniffed at Jon’s limp leg, bared his teeth briefly at Theon in annoyance, then sat, still as a statue and stared across the fire at Bjorn. 

“Meet Ghost.” Theon said with a smile. 

Then Jon gasped and jerked awake, sitting up fast and the whole hut took a collective step back. Jon touched his head as if in pain and started to push himself back up to sit on the log. 

Theon just kept talking, “You’ve seen wargs before, have you not? Skinchangers.” He said the word and a wisp of wind seemed to blow through the hut, blowing the pelt that closed the inside from the outside and letting in a few drifts of summer snow. 

“Not here,” Bjorn said, looking more wary than Theon expected, “Not in the southlands.” 

“And,” Theon felt emboldened enough to make a guess, “Not any with a direwolf.” 

The silence throughout the hut was answer enough. 

“Peace, Bjorn,” Jon finally spoke again, settling back into his skin even as he sat hunched on the log, “Peace and prosperity,” He looked up at Bjorn with eyes that almost looked like Ghost’s, “You don’t have to kneel for me, I’ve no care for it, but we do have to work together.” 

Bjorn looked as if he’d seen a ghost. Time stretched as breaths held, bated as they waited for an answer. Theon had taken a chance and he might have saved their skins or he might have doomed them both as a wildling sacrifice. Who knew how men from beyond the wall thought of wargs. Theon certainly didn’t. 

“Aye, I won’t kneel for you, but if you stay off our lands, you’ll get fair trade for what you want.” 

Theon let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and clapped Jon on the shoulder. Even Jon smiled. “Aye, that’ll do.” He answered and for the first time in all of Theon’s knowledge since the wall was built, a Stark lord broke bread with a Wildling and blood was not spilt.

Chapter Text

Two of Bjorn’s wildlings accompanied Theon on finishing the census. It seemed like it only took another two weeks before Theon was leaving the wildlings in their camp and making his way back to their house by the bride, finished map in hand. Apparently it had been easier in the past two weeks to finish the census, since the wildlings knew these parts and had the steeds to traverse them as well. They knew where there were little villages hidden away in ravines and ruts in the mountain side and where migratory patterns determined grazing for the more mobile of the small folk. 

Jon looked across the parchment and saw the marks and lines tracking all these little pieces of information. The names of villages were sprawled throughout and that was only on the first of the maps, there were more pieces of parchment below the first, lists detailing information about the villages and smaller, more detailed maps as needed. Theon had outdone himself. 

“Mountmouth and Giant’s Rest, individually, are by far the largest of the villages, most of the rest of the lands are more nomadic and follow herds most of the years, keeping only some permanent settlements in the middle of the grazing areas for agriculture.” Theon said, pointing out different areas on the map. 

“I’d say about half the villages are wildling friendly, half of them from beyond the wall originally,” Theon continued, “But the rest have too many bad memories of raids.” Theon pointed out a few of the different villages and Jon nodded along. 

“Any trouble throughout?” Jon asked. 

Theon shrugged and shook his head, “Not much. Everyone knew where the lake was, so when I told them to come here if they needed anything, they understood. No sign of any wildling raids recently either. Last one I heard of was a few years ago, knocked out half of this village,” Theon pointed, “Those remaining left the land and are spread out now.” 

“Good to know.” Jon said and filed away the information. Now that he had Bjorn and his wildlings as militia of sorts, it had become more important to know how different villages would react to folk from beyond the wall. 

“When’s the mating?” Theon asked after they had gone through the maps and sat down at the table across from him. 

Jon shrugged and pulled the papers back together and reached for the leather to roll it back up in. 

“Well, when’s your next rut?” Theon pushed. 

“I don’t know,” Jon complained, “They’re not the most regular things first off.” He’d only had one so far, it was hard to expect. 

“Shouldn’t you have had one by now?” Theon poked at the wood grain on the table and Jon looked away. Theon didn’t ask the question as an insult, but it still felt like one. People would say that about alphas or omegas who missed their heats or ruts. If they were irregular, then something was wrong with you. Or at least that’s what everyone said. 

“Maybe.” Jon said quietly. He was fairly sure that he was supposed to have one by now, but the heat under his skin hadn’t come. It’d been more than three months since they’d left Winterfell, the time seeming to go so fast and so slow all at once. 

“You know, no one will know if we don’t mate. It’s not like we have a rookery or any trade of consequence goes through these lands. We’ve heard nothing from Winterfell since we left. Your father won’t know.” Theon said and Jon almost stopped breathing. 

“What?” He whispered. 

“Well it’s not like this was all our idea.” Theon tried to justify, refusing to meet Jon’s gaze. 

“We’re betrothed.” Jon insisted with a hiss. 

“I wasn’t saying that we shouldn’t do it.” Theon seemed to back away, almost regretful, but Jon just stared more intently at his turned away face. 

“Then why’d you ask?” He almost growled, “We’ve told everyone up here that we’re to be mated. You have my mark, dammit, Theon! You’re mine !” He did growl then and Theon turned away from him even further, a tough stoney look on his face. 

The silence hung for a long time. Theon kept refusing to move like it was a punishment somehow as Jon’s mind raced to try and decipher whatever was going on in Theon’s head. They’d been through so much, joining the villages, making a deal with Wildlings, and now Theon wants to call off the mating? If that was his plan, Jon would’ve rather Theon ran away their first night on the road out from Winterfell and gone off into the world to die a lonesome, titleless death far away. 

“ Say something !” Jon snarled, finally having enough of Theon’s silent treatment. 

“This!” Theon whirled back towards him, yelling, shocking Jon into stunned silence, “This is why I asked! ‘Cause you’re an alpha and I’m a Kraken and things don’t work between us, alright? ‘Cause you’ll always keep treating me like I’m some omega or some woman to order around and I’m not!” Theon panted after yelling. 

Jon sat, stunned, for a moment before he tried to say something, anything, to explain, “It’s the instincts—”

“No! It’s not, Jon, it’s you!” Theon yelled again and then fell straight back into silence, turning away again like the past two outbursts had never happened. 

Jon looked to the floor, suddenly embarrassed, “We’ve, we’ve been courting.” He begged. He’d covered Theon in his scent, they’d shared their furs more times than Jon could count. He’d even knotted Theon already, even if maybe he should’ve waited. 

Theon scoffed and that sparked a deep hurt in Jon that he couldn’t quite explain, “Have we?” Theon said meanly and Jon felt the spark of hurt turn to the feeling of failure, the despair of having been not just a bad person, but a bad alpha, something that is supposed to be instinctual and natural to him. He marked Theon, fucked him too, but they’d never exchanged gifts, betrothal jewelry, or anything of the sort. To have failed at something so simple hurt doubly. 

“What do you want?” Jon couldn’t look up from the ground. 

“Oh stop feeling bad for yourself,” Theon laughed meanly, “I’m not an idiot.” 

Jon snapped his head up to look at Theon again, glaring, “You just told me that I’ve failed at being a good alpha.” 

“I just told you that being an alpha is the problem!” Theon amended, both of them shouting again. 

“So what do you want me to do? Not be an alpha?” It just wasn’t possible. He was and would always be an alpha. Sure, his alpha side was stronger than Robb’s was, but Theon had been around wolves half his life. He had to understand wolves by now. 

“You could be less protective of me.” Theon suggested. 

“How am I protective?” Jon shouted, disbelieving. 

Theon looked at him like he was crazy then started listing on his fingers, “You stand in front of me, cover me in your scent daily—” 

He would’ve continued, but Jon couldn’t listen anymore, “Those are just normal wolf things! I let you get the beehives and do the census on your own!” Jon defended himself. 

“Until you got your own militia and then suddenly I had watchers.” 

“I thought you liked Brogg and Gorne!” 

“That’s not the point, Jon!” 

“Well then why didn’t you say anything before!” 

“Like I was going to say anything when Wildlings had knives in our guts or in front of any of the small folk? Challenging you gets the both of us killed!” 

“You had plenty of opportunities to say something!” 

“I did! The day of the theft, or don’t you remember?” 

Jon took a quick breath, “We need to stop fighting.” He said underneath Theon’s continued complaints. 

“I’m just trying to give you an out, okay?” Theon ended with and then both of them fell silent, neither of them willing to look at the other. 

Jon ran through Theon’s words, complaints, shouts, and everything, trying to parse out whatever Theon was thinking. He’d had to learn that Theon hid truth behind his words, never saying anything real out loud. It irked him to no end, but if Theon was going to keep arguing with him, he could at least try and decipher his motivations. 

