Chapter Two
Tether
A servant walked in pulling Ramsay out of his deep fog of inner thoughts. She had in her hand a slender length of leather roughly three inches thick, two inches wide and two or three foot in length. He couldn't fathom what that particular item might be for, watching curiously and with no small amount of dread as Sansa took it, thanking the servant.
The servant girl turned and left the room and Sansa stood there looking down at the strap in her hands. The way she held it; one hand wrapped around one side as if to grip a makeshift handle as the other held the rest of its weight palm side up made it clear to Ramsay what it was though. This leather was too short, wide and thick to be a simple binding.
She meant to hit him with it, the way she held it suggesting the way one wields a weapon, and the way she gazed over it the careful scrutiny of a person who wonders how well such a new tool might work. She glanced over to Ramsay to see that he was smiling, and not the strained half-hearted smile of a man trying to be fearsome against adversity.
No, this smile was the sort a man wore when he suddenly and perhaps un-expectantly just realized he had the upper hand, "Poor Sansa; you think I'm afraid of a bit of whipping? My mother raised me on cuts to the back if you didn't notice the scars before. There is a reason why I am so good at what I do; I have known this pain well."
Sansa glanced over at him, holding him in her gaze while she continued to maintain that expressionless look on her face. Ramsay could almost see the cogs turning in her head as she analyzed what he had just told her in relevance to her planned course of action. And then she smiled, a darkly satisfied smile that caused Ramsay's own smile to falter.
She turned, walking back to the door and leaning out, presumably to speak to the guard just on the other side of it once more. Ramsay again strained to listen in on what was said but again failed; the distance was just too great, and Sansa was obviously talking in a tone of voice intentionally too low for him to hear.
She walked back over to him after a few moments of conversation had passed and whoever she had spoken to who was outside of Ramsay's line of sight apparently went off to do as she had asked, as he heard the pattering of footsteps distantly moving away from the door. This would be the perfect opportunity to escape, he thought.
Except that his bonds were far too tight, and knotted far too well. He struggled meekly against them for a moment, knowing before he even did so that it was a pointless and futile gesture. Sansa smiled at him as she approached, apparently having seen him struggle a bit and enjoying that he was anxious enough to try.
"Are you getting nervous, Ramsay? I thought you just finished boasting how easily you would endure what I plan next for you, and yet here you are nipping at the bit to be free…" She moved around directly behind him where it was most difficult to see. He had a feeling she did so intentionally; if there was one way to keep a person nervous…
No one liked being unable to see exactly what was going to happen to them, especially when whatever that something was affected them negatively. Ramsay took a deep breath, calming himself. He had suffered countless punishments and abuses from his heavy-handed mother; there was nothing new or unforeseen in what he was about to feel.
He closed his eyes, waiting for the familiar sting of an angry thrash to his back. He would endure this as he had so many others as a young man. But the sting he expected didn't arrive, and his waiting finally ended when curiosity got the better of him, when anticipation demanded that he crane his head back and try to see what took so long.
That was the moment that Sansa chose to strike, locking eyes with him as she brought the heavy strap down across his backside. Again she whipped him, this time also very low, on the curve of his ass. Ramsay started to chuckle, thinking that she was so very terrible at whipping a man that her strap was running errantly off course.
An instant later, as the strap bore down yet again on his buttocks he finally realized; she was hitting him on the ass intentionally! He grit his teeth, immediately annoyed. It didn't take a genius to figure out that she was opting to demean him even further by choosing to tan his hide the way one would an errant youth.
He allowed himself to chuckle, laughing after a few minutes of steady swats that reddened his cheeks and sent bolts of stinging pain through his backside, "Are you so inept in torture that you would think this a way to break a man? I find your efforts laughable." He knew he probably shouldn't push her, but his pride demanded response to her insolence.
Sansa only leaned over to smile down at him as her hand continued its steady work. She didn't seem to be tiring even slightly he noticed to his discomfort, "Feel free to laugh as much as you like now then; each instance of your heckling and jibes now will only taste that much sweeter in contemplation later when I have you sobbing like a baby."
Ramsay growled at her confidence, but he couldn't keep a sliver of worry and fear from working its way into his heart… what she said was true enough, though he supposed that if she did manage to eventually break him it would be pointless to worry about additional loss of face. He tried to focus on that fact, willing himself to stay strong.
