Chapter Four:

Boltons, Bastards and Baited Brothers.

Prompts:

Making sense of these bones we reassemble history

Making ancestral tapestries in the shape of retaining walls

We are a memory shaped by a vertebrae

Clappers of rhythm disassembled by the skeletons of time

You are the skin behind the clouds

~Relics by Matthew Shenoda.

Domeric Bolton's P.O.V

The Dreadfort was an immense fortress with high walls and triangular merlons that looked like sharp stone teeth yawning to the sky. It had deep and dark stone walls and massive towers, a thumb smear of black against the white-washed snow skyline of the North, and a big, fat belly at the heart of it. Its Great Hall was a dim and smoky place, with rows of torches clutched by skeletal human hands carved from pit jutting out the walls around the long tables which stood before a dais and a higher table at the head of the room. The vaulted ceiling had wooden rafters stained black from smoke covering and crisscrossing the upper stonework, big, dusky hearths dotted through as many chambers and halls to keep the wintry chill at bay, and-

And the Dreadfort was nothing at all like the Redfort, where Domeric Bolton had spent the last three years of his life with polite Lord Horton Redfort and his four children, Jasper, Creighton, Jon, and Mychel. Before that still, Domeric had squired as a page at Barrowton for his late mother's sister, Lady Barbrey Dustin, and had spent a youth between the broad straight streets lined in elms and the rolling planes where the wind howls.

That is to say, in a way his Lord father would call meandering, that the Dreadfort was perhaps as unfamiliar to Domeric as the clouds could be to a river turtle.

Very.

Domeric, when he had finally come home to his Lord father and this blight of a castle, before he had gone in search of his brother, Ramsay, at the Miller's, had not expected that. This… Disconnect. He had assumed to know this castle, this land, like the back of his hand, despite the years and distance that had separated him from these roots. The Bolton Blood inside him some progenitor of charts and plots, a key to a locked door of a barely spent childhood.

It had not been like that at all.

Years away from this place, these Weeping Woods and Black stone, may have honed his Southron political savvy, handed Domeric courtesy and tourney ribbons and chivalrous conduct befitting his age, but it had dampened the Bolton blood inside.

Like a dagger left to rust out in the rain, the blade was dull.

Domeric thought other's could see that, the men of this castle, his Lord father's Bannermen, they could sniff it out. A Bolton skin shallow, but not bone deep. Of course they said nothing of it. They would not dare.

Roose Bolton would see to it to discover what they held bone deep.

Still, it was there. Domeric could sense it. The quiet of chatter when he entered a chamber, the reticent eye when they looked him up and down and found velvet and supple leather, and not the coarse pelts and furs typical of the Dreadfort.

A Bolton blade with its knife's edge blunted.

In truth, Domeric had not been in too much mind about it. He would adjust, his Lord father's Bannermen would adjust, they must, and he had seasons yet before the thought of taking his father's seat at the head table could be, or would be, felt.

Time was an ally, not an enemy, his mother's sister once told him. Patience and perseverance can be as deadly as any wroth. Domeric would become reacquainted with his Bolton blood soon enough. He had to be. He could not be stuck in this half-way keep of Bolton and not-quite-Bolton for the rest of his life.

So he tried to hasten, tried to whet that dagger inside, and nothing worked. He still felt-

Disconnected, like a joint out of socket.

He went horse riding with the men, but they only wished to hunt. He played harp in the Great Hall, songs that had moved Lord Horton to great, fleshy smiles, and found only chilled stares. He sat in on his Lord father's council meetings, but when he offered the solution of sending a Raven with terms of agreement to a smaller Lord making noise over his encroached land by a local rival, he only earned a side-eye from the men-

From the men and his father, as if he too, Roose, could see the mistake he may have made, the misstep, such a small one, that would become larger down the path through the woods.

Dear dulled Domeric.

A woeful thing indeed.

And then along came the Mumbling Man.

Domeric winces away from him, this rag-bag of bones and strewn flesh, grimaces and flinches, and leaves the chamber he was housed in without so much as a good morn to his father, but no matter what winds he tries to find to clear his suddenly disordered mind, Domeric cannot, for the life of him, get that arm out of his thoughts.

It was not fear he felt, as Domeric supposed he should. Neither was it disgust or shock. Instead, in the trench of his entrails there is a… Needful thing that grows and unfurls in the dark. A startling, heated sort of… Fascination.

