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sometimes jeyne pretends to be dead.
the bath pool is most commonplace for this fantasy to take hold, with its cloaked secrecy and steaming air. she prefers it to the ragged bed she has been given under the pretence of being lady of winterfell. a fraud.
her skin burns as she submerges herself, scars fraying and melting under the water’s embrace. rather than the suffocation of before, it is relief that floods her bones, though she struggles to adapt to it as well as she ought to. her hair comes undone in streams of chestnut, pooling around her in a halo she cannot contain, and she ponders for a moment how alike swimming and flying truly are.
the sparse parts of her that don’t splinter from the water’s heat pulse in something akin to contentment, or appreciation. she remembers the baths she had taken before—how the water was never warm, always cold, and the hunched figure that never seemed to leave her yet was not there nearly enough cowered in the shadows. how maimed hands had ghosted over her shoulders and knees, tears mixing with the water around her.
pushing away from the side of the bath, she lets her body drift towards the open middle, where there is not a ledge within reach and only the hard floor beneath her. she stares up at the ceiling before catching sight of a rat and deciding closed eyes would do her better tonight.
when she closes her eyes she does not dream, does not dwell on what has passed. instead she imagines she is dead, laying unperturbed in a grave of flame and ash where no hand can reach without being scalded. her back burns still, but it is a pain she can withstand if it means this momentary reprieve.
her blood has no doubt begun leaking from half-healed scars, mingling with the water in a metallic kiss, but she lets it be; does not poke and prod the way she yearns to. it feels nice, this compression in her chest, the heat upon her breast.
she brings her arms wide beside her, the bath water sloshing as she does so. she’s never been to a beach, never played in the waves and swam out into the depths of the ocean. once upon a time the very thought would have scared her, would have sent her little frail heart into a frenzy, but she has grown to realise her fear need reside only on land. she thinks the ocean would accept her, would draw her in the way her father had once, a lifetime ago.
minutes pass and all jeyne does is lay on the water’s surface, skin beginning to prickle at the waning warmth. her fingers will be wrinkled once she is done, body not dissimilar to a shrivelled date, but the thought only makes her smile. an echo of girlish laughter, of which’s conception she is unsure, sounds in her ears, water dipping into either side the more she strains to listen. the sound brings memories, brings a familiarity that both aches and blooms in her chest.
she hears the soft sound of footsteps yet does not move, for her mind puts a face to the movement as soon as its hesitance and struggle hangs in the air.
theon does not come inside, loiters uncertainly by the door. the sight is not one unfamiliar to him, she knows this, but their newfound freedom seems to mean something now and the act of looking upon the other is not one they need be subjected to any longer.
with a soft breath, she brings her feet down to the ground and returns to the perimeter of the bath, the water concealing her form.
“i can go if—”
“it’s alright,” she manages. theon glances down at his feet before shuffling towards the bath while jeyne inspects the steam curling from the water’s surface. he makes a sound as he lowers himself in, but she does not make a move to help, knows he does not wish it. she does not wish it herself, if she is honest, and instead lets her hands press against the skin of her thighs.
silence envelopes the caved room, though this does not seem to perturb either of them and they sit alone with their thoughts. jeyne wonders distantly if he has found the shirt she left in his chambers yet, and half considers asking before biting her tongue and forcing herself to think about other things, like the girlish laughter from outside or the soft patter of rat feet.
“have you eaten yet?”
theon looks at her and she regrets the question imminently, blinking at his blank stare. his face is sunken, like the skin across his bones is in dearth and has been pounded and pulled to cover the area it must.
he shakes his head, and she can see how it hurts; can see where his neck stutters under the weight of his waning head, where what is left of his teeth nibble at the insides of his cheeks. she knows that pain, too. she lays awake some nights, when the phantom hand that grips and rearranges her ribs like a puzzle of his own design returns with vengeance—does not sleep for several after. her stomach churns, almost in remembrance, and a shiver passes down her spine.
“i didn’t either,” she continues, watching how he lifts his head to look at her. “the stew was too hot, and the bread almost fell apart in my hands.”
agreement flickers over his face and he nods almost imperceptibly. she’s seen the way people on camp treat him, how they mutter indecencies and pass judgement with their eyes alone. lady arya protects her in some ways, spares her some of this outward judgement (though the lingering stares and prodding fingers do not cease altogether). reek does not do the same for theon.
“it hurts to try,” he murmurs, voice thin as the skin of his hands. “sometimes i…” he trails off, glancing back down at the water as jeyne tries to level his gaze. i know, she wants to say. i do the same.
“sometimes i wonder if it would’ve been easier to just die. if one of those nights he’d just fed me to the dogs and left me there to rot.”
he meets her eyes, resignation, pain, and a thousand other things she refuses to name piercing the air before them. it is striking; she had thought him so brave on the parapets, when he had grabbed her about the waist and leapt into the wind.
once, long ago, she would have protested against theon’s words, would have argued death is painful and sad and that nobody should ever wish for something so dreadful. but death has become a friend of hers of late, so alike to a girl she once knew that she cannot help but wonder if it has been with her all along.
“do you also have…”
she does not need to finish the question, the lowering of his head more than enough. his chin presses into his chest, shoulders caving in an attempt to cage the dread that seizes his being. jeyne watches silently as he brings a maimed hand up to push his thinning hair out of his face. the same hand that had held her so tightly.
“i thought about killing him,” he voices, despite the way his shoulders tremor in resistance. servitude has made a home of their bones. “every time i helped him shave, i...” he shakes his head, an explanation in itself, and she leaves it at that.
“do you see him?” she itches at her thigh with her thumb beneath the water, letting the sting course through her. it is a reminder that she is here, that she is jeyne.
“only if i sleep,” his voice is frayed, like the dresses she had often fallen asleep in.
“sometimes i worry he will find me, that he’ll whisk me away in the dead of night while everyone sleeps...” she whispers the rest, feeling the water rising in her chest. she struggles to suppress the tears, struggles to keep her lip from quivering under the weight of all the words left unspoken.
“i’m sorry,” he blurts, and she’s taken back to her room in the tower. how many times he had slipped through the door to offer stuttered assurance, fearful advice. she can remember how his hand had felt around her waist, how he had damned and saved her with just a look.
“it was not your fault.”
theon seems to struggle with that, itching to retort, though it seems he cannot find the strength and instead sinks under the weight of her gaze.
“do you—” he clears his throat, the sound making jeyne almost smile. an attempt at last. “do you think there is hope?”
she dwells on the question. hope. it is such a feeble thing, boundless in its pursuit yet limited in its reach. she opens her mouth to tell him no, that the innermost parts of her—the parts residing still in the brothel and the room in the tower—have rejected all semblance of it, but the words refuse to form on her tongue, barred from materialising.
the fact that they are not dissolving into the water around them is proof enough, she supposes.
“i think there is hope here,” she manages. her eyes find his and she hopes he knows what she means.
he seems grateful for this answer, the ghost of a smile twitching his lips.
to swim is to fly, and to fly is to live, and jeyne has done both.