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Theon and the Starks went out for a swim at the local beach, a small sandy inlet sheltered by cliffs on either side, just a short walk away from the Stark's vacation home on Fair Isle.
The island had many such cliffs in the south.
Sparkling blue water met pearly white sand, proof of the seemingly unchanging limestone wall's slow erosion.
Further down the coast, at the cliff's highest peak, was a particularly popular place for the local adrenaline junkies to dive from.
Sharp rocks and whirlpools lurked in the water, just waiting for clueless tourists.
It wasn't as dangerous once you knew where to land, so the current would allow you to get past the rocks.
Theon had jumped here a few times already.
This time though, it was an unlucky dive.
He parted the water where the current was strongest and with no time to rectify his mistake, was dragged under the surface, fast approaching where the rocks were.
The water swirled around them but he hit one with full force.
With his luck, he must've taken a jagged corner right on, because blinding pain erupted in his head, as if it had been split in two.
No one noticed, they were further out, busy exploring the reef.
He was a strong swimmer but barely conscious even he couldn't fight the drag of the open ocean.
xxx
A few hours later, Jon went back to the coast to bathe in the sun.
No Theon in sight.
Initially, he enjoyed the peace and quiet, laid there and let the warm afternoon sun warm him.
He must've fallen asleep because when he opened his eyes again, the sun had already started setting and the others came swimming back. Theon still wasn't back and suspicion arose.
He called for him, searching the coastline with his eyes.
There was no answer and no one in sight.
Maybe he had made other arrangements?
Robb came walking up the beach, looking for Theon as well.
Later, all of them were running along the cliff and surf, in search of him.
They all agreed, it was very unlike Theon to just disappear like that, especially since he was here by their invitation and couldn't very well leave without them.
Robb's parents were unsure whether it was wise to notify his family, they had been out of contact for years.
But in the end, Ned reasoned it would be worse to keep them in the dark, so they called.
Instead of worrying or even asking what exactly had happened, his drunkard father cursed his son for his recklessness and stupidity and spat it was just like him to disappear like that.
At least his sister offered to help.
The police was informed shortly after.
And a few days later, the search began in earnest.
But despite united efforts, no sign was found of Theon Greyjoy, who had completely and utterly vanished.
The weeks long search began to drag Robb down notably, he developed bags under his eyes and a tired smile.
The two had been best friends since Kindergarten and like brothers.
Jon was just the adopted cousin.
xxx
Theon woke in an unfamiliar place, still groggy.
The sand was warm and waves lapped at his ankles.
Disoriented, he took in his surroundings.
Palm trees swayed in the breeze, the bluest sky he'd ever seen stretched on endlessly above him.
The ocean shone green and azure, swarms of flying fish jumping in the air.
Where on earth was he?
This wasn't anywhere near home, for sure.
It looked more like one of those posters they sold at department stores, to people who couldn't afford a vacation to the real thing.
It was midday and the sun blazed relentlessly, even his shirt around his head didn't offer much protection, so he retreated into the shade.
Thirst was killing him and the few coconuts he spotted seemed to be far out of reach.
Shaking the tree made one fall down, missing his head by a millimeter.
It split in two and the water spilled on the sand.
He managed to salvage some of it and quenched his thirst.
The island was incredibly small, just twenty steps across and ten wide.
There were palm trees with fruit everywhere, though they would run out eventually.
And there was no fresh water.
He couldn't survive on coconuts alone.
The first few days, he hoped for a ship to come by but the ocean remained empty.
Until one evening, he saw light off in the distance.
Fireworks. Unlike any he'd ever seen before, much more vibrant and shapely.
Spirals of colour blew up in the air, hanging there for a long time after.
Those people might be able to help him, he was getting seriously tired of coconut milk.
How to get their attention?
He tried shouting, even managed to climb a tree to have better sight, but no answer came.
The fireworks flared all evening and into the night.
What had he been thinking?
That they could hear him all the way across the water?