Sansa for her part kept the swats coming, leaving his ass burning with welts applied again and again until they crisscrossed his behind in a manner that left both cheeks a haze of splotchy red and purple. The way that Ramsay was tied only allowed her better convenience for what she did and left him with a unique sense of helplessness.
Ramsay was new to that feeling; helplessness. He had always had a surplus of confidence that no matter what he would beat the odds, especially once Reek had begun bolstering his morale and ego. But now he was here… no Reek, not even Theon Reek… and completely helpless to the whims of a woman that hated him like so many others.
Like so many others, but far more capable at the moment of expressing her hate in any way she chose, even if it was to simply strap his ass as if he were a delinquent child rather than the former ruler of the castle they both now resided in. And yet she continued, tirelessly, and he could only look back from time to time, mortified.
Had he truly wronged her so badly that she would go to such lengths, to have so much stamina for the sole act of punishing him? Well, he supposed that he had taken her to bed against her will numerous times, and hurt her intentionally while doing so for his own amusement. And of course there was him murdering her child brother for sport…
He supposed he could not deny she had enough incentive to do this and far more. He started to feel the first strain on his resolve then as his mind continued to focus on the horrible and unavoidable sting in his rear despite his best efforts to dwell on other things. She was just doing it too much and all in the same place…
It was alarming that he was losing his battle against her tortures to such a pathetically simple punishment. Ramsay would have liked to say that he could courageously endure any form of punishment and still spit blood at her just to spite her, but courage of that kind took something that he didn't have.
As a professional torturer who enjoyed his work immensely Ramsay knew that the toughest people endured pain because they had something especially important to lose that they were willing to die for to protect, that only the greatest pain could rip from them. Ramsay didn't have that; he loved no one and had no code to violate.
With only his self-interest to buoy him, it would take far less time to break down his resolve when the only reason he endured the pain was to try and reduce the amount of humiliation he suffered. When one was subjected to constant, stinging pressure of this sort, though, doubts began to crowd the mind; wasn't he already humiliated?
What was the point of putting up a front of strength when all that coursed inside was fear and degradation of pride? Wouldn't it be better if he played along, if only for now, so that she would hurt him less? These thoughts and many more like them swirled in his head, products of his desire for release from his torment.
Ramsay finally let out a cry of pain as a particularly painful swat found the underside of his ass, striking the tender flesh in a way that left a searing wake that she only compounded with the next swing. Once that floodgate had opened Ramsay could no longer control himself and now he cried out in aguish with every strike she laid.
This was the next step, he realized; he was losing control. He was all but overtaken with the physical abuse he suffered at her hands and the effects only continued to accumulate as a snowball does when rolling along a snow-covered bank; becoming larger and larger with every turn. He was screaming out now, letting his pain out with his voice.
But that wasn't enough. No matter how loudly he shouted and screamed, the pain was still overwhelming. The memory that he had just told her that he could handle her strapping came back to mind, and the corners of his eyes stung with tears of rage and humiliation. His skin prickled, and he felt like it was on fire.
That fire was both a result of his humiliation and an effect of the pain where his ass was concerned, he knew, but only the sting to what pride yet remained in him could be causing his ears to heat and his stomach to knot the way it did. He might have wondered then, despite knowing that the wondering was a terrible idea…
But he might have wondered what he might sound like to another, to imagine how terribly pathetic his cries of pain must sound, how childish his squirming against the restraints that held him must look, but he never got the chance to wonder at it before realizing that he was in fact being observed. Jon Snow and several others he did not know had entered…
They had entered the room and he had been unaware of the fact due to the noise he himself was making, so there was no doubt whatsoever that they had heard his weak screams of anguish and seen his sad display as he jumped about against the ropes holding him to the bed. His memory was suddenly crystal clear on how badly he must have looked.
They didn't say anything, just watching him as Sansa continued her relentless punishments. He had made a strangled sound when he had set eyes on Jon watching him from the side of the room. Jon had purposely moved within his line of sight rather than remain behind him; he wanted Ramsay to see that he was watching him.
Ramsay grew red in the face, almost purple even, as he suddenly squelched his own cries of distress, not wanting these others to hear any more humiliating noises issue forth from him, but his effort was in vain. As the next swat and then the one that followed it landed home Ramsay could not help himself but to twist and shout.
