(Theon-Hamlet receives a visit from the ghost of his father, while trying to eat his usual rat in the dungeons of the Dreadfort…)
Theon
Will you keep me waiting? Speak. I’m eating my rat.
Balon
Mark me.
Theon I will.
Balon My hour is almost come,
When I to the watery hallsof the Drowned God
Must render up myself.
Theon Alas, poor ghost!
Balon
Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
And stop eating that rat.
Theon Speak. I’ll eat quickly.
Balon
And quickly you’ll revenge me, when thou shalt hear.
Theon [chewing]
What?
Balon I am thy father’s spirit,
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night
While my ancestors are feasting in water
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house
(Or else people like the Damphair in the world
Would remain jobless), so listen, kraken’s blood
I understand that you’re facing great fear
But if you hear my story, you may take heart
And find the way for your confinement to end
Before you need to start eating a porcupine.
This captivity eternal must not be
For a man of kraken’s blood. List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love -
Theon
O God!
Balon
Revenge his foul and unnatural murder.
Theon
Murder?
Balon
Murder most foul, for kinslaying is
For gods and men, foul and unnatural
Theon
Let me know, so if I get to be freed as a gift
[to himself](I am more likely to turn into a white dove)
[to Balon] IMay take my revenge.
Balon You would look more apt
If of eating a mouse you were not in need.
And yet somehow you remain my last hope.
I hope you can do this. Now, Theon, hear.
‘Tis given out that, walking on a bridge,
The Storm God shoved me. So the whole ear of Pyke
Is by a forged process of my death
Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth,
The gust of wind that took thy father’s life
Now wears his crown.
Theon [to himself] O this rat is good!
[to Balon] My nuncle?
Balon
Aye, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gift -
That he once used when the wife of his brother
He seduced - came back from the exile his lust
Had forced me to send him in, and now he’s King.
O Theon, you believe I simply fell off there?
You think I, who gave the Islands back their dignity
Might just fall down for a storm, right now
When Euron was one day far from the Islands?
He’s a wretch, but my natural gifts are poor
To those of his!
He’s evil and he never will be moved,
From the Seatone Chair that he’s stolen.
His lust, only if he takes the Dragon Queen
Will sate itself and once they’re wed
They’ll prey on the Green Lands.
But soft, methinks I scent the morning air.
Brief let me be. Walking on that bridge,
My custom always of the afternoon,
The Faceless Man thy uncle hired
Destroyed somehow that strong bridge
And all these miles I fell down for
And you can well imagine the effect
Such a falling has on the body of a man,
Even if king’s blood his veins runs through.
Every bone was instantly shattered in my body
And with a sudden fall I died down there
And my blood was flowing, and my body white as milk
Was lost in the water. Now you know, son of mine.
And I hope you are having no doubt
About the Crow’s Eye, vile and loathsome, you must
Avenge me and kill my brother.
Thus was I walking by a brother’s hand
Of life, of crown, of Pyke at once dispatched
Cut off even in the blossom of my sin
Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled,
No reckoning made, but sent to the Drowned God
With all my imperfections on my head.
O, horrible! O, horrible! Most horrible!
If thou hast the Old Way in you, bear it not.
Let not the royal bed of Pyke be
A couch of luxury for a kinslayer.
But howsomever thou pursues this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught. Leave her to the Watery Halls
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once.
The glow worm shows the matin to near
And ‘gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.
Theon [after swallowing the last bit of his rat]
O all you new gods, Seven! O Trees! What else?
And shall I pray R’hllor? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart.
And you, my sinews, you’ve grown very old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee?
Aye, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat
In this dark dungeon. Remember thee?
Yes, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,
Of Bran and Rickon, Robb and Kyra, all the past
That my mad youth copied there
And if the Gods my freedom ever give
Back to me, well away from these chains,
I will avenge my father. Yes, by the Seven!
O most evil monarch!
O villain, villain, smiling, blue-lipped villain!
If only these chains were not holding me down
I’d make him stop smile, that awful villain.
And I would take back my Iron Islands.
So, nuncle, there you are. Now to my word:
It is, “Adieu, adieu, remember me”
I have sworn.
by Franz95