It would have taken days to have done that to an arm, skill more to ensure the muscle below did not prematurely rot or veins sliced to bleed out, it would have taken dexterity and creativity, dangerous bedfellows, and-

And Domeric wanted to know how it was done in a needful, demanding way. Where did the start begin and the finish end? From fingertips to shoulder blade, or forearm to bicep? When exactly did the arm start to blacken? Hours after having the skin was removed, or a whole moon-tide later perhaps, nerves alight in fire and fury-

The guilt comes fast and cold after that. He should not be thinking such thoughts, asking such questions-

A man had been flayed on his father's grounds.

A man had been flayed on his father's lands, and the prime suspect was his dearly departed sister.

Wilhelmina.

Lady Barbrey Dustin, Lord Horton and his jovial sons Jasper, Creighton, Jon and Mychel… The men and women he had spent his life amongst, friends and family, they would all be disgusted by it, this series of events, that blackened broken arm. Rightfully so, Domeric thought. The disgust would have been right.

His hot-hard fascination, not.

His guilt follows Domeric as he leaves the chamber, his shadow on the wall, it clings to him beneath the furs of his cloak, and it does nothing to diminish the needful thing growing horns in his gut.

For the first time since he had come home, Domeric felt like-

He felt like a Bolton.

What a terrible, wonderful, razor-sharp thing that was.

Domeric Bolton's P.O.V

The Bolton Banner fluttered in the icy breeze upon the grim flagstone of the Dreadfort wall. A red flayed man on pale pink silk strewn with red drop stitches. Domeric Bolton had seen this banner his entire life. He had adorned it nearly every day, whether he had been south of the White Knife river or not, from bejewelled pin to cloak to breast placed needlework. Perhaps, he could say, he knew that banner better than his own reflection.

Pink, and red, and bleeding.

It was commonplace in the Dreadfort, this effigy to flaying. It stood arrogantly on their steeples and keep and drawbridge. His father's men wore it smugly on their shield in waxen paints. Their banner was their pride, and as such, their home was smothered in it as much as the Dreadfort was choked in the fog from the Weeping Waters when the wind came in.

Hardly anyone paid attention to it, those born and raised in these walls hardened from a young age to its message, Bannermen so commonly coming and going they too were solidified from its sight. Only guests were struck to silence by the image, those who dared to come so close to the Dreadfort to see it, and it was this that should have told Domeric Bolton that something was incredibly wrong with the kennel master's daughter.

Domeric shuffled on the landing of the battlement staring over the open courtyard of the drawbridge. He had seen his father ride through the gates not half an hour ago, with him six men who were adept at tracking and half the Dreadfort kennel hounds barking, nipping and snarling at hooves and calf. Over the next few hours, Roose would be sweeping the Weeping Water Woods in what little grey daylight they had left, in hopes of finding a trail to chase that could, possibly, lead to Wilhelmina.

Domeric doubted Roose would find a single hair snared on a bone white branch.

They say skin gets thinner with age. Domeric would have to disagree. He thought it became tough and rigid, akin to pork rind. To skin an elder man, you had to wiggle the knife just right, twist it with the constrained force of shelling a walnut, between the fatty layer of grease and lard and wilting muscle beneath.

Or so his father had told him.

It wasn't impossible to flay someone in their later years, but it was a lot of work.

The Mumbling Man, or so he had become named by the servants of the Keep, who was currently being stored in their lowest kennels, would have taken hours or days or moon-tides, and skill not born but practiced effectively.

If Wilhelmina truly was here, of which Domeric had his doubts still, and she did, in fact, do... That to the Mumbling Man, he suspected she was not foolish enough to leave any such trail. Yet, with nothing else, for the Mumbling Man's mind was nearly completely gone, Roose had no other option but to try.

Ramsay, curiously, had been of the same mind of Domeric, though he gave no argument to their father about wasting time like Domeric had. Instead, Ramsay had hunkered down in the kennel on a barrel in the far corner, and when questioned what he was doing by Domeric he had simply smiled from his seat on the drum outside the Mumbling Man's straw strewn cell.

"There's no need to hunt. I know where the path ends. She'll come here… For him. She hasn't finished yet."

Domeric had shook his head and left his brother to flint his dagger in the dark. The Mumbling Man, with his torn asunder arm and missing eye and pulled teeth looked, to Domeric, pretty fucking finished.

With one last drag of cool air into his lungs, Domeric slouched underneath his furs and went to turn back inside.

That was when he noticed the kennel masters daughter.