She had long since worked him past the point that he could bear the degrading sting that single strip of leather continued to cause him, and Ramsay wondered now if that had been her plan all along; had she orchestrated calling on the others and then immediately starting on the strapping with the intention of them seeing him in this state?
No doubt she had; Ramsay continued to underestimate Sansa Stark, apparently, regardless of the fact that he certainly should have learned his lesson concerning that by now. He looked away from Jon, his jaw tightening in an amalgam of pain, rage and newfound humility. He could no longer look into the other man's dark eyes.
And yet Sansa still continued the awful rain of blows that she levied against him. He could hear that some of those he did not recognize who had come in with Jon were whispering to each other in low voices, very likely about the spectacle on display before them, but Ramsay could not hear what they had to say over the cacophony of leather striking flesh and sadly, his own feeble cries.
Not knowing what was said was perhaps in and of itself worse than if he had heard some withering insult to his character based on the show he was so inadvertently giving. The pinpricks of water on the corners of his eyes became droplets of withheld tears that only the last wisps of his shredded pride managed to keep in check.
After all, hollering and squalling like a newborn babe to the administration of a simple spanking was devastating to ones ego, he thought, but to allow himself to actually shed tears, to cry in front of these people who he loathed and who loathed him, that would be the very definition of everything he could still no longer bear to happen.
But happen it would he realized with a crawling sense of alarm; the pain and humiliation demanded more from him every moment as tender flesh continued to succumb to merciless sting of lash and his mind reeled with the sick feeling of knowing that everyone he had most recently threatened will know, even see what Sansa did to him.
He knew from many personal experiences that it was only a matter of time, once again reflecting on the dimming feeling such knowledge cast on his efforts to resist and the irony of the torturer thereby being more susceptible to torture in his own case. He growled between shouts, feeling all of the fury his resentment managed to muster bleed out into the air with his voice.
Soon enough he was back to mewling like a caged kitten, his cries sounding more and more like crying until eventually the part of him that still held onto the futility of maintaining this one last vestige of his rapidly burning pride gave way, torn asunder, and in its wake lay Ramsay the broken, formerly lord of this castle but now crying like a baby upon the bed.
Exactly as Sansa had promised it. She continued her work and his lamentations became louder for it and for the fact that he was finally done for. He imagined how he must look now, blubbering on and weeping as he lay prone over the bed, his battered ass covered in red and purple welts from the constant pressure Sansa applied.
He could not bring himself to look at any of the strangers in the room who had come to see him bawl on like a child in such humiliating fashion, for fear of what he might see reflected in their eyes of himself, and he most certainly did not look at Jon, whom he had promised so many foolish and now completely idle threats…
Did he now carry the same aspect that his own victims had shown him after many hours of what had once been fun torturous play? Did he whimper now to their ears, or cringe to their eyes the way that Theon Greyjoy had done after Ramsay had removed him of his manhood?… did he look as broken and pathetic?
This thought acted as a catalyst to his already unendurable torments, and Ramsey gave out a shuddering cry of remorse as he felt the warm hot sensation of salty tears tracking their way along his cheeks to follow the curve of his chin and drip down upon the bed beneath his head. He roared a few times in anguish but mostly he sobbed.
He was undone. Only at this point did Sansa finally stop slapping the backside of him, allowing his pained body precious heartbeats of time in which the awful stinging, nettling pain did not continue to push him further past the edge of his tolerance, "Now you will beg us to forgive you for your crimes, Ramsay Snow."
Snow. She had called him by the bastard title in front of those there to witness… "I am Ramsay Bolton, last of my line, and…" his sentence was broken by a swift and immediate reprisal. As the lash came down across his tender flesh he shrieked, his words of defiance lost to the wail of a man who must give way to great pain.
Sansa Stark continued, "You are no one and nothing, last and least of a line that ceases with you and even before you. Your father's legacy is gone and shall never rise again, leaving you as you were and ever will be; Ramsay Snow, bastard of a bastard that is unwelcome to the North. Now beg us for forgiveness for your crimes."
Ramsay choked, still feeling the undeniable sensation of wetness on his face from his very recent tears, still hearing himself sniffle like a small child as he continued to wrestle with himself to get ahold of both his body and his own mind. What she asked was something he could not give, would not give until the day he finally died…
The strap came down hard against his recovering flesh and the sharp, sudden sting of it made him cry out in shocked agony. In a way having a single blow delivered to such tender flesh after all of the rest was somehow worse than even the litany of blows that had preceded it. With horror coursing through him he came to a realization then.
