My thoughts
Your nakedness besets
My fantasies
Your lechery buffets...

~juddbryl

DAWN turned up crispier and colder as if the Stranger was paying them a visit, and is resolved to be the castellan of the place. Snow has spread across the ground, prints of booted feet and hooves messed on the surface. He tugged the bridles of the great brown courser which was calm with obedience, ears flicking and black eyes sleepy. His cape had become a nuisance. He had been shrugging it off the shoulder many times. Pausing to fix his gait, he stared at the walls of the castle, breath spewing a thin fog, eyes unsure where to turn next. This Winterfell is bloody huge, he thought, these stone walls, a labyrinth of baileys and courtyards, towers and tunnels spreading in all directions. He needed to map out this place and stick it under his nose to not get lost anymore. Or perhaps he was the one too ignorant about castles, not having born nor bred in one. He was once a wilding.

Nothing is as vapid as being born to a woman too young to conceive and too young to have died in that childbirth. She was only ten and six years, flaxen-haired and deep green eyes and beautiful, so they say. She never named a father, but rumours spread she was raped by an Other during the dead of night. Some mouthed it was a wolf, and in another verse, the spirit of a self-destructive Thenn she rejected: the product being a boy with dirty gold hair and eyes of strange indigo. He suckled on the nipples of a nursing spearwife for six months, and goat's milk for the rest, passed on from a spearwife to another to care for, as none would want to own a boy believed to be a child of black magic.

At three he was running, constantly bruised and bleeding and scarred at the knees. Five was the age when he mastered speaking. At eight, he had his first kill: a young elk with one broken antler, one he had tracked for a day and a half, wounded at the belly on first contact, and slashed in the eye upon the second. He was proud to drag it back to camp, scrawny fingers warm with excitement, but only held a piece of the leg as a prize for the catch. And as he nibbled on the meatless bone he was sure he wanted to run away, envious and wanting for a world beyond what everyone calls The Wall.

At eleven he has seen it, that huge barricade of steaming ice, and his interest peaked upon knowing there is life beyond that wall, a life peculiar and disgusting among the free folk. But he was wanting to be part of that peculiarity, to start over as a blank slate, even if it means scorching his chest with the word deserter with a hot branding iron. So at thirteen started to trek in secrecy but a snowstorm caused such white blindness and forced him to return. At fourteen he courted luck but was tracked by villains his people named the Crows. An arrow slid across his arm at the chase, and he needed to have it be mended by the crones of his place.

At fifteen he succeeded breaking free and crashed himself on a small hamlet after two fortnights of running, ears purpled at the edges, lips and skin cracked with dehydration, fingers and toes nearly bloodless. If not for the small old man with a turnip garden and a fat milking goat, he would not have made it this far. He stayed and fed with the grandfather, was taught the life of a baseborn man, and adopted such living. He learned of the great houses, their ways, their clothing, and their addressing of lords and ladies. Unlearn your wilding ways then, the old man repeated. He would consent. To feed them he would hunt, but sport in the grass was few: hares, sometimes squirrel, sometimes owl, and rarely a boar with itching tusks. He stayed for three and a half years until coming home to the old man who fell and broke his hip, abandoning the control on both feeble legs.

They came to a halt, the horse and he, to find the beasts' mate where they left her with his archer paraphernalia. It was a white mare ready for breeding, and he was about to take both to the stable keeper. But something else was there, a tall figure hooded in black and back facing him. He came to know it was not something but rather someone. And it was a girl. She has long fingers, pink at the tips, and gentle. He could tell by the way she touched the jaw of the animal, and how the mare responded to her enticement. She soothed the horse with bland hushes while patting its mane as if she had been its master.

"Careful now," he called out heartily and she turned with hands letting go of the horse's neck. It gave out a soft neigh and a twitch in the tail. And he almost saw the sky in her eyes. She had a pale face, cheeks flecked with pink, and lips limned with warm red. The hood concealed her hair, making her look strangely mysterious and he was quick to admire. When he was still far beyond the wall, the only beauty that struck him was Val, Mance's sister-in-law. She had fair skin, too, and hair as bright brocade, and no one dared to carry her off because she was more than skilled with her daggers.

The hooded girl was still eyeing him as he approached with the courser, and he was pretentious not to look delighted at the sight of her.