She was down below in the courtyard, amongst the servants milling about their day and duties, fitting the castle for heat and food of an oncoming night still hours away.

And she was completely still.

Standing there, in the hunched crowd… Staring up at the banner of a red flayed man on pale pink silk strewn with red drop stitches.

Domeric's feet shifted and, he found, quite thoughtlessly, himself walking down the railings and ramparts, down the stairs and into the courtyard, over to the kennel masters still and silent daughter.

Domeric Bolton's P.O.V

"Shouldn't you be fixing the kennels for when the hounds return?"

Domeric didn't know her name, the kennel master's daughter, but he had seen her around. She was a lazy thing, sly too, twitchy in the way most dogs were with a leash on, who, Domeric had noticed, had taken to watching his brother from the shadows since his arrival a few moon turns prior.

Yet, here, in the pale light sifting in through the heavy fog, she was something… Something.

"Did you know flaying a person wholly is rather unnecessary? They lose feeling and sense too soon, and the loss of blood kills them quickly. No, it's best to flay the sensitive areas first. The soles of the feet, the inner thigh, palms of a hand…"

She turned to face him at her back, hand raised, wiggling her fingers as she smiled, left slightly higher than the right, lopsided mischievousness.

Ramsay smiled much the same.

Nevertheless, when she locked her amber gaze on him towering at her back, her crooked smile fell and smashed between them like glass on stone.

She likely didn't realise she was speaking to the Heir of the Dreadfort, no less trying to give flaying suggestions to a Bolton of all people. Never mind that Domeric, Dull Domeric with his youth in Barrowton and Redfort, knew only as little as the few snippets his father had told him about the practice.

She, however, as with father's Bannermen, did not need to know that.

"I believe I know how to flay, girl. I've been taught its naunces since I could walk."

She blinked up at him, a flutter of lashes before, sluggishly, keenly, like the uncoiling of a snake between river reeds, the smile from before came slithering back onto her face.

"Isn't this a surprise… You look just like m-… Well."

The kennel master's daughter moves around him then, sweeping that amber gaze up and down from boot to curl, circling, her own hand rising for her left ear, fingers tinkering, finding nothing at lobe, perhaps searching for an old earring she had not worn that day.

Her hand fell back down with a flop and a flex of her fingers, as her feet stalled in their encircling.

Ramsay too fiddled with his earring when he was deep in thought-

Or when he was planning on doing something reckless.

"You should heed your duties."

She cocked her head at him, askew, smile never waning.

"Duties, much like games, can change on the whim of the wind, didn't you know?"

"I doubt my father and your own would be pleased to hear you say that."

She seemingly came back to herself then, stopped her unremitting, almost bone deep perusal of him, strangely glancing down to her own dress, huffing at something or other that she spied there, perhaps her belt of pouches and bottles, before she shrugged carelessly.

"I'm looking for the Mumbling Man."

Domeric scoffed.

"I suppose my Lord Father sent you to freshen him up, though there is so little of him left. Perhaps my father believes a feminine face can get him talking."

There was a twinkle in her eye that seemed to be hearing a joke only she could get.

Strange girl.

"You could say so."

Domeric nodded, swivelled on his heel, and began walking across the courtyard.

"Come, I'll take you to his cell. My brother is standing guard."

He hears her following, barely, the echo of ghostly steps. Outside the walls of the Dreadfort, out in the barren snow, there would have been no hope of hearing her approach.

Perhaps there was no hope inside either, for she spoke right behind Domeric, breath tickling the back of his neck, and he startled at how close the husky voice was.

"Brother?"

Domeric winced. She could play coy well, but not well enough, and though Ramsay was a bastard, a servant prodding had no place despite how strange that servant was.

"Watch your tongue, girl. My brother may be base born, but he is my brother still and dear to my heart, and the son of Lord Bolton. Far above your reproach."

She bounced as she came to his side, dipping at the waist so he could see.

It was a mans' bow, and sardonic.

The kennel master really hadn't taught her manners well enough.

"Forgive me, my Lord."

She sounded as if she cared very little about his pardon, in truth, and very much as if she were insinuating at him needing hers.

Domeric hurried for the kennels.

"Well, if you can get the Mumbling Man to speak of Wilhelmina, I'm sure the slight can be forgotten."

She did stall this time, right by the crux of the hallway leading to the bowels of the castle. When Domeric stopped and turned, to see what had caught her attention, she was already staring straight at him.

