The lovesick, the betrayed, and the jealous all smell alike. (SDC)

THE door creaked and there he was, silent as the shadow he is. Myranda inhaled the scent of brick and wood, and spiced wine. Ramsay had this obsession on wine as thick as his obsession on sex, but right now he didn't smell as if he was itching to rectify the need, but Myranda always knew how to set him in the mood. She knew where to touch, and knew what to say. She knew the paces of his desire and the levels he wanted. She was his favorite bitch, one reason she knew why she was still breathing unlike all the other whores he played his mouth on.

She took him all in: sitting, his back facing her, his facade towards the window. He was lax and grim together, with head resting on the knuckles of his folded arm, elbow on the side of the chair. To her he looked as if he was carved on that post, inanimate and sullen for a long time. Long enough to have the parchments on the table be blown in all directions by the wind breathing through the same window, long enough to have the candle be cold and stiff and lifeless.

Myranda picked a parchment, its seal already broken. And as much as she wanted to read what those figures meant, she couldn't. She wasn't a lady taught by a septa on how to read and play with ink. Slowly she walked towards the table to rest the parchment on. She made sure her footsteps were audible.

"And here you are," she heard herself say with a voice adopted by confidence. She was recognized when Ramsay's head turned to the side, parting his head from his knuckles. She saw him stretch his legs and rest both his arms on the sides of the chair with a sloth exhale. But he never looked at her, and her interest piqued.

Myranda moved to the window, purposely blocking his view, and looked outside to catch what keeps him dull. There was nothing there. No bare teats, no flayed bodies, no mating beasts. Only ugly hills browned by the melting snow that once blanketed them.

She pulled the covers together, darkening the room, and faced him with a quick sway of her dark skirt. She managed to pull the edges of her lips into a smile but her eyes were repulsive, the emerald in them glowed. Ramsay was caught still looking at the window as if he could see through the old wooden panes. Finally his lips twitched and he looked at her sullenly like a child stolen of toys. Myranda usually sees that look from him whenever Lord Roose commands an idea he didn't want to do.

"Is it the marriage?" she spoke, hoping he would say yes, hoping he says it was bothersome. Ramsay's lips parted but were empty of words. He cleared his throat after raising both brows. It lightened her mood. She closed the space between them and lifted her skirt to rest her buttocks on his lap, making sure it rubs on his cock. A smiled flashed on her face when his body stiffened, she could hear his suppressed breathing. This man is easily pleased, for a start, she thought. Many women can easily make him hard, but start whimpering when he peaks the excitement.

Her right arm snaked around his neck, slightly pulling herself up to narrow the space between their faces.

"We could hunt, you know," she cooed, fingers from her free hand tracing a path from the stubble on his chin to his Adam's apple. She felt it bob up and down. "Just like days at the Fort. Send the girls snapping after. She will be an easy target, with that bright hair."

She loved watching him watch her lips when it moves with every word she spoke, as what he is doing now. His warmth penetrated the layers of leather between them, and she decided they didn't need their clothes.

Myranda pressed her lips against his, boring for the start, something to make him crave for more. He usually liked this, having her calm at first to allow his animalistic instincts take over. He loved his women submissive, but tough enough to endure his grips and beatings, and fingerscrapes. Ramsay responded, flicking his tongue in and biting her lip. She felt his fingers on the back of her hair to push her head forward. She parted their lips to move hers on his jaw, to the muscle on his neck, to his collar bone. Her hands rested on his chest, and made her breathing sound desperate. She moved to part her legs and wrapped them around his waist, making sure she puts more weight on the hardening on his groin.

When her fingers rummaged on the buckles of his breeches, there she was stopped. Ramsay's hand made a grip on her wrist. Her eyes opened, interrogated at the apex. Her face, a bit messed with strands of hair, met his with disturbing interest.

No color could have painted her emotion, as to this was rare. She was never stopped, especially when her hands were on the right places. Ramsay gave her a calm look, eyes almost half-opened, face firm. Slowly he lifted her wrist to emphasize his point.