"She gets pretty cranky when hungry," he was finally beside her and placed a hand between the female horse's eyes whilst looking at them too, "haven't been fed since twilight."

She was silent, but he perceived she was either a good listener or a mute, but neither can make her less pretty.

"She's yours too?"

He paused, partly glad she responded, partly warmed with her voice. It was like butter melting on warm baked barley. She was referring to both horses.

"Perhaps," he answered and again pulled on the bridles of the courser as if to introduce it to the mare, "found her on the woods some time before, and she's to be married." He meant it as a jest, but the way she flinched at his last word told him it wasn't funny, and the smile on his face wiped out. He cleared his throat as if to unsay everything. But was glad she saved him from the embarrassment.

"She's beautiful," the girl said, stroking the mare's back where a saddle should have been. He slowly turned his face to her, seeing how much she was captivated by the beast, and pulled back the gentle smile on his lips.

He was still looking at her when he spoke, wanting to talk of the mare but wanting to refer to her as well. "She is."

But then his smile disappeared when he saw the strange figure peeking through the posts of the parapet behind and above them. He recognized the creature: grimy and foul-smelling, with skin deprived of a bathe for what seemed like a year, plagued with rashes and boils, rags mucked with mud and shit alike. They had the same straw-colored hair but differed in hygiene. Stories say he was once a lord of someplace called the Iron lands—islands, he couldn't remember well. This one was punished—Dreadfort way—for the betrayal of the lord Stark, a name he'd been hearing since he was young, a powerful one. But this one was said to have murdered two Stark boys, one cripple and the other a toddler, and with these backstabbings he lost almost half his fingers and toes, his cock, and his lordship; now only sleeping in the kennels, skin-and-bones and lice-infested and ugly.

Many of them would have wanted to take its life out of mercy, instead of seeing ittrembling and timid in fear of Bolton's merciless son.

When they locked eyes, the creature immediately cringed and left as if he was thrown an arrow.

The girl, sensing her company's attention had fluttered to somewhere behind her, turned her back to see what lurked there but only saw an empty parapet. He sliced away the distraction and paced back to where they were. He would probably just bid her farewell for a stable keeper who was waiting for the horses. But in his mind he wanted more time to linger.

"What's your name?" he asked.

She stared at his eyes and the familiar awe caused spasms under his skin, but it felt as if she was looking deep into him, looking for assurance and trust—with fear. It was just a name he asked, what would make her doubtful?

It took a while before she answered with lashes lowered, "Sansa."

It set him faintly smiling. "It suits you."

"And you?"

"Arym."

Sansa slowly nodded with lips parted, as if saying a small and silent aah. "Sounds like Arryn."

He gave a small laugh, "The vale? I—I don't belong to any house."

Silence reigned, and Arym figured it did because she was looking at something that sparkled in his chest. He took it between the fingers and she flushed realizing she was caught looking below his neck.

He took it off above the head and handed it to her for inspection, returning the favor of saving him from embarrassment just a few heartbeats past. Sansa stared at it, and to him, and back to it again, unable to decide whether she was too nosy of jewels the way normal girls have been. The way she had been before. She took it with a light nod of gratitude and eyed the jewel. It was as small as her thumb, but heavy for its size, had an irregular shape but resembled more of oblong, part of its surface rough, partly suave. But it was the color that intrigued her: for at first sight it would be black, but a twist under light turns it into an ombre of purple and gold. It reminded her of sweet dreams and star-studded night skies, of poisoned wine and grape candies.

Arym could sense that she was almost breathless, and almost conspiring to never return it instead. She could even see her reflection, minimized and distorted, but it did not alter her ache for it. He was smirking, for it was almost always what he sees with someone who sets eyes on it. But he was not ready—perhaps never—to hand it over.

"What is it...?" she heard herself say, and decided it was stupid to ask. She had given away the hint that she wanted it for herself.

"I'm not sure myself,"

"Is it from your wife?" Sansa pulled her eyes from the jewel and looked at him.

He chuckled, "I don't have any."

"A lover?"

He shook his head, half-smiling.

"You found it?" she was determined to know.

"Mifather did,"

Sansa wet her lips, and looked at it again, angry purple against her fingers, "Seems like your eyes,"

"So he said,"

"He must have loved you too much to give it,"

"I'd like to think so."

