WELL FLAYED [Game Of Thrones: The Boltons]

3. Moonlight and Orchids

CRIMSON STAINS ON THE FLOOR were scrubbed away by rough hands of servants around the great hall. Though no matter how hard they splashed it with water and soap, some marks still clung on the stone, like permanent red paint that would last for ages. Dreadfort always claimed some pieces of men who dared challenge her oaken throne, and they would always end up with the flayed men in her hollowed sanctuary - by the walls, by the dungeons, by the crypt. No one could seem to escape her thirst of blood; no one could seem to escape her curse...

The curse that slowly latched onto the Dornish girl, who once was lost but now had taken refuge into her bosoms bathed in blood and darkness and made it her home.

Ramsay twirled the tip of his knife drenched in blood on the wooden table he was sitting on, while staring at his yet another masterpiece on one of his racks: a body of a man, perfectly peeled from head to toe. He didn't bother to know his name, nor the others that came before him that his wife ordered to perish; all Ramsay knew that he flayed first the man who was whipped, second was the one who was scalped, and the last one who's in front of him - the same man fucked in the ass with a sword.

They were all dead now; their skinned corpses hanging on the wooden racks, attracted flies to eat away their pink and red flesh and lay their eggs deep inside their fibers of muscles to rot their bodies...

And the silence of the aftermath of their slaughter lingered in the pungent air.

There was also the absence of wails from other prisoners which kept the dungeons quite for today, as he let Horidius do some purging of crying captives, and by that, he either ate them or made them as a set of decomposing accessories around his body. Their silence made everything seem to be so peaceful with the calming scent of fresh blood, but all that in his mind was the chaos from yestermorn.

Ramsay did not like how Nisha sat on his father's throne as if she conquered it. He did not like how she sat on it with such poise and control... and how he just stood right beside her as she commanded everyone in the halls. The little pup that he tried to bully was slowly growing her fangs, and he knew it was only a matter of time before she could completely bite off his hand.

Ramsay touched his chest; although it was now only a thin scar, the memory of how he almost bled to death remained to be a phantom in his head, determined to disturb his peace. The woman who he thought was meek and dainty and precious and kind was now a lady in black who feasted on gore.

He had seen how she stabbed him in the chest and cut Damos' eye without wincing, how she shot those men with arrows with calculated aim, and how she listened to her prisoners' screams like they were the sound of harp as they were being tortured in front of her...by her own design.

Where was the woman who hurled out her guts whenever she saw blood? Where was the woman who cried whenever she witnessed brutal fights?

She was dead. And they killed her. They killed her together with their child, and there he was, forced to be with a beast that carried his own reflection.

However... It was certainly nice to have an equal, but he knew it would be a one hell of a competition.

"M-master..." Yorr, dressed in filthy rags, cowered his way into the torture cell. He was keeping a distance from Ramsay, whilst avoiding eye contact. "You...you called for me?"

"Ah, yes!" He gasped as if he just remembered now. "Since Myranda's scrubbing the filth in the hall, you get rid of these remains, and feed them to my hounds."

Yorr looked up, and he gagged at the sight of the men tied in racks with faces peeled off. Their lidless eyes were like windows without shutters - uncovering their final moments of agony and misery...something he was gravely familiar with.