White Horseflesh with the Taste of Volantis
January 12, 2026 at 3:39 PM
The Wall’s cold wind felt like a gentle breeze compared to the icy horror that gripped Reek’s gut every time Ramsay Bolton opened his mouth. That day at Dreadfort smelled of dampness, old blood, and something sour. Ramsay sat at the table, casually picking under his fingernails, his eyes the color of a washed-out sky fixed on the trembling creature that was once Theon Greyjoy.
“Reek,” Ramsay sang, and Theon flinched so violently that his teeth chattered. “We’re out of horse meat for the dogs. And for me. I want juicy, red meat. The kind that smells of the steppe and strength. You’ll go to the market by the gate and buy a whole sack of prime horse meat. If you come back with anything else, or if you get ripped off… well, you know what I’ll take off you next.”
Theon nodded so frantically that he nearly fell off his knees. Ramsay tossed him a heavy purse filled with gold dragons—a small fortune the Boltons had seized after the fall of Winterfell.
“Go,” Ramsay commanded. “And don’t dare look back.”
The market outside Dreadfort was a gloomy, bustling place. Bolton soldiers shoved traders, peasants tried to sell their last possessions, and a fog hung over everything. Theon walked, clutching the purse to his chest. His PTSD turned every sound—the clatter of hooves, the butcher’s cry, the clang of steel—into echoes of screams in the torture chamber. He felt Ramsay’s gaze on him from every shadow.
He had to find horse meat. It was a simple task, but for Theon, whose mind was shattered, it seemed harder than taking Winterfell.
“Hey, boy! Or whatever you are… creature?” a languid, mocking voice called from around the corner of a stall.
Theon froze. That voice didn’t belong to a northerner. It carried the arrogance of Casterly Rock, the jingle of gold, and absolute superiority. Theon slowly turned his head.
Near a cart piled with strange bundles stood a tall man in a worn but expensive cloak. His right hand was hidden in a leather glove, and he casually tossed a gold coin with his left. It was Ser Jaime Lannister. How he ended up here, behind enemy lines, was a mystery, but the Kingslayer always knew how to find trouble—or create it for others.
Jaime immediately recognized Theon. What remained of the Greyjoy evoked a mix of disgust and fleeting pity, which he quickly suppressed with his trademark cynicism.
“Greyjoy?” Jaime squinted. “Gods, you look like you’ve been through a grain mill. What are you looking for here? Honor, perhaps? I’m afraid that commodity hasn’t been stocked at this market in ages.”
“M-meat…” Theon croaked, glancing around nervously. “I need horse meat. Master… Ramsay… he’ll kill me. I need a sack of horse meat.”
Jaime Lannister smirked. A plan, as absurd as it was cruel, formed in his mind. In his cart lay a shipment he had intercepted from an Essosi merchant—strange, hard tubes of flour that Southerners called pasta or macaroni. For northerners, it was an oddity, utterly useless in winter.
“Horse meat?” Jaime put on a sympathetic face. “My friend, you are in luck. Horse meat is scarce these days. The horses were eaten by wolves or Dothraki—the ones everyone hallucinates after their fifth cup of ale. But I have something better.”
He pulled a tightly packed sack from the cart. Something rattled dully inside.
“This is the ‘White Horse Flesh from Volantis,’” Jaime said seriously. “You see, in Essos, they feed horses pearls and milk. Their flesh becomes hard as bone so it doesn’t spoil on the road. But drop this in boiling water, and it turns into the most tender fillet that will make your master sing with delight.”
Theon stared at the sack. His mind screamed that meat couldn’t be dry and rustling. But panic drowned out logic. Images of Ramsay’s knife flashed in his head. ‘If you get ripped off…’ Bolton’s voice echoed.
“Is… is this really meat?” Theon poked the sack with a trembling finger. He could feel hard sticks through the fabric.
“You wound me, Greyjoy. This is the most expensive meat in the world. A true delicacy for lords. Usually, I ask for three purses of gold for it, but for you, an old acquaintance, I’ll give it for one. Hurry before the butcher in the next stall realizes what a treasure I have here.”
Theon heard the faint barking of dogs in the distance. He imagined Ramsay’s hounds already chasing him. Fear, blinding and will-draining, took over.
“Take it!” Theon shoved the purse of Bolton gold at Jaime. “Please, give it to me!”
Jaime accepted the gold easily, barely containing his laughter. “Here you go, Baron Theon. And tell Ramsay that Lannisters always pay their debts…”
Theon snatched the sack, which felt suspiciously light for meat, and stumbled back toward the castle. Jaime watched him go, shook his head, and began slowly packing up.
