Draw Your Swords

2.

Laryss' POV:
I curl my fingers around the cold leather covering the arm of the bastard, the muscles in my face sore from keeping a polite expression there.

I gaze at his party in front of me now, his fathers ghostly eyes tearing through me and searching, the eyes of brutal silent men that made me want to scream, and a woman with a pretty face, yet her features were so sharp and angry. I looked away as Ramsay begins walking.

He smiles and leads me across the path that had been cleared right up to the entrance of the Dreadfort, across the courtyard. I raise my eyebrows as we cross, it's silent without even the whiny of a horse to pierce the air, or the clang of steel on steel from the practice yard, nothing at all.

Curious, I know the entirety of the Dreadfort's residents were all not stationed in front, they could not have possibly been. I keep my silence however, gazing upwards at the empty grey sky. It seemed to be being punctured by the tall sharp tops of the tallest towers of the castle. Black, sharp points shot skyward, and despite the comforting white blanket of snow covering the windowsills and posts above, the black crawled out and over it like a sinister shadow.

This was my home now, I thought with hopeless certainty, as Ramsay heaved open the heavy iron doors of the castle. Once inside I could not hold my silence as the only sound left was of our footsteps echoing loudly off the stone walls.

"My lord, if I may ask a question?" I inquire carefully, keeping my voice steady and calm, waiting for an answer.

"You may."

He smiled then as we turned down a darkened corridor, his voice like cold ice un-comfortably sliding down my bare back. I swallow.

"Why is the Dreadfort so, and forgive me my lord please take no offense... Empty, and silent? The name gives way to its fabled dreariness but I fear this is an exaggeration..."

I had to know why. Why corridors had been emptied, the walls hollow and echoing with only our footsteps, the yard silent, the kennels quiet, the stables as well. It was horribly unnerving all of it, from the emptiness, to the silence, to the bastards arm I had my own wrapped around, the bastards whose cold dirty eyes pierced me the same way his fathers had in the yard.

Eyes perhaps as sharp as the dagger that was plunged into the heart of the young wolf. My eyes downcast, I watch the stones beneath me waiting for an answer.

A chuckle answers the silence finally, and goose pimples rise on my arms, the hairs standing on end making me feel foolish as we come to a stop in front of a large oak door, in an, obviously, empty two door corridor.

"My, my. Many questions burden you often I gather, don't they?"

He laughs again and I have no where to look but up at him as he hasn't opened the door, leaving us standing in front of it in the dimness. I smile in false politeness, wishing he would just continue and leave me be. I pray my eyes do not give this away.

"Yes the Dreadfort is quite dreary isn't it, you have heard? Well we won't be here long my lady, I would not burden myself with questioning its darkness, or exploring its catacombs. No over analyzation, no it wouldn't be worth it."

I begin to feel frustrated with his eerie riddles a soft breath leaving my mouth. Oh how I wished for my home, the warmth it once had with the snow covering the sides of the tower windows hugging the ledges, my bed with the soft woolen sheets...

But here I was now, in front of the bastard of Bolton, alone.

"Why won't we be here long may I ask my lord?"

He smiled then and I nearly cringed in front of him, and left wailing in horrified rage.

"We leave to Winterfell of course my lady. Where else? Everyone has been helping rebuild, that's where they are."

My face burns. Winterfell was not his to seize or inhabit, not mine, not Theon Greyjoys. It belonged, no belongs, to the Starks. The noble warden of the north however had fallen, and his sons were gone. One daughter missing and one in the Eyrie, leaving me to freeze then, wondering what Winterfell was anymore.

The sinking feeling inside of me threatened to weigh me down as things began to cave in. I just wanted things to be as they were, why are the Starks not here? Winterfell is Sansa's, it is more Lord Eddards bastard then his.

The bastard in front of me would never have a true claim, to anything, this I knew. But instead I smiled. Ramsay could play his game for now, he could be warden. The smile had never left my lips, only now it was sour.

"Well it makes sense, it's where the Warden of the North belongs after all."

He finally opens the door.