Winterfell in the snow and sunlight of early winter was quite a spectacular sight; it's what the northern fort was built for.

Jaime had only seen the grand castle in the ebb of summer but as with every Stark, winter was when the castle bloomed and unleashed its full splendour.

He straightened his frame on his horse and looked up to the Lannister flag before him, hoping beyond all reasonable hope that it would be a shield for them in the coming days.

His pregnant wife rode beside him, at her insistence; Brienne had devised this rescue operation; in like a lady and out like a warrior.

Typical.

She wouldn't stay in safety… so Jaime hoped he could at least offer some protection.

Still… Winterfell loomed.

Every inch of him prickled; this was such a bad idea.

But the great, oaken gates parted and he was greeted with the familiar site of the forecourt at the great Northern realm.

The usual flags and banners that waved their greetings were indefinably unwelcoming in their display; the flayed man of the Boltons gave the fire stained walls of the northern mansion a macabre and foreboding feel.

Jamie tried to swallow-down the shiver running up his spine…

A line of Bolton men met them at the point it came for the stable-hands to relieve them of their stallions.

Jaime had been offered assistance from his steed, but hardly heard the announcement of the herald nor noticed the entrance of their hosts to the forecourt as he rushed to the side of his wife's mount.

Brienne was barely showing to those ignorant of her condition.

Jamie knew each curve and swell of his wife's body; she was radiant with his child inside her.

Should he be this much in love?

Was is fair when weighed against his sins?

He didn't care.

This woman had made him more.

Jaime felt his heckles rise; no harm would come to her as long as he drew breath.

In the distance, he heard an announcement for Lord and Lady Jaime Lannister of Casterly Rock but Jaime paid them no heed until Brienne was dismounted and stood at his side.

Too late, he realised Roose Bolton was before them… grinning his thin, greasy, unsettling grin.

The man still unnerved him.

"We are ingratiated to have you attend our humble ceremony, Lord Jaime," Roose husked in his usual, slick whisper, "It is an honour to have a Lannister at our celebrations."

Jamie nodded, unable to keep the bile from rising in his throat… he recalled the last time Roose Bolton welcomed him and Brienne… "I trust this visit will prove more amicable than the last."

Roose looked at him with stone grey eyes, "Winterfell is not Harrenhall."

"And we are not your trophies," his wife concluded, taking a step forward and towering over the slender warden of the North, "You will do well to have the length and depth of memory from that experience and grant us EVERY courtesy."

Jaime felt his brows rise… was Brienne threatening Bolton with the strength of the Lannisters gold so soon? Months ago she would have simply offered to gut him there and then… perhaps she had become subtler in her honourable threats… or perhaps pregnancy had made her realise she needed to adjust her expectations in her ability to disembowel cretin like Roose Bolton… at least for the duration of her condition.

Roose looked to Jaime, who wanted to answer 'what she said', but gave a shrug instead.

The warden of the North let the only sign of surprise Jaime had ever seen the man display… he rose a brow…

They got to him!

Jaime hadn't thought that was possible.

But Bolton gave the slightest bow of his head and stepped aside to introduce his spawn and their household in residence before eventually showing them to their room.

And it was a room Jaime recognised from his previous stay… it had been reserved for the King and their party.

It was grand enough, for the North. Furs were draped across the walls and over the floors, the bed was wrapped in thick blankets and a great fire stood at the end of the room, taking up a whole wall.

Years ago, in another life, Cersie had complained bitterly about the accommodation as her husband, King Robert, snapped for her to shut her southern mouth…

Brienne was a polar opposite and crouched immediately by the large fire… she smiled and looked to her husband, "We are here."

For all that meant, Jaime was both pleased and concerned.

"I'm going to take some air…"

And despite the confusion on his wife's face, he left all the same, finding a place on the rows of Winterfell.

Jaime watched the procession of the intended; that snivelling little cunt, Petyr Baelish, was at the front and offering up the intended in this gods-awful union.

