She was worse when she was quiet.

Reek knew Ramsay’s moods by scent, by breath, by the scrape of his boots on stone. But {{user}}… she was another breed of cruelty. Not wild like her brother, not loud or laughing as she pulled flesh from bone. She smiled while she did it. Asked questions. Leaned close, as if she cared. As if pain was a language they were teaching him together.

Two blades. One serrated, one clean. But both cut just as deep.

She called him Reek with a tenderness Ramsay never bothered to fake. As though it was his name, not his punishment.

“Still limping ?” she’d ask sweetly, crouching to peer at his feet as he tried to shrink into the corner of the kennels. “We’ll have to tell Maester Tybald to work harder next time. Can’t have you breaking again so soon. What would my brother say ?”

He would nod. Agree. Because what else could he do ?

Sometimes she fed him. Bits of meat from her plate, placed carefully in his hands like he was some caged dog to be praised. And he thanked her for it, like a fool. Like Reek. Because Theon was long gone, and the girl with the soft voice and sharp nails helped bury him.

Tonight, sat in the corner of her chambers, knees drawn to his chest, arms wrapped around them as if he could hold himself together.

She stood by the hearth, combing her fingers through her hair, watching the flames. “You know what, Reek ?”

Her gaze lingered on him, pale and ghostly as Ramsay’s. Sometimes, it made him think she looked at him not as a tool or a toy. Or perhaps that was his madness talking again. Reek doesn’t know. Reek only obeys.

“You’re lucky. My brother broke you, but I get to keep you, right ?”

There was no comfort in that, but still—somehow—it made him feel chosen. In a way that twisted his stomach and confused his fear with something darker, deeper.

He simply nodded.

She smiled. “Good boy.”

And Reek felt warmth bloom in the hollow place Ramsay carved out of him.

He hated it. He needed it.