Shut your eyes, there are no lies
In this world we call sleep
Let's desert this day of hurt
Tomorrow we'll be free

(s. soon we'll be found)

She remembered nights her mother brushed her hair in front of the fireplace while the stars and the fireflies partied outside the window. That was nearly a decade ago, when lady mother would sing and she would sing with her and the cracking of the fire on the hearth would sap at the mellow fuse of their voices. Sansa had a lovely voice, they used to tell, a voice as lovely as her noble face. She would grow up to be a beauty, and a wonderful musician too. And mother would excite her with stories of how the lords would queue even for a single finger on her hand.

"Noblemen would entourage for you, my sweetling," Lady mother would say, sending blushes on Sansa's cheek as red as her sunset hair, "You are such a lovely flower, and I promise a gallant, chivalrous gentleman for you, to protect and cherish you more than your lord father and I have ever done."

Sansa closed her eyes to the tear that slipped out. Mother was such a liar.

She has not been given away to a man who would see her like a brittle vessel. She was given to a beast...

A beast now with one hand tight on her wrists above her head, and the other hand gripping on her thigh.

Ramsay's cheek reddened but so did Sansa's palm. The crisp cracking sound of her hand to his face still remained on her ears, prior to the tearing of her night dress. And the room became a scandalous battlefield of slaps and scratches, of curses and biting, and even an overturning of the table which might have been heard to the last hearth. But Sansa became nothing more than a wounded, defeated pup thrown in a violent thud on the mattress: a red-faced and tear-stricken spoil of war, which he quickly pressed his weight on, grabbed the wrists which tried to claw on his eyes, and jammed them above her head. The other hand madly yanked on the remaining cloth on her shredded one, pried a leg away from the other to squeeze his body between her knees.

Helplessness dawned on her when the sound of his belt buckle clambered on the floor; she gave a cry and a growl all the same. Tears poured restlessly from the edges of her eyes as she feebly shook her head with both anger and pleading. Her wrists ached on his singular grip and her shoulders numbed at the petulant force she struggled to beat on him. Sansa was a wolf tied on both legs but despite the clarity of her loss, she still bared her fangs at him, but it immediately withdrew when Ramsay's eyes glowed with an excited, sordid glee. Her body shook on ire and dread but there was a larger sum of the latter abstract that filled her and made her sob angrily.

She could not tether understanding to this man, this Ramsay, this mad husband of hers. He was supposed to mortify the moment she lashed on him. Noblemen should comprehend when a lady was insulted, but it was diametric with him. The disgust she impaled on him seemed like a well-done steak to a rabid dog instead, thus the punches and scratches had become minute—even useless—resistance. He was staring down on her nakedness, his body stiff and chest breathing deep and Sansa knew he wanted her the more that way like she was a glorious prize. And thus he continued gawking on her: half-smiling, vexed and awed.

"Get away!" She cried—no, she snarled with a frustrated kick—after which sobbed in the end. But she got a bite in the breast as an answer instead, sending a filthy, momentary death on her. Ramsay grazed his teeth on a nipple and licked up to her neck and just below her ear, sending her chest to heave up with a stifled groan and before she could make further seditious sounds he crushed his lips on her, calming her but betraying her at most. He pressed his forehead on her neck and lined himself on her entrance as if teasing her, and with one full, dry thrust he pierced her and filled her to the edge.

Sansa screamed, out of pain, out of disgust, and out of all the ugly things in the world. In her mind she was screaming and cursing and clawing out relentlessly, but all had become a frustrated, hapless act as even when she called for the gods, Ramsay would only close his eyes as if her screaming had become a melody to his ears.

And thus her own screaming woke her up.

Sansa looked around only to locate herself not in the room anymore, temporarily free of the barbaric incidents that drove her off barefoot. The jutted, wrestling branches danced above her but she felt as if they were bending down to catch her by the hair. The crooked shadows closed in on her in all directions and when the wind made a whiff, there was the cracking of the fallen leaves as they rolled helplessly on the soil. The forest breathed in a nocturnal air and left her blinded by gloom.

