Lady of the Dreadfort

I. To Earth, We Have Yet to Come

The flesh would peel faster if the mind was weak.

That was what her father always told her, from a very early age.

Feeble people deserved what they got, to be eradicated.

No fear; no mercy.

Her first words had been simple.

A flayed man holds no secrets.

Rina was running. Running as if her life depended on it. Through the woods of ever-weeping weirwood trees, branches cutting bloody lines across her arms and snaring snippets of her dress, she cursed herself for coming out of doors so ill-prepared. Winter was upon them, and her suede ankle boots sank heavily into the mud, impeding her retreat. The sun slung itself low in the air; night would come fast, and with it all sorts of terrors. Massive elk, shadow cats, perhaps even a direwolf strayed south of the Wall. Nighttime in these woods meant death, whether it be man or animal that was wont to slaughter.

Faster, faster now. Don't look back, he'll get you if you do. Faster, faster, fa-

She tripped over a low-lying log. Sprawling ankles over head she tumbled, ripping the sleeve of her dress on a rock and bashing her cheek bloody on another. She laid in the muck, breathing heavily, smelling what would be the sweet clean air of the North, in winter. And yet in that moment the only thing she longed for was a quick death. A quick clean death. It was almost laughable, and if Rina had any spare air in her lungs left, she might have let loose a good snort despite being half-squelched into the earth.

Footsteps.

They sank deep into the ground, the mud sucking at their soles. Slow and methodical, despite knowing exactly where she was. She was the hunted, the prey. Cornered like a lost lamb, with a hungry wolf at its heels. It was akin to torture, this waiting. Waiting to be snatched, grabbed, pulled, groped. Defiled and decimated. Cut, clawed, cored. And finally flayed.

She could almost feel his breath on her. Where her dress was torn, she was sure, would hold his gaze the longest. The putrid smell of death, it clung to him, to the halls of her home, for as long as she could remember. It was everywhere, and it filled the weirwoods to its very branch tips. It was the defecation that bothered her. Oh, if only she were to be allowed a highborn's death. Honorable and clean. A swift chopping of the head, by the man deemed fit to decide her fate. That was how it was done in the north, everywhere except where she was. It was the one thing that she was sure not to get.

The footsteps drew closer, and Rina vowed to herself that she would not shake. She would try her best not to cry, but had seen far too many make the same vow only to disgrace themselves once the pain began. She vowed to do her best. She would never plead for mercy, never from him. Rina tried to slacken her body and slacken her mind. The ordeal to come has nothing to do with me, she thought. I'm already dead.

She held her breath tightly, as a figure approached. If she peeped her eyes open, she could see the man's boots. And when she felt brave enough in so to do, her eyes gaped wide. They were far too big to be his, there was no way-

"Lady Bolton," barked her family's castellan. "Your brother requests your presence back at the Dreadfort."

VVVVVVVVVVVVV

Rina's mother had died when she was four.

She had been a Ryswell before her marriage. She had been pretty, for a maid of the north. Raven-haired and blue of eye. Demure, as only a highborn lady could be, full of nothing but courtesy. And yet the main attribute that Rina would remember of her mother was her fear. As she grew older and began to piece her life together she understood, yet the memories of her mother were strained almost to nothingness. It was her coping mechanism, to block out the bad things. Her life seemed a haze, of memory good and memory bad.

Rina liked to think that she took after her mother.

They shared the same black wavy hair and pale complexion, and as she came into womanhood her old septa told her they were of a similar figure. But her eyes could only be claimed as her father's. Cold and pale, darker than white but not by much. Strange eyes, cursed eyes. Ghost grey eyes.

She had had a brother, a true brother. He had been much older, Rina had only heard tell of him and could not honestly say that she remembered him. He had spent a good portion of his life away from the Dreadfort, as highborn boys fostered and squired and paged with other highborn houses. He had died from a nasty illness, not too long before her mother.

In so short a time, at such a tender age, Rina lost her entire family. Save for her father, her strange soft-spoken father, who would either hold her in the closest of familial relation or forget about her completely. Her septa then had been flightly, and serious attachment had been discouraged. Rina was facing a lonely life ahead of her.