He was going to end up saying what she wanted; under torture, eventually almost everyone talked, and Ramsay had already come to the conclusion that he was not the rare courageous or insane soul that would be able to absorb punishment indefinitely before the pain itself began to shape him. As a torturer he had lived for that definition.
Now it spelled the unraveling of him, and he broke back into tears, silently grieving openly now for the man that he used to be, the man that Sansa was going to effectively beat out of him. Here and now she bore his soul not only to those present but to himself, and there for all to see was just another man, full of weakness, doubt and fear.
Ramsay lowered his head, pressing it into the mattress of the bedding, not wanting the others to see what he felt, as he could only imagine that his grief was like an open book laid out upon his face. He suddenly felt a sudden strong desire for Reek's presence; not the false simulacrum that Theon Greyjoy presented but his Reek.
The Reek who had died because Ramsay had been about to finally pay the price for his crimes, the Reek who would know just what to say now that he was at his lowest, even lower than he had ever been as a child. He would have said something encouraging to raise Ramsay's spirits, and lavished praise upon him as the great and noble creature that he truly was.
But he wasn't any of those things was he? Ramsay thought as he shuddered in convulsion both to his wracking sobs and reactive jerks to Sansa's slow and steady continuance. No… those had all been lies hadn't they… contrivances of a madman that had been taken in by the sick lonely heart of a boy too stupid to realize until now.
No one was going to save him, Reek was dead. He had been dead for some time now, and it was thoroughly proven that he could not be replaced in any fashion. Ramsay was too far along in his defeat at the hands of his enemies to delude himself any further with fanciful tales of his own greatness. That of course only left the pain, and nothing to feel but more loss…
He didn't know how long this went on that way, with him on the very brink of madness, a sort of delirium of pain both physical and otherwise. The nature of torture was often that the tortured did not know when it would stop, making living in the moment of pain they were in all the easier, which was exactly what they didn't want to do.
Time stretched out, bending, warping and lengthening as every detail of what happened etched itself upon Ramsay's mind forever. The way that Jon had gazed so nonchalantly at him from underneath his serious, dark brow. The barely-audible whispers of those watching, who perhaps made sport of him, or worse, maybe even pitied him.
He would never know, as their voices were drowned out with his own pathetic cries, which could be missed by none and which he would always remember with deep and resounding shame. The brief moments that became eternities of anxiety in which he almost held his breath, waiting for the strap to fall again.
And of course the most memorable feeling of all; the harsh stinging recoil of a leather strap slamming solidly upon his tortured flesh, always compounding further pain that had long since become unbearable. He felt everything in the clearest focus, and his mind was beginning to become numb to the voice in his head that had demanded he stay strong.
So now he only had one desire really, as his id was pushed further and further back to the furthest most forgotten places of his psych; he wanted to be free of this pain and humiliation. The degradation did not become less by his attempts to hold out he reasoned, even as he admitted to himself that the reasoning itself was a slip in his willpower.
Regardless of that fact his need remained, the desire fortified every moment by the precise and slow punishments that he endured at Sansa's hand for his refusal to cooperate. He needed to comply, to throw the illusion of control aside and relinquish this final item he still pointlessly held onto, this last victory for her to have and yet another defeat for him.
The pain continued, making the decision that he wrestled so hard with easier and easier to entertain. The sorry state he was in both concerning the now unbearable pain and the burning shame made it hard if not impossible for him to even remember why he had dug in for a fight to begin with, seeing as since he was the tortured and not the torturer he was destined to lose…
What was it he had once said to Theon Greyjoy as he had tortured that poor fool? Something along the lines of "If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention…" Was he entertaining some sort of fool's notion that he was going to somehow live through this, or that he could even endure forever with his dignity intact even?
He only wanted it all to end, and Sansa's option of ending it by breaking him so thoroughly in front of Jon was so terrible that even death would be far more preferable. With this in mind he summoned every last ounce of strength left in him to muster a spiteful retort, "I would sooner die than give this cunt another breath…!"
He forced a manic smile through the excruciating pain, though he doubted that it bore any semblance of the intimidating malice he was trying for, what with him face down on the mattress as he was, "Though while we are all here why don't we talk about the awkward way your brother ran when I was playing with him…!"