She recognized her lack of clothing indeed for she was only covered with a cape she hadn't recognized whose. But she couldn't recognize anything. She didn't know where she was, or how she got there, but she only knew the familiar aching on her head. Slowly she stood.

"Sansa..." A ghostly call left her timorous. It seemed like a series of female voices chorused in whispers and screams she could not decode whence it came from.

An owl hooted at a distance and she caught her breath with a halt. Every movement left a severe dread on her and she continued to move whilst clutching the cape on her nudity. The only light she could be thankful of was from the moon and the starless sky. A bird dived above her and she ducked as if anticipating claws ready to filch her off to a nest filled with wormed human bones.

"Sansa..."

"Sansa..."

Quickly she turned back, played on by the crispy murmurs of leaves dryly scratching each other and it was there it dawned on her that the moon was playing on her vision. The familiar throbbing betrayed her temples and everything became a cacophony that swirled on her greying consciousness. She looked around, catching sight of different voices that called her name, but there was none. She clutched on the hair on either sides of her head and she began to hear her own desperate breathing speeding up.

With another turn, she came face to face with an arrow notched at her and she stopped to stare at its pointed edge.

Ramsay was aiming at her and even with the spite she felt for him, it was the sight of him that made her most secure at the dire moment. He eyed her for long, full of suspicion from the dark eyes swathed in moonlight, and Sansa could only return the favour of staring. When his arms lowered and the string of the bow retracted, she heard herself push out a silent breath of relief.

"Who's with you?" his wary, sceptical voice filled in.

She did not answer, and instead looked around with a lax head. "...No one."

"You. Lie." Ramsay's teeth ground even with only two words elicited between them. It was so bitter to the bone and he raised his arrow at her once more, making her eyes stiff. "Bring him out. I'll make him swallow his balls and gods I swear I will chain you this time."

She felt his anger sealing him in, could receive the radiating hostility biting on her bones. Right now he was a fuming, a betrayed beast clamoured with jealousy and the beaming frustration in him only sickened her the more.

"Who led you here, Sansa?" again he asked with fingers beginning to tremble. Sansa was deciding whether it was from anger or fatigue sending the chills on his arms, but she was betting on the former.

She swallowed. "I'm alone...I..." I thought this to be a dream. "I was dreaming...my Lord."

Her last two words seemed to nibble off a small portion of his enmity. He kept staring at her, before lowering the arrow again with a muffled sigh. A cold wind made its way through them and its icy fingers stung her already reddened cheeks. She tightened the cloak in her. In all honesty she didn't know what a dream was anymore, on which part she woke up, on which part she fantasized. Her head had become a marriage between reality and phantasm and just deciphering its beginning had wrecked her temples. She fell into a quick whizz but managed to stiffen herself from falling. It was then the familiar hallowing on the bridge of her nose occurred. Added to that is a stinging on her feet and her toes beginning to feel slimy.

Ramsay pulled her arm to close the distance between them, and casted his eyes on all directions to make sure they were truly alone.

He cursed. Loud and clear between gritted teeth and she fathomed he was looking at the ground. Wiping his face in slow aggressiveness, he ripped his cape off the shoulders and wrapped them around her before kneeling to touch her feet. Again her muscles contracted like a scared cat, and took a step away from him. When he rose and raised his hand, she saw the blood that smeared his fingers and was slow to realize where it had come from.

Sansa looked down. It weren't shadows that bathed her feet. It was a hot red liquid slowly coating it, coming from different abrasions and gashes that covered them. Her night sojourn had been prized with bites of glass shards and sharp stones and twig jabs, all of which she could never actualize before as if magic had made them appear without prior notice. When she looked back at her husband, she was greeted by his wild eyes which suddenly tamed. The crumples of provocation slowly straightened and she did not know why. Perhaps she had become a ghost. Perhaps she grew two heads. Perhaps her face fell.

Something fluid drenched to her lips, and she could trail it from her nose. Again the sickening bite on her brain dug deeper. She touched her nostril with frosty fingers and there she looked at the thick, dark coating, but she couldn't register what it was. She couldn't because her husband has become shreds of grey in front of her, and black butterflies began to flutter her vision to completely blind her. And there was the frantic calling of her name.

