Hear me Roar - English version

CHAPTER 41 - Call me Diana

               Sitting before the perpetual log fire that illuminates the stone walls of the cave, I wait for a message from this famous "Lord of Light." If he has a grand design prepared for me, why does he not speak to me? Even though I am hiding, I perceive that the order of things has been profoundly disrupted in Westeros. I need a sign, if only a tiny one, to know what to do.

"Is everything alright?" Robin asks from behind me.

"To tell you the truth, I don't know. Tywin and I always openly despised each other. But a life is a life, isn't it?"

"True..." he replies, sitting down by my side. "However, taking that life amounts to saving many others."

               Killing a man in cold blood is and will always be an infamous act, regardless of the circumstances. Despite everything, Robin is right. Tyrion did not act without reflection, which chills my blood, but his deed has saved an incalculable number of human lives.

               For the war is not yet over; Stannis is in the North with his army and will not delay in marching on the capital with the few Northerners he manages to rally to his cause. Daenerys Targaryen will also eventually cross the Narrow Sea with her army of Unsullied. If Tywin were still alive, he would make quick work of his enemies, but also of the smallfolk struggling to survive.

"And he deserved it," Robin adds. "What happened to your family is his fault. And I'm not even talking about Theon."

"Theon took Winterfell of his own accord," I correct him.

"No... I'm talking about what Ramsay did to him. It's because of the Lannisters that Roose Bolton took Winterfell."

"Ramsay... Snow?" I manage to articulate with difficulty.

"He's a Bolton now."

               I have already told you about Ramsay and I am not proud of this story. I will, of course, tell it to you again, but know that it is not with a light heart.

               Years ago now, I accompanied my father on one of his progresses through the North. These journeys were long. We would stop at each of the strongholds for several weeks. Then came the turn of the Dreadfort, the castle of the Boltons, where I met Ramsay.

               Ramsay was the bastard of Roose Bolton, a Snow, like my brother Jon. While Jon had the right to eat at our table and receive a good education, that was not the case for Ramsay. He was never considered and always used. Knowing the reputation of the Boltons, I leave you to imagine to what ends.

               At the time, I was totally ignorant of the vices human beings are capable of. And Ramsay, with his blue eyes and his smile, had me. I cannot phrase this sentence differently; I was fooled.

               While we were spinning a perfect romance, Ramsay changed. He became jealous of every man who approached me and who wasn't him. Until the point of no return: his cruel smile when he showed me the corpse of the stable boy with whom I had struck up a friendship.

               Ramsay brought out the worst in me, playing on my worst fantasies and creating others for me. With him, I do not know if I was finally myself for the very first time, or the perfect wife he had fashioned for himself.

               I never thought I would find myself facing Ramsay again one day, but it looks as though the worst version of myself is going to have to return to service.

♐︎

               A violent argument between Thoros, Beric, and me followed that discussion. They did not want to let me leave because, according to them, I was not ready to face a true enemy. After all, I was their flame of hope; it was only natural they wanted to keep me with them until their god's next call.