THE RED QUEEN
Sansa watched her son hack away at the straw dummy in the field, his crystal blue eyes dilated with the same fervor that always clutched her husband in the thick of battle. Those eyes...when the child had been a babe at her breast, Sansa liked to think that they were hers, her mothers, that had been passed on. But the older her son grew, the lighter they seemed and Sansa knew in her heart that it wasn't Tully river blue, but the pale ice chips of the Boltons. She knew that every time she looked at her son, she would see that monster looking back at her-Ramsay. It made her lip want to curl.
Ramsay Bolton- her husband. What a jest that was. The man was a rabid dog, not fit to sit in her father's seat. Yet, here he was, stalking the halls of Winterfell like a plague. He no longer tormented her, losing interest in making her bleed the moment she swelled with child-his precious heir that secured his place. Their relationship had developed over the years since that horrid first night. While Sansa would never face him completely without fear, she no longer lived as she used to-under his heel and in his sights. The moment she had missed her courses, he had left her for his whores and Sansa saw him go without a care. She supposed before she had been brought 'home' she may have had pity for the women he now tormented. But now their bruised faces only served as a reminder that it was no longer her that suffered.
Her son had ended up being her salvation rather than her destruction as she feared. Once she presented Ramsay with her perfect boy, she was sure he would dispose of her. After all, he now held Ned Stark's grandson- why would he still need his daughter? But curiously, Ramsay had changed after Sansa had recovered from the birth. He would never be capable of love or even tenderness, but the brutality and cruelty he had treated her prior to their boy dissolved.
Perhaps it was the politics that stayed his hand. With Stannis Baratheon crushed by wildlings, Jon Snow lost beyond the wall, Cersei Lannister burnt by dragon fire, and Daenerys Targareyen labelled as a foreign warmonger, the people were fleeing to their homes. The North, largely untouched by the squabbles of the south, were looking for a leader. And Roose had set his son up perfectly to be the King in the North. With a Stark bride on his arm and a Stark son in the cradle, Ramsay was the perfect candidate. But while all the posturing could get Ramsay to a secure spot, it took a tactician to keep him there. And while Ramsay was a warrior, he was no politician. So it was Sansa who was relied upon to meet with this lord or that. Sansa who corresponded with the neighboring kingdoms and who facilitated trade. And Sansa who, in all ways, legitimized him.
So he took his cruelties to his whores and when one or two went missing, they all looked the other way-Sansa especially. Better them than her.