Her gaze was sharp, face unmoveable, unyielding as an iron sword, smile nowhere to be seen, wintry wrath creeping at the edges of her eyes-

And the merry smile was back in place, gaze soft, jaw softer, before Domeric could truly see below the mask.

"Wilhelmina? He has spoken of the one who did this? Surely she is of no importance. I'm sure she is already gone. Lost to the wild. Nothing like this will happen again in your vicinity, and certainly, that is what you want?"

Domeric frowned and too stalled at the edge of the hallway, half in half out, half Bolton and half Southron, half Lordling and half servant girl.

"Did my father not explain? Wilhelmina is my sister. My sister who went missing many moons ago as a babe. We suspect this is the same Wilhelmina who did this to the Mumbling Man. This is our first sign of her continued existence since that-… Since that night. My father won't let this slip through his fingers. Neither will I or my brother, so if you must do your duty, do it well."

She soaked it in, his warning, and washes it through.

"Are you sure this Wilhelmina is the same as your sister? Lots of people skin things. Perhaps the Mumbling Man was in an unfortunate fishing accident."

Now it was Domeric's turn smile.

"An accident that has seen his arm perfectly flayed? An eye taken from a socket without so much as a scratch or bruise to the lid? I think not. When you see the Mumbling Man, you will understand. Only a Bolton could have done his arm as this Wilhelmina did."

The girl took a step closer, into the dark, face bathing black, voice cold smog in the corridor.

"You seem so sure of it."

Domeric, anew, turned and carried on his way through the hallway. That needful thing in his gut squirming.

He needed fresh air and a moment to breathe, not a strange servant girl pressing too close in the dark.

"We were told thus. A note left behind the night my sister went missing. It said I am sorry, but needs must. She will return. Signed A. D."

Domeric expected a hum, perhaps more questions, perhaps even a mournful sorry that many gave when they learned the truth of the missing Bolton babe, but what he did not expect was laughter.

Cold, bright, starlight laughter reverberating in the hallway.

"You find this amusing?"

Domeric snapped, and even then, the kennel master's daughter did not stop laughing until she, herself, so chose she was ready to do so.

"I find many things amusing, as many as I assume this castle is high above the frozen ground below. This, however, not so much."

"Then why laugh so?"

She came down the hall, steps echoing, allowing her steps to echo.

They matched the suddenly frantic beat of his heart.

"Because, little Lordling in the ill-fitting cloak-"

Domeric had the curious feeling that she wasn't simply talking about his garments, when she lingered by him, using the back of her hand to bounce off his shoulder in a playful slap, a brave choice from someone of her station.

"Sometimes there is a choice whether to laugh or cry in certain moments. I often choose to laugh."

And then she walked right on passed him, into the low-lit hall.

"Maybe you should learn to do the same. You frown any deeper, and your face will stick like that, and wouldn't that be a crying shame then?"

What a surprising, impudent, daring girl-

And, perhaps, more than a little out her own mind.

No wonder she kept staring at Ramsay.

"Now are you coming, or are you going to stand there gaping all night?"

Domeric's feet, anew, moved of their own accord, following that starlight laughter into the dark.

Domeric Bolton's P.O.V

Domeric was the first around the corner, through the iron gate and into the kennels, the first to be spotted by Ramsay sitting in the thick shadows of the far corner, the clink, clink, clink of his dagger being sharpened against a hand stone the only noise punctuating the low slurring of the Mumbling Man off to the side heaped on a pile of dirty hay.

"I thought you had left with father."

"I saw him out through the south gate. He seemed to have plenty of men at hand already, so I stayed."

Ramsay hummed long and low, shrugging, pocketing his stone and slipping the gleaming dagger into the loop of his tattered belt. A belt that had, perhaps, once been a rope-tie to a sack of flour.

Due to his size, far outside of Domeric's own, a head and shoulder taller and a slim girl broader, they were still waiting for his garments, those befitting his new life, to be made. Until then, the rags Ramsay was in, the rags from the Miller's wife, helped him blend into the shadows until, nearly, only his pale eyes shone from the dark.

This was a Bolton, Domeric thought.

Eyes in the shadow with a dagger in the belt.

Not him, Dulled Domeric, with his gold embroidered doublet from Lady Barbrey Dustin, and his heavy cloak to shill the cold and-

Domeric shook the sticky-thick thoughts out of his mind.