That was, until her father brought home a young boy. He was eight years her senior, almost a man grown. He had been tall and thin, even then. His fleshy face still held the flush of youth, and little Rina had been far too confused to understand the glint that had appeared in the boy-to-be-man's eyes.

Eyes that were the same cold off-white as her own.

Rina was six when Ramsay first brought her down into the Chamber. It was down beneath the grand hall, down and down and down. Chipping cobble steps and greedy red-eyed rats marred the way for the little girl and the grown man-boy. It was steep and dangerous and no light whatsoever save for the candle Ramsay grasped in his hand. There were low rafters and rotted stones; if one were not careful they would bash their skulls in.

For such a little girl it seemed as if they traveled an eternity. Far below ground and out of earshot from anyone, the only noise being the subtle innuendos spewing from her companions mouth that Rina was far too innocent to understand. She had been scared; yet she knew to try her best to show no fear. Perhaps when her father found out he would be proud of her bravery, and reward her with his attention.

It had been summer and Rina was clad in nothing but a thin white dress, her white slippers soon gathering soot to match the flooring. She shivered, the cold and the fear and the excitement over-stimulating her. She was giddy and all smiles; she was an only child starved for affection and attention. This was like an adventure in one of the songs.

Since her mother's death it had probably been one of the only times she had been excited. And it would be the last for nearly as long.

They came to a great wooden door, that Ramsay was only too gleeful to shove open.

Rina let out a gasp, as one would after tearing open one's name day present.

The room inside was lit what seemed to be a million candles. Immediately the smell assaulted her senses, and she wrinkled her nose in disgust. It smelled like when her father brought home a very large stag, and gutted it for all of the guests to see.

Ramsay grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her forward. There were all sorts of things, strange dark contraptions, pulleys and levers. There was even a table laid out with all sorts of needles and spoons and mallets. She giggled and ran over, excited to play with the new toys, when he called her over to a different table.

There sat Doressa the milk maid. She was fifteen and blonde, and always gave Rina treats of apples or pies. She was full of jokes and laughter and had a kind heart, and if her lord father would allow such things young Rina would spend all her time in the barns. Young and nubile Doressa was promised to a nearby farmer's son, and would be leaving the Dreadfort any day to consummate her marriage. Rina was sad to see her go, but knew it was to make her happy.

But now pretty Doressa's face was streaked with tears, and there was a gag in her mouth.

"Come closer," Ramsay beckoned. He picked up a thin knife from the table, and Rina shyly went to his side.

There was blood. It rolled thick and rich off the sides of the table that the pretty Doressa was strapped to. Soon it too stained little Rina's white slippers. The hot rank smell of urine filled the cavernous Chamber, as soon as Ramsay got elbows deep. The cries, the squealing, the thumping of poor Doressa's dainty little feet against their bindings, echoed throughout. Whenever Rina shied away Ramsay would beckon her closer, demanding that she hand him tool after tool from the table, that he mercilessly applied to the bawling Doressa.

Perhaps they had been down in that dank and hollow room for an hour, or two, or twenty. When the once-pretty Doressa finally stopped moving Rina was covered in flecks of viscera. Ramsay, almost completely red, pulled her close into his arms. He held her there for but a moment, before flipping her tiny frame flat onto the flesh that remained on the table. He dipped a hand in the gore and rubbed it soundly down the side of her face before turning her roughly around.

He twisted her so that her face was at the level that was once Doressa's stomach.

"Say our words."

Rina's mouth opened wide as she stared at the skinless carcass before her.

"Say them now, as our lord father taught you."

VVVVVVVVVVVVV

The castellan led her through to the trophy room. It was set up much like a throne room, except covered in pelts and mounted heads from generations of past Boltons. Elk and mammoth and direwolf skins stood proud, for everyone to see. This was also where the Lord of the Dreadfort held court amonst his common folk.

All of the much more interesting pelts had been moved far below stairs.