Sansa hit him with a particularly painful swat and Ramsay had to take a moment to collect himself, fueling his burning need for the sweet release of death into his angry words, knowing that the only way this awful condition was going to cease was if he enraged emotional, predictable Jon into killing him in a fit of rage.
"You would have thought that the boy would know not to run in such a straight line, I had to be careful not to hit him on accident with those first few shots since he was making it so very easy. I suppose that sort of stupidity runs in the Stark family, eh? Lately it seems that your luck as a group has run out and you all die one by one from being so very stupid…"
"I mean, first that idiot Ned Stark gets himself beheaded because he's too naïve to survive real politics, and then your brother Rob believes himself the capable sort and declares war on a house that clearly outmatches yours in every way… how did it feel for you simpletons when you found out how easily my father disposed of that fool?"
Ramsay could not see Sansa to gauge her reaction, but he could see Jon, and by the tensing of the muscles in that man's jaw he could guess that he was making him very angry indeed. Fueled to go on by the success of his attempt to anger despite the fact that Sansa continued to strike him Ramsay went on to add more spiteful words to his jab.
"I always thought that was well played; did you know they started off by stabbing your brother's whore wife in the belly?" His lip curled in a malicious sneer, "We wouldn't want anyone thinking that more stupid bastard Starks would be acceptable, would we? Your brother made it easy on us too, what with his idiot's grasp on who not to break promises to."
Jon stepped forward, his whole body tense, one hand absently reaching for the pommel of the large sword at his hip. Ramsay smiled, pouring every ounce of his hate for the bastard that had beaten the odds and bested him into that smile, coaxing, even daring Jon to strike him down, and making it clear that it was his only option to be rid of him…
Come on, he thought to himself, draw that Valyrian steel sword from the scabbard at your hip and cut my head from my shoulders at the neck… end this nightmare and release me from this wasting! But Sansa's voice called out, clear and calm, "Don't let him get to you, Jon. Look at him; death would be a release and he would have you be his executioner."
Jon paused, warily sizing up Ramsay as the latter squirmed against yet another awful blow to the backside. Ramsay did all in his power to belie what Sansa said, holding the manic grin on his face through sheer force of will, pressed upon by the barrage of punishments he received to excel in this, "He doesn't have the stomach for it anyways…"
Such threats would be completely idle at this point of course, but people often responded negatively to threats, so in desperation Ramsay continued to push his luck, "…he is going to let me live as you do, thinking that he has won as you do, until the day when I have freed myself from your sad little vengeance and he is made to watch me fuck you to death before I gouge his eyes out, so that it may be his last sight…"
Jon tensed again, and for a moment that became an eternity by the magic of suspense Ramsay entertained the hope that he might still strike him down, but instead Jon let out a long, slow breath that spelled the greatest loss Ramsay had yet suffered that day, "You are right, Sansa. I won't let myself consider the notion that someone rendered so pathetic can threaten us."
Ramsay frowned deeply as a knot of fear and loathing coiled itself around his heart, making him sick to the stomach and dry of mouth, until a moment later the leather strap came down yet again and he screamed out in pain once more. They would be continuing from here he knew, for as long as it would take…
He managed to catch a glimpse of Sansa's arm and form as she lashed him from over his shoulder, peering back because he could only hope that she was beginning to tire, that the strain of strapping him over and over for all this time might finally be registering as some form of exhaustion on her. But she did not seem to be tired at all.
In fact, perhaps because of his incited words she seemed if anything to be invigorated, and from what he could see from his awkward angle she was still spanking him quite avidly, and showed no sign of slowing any time soon. He closed his eyes together tightly, groaning out his anguish against the pain and the state of things and those present… everything.
So it went on and on, Ramsay yelling, shouting, screaming and even crying as those that wanted to see him suffer most looked on. His sobs and cries were the only thing to fill the room for the longest time as his will was shredded like a cloth of rope, unwinding strand by strand; swat by hard, merciless swat. At long last, he gave up.
Sansa paused, leaning closely as she heard Ramsay mumble something barely audible and most certainly indecipherable. There was no doubt what would cause him to speak in such a fashion; they had all been waiting patiently for the moment. "I didn't hear you… you're going to have to speak up; we all want to hear what you have to say now.
Ramsay went quiet, of course, as she apparently expected him to do. Sansa was ready for that timid silence though and immediately gave him good reason to consider her command more thoroughly with several mercilessly hard swats to his already incredibly tender and reddened backside. Ramsay jumped and howled at the sudden pain.
