Author's Note IMPORTANT: TRIGGER WARNING, SEXUAL VIOLENCE. READ WITH CAUTION.
When Bran did not return by supper, Robb sent a search party.
"You shouldn't have let him out alone with the wildling," said Theon. The two of them had broken off from the rest of the men and were now delving further into the twilight gloom of the Wolfswood. Robb looked straight ahead and did not acknowledge his father's ward. He did not want to believe the wildling had taken Bran or worse. There was nothing to be gained from it and he didn't think her a fool. She'd been nothing but kind to the boy. Then again, Robb wondered if it had been her plan all along to gain their trust.
Theon halted suddenly. Before Robb could ask why a woman slithered out from a cluster of pines to stand in their path. He thought it was Nyssa for a moment and his heart leapt, before sinking again when he realized that the wildling woman before him now was not his wildling. Theon drew his bow. The woman seemed not to notice the arrow pointing at her heart as she stared up at Robb.
Are you missing something?" she said, grinning, holding up a silver pin in the shape of a wolf. "A brother, perhaps?"
Robb leapt from his saddle and drew his sword as he reached the wildling in two long strides. He pushed the point of his blade against her stomach, prepared to gut her. "What have you done with him?" he growled.
"Don't worry," said Osha. "We've got him somewhere safe. We'll give him back, no harm done, for a price o'course." Robb's jaw was clenched so tightly it was fit to break. He pressed his sword more firmly to her belly button. "Kill me," she said, "and you won't find the boy."
Robb wanted to drive his sword straight through the woman, but he knew she was right. The Wolfswood was vast. He could have every able-bodied person in Winterfell out here searching for Bran and they still weren't likely to find him in time. "Take me to him," he said through his teeth. He sheathed his sword and mounted his horse again, then lowered his arm to pull the wildling woman into the saddle behind him.
"Gather the others and bring them," said Robb.
Theon eyed the wildling woman. He had not lowered his bow. "You shouldn't go alone with her," he said.
Robb didn't have time to argue. He spurred his horse to a gallop and plunged recklessly into the dark woods, with the wildling woman holding his waist to keep from sliding backwards over the horse's rump. I'm coming, Bran, he thought, riding even harder, the wildling guiding his path.
Nyssa could still hear Bran screaming. She could not breathe well enough to call back to him as she choked on the blood trickling down the back of her throat. She was on the ground, on her stomach, Cyril's weight pressing her deeper into the earth. It was as if she had a mountain on her back.
"No use fighting," he murmured, his hands running along her body as she twisted beneath him. He tore at her skirt and she felt the cold air scrape across her thighs. She felt the man, hot and hard, against the small of her back. "Hurts less if you keep still," he told her, as if he cared about her pain.
Nyssa did fall still. She thought of Bran, his desperate pleas ringing in her ears, and she prayed, begging the gods to spare the boy. Let his brother come soon, she thought, let him go home. As Cyril pushed himself inside of her, she made no sound, but she could not stop the tears from flowing. She wept for the first time since the slaughter of her clansmen and, as she had feared, she could not stop. Soon, the dirt against her cheek turned to mud. It was strange, but she did not feel attached to her body anymore. She felt what was happening to her but only in an echo. She was a ghost, hovering just outside of herself, looking down at the man as he violated her, looking at herself as she cried a river.
She saw, too, from this detached place, the wildling woman slinking up behind Cyril. The man was too gone in his pleasure to notice her until too late. She cut his throat in one smooth swipe. As he grabbed at his throat, blood spraying through his fingers, Nyssa was drawn back into her body. Cyril's weight fell away. He was dead before he hit the ground beside her. Nyssa rolled away from him. She lay on her back, staring up at the wildling woman, tears still streaming down her face.
Osha moved towards her, but stopped at the sound of someone charging through the brush. Theon caught her around the waist before she could flee. The boy-lord was close behind him. "Seven Hells," said Robb, his breath catching in his throat when he saw the girl, sprawled in the dirt, her face wet and swollen, blood trickling from her lip. She skittered away from him as he approached, hissing at him as if she did not recognize him.
"Nyssa," he said softly, crouching low. When she looked at him, her eyes were wild with fear, so much that it was palpable in the air around them, "Your hands," he said, "Let me untie them." She let him come near enough to cut the rope. Her wrists were banded with angry, red welts. When he tried to take one of her hands in his, she curled away from him again.
"Nyssa," he spoke her name again, trying to call her back to herself, but she felt wrong now inside of her body. Her skin, and bones, and muscles, every part of her, felt raw and foriegn.
"Bran?" she finally said.
