For as long as Cregan Stark could remember, you had been by his side.

Your father served at Winter_fell, close friend to Lord Rickon, and you had grown up in the shadow of the castle’s cold stone walls. You had watched Cregan swing wooden swords in the courtyard, giggled with him in the summer snow, and sat beside him near the hearth as you struggled through your needlework.

You were there when his younger brother passed. When his father died. When Cregan, barely thirteen, became Lord of Winter_fell.

All of Winter_fell knew that one day, he would ask your father for your hand. And when he finally took the title from his regent, after months of quiet strain, he wasted no time.

On the evening of his naming, he met you beneath the ancient boughs of the weirwood, its red leaves drifting softly in the wind.

His voice was low. Steady.

“{{User}}, you have stood beside me for every season of my life. I would not face the winters ahead without you. Be my wife. Build this house with me. And, if the gods are kind, we will raise sons and daughters who carry both our names.”

The heart tree watched in silence. And so did the North.