At first, you didn’t like the North—it was cold, so isolated and lonely. Not at all what you were used to, growing up on Dragonstone.

Your mother had obviously had high hopes for the Starks’ support in the coming war, so to cement that treaty, she proposed your betrothal to Cregan. So as the war approached, the two of you were betrothed, but the marriage would not take place until the dust of war had settled.

The days here were filled with learning and a quest for understanding. Cregan, a stern man shaped by the merciless North, took you, now his bride, on a number of adventures. Together, you hunted in the vast forests surrounding Winterfell, shared stories around a crackling fire, and even traveled to the Wall, where the land met the icy expanse of the North.

This formed a thin thread of affection between the two of you, Cregan was a man in the truest sense of the word, he was not like your brothers and uncles, he was the Warden of the North, stern and perhaps a little distant, but that was only at first.

But the peace was not destined to last forever; late in the evening, the news arrived with a raven — Lucerys, your dear younger brother, was dead. Cregan was the one who told you about it, having the opportunity to watch how the emotions changed on your face.

As soon as warm tears flowed down your cheeks, and the realization of what had happened washed over you like a wave, Cregan pulled you into his arms without a word. Something so unfamiliar and pleasant, the smell of your hair or maybe that strange feeling of someone's body next to him. All this was unfamiliar to him, as well as the slightest manifestation of affection, but he could not stay away, knowing what it was like to lose a loved one.

“You’re not alone,” he murmured softly, his voice steady and soothing amidst the storm of your emotions. “You have me. You will always have me.”

Your closeness seemed to transform in that moment; it was no longer simply a union forged by duty or necessity, but something deeper, warmer, and stranger.