Myranda
The kennel master's daughter could hardly believe how the tables had turned. "How the mighty have fallen," Myranda whispered to herself as she carefully balanced the heavily laden breakfast tray against her knee, careful not to spill a drop of the hot herbal tea or the bread and cheese Hilda had given her to take to Lady Sansa Stark's chambers.
Myranda felt her lips twist upwards into a grimace more than a sneer as she stood outside of the Stark girl's chambers, or rather, more important, their chambers now.
She missed Ramsay bad enough that her heart ached, and she could feel the heat pooling between her legs at night as the heat of missing him overwhelmed her. Myranda missed feeling how his lips would ravage hers, how his teeth would leave markings on the skin of her neck, sometimes drawing blood on the column of her throat. How he would ravage her until it felt like she could no longer walk in a straight line when he was finished.
But it had been a few nights now since the joining of the Stark girl and Ramsay in marriage, and even when Ramsay took his meals in the mess hall with Lord Roose and Fat Walda, the kennel bitch could see it in the Bastard of Bolton's eyes, how he was already a much changed man, and Myranda could feel the pit forming uncomfortably in her stomach, as she realized that what little heart Ramsay Bolton did possess, was now hers. Sansa's. The little cunt that had everything that Myranda ever wanted.
Myranda ground her teeth in anger and felt her jaw lock as she continued to stare at the doorknob. The kennel master's daughter was torn between her desire to burst into the room and make a mockery of the very bitch that had ruined the only good thing in Myranda's otherwise shitty life, or to turn on her heel of her boot, the food still in her hands, and let the redheaded Stark bitch slowly starve to her death. Myranda just had to see it for herself.
The rumors flew amongst Winterfell that ever since their wedding night, how Ramsay had forced himself upon Sansa Stark and claimed her for himself, that she refused to speak, much less eat. How she would refuse to look Ramsay in the eyes, which in turn, only fueled his wrath even further.
Myranda scoffed and rolled her eyes in disgust at Sansa Stark's weakness. Ramsay Bolton hated weak women, especially ones like her who were meek.
Timid. Afraid. Spineless. Myranda felt her mouth stretch even wider than she thought possible as she decided the time had tone. Kicking open the door and shifting the tray underneath her arm to better hold it upright, the kennel master's daughter momentarily found herself surprised at how dark their bed chambers were. No candles were lit, save for one that lay perched in the windowsill, the flames flickering, dying slow.
Like I wish you would. Were that Lord Roose or Ramsay should flay you alive, Myranda thought bitterly, her dark eyes flashing in anger, though for the sake of appearances, she forced a smile on her face as she took a ginger step through the door.
The kennel master's daughter always smiled with a fake smile of hers. She always thought that life would be easier that way. To be kind to others, compliment them while in reality, all Myranda really wanted to do was the exact opposite. Insult them to their faces, not caring the outcome if she were to be horribly punished for it. She liked it.
But that would only make her already hard life even more difficult, which prevented Myranda from acting out on these desires. But when she had met Lord Ramsay when they were both but children, even when they were small, he had not fallen for her smile.
Or her charm. It was one of many things that Myranda like about Ramsay Bolton.
Myranda liked to think that she had mastered her fake smile, right down to the wrinkles around her heavily-lidded dark eyes. No one had ever dared to question her except for one person. He saw in her eyes, the windows to what little soul she possessed.
She paused, reflecting on one of the first things he had said to her, wise beyond his years even back then, as a boy, and she a mere little slip of a thing. "Your expression is always the same," Ramsay had bluntly said to her one afternoon while feeding the dogs.
His words had taken Myranda by surprise, she couldn't have been more than eleven or so at the time, and before even she knew it, Roose Bolton's son began spending more time with her. It was not that hard considering he was her superior, and she, the servant.
Days passed as quick as light. Myranda didn't even know when it happened, or how it did, as they grew up together. But eventually, her fake smile turned real. And now…this.
'This,' being Ramsay's wife, who was currently huddled in the corner, her knees pulled up to her chest, a listless expression in her normally brilliant blue eyes, as her chin rested on top of her kneecaps, and Myranda silently seethed, allowing herself to hate her.
Myranda allowed herself to meet Sansa's gaze as she wordlessly placed the tray on a nearby table, sauntering over to the window and lighting another candlewick in the sill.
She wanted to be able to better see the bitch's eyes. Myranda smirked and stared into Lady Sansa Stark's eyes, determined not to look away first, though the angry voices inside her head screamed at her, creating a horrible pounding at the base of her skull, as visions of Sansa's bloodied, broken corpse laying lifelessly in front of her consumed her mind.
