Father and Sansa and Arya went away first. He remembered Father's quiet strength and Sansa's red hair and Arya's wildness.

Jon went away also. The brother who Mother said was not his brother, but Rickon loved him all the same. When Rickon tried (and failed) to keep up with his siblings, Jon was always the one to come back and pick him up, never leaving him behind to cry. Jon always listened. Jon was his favorite, and he left too.

Then Mother went away. This one hurt most of all, because she was Mother, who kissed his scrapes and cuts and bruises and brushed away his tears and held him close and sang to him and told him stories. Mother with her red hair and calming voice.

It only hurt more when Robb left. Robb, his big brother, the last person left who made him feel safe. Rickon could endure (mostly) without Father and Sansa and Arya and Jon and Mother at Winterfell as long as his big brother was still there to protect him. When Mother refused to leave Bran's room, Robb was the one he clung to, and Robb never pushed him away or became angry like he used to. But Robb left anyway, and Rickon cried and raged all he could but there was nothing he could do, and he knew Robb wouldn't come back. He just knew.

The culmination of his pain was when Bran left him. Bran was all he had, all he depended on. He loved Bran so much, as much as his little six year old heart could allow, almost too much. Bran was his brother; Bran was all he had left, the only one who stayed with him. But he left too.

He knew when they were dead. He didn't know how; he just knew. First Father (Father, Father, his brave strong wise beloved Father). Then Robb ( he never even got to say goodbye) and Mother (Mother, who promised to come back but he knew she never would). And by the time the daggers in the dark were stabbing Jon from all sides, Rickon was hiding on an island not too far away, among the wild and the wolves. And he knew his sisters lived, but they were too far away; Bran lived, but he was beyond Rickon's reach; and now Jon was betrayed in the cold, his favorite brother who always listened, dead. And Rickon screamed himself awake.

Wolves howled. Ghost and Shaggydog.

"Stop!" Rickon screamed. "Make it stop!"

Osha tried to hush him. Osha knows, without him telling, why he screams. Every time one of his pack dies, Rickon dreams it, and wakes up screaming and Shaggydog howling.

"Who is it now, little lord?"

Rickon clung to Shaggy, tears soaking black fur. "Jon," He sobbed, little form shaking. It is too much pain for a six year old to bear. "They're killing him."

Now, eight years later, Rickon is angry instead of sad, hateful instead of lonely. There is no use for weak emotions any longer. They do not help. Anger helps. Hatred helps.

Anger is what helps when he takes back Winterfell. Hatred is what motivates him as he flays Roose and Ramsay Bolton in the courtyard of his childhood home. Hatred very nearly descends into madness when he burns down the Dreadfort as they watch, earning him 'Dread Wolf' as a nickname. He laughs as he kills them. Hatred and madness.

His hatred does not abate when he burns down the Twins. One by one, every Frey is lined up before his army. One by one, Rickon personally beheads all of them, making old Lord Walder watch, saving him for last. The pathetic old man is a blubbering mess when it's his turn.

Rickon tortures him first, and enjoys doing so.

"Scream!" He rages. "Scream like my mother screamed!"

He stabs Walder Frey in the stomach to ensure a slow and painful death, then throws him into the river, the way they did to Mother and Robb's corpses.

He is too far gone, but his men don't care. They've wanted this revenge for a very long time, and Rickon is giving it to them.

Casterly Rock he saves for last. Lannisters started it all, and they should end it all. He allies with Euron Greyjoy, and together they raid Lannisport, and succeed in taking Casterly Rock.

It's a pity Tywin Lannister is dead, because Rickon would have liked to kill him himself.

The Kingslayer comes to liberate Casterly Rock from the Dread Wolf, but he only has one hand where Rickon has two.

Jaime Lannister tries to bandy words. "Rickon Stark. Last I saw you, you were a pup clinging to your mother's skirts. It seems you're still a pup."

"Kingslayer. Last I saw you, you had two hands, one of which you used to push my brother from a window." Oh yes, Rickon knows all about that.

This statement makes the Kingslayer angry.

Rickon is all too happy to challenge him.

Jaime Lannister isn't worried. He sees a curly haired boy with an angelic face and guileless blue eyes, not the nearly mad, ruthless killer beneath. He thinks he will dispatch this pup with ease.

Rickon sends Jaime Lannister's head to the whore queen and her bastard in King's Landing.

When he sneaks into the city, he searches for the King. He would like to kill him and take his head, and present it to Cersei with a messenger.

Instead, he finds Cersei, and it is too good an opportunity to pass up.

"Whore Queen," he greets her, sword drawn. Before she can call for help, his blade is sheathed in her, and she bleeds.

He kneels at her side. "You never expected Robb Stark's little brother to come for you, now did you?"

Her green eyes widen in realization. "Valonqar," she gasps, eyes accusing.

Rickon doesn't care for whatever nonsense she says in her last moments.

"For the Starks," he tells her, as she dies.

When he glances in the mirror he sees a young boy. A beardless fourteen year old and he's shed so much blood. He's avenged his family. But he stills feels so alone.