“Give me an out?” Jon asked quietly into the silence and looked up at Theon. Both of their eyes met. 

Theon looked back at him steadily, honestly clear in his eyes, “I know my lot in life, Snow. Just checking to see if you like the goods you’ve been traded or not.” 

“You’re not goods .” Jon spat the word out with disgust. Theon just laughed. 

“I’ve done the numbers, Jon, staying with you only benefits me even if I have to live the life of a whore—”

“You’re not .” 

“And I’ll trade the safety that a wolf bite on my neck gives me for the frustration of being mated to a brute of an alpha—”

“What are you saying ?” 

“But I’m just making sure that you know you’re not going to get a docile mate to knock up and leave pregnant half the year.” 

“You can’t even—” 

Theon stood suddenly and then was yelling in the most vicious voice that Jon had ever heard from him, “I hate you, Snow, you’re a bastard, a brute, and I should’ve killed you months ago before we got far from Winterfell!” 

Jon blinked, stunned. “What?” He just said softly, helpless in trying to understand. 

Then, from the edge of the room, Ghost, silent as always, stood and bared his teeth in a soundless snarl. Jon had never seen Theon flinch as hard as he did then. Jon jumped up and put a hand out, one towards Ghost and one towards Theon like the two were about to fly at each other and fight. 

“Hold it.” He said, looking between the two of them, where Theon seemed to be starting to shake and where Ghost was now taking up a position by the door, his face one second from another silent snarl. “Theon.” He looked towards Theon, trying to bend his head to the right height to see his face, but Theon just turned away from him. 

“I might’ve exaggerated.” Theon whispered like he was begging for something. 

“Nevermind that, what’s going on?” The two of them had been working together seamlessly for months now, and then this? 

“Are you not scared?” Theon looked up at him suddenly, “Being here? The wildlings? The… thing in the lake? The warging?!” Theon gestured to Ghost and Jon looked back at the direwolf and swung back to Theon right away. 

“You seemed fine with it when we made the deal with Bjorn.” He’d hit Jon hard enough that he’d been in pain for days after.

“Don’t make this about me,” Theon deflected again, “You’re still the brute.” 

“Theon,” Jon said as calmly as he could, “Do you forget that you told hundreds of stories about Kraken reavers to Robb and I for years? I know what a brute is, and I’m not one.” Theon’s stories had always been vivid and Kraken reavers weren’t forgiving creatures. Even if Jon was an aggressive alpha, he had enough sense to know the difference between that and the brutes that Theon spoke of. 

“It’d be easier.” Theon whispered. 

“What?” Jon almost didn’t believe what he’d heard. 

“I know my role!” Theon shouted like he was defending himself from an accusation that Jon hadn’t made. 

“Do you?” Jon asked, suddenly unsure. 

Theon just gave him a look, “Make me your mate and your wife, Jon, it’ll be easier than this.” 

“Is that what you’re on about?” Did Theon want him to play the part of a brute, taking Theon like a woman and making him a woman for all the world to see? Did Theon want him to take all his power, his name, his titles away from him just with one action? Did he want him to expose the Kraken secret for all to see?

“No one ever told me what to do , Jon, they only told me to hide .” 

Jon blanched, Theon was looking more earnest than he ever did and that seemed to terrify Theon more than he could bear. So Jon just answered with what he had always been taught to do, “You do your duty, Theon, to yourself, your pack, and the gods.” 

Theon didn’t have an answer to that. He fell silent, still unsure and hesitant on the other side of the room. Jon wanted to step forward as if to comfort him, but Theon seemed like a skittish horse, one wrong move and you’d end up with a kick and broken ribs. 

“Theon, we’ll do our duty, mate, be lords over this land, and beyond that, it doesn’t matter. We work well together, or we have so far. It doesn’t have to mean anything more.” 

“I’m supposed to be lord of the Iron Islands.” Theon whispered. 

“You told me yourself,” Jon said like he was apologizing for something that wasn’t even his fault, “That you never were.” 

“But your father and everyone in Winterfell told me every day that I was,” Theon looked up at him again, “And when you tell a child something enough times, they start to believe it.” 

“Theon…” The anger had washed out of Jon long ago and only two things remained, an odd sort of compassion that he wasn’t used to and the strong alpha feeling to comfort and protect. 

“It’s not that I don’t want to mate you, I know what doing my duty means,” Theon argued, “There’s just a lot to lose and I think neither of us will come out of it happy.” 

“We can wait, for the next rut…” Jon tried to offer, but Theon just shook his head. 

“No, our lordship rests on it. It’s conditional, remember?” 

Jon just nodded. He did. The paper had been clear. They were lords, but only if they were lords together, mated at Jon’s next rut. Anything different and their life here was forfeit. Even if no one ever read that paper or cared what it said, the two of them would know and their position would be a farce. 

“Perhaps it’s just…” Theon trailed off and Jon waited, watching his every expression for some hint of what he was feeling, “Just that I don’t want to be your wife.” 

Jon almost, instinctively, said you’re not , but, well, that wasn’t what Theon was looking for and it wasn’t exactly true either. That one idea, of Theon as wife, was the most dangerous thing of all for both of them. Here or anywhere else. 

“And I’m tired of wearing your mark,” Theon said, adamant and violent with his words, “Because it’s shameful. I’m not even a wolf.” 

“Theon,” Jon stopped him, confused, “Marks aren’t shameful.” 

Theon scoffed, “Even one like this? You bit me for stepping out of line, how is that not shameful? I have to remember that stupid mistake every day for the rest of my life.” 

“Theon, no,” Jon stepped forward then, not even knowing what he was doing and then he had Theon’s chin in his hand and he was lightly brushing his thumb over the mark while Theon stared at him like he was some wild unknown creature, “It’s not a mark of shame. It’s a mark of belonging. That’s what all marks are. They show that you have a pack, one that watches out for you. It shows you’re not alone.” 

It felt like the most basic thing to understand, an instinctual thing for wolves, but somehow that had never gotten across to Theon. He’d never seen it that way. Krakens and wolves were still so different and nine years weren’t even enough to bridge that gap. 

When Theon started silently crying, Jon didn’t say a word, he just kept the slow movement over the mark like a promise that he never knew Theon needed to hear aloud.

Chapter Text

When the heat deep in his bones finally came it was easy enough to send Theon to the villages to ask them to prepare for the mating feast. Jon had only felt this once before, and already the pounding of the rut through him was clouding his mind. He became solely focused on what was right in front of him. 

When Theon returned from the village after passing along the news, the two of them, flanked by Ghost, walked out into the forest to the weirwood together. Theon asked him, a few times, how he felt, but Jon just muttered simple answers. Hot, tired, powerful, ready . 

Tell me what to do. Theon had whispered when they finally reached the clearing with the weirwood, the carved face pouring down tears of red sap. Jon had nodded and guided Theon to kneel in front of the weirwood beside him. 

Mating ceremonies were different this far north from the ones that they’d both attended in Winterfell. In Winterfell, the whole ceremony took place around the weirwood, except for the feast late in the night, but here the mated pair only visited the weirwood during the day and the feast and mating happened at nightfall. There hadn’t been a lot to discuss about the ceremony, most of it fairly simple and both of them would just follow what the villagers told them. 

So they presented themselves before the weirwood silently, Jon praying to the old gods with wordless murmurs as Theon waited with his hands still on his lap. 

He waited there with Theon until he could look up at the face of the tree and see the old gods looking back. Their eyes were on them today and he was presenting his mate to them. With the red sap haunting his vision, the two of them walked back to Mountmouth. Already, a huge firepit had been built up, villagers from Giant’s Rest were roasting and preparing meats alongside those from Mountmouth. A whole boar was tied up on a spit and being turned over a larger fire than Jon had ever seen. Cheers rang  up as they stepped into the village, Marwin clapped Jon heavily on the back and Esther and Cybelle extended their congratulations as well.

The alphas of both villages seemed to congregate around him to give him hearty advice and tales of their own mating days. Theon had his own visitors, pulled across the fire in long conversation with Yaren. The two of them would be kept separate until the time came. 

As the sun began to set and the sky to darken, more folk from around their lands streamed into the clearing, meat and mead and bread was shared all around. Chants and howls were as bountiful around the flames as the feast was plentiful. Dusk slowly started to turn into night and Jon watched Theon eat and cheer along with the smallfolk with just as much energy as everyone else. 