The kennel master's daughter was certain that Lady Sansa knew she was trying to hide her feelings of immense hatred and dislike for her, but still, she was bound and determined to fool the bitch. Myranda contorted her lips into an awkward, toothy smile that already, both women knew did not meet her eyes, but her cheeks were not quite so compromising. She could feel their reluctance to be molded falsely, but still, she tried.
When Sansa dipped her head and finally averted Myranda's gaze, the kennel bitch felt her smile fall lifeless, allowing her face to return to its usual cold hard gawking of envy.
Myranda knew that the She Wolf of Winterfell would deny it whenever asked about it, whether by one of the other serving girls, or probably even now to her as Myranda knew she was about to ask the question, and did not bother to stop herself as the obligatory, "Are you well, Lady Stark? Can I get you anything else?" tumbled from her lips.
Myranda's own lips pursed into a thin, narrow line as she folded her arms across her chest. She saw it in Sansa Stark's face, that seven hells, no, she was not, in fact, all right. The lies over Sansa's lips, faking smiles, and her words, trying to convince everybody else in Winterfell that she was just fine.
Whenever the bitch smiled, something felt wrong, like a little crook over her luscious pink lips, coming from deep inside her soul. Not that Myranda cared a whit what happened to Sansa Stark. She would sooner see her buried six feet underground for taking Ramsay's affections and his attentions away from Myranda.
"No." Sansa Stark's voice was cold, devoid of emotion. "My lord husband is a monster, and yet…" she paused, her voice trailing off as she blearily lifted her head to gaze through a slightly hazy and unfocused look at Myranda as the kennel master's daughter grabbed the tray of food that she had set aside, torn off a hunk of the bread and cut a wedge of cheese and handed it to the girl on a little serving plate. "I thank you," she mumbled, dipping her head in acknowledgement, "but tell Ramsay that I shall not eat. Please go back to your lord and inform my lord husband that I have hanged myself."
Myranda snorted, rolling her eyes. What a weak little cunt, she thought meanly.
"Do you require your own rope, milady?" Myranda spat, poisonous honey and venom dripping from her words as they tumbled out of her mouth of their own volition, her tongue no longer taking directions from her mind. "Or shall I provide one for you?"
Sansa's head whiplashed sharply upwards, and she furrowed her brows into a light frown. "I should do it myself," she snapped, choosing to ignore Myranda's statement, which, for reason that were even unknown to the kennel master's daughter, ignited a fire like Wildfire deep into her bloodstream as waves of anger coursed through her veins.
Myranda rolled her eyes again and knelt at Sansa's eye level. "I know you think ill of me, and with good reason," she said, lowering her voice and trying a different tactic. "It is no secret that I despise you, but man's law and my servitude towards the Bolton family requires that I serve you, and so that is what I must do, milady," she whisper hissed through clenched teeth. "It is…true, that I do not believe you to be worthy of Ramsay."
"No one deserves to be married to that man," Sansa whispered, her voice lowering to a soft susurration and her voice cracked as she blinked back briny tears, lifting a shaking hand to her eye level as she studied the simple but still quite beautiful yellow gold band that Myranda would have happily given her right arm to wear, and she loathed Sansa.
The kennel master's daughter watched as Lady Stark curled her left hand into a fist, which was trembling and shaking like a leaf in the wind, not sure what to do with her hands. Myranda heaved a haggard sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger.
"Eat," she commanded, no warmth or sympathy in her tone. She admittedly thought the Stark cunt was getting off lightly, considering she wanted nothing more than strangle the redheaded bitch she-wolf with her own two hands, though she knew that by doing so, she would risk possible expulsion from Winterfell, maybe even death, for daring to lay a hand on Ramsay's wife. He had made it quite clear following her wedding night that anybody that would be discovered mistreating their precious key to the North, would be flayed alive publicly in the courtyard for all to see, and then hanged.
No. That she could not allow. So, for now, Myranda would bide her time until another option presented itself. Her father was apt to tell her growing up that patience in life was a precious commodity, a virtue that not many in all of Westeros possessed, and that if she could master the art of being patient, then only good things would befall her.
"I did not traipse my way up all those fucking stairs only to be sent away and hear that you are starving yourself. Think of what will happen to you if your husband finds out."
Myranda knew as her hateful words flew from her mouth that they had hit their mark. She watched with no small measure of satisfaction as the color drained from Sansa's face, and she snatched the bread loaf off the little plate and tore off a hunk of it with her teeth.
"Lord Bolton and his father request that you join the two of them tonight in the mess hall. They command to see you at dinner, they wish to know Ramsay's wife is alive and well," sighed Myranda, adopting the tone of someone talking to a twelve-year-old child, rather than a grown woman of almost nineteen. "Ramsay is not so bad, Lady Stark."
