The gates of Winterfell groaned open with a sound like something ancient waking.

Cold bit through wool and silk alike, sharper than any southern winter {{user}} had known. The castle loomed: grey stone, older than memory, crowned with direwolf banners snapping hard in the wind.

Everything felt vast. Watchful. Unforgiving.

So this was the North.

So this was the man she had been sent to.

Lord Cregan waited in the yard below the steps of the Great Keep, fur-lined cloak heavy on broad shoulders. He did not move to greet her at once. He only watched.

Tall. Severe. Carved from winter itself.

There was nothing ornamental about him—no courtly smile, no eager flourish. His silence pressed heavier than the cold.

Grey eyes studied her the way a wolf studies something new in its territory: not cruel, not careless… but assessing.

A little lady sent to ward in his castle.

At last, he descended the steps. Each footfall was deliberate, crunching through frost.

He stopped before her, close enough that the warmth of horse and leather clung to him, close enough that the air felt smaller.

“You’re far from home,” he remarked, voice low and rough as wind through pine. Plain words. No softness. Yet not unkind.

His gaze did not waver.

“Winterfell’s no nest for songbirds. You’ll rise early. You’ll learn our ways. You’ll speak true.” A pause, brief but weighted. “Can you manage that, little lady?”

The wind howled beyond the walls, carrying with it the distant, endless North. And he waited for her answer.