Tears coursing their way away from tightly closed eyes and head bowed in the greatest of shame Ramsay finally spoke again, this time in a voice that was the barest of whispers, as if saying what he said quietly would somehow make it less poignant, as if words spoken softly might somehow have far less weight to them.
"P… please. Kill me." There was nothing to greet his request but silence, and Ramsay could not bear to look anyone in the room in the eye in this greatest moment of weakness, so he lay there blindly waiting, as if not looking at them would in some way make them unable to see him, the sort of thing a child might try.
But like a child, Ramsay had been rendered to the greatest apex of helplessness, so it made sense that given nothing else to do for his own tortured mind, he would fall back on this. He quickly grew very frustrated as the silence continued; were they toying with him? This brought images of what expressions might now color their faces.
He imagined the looks of barely suppressed laughter, perhaps, or maybe simply small satisfied smiles of deep satisfaction at seeing such a state in the man with whom they felt so much contempt. The wait only made not knowing how they reacted to his humiliating plea that much worse. It was bad enough that he was being made to beg at all…
This frustration easily stoked into rage and he screamed out his request in a fashion that sounded decidedly more like a demand. Surely they would not give in to demands but Ramsay was at wits end and so bothered and agitated by the whole scenario that he simply didn't care as he recklessly yelled, "Kill me! Kill me now!"
Finally he could avoid looking no longer; the fact that he could not see them and what they did with his eyes shut against the pain of his groveling was gnawing at him, and his imagination may well be worse than the truth at this point, so he finally ceded shutting the sight of them out and looked around quizzically, wondering why he was not yet dead.
Jon stood as stoically as before, unmoving and calm of face as he simply watched Ramsay's suffering, just as he had been before Ramsay had lowered himself further with such a request. The others also seemed uncaring of the sentiment, and Ramsay's heart sank, especially as he heard Sansa's voice over his shoulder.
"Silly bastard; no one here is going to kill you. Do you really think we are simply going to forgive you of your crimes and grant you the mercy of death because you asked for it? You seem to think that the only thing we want is to see you suffer but you have clearly forgotten what it was that I told you that you were going to have to do before I stop…"
Ramsay had been lost in the world of his own misery that had been created in that room with those people for so long that he had forgotten what exactly it might have been that she was speaking of for the briefest of moments, and then it returned to him exactly what he would rather die than do for Sansa or any of them.
She wanted him to recant, to ask for forgiveness. Such a plea for mercy made him sick to imagine himself doing but it wasn't much more than the plea for mercy he made by begging for death was it, asked the part of him that continued to slip with the questions that undermined his will. He could not… could he?
Ramsay took a long shuddering breath in the silence that ensued as all present waited for him to answer her simple question. His breath wasn't the only thing that shuddered either; despite the seemingly comfortable position he held with most of his weight upon the soft mattress of the bed, Ramsay shook with exertion.
Not because he had done any of the work in the dealing of the punishment (Sansa had handled that with a stalwart manner that belied her feminine frame) but because simply receiving it had taxed him greatly over time, as his various muscles, some of them muscles he had in his life had little reason to exercise, strained against his bonds.
So long had it gone on that he was literally fatigued from struggling against the cords that held him and screaming at the top of his lungs. His mouth felt dry and his throat was sore from how much, how loud, and how often he had yelled in such a way. So he lay there, in every way spent, knowing that he could not endure saying no.
The sound he made barely even passed his trembling lips, and Sansa gave him another swat, clearly tired of his stalling and unsatisfied with the volume of his complete surrender. "I'm s-sorry…" he finally stammered, after she had belted him twice more for the delay. Sansa was still not satisfied, "Louder, Ramsay… not everyone can hear you."
"I'm sorry!" he called, shutting his eyes again against the sting of the newly inflicted strapping and the humiliation that threatened to swallow him whole like a tidal wave swallows a foundering boat at sea, "I'm sorry and… and I beg forgiveness!" The room was quiet again as before, and when some time passed he looked around him.
The looks he received from the others varied from person to person; one noble smiled smugly at him, and a small girl just glared at him with the most intense and unwavering gaze. Jon continued to be difficult to read, simply watching Ramsey with an expression of tightness at the lips and eyes that suggested he was holding back.