Sansa pursed her lips into a thin line and shot a look of daggers the kennel master's daughter's way.
"I should have nothing to do with my…lord husband," she explained through gritted teeth between mouthfuls of bread and cheese. "He has the audacity to keep me a prisoner here in our own chambers, forbidden me to leave unless he goes with me, h-he…defiles me every single night, forcing himself inside me like the dog that he is, and he and his wretched family have taken away my own family, my home, turned it into a place that I no longer recognize, and then suggest, no, demand, that I join them for dinner? I think not. You may go back to Lords Roose and Ramsay and tell them that I refuse, and if they are angered with my response, seeing as I'm like to kill myself tonight, then I should trouble them no longer, for I cannot continue to live in these conditions."
Myranda, before she knew it, burst out laughing, erupting into a giggling fit that she immediately clasped a hand over her mouth to stifle, though it was already too late for that. She grinned behind her hand as she heard Lady Stark let out a low growl from the back of her throat.
Sansa's blue eyes narrowed in anger. "You believe this to be funny? For it is not. Think about it. If you are the last person to be seen in my chambers whilst I still draw air into my lungs, and then later, if they were to discover my lifeless body on this very floor, who then, would they blame?" Sansa Stark questioned quietly, a hardened edge to her voice that was most unlike her, and her words immediately quelled the hysterical laughing fit Myranda was having.
By the gods, but the bitch was right. Myranda frowned, lowering her hand from her mouth, where it fell limply and hung at her side. "I think," she began hesitantly, not even believing the cohesive thought that was forming in her mind as she realized Sansa was correct. If they were to discover her body here and knew that Myranda had been the last one to speak with her, the fault would be pointed directly to her, and she'd be executed.
What Myranda needed was time, and as much as the kennel master's daughter hated to admit it, the Stark bitch would have to remain alive. For now, she thought angrily.
"I believe that you will come around, in time. Ramsay is not a bad man once you get to know him. Misguided perhaps, and certainly not what you were expecting, given you spent most of your time surrounded by those godforsaken fucking Lannisters, but…"
"I don't want to get to know him!" Sansa Stark shouted hotly, bolting to her feet, and practically collapsing onto their marriage bed, ignoring the heated look Myranda was giving her. "My new husband is a monster in every literal sense of the word. He has no regard for my honor, cares naught for my feelings or my wishes. He cares about only siring an heir and fucking me every night after he's indulged in a little too much wine."
Myranda frowned. "Is this not a better life for yourself than living in exile or even worse?" she said. "Many women would kill to be in your position, Lady Stark." Including me, she thought, but did not dare voice that opinion, lest it get her into serious trouble.
The kennel master's daughter sighed and took the tray away once she was done eating. "Perhaps…Lord Ramsay might be kinder to you if you did not treat him with such scorn. I see the way that he looks at you. In his own way, he does…care for you."
The words as she spoke them felt like poison. "He has…" Myranda paused, not sure how much information she could divulge of Ramsay's past, as it was not hers to tell. "He has had a difficult life, which as he has aged, has not improved, of which Lord Ramsay's story is not mine to tell. If you wish to hear it, you must hear it from his lips and his alone. I can see that my words have intrigued you, but I am not permitted to say more."
She paused, hoisting the tray underneath her right arm as she turned around, preparing to leave, when something the Stark bitch said to Myranda rendered her immobile.
"How long have you loved him, Myranda? Do not lie to me. It is in your eyes. I see much that goes on within the walls of my home, and I have become quite good at reading people's emotions, what they are thinking, even, to a lesser extent, what they are feeling."
Myranda felt her face drain of what little color there was in it to begin with as she felt her jaw drop open in shock and anger. Her heart began to rattle and pound like a wild dog against its chains, screaming at her, so audibly loud, she was surprised the redheaded bitch smiling back at her with that infuriatingly sweet and innocent smile couldn't hear it.
Sansa smiled, though her eyes were like an icy blue dagger straight to the kennel bitch's heart. "I know you were his…companion to warm his bed on cold nights," she began after a moment's hesitation. "Whatever the two of you might have had once, he has forgotten you, discarded you like the shit that you are," she snarled, baring her own canines, and for a moment, Myranda was afraid.
This…this was the She-Wolf of Winterfell, of the North she'd heard much of.
Sansa either did not see Myranda's look of fear or outright ignored it, continuing her little confession. "I must confess to you, Myranda, that I am not proud to take your place, but I know, there's that look that you cannot hide from, it's in your eyes. You thought he would be with you for all eternity, but such a union would never be looked upon with approval, because he is a lord of the House of Bolton, and you…" Sansa crinkled her nose in disgust. "Are naught but a kennel bitch, spending your days around filthy hounds and manure and hay. Lord Roose Bolton would never agree to the match, and you know it."