These were nights that displeased him most, when sleep was too stingy and within the first hour it has loved him, there were the sound of knight heels making a revolt in his head. He sighed hard and stiff, and sat up tacitly to await what news needed to spoil him. His wife was a big ball curled beside him, her halcyon breathing making him envious he almost wanted to rip it off her awhile.

Roose Bolton stifled a yawn and shook off the moistening in sleep-deprived eyes and wound his grey robe tighter around him. Now what could his son have to tell him at this wee hour? Ramsay was oft off his mind, he considered, but he would not be too stupid to summon him in the light of his sleep or he would be blessed with fury.

From the mezzanine he showed up, and looked down on the great hall to see Ramsay Bolton sitting glumly on a chair at the edge of the long table. He looked like a ghost down there, and Roose would have wished it to be that way. He started to descend and yet his footsteps did not stir the boy. The torch fires flickered. A rooster began to crow faintly from the distant outside.

"I have been plagued by Walda's ills and mood flights, Ramsay," Roose greeted in a protest, now near to the edge of the long table. His voice echoed in all corners of the hall. "I am in a mood for flaying if you do not give me a valid—"

"It happened. Again."

Lord Father sank. Scepticism fled him like a mist through wind and he was sure those cobalt eyes that looked at him flares with cold fear. He wet his lips and narrowed his eyes, his fingers clutched on the edge of the table.

"Where?"

"The woods..."

His nostrils flared. "Now how could she have gotten there?"

"I—she took a key off my cape, walked through the gate down the hidden alleyway,"

"And I suppose she's alone, is that it?"

Ramsay swallowed before looking away and Roose could see the glitter of sweat on his son's brow. How cowardly you look now. There was no charade of haughtiness in his son's face, only the sudden burst of worry that marred it. And father was guilty of delighting over his son brooding like this.

"She—uh," Ramsay sniffed, the constricting on his mouth concealed gritted teeth. Roose noticed the dark shades under the bastard's eyes, it were those or the deep lines under them. Has Sansa Stark kept him awake all night?

"Spit it out, Ramsay. We don't have all night."

But Ramsay bent his head instead after clicking his tongue. He slouched on the chair before pinching his temples, and sighed, long enough to have Roose absorb the vexation that shimmered in his stead. Ramsay murmured.

"What?"

"She's losing it," son looked up, bright blue eyes complexed in silent trepidation. "Her mind."

Roose repressed a laughter. Ramsay could only look on.

"What an amusement," father said, snorting awhile, "You to distinguish someone who's lost a mind, I'm startled you are troubled..."

He could see the tensing of his son's jaw as he plainly stared up at him, unappeased by the reaction.

"Said her mother led her out, wanted her to run away," Ramsay said stiffly, "She's seeing Catelyn Stark, father, perhaps you try to recall who she was?"

How he wanted to hit his son, but not there when they were alone. Of course he knew Lady Stark. All the while he has always thought Catelyn a beautiful woman too, as how he sensed Petyr Baelish' s opinion similarly. He would have taken her his own if not for the news of Brandon affianced to her, and later Eddard. When the gates of Winterfell opened and Sansa Stark rode in, clad in black and bright Tully eyes vivacious, he almost saw her mother, and he almost wanted her. Since what comes after a plucked rose is another bud of the same stem.

"And she swore she has been seeing Reek around the castle," Ramsay continued, peering down between his feet, one knee bobbing up and down in vibrations, his eyebrows crumpled in confusion and annoyance. "He's chained in Winterfell."

Roose inhaled. "What would you do now?"

The boy wiped his face harshly and cracked his neck as if it were to give him the answer. And as he calmed reluctantly, he reddened at the request. "If we could have more of the antidote, father, I..." he looked away.