Sansa was a beautiful young woman; her hair was inked, raven black, but she had grown and filled as only a woman could… Stunning; just like the castle itself, in winter she bloomed.

"Lady Stark," he heard Roose Bolton greet her, blandly.

And for a long moment, Jaime believed he saw the hate in the young woman's eyes… that hate made her dangerous and glorious at once.

Jaime saw that fierce passion in his wife's eye on more than one occasion; it completely devoured him.

If Sansa knew the weapon she wielded, she was not aware of it. The sizzling energy was extinguished by a false smile and cordial curtsey as she simpered, "Lord Bolton."

"Still an innocent," Jaime muttered into the ice-wind.

She didn't know what she was letting herself in for. Sansa was learning… she wasn't a master yet… but she was learning to play the game. Unfortunately for her the teacher was Little Finger. She was in great danger.

Jaime had heard how that sick fuck had killed his wife; both Little Finger and Ramsey Bolton cared nothing for women. They used them with the same care a farmer has for cattle; they were fed and whipped, whored and slaughtered with cold detachment.

Is that what Jaime would wish for Sansa Stark. Is it something he would allow for his own daughter back in Dawn?

His blood boiled.

Before he knew it he was back in his chambers… pacing the boards as Brienne watched him.

"What is it?" She asked, "What's wrong?"

"That young girl," Jaime answered, feeling the heat of his breath snort through his nose in frustration… "They're going to ruin her."

Brienne crossed the room and took his face in her hand, "And what can we do about that?"

Gods! They were going to save her!

Jaime moved to kiss his wife… and they were lost in one another.

()()()()

Brienne had been granted an audience with the bride-to-be, leaving Jaime to tour the familiar walls of Winterfell.

He remembered watching the Stark brothers training in the quad… speaking with John Snow by the stables… the direwolves in the kennels…

In fact, Jaime was surprised to hear the barking of hounds… and wondered if any of the creatures on the sigil of Stark may have even…

No… all he observed in the dingy building nought but hounds… And the further he moved into the dark, cramped outhouse, the further his heart sank…

"Who the hells are you?" A shrill voice demanded.

The thrill of capture was diminished somewhat as Jaime turned, tilted his head in the air and fell back on the familiar, "Ser Jaime Lannister… and you?"

His discoverer immediately bowed her slender head and curved her body in submission, "Miranda, the stable-master's daughter, my Lord… I'm sorry for speaking out at you like that."

"It's dark…" Jaime offered, "I will not take it as a slight."

The girl straightened up enough for Jaime to see her face; he recognised her instantly from the introductions on their arrival… this girl before him was in love with Ramsey. Jaime could see it in the way she watched him… and the way she scowled each time Sansa walked by.

"I was about to feed the dogs, my Lord," she said, a small smile curled her lips, "you may not want to be present; they tend to get… excitable."

Jaime looked about the kennels and realised the animals had all pushed to the fronts of their cages, dark eyes fixed on the kennel masters daughter.

"They seem placid enough," Jaime observed.

Myranda's smile spread and she slowly removed a canvas bag from her shoulder, swinging it around and reaching in to remove a glistening, plump chunk of meat. She rolled the meat in her hand, feeling it a little before tossing the flesh over the top of the cage nearest Jaime.

And in that instant, the tame and well trained hounds became vicious and feral once more; biting and clawing at each other over the smallest scrap. The clamour of snarls and barks hit the winter air as loud and sharp as thunder as the cage door bowed and straightened under the weight of several heavy bodies hurling themselves at each other.

Despite himself, Jaime startled, giving the girl before him what she desired before she continued to throw the remaining chunks of meat into the kennels to let the strongest fight for food; just another way the Boltons practiced their cruelty; was there any creature in the land safe from such… people.

"A little shocked, My Lord?" the stable master's daughter asked once she was done. "Apologies for their lack of table manners… they are wild animals at heart."

"Is that how you train your hounds?"

"It is," Myranda swaggered toward him, overconfident in her belief… "you never trust a wild animal." Her eyes flashed as she reached out to trace the edge of a training whip that hung from one of the stable posts, "They are in constant need of discipline."