This was a more wolfish ceremony than Winterfell saw. The Andals would call them all heathens if they saw the collection of folk round the fire, dancing and howling up at the sky and the gods. Jon had never even seen a mating ceremony quite like this; it was so far from the ones that his father had overseen in Winterfell. He grinned across the fire at Theon. According to Theon’s tales, this was much more akin to a Kraken ceremony in its wildness. 

There was a heat in Jon’s gut that he couldn’t be sure was mead, wine, or the rut settling even deeper into his bones. He was already aware of how his eyes tracked Theon on the opposite side of the fire much more closely than anything else. His vision seemed to be narrowing in. 

There was only one last thing to do for the mating to be complete. 

He could smell other groups around the fire already engaging in it. Hedonism was the rule for ceremonies this far north. Bodies exposed to the eyes of Gods and Men. There was even a set of furs laid out close to the center of the gathering by the fire for this express purpose. Oil laid aside there just waiting. It would be awkward, if Jon hadn’t already seen others take the oil to prepare their own partners. 

Howls and chants and songs faded into sounds of a different kind and Jon’s blood rushed up to his head. 

He didn’t notice he was growling until the growl echoed through the crowd. Hands patted him on his shoulders and pushed him up from the log where he was seated and towards the furs. He saw others on the opposite side of the fire push Theon the same. 

Jon grabbed Theon as soon as he was close enough, pulling him tight and close even as Theon laughed at the cheers and everything around them. Jon didn’t know if it was instinct that made him throw his head back and howl up at the heavens but the whole crowd of folk followed him, Theon even attempting one of his own. 

“Is it time?” Theon asked softly as the howls resounded around them and people returned to their own mates and partners and hedonistic acts around the fire. Theon looked eager, his own hands starting to wander over Jon’s sides. 

Jon just nodded and Theon reached up as if to kiss him, but all he did was nip at Jon’s lower lip. Jon growled and Theon grinned. It must’ve been something he’d learned from all the wolves he’d been with before. 

The drink and the rut clouded his mind and the whole crowd around the fire drifted away. There was only Theon in his arms, laughing and grinning into nipping kisses. Somehow they got horizontal and shoved clothes off, Jon reaching down and pulling Theon’s cock out to stroke it himself. There was oil, beside them and when the rut got heavy, Jon turned Theon onto his front and slotted himself along his back, his fingers hot and heavy inside him. 

“Is this alright?” Jon asked against his ear, the sounds of lovemaking and growls and howls around them only making his blood roar higher. 

“More than.” Theon twisted to give him a grin, arms braced and steady on the furs in front of him. 

Theon grunted when he entered him, spreading his knees and bracing himself better. It wasn’t often that they took this position. Then Jon was leaning up on his knees, one hand holding Theon’s hip in place and the other reaching around pulling at his cock. He pounded into him with all the leverage the position gave him. He howled up at the sky just as all the wolves scattered around the fire did. 

This was the northern wilderness. This was the kind of beastly behavior that the Andals sought to wipe out. This was sin. 

And it was glorious. 

Theon grunted beneath him and pushed back against him just as hard. Jon looked down at him, his mate, his pack, something that belonged only to him. Theon’s fins stretched and folded with each movement, almost like he was twitching and losing control of himself. And then Jon couldn’t bear this position any longer, not being able to see his face. He remembered what Theon had told him of Kraken matings and he leaned down again to press his lips to Theon’s ear. 

“Is what you said of Kraken matings true? That they’re fights?” Theon had described it as something brutal and hard and enticing one night and it had led to enough rounds of sex that Jon had entirely lost count. 

Theon tilted his head towards him, still grunting with every thrust. “Yes.” He said, twitching his hips into Jon’s hand round his cock. 

“Then fight me.” Jon ordered and he saw Theon’s eyes blow wide and rushed to grab the base of his cock, stopping anything before it was over too soon. “Fight me.” He said again and bit at the mark on the side of Theon’s jaw. His knot was heavy at the base of his cock, but he wanted something more than a hole to push it into. 

When Theon bucked him off he didn’t feel any disappointment at all, instead he just felt the rush of heat drop from his throat down into his groin. Theon spun around and pounced on him, rolling him onto his back. Jon snarled and pushed at him, but Theon put one hand right on his throat, shoving him down meanly, and then reached back and grabbed his cock and sat down in one fell swoop. 

“Gods!” Jon cursed at the stars and he was lost in them. His body took over and his mind could only see the stars and repeat Theon’s name like a mantra. They rolled back and forth, fighting and fucking all at once and Jon could hardly even keep track of the movements, only knowing that they never separated for long. 

Then, the rut reached its peak, he could see stars everywhere, not just in the sky, and he trapped Theon beneath him on all fours again, pushing his knot in until Theon was gasping through what had to be a second release. And he leaned down, found that perfect spot along the arch of Theon’s neck, next to his gills but far enough away, and bit down as hard as he could. He tasted iron and smelled the blood, but he felt Theon twitch and moan against him just the same. 

And then, the stars overtook his vision once again. 

He hadn’t realized he had fallen asleep until he was seeing the revelry around the fire through wolf eyes instead of his own. He prowled out of the forest in Ghost’s skin and it felt natural to look down and see paws instead of hands and feet. The folk around the fire had all drifted away to furs of their own or drinking partners away from everyone engaging in coupling. 

There was a hearty scent in the air that Jon couldn’t help but follow. Some instinct pulled him closer to it and he locked his wolfish eyes with Theon. Theon lay there, Jon’s asleep body curled around him, having pulled Jon’s cloak over both of them as they were still locked together. Theon was wide awake and looked back at him with a kind of recognition. 

“Jon?” He asked the direwolf. 

Jon padded forward, panting as he got closer to the fire, and sniffed the air around Theon and his body. He pushed forward and shoved his more sensitive direwolf nose against the mark that he had made on Theon’s neck what seemed like only moments before. 

There was a far off noise and his head whipped around and he stared out at the forest. The clearing was shaded in red firelight, but everything beyond that was just black darkness, trees, wilderness, and nothingness. Jon got the sense that there was something he was supposed to remember, but his instincts pulled him to look back at Theon. 

“Go.” Theon urged, looking back towards the trees where Jon had been looking just a moment before like he might be able to catch a glimpse of whatever Jon had heard. 

Jon put one paw in the direction of the trees, but then swished his head back to look at Theon. 

“We’re safe here, go.” Theon urged again and Jon remembered that Theon had never talked to him like this in Ghost’s form. There was a different kind of recognition in his eyes now, like he could see Jon even more clearly through the fur. 

Jon turned back towards the forest and took off at a lope. He danced over the underbrush and heard the call from afar like a kind of lilting mournful howl. It was no wolf’s howl, not of the first men or of the fur. It was no direwolf. It was a howl that he had never heard before. 

He ran up the mountain, hearing the call in the distance like a pull of unimaginable weight. The fire disappeared behind him, Theon’s scent along with it, and the worries of the world of men faded into panting breath and the feeling of wind against fur. This, he could understand in Ghost’s skin and not his own, was what freedom and the wild felt like. 

The howl stopped just as Jon jumped over a rotting fallen log into an open clearing. The trees leaned away from the middle as if to evade some otherworldly force, leaving just one lone tree to reach up to the starry sky above. Constellations danced above him in just as much reverie as the men around the fire as Jon padded through the frosty grass towards the pale weirwood tree. 

Without knowing for sure, he could feel that the otherworldly howl had come from these branches and from this hollow. He treaded lightly through the garden of the gods, rounding the tree to see the carved face bleeding from the bark. 

But no man’s face looked back at him, instead it was the snarling face of a wolf, the red sap seeping down from its fangs like it had feasted on fresh meat only moments before. Its eyes bored into Jon’s soul and he felt the ears on the top of his head flip back. He cowered down almost onto his belly and crept forward to stand right in front of the snarling wolf. 

This was no man-god, no old god of the First Men. This came from a time before the Children of the Forest knew that they were not alone in the world. This came from the time of magic, of power, when gods walked through the mountains of the north and called it home. The direwolf was the sigil of the House of Stark in the same way that it was the sigil of any who saw the majesty and terror of the north and learned to respect it. For the direwolf was older than the gods, born of the land of Always Winter, born of ice and snow and blood and flesh. 

A direwolf god was a god unto all in the north. No beast was stronger, nor beast as holy. 

Jon lowered himself in front of the snarling direwolf’s face and waited for it to pass judgement. His memories of sitting in prayer in front of a weirwood in man-flesh earlier that day, Theon by his side, paled in comparison to the threat of presenting himself, warg that he knew himself to be, to the snarling direwolf who was nothing but the beating heart of the north. 