This was his brother, his dear brother, a brother he had spent so long searching for. There was no place for-

"Nice earring. I've never seen a right sided one like it before. Family heirloom?"

The lofty, almost lyrical, voice made both Bolton's jump. Ramsay a surprising supplement to the start.

Domeric had never seen the boy wince before, let alone startle.

He glared over Domeric's shoulder, and Domeric turned just in time to see the kennel master's daughter peeking around his arm, smiling toothily, wildly.

Before Ramsay could bark back, surely angered by the flush to his cheeks blistering pink in the dark, Domeric intervened.

"They belonged to our grandmother. Father gifted one to Ramsay, and the other to Wilhelmina. They are one-of-a-kind rubies, taken from the breastplate of the Red King Royce IV himself."

The girl edged around him, slinking out into full view.

"One of a kind? So… There's no others? No possible way there could be one or two out there, somewhere, passed between hands, sold in shitty market stalls?"

"Only this one."

Domeric offered, shucking glove off to flash the rubied ring on his thumb to the girl, the head of the flayed man depicted on its flat, square face.

"So no… There could be no others."

Ramsay stood from the barrel, glaring.

"Who are you?"

Domeric rolled his eyes.

"This is the kennel masters' daughter. You've seen her before-"

Ramsay cut him off, eyes still trained on the girl now edging towards the barred cage of the cell containing the Mumbling Man.

"No it's not. She's not-… You're different. Who are-"

The Mumbling Man, of course, chose this time to stir awake, wide-one-eyed, scrambling and shrieking and flailing in the straw closer to the gate-

Closer to the kennel masters' daughter.

"Oh, Mina! I've been good! I swear! I've been good! Please! Let the game end! Let it be! I've been good! The very best-"

The girl looked down, and-

Snapped her tongue on the back of her teeth, the same clicking shot one made to a well-trained hound to bring it to heel.

The Mumbling man fell silent and still immediately, hand still reaching through the bars for the edge of the kennel masters daughter's skirts, hovering as if awaiting an order to bite or let go.

How did she do that?

Domeric-

Domeric scowled under the blinding smile the girl fired his way like a bolt of an arrow notched with a steady hand.

"You know the saying, men are dogs, and all that jazz."

Jazz? What was jazz? What was-

The sound of pounding came from above, the dust from the ceiling flickering down, the roof of the kennels below the courtyard thumping under hooves.

The girl glanced upwards.

"Ah, just in time. Sounds like your father's back, and if he's back so soon he's maybe found a little surprise in the Weeping Woods. You might want to go check on that."

Yes, if Roose was back so soon, before night break, he must have found something, perhaps even Wilhelmina, in the woods-

Domeric snatched at his brother's shoulder, his brother who had come to his side, hand on dagger hilt, staring at the girl before the motionless Mumbling Man.

"Come, let us check-"

"She's not-… Something-"

Domeric tugged his brother harder, as the younger boy followed after a moment of rough revolt.

"Come. It might be Wilhelmina."

That seemed to talk some sense into Ramsay, and, eventually, he followed his brother to the gate of the kennel hall.

"Keep an eye on our guest, girl."

The kennel master's daughter waved back.

"He won't leave my sight. You have my word... You'll know where to find us when you're ready."

The brother's turned the corner.

"I'm telling you; something was… Different with her. I could feel it. She made me-… She moved like…"

"Enough, Ramsay. This isn't one of your games."

Ramsay stared at him a moment longer, silver to silver, before huffing and shouldering passed, knocking Domeric out of the way and nearly into the wall, heading for the courtyard.

Domeric followed with a sigh.

Family.

It was going to be the death of him.

Domeric Bolton's P.O.V

Domeric, beside Ramsay, pushed through the gathering throng in the courtyard, shouting above the rising racket.

"Did you find her? Wilhelmina? Is she-"

Domeric pushed through at last, into the tight inner circle surrounding the hunting party, in time to see Roose Bolton descend from his horse in one smooth sweep, nodding for Ser Walton, Steelshanks to his father's men, to come down as well.

"No, but we did find her."

It was only when Steelshanks descended did Domeric see he had not been alone on his horse.

Behind him was a girl.

A naked girl wrapped in Steelshanks cloak.

A naked girl with a familiar face-

"That's not possible."

Domeric said as the girl was heaved down to the ground, shivering, cuts and slashes lining her pale face, amber gaze watery from the rough winds outside.

Roose paused on his way passed, as the servants around them straightened the horses, readying for the stable, and men made haste for a hearth to warm the chill from their fingers.

