Dreams fight with machines
Inside my head like adversary
Come wrestle me free
Free from the war
My heart fits like a key into the lock of the war
I turn it over I turn it over
but I can't escape.
~Hurts like helll, Fleurie
How has it ever come to this?
He was supposed to love the boy. He may not have had any parcel of affection for the woman who conceived him but he was supposed to love the boy. Even when, for generations, his roots had been spontaneity of hateful, cruel forefathers, he found in his heart a need for this bastard he could somewhat someday be exultant of.
But it all vanished like burst suds when he lost his firstborn.
He lost Domeric; his world crashed and could not fathom whom to pin the blame. He thought the bastard an ill omen in his house. He thought the boy scrawny, and quiet like death, and held a sad stare. Roose convinced himself that locking up Ramsay's mother must have offended the old gods and claimed Domeric's life for it to lift the bastard's title. He was convinced out of own Placebo effect, and yet his unforgiving spirit manifested when he forced the bastard the flaying knife and skinned his bag of bones of a mum...and made up the story that Ramsay poisoned his legitimate child.
He was sure as seven hells confused whether he ever cared for Ramsay or not. He needed the boy, yes, but he detested him as much as he needed him. And for long all he ever needed was an heir but by chance he was stuck with the regret of having to break Ramsay in redemption of firstborn's death. If he might have just been as fair and loving to the bastard...he...
There was no point walking down that lane, was there...? Ramsay was as thwarted as a frozen ripple in a lake. His bones and flesh have healed and yet there was made a monster out of an undernourished child.
Indeed. Again the twist of mood has taken toll on Roose's mind upon the materialization of Domeric's purpled face, and the shame now brought upon him at the failure of Ramsay. Mercy faded away like snow under first summer light, and Roose felt the heat burn his eyes as he jolted another swing of boot against his bastard's stomach.
The sound of crushed ribs sprung through air, followed by a bellow, and a choking cough.
"Now you say please! Is it?" Roose Bolton spat, "Have you heard it from Domeric the day you poisoned him!?"
Again Ramsay let out a desperate wail, crunched on the floor, one hand on his belly. He coughed and sniffed, and weakly lifted himself so almost doing obeisance. His knees and right elbow, which feebly carried his weight, trembled against the carpeted floor. Roose glimpsed the red that streaked from Ramsay's mouth. He walked to and fro, never parting sight from the tremors on the bastard's shoulders.
"I didn..." Ramsay rasped before coughing. His breaths almost sounded dying and he couldn't lift his head. "I didn't kill..."
"...kill who...?" Roose snapped.
"Do...- " heavy inhales cut through Ramsay's throat, "Domer..."
Roose's mind flared on a familiar alibi and raised a knee to aim heel on Ramsay's shoulder. "Oh for fuck's sake, bastard! Spit it ou—"
"LORD BOLTON!"
Multiple footsteps tapped in interruption and Roose was sloth to recognize the angry cut came from Sansa Stark. She walked in speed with eyes that could summon a hurricane and for a split second he almost saw Catelyn in her stead. Even in rage, she was beautiful, and it pulled him off his own fury. A couple of kitchen wenches came after her with obvious fret, their eyes not leaving the floor out of shame to have conspired annoyance.
"That is enough," Sansa halted, leaving Roose's face drained off colors. "It was I that suggested the need to not push through the execution. If there need be a flogging of me too, let it be on the morrow as enough ruckus has dispersed needlessly today."
And with that she signalled the maids to run to Ramsay and lift him off his feet. The few soldiers present were reluctant enough to have them stare at each other unable to move. Ramsay grunted as he was forced from his lying place but welcomed the help. Both his arms draped across either wench and Roose managed to watch the pause that occurred as Sansa and Ramsay faced to face before the young wife stiffly instructed, "Take him to my chamber. Quick."
The wenches were red as beets, having to move step by step whilst Ramsay limped past Sansa. She followed their lead and Roose Bolton was unsure of how he'd have to treat matters with Sansa Stark too. If it were her that convinced Ramsay to forgo Lord Glover's beheading, she's gone mad. Perhaps she was stupid after all, and he wanted not to believe it. Contemplating off, he was mesmerized as she started to exit simply as if the scene was a mere spectacle of light bearings for her.
"Lady Sansa, this is an insult," Roose seethed, "You could see I was disciplining my son."
At this he marked the pause that pulled Sansa's heels on the bricked ground and her skirts in a bounced twist. She turned her head to meet her eyes with his, and he absorbed the strange bolt that radiated from them. They were outrageously blue...and wintry.
"No, Lord Bolton," she spoke in volumes that almost sent a chill under his skin. "You're humiliating my husband."