The gods looked down on him and the direwolf passed its judgement. The trees and the branches quieted and the wind slowed to a soothing pulse. 

Ghost, if not Jon, understood the message and curled up in the rough arms of the weirwood’s roots, settling down like a babe in its mother’s arms, and Jon, for the first time in Ghost’s skin, slept. 

Chapter Text

“Stop thinking so much.” Theon muttered against Jon’s shoulder. They’d been locked together for a while now, long enough that Theon was dozing on top of him while Jon just stared up at the inside of their thatched roof lost in thought. 

“I thought you were sleeping?” He asked, nudging Theon’s head with his own a bit and instinctively looking for a scent that wasn’t going to be there. 

“Hard to sleep on a knot.” Theon complained. 

“You’re the one that wanted it.” Jon pointed out. Theon had been the one to stomp into their little house and basically throw Jon down on their hay mattress and force it out of him. Jon had no complaints. Whatever his mate wanted, he would provide. 

“What are you even thinking about?” Theon asked, tilting his head as if he intended to move into a new position to look at Jon, but then he just gave up and lay back down on top of Jon’s chest again. 

“Winter.” Jon answered, looking back up at the roof. 

Theon muttered something under his breath and Jon shoved him with his shoulder, the movement enough to shift them both where they were connected and Theon hissed through his teeth. “Don’t move, you idiot.” Theon cursed. 

“Sorry, sorry.” Jon reached up and rested his arms on Theon’s lower back, holding him firmer in place as consolation. They’d had a long conversation during the first knot that Theon had taken on all the rules that Jon needed to follow in order to make sure that Theon didn’t get hurt. It had been quite a long list, but not moving was number one. 

“What about winter?” Theon turned back to the question and Jon hummed and ran his hand up and down on Theon’s bare back. He was envisioning it now, the long winter months curled in their furs and then the bright smell of spring. Theon had never seen a Winter in the north and Jon could only barely remember the last one. The best that he could remember was the feeling of freedom when spring finally did come. 

“We need to be more prepared.” Jon answered finally and it really was the thatched roof above their heads that worried him the most. 

“We have plenty of food stores and we’re digging another root cellar.” Theon said. Jon had seen the progress and he’d been one of the people to advocate for digging another cellar in the first place at the village council. 

“Not food. Half the village houses won’t withstand the first snow storm.” Jon couldn’t remember much of the storms from when he was young, but he knew all the tales of strong winds and hail dropping from the sky. Winter was harsh in Winterfell and it would be harsher here. 

Theon tilted his head on Jon’s chest to look at the walls of their house. Wooden, thin walls that barely kept the chill out on the chilliest of summer days. They would be lucky if they even lasted through autumn in a house like this. It was built quickly and would need to be improved before the weather turned. 

“We should rebuild the keep.” Jon said. 

Theon tilted his head up for a second to look at him incredulously, “It’s too far from the lake and all our stores.” 

“We can transport goods there.” Jon argued, but Theon just shook his head. 

“No, the lake could save our lives in the winter and it’ll be hell trying to come all the way this way just to fish and haul the catch back to the keep.” 

“We need stronger buildings,” Jon argued, “More stone, not wood.” 

“Then haul the stone here, not the other way. Plus none of the other villages will know to search for Mountmouth at the keep.” Theon argued back, refolding his hands against Jon’s chest, clearly starting to get eager to separate. 

“We need more draft horses if we’re to haul the stone. And roads too.” Jon ran through the whole scenario in his head and no matter what he changed the outcome was still the same. 

Winter. 

And death. 

“These people have survived hundreds of winters before. They’ll know best how to deal with them.”

“Maybe they’ve lived through a few winters, but after a summer as long as this?” Jon just trailed off, trying not to imagine the devastation that a winter as long as this summer would cause. 

“You’ve got all of autumn to worry about winter, just enjoy summer as it lasts.” Theon complained and reached down to separate the two of them since Jon had finally softened enough. But instead of climbing off of Jon like he expected, Theon just settled back down on Jon’s chest and continued glaring at him. 

“It is the family words…” Jon tried. 

“Ugh,” Theon banged his head into Jon’s chest, startling a laugh out of him just at the ridiculousness of it, “Everything is going well right now, can we not just appreciate it instead of worrying about something else?” 

Jon quaked with laughter and Theon looked quite upset at it. “Okay, okay, a problem for another day.” Jon agreed jovially and then reached up to run his hands through Theon’s hair. 

“All you do is worry constantly.” Theon continued to complain. 

“Well what else am I supposed to do?” There was only so much to do up here in the mountains anyway. It was either worry about food, about the infighting of the villages, winter, or any number of other surprises that came their way. There was no library to sit and read in or warm hearth to drink by. 

Theon ignored his question, “Why do you think the King was travelling to Winterfell?” 

He had forgotten about that in all the months since they’d left, “I’ve no idea.” 

“Just odd that he came all the way up north himself just to visit your father. I know they were raised together but…” Theon just trailed off. 

“He is the King, he’s allowed to do what he wants.” Jon pointed out. 

“Hmm, I suppose I am glad to have missed it.” Theon readjusted how he was lying on top of Jon, just getting more comfortable. 

“I thought you would love all the court nonsense.” Theon had always been quite loud about his preference for Robb over Jon solely because of his birth. Jon assumed he would jump at the prospect to befriend someone with King’s blood. 

“Why would you think that?” Theon scoffed like it was a ridiculous thought. 

“You always kept up with the gossip around Winterfell.” And he was quickly learning to do the same in Mountmouth and Giant’s Rest. He learned names faster than Jon did and despite Jon’s own first impression of him, he was quite charming. 

“Yes, but that’s Winterfell, not King’s Landing,” Theon emphasized, some magic happening in his mind to make sense of this in a way Jon wasn’t, “And I’m not well suited for interacting with Andals.” He seemed to shiver at the thought which just made Jon laugh. 

“It’s good to be out of Winterfell then, with real wolves now, where your Kraken sensibilities are less scandalous.” Jon joked and Theon laughed back. 

“I’d say you’ve taken to a more barbaric side fairly easy. As soon as you gave up all the typical lordly behavior.” Theon commented. 

“Oh really?” Jon grinned and flipped them on the furs, pushing Theon back with a smile. 

Theon gave a half hearted shove at his shoulder, “Get your barbarian mind out of your cock, we’re not going again.”

Jon laughed and rolled off him, finally hunting for his smallclothes wherever they’d ended up. “Well, now we’re mated and we’ve gotten the villages to accept us. I suppose we’ve done what my father asked so we can afford to relax a little.” Jon looked back over his shoulder at where Theon still lounged on the furs. His mating mark stood out, still red and scabbed after the mating not so long ago. It looked good, right next to the little marks where his gills should be. 

“And do what?” Theon wondered aloud, propping up his leg just so he could scratch at an itch, but it did make him look especially inviting, “Fuck more?” That did seem to be all they’d been doing since the mating, interspersed with some things around the village when they could stand to get dressed and go outside. But Jon, even after his rut passed, was reluctant to let Theon go very far. And his cock seemed more eager than ever to jump to the occasion whenever requested. 

“Travel the lands?” Jon suggested. 

Theon rolled his eyes, “So more horseback riding? I’ve already done your census.” 

“We’ll go with Bjorn or some other folk, map out locations for roads?” Jon amended. 

Theon seemed to weigh the options. “Fine, fine.” He agreed and Jon thought he was going to stand up to put his clothes back on, but he just reached to grab another of their furs and plop it down right on top of him. 

“Theon,” Jon berated, “It’s the middle of the day.” It wasn’t time to sleep.

“Someone wore me out,” Theon said and his eyes drifted closed almost out of spite, but then his hand snuck out beneath the fur and slapped Jon on the arse, “Now go be a good alpha and do all the hard work, alright?” 

Jon scoffed, reaching back in shock, but Theon didn’t budge from the furs, so he just shook his head, “I guess we’ll ride out tomorrow, then.” Jon grabbed his shirt and started to finish dressing. He was going to at least get something done today. 

“Well I’m certainly not riding anything else today.” Theon commented from the furs and Jon just rolled his eyes. 

“Sleep the day away then, if you like.” Jon taunted as he left their house, still shaking his head in amazement at Theon’s laziness as he headed towards the village. 

He got up to Mountmouth and was just chatting away with some of the folk, planning out a new expansion to their pig sty, when Bjorn came riding into town, a few of his wildling men behind him on garrons. 