Myranda silently fumed, seething in her anger, feeling her nails dig into the skin of her palm. Ah, but if looks could kill, the Stark bitch would be dead in a fraction of a second.
"I—you are confused," Myranda began coldly. "You know naught of which you speak. You do not know what you are talking about. Th—there is nothing between us."
Sansa's cold gaze remained fixed, her face impassive, though there was the sharp glint that looked like the edge of a knife, Ramsay's knife, that flickered in her azure orbs. "Ah, but I do, darling. Perhaps there was something there, once, but ever since I have set foot back on northern soil, it is not there. Ramsay's attentions are now solely fixated upon me, and that bothers you. I was like you once," she sighed, turning her head away, and for a moment, Myranda was tempted to smack the bitch across her stupid fucking face and force the redhead to look her in the eyes and demand she take back all of her filthy lies.
But…Myranda was confused. "Like me, milady?"
Sansa nodded, not afraid to look Myranda in the eyes. "I believed in true love, once. I was foolish. Naïve. Sixteen maybe, at best. And now, here I am, passed from two husbands and onto the next. It was King Joffrey that first instilled in me how utterly foolish I was, opened my eyes, but as cruel as that boy-king was, he helped me to see the error of my beliefs, and how stupid I was believing, thinking that my true love would be waiting. Milord husband Tyrion was…quite kind," she confessed, absentmindedly picking at the sleeve of her gown, "but he was a rarity among a family of lions. And now…I belong to Ramsay," Sansa sighed, "and I have seen that there is no love in his heart or in his eyes. He is cold, and he has sad eyes, but perhaps I could be the one to instill in him a change, hopefully for the better, and rid him of the stain upon his name. His lord father Roose seems to believe so, and as much as it pains me to confess it, it is my sworn duty as one of the last Stark women to try to uphold my promise. I made a promise to Mother and Father I would make the best of my life with whatever I was given, and though this was the hand that I was dealt, I should seek to succeed, no matter what. I know how to play Ramsay's little game. And how to win."
To that, the kennel master's daughter had no words, for she could not think of an apt response to formulate in her mind. Visions of scarlet red danced in front of her line of sight as she imagined dozens of ways to kill the cunt in front of her, each one more bloody and violent than the previous.
Soon, she reminded herself, curling her fists.
Sansa Stark must have sensed that she was getting to the kennel master's daughter for she let out a sigh, her smile faltering as her gaze remained fixated upon Myranda. "I would not see you near my lord husband again, Myranda. Is that understood?"
"Y-yes, milady." Myranda mumbled her response, bowing her head in submission.
"Good. You may inform Lord Roose that he may see me now," she whispered, lifting her head to stare at the open door to her chamber, which Myranda had perhaps foolishly gotten to close. "You may tell my lord husband that I will join him for dinner."
Myranda crinkled her nose in disgust and pulled a face but dropped into a low curtsy.
"It will be done, milady," she whispered quietly, hissing it through clenched teeth. As she carried the breakfast tray underneath her arm, it did not escape the kennel master's daughter how the Warden of Winterfell was currently eyeing Lady Sansa Stark. Hungrily.
Myranda grinned to herself as a wild, radical idea began to form in the back of her mind, consuming her as she bolted down the stairwell to head back towards the kitchens. Until she could think of nothing else, the kennel master's daughter began to formulate a plan in her mind to rid herself and Ramsay of the Stark bitch once and for all, for good. She would not trouble Ramsay any longer.
Myranda could not wait to see the girl suffer, and the kennel master's daughter knew what she had to do to make that happen.
Myranda did not consider herself a hero until Sansa Stark married Ramsay. Then, all was fair in love and war. Sansa Stark crossed a nonnegotiable line the night she married Ramsay, whether it was her choice or not, and the kennel master's daughter did not forget. She would not rest until Lady Stark was beaten, and she didn't just mean beaten down. She made dead with either an arrow right between her eyes or her head on a pike.
There was not a place Sansa Stark could hide from her. She would destroy her life. Myranda did not care quite how it happened; she did not need her to suffer too much.
The kennel master's daughter just needed Sansa's cobalt blue eyes completely extinguished from Winterfell. Others might have thought it an overreaction if they were to sense the wicked expression of hatred and venom upon Myranda's pale features, but everyone, especially the Stark cunt, had underestimated just how much she cared for him.
"I'm coming," she whispered to Sansa venomously, though she knew the bitch could not hear her, she liked to imagine that in her own way, Lady Stark could hear Myranda.
I'm coming for you, bitch. Just know it.