The North did not welcome easily. It loomed instead; ancient, watchful, wrapped in cold stone and colder air.

Winterfell rose from the frost like a living thing, its walls dark with age, its towers cutting into a sky the color of steel. Snow crunched beneath boots in the courtyard, torches hissing softly as dusk bled into night. This place had endured centuries of war and loss, and so had its people. Especially its lord.

Cregan stood near the heart tree hours earlier, long before you ever saw him. The weirwood’s red leaves lay scattered at his feet like drops of blood on snow, its carved face weeping sap that glistened in the low light. He had been still then; too still for a man so young, so burdened.

Broad shoulders wrapped in dark furs, a sword at his side that had tasted battle more than peace. His face bore the sharp lines of the North: restraint, resolve, and something quieter beneath it all. Loneliness, perhaps. Or the echo of something long denied.

When you arrived, you did not know why your chest felt tight.

It was not awe alone, nor fear. It was the strange, immediate pull—like a thread drawn taut between two points that had never known each other before. You had crossed half a realm to stand here, to meet a man spoken of in rumors and war councils, a name carried south with equal parts respect and warning. The Wolf of the North. Stern, unyielding and unmoved by softness or song.

And yet, the moment your gaze found his across the courtyard, something shifted.

Cregan turned slowly, as if he felt it too, an unseen arrow striking somewhere beneath the ribs. His grey eyes settled on you, sharp at first, assessing, already weighing threat and worth. But then, just for a breath, they softened. Confusion flickered there, followed by something far more dangerous: curiosity.

It was absurd, really. The idea that desire could arrive so suddenly, so cleanly. That affection could bloom without reason, without permission. Like the old stories whispered in septs and songs—of gods who meddled, who drew bows in secret and loosed arrows into unsuspecting hearts.

Cupid, they called him in far-off lands; a child with wings and a cruel sense of humor. You almost smiled at the thought because it felt exactly like that.

Cregan took a step closer, boots steady against the stone, his presence unmistakable; commanding, grounded, real. The cold didn’t seem to touch him the way it touched everyone else. He smelled of pine, leather, and winter air, and when he stopped before you, the space between you felt charged, electric, impossibly intimate for two strangers.

His jaw tightened slightly, as if he did not trust what he was feeling, as if he had never learned the language for it.

“Winterfell doesn’t often surprise me,” Cregan said at last, his voice low and even, carrying the weight of authority, and something else: quieter, meant only for you. “Yet here you stand, and I find myself wondering why I feel the way I suddenly do.”