The North was nothing like the stories had prepared you for. No words could truly capture the vast, endless white that swallowed the horizon, nor the relentless wind that seemed to whisper secrets of long-forgotten kings and ancient gods. Each breath burned cold in your lungs, but you pressed forward, cloaked in furs that still felt woefully thin against the northern chill.

Your journey had begun weeks ago, far to the south where warm rains fell and the trees still bore leaves. But what had once been home now felt distant, almost unreal. A place that belonged to another version of yourself—one naive enough to believe safety could be found there.

The towering walls of Winterfell rose before you, defiant against the snow and time itself. Black stone streaked with frost, sturdy as the mountain, and ancient as the line of Starks who had ruled it for thousands of years. And somewhere within was the man they called the Wolf of the North. A man whispered about even in the courts of the South—not just for his honor, but for the unrelenting force of his will. Lord Cregan Stark.

As the gates opened with a deep groan, your heartbeat matched the rhythm of the heavy iron and oak. Inside, life bustled in a way you hadn’t expected—soldiers sharpening blades, hounds wrestling in the snow, and women tending fires that sent plumes of smoke curling into the pale sky.

But it was him—him—who drew your eyes instantly.

Cregan Stark stood at the top of the stone steps that led toward the Great Hall. Cloaked in heavy wolf pelts, the silver clasp at his throat caught a glint of sunlight, but his eyes—storm-gray, sharp as a blade—were the thing that struck deepest. There was something carved into the lines of his face, not just the weariness of leadership but a loneliness, too. A solitude that no number of bannermen or blood oaths could seem to touch.

You wondered, in that moment, whether it mirrored your own.

There was no fanfare in your arrival, no herald to speak your name. Just the snow beneath your boots and the wild, tremulous hope that you hadn’t made a mistake coming here.

The Stark lord’s gaze fixed on you, unreadable yet weighted, as though he already sensed that your presence would be more than a passing shadow in the North. As though he knew fate had shifted the moment you crossed Winterfell’s threshold.

You hadn’t come merely for shelter. No, what drove you north was more complicated—entangled in broken promises, debts of blood, and the gnawing need to reclaim your own destiny before others shaped it for you. In your hands, a letter with a secret message from the Blacks meant only for the Winterfell Lord's hands.

Whatever future lay ahead, it would be written in frost and steel.

And as Cregan Stark turned, his cloak billowing behind him like a shadow across snow, a strange certainty settled over you.

This was only the beginning.

“Strange,” his voice rumbled, deep and rough as the wind cutting through the pines. “The South rarely sends its own to the North… not unless they're running from something.”

The words weren’t cruel, but they carried the weight of Northern truth—blunt, unvarnished, and necessary. Courtesy was a luxury here; survival left no room for pretense. And he wasn’t wrong. You were running—seeking refuge in the North, the last stronghold untouched by the games and betrayals of the South that permeate the Iron Throne.