May the Morrow Not Bring You
A little short, drabble? Ramsay nails skinned faces of men in the godswood. He thinks it's funny to scare children with them.
Little ones had found it first. An ugly one, pinned high upon jagged splits of bark. It's mouth stretched over the tree burl, as if he was screaming it out.
Surely the same as it were when the slip of blade pierced behind his ear. This someone's son of the North.
Sap had run and dried over his edges. Encasing blood and fascia, bonding him to the trunk.
A face among the godswood, bedeviled eyes of hollow-husk amongst the hallowed wailings of the Old.
Forced to bare the sight of men's faces, hung upon their sacred bodies.
Made a mockery, offerings of insult and offense. Epithets of his games left to soil their holy bark. Decay in the morning sun and wither in the silence of night.
There are no more Red Kings, but there is Ramsay Bolton. He'll have his glory known. His lands marked and feared.
"Beware, beware the barks of men. Tanning over trees, smothered over the Old. It is no godsland" Sang the bards in the inn's and in the squares.
The little ones are the only ones to surely survive his presence. Stupid young things, never minding the warning from above their heads.
They heed Ramsay's.
With a smile and a wave, he escorts them out of his woods. Bundles wrapped in scrap leather. Their arms filled with gifts to deliver back to the towns folk.
Kneeling before a child, fixing their arms around those loose wrappings, he coos at them. Amused, endeared to their crying.
"Now, now. Hold this up! Well and sure! We can't have you returning home with missing pieces." His laugh jostles his shoulders.
To the children, those shoulders look like boulders about to fall off a mountain. The hardy slap Ramsay deals to his own knee cracks in their ears, making them flinch and pinch their eyes shut.
He stands, smile intact, teeth railing under his round, grin-stretched lips.
"Good, good. And for the main prize." The ground is soft under his feet. Grass and soft-soil give under his boots. Ramsay rips the face-skin from the tree with horrific ease.
Charging forward, he make to place the stiffened mask upon a little one. "You should be proud! You've made it all this way through my woods. You'll wear this prize like a crown —"
"M'lord, please." Comes a gentle, shaking plea.
Ramsay stops, eye glowing a halo as he rolls them. His grin spreads, unfettered by the interruption. He doesn't look behind him, as he hears the whisperings of ragged ends of that special cloak, slowly dragging from behind.
"What was that, Beloved?" His eyes don't leave the scared blinking of the children.
"They're, they're just children. Let this be enough, please, M'lord."
"They'll be on their way, once they have this on."
Hobbled steps and weeping little moans catch the children's eyes. To look passed the black and pink Bolton cloak.
Hunching and slow, like gliding from the tree, he comes forward. Thin and sallow, his face hangs from his shoulders and blends into the long dressing of the cloak.
The children cry harder. The sight of this sunken sylph haunting the shadow of monster. Covered in the hides of his Master's victims. Skin stitched like a scrap-sewn smock.
There is no mistaking the raining pattern of circles, nipples cascading over the slopes of thine shoulders. Blushing dots of pinks, a dusting of color to bring the skins to....life.
Ramsay hums delightfully, ready to ignore his creature.
"I'll sing, Master."
He stops. Mouth closing into an 'O', with lifting eyebrows. Ramsay's interest caught.
"All the way home? No complaining?"
"Yes, of course, my lord."
He huffs, nonchalant with his contemplation. The face is then chucked onto the bundle being held by little arms.
"Alright then. Shoo." Flapping hands dismiss the little ones, his interest in their torment gone in the billowing of his cloak meeting them.
Theon sees their freight has them rooted and gnarled to the dirt.
"Go on, and never return. By moon or under sun, these woods are not safe. Go."
His face is snatched between the enormity of his Lord's palms. He doesn't try to speak more, the scampering of little feet running away is enough.
"Nag. It would have been so funny to see the brat wear one of my faces."
"They're just children—"
"Quiet." Ramsay releases one cheek and flutters his fingers playfully. "Now what note would I like to hear from this sweet, mouth."
He cups Theon's chin, slides his fingers down the thin column of the sullen neck. His knuckles brushing up against the rippling texture of nipple skin ribbing the collar of the cloak.
"Ah, here."
The bite is sharp and deep. Right under the jawline and jutting Theon up to an aching angle. Up to face a canopy of screaming mouths. A silent choir to echo his pain.
Hollow eyes join his own, but he is alone. Alone to sing. Alone to weep and wail for his Master's sole enjoyment.
A moaning of pleasure meets the wretched song.
Theon is wrong, as he so often is. His Lord is here, and is the only face to matter amongst the rest.