“Jon.” Bjorn said as a hello with the usual disregard to any titles that Jon had, swinging off the horse with ease and nodding to the villagers. The folk in Mountmouth weren’t particularly keen on Bjorn and his men, and so the folk Jon’d been talking to quickly moved off, though not too far that they wouldn’t hear what they were speaking about. 

“What’re you doing this far south?” Jon asked, glancing back at Bjorn’s men who seemed to be fairly well armed. Their horses were tired too, which didn’t bode well. 

“We’ve been chasing a group that came over the wall,” Bjorn said and Jon immediately turned serious, even catching how the villagers’ scents spiked with anxiety, “They’ve raided a few villages, a few folk hurt but they’re after supplies, whatever they can grab with ease. They’re moving south faster than we can keep up even with the garrons. We lost their trail just east of here.” 

“You can’t track ‘em?” Jon already was trying to sense for Ghost, but he hadn’t seen the direwolf in days. 

Bjorn shook his head with a grave look on his face, “They’re moving fast and with us chasing they’ve been going even faster. Haven’t even had a glimpse at one of ‘em’s faces.” 

“You lost them east of here?” Jon pushed and Bjorn nodded. 

“Thought we had ‘em cornered deep in the forest, was planning on starving ‘em out, but they slipped us. They’ll be hungry, looking for a score. And I bet they’ll be headed towards water,” Bjorn looked back at his men briefly, “That’s why we thought they’d be coming here. I’ve got twenty other men out around the town in the forest watching.” 

“Mountmouth?” Jon couldn’t believe it. Wildling raiders this far south was shocking. And ones that Bjorn couldn’t catch no less. 

“Hmm.” Bjorn hummed as he nodded, looking around the village like the wildlings might be hiding in the houses already. 

Theon. Jon suddenly realized. 

He spun to look south out of the town. Their house was just on the river and with Bjorn’s men watching the town, the wildlings wouldn’t dare come in. But their house was far enough from the town…

“What is it?” Bjorn must’ve smelled the changes in his scent as Jon’s blood rushed with fear. 

“Theon,” Jon looked back at Bjorn, “He’s at our house, south of the village.” 

Bjorn started to shake his head and Jon panicked and then the flash of a vision that had to have come from Ghost came over him and he couldn’t mistake it for anything else. He was growling aggressively before he even came fully back into his body. 

“My mate’s in danger.”

Chapter Text

Theon was dozing on the furs when his ear fins twitched. His eyes opened slowly in the dim light inside their house and he didn’t move. He barely breathed. 

Someone was in the forest nearby. 

Multiple someones. 

Theon silently pushed the furs off of him and grabbed his trousers, pulling them on and lacing them tight as he reached for his belt with his dirk and his bow and quiver. He latched the belt quietly on his bare hipbones and swung the leather quiver over his head onto his back. 

He knew what Jon’s footsteps sounded like in the forest. He knew what the villagers sounded like when they walked across the bridge nearby. This was not any of those sounds. It was soft footfalls on dry leaves as a group of people fanned out and moved quietly towards their little house. This, if Theon had to guess, was an ambush. 

He wondered how far Jon had gone, if he’d gone up to Giant’s Rest or over to Mountmouth. He wondered if either village was close enough to hear his Kraken voice if he shouted for aid. Probably they weren’t. 

He pressed his face to the wood and peered through the crack where their door met the wall and tried to find the visitors out in the woods. Whoever they were, they were good at going unseen. Theon pulled an arrow from his quiver and held it to the string of his bow. He breathed in and out and slowly counted. One… Two… Three… Four and Five… Six… Seven and Eight. 

He could hear eight people out in the woods surrounding the house, slowly moving through the brush. Who could’ve sent them? Marwin? Bjorn? It made no sense. They were in a time of peace. The villages were trading calmly and Bjorn even seemed to like Jon. Everyone had attended the mating ceremony and the feast and no one had gotten into any fights in the whole week since. 

Theon took a deep breath, pressed his back firmly against their solid wooden door and called out just loud enough for the folk in the forest to hear, “Who goes!” 

He heard the footsteps stop and the forest became dead silent. No one answered. Theon cursed silently. They weren’t retreating. They were waiting. Probably sending signals to each other that Theon couldn’t see. 

Theon let himself wonder for half a second if his guests had already grabbed Jon and killed him when he’d left the house earlier. Perhaps Jon’s body was slowly rotting tucked away behind some tree roots deeper in the forest. 

“What do you want?” Theon shouted again just to push the thought from his mind. He didn’t plan on dying like a cornered animal. 

The forest stayed silent until one foot moved again and an unknown voice called out, “Walk out of the house with no weapons and we won’t kill you.” 

“Why the fuck would I trust you.” Theon answered back. A chuckle came from some other person on the opposite side of the house. 

“We’ve more men,” The same unknown voice continued, “You haven’t got a choice.” 

“Eight of them,” Theon called back, “Three out front, two round each side, and one coming up from the river.” 

That seemed to give the man pause and there were more shuffling noises as some of the people surrounding the house moved towards the main group in front. Theon tracked all their movements with his ear fins swivelling back and forth. 

“Who are you?” Theon called out again, needing to know who it was he was even talking with in order to negotiate. He needed to get to Jon, if he was alive. 

The people didn’t answer. The whole group of them just started to move in closer, advancing on the door. Theon cursed under his breath and then started panicking. He grabbed their table and knocked it over, loudly pushing it back against their door. He started piling all he could there, while hoping that whoever was outside wouldn’t just set the thresh roof on fire. 

The man must’ve given silent orders and two of the people peeled off from the advancing group to open up Theon and Jon’s root cellar. They were after food and goods, then. “We can trade!” Theon called out, but it didn’t change anything. He heard more footsteps further off in the forest and now he was counting almost double the original number of people surrounding his house. 

Theon muttered a string of curses and wished they had any other way out of their house. But it had been built too fast and neither of them thought they’d ever be under attack. 

There was a shove at the door and Theon felt it in his back where he was sitting pushing against the table and bed that he had hastily dragged in front of the door. “You want to open up?” A new voice said with an almost singsong tone, “We promise not to hurt you too much.” 

Theon hedged his bets and answered with a threat of his own, “Jon’ll kill you all if you touch me.” 

The folk behind the door laughed and Theon’s stomach sank. “We don’t know a Jon and we’ll be far from here before he even finds you.” Someone else answered and then Theon’s hope came back alive. Jon could be out there.

“He’s lord of these lands. You can’t go far. He’s a direwolf to track you.” Theon tried again. 

A few of the folk laughed. “You can’t scare us with that talk. We’ve seen the dead walk.” Someone said. 

“I’d rather a direwolf any day.” Another added to more laughs. 

More people shoved at the door and Theon was thrown forward. “No, no, no, no!” Theon couldn’t stop chanting even as he pushed back against the door amidst the thrilled voices of whoever was outside. The shoves got harder, pushing all the weight across the floor and the whole door was going to come down, Theon knew it. 

So he jumped back up to standing, pushed himself into a corner of the house, and aimed his bow right at where they would come through the door. The door opened on the next shove and he let the arrow fly. 

Someone shouted and the door fell back closed with all the weight still propped against it. 

“Damn kneeler shot me!” A man growled. 

“We can still negotiate!” Theon shouted back. If the man he shot was still alive then there was still a chance of him getting out of this with his own head. 

There was a quiet few seconds where the only sound he could hear was the shot man complaining and growling and then a body flew against the door, shoving it all the way open as splinters flew everywhere. Theon fired another shot at the same angle and it soared over and out through the open doorway without hitting anyone. Then four wildlings were storming into the house towards him and he would have no time to grab any more arrows. 

“No!” Theon shouted, dropping his bow and reaching for his dirk, but the wildlings were on him before he could grab it, hands wrapping tight around his arms and dragging him down to the ground even as he tried to fight back. It was an unfair fight. Too many of them and only Theon alone. They slammed him on the dirt floor, twisting him around until two of them could manhandle him into a position to pull his arms behind his back and pull him out of the house, shouting and kicking, but fully immobilized. 

“Freshly mated.” The wildling holding him said as he dragged him in front of the person who had to be their leader. He grabbed Theon’s hair to pull his head to the side and expose the scarring mating bite.  

Theon struggled against the hold on his arms, “What do you want!” Theon yelled at him and tried to kick, but the man holding him just laughed, dropping his hair and kicking the back of his knees until Theon buckled in his hold. 

“We could use him to get more supplies. His mate’s bound to give anything for him.” Someone else said and Theon could hear all the other wildlings scavenging through his house, tossing things around as they grabbed anything they wanted. 