Roose tightened his lips. His ears caught an unfamiliar ringing of shame coming from inside him. Has he underestimated the effect that Ramsay have had on her...? Was it possible she could have, at the least, dug a spring of affection for the bastard no noble sane woman would tie down with? It was...impossible. To hear husband addressed in defence to a mad dog.
"How could you, Lord Bolton?"
Roose swallowed. He could not remember seeing the details of how Sansa turned to face him fully. Her face was stiff and all traces of softness dried out of her.
"How could you...?" she narrowed her eyes in despair and incense, "...Blame him for being a bastard as if it were his choice...?"
Bolton's lungs turned to stone. He looked to the side to catch Small Jon's quick evasion of eye contact. And for the first time shame rained on him like arrows that shielded the sun, which all made sense now that Sansa left the room.
Sansa held the bricked walls at once she left the scene behind her. She shook her head to rid of the sudden dizziness out of pure anxiety. She couldn't deny that courage demanded voluminous adrenaline which dried out her throat and made her wonder how she has ever done that. Allowing a few blinks and a deep breath, she moved to catch up with the wenches who were quite quick to drag Ramsay from his father's scorn. Ramsay's boys kept eyes on her and never flinched a muscle, which she was quite thankful. And yes, she was thankful by luck those kitchen wenches came passing by her while she dropped eaves and wept dutifully for her husband's shame. But then she saw in a distance the same wenches returning to the kitchens and was amazed by how quick they were to carry her husband towards the stairs. Unless they had some help, which was likely.
She memorized lanes to her tower, flowing through people like a deep stream, towards the entrance to the winding stairs to the chamber, and suddenly halted.
Up ahead Myranda was clutching onto Ramsay like a protective vulture, a sight which temporarily handicapped Sansa's rush. She heard the kennel girl whispering as both of them took a slow step up. Although the whispers were undecipherable, a tiny tendril of discomfort lodged through her heart.
"Thank you, Myranda,"
The kennel girl twisted her head and meantime spewed shock. Sansa noticed the widened eyes that sparkled shame as if she were a mistress caught...although it wouldn't be distant by the fact they had been...Sansa relieved the thought.
"Let me take it from here," Sansa stretched her neck towards the door that was near to appearing above them and called loud enough to stir the bed maids on her room, "Tara! Wendyl! Down here now!"
It took bleak seconds before the two shivering young girls descended and Sansa gave them the leave to continue carrying the half-conscious Ramsay through the chamber door.
Sansa stared at the frustration that pooled around Myranda's emerald eyes, and waited until the kennel girl wilt in shame when they were the only ones left in the staircase. Silence dawned awhile and it hadn't crossed Sansa's mind to open lips first. Myranda took this message and smiled the familiar dog's grin which made Sansa only want to frustrate her further.
"I see you've..." Myranda swallowed, "moved beds..."
Sansa could only look on, "I did."
Myranda pressed her lips to suppress another fake smile, and sensing the agitation of her presence, she finally curtsied. "It is a nice place, this chamber. Well-hidden."
Sansa's eyes narrowed. Matter-of-fact she wasn't sure of the intent of the words. Well-hidden. Could it be that Ramsay and her...she cursed silently and begrudgingly smiled. Myranda emanated a perfume of jealousy which Sansa clearly smelt clinging around a whiff of the kennel girl, especially when she passed across her to make leave.
"Myranda," the she-wolf spoke. She heard Myranda's footsteps halt and turned her neck so half-her face could see the other. She opened her lips to continue, "That would be the last I'd ever see you with Ramsay again."
She heard the sharp inhale that came from the kennel wench, and Sansa was determined to take it as a yes to her command. But she needed to make sure Myranda was listening by knife's edge. "Do you understand?"
Myranda nodded without ever meeting the eye, before moving out. "Yes, milady."
Sansa felt a heavy weight lift off her chest as she breathed in and stepped up towards the agape door, brooding secretly of what ever might have pushed those words out of her mouth. Now where did that come from...?
She pushed the door open, only to find Ramsay perched on the edge of her bed, and the bed maids staring at her silently screaming to be released. She waved them off, and sensed how happily they obliged scurrying away but she let one of them return with a bath rag, and a basin of tepid fresh water.
The sound of flame cracked crisply on the hearth; the smell of potpourri stalled from the window. Sansa found herself suddenly ashamed to have carried Ramsay all the way here without ever speaking a word to him. The bastard is in shock, she reckoned, seeing him sulking as if his soul had floated away like Helium. She walked towards the front of him, still bland on the familiar silence that always maimed her when he was around. And her heart poured out for him despite the disgust that once callused her mind.