Ramsay heard Sansa move away from him and a light tap on the table behind him that might suggest she had set the leather strap down. He let out a long, pained breath he had not realized he had been holding, feeling a deep, aching relief that she was perhaps finally going to stop hitting him across the backside.
He trembled from his head to his very toes the stinging sensation that still lingered across his bottom was so intense. It did not dissipate rapidly as he might have hoped, but steadily burned at a slowly receding pace. Still, it was a hell of a lot better than receiving any more swats to add to the buildup of welts that surely reddened his ass.
He knew that sitting was going to be difficult at best for a while, and perhaps might even have to lie on his stomach to get any rest. The thought of these two things sent another chill of heated embarrassment through him. Every time he thought he had been brought as low as possible by Sansa and her demeaning punishment, he realized it could get worse.
That thought did not bode well for him, he realized. Maybe Sansa was a cleverer torturer than he gave her credit for… as he had mulled over before, it certainly wouldn't be the first time he had underestimated her… Ramsay fidgeted against his bonds, but despite the fact that he was lying on a mattress, he could not get comfortable.
No, he thought, comfort was going to be something his captors would certainly deprive him of, he should expect that much at least. The fact that the bed he lay on was soft in contrast to his burning posterior was merely a niggling, taunting thing. He still could not see Sansa from the angle she purposefully held herself at.
Which of course was more than likely an intentional maneuver; why stop hitting him and then show herself when remaining invisible left him guessing as to whether she would actually stop? Would she actually stop? The quiet that pervaded unnerved him yet again and he silently berated himself for his own weakness.
Sansa's voice rang out, "I think you can all see that merely killing a man such as Ramsay would be to deny us all that have suffered at his hands the justice fitting his crimes." Quite a few frowned at her words, either in disagreement or perhaps doubt, and she continued, "Either way I brought you all here to make a simple statement."
All of those present looked to her attentively, but none as much so as Ramsay, who strained hard to catch a glimpse of her face. What was this statement? Surely it would a horrible thing for and concerning him, but he could not help himself at this point from succumbing to the mortal weakness of curiosity.
Sansa continued to speak to those gathered in a clear, concise voice, "I am certain that every single person in this room and many, many more who are not present bear grievance and ill will toward the broken man that lies before me, but I think myself in the right in declaring that none have recently suffered as we have since…"
There was tense silence in the room as she seemed to gather herself to continue her line of thought, "…since this monster of a man murdered our brother in cold blood before all as nothing more than a statement of malicious sport." She turned cool blue eyes down to regard Ramsay as she stepped around so that he could see her fully.
She continued to address the others present, "What I have done to this man today will be the least of the things I shall do to see him suffer even a fraction of the suffering he has caused in others, because justice demands it, the law demands it, the old gods and new must see it, and we who have endured his villainy deserve to see it."
She lowered herself, taking Ramsay's face in one hand as if to ensure that he would look at her as she spoke. Ramsay was riveted though, so the gesture was largely unnecessary; he could not look away from the bitter challenge in those eyes if he wanted to, "Ramsay shall stay with me, and I shall keep him as he kept Theon Greyjoy, as he kept me and countless others."
She stood up tall again, and Ramsay still could not keep himself from staring at the steely way she looked at him as she said those alien words, things he had certainly not expected her to say. He was so shocked in fact that he almost couldn't feel the searing bolt of shame that punctured his heart with her words.
In front of these people, no, for them to witness it was to put it before all of the noble houses, nay the whole of Westeros… she had taken everything from him, not merely stripping him of lands, holdings and title but making him as less than a servant; a slave kept for the sole purpose of punishment so that those who felt wronged by him might feel better…
The shame swirled around in him, igniting once more the man he had spent so many years trying to become, the noble he had so many times convinced himself he was or at least whom he wanted to be. Shame turned to anger and anger to rage in a split moment, and he reacted, not thinking, so shamed, so lost in himself that he could not think.
He flopped about in his bindings, frothing at the lips as he decried the absence of the person he once was, as he raged against defeat already tasted like the poor sport he had always been, "Yes keep me alive and close to you, you fucking cunt, and one day I'll…" he didn't get any further before the snap of leather on flesh echoed through the room, cutting him off as he instead cried out in intense pain.
Ramsay hissed, his breathing rapid again in the silence that ensued the sharp, clear pain he once more felt on the extremely tender flesh of his backside. He looked back over his shoulder, seeing that Sansa was allowing him to see her face now. She had an eyebrow raised, but her hands were folded over her chest.
