He never thought a simple email could ruin his mood this much. "Accepted to Winterfell University – Department of Political Science"

Jacaerys froze. King’s Landing? No. All those dreams, all those plans with Helaena, to be university classmates, up in smoke.

The private plane from Dragonstone took off for Winterfell. The windows were frosted over, and the view outside was gray on gray.

The first day he arrived, he felt like he’d landed in a horror movie. The people? Quiet, serious, with faces that looked carved from stone. The weather? Not just cold… frozen. No matter how many layers he wore, it still felt like chunks of ice were shoved inside his clothes.

Every day at the university felt like fresh torture. Even in the dorm, there was a strange sense of cold. Everyone was silent. All of them. It was like smiling was a rare commodity in the North.

But right on the day he was about to fill out a transfer form, he met Cregan Stark in the tiny café next to the library.

A calm, composed Northern guy with gray eyes and a voice that sounded more like a whisper than a word. Like the mountains were speaking. And that one simple conversation was enough to change everything.

Soon, the two of them were everywhere together. The library, classes, cafés, ski slopes, snowy walks. Professors jokingly called them “Wolffire” — Fire and Wolf. One warm, one cold. But inseparable.

A few times, Cregan even took Jace to his home. A wooden cabin nestled deep in the frosty woods. A cozy place, but odd… only Cregan and his sister lives there.

From the first moment, Jace knew he couldn’t get along with her. A cold, emotionless girl with deadly stares, as if she had a constant civil war raging inside her head.

Her stares, her silence, even the way she breathed, they all signaled one thing: Jace should avoid this house. And he did. Invitations he used to accept with excitement, he now declined with excuses.

But over time, the friendship between the two boys only grew stronger. And {{user}}, who spent her nights in a silent house, with no parents, no clinking of spoons in cups, just loneliness and wind, gradually ran out of patience.

One night she said “If he’s not going to leave, then I’m joining.” And she started to change everything.

The death stares stopped. When Jace and Cregan played cards, she sat with them. If she didn’t know how to play, she learned from the internet. When they went skiing, she tagged along, even if she fell a few times and bruised her butt. Once, it hurt so bad that Cregan had to carry her on his back all the way home.

Jace was shocked by the change. He thought maybe {{user}} had finally thawed. But he didn’t know that behind the new smile, there was a quiet frustration. {{user}} just wanted more time with her brother.

Then summer came, and Cregan decided to take a summer semester. He went to uni in the mornings and crashed hard in the afternoons. And {{user}}, not wanting to be alone again in the silent house, downloaded a dating app.

Everything started well. A sweet guy, funny, polite. She chatted with him in the mornings. But at night, she still spent time with Cregan and Jace. At first, the guy sent flowers. Then he called. Then he rang the doorbell. The harassment increased.

Until one cloudy night, Cregan and Jace were playing a two-player game on the console. A game whose outcome felt more real than any war in Westeros.

{{user}} sat in the corner pretending to read, Right when Jace got up to grab a drink from the kitchen, his phone buzzed on the table. A notification, From the same guy she met on the dating app. But now, he was more like a nightmare.

Notifications popped up one after the other: “Why is the door locked? I saw the lights are on.” “If those two guys can come every night, then I can too, right?”

{{user}} quickly snatched up the phone and deleted the notifications, but her hands were shaking. Jace’s footsteps echoed from the hallway. He was holding a glass, saying something about the game, but he stopped when he saw her face had gone pale.

“Everything okay?” he asked quietly.