A firm hand jutted out of her and stiffly caught Ramsay's loose jaw, and an odd power surged through her at the sight of his fallen face. It was in that she read his bright blue eyes like an open book which undressed the real Ramsay Bolton: the scared, rejected boy who will never be good enough for his father. Her tormenter and raper was now the timid child in her hand, and she was roused with feelings of glee. She could slap him at that minute. She could laugh at him for all she cared, or beat him up unrelentlessly with the confidence of him not fighting back. She could put out his eyes and he would only scream and crumple at her feet as blood and pus would stain the rim of her dress. She could find redemption from those wild nights he gave her, from the shreds he made of her dresses and a much deeper shred between her sore legs, from the stinging on her tender, purple-blotched breasts. She could fucking kill him. Now.
But Sansa was convinced her muscles were drained even when her pupils dilated into small pools of excitement. She could not make a move at his stature; she could not take advantage of his weakness. Instead there was the unsolicited mercy she cursed. Ramsay was a puzzle whose only missing piece was affection. Earnest, warm, blood red rose affection.
Ramsay Bolton...she tagged him in her mind as her hardened, indifferent eyes punctured through: Ramsay Bolton, the boy who was forced to kill his mother.
"Stop it." She heard herself command. Ramsay looked on up at her as if she casted hypnosis. "You are every inch a Bolton. Stop snivelling." Her grip on his jaw tightened but Ramsay did not flinch. And how she loved his look, this must have been what he felt when she looked at him pleadingly as well.
"What you with Lord Glover was not, in any way, stupid." she continued, suffering from questions of why her mind had raced opposite her lips, "You did what was right, it is time your father ought to know. A Bolton can be merciful."
The words were bitter on her tongue. It was like drinking bile from a chamber pot. She saw the bobbing up and down of his Adam's Apple. And Gods she swore she felt moist between the legs when his eyes presented confusion and his lips gaped below her. She loved to hurt him, yes, but she wanted to give him that missing piece too. And oh it would hurt her to the core but such hurt would heal her as well.
The door behind them creaked open and the bed maid Wendyl stood shivering. Sansa turned to her, had the basin rested on the table, and relieved her again. She rolled her sleeves and in a while her thoughts spirited away to the night her mind had been playing sport on her and considered herself insane, and Ramsay had been gentle to her as he wiped her bloodied feet. It was hers to return the favour...awkwardly.
Sansa twisted excess water from the damp rag and walked back to Ramsay. This time he didn't look at her, and she took it for penitence that his wounds were finally exposed to her. Sansa swallowed and gripped on to the battling emotions in her head. She could avenge herself and it seemed he wouldn't care dying this time, but this was the same man—monster—who made love to her intensely she wallowed in an imaginary home. She exhaled and bent slightly to wipe the hardening blood on the edge of his mouth and he didn't flinch until it was clean. But when she went for his soiled brow, her hand paused at his sullen voice.
"I didn't kill Domeric..." Ramsay spoke and Sansa wet her lips as she continued to wipe of the dirt on his temple.
"He died of an illness, Ramsay, don't be sore. 'Twas the news that arrived here...when..." She stopped at the familiar melancholia that stabbed through her at the memory of when everything was well here at home, a time when Father received the dreadful news of the Bolton heir deceased.
Ramsay turned his head away, prompting Sansa to stop and straighten her gait. There was so much sadness in him she had never seen before, and she wanted to share him hers too, as they could hurt together.
"He killed himself,"
She remained frozen. Even the damp rag on her hand seemed to have been plunged on a frozen sea, but still managed to squeak, "...What?"
"He didn't welcome the life Father wanted for him, he..." Ramsay stared at the nothingness before him, "...wanted an idyllic living...books, and horses...he would have wanted to be a Maester, he oft laughed at saying."
"They've had troubles too, settling it...but Father was too stiff and wouldn't listen..." he swallowed, "...and one night he tucked a book under my pillow before I could even wake up...and the morrow he was ill. No one was allowed to see him except Father and the Maesters. It was a matter of hours before he died."
"What was on the book...?" Sansa queried, finding herself curious as if it were Old Nan telling her the story of Jonquil and Florian. She perched herself on his left and kept staring despite him not reciprocating the sight.
"His note to father, through me,"
"You should have shown it,"
"I did," he confessed with a voice becoming dubbed with bitterness, "...but turned out it was evidence against me, that I wrote it. No one discovered what he ate, nor drank...all I knew back then was that I had a brother, then I became the murderer of that coward of brother...and a wretch of a mother."
Sansa swore she heard her heart burst, and in the midst of the gauche conversation she took him by the neck and gently laid his head on her shoulder before hearing him sniffle.