"Are you sick?" Myranda asked. He let her wrist free and held her look for a while. With a steady voice, he said his first word ever since she came.

"Go."

The realm fell on her, she felt. Myranda's face crumpled as she searched for the truth on his lips. For sure she misheard him. "I just got here."

Ramsay shrugged his shoulders without looking at her. He lifted his hands with a careless impression, as if he has just stepped on her. This time their eyes met: hers with an angry vexation and his with apathy.

"Well yes." His voice began coyly. "And now you can go."

"You can't be serious."

He rolled his eyes and sighed. Typical Ramsay. Myranda thought. She knew that look and she always waited for it when he says one of his women were boring. Envy began to spread on her veins, envy and insecurity. Ramsay raised his hip, giving the signal for her to make way so he could stand. She, with all nimbus clouds gathering on her head, meekly obeyed and helplessly witnessed him free himself from her legs and pace away.

Myranda stiffly planted herself on the same chair which Ramsay has abandoned. He once fucked her there, she recalled, with her hands gripping on the armrests as he took her from behind. She could name all the places where they screwed around. Now she stared blankly at the rejection that taunted her. This was not her Ramsay, and she would not leave without revealing what turned his horses around.

"Where were you?" she asked demurely. She could hear him lifting the tin pitcher and filling his goblet.

He took a gulp without turning face to her. "Sparring."

"I saw you staring at her," she blurted, jealousy dripping from her lips. She was too familiar with that loathing.

Ramsay's eyes looked up to the ceiling with his tongue bitten between his teeth, and exhaled. "I'm going to marry her. That involves looking at her from time to time." She can finally taste annoyance from his throat.

She paused for a while and made herself comfortable on the chair, crossing her legs and nibbling on the finger of her thumb. Ramsay continued his drinking spree, filling his cup and downing more.

"You think she's pretty?" Myranda looked at him in wait. It was a question she almost always asked whenever Ramsay would set eyes on a woman she brands as a whore. She hated pretty girls. She hated Kyra, and Violet, and Tansy. No matter how approved she seemed when they shared Ramsay's bed, she abhorred their grown bodies, their blonde hair, bigger teats and wider hips. He always made her feel she was still too young and how she wanted to have grown more for him to feast on. But right now her rival was even younger than her, perhaps two or three years and probably have just flowered, but she is everything Myranda detested, most especially her blue blood. Most likely she shared a common caste with Ramsay's previous playthings, but Sansa Stark is a diamond. And she hated diamonds, she hated them so much she is willing to bury those diamonds on the deepest pit of seven hells.

She watched Ramsay stare at the bricks in front of him, probably chewing on the wall of his mouth. He took a sip and found his answer. "No."

The fire in Myranda swelled. She almost laughed in disbelief and her nails started scratching the armrests of the chair. Liar. Liar. Liar. She chanted in her head. She could almost smack the word across Ramsay's face, and yet intended to keep her cool.

"What a pity," she mused, "If the gods could rape mortals, she would have been mysteriously pregnant a thousand times."

Ramsay narrowed his eyes and nodded sleepily after taking another sip. "She would've."

"And if you had me pregnant?"

This time he shot her a look: chafe with one eye, shock with the other. He suppressed laughter, almost spewing the wine he just swallowed, and wiped his mouth the back of his hand. "You never had moon's blood," he replied coldly, "and you don't like children. Remember being thankful you can't have any?"

Myranda's jaw gripped with the pressing of her lips. Her breathing had become shallow and deep. She remembered that, yes. She remembered saying her barrenness was a gift, only when Violet got pregnant. Ramsay was bored with pregnancy. It meant him being gentle in bed, adjusting to mood shifts, and of course, fathering another bastard. So he had her hanged with the accusation that she was carrying another's child. That day, Myranda stared at the hanging corpse, stared at Violet's skin showing blotches of red, her eyes almost popping from their sockets, red and purple at the edges, her mouth wide with dribble pouring from the tip. Her blonde hair billowing was the only gorgeous thing left of her.

