After arrival at Winterfell the Maester had patched me up, brought down my fever and informed my captor that the hour of need was over yet again - much to my dismay. If Death were a man then he was an asshole for leaving me in a life where everyone wished for my death. Even the Maester himself began growing contempt with the ever-growing chore of keeping me alive. Not Ramsay though, he watched with burning eyes, all riled up and full of the same excitement the hounds emit when let loose on a fox. I remembered a not so distant time ago where I could pretend to be brave whilst looking at him, faux courage and pursed lips awaiting anything he could think to throw at me. Now panic struck every time I caught his gaze, my lungs catching at the thought of all the things he may do to me. All of those twisted nights past where he would let loose and play drunken games with sober whores before slitting their throats. All of the things I had been lucky enough to only bare witness to and take no part in. By the Gods, he used to sit me in his lap and we would watch them die together. It were only a matter of time before I be the one bleeding out in his sheets for a mere minutes amusement. You didn't know sickness until you met someone like him. You could never know. Days past in Wintetfell and after a good hiding had been implored to ensure my place at the heel of his boot were reestablished, darkness came one evening and upon awakening that same darkness never went away. Not for a long time.
A small cellar. With no tell of day or night, no visits from the outside world, not a single sound of life outside of this hellhole except the occasional rustling of a hatch in the door where mouldy bread and a small bag of water was thrown through it. Sometimes, the water bag was empty or filled with piss; Ramsay's idea of mockery no doubt.
I knelt in a puddle of my own mess, sores forming all over an already broken body and a previously fragile mind crumbling much like the walls around. I could only guess it had been days or weeks or more. A punishment like no other I had endured at his hand. A beating had started and finished before you had time to process the event, normally left wrecking your brain as you tried to make sense of the onslaught endured. This, was something new.
After some time I forgot about the cravings of food and water, instead replaced by the growing urgency to hear another voice; to feel another's touch; to have absolutely any form of interaction with another life as my mind began to cave in on itself hopelessly. I did not want to die alone. Tears followed by begging followed by hollow screams that rang around me. Still no one ever came. I cried his name out in what little sleep I could manage. I cried for the very man that had put me here and wanted desperately for him to come back and save me - to hold me, shake and shame me, scream and shout and tell me all that I had done wrong so I never made this mistake again. I made pitiful promises of loyalty and subservience. I howled like the wolves of the Godswood and beat both hands bloody on the door in hopes anyone in the land might hear me cry. An increasing hysteria had built up and boiled over in that tiny, sordid little room and I felt every stitch and seam fall away painfully as I became undone in the darkness. I could not stuff the sanity back into my mind nor tie a knot and keep hold of what may have been left of my dignity or pride. I felt as if a poison had been pumped into the chamber - warped thoughts and a failing body protesting as every toxin and bad thought seemed to spew out into the gutter and then come back up to haunt my waking hours.
Crumbling walls and floors that cracked beneath my weight held me captive - pressing a deft hand along the edges of my prison I brushed scarce vegetation on the brickwork and envisioned the vinework deftly wrapping itself around my body in an embrace as the world continued to bustle around me while I fall away into the arms of the greenery. Alone.
I could feel myself beginning to go beyond the point of no return; thoughts now only a scramble of pity and promises and him.
Ghost is what he had named me. For that was all that would remain of me when he grew tired of my body, voice and mind.
The words had never rang more true.
Slumber was snatched away when the faint sound of a key turning in a rusted lock snapped me back to consciousness. I dived at it without hesitation, throwing my entire body full force at the wooden door and slamming into it with all of my woeful might. A feral noise lurched itself from somewhere deep in my throat and a foot snapped out to knock harder at the door. I couldn't bring myself to speak. I had nothing to say. No more words left to give. Desperation made the blood in my veins begin to boil up and itch insatiably, ever fibre of my being locking its sole attention on that stupid fucking door. Welted skin was beginning to crawl away from the flesh it belonged to and I screamed at the door keeper to help me. No words came out, only sounds you wouldn't wish to hear even an animal make in its final few hours. The ability to speak was lost on me. Terror turned to a heavy fog in the air and began to steal the last of the oxygen left in this cesspit - choking me out of my stupor. As terror held my breathe captive and tears flooded my vision I let my hands claw blindly at the room around. I felt nails rip back as they found wood and dug deep, splintering and fracturing much alike the sanity that had once inhabited my mind.
"Enough!"