Theon glared at their leader, a severe man who looked much worse for wear. Covered in dirt and grime, he looked like he’d been running through the woods for weeks. The furs that were piled on him covered his body, but based on the gaunt look on his face, even their leader had been hungry for food for a long while. 

The leader seemed to consider for a moment, then pulled out his knife and shoved it under Theon’s chin. Theon stopped struggling. “Alright, then, where’s your mate?” 

Theon just glared back at him and kept his mouth shut.

Then the leader grabbed his hair with a growl and shoved the knife closer, “I can make this a lot worse for you, kneeler.”

Theon grit his teeth against the pain, “I don’t know where he went.” 

The wildling holding him laughed, “He fucked you and left without a word? Some mate you’ve got.” 

Theon kept glaring at the leader in front of him. 

“We haven’t the time to wait around for him.” The leader said with a warning look, a look that said that keeping Theon alive wasn’t something they planned on doing. 

“He probably went to the village.” Theon guessed. Maybe if they thought they could get to JOn, then they’d leave him alive.  

“Horth!” A wildling called out and the leader turned to look wherever they were pointing and Theon saw Ghost’s crouching form emerge from the woods. His eyes widened. The knife was still pressed to his throat. 

“Ghost, halt!” He ordered loudly. If the direwolf attacked, he had no idea what the wildlings would do. Ghost thankfully stopped in his tracks, but stayed crouched and waiting. 

“Get a bow.” Horth ordered one of the wildlings. 

“No, wait!” Theon shouted and tried to struggle until the knife cut a thin line on his neck. They were going to shoot Ghost, “Ghost! Get out of here!” He yelled at the direwolf when the wildlings seemed to be paying him no attention at all. 

The direwolf didn’t move. 

A wildling came up beside him with a bow and started to aim. 

“Ghost!” Theon bellowed with the Kraken voice, startling the wildlings enough for Horth, their leader, to pull back his knife entirely and the one with the bow to drop it to the ground in shock. 

All the wildlings froze and stared at him as Theon breathed heavily after the booming yell. Ghost still hadn’t moved, obstinate even in a situation like this. Theon struggled against the hands holding him and that was the only reason he didn’t hear the new footsteps moving through the forest. 

“Let him go.” Jon dark, growling voice cut through the clearing and Theon twisted his head around to see Jon standing right beside Bjorn, his group of wildling fighters armed to the teeth behind them. 

The hands loosened around Theon and he quickly shook them off and then instinctively ran not towards Jon and the armed wildlings, but right to Ghost. He slid back to the ground beside Ghost, his hands locked in the direwolf’s fur and only then did he look back at the groups. Jon seemed to watch him take cover with Ghost, still looking like he’d been dragged from his furs, and then looked back at the wildlings. As far as Jon was concerned, Theon was safe. Theon dug his fingers through Ghost’s fur. And Ghost was safe as well. 

“We weren’t going to touch him.” Horth said and Theon scoffed, though likely no one could hear him since he was on the other side of the clearing from them. 

“You already did.” Jon did not look happy. They’d been mated a week and the rut had been long to fade. His instincts were high, they had been ever since. Theon had noticed how Jon watched him more, his eyes following him around the room silently. He never said anything about it or got aggressive, but Theon could tell the instincts were there, albeit held in check. 

“You belong north of the wall.” Bjorn said beside Jon, his heavy axe in his hand. Jon looked naked without his sword surrounded by so many armed folk. 

“We ain’t goin’ back up there!” One of the ravaging band yelled to hearty agrees from the rest. 

“You been stealin’ since you came over!” Bjorn yelled back, “Town after town!” 

“We’ll be off your lands soon, south and away.” Horth argued. 

“I can’t let you travel further south.” Jon threatened like the Lord he was, even without a sword to back up his words. 

“We ain’t asking for no by your leave!” Someone yelled again. 

“It’ll be by our steel!” Bjorn shouted back, a heavy alpha voice that made some of the wolves wince. 

Theon’s heart slowly calmed after all the attention was off of him and no knife was held to his throat and he could think back through everything that the wildlings had been saying as they’d been breaking down the door of his house. “What did you mean you’ve seen the dead walk?” Theon called out the question, slowly standing beside Ghost who continued to silently snarl at the wildlings. All the heads in the clearing swung towards him and then right back to the ravagers. 

“You’ve seen what?” Jon asked. 

“The wights.” One of the ravagers said and the whole party shivered like some cold came over them. 

“We was climbing the wall and Orell wasn’t strong enough, died on the line, just hanging there. We was resting that night halfway up the wall when we heard him climbing back up after us.” Another finished.

“A whole band of thenns fell in the lake while ice fishing and they broke through the ice into camp the same night.” The first added. 

“My mate was dead in the ground five months and she came crawling back up, dead babe and all, frozen and rotting and out for blood,” Horth continued and then the shiver seemed to go through everyone in the clearing. The summer air felt like winter for a moment as a cloud passed over the sun. “Killed my daughter before we could get away.” 

“The tales of wights…” Bjorn muttered. 

“They came from the North, the Land of Always Winter, at first. Some say they’ve seen more than the wights, talk of whitewalkers. But any icy grave reawakens when the sun falls, hunting all of us down.” 

“Do the Night’s Watch know of this?” Jon stepped forward as he asked, a shift in his expression. It was hard to forget that Jon had been planning on joining the Night’s Watch before he bit Theon. 

Horth spat on the ground next to him, “The crows don’t care about us free folk anyway.”

“You’re saying wights have come up from the ground.” Jon said, insistent this time. 

“Tales of grumpkins in the night to all you lot, though ain’t it?” Horth said with a dry laugh. 

“No.” Jon answered immediately. 

“Not anymore.” Theon added, thinking of Ghost down at his side and the monster that he’d seen in the lake. 

Theon looked over at Jon, seeing a matching serious expression on his face. This was no warging, no tales of children of the forest. This was the legend of a time before the wall. This was the legend that Bran had Old Nan tell over and over again in Winterfell, the one of the Night King and the dangers of icy winter. The Night’s Watch had to know. 

“Bjorn,” Jon said and turned away from Theon as if they’d communicated all that just in a glance, “See that these men make penance to the folk they harmed and that they settle on our lands,” He emphasized with a look towards Horth, “I ride north to the wall.” 

Theon stepped forward away from Ghost, the danger of the moment seemed to have passed, but it was only replaced by some greater lingering danger that felt like a stormcloud overhead that promised feet upon feet of snow. He knew now why the Stark words were what they were. “Do we ride tonight?” Theon asked as he came up to Jon, the whole crowd of Wildlings seeming to watch Horth and Bjorn greet each other cautiously. 

“Tomorrow,” Jon whispered back, “We need to gather supplies.” 

“Is Castle Black truly closer than Winterfell? There’s no road.” Theon pushed. They would need to get the news to someone, but who was the question. 

“We’ll take garrons, meet up with the Kingsroad south of the wall and ride up as fast as we can. Less than a week.” Jon seemed to run the calculations quickly in his head. 

“If we ride fast.” Theon added on, knowing the distance one not to be taken lightly. 

“We will,” Jon said and then he looked back towards the wildlings that had dragged Theon out of their very home, “We have to, for all our sakes.”

Chapter Text

A few months living in a house again made it difficult to return to the road. Sleeping on the hard ground with only furs and pelts to keep them warm and off the rocks and stones was worse than the straw mattress in their ramshackle hut south of Mountmouth. Theon complained after the first night until Jon had glared at him long enough for him to know that Jon was also upset about the change to their sleeping situation and that Theon’s complaints were not helping him in remaining stoic about it. 

Theon had dropped the subject and decided to just wrap his fur coat tighter around him and let their horses find their way north without talking. The two of them spent far too much time together as it was, they didn’t need to fill the time with talking. And Jon had the nasty habit of getting angry and aggressive with Theon if he nagged him particularly more one day than the other. Certainly, it led to more interesting sex, but the more interesting sex typically involved first a verbal fight and second a physical fight and Theon was not keen on arguing out in the midst of mountains and snow. In the peace of their own house, it was another issue. 

They hadn’t fought really, at least not seriously, since before the mating. Things settled after that even if Theon was loath to remember all the things said. Jon learned more than Theon ever wanted him to know and Theon couldn’t take any of it back. The two of them were stuck together if not by the mating, then by the honesty and truth hanging between them. Theon, certainly, knew he was tied to Jon for the rest of Jon’s life, however long it was, since he couldn’t risk pushing him away from him entirely. There was too much at stake. 