Her knees wanted to knock as she saw him sitting in her father's chair. Her lord father had ridden south for war almost a year ago, and Ramsay had made himself quite comfortable there in the meantime. Rina would stand tall; at least she would try to, in the beginning.

With a snap of his fingers Ramsay dismissed the castellan, and then they were alone. She dress was still torn and her face was still bloodied. Not having been given the time to properly re-attire herself, she was a mess. But she was Lady of the Dreadfort, and she had nothing if not her pride. With her dying breath she would allow for nothing less. Rina would not give her false brother the satisfaction.

"Come forth to me."

It was not an order barked, or a shrill command, and this made her even more afraid. All of her years living with him made her keen to his moods.

He had not grown into a knight. He was fleshy and slight, not much muscle in which to speak of. Wielding a lance was nowhere in his future, nor did he wish it to be. His ambitions shot far higher than to be addressed merely as 'Ser'. He was not handsome, surely, and never would be.

Watching her every move with eyes that mirrored her own, a small smirk gather at the corners of his thin and pale lips. He was entirely too pleased to see her, and a lesser woman would have turned and fled. For Ramsay enjoyed the hunt nearly as much as the flay.

Rina reached the foot of his make-shift throne, in truth just a very large chair. She felt his gaze roam over her exposed body, just as she knew it would. A pale fleshy tongue darted out to lick his lips and she felt her stomach recoil.

"Kneel down before me."

Her first instinct was to argue. Her father was not dead, Ramsay was no lord. Yet. Play the innocent now, her subconscious begged, and live to fight another day.

She knelt.

"How I so enjoy the look of you on your knees, sweet sister. Would that I could be beholden of this image far more often." She didn't need to be looking up at him to know that his fleshy lips were twisted in glee.

She kept her silence.

"How I loathe our arguments, they cut me to my core." She hears a swish of his elaborate robes as he stood and drew near. She fought the urge to shudder and succeeded.

And yet she felt his thin-boned hand touch her back, and she almost lost it.

Rina wasn't sure when the touching had begun. Probably when she was four, but she had blocked out so much of her childhood it was difficult to say. A grasping of the hand, a finger on the shoulder. Ramsay had always wanted to be near her. Most of their encounters were to her detriment; if in truth she had any fond memories. It was only when she was nine or ten, at that thin and gangly long-legged stage before she flowered that the touching had become more inappropriate. More lingering and personal, but never beneath the eyes of their lord father.

That was how she knew it was wrong.

His long spindly fingers kneaded her shoulder, and grasped and clawed at the exposed underflesh of her arm. She could feel him smile when she broke out in gooseflesh. Like a flash of lightning, the almost-tender little touches were erased away and he grabbed a Rina roughly by the scruff of the neck. Ramsay proceeded to drag her roughly across the room, the cold uneven stone flooring cutting into her legs.

Breathing a sigh of relief as he released her, it was short lived as he grabbed hold of a nearby wooden cask. Normally it would hold wine or ale, and when he dumped it over a sea of red did come spilling out. It was too thick and chunky however, to be a Dornish red.

Guts and grey jelly swirled and pooled around the knees and feet. It had coagulated, and was cold. Long ago she had trained her body to ignore the vile stench that came from old blood.

There was no skin; why would there be. There was just a thin well-red, well-stained scarf. She had given it to her septa to celebrate her fortieth name day.

Rina should have known better than to tell of her secrets.

Ramsay knelt beside her, grasping her shoulders and rubbing himself against her. She was transported back eight long, blurred years. To the day Ramsay had taken her to see her first flaying.

She knew what was coming.

He gripped her hard. The bruises would tell tomorrow.

"Say it," he ground out, rasping.

Rina felt the tears well but would never let them out.

If she did she knew that would be the day of her death.

"Our blades are sharp."

VVVVVVVVVVVVV

AN: This is AU. Some people die, some don't, and certainly not in the order you think that they will. These chapters will flit from past to present, I'm sorry if it is confusing. Our fav characters shall be making an appearance shortly. This was only a firstie to flesh things out, as it were. This tale shall have lots of dark, twisted, foul, incest, gory sexiness in it. Don't like, don't read. Thank you for bearing with me.