Cregan stood in the center of the room, his broad shoulders tense, his jaw clenched. He had been in the crypts for hours, the heavy air of Winterfell’s tombs pressing in around him, but it wasn’t the dead that weighed on him today. It was the letter, folded neatly in front of him, its edges worn, stained, and frayed from years of being hidden.

He hadn’t meant for it to surface. Not like this.

He glanced toward {{user}}, who stood across the room, holding a small piece of cloth between her fingers, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"Where did you find that?" Cregan’s voice was low, barely above a whisper, but there was no hiding the tension in his tone.

{{user}} hesitated before speaking, her voice edged with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. "In one of your old chest drawers... It’s a scarf, Cregan. But it’s not just any scarf. It's... it’s from her, isn’t it?"

His heart clenched at the mention of her —the thought he had long buried under the weight of time and duty. But here it was, the proof, the reminder, as tangible as the winter winds outside. He should have disposed of it long ago, but he hadn’t.

He hadn’t been able to.

"Yes," he said, his voice soft but heavy with the weight of the past. "It belonged to her. My first love.." He motioned vaguely around the room, as if the very walls of the castle could testify to the changes that had come since.

{{user}} remained silent for a long moment, her eyes locked on the scarf, her fingers still holding it gingerly, as though it might crumble to dust in her hands. Cregan knew she was trying to understand, but what was there to understand? He had given his heart away once, long before he had known her, and the ghost of that love still lingered like a shadow over his life.

"I didn’t mean for you to find it," he continued, turning to face her fully now. "I never wanted to bring it up, not when things between us were... better."