“You should know,” He said when the heavier snowfall drifted into light flakes. It’d been snowing off and on for their whole trip towards Castle Black so far and both of them would’ve postponed traveling if it hadn’t been so urgent to get there, “That Krakens aren’t allowed in the Night’s Watch. At least highborn ones aren’t.”

Jon, not so subtly, pulled his horse to a slower walk so they were walking closer together, “What do you mean?” He pulled the knitted scarf down from around his face to talk back at him. 

“I mean that the Night’s Watch, the Lord Commander or maybe high command, know the Kraken secret.” Theon pulled his own scarf further down and tucked it firmer under his chin. Jon didn’t seem to look like he would just take the comment and move on. Of course this was something that he wanted to talk about. 

“Since when?” He asked and Theon shrugged. He honestly didn’t know. 

“Since some poor bastard was sent to the wall and gang raped most like,” Jon made a face when Theon said that, the distaste clear on his face at just the idea, “Black brothers aren’t allowed wives or children and Krakens make that a bit more problematic.” 

“So you’re saying that all the Black brothers will know you for what you are when you enter Castle Black?” There was a bit of a growl on the edge of Jon’s words that was almost lost in the wind. 

“I don’t know.” Theon certainly hoped that the Kraken secret hadn’t been told to every black brother, but he’d been fairly certain that Yoren, the recruiter who often came through Winterfell, knew. It explained why Yoren had never even tried to direct his recruiting towards Theon. Benjen Stark, though, Theon had never been sure.

“But it’s possible.” Jon said again, still adamant with the growl clearer in his voice this time than the last. 

“Yeah, it is.” Theon said and looked out at the forest to avoid how Jon turned to look at him, hoping that perhaps turning away would hide how the prospect of entering a place where men knew the truth about him unsettled him. Krakens, at least, understood each other and Theon could understand them and their ways. Black brothers were from the farthest reaches of Westeros and beyond, the scum of the earth, evil men turned warriors against darkness. 

If Theon was honest with himself, he wouldn’t dare to set foot in Castle Black alone. He wouldn’t dare to walk through a crowd of Night’s Watch men alone on the edge of the world. It would be the same as a girl walking through the darker streets of Wintertown at night. Having a lordly name wouldn’t protect him when any one of the black brothers could use his secret against him. 

“I wish I could smell you.” Jon said and Theon looked back at him. 

“What?” It was a change in topic that Theon hadn’t expected. 

“Because then I would be able to know if you looked away because you were angry or because you were scared.” 

Theon rebelled against the words immediately. “I’m not scared.” He spat the word out. 

Jon hummed and looked back towards their slow path across the snow trodden ground, “I’m worried,” He admitted then tossed a side glance at Theon as if to check if Theon had suddenly decided to be more truthful, “Now that you’ve told me.” 

“What does that mean?” Theon bristled again, not liking where this was going. 

“If I was any man I’d be nervous bringing my wife to a place like Castle Black. Full of men alone.” He said and just trailed off. 

“Men alone do the same as men and women together.” Theon argued, not liking the vague comparison of him to a wife. He was no wife in the same way he was no woman. Jon knew better than to insinuate otherwise. 

Jon shot him a look, “Still, one woman in a sea of men and the outcome would be the same nine times out of ten.” 

Theon grit his teeth, “Just say that you’re worried I’ll get raped, Jon, just say the words.” 

Jon growled louder than the snow and trees and forest around them could contain and the woods fell silent. Theon sighed. “I do worry about it.” Jon admitted. 

“Well don’t.” Theon spat with hardly enough vitriol to make him sound anything but tired. 

“It’s not that simple.” Jon argued, glaring at him. 

“Every fling I had in Winterfell was dangerous, Jon, anyone could’ve found out and used the secret to get me to do anything they wanted,” Theon argued back, not quite aware of exactly what he was saying as he was saying it, “And nothing ever happened. No one found out.” 

“You worried about it though?” Jon pushed. 

Theon shrugged, “I got used to it.” He did. He’d mastered keeping the right amount of distance and the quick draw to make sure that his cock was where it was supposed to be at the right time. It had been a careful game, but one Theon was more than willing to play for the benefit of willing partners in his bed more often than not. 

“Can you promise me something?” Jon asked, pulling his horse to a stop suddenly, making Theon grab his own reins to stop his own horse and turn to look at him. 

“What?” Theon asked, surprised at how still Jon was. Still and silent. 

“Can you let me be protective?” 

Theon bristled at the word, “What?” 

“Just while we’re in Castle Black. When we’re in new places that might be a bit dangerous, I need you to trust me.” 

“I do.” Theon said and then cringed at himself. He hated admitting to trusting Jon, but it was true. Sometime between leaving Winterfell’s boring gates and their snow filled ride north to the Wall, Theon had come to trust him. More than perhaps he ever thought he would. 

“Not that, Theon,” Jon said and then huffed to himself like he was frustrated that he couldn’t manage to get across what he was really thinking, “I don’t want to be protective of you all the time because I know you hate it—”

“I do.” Theon added and Jon glared at him for interrupting. 

“But in places like the Wall, I can’t split my focus between reigning in my instincts and keeping the both of us safe.” 

Theon pursed his lips in thought, “So it’s an excuse to be an overbearing alpha?” He didn’t understand how it could be that hard to balance. 

“No,” Jon pulled back a bit, “Not an excuse. It’s a necessity. I’m saying that if I spend too much time thinking about how you’ll react to my every move I won’t be able to focus on everyone else around us.” 

“So it’ll be like with the Bjorn, or the townsfolk at the beginning, a theater?” Maybe, Theon was hoping, it would be more like when they had marched into Mountmouth to solve the theft. At least then he had been certain that everything there was a piece of theater. 

“Not exactly… But permission to trust my instincts to keep you safe.” 

“I can keep myself safe.” 

“I know,” Jon complained, “But you’re not a wolf and with wolves I’ll have the best chance when dealing with them.”

“So you don’t trust me to keep myself safe.” Theon pushed. 

“No, I—” Jon looked panicked, then he just stopped himself, took a heavy breath and reset, “I do trust you. But I don’t trust them and I’m the only one that can smell their intentions from across the room.” 

Theon sat on that thought for a moment, then just nodded and pushed his horse forward again, “Fine. With the Night’s Watch,” He agreed, “Only because of the Kraken secret.” Not all the men of the Night’s Watch were Wolves and would respect Jon’s mark the way that folk in the North did. 

They rode the rest of the day and only settled down in a hollow when evening was falling, making a small fire and eating just bits and pieces of dried meat until Jon decided to do the final check on the horses before they slept. While Jon was up and in the woods, Ghost trotted out of the forest. 

“Hey there,” Theon said and patted the direwolf on his nose. Ghost shook his head to knock his hand away, “You’ve been following us, then?” He asked and Ghost seemed to ignore him. He circled away from Theon’s face where he was already lounging back on his and Jon’s furs that were spread out on the dirt. Then Ghost circled back and flopped down right beside Theon, lying down and kicking until he was bracing the whole of his back up against Theon’s side. 

“Umm…” Theon stared down at the direwolf. Ghost turned his head and looked at him briefly with a disappointed, almost tired looking face then he just plopped his head right down on Theon’s stomach. 

Theon blinked, at first just struggling to understand how this was the position that the direwolf found most comfortable to lie in for some reason and then second because the head of a monstrous beast who seemed to follow him around more often than not now had his snout right on Theon’s lower stomach. It brought to mind different things and he gulped as he looked down at the beast, feeling oddly aware of his body in a way that he didn’t typically. 

Jon announced his return with a crunch of leaves as he reentered the clearing. “Oh, that’s where he is.” Jon muttered when he saw Ghost and then he sat down on the furs beside Theon and started pulling off his boots. 

“You should practice.” Theon said absentmindedly as he was still staring at Ghost’s head where it was positioned almost pointedly over where Theon’s womb would be. 

“Practice what?” Jon asked as he twisted and lay down beside Theon, pulling the furs to cover him. 

“Going into Ghost.” Theon muttered, still trapped in thought. 

Jon just hummed in response, fully reclined and his eyes closed like he was ready to sleep. But Theon was still half sitting up, watching the wolf in his lap. A minute must’ve passed like that before Jon’s eyes creeped open again and he looked towards Theon, “What are you doing?” He said slowly, sounding almost suspicious. 

“Do you want children?” Theon said before the thought even formed in his mind. 

“What?” Jon answered just as fast. 

“Children, pups, do you want them?” Theon asked and he couldn’t bring his eyes away from Ghost’s head on his stomach. 