If there were people out there and they wouldn't come to him, he would go to them.
But how?
xxx
When he woke, he set to work.
How to build a raft without anything to cut wood with?
He would have to get creative.
There were thinner trees on the island, not bearing any fruit yet.
He shook and bent them, using his entire weight, persisting until they snapped but it was hard work, yielding meager results.
With no protection from the sun, he developed a killer headache and had to stop for a few hours to rest in the shade.
Finally he had enough, though his island was now barren.
Nothing much left to come back to, should he fail.
Contemplating the logs spread out in front of him, he realised, he needed to tie them together to finish his raft, which proved an even bigger hurdle.
This put a damper on his plans.
Even ripping his shirt and pants into strips wouldn't be enough and he wasn't really about losing either.
Until he stumbled upon a washed up fishing net, buried under the sand.
He thanked god (and the chem industry) and used the ropes to tie the trunks together.
Hopefully that would keep the whole thing from falling apart, the plastic seemed solid enough.
He made himself a spear too, just a stick really, out of some splintered off piece, and tried to catch some fish.
In the end, he only had one and no way to cook it.
Nothing to start a fire with, rubbing sticks together proved pointless, so he ate it raw and swallowed his disgust.
The next morning he set off, with a ration of coconuts, his spear and a rudimentary paddle, like the ones used for canoes.
Straight into the direction of the fireworks he went and encountered the whole day only empty ocean.
xxx
On day three, his rations were running low.
By day four, he gave up hope of seeing those lights again and thought of going back to his island.
Maybe this was how it was supposed to end, him starving and alone on a tiny spot of sand.
At dawn on day five, a storm came on, the sky growing darker by the minute and thunder rolling in the distance.
At least the overcast sky was doing wonders for his sunburn.
The waves toyed with his little raft, throwing it this way and that, he couldn't do much more than hold on for dear life.
All his belongings went overboard and half of the raft broke loose.
By evening, the palm trunks were spread out behind him, drifting in the blue all on their lonesome.
Luckily he still had half left under his feet and tied up the loose ends where he could.
He laid down on them and let the wind and waves carry him wherever they would.
xxx
He'd been asleep for a while, arms and legs dangling in the ocean, when he felt slight ripples around his ankles.
Alarmed, he sat up and noticed a black fin in the water, circling him at some distance.
He pulled his legs up immediately and when that didn't prompt an attack, he paddled, to bring some distance between him and the predator.
The fin only followed him at what looked like a leisurely pace but he wasn't about to let that reassure him.
Did sharks even do that?
Fatigue pulled him down, adrenaline held him up.
Where he was going, he didn't know but maybe he would manage to shake it off.
That thought kept him going until- in the distance he saw- land!
A solid green mass protruding from the water, his saving grace.
He had to get there, didn't even pause to look if he was still pursued.
And with the sinking sun, aided by the waves, he finally, finally reached it.
Theon struggled out of the water and threw himself on the sand.
The shark was gone.
If it came back, at least it couldn't come up the beach or into the shallows.
Probably.
Stranded once again but safe.
The exhaustion caught up to him and he collapsed on the spot.
xxx
He woke to a careful touch.
And screeched so loud it would've roused King Arthur from his sleep.
The shoreline had crept up on him at night, he was laying in the surf now. And his raft had vanished with the tide.
Some kind of fish-human hybrid, he had no other words to describe what he couldn't believe he saw, was next to him in the water.
With a prominent black fin, like a shark's and a long sleek tail, about two thirds it's size.
Theon was too freaked out to notice it's rather non threatening expression.
He only saw an abomination come to kill him.
He scrambled up the beach and into the forest, sprinting as fast as he dared, jumping over roots and things.
When he came out on a beach on the other side, he realised he was trapped on yet another small island.
At least there was no danger of hostile indigenous folks, though that meant no hope of help either.
Hunger and thirst were tearing at his insides, so he found himself a few coconuts (again).
