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Ramsay was four years old when he first met his daddy. The man was tall, formidable, and so like everything he wanted to be when he grew up. He barely spared Ramsay more than a glance and he spoke very coldly to Ramsay's mommy, but as Ramsay stood clutching at his mommy's skirt, staring wondrously up at him, he had never admired another person more in his short life.
After that, he started seeing his daddy more often, and oddly enough his parents' interactions were very tense, but Ramsay always looked forward to the days his daddy would come to visit. One day, his sixth birthday, his daddy gave him a lollipop and a brief pat on the head, and Ramsay was ecstatic. His good mood couldn't be quashed even by his parents' screaming fight, or the way his daddy hit mommy hard across the face, sending her to the floor. Mommy cried and daddy kicked her in the belly, again and again, and long after daddy left that night, mommy lay on the floor, holding her tummy and weeping, blood seeping from the no-no spot of her dirty pants. He didn't know what that was all about, but the next day, mommy sat him down and explained that he wouldn't be getting the little sister he was promised.
He didn't mind that, not at all. He liked having mommy and daddy to himself.
Ramsay was seven when he was introduced to Domeric, his older half-brother. Domeric had a different mommy than Ramsay, and he didn't quite understand why, but nonetheless he hated him. Domeric was perfect, in daddy's eyes; he was quiet, studious, and he played the harp– and Ramsay was jealous. Daddy treated Domeric differently than he did Ramsay, like he was a prize, and Ramsay noticed for the first time that daddy didn't seem to hold much regard for him.
Domeric sparked a new kind of fire in Ramsay, a fire born of a need to be better. It wasn't long before daddy was hiring a babysitter to help mommy look after him, a man called Reek, and he certainly earned the name. Reek taught Ramsay a lot of things, more than mommy or daddy ever had, and Domeric died of mysterious circumstances when Ramsay was nine. It was a horrible loss, really... his dad certainly seemed to think so, anyways.
He had won, though, and afterwards, dad seemed to be paying more attention to him. He was an only child, finally, and he was quite content with that. Dad had married a new woman, a fat yet very sweet lady named Walda, and she gave Ramsay homemade cookies on the weekends he visited, but even she didn't love him, he could tell. That was fine. Love was something to be earned—dad had told him that—and with Domeric out of the way, he could set about doing that.
There was a girl, when Ramsay was eleven. She had pretty brown curls and pretty green eyes, and Ramsay wanted to claim her as his own. He looked upon her and felt thick tendrils of greed creep over his heart, felt them filling his lungs and choking his gut. It was Valentine's day, and he had made a card, since that was the kind of thing that one did when they wanted somebody, but the look on her face when he tried to give it to her yanked the tendrils and turned them to writhing snakes of ice– ice that didn't melt. His dad picked him up from school that day with a sour expression, but Ramsay was happy just to see him, and he told him all about it. His dad wasn't a great talker, but he was the best listener.
"Good thing I have you to love me, right?" Ramsay said cheekily, skipping alongside his dad, basking in the undivided attention. He was, of course, wholly unaffected by the girl and his supposed heartbreak. Valentine's Day was dumb, anyways; why want anything else when he already had the coolest dad in the world, all to himself?
"No."
What? Ramsay cocked his head, not quite comprehending.
"You still don't understand?"
Understand? Understand what?
"You're not built to be loved, Ramsay," his dad told him, looking coldly down at him. Ramsay faltered, his insides slowly freezing. "Quit trying. It's annoying."
Ramsay stared up at his father, eyes round and lips parted in surprise. He couldn't say a word, his thoughts spiraling too quickly out of line for him to grasp at any. What did he mean? His hand slipped from his father's already loose grasp, falling limp to his side. Was there something wrong with him? No, there couldn't possibly be. He just hadn't worked hard enough yet... His father would love him, he knew he would, he just had to try harder.
That night, Ramsay dared ask his father why he and his mom weren't together. Was she not worthy yet either? Had she not earned father's love? How di—
"I raped her," his father answered, all too casually, "and then she had you. I raped her again, and she got herself pregnant again... I took care of that one before it became a problem." His father looked over at him contemplatively for several long moments. Ramsay stared back at him, unsure.