Jon sat up, “What the—” He said and then he must’ve seen Ghost’s head on Theon since he very quickly was pushing the direwolf’s head and saying, “Off, Ghost, off.” Ghost huffed and just rearranged himself lying fully extended against Theon’s side. 

“Well, do you?” Theon turned to look at Jon’s face, no longer caught by the direwolf. 

Jon wasn’t watching his face, but he was dumbly staring at Theon’s stomach just like Theon had been moments before. Then, he seemed to shake himself out of it, “We’re young.” He said and then started to turn back to lie down again. 

“You are,” Theon said and Jon stopped his movement, “For now, at least.”

Jon looked back over at him and Theon watched as his eyes jumped from Theon’s face to his stomach and back to his face, “I can have other mates.” He said. 

Theon narrowed his eyes. 

“Or—” Jon looked panicked then, “I mean, you can’t have them now, anyways.” 

The burst of hurt bloomed within him faster than he thought it would, all things considered, and it was bad enough that he just leaned back onto the furs fully and didn’t say a word. 

“Theon— what—” Jon started and stopped again and now it was his turn to look down at Theon from above. 

“Go to sleep.” Theon rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. 

Jon spluttered, “Do you—” 

“No!” 

“Then why—” 

“I don’t know!” Theon shouted back, “Ghost started it!” 

“Are you—” 

“Yes, I’m sure!” 

They were silent for a lot longer this time, but Jon still stayed sitting up, looking out into the distance in thought. Theon just started up at the stars and glowered. He was angry and he didn’t even know at what. 

Eventually, Theon wasn’t even sure what happened, he just tilted his head and he met eyes with Jon and then everything was happening so fast. 

“Fuck, okay, this is happening.” Jon muttered as Theon launched forward, grabbing one of his hands and yanking it to press over his stomach as he grabbed Jon’s hair with the other and started shoving him down towards his crotch. 

Theon groaned loudly and his legs twitched open as soon as Jon’s hand was pressing heat into his stomach and he was basically writhing on the furs. Ghost huffed in annoyance beside him and scooted away. 

“Theon, woah, “ Jon hissed as Theon must’ve pulled his head harder, but Theon’s eyes were closed and he was just pushing Jon’s hand into his stomach like a massage and groaning up at the stars, “Slow down.” Jon said as he tripped over Theon’s writhing legs to get between them, but Theon did nothing of the sort. When Jon got off balance and pushed more weight onto the hand on Theon’s stomach he just groaned louder and felt wetness leak out of him. 

Jon growled and finally Theon managed to shove Jon’s head all the way against his clothed crotch, Jon’s nose right up against the fabric. Jon’s growl turned to a groan as he had to have smelled Theon’s wetness. “Come on…” Theon urged, helplessly gyrating against Jon’s face. 

Jon’s free hand, thankfully, found its way to Theon’s laces and Jon had to pull against Theon’s hold on his hair for a moment until he could get Theon’s trousers and small clothes open and then he just let Theon shove his mouth back down onto his slit. Jon licked against it immediately and Theon quaked. 

“Jon, drowned god, Jon!” He didn’t even know what had come over him, but he needed this so badly. He was writhing and twisting against the furs as Jon licked at him, catching his heels against the ground and kicking wildly in the air. He pressed Jon’s hand against his lower stomach harder, needing to feel the pressure, the heat, the weight of it against him even through his shirt. 

Jon’s tongue finally caught inside, slipping into his slit deeper and Theon was more shocked than Jon when he shouted and came, fucking himself up onto Jon’s tongue as he held his head in place. 

As soon as the energy left him, he collapsed boneless against the furs, dropping both his hands to his sides as he breathed heavily out into the cold air, dead tired and feeling like he couldn’t move a single muscle. 

“Where did that come from?” Jon asked as he kneeled up between Theon’s outspread legs. Theon just hummed, content to lie there with his eyes closed and bask. “Gods, you’re soaked.” Jon said with an impressed voice and Theon didn’t even care. There was a sound that must’ve been Jon wiping Theon’s juices off of his face and Jon groaned. “Ow, fuck.” He hissed. 

That was a sound of pain. Theon cracked an eye open and looked up at him, “You alright?” He asked first and then he guessed what the cause of pain could be, “You knotting?” 

Jon looked at him with annoyance, “After that? Yeah.” Jon said like it was obvious. One of his hands was already snaked down to hold his cock to take the pressure off his knot. 

“You want to fuck me?” Theon asked and spread his thighs a bit further. 

“Can you take it after that?” Jon asked, concerned and then lightly pressed his fingers to Theon’s slit and Theon just hissed as all the sensations hit him at once with a burst of pain. 

“I can take it.” Theon said, his voice tight. 

Jon seemed to roll his eyes, “No you can’t.” He corrected and then started to shift the both of them around on the furs. He rolled Theon onto his side, still boneless after the orgasm, and then slotted himself right behind. He lifted Theon’s leg up briefly and slid his cock between the crux in Theon’s thighs before dropping the leg back down. “How’s this?” Jon asked, then groaned as he gave a test thrust that just pushed his knot against the back of Theon’s thighs. 

“Good.” Theon said, voice only a little bit strangled as the head of Jon’s cock rubbed just slightly against the edge of his slit. It made him want to twitch his legs closed more and that just made Jon groan and thrust again. 

Theon arched with the sensations and Jon’s hand snuck around him to hold him still by the stomach and with one touch there Theon collapsed boneless again, groaning on the next thrust. 

Jon’s head banged against the back of Theon’s neck and he started thrusting faster, groaning into the skin there helplessly until his knot had grown far enough to pop fully into the crease of Theon’s thighs and hit that sweet middle spot of tightness. Then Jon just gyrated against him, groaning all the while as he kissed up to Theon’s neck. 

Theon knew what was coming, “Jon, yes.” He muttered and stretched his neck out until his mating bite was on full display. The little smaller gyrations now just rubbed against the lower end of his slit, teasing him as Theon’s eyes rolled up into his head. Jon bit down on the mating bite hard as he finally came, pulsing and twitching in between Theon’s thighs as his spend shot out from between them across the furs. Jon’s hand pushed against Theon’s stomach, holding him tighter and that only increased the urgency. 

Theon moaned and then reached down with a hand and started adjusting their position. Jon began to panic, “Theon, don’t release the knot!” He said, strained. 

“I won’t, I won’t.” Theon reassured him. He just needed an inch more, a bit different of an angle, and then Theon groaned louder than anything else that night, bending down towards his feet as he managed to pop just the head of Jon’s cock into his slit. Jon groaned too and another gush of spend rushed out of him into Theon. Theon’s fingers pushed against the underside of the head of Jon’s cock and he started a rhythm, pushing the head in and out of his slit. It popped in and both of them groaned, it popped out and Theon whimpered. 

It didn’t take long until Theon was perhaps shoving the head of Jon’s cock into his slit deeper than he should in this position as Jon seemed to hiss with a bit of pain, but then Theon was clenching around the head and full body twitching as he came again, gasping against the fur. Another spurt of seed flooded out of Jon into him and he soaked it up hungrily. 

Both of them fell still. Theon was still bent over at the waist with his fingers holding the head of Jon’s cock in him, but the rush of pleasure was fading. Minutes passed like that, Jon’s knot twitching against Theon’s thighs and occasionally a gush of seed pushing into Theon’s slit and making him moan. Neither of them said a word and neither of them moved. 

When the time was long enough to have passed and Jon’s knot deflated, Theon still hadn’t moved. Jon was the first to move, gently pulling Theon back towards his chest and taking his hand away from Jon’s cock. The head popped out of Theon’s slit and spend poured out onto the furs. Theon gasped at the feeling and Jon shushed him and neither of them had ever been like this when they had sex before. 

There was a little bit of rearrangement, but then Jon slotted himself back behind Theon’s again, “Are you alright now?” He whispered against Theon’s ear. 

“Yeah.” Theon muttered, close to falling asleep, his eyes fluttering open and closed of their own volition. Jon hummed and wrapped his arm around Theon’s stomach, holding him tight and still against him and Theon leaned back into it. “The furs.” Theon said as he started to get cold. 

Jon’s hand left him for a moment, but then returned as the furs fell over them both, tucked up to their chins. Theon blinked his eyes open more and saw that Ghost had only moved a few feet away from them during the throes of their pleasure. Though when Theon looked towards him, the direwolf opened one eye to stare back for a moment before lying back down to doze off to sleep. 

Ghost, Theon figured, had the right idea.