A voice. I froze. The door opened. A figure stood ahead and yet somehow the lowering sun still blinded eyes that were so used to darkness.
"Stand up and come to me, little Ghost.." The voice was back. His voice.
For all he was and is and ever will be, in that moment I could have dropped to my knees and begged him to hold me. The words, though with no love in them were like a song a mother would sing to a babe and I clung to the echo of them as they rolled around my hollow mind. Tears slid down stained cheeks as I moved out into the light, muddying the pristine floor with every tentative step forward. Disbelief that he had come for me washed over my thoughts, yet there he stood; expression unreadable as I edged closer, one hand thoughtlessly raising itself to grasp the fabric hanging from his shoulders. It was swatted down with a hand so quick I missed the motion of it. I flinched, but steadied myself before him. Stepping back meant I might stumble into the abyss of the door behind. I could hear it, calling me, the brickwork hungry to snatch me back up and eat me alive.
"Did you miss me, Ghost?" Words like silk purred and wrapped themselves around my resolve, rooting both feet to the spot. I felt as if the world had ended and all that was left in the ashes was the man before me.
"Yes, sir." My heart ached in my chest at the words. Guilt and sadness outweighed by the truth of the statement.
The response was met with a smile and he offered a hand out as if the foul and pathetic creature before him didn't offend his very being. My own darted out and snatched up the gesture, starving to touch anything that wasn't cold and damp and covered in shit. His hands were warm and inviting and my fingers traced the skin in disbelief as he let me cling to him with the same urgency and gratitude of a child lost in a war zone.
"Come."
I followed him aimlessly from room to room around the castle as he gathered a peculiar pile of items in his arms. Had I really been here the whole time? Tucked away in the walls as soldier and servant alike went about their business while my senses were starved to death or anything other than bleak nothingness?
Arriving finally at his own personal quarters I felt the sweet rush of familiar smells and scents assault my nostrils, letting them fill me up and lower me into a dreamy calm as we moved to the middle of the room; now staring down at a steaming hot basin of boiling water and lavender. Any of the dangers that may have previously swarmed me with dread did not so much as flurry in my thoughts. No longer did I concern myself with whether this bath would be to wash or drown me in - so long as he be the one to hold me under.
"Strip."
With clothes so sodden and matted to my frame it felt much like shedding out of a skin I had since outgrown, peeling away layers of the rotten, dead fabric and letting them fall to my feet without hesitation. A bustling figure appeared at our feet and collected the garments silently, I stared with wide eyes like a spirit had floated from the floor without warning. How long had she been there? Were there others in the room? I didn't bother to look, reverting back to watching my Lord with eyes bigger than the plates at a feast - terrified he might disappear and leave me alone in this world again.
Instead he moved closer, two steady hands gripped my arms and lifted me from the floor over the steaming water. It burned every cut, graze and welt as I sank into its depths - one hand remaining so tightly wound in his shirt I may have ripped the seams if he pulled away too suddenly. Not a sound dared to pass my lips, even as the scalding water seemed to find its way to my very core. A burning bath was no feat now - I would let him lie me on a thousand hot coals if he just stayed a little longer.
Deft hands moved amongst the water as he searched for a cloth to ring out above my filthy hair. I leaned my head back and let it wash over me, searing across the skin and chasing away the remainder of my cell that were left embezzled in the wounds.
I sat still for a long time under the touch of his hand, slowly working the dirt from my skin tenderly - a word I would have never previously used to describe any of his actions.
I lapped up the gentle motion of skin to skin contact I had craved for so many moons, watching his face serenely as he worked from head toe; still frightened a bell would chime and my time outside of the cage would be up.
After a long while he seemed satisfied with the wash and rose steadily from my side, only to begin unbuttoning his robes with nimble fingers. Within moments another body had joined me in the water and as the it began to ripple around us I swayed with ease between his legs and into open arms. Two eyes burned brightly down at me with the expression that I had always thought would accompany my death; yet now I took comfort in that steel gaze. If this was it then so be it. I was ready. Here and now in his arms, bodies pressed close in the warmth of the water that hugged sore limbs and eased the pain that been suffered for so long. Wordlessly a hand wrapped around my throat and squeezed gently, a warning of all of the strength he possesses that I could never hope to match. I no longer hoped to fight, run or die. Only that he never let go.
"Remember this, Ghost. Remember my voice, my touch, my kindness. Remember you are nothing in this world without me. Remember, you are mine."