And so she decided she will never have the same fate, she would win Ramsay over, she would never get pregnant. She remembered too, yes, secretly sleeping with the Maester's apprentice to have the boy smuggle leaves of Stranger's Gourd from the apothecary. It was a rare treasure, that flora, as it is known to poison the growing life in woman's belly and continuous intake will ruin further chances of reproduction. Every night she would brew and drink it, oftentimes vomiting out at the first sip. Fresh piss would have been a better drink, she thought, ruing the terrible taste that left her tongue numb for days and the walls of her mouth attacked by sores. She would cough, and cover her lips tight to not spill any. She would cry and curse until she had drank it all. And there she is now, with everyone thinking she was born barren (for she poisoned the apprentice later on.)

Myranda bottled her thoughts and stood, her next words would surely send the shivers on Ramsay's skin. She had that effect on him, and she was proud to have this power to have him unfenced, one edge she had among the other women that passed through his bridge.

"And if I did get pregnant? What would you do?" she walked towards him, never breaking of his stare, the heels from her boots patting through their ears. "Hang me? Flay me?" she was now beside him, "or lock me, and...leave me to starve...?"

She lavished on the way blood drained from his face. Ramsay's eyes grew as if she had grown another head. She could almost feel him shivering, and she was victorious. Those last phrases worked every. Single. Time.

Myranda cupped his cheek with a hand and an elfin smile, her fingers tickled by the growing facial hairs. "I know you, my love. We grew together, we did things together. You won't hurt me." She neared her lips on his ear and whispered, "I am the only memory of her that exists now. You don't want to lose that, don't you?"

When their faces parted she could see the destruction on his face. It was only that which can make him cringe in fear. There was a lot to remember about him. Myranda recalled when she was perhaps three or four, catching this boy on the kennels in the dead night when the castle of the Fort was asleep. He had ebony hair, almost long to the shoulders, but uncared for. He wore what seemed like a cape to hide him in the dark. He had no candles to brighten the way. He was thin, and frail, and she saw him crouched in the corner of a hound's cage. She was afraid of the hounds, for they seemed big and monstrous, and could snap at her neck any time. But this boy wasn't afraid. She thought at first his hand was gobbled by the dog, but going near she saw how he patted the head of the beast, and it obeyed with defeat. Then the boy picked on the remains of the hound's food. Lamb bones, barley grains, and rotting venison, it didn't matter. But he wasn't at all eating them, instead, hiding them on his pockets. When he found her staring at him, she was chilled and the air became thick with suspense. The boy slowly stood, his hand spread out in signal for her not to scream or make noise, and with a quick move he ran past her. She almost swooned but was able to watch as he was engulfed in the shadows. And so there she was fed up with nosiness, and never had expected to share his bed years after.

Ramsay shook his head in denial of the fear the spread through his body. He placed his goblet on the table and curled his fists, only to loose them later; curl, and loose, and he couldn't see Myranda smiling.

"Just go." His voice was almost cracking.

She shrugged her shoulders in defeat, and began to move. Midway she stopped, brushed her hand at his left shoulder, and picked something tucked in it. She stared at the thing on her fingers, its red color screaming against her alabaster skin.

"It was worth looking at her close, isn't it?" she asked. Ramsay turned to see what was on her hand. Red and rough. A godswood leaf. It must have found its way between his leathers when he battled against the branches. She tossed it on the table, and was caught by his cup. Its color appeared like cherry as it floated on the wine.

"Sparring?" Myranda rolled her eyes and stamped on the floor as she left, leaving Ramsay staring at the godswood leaf floating on his wine, remembering the red of Sansa's hair spread against the pool.

***"Stranger's Gourd" does not exist in the series nor the books. It's only a phantasm.

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