"Possible it is. The chit likely got lost out in the woods this morn collecting fire wood for her father. The wind and chill have scrambled her mind."

Steelshanks snorted and stepped away from the dithering girl.

"She's been talking nothin' but nonsense since we found her. A story of being cornered by a girl who stole her face and tied her up, leaving her for feed for the wolves outside."

Domeric shook his head again.

"It's not possible."

Roose nodded.

"I know it is not so warm down south of the White Knife that you have forgotten the dangers of the cold and the madness wrought by snow blindness, son. Have you not-"

Domeric met his father's bright eyes.

"That's not possible because I just left Myranda down in the kennels with the Mumbling Man-"

The Mumbling Man.

The talk of earrings.

Oh, Mina, I've been good!

The starlight laughter.

That needful thing budding in his stomach.

Domeric turned, cloak falling from his shoulders to the dirt trodden floor below, and ran. By the time he made it to the kennels, he was out of breath, dishevelled, half afraid of what he would find, and half afraid he would find nothing at all and-

The hall was empty.

The Mumbling Man's cell was wide open.

The wind outside howled.

You'll know where to find us when you're ready.

I find many things amusing, as many as I assume this castle is high above the frozen ground below.

Domeric swivelled and ran once more.

Domeric Bolton's P.O.V

Domeric's boot broke the last step onto the rampart when he heard the voice come singing along with the snow.

"The games over now, Antonin. One last step."

He turned to the noise, saw the Mumbling Man up on the stony teeth merlons of the topmost rampart, wedged between the two, feet precariously dangling over the edge, one good arm held wide open as if embracing the sky, face turned up to the white outside.

"And then I can rest?"

"Aye. Then you can rest."

Domeric took a step forward-

So did the Mumbling Man.

He walked off the rampart, a whistling wind-

Domeric thought he heard the distant sound of something like ripe fruit smashing against a wall.

A chuckle.

The not kennel master's daughter peeked over the edge.

"Ouch. Poor bastard hit the rocks hidden in the snow. That must have hurt."

She pulled back from the edge, wind whipping at her cheeks and hair, and she looked right at Domeric, smiling that lopsided smile.

"I knew you'd find me."

She went for her belt, dipping fingers in a pouch, plucking out-

Plucking out a glittering ruby earring.

An earring she slipped into her left ear, flicking the gem and letting it swing with a snicker.

"Now the trash has been taken out, how about we have some proper introductions?"

Domeric stood frozen to his spot.

"You're-… The… Myranda-"

The girl winced, moving, again, for her belt, unhooking a small vial of something blue.

"Almost forgot about that. Silly me."

She popped the cork and threw her head back as she downed the whole lot, the bob in her throat slick and sleek.

For a moment, there was nothing but the wind and the rampart and confusion, and then-

And then her skin rippled right before his eyes, like she was nought but a reflection in a still pond, skin lightning, hair coiling tighter, darker, eyes bleeding pale like two silver moons, lopsided smile sharper, wilder, body thinning, shrinking-

By the time it was over, Domeric was staring at the face of his grandmother, the eyes of his father, the smile of his brother, his own brows and slope of nose-

The girl bowed her head, still grinning, never letting her eyes drop from his.

"Wilhelmina, at your service. And you-"

She chuckled, straightening, head tilting, ruby earring glinting against the curve of a flushed cheek.

"I believe are my brother... Surprise."

Woo or Boo?

A.N: I was inexplicably struck with inspiration for this fic again after what felt like so long, and I couldn't let it pass. Sorry for such a long wait, but I do hope you guys enjoyed this chapter half as much as I liked writing it up. As you can all see, Domeric won the last round of voting for the next P.O.V, and I had fun dipping a toe into his mind. My own head canon was that Domeric was always more Bolton than what people thought he was on first glance, and he simply, due to being squired out and spending most of his short life out of the Dreadfort and therefore his father, never really had chance to let that bloom. I think given the chance, Domeric would have been just as bad, if in a different, more constrained way, than Ramsay.

On that note, as a few of you lovely reviewers have asked, Domeric does not die in this fic. I just wanted to make that pretty clear. People do die in this, but not our trio.

Who's P.O.V do you wish to see next?

As always, thank you all so much for the follows, favourites, and reviews. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and what more is to come. If you have a spare moment or two, don't forget to drop a review, they keep the fingers typing, and I will hopefully see you all soon!