The Chronicles of Theon Pastajoy: The Ballad of the Ultimate Cringe

Morning in Dreadfort was stinging and gray. An icy wind whistled through the battlements, and in the courtyard, covered in black coal, a dead silence hung. After the night’s nightmare, Theon felt as if his bones had turned to dust. The fear of “uranium” and pipes had taken deep root in his exhausted mind. Ramsay Bolton stepped onto the porch, wrapping himself in heavy fur. Following him, Jaime and Cersei came out, clutching their expensive cloaks. Sansa stood at a distance, looking at everything with a frozen expression of grief. — Get up, Wanderer — Ramsay threw out lazily, looking at Theon, who was curled in a ball right in the coal dust. — The night is over, and the work won’t do itself. Since you are so afraid of pipes and radiation, I decided to meet you halfway. You must clear this yard of coal — Theon raised his head. Feverish eyes gleamed on his pale, stained face. — Clear it? — he whispered. — But what if… what if that thing is among them? — — Exactly! — Ramsay smirked. — You must check every piece. If you find anything suspicious, bring it to me. But remember: if you miss even one grain of “green death,” it will seep into the cellars and dissolve us all. And it will start with you! Boo! — Theon jumped to his feet in terror. Panic, fueled by Ramsay’s words, took over instantly. He fell to his knees and began frantically sorting through the black stones. To him, this was no longer coal for fireplaces. Every piece seemed like a potential bomb, a fragment of that very nightmare. Jaime Lannister, leaning against the railing, watched the spectacle with irony. — Look at him. He treats the coal as if they were dragon eggs ready to hatch. Cersei, look how he sniffs it. LMAO! — Theon was indeed bringing every large piece of coal to his face. He was trying to catch that very metallic taste from his dream. His new eyebrows, which he cherished so much, were quickly covered in black dust, making him look like a mad miner. — Doesn’t smell… — Theon muttered, tossing a piece aside. — This one doesn’t glow either… Not yet… — Two hours passed. Theon was completely covered in soot. His hands shook, and his nails, already mutilated by Ramsay, turned black from the deep-seated dirt. He worked with such manic thoroughness that neat piles of “checked” coal grew around him. Ramsay grew bored. He descended into the yard, his boots crunching on the snow. — Well, Pastajoy? Found anything? Or is the “uranium” hiding deeper? — Theon raised a face to him where sweat and tears had formed bizarre white furrows. — Master, they are all suspicious. They are all… black. What if it’s black light? What if they are killing me right now? — — To check that — Ramsay knelt down next to him. — We need a reliable method. Maesters say the best way to identify poison is taste — Theon froze. His jaw trembled. — Taste? — — Exactly. Real uranium tastes like rust and blood. Try this piece — Ramsay handed him a sharp, shiny fragment of anthracite. Jaime and Cersei looked at each other. Even for them, this was the peak of absurdity. — Are you serious, Ramsay? — Jaime asked. — He’s going to choke. ROFL! — — He is Ironborn — Bolton chuckled. — Their stomachs should digest even stones from the sea floor. Come on, Theon. For the safety of the castle. Bite it — Theon looked at the coal. In his head, the voice from the dream echoed: “Blood boiled in the veins… the body fell apart…”. The fear of Ramsay was great, but the fear of invisible death from a pipe was even greater. He decided that if he felt the taste now, he would at least know he was dying. He took the piece of coal and, closing his eyes, shoved it into his mouth. A nasty crunch followed. Theon began to chew. The coal grit crunched on his teeth, clogged between his gums, staining his mouth a deep, inky black. — Is it bitter? — Ramsay asked hopefully. Theon swallowed the prickly mass with difficulty. His face twisted. — Dry… — he croaked. — And… and I think my tongue is numb! Master, it’s numb! It has begun! I’m turning into sludge! — He jumped up and started running around the yard, clutching his throat. — I feel it! It’s flowing through my veins! My skin is turning green under the soot! Save me! LMAO! — At that moment, one of Ramsay’s hunting dogs ran out from around the corner. Seeing a black, darting creature making strange sounds, the dog got scared and started barking. Theon, deciding it was a hallucination or a “radioactive beast,” dove into a snowbank, trying to “wash” the imaginary radiation off himself. He rubbed his face with snow, smearing the coal even more, until he looked like a terrifying shadow. — Wash away! Wash away, cursed metal! — he wailed. Cersei disgustedly turned away. — This isn’t even funny anymore. He looks like a chimney sweep who had a stroke. Ramsay, your entertainment is getting too dirty — Ramsay, on the contrary, was delighted. — Look! He is purifying himself! The Great Ablution of the Uranium Stinker! ROFL! — Theon, finally exhausted, went quiet in the snowbank. He lay there, breathing heavily, looking at his hands. They were black. The whole world around him was black. His PTSD told him a new, terrible truth: since he ate the coal, now he himself was the source of infection. — I… I am the pipe… — he whispered into the snow. — I myself am that very pipe now… — When they forced him to get up and continue cleaning, he did it looking as if he carried all the grief of the world on his shoulders. He no longer ran; he slowly moved the stones, whispering apologies to every piece of coal. In the evening, when he was brought back to the hall, he did not sit by the fire. He crawled into the farthest, darkest corner, afraid that the heat of the fireplace would “activate” his internal uranium. He sat there, black, quiet, covered in a crust of soot, and flinched at every metallic sound. Theon’s shame had moved into a stage of quiet, black melancholy that annoyed Ramsay much more than his screams, but for everyone else, he remained just a madman who tried to eat winter so as not to turn into green sludge. Total cringe.