“Still,” he murmured to himself, “that was almost too easy.”
Dreadfort greeted Theon with grim silence. He burst into the feasting hall where Ramsay, already quite drunk, was sharpening a knife on the edge of the table.
“Ah, Reek is back,” Ramsay smiled, and that smile promised nothing good. “Well? Did you bring my horse meat? The dogs are hungry. And so am I.”
“Yes, master… the best… from Volantis…” Theon breathed heavily, sweat pouring down his gaunt face. “Very expensive. White Horse Flesh. The gold… I gave it all.”
Ramsay raised an eyebrow. “White Horse Flesh from Volantis? Sounds like a fairy tale for dullards, Reek.”
He approached the sack Theon had carefully placed on the table. Ramsay felt it. A characteristic dry crunch sounded. Bolton’s face slowly began to flush crimson. He untied the knots and peered inside.
Instead of juicy cuts of meat, yellowish, dry pasta tubes stared back at him. Penne, cheap and tasteless.
The silence that descended upon the hall was physically palpable. Theon stood frozen, not daring to move, his eyes wide with the realization of the disaster.
“This is…” Ramsay plunged his hand into the sack and pulled out a handful of pasta. “What is this, Reek? Is this meat? Where is the blood? Where are the veins? Where is anything that once ran across a field?”
“It… it’s supposed to swell in water…” Theon mumbled, feeling his legs turn to jelly. “That’s what the knight said…”
“Knight?” Ramsay suddenly burst out laughing, but it was a dry, venomous sound. “Some passerby conned you! You gave away my father’s gold for a sack of dried dough!”
Ramsay grabbed the sack by the edges. It was heavy for Theon, but for Ramsay, accustomed to swords and axes, it was a perfect weapon.
“You are not Reek,” Ramsay snarled. “You are dumber than my dogs’ droppings!”
With those words, Ramsay swung and struck Theon across the head with the sack’s full force. CRACK!
The sack, unable to withstand the impact on Greyjoy’s bony skull and the force of the swing, burst in mid-air. Thousands of dry noodles scattered across the hall like fireworks. They ricocheted off the stone walls, splashed into goblets of wine, and showered Ramsay down his collar. Theon fell to his knees, showered in “White Horse Flesh,” a thin stream of blood trickling down his forehead.
Ramsay stood, breathing heavily, covered in flour dust. He looked at the scattered pasta on the floor, then at the trembling Theon.
“Pasta…” Ramsay whispered. “My entire budget for the month turned into goddamn pasta.”
He grabbed Theon by the hair and forced him to look at the mess. “Reek, this is too dignified for you. From now on, you have a new name. Since you love this trash so much, you will become part of it. You are Pastajoy. Theon Pastajoy, Lord of Empty Tubes!”
Servants and soldiers standing by the walls began to snicker. Ramsay kicked a pile of pasta.
“And since you spent all the gold on this food, you get nothing else. Hey, bring the dog bowl! The dirtiest one!”
A minute later, a metal bowl, recently used by one of Ramsay’s hounds, was placed before Theon, now officially Pastajoy. Bolton scooped up a handful of dry, hard pasta from the floor and tossed it into the bowl.
“Eat, Pastajoy. Dry. If I see you try to boil them, I’ll boil your fingers instead. This is your penance. You will gnaw on these until this sack is empty.”
Theon, sobbing, reached for the bowl. The dry dough scraped his gums, got stuck between his teeth, and was utterly tasteless. Ramsay sat back down at the table, watching the spectacle with sadistic pleasure.
“How is it, Pastajoy? Do you taste Volantis?” he mocked. “Gnaw, gnaw harder. The ironborn do not sow; they reap… In your case—you reap the harvest of pasta in a dog bowl.”
The entire evening in the Dreadfort hall was filled with only one sound: the crunch of dry pasta and the quiet weeping of a man who once wanted to be king of the Iron Islands, but became a laughingstock, tricked by a one-armed Lannister.
From then on, the castle never called him anything else. Soldiers passing by would toss a handful of macaroni or spaghetti at his feet and yell, “Hey, Pastajoy, don’t forget to fuel up!” And Theon, true to his new name and endless fear, obediently picked them up, hiding them in his rags, because he knew: in Ramsay Bolton’s world, even a dry noodle was all that separated him from utter doom.
And Jaime Lannister, galloping south with a full purse of gold, remembered Theon’s face for a long time, thinking that this was probably the most successful transaction in the history of the Seven Kingdoms. Selling pasta for the price of horse meat to a Greyjoy—that was truly royal justice.
