I Exist Alone In Your Bed

Chapter 1- His Idea Of Fun

The harrowing image of the flayed man proudly displayed on the billowing banners lining the dirt paths of the Dreadfort was the first thing she had seen as a child when she was sent to live as a servant under Lord Bolton's house. She had only been ten at the time, and the display of the fleshless man on the banners made her skin crawl as the image was seared violently into the forefront of her memory. She did not want to live in this bleak and forsaken place, but she had no choice-her parents had both served Lord Bolton as servants. But now, they were both dead-taken by a fire in the night. With no other family and no place to belong, she was destined to the grim atmosphere of the Dreadfort to live out the rest of her days...as a playmate to Roose Bolton's bastard son, Ramsay Snow.

Ramsay was thirteen, only three years older than she had been at the time. When she had first been introduced to him, she had been terrified. A group of female servants had taken her to a small room and had thrown a dull white frock on her shaking form. She was chubbier and shorter than other young girls, her baby fat having yet to depart from her little frame. Her long flaxen curls had been forcefully braided neatly and pinned down as her mossy colored eyes franticly shot about in an attempt to find any potential means of escape. Her normally pallid face was chalky as she felt sick to her stomach. When they had finished dressing her, she was escorted down a long hallway to the dining chamber where she had first met him...

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Lord Bolton himself had to force the boy to greet her in a friendly manner as Ramsay scoffed and ignored her entrance. There were whispers among the people about his...habits. The boy had a violent streak, and he took pleasure in torturing small animals he found for fun. Ramsay had no interest in playing with other children...especially a sniveling little girl whom he deemed a simple nuisance.

For the first few months, he simply ignored her very existence. He went about his daily business as if she did not even exist. He did not want to be bothered with the notion of an insolent playmate-he was not some infantile fool and he could not see what benefit he could reap from such a useless little girl.

Young and unsure of what to do, Eve was conflicted-her duty was to entertain Ramsay and keep him occupied, but that was impossible to do when he shirked off her very presence and avoided her like the plague. She would have followed him around, as her duty entailed, but her legs were short and he was rather agile when it came to losing her within the cold empty corridors of the castle. She often chased after him, giving up her pursuit as she puffed and stopped for air. She had heard he spent his leisure time in the dark bowels of the dungeons or the eerily silent depths of the forest on the outskirts of the Dreadfort. She, however, was too cowardly to venture to those places alone in search for the vicious boy. He was rather scary himself...his icy blue eyes were callous and they held a hint of innate malice behind the deceitfully charming demeanor he put on in front of important guests. She did not want to get on his bad side or annoy him in any way.

She was rather relieved the boy chose to ignore her-it only meant that she would be safe from whatever malevolence and cruel intent he seemed to possess. And so, she wandered aimlessly around the Dreadfort in search of something to occupy herself with. She often spent time with the female servants in the kitchens. They were kind to her and she enjoyed helping make the pastries that they would serve at every evening meal. Before she left, the kitchen servants would always give her some of the warm pastries in thanks. And so, she ate the pastries by herself as she sat in solitude under a tree at the edge of the silent forest. It was peaceful as long as she did not actually enter the daunting forest. Her daily routine went uninterrupted and without sound or sight of Ramsay...until one particular day when she had been followed by a group of children on her way to the perimeter of the forest with her delicious pastries in tow. The other children always taunted her and refused to play with her because she was chubby and short. On this day, they had spotted her as she walked out of the kitchens with her little basket of fresh pastries.