"Where is he?" Sansa turned to him. And all this time he noticed he was just looking at her, recounting every word she was saying, painting her in his mind, asking himself what color was behind her hood. And at her question he felt the sullenness provoke.

Sansa was abashed. "I'm sorry," her voice was small and trembling.

"Don't be," Arym consoled. The courser moved back with a grunt and a neigh, and he hushed it as if it was a baby off its mother's arms. "It was a fall. Broke his legs, and fevered him. He wasn't truly mifather. He had a daughter. An' I learnt it only when he was almost dying."

The last word was harsh, he acknowledged, but dark words were dark words no matter how it was said. "That was hers."

Sansa swallowed. He sensed she wished to learn further. And it would be the first of time he was to reveal to anyone that old man's melancholia. He kept brushing the horse's neck, not wanting to see her saddened eyes for it might drown him into emotions as well.

"Said it was Valyrian. Glass or steel or stone, anything Valyrian is magic. She loved it, but was in love with a farmer's boy as well, which Father did not approve. So she ran off and married. But she returned. Ruined and pregnant."

His fingers welcomed the chill that started rummaging through his veins, "Said their house set aflame, and herself ravaged under the tree her husband hanged lifeless. The cause: being married without consent."

Sansa was almost choking back shock, he sensed, but it was alright, he wanted to say, he felt the same when he saw how the old man trembled weeping on his death bed. But this is as far as he can reveal; he still doesn't know her quite well. She might be beautiful, yes, but like perfume: fragrant but poisonous, she might be corrupted too.

"Whose consent...?" she asked. Arym can feel the fear underneath her seemingly brave voice. At her question he merely shrugged, the answer at the tip of his tongue and he looked away as he lied to not know of it.

"What happened to her?"

He thought of it awhile. It wouldn't hurt to give her more, would it?

"She told her father many times to go to the man who forced into her, and many times he wouldn't let it. But she fled the night she gave birth when her father was still asleep, leaving a note she birthed a boy, and with that note, her necklace. It was a promise that she would be back, to give it to her son," he earned the courage to look at her, face sombre and sullen, "She never came back."

A cold breeze touched them like Death's breath, trickling on his hair, waving on her hood and cape. He saw no tears in her eyes, but it was evident on them that she was taken over with pain. If she had turned afraid, she was good at hiding it.

Sansa brushed her thumb at the surface of the stone, sheen on her fingers. She could still see her minute reflection.

"Seems to call out to you, is it?"

"Yes, like she's trapped here," she spoke without ad lib, and it seemed too, that the stone was pulling out words from her mouth she wasn't meant to be saying, "Anything Valyrian is magic, you say, and some are cursed. It is a cursed place."

He was taken aback but unafraid. And he can more than agree with her. There was uncertainty in that jewel, something spectral and sacrilegious. And unlike all those who have seen it before her, Sansa had eyes that delved deeper into its psyche, into that bitterness that rooted within. And he has not mentioned how, one night he woke inside a burning house, but was invincible of the flames. So he walked along like a ghost, and fearless too, and he heard a woman screaming, leading him to the lone tree in a hill, with a man kicking the air as he was hanged to his death, and the woman helpless below him as she was stripped off and ravished. And he saw the face of the man that did it, taking pleasure as he plunged into her, again and again, gagging her mouth so she could keep the screaming to herself. Another night he woke at a tugging in his arm, and opened his eyes to the same wronged woman. She had turned bony and pale, her eyes sunken. He could see the hallows of her skull. Most of her hair had fallen out. He slowly sat both with pity and fear, assuming she might grab his neck with black and bleeding fingernails. Help me, he read on her cracked lips. He shook his head, wanting to know how he can, and it was the horror that filled him when she raised her arm tight between her teeth and pulled away a lump of skin and blood. Much as he wanted to stop her, she was untouchable. And in both occasions he woke with a scream, dagger tight on his grip, fiercely breathing in angst. Sweat heavily dripping even in a terrible storm.

That stone lives, he wanted to blurt out, but restrained himself from moving Sansa's adoration to disgust for the jewel. It wants to murder her raper and be with her son.

And so here he was, in the Bolton sanctuary, in a nest of vipers.