"He's safe, on his way back to Winterfell with the men," said Robb. He rose from his crouch, offered his hands to the wildling girl, which she did not accept. After a moment, she stood on her own. Tears still trickled from the corners of her eyes, but she was no longer aware of them. She walked back to the clearing as if in a dream. The tawny drifter was dead, guts spilled across the ground, and she stepped over him, not stopping.
Robb did not call after her. He did not try to bring her back as she vanished into the trees. He let her go, more afraid of her tears than he ever had been of her glare.
"What should we do with this one?" said Theon, still restraining the wildling woman. Robb looked to the body at his feet. The man's pants were down around his ankles. It did not take much imagination to know what he'd been doing when he died.
"You killed him," said Robb, turning to the wildling woman.
"I killed him," she said.
"He was one of your own," said Robb. The woman looked him dead in the eyes and he saw no remorse.
"Your friend wasn't the first girl I seen him rape," she said. "She'll be the last."
At the word rape, Robb's stomach seized. He had known what happened here as soon as he saw Nyssa on the ground, her skirt torn, shaking in terror, but to hear the truth of it spoken plainly was an ugly and twisted thing he did not want to look at. "We'll take her with us," he said to Theon. "Fetch the horses and get her saddled."
Theon scowled, but held his tongue as he hauled the wildling woman away. Once they were out of sight, Robb crouched by the dead man. He pried the man's stiff fingers from their death grip on the bone-hilt of a dagger. It did not belong to him. Robb meant to return the blade to its owner.
Screams spilled from the hut. Nyssa sat just outside, knee to knee with Gosta. "Is she dying?" he said.
"Yes," said Nyssa. She knew it was true. Her mother had told her so months ago.
"Is that how everyone sounds when they die?" said Gosta.
Nyssa shoved him away from her. She was not supposed to go inside the tent. Her mother had told her not to, but she never did as she was told. It was hot inside. She immediately broke into a sweat. She did not see her mother's face, though. She saw nothing but the fiery comet exploding from her a dark and gaping hole between her mother's legs.
With a final scream, and a final push, the babe came into the world, kissed by fire and covered in blood. Nyssa's mother shuddered and was still. There was a moment of silence until the girl in Greta's arms began to wail. It was then Nyssa learned that birth and dying sounded much the same.
When Nyssa came to, she did not know where she was. She could not see the sky above through a snarl of tree limbs. Her hands were half buried from where she'd clawed at the earth, wishing she could sink further and further down, past the roots of the ancient oaks. A raven lighted on the branch above her. Even though it had only two eyes, she turned away from it and was met with a puddle of her own sick. She did not remember vomiting. She saw, too, the figure of a man sitting not so far away. A shock coursed through her body, sparking her to stand, though her body did not want to listen.
"Careful," said the boy-lord, stepping forward out of the shadows. Nyssa felt no relief. She shuffled further back with each step he took forward, until he stopped, holding up his hands. "I won't hurt you," he said. Nyssa wanted to bolt and yet her feet were so heavy. All of her was heavy and sore. She wanted to tear herself apart. Her skin crawled. Her blood oozed instead of flowed.
"How did you find me?" she said, eyes darting from side to side, waiting for his men to pour out of the shadows behind him.
"I tracked you," said Robb. "Come with me. Come back to Winterfell."
Nyssa slumped against the trunk at her back. She could retreat no further. It was cold and dark now. The raven above had not so much as ruffled its feathers. No, she thought, I won't go. She was finished with the gods. She had been taken from her home because of them, beaten by slavers, thrown into a dungeon, coerced into servitude, and now she had been raped. Everything had been stolen from her.
"Come back," said Robb again. He held out her father's knife as he had not so long ago, only now there was no hesitation. "I know what you sacrificed for Bran-"
"You don't," snarled Nyssa. She looked more savage than he'd ever seen her, truly a wild thing, wounded and dangerous. He wasn't afraid of her anymore.
"I'm sorry," he said. "You're right, I can't even begin to know. If you want to leave, then I won't stop you, but not tonight. Come back with me, let Maester Luwin treat you, let us feed you. I owe you more than that. Let me give you shelter tonight at least. You'll only get lost in the Wolfswood if you go now."
The raven cawed. Nyssa winced. She glared at the bird, at the boy-lord, at the bird again. She hated that he was right. She hated that part of her longed for the warmth of Winterfell and the security of stone walls around her. "Fine," she said at last. She swiped her dagger from the boy-lord. Her hand still felt empty.
When Robb offered to help her onto the horse, she drew back again. "You ride," he said. "I'll walk." They would not reach Winterfell until well past midnight with him on foot, but he would not touch the wildling. He kept the silence with her which she only broke once.
"The bodies," she said. "Did you burn them?"
"No," said Robb. They had left the three corpses for the wolves. Nyssa looked him in the eye for the first time.
"Burn them," she said. Then she looked away again and spoke no more.