And strange fruit, which he ate anyway, it was incredibly sour.
The mermaid came circling around the shore not long after and for a long while they just sat/swam and studied each other, keeping their distance.
It took a while to reconcile the fact that this thing was seriously real and not just a product of his imagination. But watching it swim around on it's back and dive in and out of the water gracefully, he slowly got used to the idea of mermaids apparently existing.
He wasn't sure if he could trust the creature though, it might really like the taste of human flesh, for all he knew.
Finally, dusk came on and Theon regained some inner peace watching the beautiful colours as the sun sank beneath the horizon and the trees stood tall and black against the darkening sky.
There were stones on this island too and he managed to get a fire going by sparking some flint.
Not about to risk his life for fish, he stayed well away from the ocean and roasted fruit instead.
One of these fruits could've been something he'd seen at the store but he wasn't too sure.
Beyond the fire everything was black, only the stars shone and the ocean lay like a void, so he couldn't see the mermaid anymore.
If it was still there.
xxx
The mermaid -or merman? was that even a word?- came back the following days, making it impossible to get some fresh fish.
And he desperately needed food that wasn't fruit.
Finally, Theon had it.
If he was going to get eaten, then so be it.
He built something resembling a fishing rod, out of vine and a flexible stick.
As bait he used a tiny crab, a stick for a hook and stones for sinkers.
Never dreamed it would pay off getting dragged along fishing with his uncle.
He found an elevated spot on some undercut rocks and settled down.
Should be high enough to keep the merman away from him.
Surely enough, it showed up, saw him sitting there and swam up to him.
It waved with a cheerful smile and a webbed hand.
They were close, only the rocks separating him from a potentially dangerous predator.
He picked up a stone and the merman backed off.
A fish tugged at his new fishing line and it surged forward again.
Theon threw the stone on reflex.
It struck it in the head and the merman immediately sank.
A cloud of blood turned the azure water red.
Theon was shook, couldn't believe what he'd just done. He hadn't meant to hit that hard, had only wanted to deter the creature.
Had he killed it?!
Against better judgment, he dove after the merman.
Blue twilight engulfed him after a short while and it became harder to push deeper, but finally, he could make out the black tail.
The merman was laying there on the ocean floor, still right where it had sunk and with a sluggishly bleeding wound in the middle of its forehead.
Theon couldn't even gloat over that perfect strike, he looked too human and he felt terribly guilty.
He dove deeper and could for the first time get a good look at his face.
A beautiful man with black hair and fair skin.
What had he been thinking?
Determined, he grabbed his arms and pulled him up to the surface.
The heavy load threatened to drag him down, that fin must've weighed a ton and a half, but eventually he arrived on the sand, out of breath.
Anxiously waiting for a sign of life, he feared it was too late.
After a long while though, the merman opened his eyes and promptly struggled to breathe.
Theon hurriedly shoved him back into the shallows where he laid and took a deep breath.
He stood knee deep in the water and watched his gills work in fascination.
Until it occurred to him he should probably get to safety.
He ran but the merman caught his ankles, fin winding around them.
He dragged him kicking and screaming, feet first through the shallow water and into the deep, diving down fast.
There they were, Theon upside down, dangling from his fin in front of the merman's face, who appeared to be examining him.
Only when Theon stopped kicking and turned blue, did he let him go.
Theon pushed to the surface, wheezing for air.
They were pretty far out.
Hearing a voice behind him made him spin around.
"Why you throw rock?"
"You can talk?!"
Theon hadn't expected them to be able to have an actual conversation.
"Stupid. Siren talk human."
"Your grammar is awful. I can barely understand what you're saying."
He started laughing, like the sound a snake makes when aggravated.
Sssszzz...
It was weird.
"Why did you try to kill me?"
"No. Fish. No human."
"Why follow me then?"
Instead of an answer, he was again submerged and dragged back to shore, this time by his arm, despite all his thrashing.
He sent the merman a death glare once he was safe on land.