Even though he's full of hate, and anger, in the end he still just wants Father and Mother and Jon and Robb and Sansa and Arya and Bran.

He doesn't move from Cersei Lannister's side for a while, which is foolish of him. It's not guards or servants who enter, but a boy with golden curls and a beautiful face, not much older than him.

Rickon knows who he is. And so does the boy.

King Tommen shuts the door behind him, and stares at the scene. Cold green eyes take in the body of his dead mother, and the auburn haired boy with a bloody sword standing over her body.

"Rickon Stark?" he says, shocked. Catlike eyes narrow hatefully. "You've murdered my mother."

Rickon remembers him. A plump, friendly boy who visited Winterfell with the court, so long ago.

He's no longer plump, nor does he seem friendly. His green eyes glitter with the same bitterness as Rickon's.

"Tommen," Rickon says, smirking. "I suppose I'll have to kill you as well. A pity you're not Joffrey."

Tommen draws his sword and rushes him. It's almost too easy to sidestep, and-

It's not easy. Tommen is skilled and deadly. The rumors weren't exaggerated when they called him the second coming of the Kingslayer.

The fight is long and harrowing. It's only through sheer luck that Rickon manages to hold Tommen down long enough to stab him in the throat.

Instead of the usual satisfaction, he feels a strange sort of emptiness.

There is nothing left for me, he thinks. No more enemies to kill.

He feels so empty.

He returns to Winterfell, leaving King's Landing to languish in the chaos he created.

When Sansa comes to him, he loses all composure.

"Mother?" He falls to his knees before her.

She is crying. "No, Rickon," she says sadly. "Sansa. I'm your sister."

Then Arya returns. She's different. She's not as wild as she was, and she's a killer, like him. Together they kill all their enemies. Rickon laughing as he does it, Arya silent.

"Valar Morghulis," she whispers.

He never sees Bran again, and the weak feelings return. Is he cursed? To never have a true family? Father and Mother and Robb are dead. Rickon avenged them. Jon is…. Rickon doesn't know what Jon is. They say he rose from his funeral pyre, alive and unhurt. They say he flew away on the back of a dragon that came out of nowhere. And Bran, the last one to leave him, remains beyond the Wall, beyond Rickon's reach. In the night Rickon cries for him, and feels weak for doing so the next morning.

When Jon comes with the Dragon Queen, Rickon and his sisters are waiting.

He barely notices Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons. He only has eyes for the man with her, a familiar man with grey eyes and dark hair and a long face.

He knows it's not him, but all the same he says, "Father?"

It's not Father, of course. Just as Rickon is not Robb.

And even though it's been a long time, even though Jon is slightly unfamiliar to him, Rickon feels almost content for a moment.

"Robb?" Jon looks horrified, as if he's seen a ghost. Which, Rickon realizes, he has.

"I'm Rickon," he says. "I'm not Robb. He left me. You all left me."

He's still that lost, lonely child at heart.

Queen Daenerys looks surprised to see him. "You're Rickon Stark?" She demands. "You killed all the Boltons, Freys, and Lannisters?"

"I did," Rickon says with grim satisfaction. "And the world is better for it."

What she sees is a fourteen year old boy, with curly auburn hair and big, innocent blue eyes. But Rickon is not innocent. He has no remorse for the lives he's taken. He is bloodthirsty. Killing is something he enjoys.

Myrcella Martell comes for him, eventually, for killing Tommen. She should know better. Arya slays her for him, making it look like an accident with her Faceless Men skills. "You're too sloppy," Arya tells him. "Killing should be elegantly done."

Rickon tells her he doesn't care. "Death and destruction are what I do best," he says. "I care not for finesse."

"The Dornish will suspect."

"Let them," Rickon says flatly. "I'll kill them too."

The way Sansa looks at them, like she's afraid- what have we become?

Jon says Father was a honorable man. Arya confides to Rickon, Father wouldn't want this for them. Murdering isn't honorable.

"Look where honor brought Father, brought us," he says bitterly. "Honor is useless. Father was beheaded for his honor. Robb lost his war because of honor. I will never be honorable."

Arya agrees with him, but he must never say that in front of Jon.

He kills to pass the time. Many enemies come for the Dread Wolf, but they underestimate him, seeing only the fourteen year old boy with blue eyes and auburn curls. They don't see the ruthless killer underneath until it's too late.

And when the Others are defeated, Bran returns.

Finally, at last, Rickon feels complete.

"Bran!" Running to him with Shaggy on his heels. "Bran!" He stops short when he sees not the boy he knew, but a man with a face like Rickon's.

"Rickon," Bran says, smiling sadly, and Rickon's heart beats so fast he fears it might burst.

He kneels, and hugs him, the exact way he did when they separated, all those years ago.

"You came back," he says.

His family came back.

Rickon will never be completely alright. Father, Robb and Mother are still dead. And he can never completely settle down in Winterfell, because he's a killer, and always will be. Killing is what he does best, just like Arya.

But with the last remnants of his broken family returned to him, he thinks he'll be okay.