A snowflake landed on Sansa's shoulder. She looked at it and both eyed up to meet the sight of more flakes descending on them. The horses stirred, but it wasn't of the snow, but of company flowing in.

Arym was disturbed to have sensed the prickling on Sansa's skin. It was as if she knew the people looking at them even without seeing them. They turned to meet the gazes to two men, one with a long and callous face, covered in long black hair from head to beard, to match his dark leathers. They call him Small Jon. And the other, generally known as his master and heir to the now warden of the north, was looking at him plain and staidly. His cape covered half his body, partly revealing the tin crest of Dreadfort, the flayed man on a cross, strapped in leathers on his broad chest. Arym was first to move.

He bowed in memorized acknowledgement, "Lord Bolton."

The lord he addressed gave a nod in return, and when his eyes moved to Sansa, his straight lips reformed to a smile, but too obvious that it was faux. He walked under the snow, with Small Jon following behind, their hair and shoulders being studded with white.

"You shouldn't be out here," Ramsay Bolton announced, condescending, "you could get sick."

Arym saw how Ramsay's gaze travelled from Sansa's eyes to her cheek and left stuck on her lips. He was sure the young lord is captivated, who would not be? Even in her hood and cape, her face was more than enough to attract an army.

"I needed some air." Sansa's voice was small again. Ramsay strode his eyes back to the man who had been with her, "Arym,"

"Yes milord." It indeed wasn't the first of times Ramsay had spoken to him. Arym had military craft, handsome and graceful as a knife at nineteen, liable to train and command archers. He would have made a valiant knight, or a tasteful lord, had it been he was born in the realm.

"I thank you for keeping lady Stark company. She is quite lonely sometimes," Ramsay introduced, "My betrothed needs people to help her get used to the strangeness of her home."

Arym's mouth parted, eyes stupefied at how he had been too careless with the way he dealt with her. Lady Stark. It was almost impossible. He heard the name quite a hundred times beyond the wall, that the Starks had wildling blood flowing in them. Immediately he bent knee, face apologetic and specked with shame, "I—I'm sorry, my lady. Had I known...it was shameless of me..."

"It's alright," Sansa cut off. "It's alright. I don't mind."

Arym straightened himself, still unable to look at the lady, unable to melt the shock dribbling on his mind. She was flushing as well to have placed him in an uncertain situation, and would have wanted to apologize but knew it would drag them to a quarrel much sooner.

Silence took over and Arym could fathom the pressure on Ramsay's look. If it were air, he would have suffocated. He knew the cruelty of the man, from the way he took joy in peeling skin off innocents and enemies alike, and on what how he mutilated that creature he calls Reek, piece by piece. He was half expecting Ramsay would command Small Jon to have him thrown in to be whipped out of disrespect to his lady. And then he thought of Sansa, to have been engaged to this animal wrapped in human skin. It was like giving a lamb to a lion, like forcing a crow to a dove.

He saw how Ramsay raised Sansa's chin with his thumb and forefinger, "My lady is merciful," he smiled, "I'll take you back from here then. I wouldn't want my lady catching the cold." He moved his hand from her chin to her cheek, "I have a wonderful thought, my love. Would you want hear it?"

Sansa silently nodded, looking back at him.

"Perhaps we should dine tonight, don't you think? With my bannermen and commandants of the army. It's high time I proclaim our engagement." Ramsay strode his eyes to Arym, blue against indigo, half-smiling, "Men are beginning to think you are free to be claimed."

Sansa turned to Arym with a quest to defend. "Arym was only—"

Ramsay's lips were over hers before everyone could protest. Even Small Jon was backed. Arym subdued a breath at the sudden exhibit and looked away. He remembered the necklace was still in her grip, but was wise to not ask for it. There will be another chance.

When Ramsay parted from Sansa's face, he brushed the rosy color that pecked on her cheek. "You were saying...?"

"Nothing, my lord." She looked down, flushed and silenced and cleared out she need not say what she was meaning to.

"Tonight it is, I do have a gift for you," Ramsay waited for a nod from Sansa. When she did, he gently pulled her close and kissed her on the forehead whilst aiming a look at Arym. Acrid and perilous, close to hostility as a starving beast.

It was a warning clear as daylight.

It gets longer the further. Welcome to my world.

-Athenares