Only A Northern Song ~ Game of Thrones / Willas Tyrell ~

Chapter Eighty Four: Strike

Whatever friendship Willas had once built with the imp of Casterly Rock had rotted the moment their families raged war against each other, only to be sealed away in a coffin the moment Tyrion Lannister's father had his own wife and family brutally murdered. Yet, somehow, the hatred he felt at seeing the littlest Lannister had no match on the fury that coursed through him when he entered Sunspear's hall to meet the new arrivals and came face-to-face with Theon Greyjoy.

Lannisters went forgotten, all others who stood in that hall awaiting the Mother of Dragons went unseen. If anyone tried to speak to him, he didn't hear it, if anyone tried to touch him, he didn't feel it. Not since he barely felt himself move nor did he know what he was doing until he heard a whimpered shriek and a plea for mercy. That was when he realised he had stormed straight over to the traitor that had once been his wife's childhood companion, and had made great use of the marble pillars that lined Sunspear's vast hall, having Theon Greyjoy by the throat and pinned up against the post, shivering and cowering under his grip.

Willas was so furious he barely felt his surprise that he'd succeeded in pinning the traitor up with very little struggle. Once upon a time Theon Greyjoy had been a snide and lustful man, one who always wore a bitter smirk and always managed to make some sort of crude joke to make himself seem better than all the other men around him. He had never been physically big, tall and lean the way Willas' middle brother was broad, but he was strong, and had survived many battles fighting for the man he'd once called king and brother. Theon had been strong, and had never failed in drawing attention to the fact he was much stronger than the man intended to marry his foster family's eldest daughter. It was something Willas had been annoyed with for a time, how the ward of his wife's family constantly looked down on him even when he proved himself as a good advisor to the north, yet any difference between their strengths had somehow disappeared.

Theon had always been skinny, but Willas realised how light he was, like he was simply man-handling a sack of rag and bones. Willas had only ever seen him be overpowered by one person, that being his wife when she caught him off-guard and delivered the greatest punch Willas had ever seen anyone throw, yet there he was, pinning up a man who had once claimed to scare Jaime Lannister on the battlefield; bitterly, Willas remembered his own brother retelling the battle tale a little different to how Theon had boasted. He was shaking too, like a nervous dog, and as Willas' grip on his neck remained tight, Theon clawed at his hand with both of his. His once-strong hands seemed like they better belonged to a bird, not to mention he seemed to be missing several fingers from his right hand, the fingers he would need to shoot an arrow. His once shining mane of dark hair had been reduced to thin, limp straggles, and when Willas found enough clarity to actually look at the man's eyes, there was a haunting beneath them that shone with unspeakable horrors. In the time since they had last seen each other, something horrific had happened to Theon Greyjoy. What ever had happened to him, Willas didn't know, but he knew he didn't envy him.

If it was anyone else, he would have felt pity. No one deserved to look so gaunt, so haunted, so much like a corpse walking, but then Willas remembered everything he'd done to the Starks, to his family, to a family that had claimed him as their own. Willas remembered how Lady Stark had wept and screamed when the letter came delivering the final fate of Winterfell and her youngest two sons. He remembered how Robb turned sour any time anyone mentioned his traitorous foster brother. He remembered how his wife had come to his bedchamber in Highgarden before they were married and nervously confessed everything to him, how she constantly tried to make amends with the Greyjoy boy, how she wanted desperately to be his friend despite everything that had happened, and how after his betrayal she had driven herself mad and tried to scratch her skin off just because that man had once touched her. At the thought of her, Willas tightened his grip, enjoying the way he choked beneath him.