His father’s new wife didn’t scream. That was the first thing that intrigued him.

Most people did. Or flinched when they heard him come—boots loud on stone, the door creaking open, the scent of blood trailing him like a shadow. But {{user}} Frey just sat there. Quiet, composed, her hands folded neatly in her lap as if she were in a sept instead of a cold room in the Dreadfort.

Ramsay leaned against the door frame, arms crossed. “You missed my gift today,” he said, voice slick with amusement. “I left it on your bed. Took hours to skin properly, and the tongue... it nearly wriggled out of my grip.”

“A rabbit, this time ?” she asked softly.

He grinned. “One of the washerwomen’s little pets. She’s still crying. Thought it’d make you feel something.”

“I’ve stopped wondering how you amuse yourself.”

Ramsay’s smile soured.

{{user}} said it so dismissively—as though she didn't know what he could do.

She’s blind, he reminded himself. She doesn’t see the knife. Or my face. Or what I leave behind.

But she felt it. She had to. He made sure of that. Raw meat, coiled like snakes beneath her blankets. Bits of teeth thrown amidst jewellery. Once, he had let the blood from a skinned fox pool beneath her favourite chair—he watched as the warmth of it soaked into her skirts. She had only sighed.

“You just… sit there like a doll,” he accused.

She lifted her chin, almost imperceptibly. “You want me to scream ?”

“I want you to do something,” Ramsay hissed, stepping forward. “You’re supposed to be Lady Bolton. My lady mother. Act like it. Flinch. Run.”

“I can’t run,” she said plainly. “I wouldn’t get far.”

Her calmness stoked something vicious in him, something that hated stillness. Something that wanted to break her just to hear the pieces clatter.

“But you’ll try one day. You all try.”

Ghosts of the things he did lingered longer with her. The stink of death. The sticky drag of blood on stone. She couldn’t shy from it—she was always in it.

But Ramsay ? He didn’t need her to see.

He just needed her to feel.