So she had not hit him… he strained hard to crane his neck a little more and caught a glimpse of the one who had snatched the leather from the table it had laid upon and soundly struck him, ending his tirade rather suddenly. He saw a great, black, feathered cloak. Jon. Jon had struck him for insulting his sister, apparently.
Ramsay should have expected that really, or at least that there would be some recompense paid for his careless words but he hadn't been thinking, had for some crazy reason, some deluded idea somehow forgotten everything that had brought him to tears in front of these people in the first place. He felt such a fool.
This event, Jon hitting him, it was just more shit on top of the steaming shit pile that he was being shovel fed and forced to swallow. He made a strangled, odd sound that was a result of the many, many different emotions that all surged in him at the thought of Jon taking a turn at the lash on him. Every time…
Sansa spoke while his mind reeled with twisting, broken thoughts of shame, anger, pain and indignation, "Have you gotten that out of your system already? He only hit you once… pathetic. After all that talk of how well you can receive such things… but then I suppose everyone here knows you're just all talk now don't we?"
Ramsay was so red in the face he was practically purple, but no matter how enraged he was, no matter how insulted or indignant, the last strapping still lingered as a memory of the brutal sting he could surely expect if he said any of the things that might boil within him right now. Jon was probably simply waiting for such an excuse.
So instead he simply turned his head aside, wishing that he could do more to prefer silence with some tiny shred of dignity but knowing that boat had long since sailed. Instead he would have to settle for the only option he still had remaining him, which was to say nothing and appear weaker for it, though not as weak as he'd look if he protested and was thrashed again.
He took a long deep breath, trying to steady himself and hating how that breath shuddered due to the stress he remained under. His heart still thudded wildly in his chest, and he had to wonder if anyone had ever simply been humiliated to death. Death would certainly be a release from what he felt now, so if one could die of shame, he prayed for it…
After the tenuous silence had continued unabated for some time, all of the people in the room simply staring at Ramsay as he looked away and tried not to focus on the stares that felt like they bored into him, Sansa spoke again, "Yes, I thought so." Ramsay could hear her turn on her heel to regard the rest of the room once more.
"I think I shall publicly and privately spank him as one does a small child at times of my choosing from here on. It's fitting that a man who subjected others to such awful acts of pain and violence should fill these halls with pathetic whimpering and crying from the sort of corporal discipline that we would expect our young to endure."
Ramsay felt tears of shame escape his eyes and roll down his cheeks, burning trails of fiery humiliation as they worked their way unbidden across his countenance. He gasped in raw, restrained hurt at the words she spoke and what their meaning was for his future, but he said nothing… he had learned better than to speak now.
As weak as it might appear to be to continue enduring what she did in silence, he had been brought low enough now that he didn't care anymore; he just wanted it to be over. She obviously wasn't going to kill him, so he could only hope for an existence as Reek… Theon had once had at his side, maintaining quiet obedience in order to avoid punishment.
How did he become her Reek? When did this happen? When he had been ravishing her virgin body in this very room only a short time ago he could never in his life have imagined such a reversal of roles. No… this was more than role reversal; he had dominated Sansa and controlled her with fear… at least he thought he had.
But this was something else entirely, this was what he did to Reek, except… his lip trembled as the tears continued to flow as he remembered his bold words and fake spirit as he had put on a display for Sansa so shortly ago. Except he had endured far less than what Theon had and broken just the same; she had proven him weaker than that Greyjoy…
Each noble stepped forth in turn, approaching the bed so that they could get a good look at the former master of Winterfell, the former Lord of the Boltons, who's everything had been stripped away from him, leaving only the shivering, crying, pathetic has-been of a man lying upon the bed of Sansa Stark's master bedroom.
Each regarded him differently; the little girl simply continued to glare, an old man with trailing white hair spat dryly as him, a wildling approached and laughed at his face. Finally Jon approached, setting the leather strap down on the bed in front of Ramsay's face, as if to make a silent promise, only leveling him with the same serious, quiet stare as ever.
They all left the room as Ramsay shook humbly on the bed, partly due to stress, partly because he was practically bursting with all of the many things he wanted to say but for which it was in his best interest not to say. So he quietly endured, wondering at the irony of it, wondering if this was what Theon had in fact felt.