She was flirting, Jaime knew, the question was why? He'd have had to have been blind to miss her attempts. Certainly, that skinny little body and confident swagger had won over many air-headed fools of the lower tiers in society.

But Jaime was a Lord… a married Lord who wasn't interested.

"They once kept wolves in these stables," Jaime commented, pushing past her to head a little deeper into the building as the beasts tore into their evening meals, "and they were free to roam the castle as they willed. The Starks trusted wild animals."

"And where are the Starks now?" Myranda asked, feigning sweetness.

It was Jaimes turn to smile, "Why… one of them is in the keep, waiting on her wedding day to your young Lord."

Myrandas smile dropped and, for the smallest moment, she seemed enraged.

But the mask was back on and she had moved closer to him, "I am happy my masters house will be strengthened by that alliance."

"How gracious of you," Jaime angled away from her, "Weddings do tend to breathe romance into the air."

"And what of you?" Myranda moved before him again, purposely curving her body and flicking her hair against the light of the window for spectacle, adding a drop of her tone in the voice and sighing, "My Lord."

She was distracting him from going deeper into the kennels, he realised, and she was using the only weapon she had. This girl is good at seduction, Jaime thought… but he was better.

And being better, he could play that her base attempt was having an effect.

Jaime shifted, in order to look uncomfortable, and moved his eyes about the space so as not to meet hers in an attempt to appear embarrassed as she reached for his hand… "I enjoy a wedding as much as any man."

"And which men enjoy weddings?" She asked, weaving her fingers between those on his left hand and gazing up into his eyes… "With your wife so… full in bearing…" she sighed, angling her pale and slender neck at him in submission, of sorts, "don't you want to be wild again?

Jaime was surprised that the heat of the moment meant nothing to him. This woman… her frame and her eagerness stirred no attraction, only disgust.

What were the Boltons hiding?

Still… that tender throat lay a few centimetres from his lips, bringing them to her pulse point was a little easier than he had been expecting… "Won't Ramsey hate you to share yourself with another."

Myranda pulled him close, placing his hands at the small of her back as she pushed up to his touch… "He is the Lord of this place… a Lord who is marrying in a few days."

"But you love him," Jaime observed.

Her eyes snapped open.

"I don't blame you," he admitted, "We can't help who we fall in love with."

For a moment, Myranda looked like a child lost in a crowd.

"Do you want to forget that pain for a moment?"

She looked uncertain, but nodded a little.

"I can make you forget that hurt of being moved aside…"

She nodded again.

"Go and close the stable door."

She hesitated a moment, looking toward the door… then back to him before nodding and slipping from his hold.

Now was the moment.

Jaime lifted a dim torch form the wall and headed to the last kennel as the hounds fed…

But as he closed on the final cage he felt his breath hitch…

He saw the bare foot of a man before the owner scrambled to the furthest edge of the prison.

It couldn't be.

Jaime squinted in the flickering light as he reached the door of the prison and recognised the creature cowering away from him…

"Greyjoy?" He gasped.

Thin and covered in shit, Theon Greyjoy stared up at Jaime, shaking his head rapidly and hiccoughing, "Reek… Reek!"

The man looked worse than starved or forgotten… he was a wasted strip of humanity, barely clothed and smeared in filth.

But all of that meant less than the fear Jaime could clearly see in him. No Iron-born should have such a look about them.

He'd been tortured… possibly flayed.

Jaime suddenly realised that he was being kept in the kennels.

That meant Myranda knew who and what Theon was.

And before Jaime could finish the question, "What in the seven-hells...?" A hand clamped a damp cloth about his face.

Jaime's body reacted, uselessly trying to shake off his assailant, despite the weight he felt in his limbs as they became stone…

The Lord of Casterly Rock fell to the hard, stone ground…

Reek scrambled to the front of his cell to look Jaime in the eye as darkness closed in about him and he heard Myranda sigh, "I guess we will have to do this hard way."