Roose Bolton engaged in the strangeness in his son's gait. Perhaps he was the one losing his mind and not his wife. What an ill-advised son this is, to ask for something daft. "Dorne is almost a sunset away, Ramsay, are you, in any way considering that? And what would you have me request? To have them sail only to deliver a little antidote for you?"

"Not for me," Ramsay threw off a look of despair and anger put to use.

"You've used all the antidote to yourself on your wedding night, Ramsay, I hope you remember, to save you from passing out."

"I only want to ask for help now," the boy stood. The trembling on his palm was something Roose couldn't miss, "You handed out that drug, it was yours to merit. How would anyone know it could rob off someone's sanity?"

Roose Bolton laughed, every chortle of the lungs only made Ramsay's eyes grow wider.

"Ah, Ramsay, the great game player you are. Has she been refusing you? Ah, of course. She would refuse you." He was smirking sadistically from ear to ear that almost moistened the blue pools in his bastard's eyes. "Listen carefully, Ramsay, I've done you a favour. Would you really think I do not know what you are behind closed doors of your chamber? The whole household bloody knows, they bloody hear what you and your bloody whores do. And what would you have me do? Let the North know that you've treated the last Wolf like a dog you are on your wedding night? You'll send the houses at our gates the moment the birds have fled, you bloody fool. So don't you dare pin the blame on me the moment I handed that tonic to you. It would have been tolerable if there was an heir planted in her belly now. Yet more than a fortnight has passed, and here you are forcing yourself on her like the bastard you are. But nothing's coming forth, is it? Am I going to hear you confess impotency now?"

Roose Bolton's last words became a sponge that drained all color in his son's face. He could see the glitter on the edge of his eyes. Alas, he had hurt him again, and for this, Roose was penitent too he almost wanted to rewind the time and placate his son instead. He saw the young boy again, perhaps fifteen summers back: a trembling, timorous wimp with a face wet with tears and snot both, the flaying knife on his scrawny fingers, the blood pool on his feet. He hates me. Again Roose considered like the mantra on Ramsay's wedding night. He will die hating me.

Only silence persisted on each brick and crevice on the hall since then. Ramsay bowed and turned his heels slowly to leave. At this, Roose groaned quietly and shut his eyes, digging in anything he could say to lighten the tension.

"Perhaps..." he started, his voice gnawed with remorse. He wanted to say sorry indeed, but it was a word that never registered in him when he saw Domeric's limp and lifeless body sprawled on his death bed, with the fused bland smell of blood and bowels.

Ramsay paused to acknowledge the halting, but he never looked back.

"Perhaps you ought to take her home now," said father. Ramsay nodded before continuing on his way.

Roose Bolton had been a fool a fortnight ago too, when Ramsay enquired to take his wife back to Winterfell as per request of hers after being exhibited unharmed to the lesser lords. But he thought it an imbecile scheme as he needed Ramsay to pose as his heir in his further affairs as the new Warden of the North. And it started happening, as the rumours began to wander on every wall in the castle now: that Sansa Bolton had been wandering off like a ghost in their midst.

Once she was found trembling on a pile of hay among the stables, dirt and sand muddled in her hair. Five nights later she disappeared for a moon, and how Ramsay squalled at everyone in the castle, threatening to cut off their breasts and balls for the hounds' dinners, if they failed to present her. Only then she was sighted going back to their chamber and slept for two days as if nothing happened, and Ramsay broke. Two orphaned servant girls went missing, only to have their mauled parts decomposing on the forest. The servants said they would hear Sansa crying alone, and oft she would talk to herself. When he enquired the maester to have her be checked for a kernel on her belly, there was none. He remembered the rage that pained on Ramsay's face when he stared at him sullenly with thwarted excitement. Everything then wasn't going as planned. Sansa Stark isn't going on as planned.

And he watched his son, the bastard he both needed and unwelcomed, slowly diminish amongst the shadows that shrouded the hallways.

A/N: Truly sorry for the delay, dear readers. Have been busy for some time. Just finished my examinations, and now I passed, needed to finish this. Thank you for the continuous support! Hope I could post the latest soon. Be flying off the island for a while for a conference.

Valar Morghulis. Valar Dohaeris.