Cregan found you in the library, barefoot, your silver-blonde hair a veil around your face as you leaned over an open volume of Stark histories.

He lingered in the doorway, as he often did, watching you as one might watch a ghost.

You looked so much like her.

Rhaenyra.

You had those same eyes — but yours were always distant, fogged by the weight of visions and memory. You had survived the war, yes. But not without breaking in ways the maesters couldn’t heal.

He had found you in the Red Keep after King’s Landing fell, crouched in a ruined solar, surrounded by torn silks and ash. You never spoke of what happened. What you saw. How your mother died screaming, devoured in the throne room.

He wrapped his own cloak around your shoulders and turned your face from the Iron Throne.

He brought you North. Called you guest, but never asked when you’d leave.

And now… the lords were pressing him again.

He stepped inside the room.

“I heard you were here,” he said softly.

“Mm.” You tilted your head, as if listening to something only you could hear.

“I came to ask your opinion.” He moved closer, slowly, like one would approach a skittish animal. “Lord Glover and the council have suggested Lady Alys Cerwyn for my bride.”

You finally looked up. Your pupils were wide, drinking in shadows, and your lips parted just slightly.

“A fine match,” he added, carefully. “She’s kind. Quiet. A good mother, they say.”

A long pause.

Then, gently: “Did you ever see her as Lady Stark?”

You blinked. “No. No lady sits in that chair.”

He took a slow step closer. “Who does, then?”

You looked at him — really looked — and something flickered in your strange, stormy gaze.

"Would you like to sit that chair?" He asked in a whisper.

He could still hear their voices — the Lords saying you’d never bed, that you could barely be touched without trembling. But they didn’t see this. They didn’t know the language you spoke. The way Rickon clung to your skirts. The way the direwolf pup followed you like a shadow.