"I am your father, Ramsay," he began, rising from the armchair and striding across the room, fetching a bottle of scotch and a glass. "But you are not my son. Not yet." He poured himself a generous amount of scotch and drank deeply. Ramsay watched, sitting silent and cross-legged on the floor; his coloring book and pencils lay abandoned on the floor in front of him. They regarded each other for a long moment, father standing over son, before he sank into his chair, seeming to relax. The amber liquid sloshed in the glass.
"I know you killed Domeric," father said finally. Ramsay merely looked up at him, neither confirming nor denying it. "I was almost proud of you... Then you went and got soft on me again. Were you trying to act like him?" He shot him a distasteful glare. "You are not him. You are Ramsay, my bastard, and nothing more. Never presume to act like my full-blooded son ever again."
Ramsay nodded slowly, looking back down at his coloring book and feeling almost liberated. So he didn't have to play nice anymore– father liked him better when he was rough, abrasive. Good. Playing nice was so boring. He studied the wolf he was coloring, then picked up the red pencil and killed it.
He ended up transferring into a boarding school just outside of his town of Weeping Water, an all-boy's school where there were no pretty brown-haired girls to give valentines to. There were plenty of boys, of course, one of them in particular named Damon. There was Alyn, who they nicknamed Sour Alyn for the sheer nasty smell of him, Luton, and others they called Yellow Dick, Skinner, and Grunt. Grunt was because he had no tongue, and that was the sound he could best make. Skinner was because he was good at knife tricks, and Yellow Dick was because, well....
And two years later, there was a dog. His little girl, wearing a green collar, the same shade of that girl's eyes from so long ago, and he inexplicably named the pup Helicent. Heli for short... Just like that girl, from so long ago now. She was scarcely six months old, but so big and strong already. He liked to take her through the woods, through town, or anywhere really. He took her through Weeping Water once, and he saw his mother and she him, but they both pretended not to. He didn't live with her anymore, and she pretended he never had.
The next time he set foot in his mother's house was with his friends and his dog. Helicent's muzzle was already red and dripping, her eyes mad with desire to please her master, and his mother had shrieked and wept. Ramsay, already besotted with the melody of such cries, closed his eyes and let his friends move in. He could have fallen asleep; the armchair was an embrace around him and the white noise of his mother's wails and his dog's booming barks reverberated sweetly in his ears. When he finally did look, he only gazed through the wraith of his mother as he uttered the words. Helicent growled and planted her paws firmly on either side of the woman, her teeth at her throat.
"Wait," he said suddenly, and rose. He crossed the room in three swift steps, knelt beside his mother, and she fumbled blindly for his wrist, sobbing wretchedly.
"Ramsay... Please..."
"I want this," he said, and he unfastened the garnet necklace from around her neck. The gem glittered in his hand like a frosted blood drop, and he curled his fingers around it before stepping away again. Helicent tensed, ready to lunge in, his mother weeped, and Ramsay murmured his assent. A flash of teeth, a spurt of blood over Ramsay's leather boots, and the game was finished.
That was the second 'hunt'. The first was more conventional, a real sort of hunt, something that they had spent months planning. The first was only that same morning.
Helicent had been trained for this. It was in their plans, and as much as she was Ramsay's closest companion, she was also his greatest weapon. A year old already, she was a loyal beast, willing to do anything he asked of her. That Helicent of so long ago, with the curly brown hair and the green eyes never stood a chance against her. They had their fun first, of course.
"Dance!" Damon cackled, snapping the whip again. The girl hunched in the grass and wailed, bleeding from the lacerations on her ankles. The others circled like jackals, eyes ravenous. Her dress was in tatters around her, and Damon's eyes were lit with a boyish glee. "Come on and dance, you pretty little bitch! Dance for me!"
The nickname stuck, and Damon became Damon Dance-For-Me. Skinner's nickname became a bit more literal, and Helicent's namesake was shredded and buried far away, deep in the forest earth. She wasn't quite so pretty with her skin sliced to ribbons by teeth and blades. Looking at her, Ramsay didn't understand how she had ever had a hold on him.
Ramsay has quashed any notion of needing love, and with it any idea of how to love. It was a mere phantasm of emotion anyhow; no matter how hard he worked, his father's attitude towards him never changed, and all Ramsay did in his spare time was hunt. He and his boys rescued more puppies. They trained these fine girls in the art of hunting, and if there was one thing he loved it was them. He needed nothing and nobody else.
Then he met Theon Greyjoy, and all that repressed, drowning need and smoldering desire to be loved came spilling forth out if control, and Ramsay lost control of himself in the process.