"Stay."
The merman didn't wait for an answer and left.
Theon was very much not going to listen to some fish and went to find shelter for the night.
xxx
Back at the beach the next day, he saw the merman, now a patch of algae bound to his forehead.
He tried not to feel bad for it but failed.
Theon sat down on the sand and built a fire, then went fishing again.
Still, he kept his distance, ignoring the merman waving him over.
He was a Siren but he didn't kill humans?
What was the point in that?
A splash and suddenly a black fin showed up in his peripheral.
He jumped back, clutching his fishing-pole-spear thing like a weapon.
"If you don't eat people, what do you want?"
"Have fun. Watch. Talk. Play."
"I don't believe you."
To that, the siren shrugged.
He laid in the surf, watching Theon try and fail to fish.
Who relaxed somewhat.
Maybe he really was just another bloke, fin nonwithstanding.
After a while of peaceful silence, he spoke up again.
"You. Where home?"
"Don't remind me. I have no idea how to get back."
In all the excitement, he had somehow forgotten he was actually stranded and not just having some crazy dream, after which he'd wake up on the other island.
"Where are we anyway?"
"Sea. My home. [Unintelligible garbling]. Human name? No idea."
"Well, fuck."
The siren patted the sand next to him and Theon found himself sitting down.
They were much too close.
But if he really wanted to kill him, he could've done so already.
He had his eyes closed but opened them when he felt Theon's stare.
Who quickly turned his head away and pretended to watch the gathering clouds and not his shiny tail.
"You like?"
And promptly, a black tailfin was covering his face.
It felt cold and wet but was incredibly soft against his skin.
Theon shoved it away.
The siren looked at him unapologetically.
"I was watching the storm, I should find shelter before it gets crazy up there."
He was about to get up.
"Wait. I know place." The guy pointed south, away from the part he'd already explored.
"I'm good," Theon shut down whatever he was trying to say.
"Is good. You believe me."
And so Theon found himself walking along the shore as the siren swam next to him.
The wind picked up and he was about to turn back around when he saw the cave.
It was sheltered by rocks in the front, with a waterway going between them and the cave floor, all the way around. Only a stone stair connected the sandy floor to the surrounding rock.
Like a tiny natural harbour.
It was a bit of a hassle getting in but worth it.
"See?"
He showed him the back of the cave and there stood a wooden bench.
"Other human. Old. Gone long time."
He tried it.
When he reluctantly opened his eyes a while later, he found the merman in a natural pool even further down the cave, eating a fish, it looked like.
His black tail curled around the rock he was sitting on, with his back to Theon, halfway submerged in water.
The picture was only missing a hairbrush and enchanting singing.
"Do you sing to sailors so they drown themselves?" Theon called over.
The merman dove off the rock gracefully, not so much as a splash, and swam over to answer him.
"You want I sing?"
He had to admit, he was curious.
"Why not. Unless I go crazy and kill myself after."
"No. Dumb old story."
He stared into his eyes -making him so uncomfortable he thought of taking it back- but then he opened his mouth and- it was the most enchanting thing he'd ever heard.
Not high and operatic, like in the movies, but soft and raw and charming, quiet as if meant just for the two of them.
It sounded like the memory of a lover's embrace.
He sang in that garbled tongue of his but it made no matter.
He hadn't realised he edged closer to the water but he wanted, no needed, to dive in with him.
Somewhere, he had heard that voice before.
The siren stared up at his approaching form.
And grinned.
Somewhere he knew that expression should've had cold shivers run down his spine, but instead it seemed strangely enticing.
He held out a hand, still singing softly and Theon took it, slipping into the water next to him.
Outside the wind howled and the sun was approaching the horizon.
His tail wrapped around his legs, a weird slithery sensation but he didn't mind.
It felt soft under his hands, a million tiny silky scales.
Lightning flashed outside.
Curious eyes searched his face for something.
His teeth really were sharp.
Huh.
XXX
THE END