The Long Winter | Jaime Lannister X Stark OC | GOT/ASOIAF

Monster

Their father had introduced them to Ramsay Snow the day before he and Domeric left with the Bolton troops for Winterfell. Until then, neither of the twins had known they had another brother. Aileen doubted that even her mother knew, given how she'd long put up with jibes about her own bastard. Ramsay was going to be of use while he was away, their father said, and act as castellan of the Dreadfort, an adult representative of the Boltons. 

The ugly man had smiled a wet-lipped smile.

The more Aileen studied him, the more repulsive he was. Ramsay was young, in his mid-twenties at most, and was unmistakably of Bolton blood; his eyes were the same unusually pale shade as her own and her father's - rather than the steel grey of her mother, Edrick and Morganna - and hair was long and dark. 

He was truly ugly though, even in fine clothes, with wide, thick lips and a small mouth, making his wet smile even worse. His large frame, sloped shoulders and fleshiness were a world away from Domeric's lithe, almost elegant build, and his skin was pink and blotchy. She wondered what her father - not an especially handsome man, but far from ugly, and a lord to boot - had ever seen in his mother.  

Ramsay Snow had been nothing but polite in the first few days after their father left, though Aileen had always got a sense that he was rather cunning, simply biding his time. She didn't like his smile. He spent his days slinking around the castle with his foul-smelling servant, Reek, and a growing gaggle of 'friends' who everyone else called 'the Bastard's Boys' behind their back, often coupled with several choice curses. 

It was impossible not to notice her and Edrick's new shadows; a select few of her father's best, most loyal men were always around, guarding the doors where they slept, walking a few steps behind them everywhere else. She also suspected that a kitchen hand was being made to try their food before it was served. The only new addition to the castle was Ramsay, who was apparently enough of a threat to them that her father had made special arrangements. So why is he here in the first place?

One of the first clear glimpses they got of the man's true colours was the first time he sparred with Edrick in the training yard. Her twin had been practicing as usual with the master-at-arms, when their half-brother had come out too, grinning and asking if he could join. Edrick hadn't cared much either way, always glad to fight someone new, facing off against the man as he took up a tourney sword.

Ramsay fought like no one Aileen - or her brother, judging by the look on his face - had ever seen. It was clear he'd never received an official swordsmanship training, but that didn't make him any less savage. He fought with a sword like it was a butcher's cleaver, hacking and slashing viciously this way and that, highly aggressive, uncontrolled and unpredictable. He'll teach Edrick to dodge, if nothing else.

"Who taught you to fight?" Her twin asked in a moment of respite, before either of them had won or lost. Ramsay smiled that wet-lipped smile. 

"Reek," He said. "Our father sent him to help my mother raise me," Our father. Never Lord Bolton. 

"Why didn't he bring you to the castle?" Edrick frowned. "He let our mother bring her bastard son here," Something flickered in Ramsay's eyes then, something worryingly like pure hatred. Aileen, looking on from the side, caught that look where Edrick probably didn't. 

"Don't call me a bastard," He all but snarled, and her twin looked taken aback by the venom in his voice, and the way his knuckles were white on the hilt of his sword. But Edrick being Edrick, he soon rose to the challenge.

"That wasn't an insult," He snapped back at their half-brother. "I don't give a shit if you're baseborn or not," Ramsay raised his sword then, but Edrick lifted his own in time. To onlookers, it would simply seem like they'd returned to their spar, but there was something even more vicious about it this time, despite the fact they only used blunted swords.